0:02 Who are you? And where are you going? What do you want? [Music] Hello and welcome to People Making Money. I'm your host, Kevin Bemel, and I'm here every uh what is today? Wednesday at uh 10:00 a.m. Pacific time to talk about job hunting, starting and running a business, and building wealth. So, the whole financial side of our lives. So,
0:38 today is our monthly uh economic echoes episode. We're going to be looking at the uh most recent economic data and seeing how how that might affect our lives and and what how we what decisions we should make for ourselves and our loved ones as we consider the the direction of the economy. So, let's let's jump right into it. It's this is always a a busy uh show um looking at the consumer price index. So, um, for if
1:15 you if you haven't, uh, you know, seen this this particular episode before, uh, the consumer price index of course tracks inflation. Um, I'm looking we're looking here at the, uh, consumer price index for the entire United States, all urban consumers. So you can see that it was reported about a week ago that in July the consumer price index for all urban consumers rose 2%. Seasonally adjusted or 2.7% over the last 12 months. That's up slightly from uh the previous month.
1:51 Uh so you can see that here. All major items 2.7%. Food went up 2.9%. Energy went down 1.6%. cons both of these um showing a continuing trend over the last several months and then the so-called core inflation rate the uh the CPI uh minus food and energy was 3.1% which is a little bit higher than last month. So, let's let's drill down as we always do because these topline numbers don't
2:26 tell us a whole lot about our situation because they're reflective of a so-called basket of goods. If you're not buying one of those particular goods, so then the way you experience inflation is going going to be different. So, um looking at food, okay, so food at home went up 2.2%. food away from home went up 3.9% almost 4%. So if you're someone like me who rarely eats out, you ex experienced inflation at a lower rate. So food at
3:01 home and again the these are ongoing trends. The inflation rate for proteins, meat, poultry, fish, and eggs 5.2% 2% continues to be high really driving uh food inflation as well as non-alcoholic beverages. On the other hand, uh cereals and bakery products went up 1% that is a little bit higher than it's been. Uh dairy and related products 1.5%. It's been around that I think for the last few months. Uh fruits and vegetables went up only 0.2%. Uh you know that's good for me. I eat a
3:38 lot of fruits and vegetables, right? And then other foods went up 1.2%. Okay, so again, depending on what your diet is. Okay, so if you eat an animal protein heavy diet, you're experiencing inflation higher. If you eat a a dairy and um non-meat protein oriented diet, so you're experiencing inflation much much lower. Okay. So, I know for myself, um, aside from fish and eggs, um, most of the protein in my diet comes from dairy
4:14 and things like beans, lentils, that sort of thing, right? So, it it that, you know, that's my preference. I'm not doing it to avoid inflation, but it just so happens that that means I'm experiencing inflation lower than other people. And then, you know, likewise, whatever your diet would be, um, that that would adjust for you individually. Okay. And again following another fairly long-term trend, energy commodities inc decreased sorry by 9% whereas energy services increased 7%. So commodities
4:49 are gasoline we can continue to see gasoline drop although fuel oil also went down by almost 3% gasoline dropped by 9 and a half%. Okay. So, one of the things that is keeping infl that's keeping inflation inflation moderate is that energy uh um commodities are decreasing. On the other hand, energy services are increasing and electricity went up 5 and a half% natural gas went up almost 14%. Okay. So, while I may
5:26 have uh saved on inflation by not eating uh meat and poultry, on the other hand, I have a gas range. And so, presumably, you know, the cost of gas went up enough that uh you know, it may have offset any savings I I, you know, may have any, you know, lower inflation I might have experienced due to, you know, not eating meat. Okay. Uh and then all other items. So, commodities went up 1.2%. 2%. Services went up 3.6%. So, commodity apparel actually dropped slightly. New
6:01 vehicles went up only.4% as opposed to uh oops, shoot as opposed to used cars which went up um almost 5%. Okay, so you know, but if you didn't buy a car, that means nothing to you. Medical care basically unchanged. alcoholic beverages 1.4%. And again, another long-term trend, tobacco uh products went up uh 6 and a half%. Okay. And then looking next at uh
6:36 services, so housing costs went up 3.7%, medical services went up 4.3%, transportation services up 3.5%. So the reason these are called the core inflation rate is it's it's pretty hard to avoid um you know experiencing these factors. So we need a place to live. We're all going to have some kind of medical care at least from time to time and we all need to get around unless we're using only delivery services I suppose. So okay. So that's the national inflation
7:11 rate and um you know as always you can see that um how it affects you is going to be different than uh how it affects me or somebody else. Okay. So let's let's sort of contrast this now with the inflation rate for Los Angeles. So me just scroll this down so you can see it a little bit better. Okay. So, the Los Angeles inflation rate last month, July, went up. 2% like national um but
7:46 year-over-year it went up 3.2% as opposed to 2.7% nationally. Now, again, this is a long-term trend in Oops, sorry about that. Inflation in Los Angeles tends to be higher. I don't know why it's doing this. um tends to be higher than it does in the rest of the country. Okay. And so um you can see that um the core inflation rate in Los Angeles was 3.3%.
8:21 Uh food was 3.4% and energy increased 1.2%. Okay. So uh looking at the numbers more um you know uh in a more granular level. So food decreased in July by 2% in Los Angeles. Um so food in grocery stores went down.3% with three out of the six major categories dropping. Food away from home was unchanged. So I guess you know eating out in here in LA didn't get
8:57 more expensive or less expensive uh in July. Okay. Um overall though uh for the year food has gone up 3.4% food at home only 2.2% versus 4.6% for food away from home. Okay. Um energy declined 8% here in Los Angeles. We did get lower gasoline prices down almost 3%. On the other hand, um the uh energy increase the energy in in index increased 1.2% year-over-year.
9:32 Um that was moderated by the fact that gasoline prices here in LA have fallen almost 4% yearoveryear. Okay. Now, um looking at the core rate here in Los Angeles, so um all items less food and energy went up.3%. Um prices were higher for um uh goods and services two 2.7% medical care almost a percent and shelter went up 2%. Um in contrast prices for education and communication were down 6%. Okay. Now interestingly
10:08 enough um year-over-year at the core inflation rate I mentioned was 3.3% reflecting higher prices for medical care 3.6% 6% shelter 3.5%. However, year-over-year ed education and communication went down 1.4%. Now, it's an interesting thing because again, this is tracking the the cost as a whole, but I know that my communication costs went down significantly um so far this year because in January, I changed my cell phone carrier
10:44 from uh I believe it was T-Mobile to Verizon. And as is so often the case, you know, in this Verizon in this instance was offering a much lower rate. And so I cut my cell phone bill by 50 or 60% I think it was. So uh and and I was talking to somebody afterwards and they said, "Well, but you know, next year they're going to be high blah blah blah." I said, "Yeah, I've just revi resigned myself to having to change cell phone carriers probably once a year, maybe once every 18 months or two years." Right? So
11:19 there are ways if if we're diligent to control um you know inflation in our own lives despite what may may be going on in the broader area in which we live or the country as a whole. Now obviously a lot of you do not live in Los Angeles. So if you want to know the specific number for your I'm sorry the specific numbers yeah for your location just do a um a a Google search or you can you know check use chat GPT or perplexity or claude and say what is the con the CPI
11:55 for and give them the city or town in which you live and they'll give you that information. be sure to ask the the the uh AI uh model for a link to where they got the information because what you want to be sure is it's pulling information from the US Bureau of Labor Labor Statistics. that's the actual uh dispenser of the information as opposed to getting it from some some other source that has taken the data from the the B the BLS and and then perhaps uh modified it or something.
12:31 Okay, so that that is inflation. Next, oops, shoot. I didn't mean to stop screen sharing. I meant to just go to the next one. Okay. So, now we're going to look at um this is um uh earnings. Okay. And uh you know again um continuing a a a pretty you know longstanding trend. um ear a real average hourly earnings went
13:07 up one penny from June to July and average weekly earnings went up about a$1.75. Okay. And you can see that um average weekly hours increased by a tenth and uh average weekly earnings um went up just about $7.5 thereabouts. Okay. So we're we're not seeing particularly large gains in earnings. Um and and if we come down
13:44 here, you'll see that, you know, earnings went up a tenth of a percent in July on an hourly basis. Average weekly earnings went up4% and average uh hours uh average weekly hours went up.3%. So these are these are very small um increases and um you know they've been along those lines for quite some time unfortunately. So, if you're feeling like you're falling behind, uh, you know, economically, um, I would say that there's there's good reason for feeling that way. Okay.
14:21 Next, let's look at the unemployment rate. Okay, so this is the civilian unemployment rate, okay, for the entire country. And you can see that the unemployment rate for July was 4.2% up a tenth of a percent from last year. But you can see that it's been right around that 4% level for a year now. Okay. So employment has been pretty, you know, pretty pretty steady. Okay. Now let's
14:56 look at for for men 20 years of age and over. You know, again, it's been right around the 4% rate. Currently in July, it's at 4%. And for women 20 and over, same thing. It's been right around the 4% rate. Actually, generally speaking, a little bit lower than 4% in the sort of 3.6 to 3.8% 3.9% rate and last month it was 3.7%. Okay. So, women are experiencing unemployment slightly lower than men. Okay. And then, oh, for teenagers, I
15:32 should have added. Okay. So, teenage unemployment, you can see, is much more volatile. Um, a year ago it was at 12.6%. It's now at 15.2%. It was at a low of 11.8% in January. So, these are the kinds of the teen unemployment rate spikes, but it's consistently well above that of people 20 and older. Okay. for white Americans, uh the unemployment rate in July was 3.7%. And again, that's been the the trend for
16:07 for the last year around that 3.7 3.8% mark for black Americans. Uh you can see it took a big spike up in July from uh six six uh well actually I take that back. It took a big spike up from from May when it was 6%. In June it was 6.8. it continued to go up 7.2%. So this is much higher than it has been for the year prior to uh to June or or yeah the year prior to June. So um where it's it's ranged in the sort of uh high
16:46 fives to low sixes. Okay. And now it's spiked up to over 7%. Okay. for Asian-Americans. Um, you can see that here, let me take these two out. Okay, so you can see that, um, in July it was 4.2, Oops, here we go. It was 3.9% in July. Um, and it for the last year it's been in the sort of four 3 to 4% range. Okay. So, so Asian employment trends have been a little more volatile than for other
17:21 demographic groups. And then finally for Hispanics or Latinos. So in July unemployment rate was 5% and that's been pretty consistent over the last year right around that 5% mark. Okay. So overall though unemployment is is pretty low. Okay. And and you know there's been a lot of talk in the in the news media, especially in the business news media about the big adjustments to the jobs reports um where it turned out that there was a lot less a lot fewer uh jobs
17:57 created. Uh but um overall um the numbers are reflecting still pretty strong uh pretty strong employment trends. Now I always say we need to look at the unemployment rate in conjunction with the labor force participation rate. So let's look at that now. Okay. So this is the civilian labor force participation rate. Oops. And you can see that the labor force participation rate in July is at 6.2%.
18:35 Okay. Down from 6.3% 6.4. before um it sort of topped out in most recently in April at six I'm sorry not 6.2 62.2 um down from 62.6 which is pretty much right around 62.6 662.7. That's the highest it's been in the last year or so. But if you look at this graph, you can see that um the um civilian labor force participation rate um has has been trending downward for a
19:10 long time, but it has not recovered to its precoid numbers that were already at the 60 low 63 percentile. Okay. And uh so you know there have been there have been people who have permanently left the workforce. Okay. And um it did take a a jump up after uh starting in 2023. Okay. And it stayed in kind of that mid to low 62% rate. Okay. So let's let's uh look now for Okay. So for men 20 and over. Okay. uh in July the the participation rate was 70% and you can
19:47 see it's been around that for you know pretty much um most of the of the postcoid time um it's on it's on the kind of lower at 70% it's a little bit on the lower end of where it's been but it's been pretty consistent and for women 20 and o o over so their labor force participation rate July 58.6% 6% it's been around that number now for you know a good couple of years and that that but that is up from immediately postcoid and then finally for teenagers
20:22 so the labor force participation rate was 35% in July and you can see it's it's been bouncing uh since covid between sort of 35 and the high has been uh 38% so it's more volatile but um volatile within about a 3% range. So u employment has been pretty steady postco at least by age. Now let's look at demographic. Oops.
20:57 What is it doing here? Okay, there we go. And okay. Oh, all right. There we go. Okay. Now, for for white Americans, uh labor force participation rate 62.6%. Um that's kind of a low point over the last year and a half or two years where it was a little bit higher in the mid 62s. Um but certainly up from the postcoavid time for black Americans. um a disturbing trend even as we're
21:33 seeing unemployment going up. We're seeing labor force participation declining. So in July it dropped to 61.6% from 61 I'm sorry it dropped to 61.9 uh wait 61.6% 6% right from 61.9% in June and back in February it was at 62.7%. So for black Americans labor force participation has been declining and you can see back here in March of of 2023 it
22:11 was at 64% it dropped went back up a little bit but now it's been pretty much steadily declining. So, a lower labor force participation rate and higher unemployment means there's a lot more black Americans not working and um uh and and and dropping out of the workforce um which which is overall not a good trend. Okay. Asian-Americans uh labor force participation 64.9% uh down from 65.5. You can see for Asian-Americans, it's
22:46 been bouncing pretty consistently between 64 and 66% for the last uh four years. Okay. Overall though, you can see kind of a longer term trend that it is increasing little by little even within the volatility. Okay. And then finally for Hispanics and Latinos, um they historically as a demographic group have the highest labor force participation rate in July, 67%. And you can see that for the last year or so, it's been around the mid 66 to mid 67 percentile range. And and but the
23:22 long-term trend for Hispanics is uh increasing participation rate. Okay. So what is what does that mean? Well, labor force participation rate um with the exception of black Americans is is staying kind of within norms for the last year or so. Um even and and employment unemployment has stayed pretty much within the norms as well. And so it would appear that overall at least nationwide the jobs uh market is uh is pretty
23:57 decent. Okay. notwithstanding all the talk you're hearing about a weak jobs market and all of that. Now, maybe the adjustments we saw from prior month's numbers are indicating that there's trouble ahead. Uh but at least from what we're seeing right now, uh it doesn't look to be any particular reason for concern. Okay, next let's look at unemployment by Oh, actually, you know what? Next, let's take a uh let's take a break. A sponsor
24:32 break. When life brings unexpected changes, managing inherited property shouldn't add to your stress. Magnum Properties specializes in probate and trust real estate management. We handle the complexities while you focus on what matters most. From property maintenance to tenant relations, from legal compliance to maximizing value, we're your trusted partner through every step. Magnum Properties, Inc., turning property challenges into peace of mind.
25:07 Call us today at 213-264-4396 or visit magnumprops.com. Okay, so this is uh people making money. one of the way to Wow shows and I'm your host Kevin Bemel. We're doing our annual economic echoes segment and we're we're looking at uh the economic data from last month to see how that impacts uh the decisions we need to make for ourselves and our families. So next we're going to look at unemployment by uh I'm sorry not
25:44 unemployment employment uh by industry. Okay. And this gives you an idea of where job growth is happening and where it's not happening. Okay. So what we can see here is how things have been trending for about the last 6 months. So the big gainers in employment are uh private education and health services 79,000 new jobs and uh retail trade almost 16,000 and financial activities about 15,000. the big losers. Now,
26:19 overall, government lost 10,000 jobs, but as we dig into the government employment numbers, I suspect we're going to see what looks like a trend, which is federal unemployment went down enough to offset gains in state and local government employment. So, uh the federal government workforce is shrinking, but uh state and local government workforces are increasing. Okay. Business and professional services also declined. Wholesale trade and manufacturing also declined. Right? So, there's been a lot of talk in the
26:54 business news about tariffs and how they hopefully are going to drive a return of manufacturing. Obviously, we're not seeing that yet, at least in terms of manufacturing employment. And the reality is it takes a long time to uh get get approval to build a manufacturing facility to build it to equip it to hire the people bring them in and ramp up production. So uh it's it's unlikely I think that we'll see significant increases in
27:29 manufacturing in the near term. And the and the reality of it is, you know, it's unclear to me anyway that we're going to see a large increase in manufacturing uh jobs really at all because the reality is in order to manufacture uh goods here in the United States and be competitive with other manufacturing economies throughout the world. manufacturing in the United States will have to be highly autom uh highly automated, highly uh mechanized if you
28:05 will. Um it's in order to have enough productivity to offset higher labor and regulatory costs. So let's let's drill down now into these. Let's look at uh private education and health services. As usual, what's driving this is health care and social services, both of which are largely funded by government expenditures. That's why you're seeing these grow. Okay? And you can see ambulatory care services, hospitals, all sectors are growing in terms of health care, social assistance, individual and
28:42 family services are increasing whereas child care and vocational uh rehabilitation decreased slightly. Okay, that's pretty much an ongoing trend. Okay, the other big increasers, retail trade. So looking at the different sectors, you can see general merchandise retailers had almost 11,000 new job jobs. Motor vehicle and parts dealers almost 2,000. Gasoline station and fuel dealers 3,000. Health and personal care retailers 2,000. There were drops in sporting goods and hobby and musical instrument and books. That's that's a
29:18 fairly long-term trend. and food and beverage retailers also dropped employment of dropped by 1500 jobs. Okay. Uh again, that's that is part of a long-term trend. Okay. Um the Oh, I'm sorry. That's retail trade. Okay. And then the other gainer or large gainer is financial activity. So, finance and insurance saw almost 14,000 new jobs. Real estate and rental and leasing saw a little over a thousand. Okay. So um you know that's actually a good sign for the economy. Um money center banks saw a
29:55 shrinking employment. Okay they're they're you know working more efficiently probably credit intermediation and related activities. This is arranging loans mortgage brokers that sort of thing saw 2,000 securities commodities etc. saw uh almost 5,000 new jobs and insurance saw 7,500 new jobs. So, this is all good for the economy. Okay, on the losing side, um let's look at government first. So, again, this is well, okay, I was a little off on my prediction. Federal government dropped 12,000 jobs, partly offset by a 5,000
30:31 gain at the state level, but local governments dropped 3,000 jobs. So, I think local governments are starting to they've been increasing jobs pretty consistently. I think they're probably getting to, you know, the the end of what their, you know, budgets will allow. Okay. Federal government workforce, the postal service actually increased uh 2,400 jobs. So the the larger uh federal workforce except for the post office dropped 14 a little over 14,000 jobs on state government. You can
31:07 see state government education dropped a little over a thousand jobs. It was the other areas of state government that grew by almost 6,000. And then local uh government employment. Okay. So local government education went down 10,000. um that is probably reflecting what's happening um during the summer, right? Teachers quit and because they're not teaching anyway. Okay. Local government excluding education went up 7500. So, uh I I I suspect we'll see this turn around when we see the August figures when schools
31:44 are are back in session. And just as a a side note, when did school start in August? I always when I was school age we always started in September. I I feel uh you know school kids today are getting a raw deal. Okay. So um so overall net government jobs dropped um 10,000 but I think we'll that that's probably a short-lived situation. We'll probably see that change next month. Okay. professional services dropped by 14,000 led prime led or really created by administrative and support and waste
32:21 management and remediation services dropping almost 20,000 jobs. Now I know for myself um I don't have any administrative people in my business. I'm using um chat the the LLMs the large language models chat GPT claude and perplexity to do what I otherwise would have administrative people doing and and in in that way my business runs more efficiently. Okay. So this could be a longer term trend as AI as more and more
32:56 people start working with AIs and figure out how to use them productively in their businesses. And then there were slight increases in management of companies and enterprises and in professional scientific and technical services. Okay. Um and and you can see the the whole loss is in administrative and support services. So waste management actually increased by 700 jobs. Okay, let's go back to this then and you can see management. Oh, okay. That that's it for there. All right. And then let's let's look at manufacturing. So both segments of manufacturing saw decreases. Durable goods well actually
33:33 durable goods was unchanged and 11,000 non-durable goods manufacturing lost. And if you look at the chart here, you can see almost all sectors saw losses. There are a few that saw some minor gains, 300, 300, 100, 400 jobs. But you can see why manufacturing went down across all segments. You're seeing here's 3,500 jobs lost in beverage, tobacco, and leather. Here's,00 lost in manufacturing, printing, and related. uh almost 3,000
34:08 textiles over a thousand textile mills over 15 well 1500 and food manufacturing over 2,000. So um is this a seasonal trend? You know, we'll have to see. Uh but again, the the idea that we're going to see a some big increase in manufacturing jobs because of the tariffs, I think that that is not going to be the case certainly in the short term. We'll have to see what happens in the longer term. All right. So that is employment uh by industry and next going to going to look at
34:45 median home prices. Uh oh wait okay this is yeah we are okay actually I'm sorry I picked the wrong one. Let me get the right uh okay here we go. Okay there we go. Okay, this is this is what we want. So, I clicked on the wrong link when I prepared for the show. So, let's look at Okay, here we go. All right, so this is looking at California. I always look at
35:22 that first uh because I know a lot of my viewers are in California. So, the median sales price actually dropped slightly, a little less than 1% year-over-year. The number of homes sold also dropped about 3% year-over-year. Uh the median days on market went up 14% to 44. And and that makes sense. Okay. If homes are staying on the market longer, uh fewer are selling and they're selling for slightly lower prices. Although a you know 1% decrease in prices is not particularly big. Okay. And you can see the long-term trend
35:58 uh you know has been the median home price has been in the in the sort of mid800,000 uh level. Okay. And and then looking at um here we go. Okay. So the housing supply went up 9% year-over-year. Okay. Which but that's maybe one of the reasons why prices have moderated. Okay. And the number of newly listed homes actually decreased by over 9%. So that's good news for home buyers. Not as good news
36:35 for home sellers. Okay. Housing demand. Okay. So 34.8% of homes sold above list price. That's down over 10% year-over-year. Homes selling with price drops almost 30% up almost 4%. Okay. Sale to list price is at 99.4% down a little over a percent. So the mark the housing market here in California is definitely softening. Okay. And you can see where are people moving from and to? Well, the blue
37:11 states are where people are leaving. the sort of um goldish states are where some people are going and the darkest like the orangest states are where people are going. So um the um top place where people are going is Florida uh followed by the North Carolina and then South Carolina, Tennessee and Arizona and then next is uh looks like Idaho. So you can see the top 10 markets uh people are moving to. Sacramento was
37:46 kind of an outlier being it being in California, but not all the rest. Here's Arizona, Maryland, Florida, Florida, Florida, South Carolina, Maine, Tennessee, Florida. Where are they leaving? You can see there. These are all large urban areas. LA, New York, Washington, DC, Seattle, San Francisco, Chicago, Pennsylvania, Boston, Houston, and Atlanta. So, people are getting out of the big cities. Um, going from May to July. Um, and they're moving to, and you can see, you know, they're not moving to Miami, Florida. They're moving to Cape Coral, Sarasota, Orlando, Jacksonville.
38:23 These are smaller Florida cities. Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, Salisbury, Maryland. To be honest, I'm not even sure where that is. Uh, but it's not Baltimore, right? And, um, and Nashville, Tennessee. um which is uh appears to be a pretty pretty hot location. Okay, so let's look at another uh location. I I usually look at Omaha. Oops. Omaha, Nebraska. Okay, so Omaha, Nebraska. You can see the median home price much lower than in
38:58 California. 285,000 up 3.3%. volume of of homes sold up about a percent. Median days on market 13. Okay. Up 2%. So, the Omaha housing market is stronger than the Los Angeles housing market. Uh the the median home price of course is lower and that's one of the reasons why I think the market is stronger. Okay. So, um how hot is the um Omaha housing market? It gets an 87. This is according to Red Fin, of course. Okay. Sale to list price 92 99.2%.
39:36 Uh down almost a percent from a year ago. And homes sold above list price uh 25.6% down almost 10%. Homes sold with price drops almost 40% down about 4%. So you can see although the Omaha market is stronger than the Los Angeles market, it it looks like it's cooling off a little bit as well. Okay. And where are people moving from? People are moving to Omaha from Kansas City, Washington DC, Los Angeles,
40:11 Denver, Lincoln, Nebraska, and then Seattle. You know, a lot of people from big cities are looking at Omaha. Okay. Um, the only small one would be like Lincoln, Nebraska, and and other than that, these are all pretty much big cities. Okay. And where are people leaving for Omaha? Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin, and then Chicago, De Moine, Phoenix, etc. So, um even even people are even leaving Florida um to go to Omaha. Uh and and I think that's because while Florida is a key
40:46 destination, it has gotten much more expensive um over the, you know, the last several years. Okay. So, um you know all these links will be in the show notes so you can search whatever markets uh in which you're interested to to get this to get this information. Okay. Next, let's look at uh rental. Here we go. Rent comparison. Okay. So, these are um median rental rates in selected markets. So, um, these
41:23 are Let's look at Los Angeles first. Okay, so the, um, average rent in Los Angeles is $2,795, up $20 month over month, but down $4 yearover-year. You can see that the bulk of the units are in the high, you know, teens and then on into uh, 30,000. And then there's a lot of luxury rentals uh, here in Los Angeles. Okay. market temperature is warm. Okay. And you know, just to give you an idea of some submarkets in LA, Beverly Hills, uh,
41:59 4650, Marina del Rey 5700, uh, View Hill, Windsor Park 2650, Lera Heights 38, and Culver City 3450. So that gives you an idea of some subm markets. All right, let's look at uh, Omaha, Nebraska. Oops. I I will learn to spell. Okay, here we go. Omaha, Nebraska. Okay, so average rental rate in Omaha, Nebraska, $1600 a month, unchanged from last month, but up $100 from the year before. Um, and you can see that
42:36 compared to last year, uh, rents in Omaha are higher. It also has a is a has a warm market temperature. Okay. And these these are some submarkets. And you can see uh Le Vista and Bennington are the higherend parts of the market. Looks like well Carter Lake is in Iowa. So Rston uh Nebraska a little bit lower than the median. Okay. So um the market is is the rental market in uh Omaha, Nebraska is good. And you can see the distribution. Obviously the rents are much lower starting at about 700 and for the most part topping out in the low 2000s, right? Not very many luxury
43:13 luxury rentals in Omaha, Nebraska as as you would expect. Okay. And then finally, let's look at uh the consu consumer sentiment. Okay. So, this is the survey of consumers done by uh Michigan, University of Michigan. So um index of consumer sentiment um it was trending up but uh I I it trended up I think from as I recall from June to July. Now it's dropped back down to 58.6%.
43:50 That's a 5% drop monthtomonth and it's still down 14% year-over-year. index of current economic conditions down over 10% from July um and down slightly from a year ago. And then index of consumer expectations down about 1% from last month, but down 21% from a year ago. So consumers consumer sentiment overall has dropped going from July to this month. um and is certainly
44:26 across the board lower than it was a year ago. Okay. And um you know, we we can take from this uh I think and I'll go ahead and and close this out to kind of make my my you know, closing thoughts. So, there's been a tremendous amount of negative uh economic news in in the in the press. Um I'm not sure how justified it is. Uh the reality is we really we still don't really know how tariffs are going to affect the economy.
45:02 Um the inflation and employment numbers are actually still pretty moderate. There's a lot of people who have been talking about how it's going in the wrong direction. Don't know how they can make that assessment based on a one-mon trend. Uh because the longer term trend is as we saw was over the last year or so things have been pretty steady. So what does this mean for you as an individual? Well, overall I think we can say a few things. One is uh generally Americans are are still feeling pinched.
45:37 Uh earnings are not increasing uh faster than the rate of inflation and so the cost of living uh is is still taking a bite. Now what that probably means in reality is a lot of us are substituting less expensive uh choices in order to keep our lives affordable. That's typically that kind of substitution is typically what happens when um you know the cost when when costs are rising. So people don't just keep buying the same things and paying
46:13 higher prices uh especially when income is relatively fixed at least in the short term. Okay. So where the way people feel the pinch of inflation oftentimes is by um buying either lower quality products or just not buying certain things at all. So um you know people u may be you know like like me may be switching to you know nonan animal proteins as as a way to economize. Um and so although the price of meat and
46:49 poultry and fish and eggs uh has gone up significantly um they're not feeling that because they're not buying those kind of products. So I invite you to think about these different aspects of your specific life rather than listening to the the various people talking about them and what you should be experiencing. What you should be experiencing and what you are oftentimes are very very different and to be making decisions on what we should be experiencing is faulty. we need to make decisions about the reality
47:26 of our lives. Okay? And if that's um and if that is uh um uh you know if if you're really feeling the pinch so it doesn't matter that inflation is relatively moderate. If you are unemployed, right? So it doesn't matter that employment has been relatively flat for the last year or so. When you're unemployed, you're you're in a depression, right? Not not necessarily an emotional depression, but you're in a depression because you have no income, right? So these are the kind of things I encourage you to think about and
48:01 explore. Talk to your friends and neighbors about so that so that you get as true a picture of your situation as you can and you can make informed ideas. I just I just want to note um uh I just got a a comment from Jen. She's she says I'm in I'm in uh Orlando, Florida, and it's very true, right? Our individual experiences are all very different, right? And so that's why I do this show so you can see how to break it down and make the best decisions for yourself. So Jen, thank thanks very much for for your comment. Uh so so that's the data.
48:36 Again, all the links will be in the show notes. So you you know really all you need to do your own situation is maybe take 15 20 minutes uh in order to find the data that's most relevant to you. If you're look if you're thinking about changing jobs, look at where uh employment opportunity is um by looking at the um you know in employment by industry statistics. If you're feeling pinched economically, look at the inflation data uh for your local area. See where are prices
49:13 increasing and decreasing. what adjustments might you be able to make in order to be to live more economically but but not less you know happily so to speak right and and so this is this is what the the uh the links are there to help you with and to help you make those kind of decisions so I thank you very much for joining me today um especially my live viewers it's always it's always fun to get comments uh and uh so I thank you for that and um to uh actually know
49:48 this is my last show for this week. Uh so next week on Monday at 10:00 a.m. Pacific time is my show Trust and Estates Weekly. On Tuesday 10:00 a.m. Pacific time is my show business lessons from the military. And then a week from today I'll be back for the next edition of People Making Money. And then next week also is my every other week show, Jiggers's Place. We'll have a cocktail and a schmooz as I say. We'll talk about on at Jiggers's place. We talk about all the things that have nothing to do with finances so we can relax a little bit as
50:23 we head into the end of the week and the weekend. So, um I I had a reception at my house yesterday and you know couldn't couldn't convince anybody to uh you know to to have a have a cocktail, but you know, join me at Jigger's place and we will. Let's see. Um, Jen is saying, "It is popular here to rent by room in luxury apartments for economic purposes, but still have great amenities and community." Well, there you Yeah, look, that's a that's an option, right? Um, uh, yeah, I Yeah, apartments. Yeah, right. In luxury apartments, right? So,
50:58 that's that's one way to economize without necessarily changing the quality of your life. Um, and and historically that has been the case. people essentially have, you know, roommates. Um, you know, if you're renting, uh, you know, by by the room, that means more than one person is is living in in an apartment, right? And so that's how that's one way to economize. And, you know, maybe it's it could be a benefit to your lifestyle to not live alone and to have roommates and have people to do things with, people to talk to. So, okay. So, thank you very much one once
51:34 again for joining me. Any thoughts, comments, criticisms, links to my social media will be in the show notes as well. Always happy to hear those. Uh again, thanks thanks Jen for your comments. Uh I really appreciate you adding your thoughts to the show. And signing off as I always do.