The WAY to WOW Shows
Economic Echoes
April 23, 2025
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[0:01] And where are you going? What do you [Music] want? Hello and welcome to People Making Money. My name is Kevin Bemmel and we're here every Wednesday at 10:00 a.m. Pacific time to talk about running a business, job hunting and building a career, building wealth, all of the uh topics related to finances in our lives,

[0:37] both personal and business. So today is our monthly economic echoes show where we take a look at the uh economic data for the previous time period and do our best to figure out how does this affect us as individuals um and what decisions do we need to make for our families for ourselves for our businesses etc. So it's all good and well to hear that the CPI is X and unemployment is Z. Um but

[1:12] um you know as I've mentioned many times in this particular uh set of shows um you know when we're employed our employment rate is 100% and when we're unemployed our unemployment rate is 100%. So it doesn't matter for us as individuals per se that the unemployment rate is, you know, whatever it currently is. We'll take a look at that in a few minutes. So, uh, usually the first thing I take a look at is the consumer price index. I wanted though to share with

[1:47] you an article um that I read recently um in the Wall Street Journal that I thought was was quite interesting and it it talks about um an issue uh that that I've mentioned um on on this show from time to time and that is that when we look at a particular economic indicator Typically, we can't really understand what it's telling us in isolation. So, we need to look

[2:23] at two or or more indicators at a time to really understand what it's saying. So, and this this was a this was a an an opinion piece um in in the Wall Street Journal. Um it was about uh a week ago or so and it's written by um George Gilder and Gail Pulley. Uh and um let's see uh George Gilder he wrote a book called Life After Capitalism and Mr. Pulley is a professor of economic history at Utah Tech University. Um and

[3:00] they both are fellows at the Discovery Institute in Seattle. So I don't know them personally but they sound like credible uh individuals. So the point that that they make in uh in this op-ed is that the consumer price uh index all by itself tells us nothing about changes in affordability. So they they are advocating that prices should be measured with respect to time. What they mean is is like hours hours worked

[3:36] in order to be able as hours worked as the basis for the cost of something. So let me see if I can scroll down here. Uh okay. So one of the points they make is unlike money, time can't be counterfeited or inflated. I think that's a you know that's that's a a brilliant observation. Frankly, we all get 24 hours a day that we choose to use however we choose to use it. It's not like if something happens uh we get 25 hours a day or something

[4:12] like that. Okay. So what they're proposing is that the cost of let's say a loaf of bread uh be described in how much time somebody has to work at the median income in order to be able to buy that loaf of bread. And that's a particularly apt idea uh because and I'm just going to stop the sharing here for a minute. Um that's a particularly apt idea because the

[4:47] reality is you know 200 years ago somebody might have had to have worked for you know an entire day to afford to buy a loaf of bread maybe whatever it was right today. Um the a loaf of bread costs roughly, you know, half an hour uh based on the uh uh based on the um minimum wage rate uh the federal minimum wage rate and it costs maybe, you know,

[5:22] six minutes based on the median hourly wage that we'll that we'll look about that we'll look at in a few minutes, right? And so if let's let's just say in in past times uh somebody had to work you know somebody worked they got you know five cents an hour uh and and a loaf of bread cost you know five cents they had to work an hour to get a loaf of bread whereas today um they have to work six minutes. So the cost of bread has actually dropped right by um you know

[6:01] what what took 60 minutes to now six it's dropped by a factor of 90% right it's become 90% more affordable now we can argue about the utility of the bread it was the bread you know 200 years ago as healthy as the bread today etc obviously there are varying factors there but I'm using a simplified example to help to help you understand how merely looking at one economic indicator doesn't convey much if anything about what's really happening in the economy. Okay, so with that said, let's let's now let's take a

[6:39] look at the consumer price index for last month. Open this up for you. Okay, there we go. And where is it? here is okay. So, uh the consumer uh the CPI for all items uh in March uh fell a tenth of a percent, right? So, we actually had deflation, slight deflation and for the full 12 months rose 2.4%. So still uh um higher than

[7:14] the uh Federal Reserve's target of 2%. Um but but but you know not not a whole lot higher. Okay. Um the index for all items except food and energy increased.1% in March and was up 2.8% year o over the previous 12 months. So that's significantly higher than the Federal Reserve's target. Okay. So, uh, all items, you know, you can see this. That's essentially what we're looking at here. So, let's look at food. So, food

[7:49] went up 3%. Food at home went up 2.4%. Food away went up 3.8%. Okay. So, what went up? Uh once again we see that uh proteins u meat, poultry, fish and eggs went up almost 8%. Okay, dairy products went up 2.2%. Uh it doesn't want to let me see this. Alcoholic beverages and other beverages. Oh, non-alcoholic beverages went up 2.4%. Okay. Cereal and bakery goods about a percent. Fruits and vegetables

[8:26] went down almost a percent 7%. That's good news for me because that's I eat a lot of those. And then other foods at home went up 1%. Okay, so returning to the top level now, let's look at food away from home. So full service restaurant went up 4.1%. Limited service meals and snacks went up 3.4%. So no matter what you do, um if you're eating out, you're paying more. Now energy overall went down 3.3%. So you see food went up 3% but energy went down

[9:01] 3.3%. So the you know overall the cost of energy offset the increase in food. However, if you're not a big energy consumer that doesn't help you out. Okay. So energy commodities went down 9 and a half% whereas energy services went up 4.2%. So let's look at commodities, right? Okay, fuel oil went down 7.6%. So if you live on the east coast where you use fuel oil for heating, good news for you if you live here on the west coast has has little if any impact on us

[9:36] because generally speaking we use electricity and natural gas, not fuel oil um at to to uh to heat our homes. Okay, gasoline went down almost 10%. Right now, if if you know, if you don't drive or you drive very little like me, didn't really help you out. But if you drive a lot, if you commute a long distance, right? So, you saw your your gasoline bill presumably went down uh quite a bit. Okay, so that's now let's look at energy uh services. Okay, so

[10:13] electricity went up 2.8% 8%. But look at this. Natural gas went up 9.4%. Right? So here I live in California. The cost for me to heat my home and run my cooktop went up over 9%. Right? So for me, although energy prices went down 3.3%. I because I don't drive very much and don't use fuel oil and because I do use natural gas, it's more likely that the cost of energy for me went up and and

[10:48] that's why I go through this so you can see for yourself what what happened visav uh energy cost. Did you really get the benefit of this overall drop in energy costs? Okay. And then categories um that don't include food and energy. So, commodities went down.1%. So, basically unchanged. Services less energy went up 3.7%. Let's drill down. Okay, there we go. Okay, so apparel went up.3%. New vehicles didn't change. Used cars uh went up 6%. Um

[11:26] medical uh care commodities went up a percent. Alcoholic beverages went up almost 2% and tobacco products went up 6.8. 8%. I was talking to a friend of mine yesterday. He and his wife had been to Las Vegas not too long ago. He was telling me a pack of cigarettes costs $15. And at a gas station here in Los Angeles, he noticed uh just not too long ago that a gas station was offering if you bought two packs of cigarettes, you could buy each one for $9.84 or almost $10 a pack. I had no

[12:03] idea that the cost of cigarettes had gone up that much. You know, back when I was in college, I don't I don't think a pack of cigarettes cost I they cost a dollar, something like that. So, you can see uh tobacco products um have gone way up. Now, if you don't smoke, who cares? If you don't drink, who cares? So, if you don't smoke or drink, you saw probably very little change in the cost of commodities, food, and energy. Okay, now let's look at the other side of this which is services energy. Okay, so housing went up 4%, medical care 3% and

[12:38] transportation services a little over 3%. So um most of us use um all these services. Okay. So, it's it you know it's it's hard to escape and this is why they call this the the core rate because most of us do not escape the impact the impact of this particular one. Okay. So, so um you know we all use these services and though um now we may or may not use any of these commodities. We may not have bought any new clothes or bought a car or used any medical commodities. Um

[13:13] but you know but they are things that pretty much no matter with the exception of um you know something like alcohol and tobacco with the exception of um you know those two you know everybody has to wear clothes everybody's going to need some kind of medical care uh commodities at some point um and and again cars may or may not need those. Okay so so that's the inflation side of things. Now, uh the balance the inflation side then with

[13:50] looking at what's going on. There we go. Uh what's going on from an income standpoint. Okay. So, um I mentioned uh um a few minutes ago um the uh let's see um okay so here we go um average so this is first of all real average hourly earnings um and and and it is you know I talked about this um on on this show

[14:25] last week um that um it's it's unfortunate they use um an average um because I just want to double check something. Okay. Yeah. Uh you know, I don't know if I assume they're using the mean when they say average. Um as opposed to the median. The median would be much more accurate. Um but but in any event um you know this this is this is what the Bureau of Labor Statistics um

[15:02] uh uh puts out. Um so average hourly earnings $1126 up three cents from last month and up 15 from a year ago. Okay. Average weekly earnings went up uh let's see a $1.15. Okay. Uh and then this is this is weird. Average hourly earnings. Wait a minute. Oh, okay. Yeah. So, these are these are inflation adjusted. So, our

[15:38] actual Yeah, that our actual hourly earnings had I was looking at something there. Our actual hourly earnings $36 an hour um uh average hourly earnings $36 an hour up from $35.91. Okay. Average hours worked was constant. So um average weekly earnings uh was uh $1,23120. So up uh a little over a little over $2. Okay. You can see that in general

[16:14] um um month over month um income increased.3%. Now if you recall uh inflation month over month was.1%. So it would seem that we gained some ground last you know going from February to March because uh earnings increased more than inflation did. Okay. But of course that all depends again if you recall if if you're not an energy user, okay? Or I should say if you're not uh if you don't drive very much or

[16:49] don't drive at all and don't use heating oil, your cost of energy went up. And so if you're not feeling like you gained any ground and whatever ground you gained was very small, that's not an illusion. It's very possible that that you lost ground because unless you didn't unless you didn't buy gasoline uh you know you probably experienced inflation uh March to February that was higher than the national average. Okay. And and so that's why you're feeling like wow inflation didn't seem so low to me.

[17:26] Right? Because you know if if uh you know if like me you have a drink you know once in a while or whatever and you don't buy gasoline and heating oil. So you know you definitely experienced higher inflation than the n national average. Okay. Um year-over-year. So real average real uh uh average hourly earnings went up 1.4%. Okay. Uh real weekly earnings though went up only 0.8%. And the real average weekly earnings are more important because um

[18:03] you can see here average hours worked went down 6/10en of a percent. So although wages went up, people worked less on average. Now again, these are the averages. So that doesn't say that's that that's what happened to you. But again, we can't look at any of these statistics individually. we need to look at them collectively. So maybe you got a raise but you also got but also your hours were cut back and you may not be making more money than you did you know a year ago or a month ago. Um and and so

[18:38] you you're not working as much. Maybe you have more free time. Um but that won't help if if your budget is pinched. Right? So these are the things to consider as you look at your overall economic situation. Okay. Next, let's look at the unemployment rate. Now again as as as I've mentioned uh whenever I look at the unemployment rate the unemployment rate cannot be under oop what did I do here? Okay. The unemployment rate cannot be understood

[19:14] on its own. It has to be looked at with the workforce participation rate. Okay. So going from February to March, the unemployment rate went up a tenth of a percent. Can't exactly say why. For men, okay, it it was it it was unchanged February to March. And for women, okay, February to March, it went down a tenth of a percent. Okay, so you know, essentially unchanged. Let's look. And then for

[19:49] teenagers, January, February. Okay, so it went went up 8/10en of a percent. From 12.9 to 7. So teenage unemployment definitely increased uh going from February to March. Okay. Now looking by demographic. So, uh, unemployment for white Americans, uh, went down slightly, a 10%. Okay, not a big change. For black Americans, it went up by 2%. Okay, so a little bit bigger change. For

[20:25] Asian-Americans, these things overlap, so I have to blank them out. Okay, so for Asian-Americans, unemployment went up 3/10en of a percent. Keeps getting worse and worse for each group. And then for uh Hispanic Hispanics or Latinos, uh it went down a tenth of a percent. So for whites and and Hispanics or Latinos, it went down a tenth of a percent. For black Americans and Asian-Americans, it went up two and 2 and 3% respectively. Not not super big changes. Okay. Now let's let's then look at that um in comparison with the workforce

[21:02] participation rate or silver civilian labor participation rates. Okay. All right. So overall the labor participation rate went from let's see here's February February was 62.4 it went up to 62.5. So it went up a tenth of a percent. Okay. For um men it went uh March 70%. February. Okay. So for men it went up 2%. And for women it went down 2/10en of a percent.

[21:40] Okay. And for teenagers oops what did I do there? There we go. Okay. So for teenagers workforce participation rate it actually went up. Oops. Where we wait? January, February. There we go. 37.2 to 37. Okay. So, it went up 4/10en of a percent. So, a at least a small contributor to the big increase in unemployment for 16 to 19 year olds is more of them entered into the workforce. Okay? But they weren't able to find jobs. Okay? So

[22:17] that's why their uh that that's why their uh that's part of the reason why their unemployment rate went up. Okay. Now, for white Americans, their the their workforce participation rate stayed the same. So there was a a a small increase in employment among white Americans. For black Americans, oops. Okay. Let's take this out. And I'm going to take this out, too. Okay, here we go. Okay, so for black Americans, workforce participation rate

[22:53] dropped from 62.7% in February to 62.2% in March, meaning it dropped a half a percent. And on top of that, unemployment went up by 2%. Okay. So, despite fewer black Americans looking for work, their unemployment rate still went up. Okay. That's not a good sign for employment of of black Americans. Okay. Um if more black Americans had entered the workforce, that could have explained why the unemployment rate went

[23:30] up, but it was the opposite. Okay. Now, let's let's compare that to Asian-Americans. So, Asian-Americans, their workforce participation rate increased by.3%. As did their unemployment rate. So, for Asian-Americans, it the explanation for their unemployment rate increasing could be more Asian-Americans entered the workplace and but didn't find jobs and so that increased their unemployment rate. And then for Hispanic Americans, so they're 66.9. Okay, so their

[24:07] workforce participation rate also went up by.3%. And despite that, their unemployment rate went down slightly, a tenth of a percent. So that means a lot of Hispanic or Latino Americans found jobs because more people enter the workforce and yet their unemployment rate still went down. That's why it's important to look at these these two statistics together. Okay. Now, let's look next at here you go employment by

[24:44] industry. Okay. So uh for the one month period the biggest gainers in employment were uh private education and health services. Okay, which is largely driven by government spending as I've mentioned many times before. Leisure and hospitality went up by 43,000 jobs. That's a great sign. Okay. Uh government went up by 19,000 jobs. I suspect that's local and state governments increasing employment. Okay.

[25:20] Construction went up 13,000 jobs. Uh retail trade went up almost 24,000 jobs. Transportation went up almost 23,000 jobs. So you see a lot several sectors went up by 20 almost almost 20,000 jobs or more and construction went up over 10,000 jobs. Okay. Even financial activities went up 9,000 jobs, almost 10,000. Okay. The only ones that lost were information went down 2,000 and wholesale trade also went down 2,000. Other than that, every other sector was

[25:56] uh saw saw net increases for the one over the last month. So, private educational services, you can see actually lost jobs. So it was health care and social services which again are both driven by government spending uh that saw big job gains. Okay. And it was mostly in individual and family services. Okay. And then in health care. So all sectors of health care saw increased employment. Okay. So then jumping to the next largest gainer which is leisure and hospitality. both categories, arts, entertainment, and

[26:31] recreation and accommodations and food saw big gains. Okay. And and in reality, it was mostly food and drinking places saw 30,000 jobs. Accommodations very few. Okay. And then um in terms of art, entertainment, and recreation. So again, museums and historical sites lost jobs. That's been the trend. whereas performing arts and and spectator sports and such saw big gains as did uh amusement and recre gambling and recreation. Okay, now let's look at make

[27:06] that go away. Okay, let's look at government real quickly. So yeah, you can see federal government employment dropped. That would be expected with Doge and all of that. State government saw 6,000 increase. Local government 17,000. Okay, local governments, education saw almost 9,000 and the other parts of local governments saw a little over 8,000. Okay, and state governments, okay, education went up five. All the rest went up 1.3. And let's look at the federal. Okay. So, um federal government except

[27:43] the post office saw uh loss of over 3,000 jobs and then the post office lost about 700 jobs. Okay. I would expect those trends to continue with respect to government. Let's look next look next at retail trade and you can see food and beverage retailers saw almost 21,000 new jobs. motor vehicle and parts dealers almost 4,000 building materials over 4,000 uh music and um sports good sporting goods hobbies and stuff a thousand

[28:18] healthc care uh retailers 2500 general retailers lost almost 5,000 jobs those would be like Walmart and and department well probably not necessarily Walmart but department stores that sort of thing okay uh furniture, home appliance uh appliances, home furnishings lost almost 2,000 and gasoline and fuel dealers went down over a thousand. Okay, so you can see as gasoline prices dropped, stations, you know, laid people off, it appears. Okay, and um bigger ticket

[28:54] items like furnishings went down. Um but uh other things uh other other sectors went up. Okay, now let's look at transportation and warehousing. So warehousing went down over 9,000 jobs. The big or be the big gainers were couriers and messengers. That's interesting. Uh that must be I don't know if that's I I assume that's like FedEx and that sort of thing. Went up almost 16,000 jobs. Truck transportation almost 10,000. Uh support activities almost four. Um and then the rest were

[29:29] pretty much unchanged. Air transportation went up almost a thousand whereas rail transportation dropped by about 700. So you can you can see those there. Okay. And then finally we'll look at construction. So construction of buildings 2700 heavy and civil construction 3,400 specialty trades over 6,000. Okay. and and it was prim that was in the nonresidential because residential specialty trade lost 12,900 jobs whereas specialty trades in non-residential saw a gain of

[30:06] 19.3,000. So you can see where construction activity is concentrated. Okay. And then looking at the other parts construction of buildings. So uh that's interesting. So, in construction of buildings, you saw an increase of 3,000 in residential and a drop of 400 in commercial. So, if if you're in the specialty trades, you you're you're working on a lot of non-residential pro projects. Um, but if you're in kind of construction in general, you're seeing more residential projects. Okay. So, let's Okay. And then now let's look

[30:42] let's look real quickly at the at the losers. wholesale trade. So, this could uh well, no, this wouldn't be due to the to tariffs yet because this is for March. So, you're seeing uh wholesale trade, jobs in wholesale, merchant wholesale, durable goods went up 30 3,700. Non-durable goods dropped by 2,700. Trade agents and brokers dropped by 3,000. Now, that isn't surprising because there is a lot of disintermediation going on. Disintermediation means that uh

[31:17] middlemen are being taken out of the process. Okay, that's one of the things for example that the internet does uh and and so uh on the wholesale level anyway. And so you wouldn't be surprising to see those drop in jobs. Okay. And then uh let's see wholesale. Here we go. Oh, okay. That there's no detail there. And then let's look at information jobs. Okay. So motion picture and sound recording industries lost jobs over a thousand but publishing gain 1500 broadcasting and content providers lost

[31:52] almost a thousand. Uh telecommunications lost almost 3,000 whereas computing and and web hosting and such gained almost 2,000. So it's a kind of a mixed bag in term in ter terms of information but overall information jobs dropped uh a little bit. Now contrast that with the 12month picture. Okay? And you can see for example uh wholesale and retail trade are not are not nearly as prominent gainers over the last year as they were over the last

[32:28] month. Okay. The biggest gainer is private education and health services. Okay. Uh followed by government. Now this is you know that these two have for the last year have driven things. I expect to see uh some of this uh change going forward because the Trump administration in general is not going to be hiring federal workers. Quite the opposite. Okay. Leisure and hospitality also tends to be a gainer uh as and transportation warehousing. Now that may as we see the impact of tariffs, we may

[33:04] see transportation and warehousing start to drop. We may we may see drops in wholesale trade and retail trade. Okay, that we'll have to track that. Okay, so this is the one-year versus the one month picture. Okay, next let's look at median home prices. Okay. So, for the first quarter of 2025, median home price uh nationally is uh uh

[33:43] $416,900. Uh that's down from 419,300. So, lost a little over $2,000. um probably due to uh the and let's look at this look at the scale. Okay, here we go. We can see this better now. This is probably due to increasing interest rates and so people are not uh buying homes. Now, you can see, by the way, and let's look at the five-year picture. So you can see that the median home price um coming out of

[34:18] COVID skyrocketed from 317,000 to 437 almost 438,000. Okay. Then it did top 440,000 uh for a short time and has since dropped down a bit, but it's stayed right around the $420,000 mark uh really since um since, you know, toward the beginning middle of 2023. Okay. And except for this bump, it's really been in that in that lane

[34:53] since 2021. So, this is a this appears to be a permanent increase in median home price of essentially $100,000. Okay. So, we're not going we're probably not going to see that Amelia rate. Um it it's we're likely to see uh median home price bumping along between, you know, around the $420,000 mark u until it takes its next big increase. Uh, and and I realized I didn't put up the link for Here we

[35:30] go. Yeah. Okay. So, let me switch to the other median home price screen that I take a look at. Okay. So, the median home price in California, for example, increased 6% year-over-year to 832,500. Okay, that's that's, you know, that's obviously, you know, double the national average. Okay. Now in terms of supply, okay, so the supply has been,

[36:06] you know, bumping around between 80 and 100,000 homes or around really around 80,000 homes for a couple of years now. Okay. Demand. Okay. So you can see based on the number of prices that sold above listing price, okay, it's been it's been around 40%, sometimes 50%, now this is an aberration. Okay, homes sold with price drops has been around 20%. Okay, so sales to list price, you can see it's

[36:42] been right around 100%. There hasn't been much variance when all is said and done on average. Okay. So, let's now let's let's look at a different market. Let's look at um Miami. Miami, Florida. Okay. So, here's Miami, Florida. Median sales price $632,000. About one and a half times the national average. Okay. And that's and it's it's been around that now for a couple of years as well. Right around the 600,000 mark, although it's it's been on a slow but steady increase, it

[37:18] appears. Okay. So, demand. Okay. So, um almost 95% of properties sold um uh at the list price. Okay. Only 4 and a.5% sold above the list price. 18 and a half% sold below the list price. Okay. So, you know, in general, prices are selling at list price um or a little below uh in Miami. Okay. And uh Okay, let's look at

[37:53] migration. Where are people coming from the most to Miami? Well, they're they're coming from it looks like Seattle, uh, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, and a number of, uh, East Coast cities as well. Right? You can see where people are coming from. Um, the most are coming from San Francisco and, uh, New York, which shouldn't be too surprising because a lot of New Yorkers vacation uh, in in Miami. Okay. Oh, and here you can see by

[38:29] people uh here New York 5,800, San Francisco almost 2200, Washington DC 2000 and then so on down. Okay. Um where are people going outbound from Miami? Well, a lot of them are are staying uh let's see, all but three of the destinations they're still staying in Florida and another one is is Atlanta. So, they're staying in the southeast in Texas. The only place they're going to outside of the southeast from Miami is Minneapolis. Okay. So, now let's look at

[39:04] one other let's look at one other market. Let's look at uh let's look at Omaha. Omaha. Oh, oops. No, that's not giving me the right chart. I was concerned about that. Let's see. Don't do that. Uh, it doesn't want to do it. Yeah, this this one gets gets kind

[39:39] of fickle sometimes. So, all right, we won't be able to look at another another market, but um I wanted to look at a market probably below the median uh national median home price, but it looks like uh Red Fin is not going to cooperate with us. Let me just let me just try one other thing. Nope. Yeah, it's not going to it's not going to cooperate. Oh well. Okay, it is what it is. Uh, okay. So,

[40:14] let's now switch to median rent. Here we go. Okay, so let's look first at Los Angeles. Okay, so month over month, rents dropped by $411 average rent. Wow. Okay. Now, the problem with an average rent is it can be highly affected by the high end or the low end of market, right? Where median is telling you the midpoint. Um

[40:50] but but you know data for median rents just don't have it. So you can see that it in January of 2025 uh average rent uh was about 2,800. Um, and as of April, it's Wait, that's weird. Yeah. Okay. Oh, yeah. Okay. I'm sorry. Yeah, it's it's uh, you know, more like 27. Yeah. 2,733. There you go. So, that's that's you know, it's a sizable drop. Uh, okay.

[41:28] Now, let's see. Where's the Okay, so now let's let's look at let's compare that to Miami. Miami monthly rent went on average went down a 100. Okay. But uh this is it's interesting the charts the charts are different. Um, so, oh, this I see this is giving you the comparison, um, year-over-year. So, um, yeah. So, from March of 2025 to March to April, um, it

[42:08] actually went up $50. So, um, I'm not sure why it's saying $100 here. Uh but in any event, um you can see rents have been trending up in Miami since February. Okay, which was uh similar for last year, although they they leveled off in March and then started to decline. Okay, and so it'll be interesting to see if how the trend plays out um over time in in Miami. Okay, let's let's look at another area. Let's let's look at Omaha, Nebraska. Okay, Omaha, Nebraska

[42:44] also saw a slight decrease according to this chart, but here it's showing from March to April, it actually increased about $36. So um you know can't explain to you why they're showing different but overall it you know although this chart is saying um average rents um are declining the the charts tracking over time show them increasing and in fact if we remember the CPI shows that rents are increasing as well. So, what's happening

[43:19] in your particular city and is it a good time to be looking for a place to to rent? So, that's something for you to take a look at. Okay. And then the last thing that I I want to cover is consumer sentiment. There we go. Okay. So the search consumers done by the University of Michigan is important because it it gives an idea of where people's heads are at. So this will reflect uh the the

[43:58] what's been in the news about tariffs and such. So you can see across the board consumer sentiment month over month has declined you know around 11%. So index of consumer sentiment um how comfortable consumers feel dropped by 10.9%. Curren economic conditions over 11%. Expectations only slightly rosier than the outlook for the current uh you know for the current economy. Okay. Now, even more dramatic

[44:33] is there's been a 34% drop year-over-year in consumer sentiment. Uh, and current economic conditions have seen a drop of 28.5%. And consumer expectations expect uh have dropped by 38%. Now, uh, a lot of this is, uh, due to the discussions about tariffs and what impact they're going to have on the economy.

[45:08] So, see if they have a chart with this. Okay. Okay. So yeah, there's not I mean there's not a whole lot. I'm I'm looking at the differences by u by party affiliations. So um you know not a big difference in terms of inflation expectations um you know consumer

[45:45] expectations. you can can see, you know, how you you can flip, right? Um, in terms of how positive people affiliated with the party, you know, that that presumably was going to win would be. You can you can see that over time. So, um, you know, there's nothing nothing here unexpected that, you know, if if I win, I'm optimist. If my party wins, I'm optimistic. If if my, you know, if my party wins, I'm optimistic. Right? So, so no, no, no big no big uh nothing earthshattering here. So, one of the one

[46:20] of the things we have to take into account I I think [Music] is let me go ahead and stop the screen sharing is that we don't really know what's happening uh with res with respect to the tariffs in the sense that they've only been in place for um about uh you know 10 days or well no I guess about two weeks and what how they're actually affecting the economy were we're were at the very very beginning of seeing. So there's a

[46:56] lot of consternation in the reporting of tariffs and and I don't see that differing very much by the political leanings of of a particular media outlet. Uh but the reality is nobody really knows what people are actually going to do and how this situation is actually going to play out. And and I think that the the most important thing to take from this is both bond prices bond

[47:34] prices are uh um um going uh down. Okay. As are stock prices. Okay. So when there's economic uncertainty, typically what we see happening is people pull out of stocks and move into bonds because bonds generally are a safer investment. Okay? But that's not what we're seeing. We're seeing people pulling out of both stocks and bonds, which means what they're doing is they're just pulling out of

[48:10] investments to see what will happen. So that uncertainty which I think is essentially what's reflected in the indexes of consumer sentiment is basically causing a lot of people to take a wait and see attitude. I've spoken to a number of people um both uh in my practice as a as a fiduciary but also talking to people involved like I my guest yesterday uh um Jason Hollander he's an investment banker handling uh

[48:47] mergers and acquisitions of um um lower mid-market to mid-market companies with a million to hund00 million in revenue. He and I had a conversation and and a lot of people and and he said, "I think a lot of people are just taking a wait andsee attitude. Not really sure how this is going to play out." So I I I would be careful about um sort of buying into any particular view of what's actually going on because we don't really know yet. I would be careful

[49:22] about making any major moves uh based on current economic conditions um because we don't really know how this is going to play out. Okay. And until we get greater clarity, it's it's probably better to take take some time, let the dust settle, and then we'll be in a position to make better decisions. Okay. So that's that's the economic echoes uh for this month. And I'm I'm always interested to hear uh how how this show

[50:00] works for you, whether it's giving you the kind of information that you want and need to hear so that you can make sound economic decisions. So please feel free to drop a comment in uh social media. All the links will be in the show notes after this episode posts. And if you want to share something private with me, feel free. You can. My email address is in the show notes as well, always give the caveat if you're asking me for advice or something. Only if it's within my area of knowledge. I don't give legal advice. I'm not I'm not a lawyer. I don't give accounting advice. I'm not an accountant. I'm a businessman, a

[50:36] professional fiduciary, and I uh also do uh business consulting in a number of areas. And so if if it's something related to that, I I will be happy to uh converse with you about it, but uh not if it's outside my area of expertise. So I thank you very much for joining me at this month's economic echoes, especially those of you who are uh live. It's always a treat to see you. Tomorrow, Thursday at 5:00 p p.m. Pacific time is my show, Jiggers's Place, and it's my every other week show. We're going to

[51:11] sit back, have a cocktail, and talk about 19th century literature. Now, before you tune out, this is not going to be the way it was in high school. I'm I'm I'm going to show you why 19th century literature, Jane Austin, Thomas Hardy, George Elliot, who by the way is not a man, George Elliot is a woman, uh it's her pen name. um why it's so enjoyable and and can and is so valuable to read these works. Uh but it is better

[51:49] over a cocktail at least when you're getting used to I mean I can read 19th century literature without a cocktail these days but um but when you're first getting into it a cocktail will definitely help because it'll it'll loosen you up and open up your minds. So look forward to that tomorrow at 5:00 pm. If you would like to get the cocktail recipe in advance so that you can make it with me while I put it together at the beginning of the show, please subscribe to my email list, just go to beml.com, scroll down to the bottom, and you can see there's a little box there. You fill in your email address and click subscribe. And then

[52:25] the more every morning that there's that Jiggers's Place is taking is going to be happening, you'll get an email that has the cocktail recipe in it and we can enjoy that together. So once again, oh, and then next week on Monday at 10:00 a.m., uh, Pacific time is my show, Trust and Estates Weekly. Tuesday at 10:00 a.m., uh, Pacific time is my show, Business Lessons from the Military. And then, of course, a week from today, we'll be back for the next edition of People Making Money. So, I thank you very much for joining me today. Wish you a wonderful rest of the day and signing

[53:01] off as I always