 Welcome, welcome, welcome. Every one to a long overdue episode of Generally Irritable with Eric Heretic. I'm super excited to have with me as a guest today, Mr. Chris Gilberto. Say hello to everyone, Mr. Gilberto. Hello everyone, how are you? Oh, they're great. They're fabulous. They might not even be watching us yet, Chris. This is what I was saying. Like I was going to toy with trying it out where I don't add you to the stream yet. And I just like sit here and go blah, blah, blah and wait a couple of minutes for people to start watching. So you're just going to suffer with me. See, I have to do all this. I do this little thing where I set up my screen. Happy to suffer with you. So I can see things. Ah, ah, you're a good friend, Christopher. And so everyone knows for full disclosure. Okay, did we get this right? Am I live? We're live. Okay, we're definitely live on Facebook. Let's see, we're going to switch this over to comments. So for full disclosure, I really like Chris. He is an old friend of mine and Benjamin's. We've known each other for God, like five years now. We met in a networking group. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we met in a networking group. And we got Chris to write our life insurance policy. I argue with him all the time about putting money in the stock market. Cause I think it's a racket. I know you guys are going to be like, Erica, how can you think that you're supposed to be like a conservative or whatever? I do not have money in the stock market. I still don't. He has not worn me down yet. However, he almost convinced me. He almost convinced me that I should invest in the stock. But yeah, that's true. That is true. You do encourage me with your knowledge and wisdom. I'm just, I'm so anti, I hate to say anti-government. You don't necessarily think of the government and the stock market as being like the same thing, right? The stock market isn't the government, but we're going to talk today. I know, right? But we're going to talk today, you guys, about how the government does affect the stock market, right? So you've got not to mention all the regulatory stuff, right? You've got, what is it? Sarbanes, Oxley, and you've got all these like laws and things that you have to go by that regulate trading in the stock market. But people don't always consider how policy making at the federal government level or the state level can affect making money in the stock market as well. So let's see. Let's see, let's see, let's see. How are we going to start, Christopher? So why don't we, why don't you take a couple minutes? Oh, and oh, I forgot to tell you this before we got started. So when I switch it, I'm going to occasionally switch it so that it's just you in the feed like that, boom. Great. And all you're going to see is yourself. I didn't know it did that on your end too, on my guests end too. And then somebody was like, whoa, whoa, what happened? I didn't really, so I didn't warn you before we got started. Occasionally I'm going to change the view up a little bit. I'm going to go like this. I'm going to be like, oh, it's just me. And then, oh, it's just Chris. And then here we go. And if you have anything to share, if you want me to share anything on my screen, you can send it to me and we can do this guy. Oh, is it not going to do it? Here, this is doing it. This is doing it. Oh, maybe I don't have, because I don't have a third thing up yet. Okay. So if I'm going to share my screen. Okay, anyway. So I can change it around and I can share screens with people. Boom. Perfect. Okay, everybody's going to have to be really patient with us today because I'm so out of practice on this. Okay. So Chris, take a couple of minutes, share with my viewers a little bit about, I said, I know you, because you wrote our life insurance policy, but tell people a little bit about you and why you're so passionate about helping people have financial literacy. Great question. Absolutely happy to do this. So a little about me. My name is Christopher Gilberto. I claim Detroit though, moving to Texas. I live in Austin, Texas area right now and that was move number 10, I think, in my life. What is it? What is it the license plate? What is it the bumper sticker says? I wasn't born in Texas, but I got here as fast as I could. Yeah, it's true. So I met a lovely Texan, her name is Megan, and now we have a sitting in a room right next to me is our two-year-old daughter. She turned two on Saturday and I just love being a dad and thank God I live in the state of Texas. And thank God that my wife convinced me, didn't take a lot of convincing, but just stay here. So I'm a financial advisor with New York Life and Knowledge Securities. So just like Erica mentioned, work with New York Life, big life insurance company, started off selling a lot of life insurance. But as I grew in the business and my practice grew, I got more licenses, I'm licensed to do everything, but sell you individual stocks and bonds currently, working on my CFP so I can call myself a planner one day and it'd be official, but for fun and over my right shoulder there's a lacrosse stick, I coach lacrosse. Actually this year, I'm coaching women's lacrosse for a local high school team. And really excited about that. And I'm a nerd and a geek at heart. So yeah, yeah, so that's a little about me. So why am I so passionate? So wait, hold on. When you say you're a nerd and a geek at heart, how does that manifest for you? So right now I'm speaking on my work laptop. Behind it, I have a dual screen computer that I built myself. I used to play World of Warcraft, a little too much. I think. So. Got it. Big Game of Thrones fan. Not the, I mean, the TV show was great up until season eight, but I've got all the books and read those a couple of times. So have you talked to Benjamin about being an extra in the Chronicles short? I have. I have not. I mean, that guy doesn't answer my damn phone call. Oh, he's such a he is. Sorry for curfewing. I don't think Dan is bad. I don't think we get dinged for that. I don't know. But yeah, try to keep it PG 13. I probably shouldn't tell you that. Normally, you know, I cuss a lot, but I do not cuss on my show. It's it's a northerner thing, you know? It's just part of the vocabulary. It's not even like a cuss word. It's just part of the vocabulary. It is what it is. Yeah. OK, so let me don't let me forget when we get off because we're shooting a fantasy. The we're starting to shoot his his fantasy movie on the fourth. So if you can come, we'll put you to work. Anyway, OK, so why are you so passionate about financial literacy? So there is a lot of bad press on capitalism. Now, what I think is happening in the United States is a lot of crony capitalism, a lot of greasing of hands, a lot of things that aren't necessarily what capitalism is. But from what I the books that I've read and the work that I do, capitalism is the exchange of good for the exchange of currency for goods and services, right? If you if you go to the market and say, I've got a pizza joint, but there's a pizza joint next to you, the better one's going to win. And it just is what it is. Sometimes it's not fair. But through that that understanding, like the best product, the best service wins, you're able to succeed and grow. So a good example would be like Chick-fil-A. Chick-fil-A grew with the Chick-fil-A and Boston Market came out around the same time. Boston Market wanted to hit a billion dollars of revenue as soon as possible. Chick-fil-A went into the market saying, we want to be better, not necessarily bigger. If we're the better we are, the bigger our customers will demand us to become. And the day the day that Chick-fil-A hit a billion dollars in revenue was the same day Boston Market declared bankruptcy. So Chick-fil-A came. Yeah, isn't that ironic? Chick-fil-A came to the market said, we're going to we're going to follow these principles, these things. And we wholeheartedly believe in our process and our vision and the market responded. They I mean, man, I love those bigoted bites of chicken goodness. So-called alleged. Yeah, alleged. And everybody's you can have everybody kind of their own opinion. But back to why I'm passionate about this about about that financial literacy, making sure I educate my clients and everybody that I work with. There's a lot of positive press on communism and some redistribution of wealth and socialism. And my my undergrads in history, my master's degrees in sports management. I know how did I end up as a financial advisor? But history has shown that it doesn't work. And in my heart of hearts, I believe if the human condition wasn't a thing, if we weren't inherently greedy and selfish and mean and eat, I think our base. Condition is to be out for us and the ones we care about the most. If it wasn't for that, I think socials would probably work. Everybody would pitch in. Nobody would want more. But what you see time and time and time again is those at the very top. Usually under socialism and communism, those at the top of the governmental structure are the ones who do the best, who live the best, who can kind of take their their life and live it as they want. And the rest of us or the rest of those people are left like holding the bag. Yeah, if you get to be lucky enough to be part of the ruling class, then you're fine until they find that you're not useful anymore. And then right, right. Which we see happening now with in the political climate. It's really interesting to hear you talk about how you talked about, you know, that capitalism kind of gets a bad rap and then socialism, wherever it's been tried, millions, billions of people die, right? And and I do agree that what we have currently in the United States is not capitalism. It's not pure capitalism. It's not a pure free market. We have so much government interference creating opportunities for corporations to be greedy and to be shiesty. They have a they have a almost like a what's the right word. They're almost encouraged to do the wrong thing and pursue profit, right? Because and I want to be really careful how I talk about this because I'm very much free market. But when you get to the point where you have, you know, the the head of the FDA leaving there to be on the board of Monsanto or a CFO CEO of Monsanto making, you know, millions and billions of dollars. Like there's something wrong in your system. Right. And so I don't even totally disagree when you have some people on the left who say, well, capitalism isn't working either, you know. And I'm like, I get that the problem. But the problem isn't capitalism, in my opinion. It's the government, right? So whenever you add the human element to a circumstance, we mess it up. Like you said, we're going to figure out how to mess it up. So I've had comments, not comments, I've had conversations with clients talking about corporations are evil. Corporations chase profit, right? That can be negative, that can also be positive, right? But, you know, just because somebody has a has a as a selfish intention, doesn't mean they can have that can't have altruistic outcomes. Like think about me. I I work on, you know, feet, you know, commissions and fees and all this other stuff. I don't get a salary. So I have to, in a sense, I'm a hunter, right? I have to go out, I have to find a client. I have to I have to make a sale to make money so I can feed my family. Right. I can be very selfish. I just want to make money for my family. But in doing so, I put people in a better financial situation for themselves. Flip side can be true. I can just want to pursue financial literacy for everybody in my circle. I'm going to get compensated for it, right? So there's incentive for me for capitalism is the only system that I believe can play on greed for good. OK, as long as we can get rid of the federal government, can we? Fine. I mean, I agree. Shrink the bed. Yeah, I'm just saying. I think that if we could abolish the Federal Reserve, we would all be in a much better position. So that I'll use that as my segue. Perfect. Into inflation. So I've been thinking a lot about inflation. Yes, inflation this year has gone up and up and up. But something to consider because I play devil's advocate. Oh, kind of good to, you know, in a in a into this into defending my own arguments and defending my own arguments. I have to come up with some some things that could be also true, right? So under the previous administration, good, bad or indifferent, prices came down across the board, right? Under the new administration, prices have gone up. Well, looking at the surface, inflation, inflation, could that also be a return to rates pre this past this pre administration? Does that make sense? Yeah, no way. So it's just a thought that I've had. I I do think that the value, the the influx of green into our system, right? So we've printed, I think, 40 percent of the dollars in circulation today were printed last year long. Right. So that makes that mean that so that means every dollar. The pie hasn't gotten bigger. So right. So my understanding is that current what I've heard that I can recall most recently was the inflation rate is 5.4 percent currently, which means that if you have a hundred dollars today next year, it's or whenever it's going to be worth it's actually worth ninety six dollars and ninety four something. Ninety six dollars and forty cents. What did I say? Five point four. Yeah. So it's ninety four dollars and sixty cents. Yeah. Mass hard. It's seven, eighteen here in Texas. So I tell everybody they're like, you're an accountant. Shouldn't you be able to do math in your head? No, absolutely not. I haven't had to do math in my head since I was in elementary school. OK, that's what capital is. Or capitalism gave me a calculator in my pocket in the form of an iPhone or a piece of Jesus, Jesus. That's right. OK. So no, but in all seriousness, right? So whenever they print money, it's the values. You're right. Your buying power is actually worth less. Right. So the pie. So a good way to think about it is the pie hasn't gotten any bigger. OK. But the slices have gotten smaller, right? So you may have more slices. They're not two slices today may equal one slice. Yesterday, I think I hope my my pie analogy makes sense. But something to consider as inflation continues, the world economy trades on US dollars, especially when it comes to the trading of crude oil. Right. The world uses the US dollar now. This is so interconnected with so many other things. But as we continue to print money, it destabilizes the dollar, meaning the value of the dollar fluctuates more. So the countries may have to trade the US more things to get more dollars to get more oil. So they might be operating in a it might be not worth it to them. So they can say, OK, so we have to find an alternative. China currently is trying to get off of the US dollar. They're trying to stabilize their economy and their their currency as another viable option. And if that comes through fruition, that could further destabilize the US economy. And if that happens, then we're in another big correction. Right. Right. So it's something to absolutely be concerned about. And I hope that we can quell the next couple of months of this year, the quality inflation rate, because typically you see about 2.7 to 3 percent annually. We're well above that right now. Well, that's what I don't really believe the five point four number. You can't print. You can't basically print 100 percent, you know, duplicate 100 percent of your money supply. Right. So 40 percent, if almost half of our. Oh, we're having trouble. This may be an issue. I don't know. I'm not going to deal with that. I'm like, if Twitch isn't working, I don't care. It's fine. I'm not going to mess with that. OK, what the heck was I just saying? Talking about almost we've almost doubled our currency. 40 percent of the currency in circulation was printed last year. That means we literally just duplicated our money supply, but didn't actually add any value. Right. We don't have more gold. Did the US did they buy back their bonds or something or like did they do anything to try to to like to offset the inflation? I haven't seen anything. I mean, there's there's been so many other things in the news right now. I mean, even CNN's kind of turning on Biden administration right now. So yeah, there's there's a lot going on. I mean, you have you have turmoil in the Middle East. You've got the US, you know, tinfoil hat. Is this the US trying to get back into a war in the Middle East to further the industry, the military industrial complex? I don't know. But that whole thing is. We won't even go down that route. Right. And so there's there's so much that can that can nothing good come from inflation. Nothing. Well, and that's the thing is I the whole. There have been a lot of really interesting choices made by the Biden administration. Every single one of them. Makes us poorer and makes things more expensive. So I think, you know, you probably heard a week ago or so, right? So he shut down the building of these pipelines and said no more. Drilling or anything on federal lands and they put up all these roadblocks for being able to produce oil in our own country. And then they went and asked OPEC to produce more. And it's like, OK, so now we're more dependent on the Middle East again for oil instead of being energy independent. So that means it's going to cost more. And then you're bringing in all like the border is open, essentially. So we have a huge influx of illegal immigrants, which, you know, brings down the wages for any labor, right? Because they typically are replacing your construction workers, your restaurant workers. So the lower income people are now being replaced. And so that that drives down wages even further. It's it's very strange to me. And I don't expect you to be like a Biden policy apologist. But it does seem like those are really weird choices if you want to have a thriving economy. It's it is I I don't I mean. I'm I'm going to be 33 this October. I've been doing financial advising for the last five, six years. So I'm still learning in my in my practice. Yeah. But where I'm sitting today, I don't understand any of it. So it's like from a logic standpoint. So it's not just the little people that are confused? No, I'm I'm a little person, too. I don't think I'm not making millions of dollars. I'm I'm making, you know, no, I mean, like financially literate people necessarily. OK, I don't understand the stock market or whatever, you know, say. Gotcha. So something with the oil you brought up and I want to touch on. So in everything in life, I'm a firm believer you have to control. You can control, right? So the environmental agency in the United States can control and oversee oil drilling in the United States. Hey, as long as you're within these parameters, go keep on keeping on, man. But instead, we've now gone to overseas markets and said, you guys drill however the hell you want. I don't give a shit, darn it. I don't I don't give it. I don't care. Excuse my friend. I don't care, but we're going to spend more oil, more energy to bring those those barrels overseas to the United States. Where, you know, I mean, they could be people who are working on these things could be in terrible conditions. And if you are somebody on the left who believes that we have to help those who are disenfranchised, this should be something you should be ringing the bell about. And by the way, I'm a bit I'm I'm more right leaning. I'm I'm I'd love to hunt. There's nothing I want more than for our environment here in the United States to continue to be pristine. I think the United States is beautiful. We are so blessed. And I want I want to take my daughter hunting one day. I want to take my grandkids hunting one day. And to do that, we need a healthy environment. So I think there's a way you can still produce energy and oil here in the United States and continue to have a beautiful landscape. And if if we are so concerned with energy and and and the environment here in the United States, why is nobody talking about nuclear energy? Why? It is it is one of the I think what I've seen is the energy one would require the the waste one would make. So in my lifetime, if we were on all nuclear energy, all of my waste from nuclear energy would fit in a coke can for my entire lifetime. See. And this is see. Here's the the problem with nuclear is the first 50 years of nuclear energy or whatever it's been since the first power plant was opened. I'm not I don't know. But it's you see, you know, we've seen all these, you know, nuclear disasters, Hiroshima and well, not even the bombs. I'm talking about Fukushima Island. That's right. Oh, Fukushima. Yes, yes, yes. Yeah, yeah. Not Hiroshima. And you're right. Yes. And then Chernobyl in Russia. You hear about all this. And what I know as a as a regular old human being who doesn't keep up with this stuff is that we have a ton of nuclear waste that we have nowhere to put and no one will take it. And so if we can't if we are unable to store our current nuclear waste in a way that is safe, then even me, who's like all about free market and innovation, even I'm like, no, we're not building any more nuclear power plants until you figure. I almost I almost swear to see that. Sorry until you figure out how to deal with it. Right. You know, and I haven't heard anybody tell me how they're going to deal with the current problem that we have. Yeah. Well, I mean, in terms of renewable energy, I mean, we saw here in Texas this past winter with snow. But twenty twenty one like, like. Do not hear me say renewables or the solution. Right. I'm not saying that. I'm not saying that either. There's there's definitely something that we can do where again, we can continue to be energy independent. If we're energy independent, it means more Americans, maybe without high school degrees or just high school degrees, can get a job and make an earning, make a make a make a living wage that can that can pay a lifestyle for a family. Like there's no law in the books that says we have to have a two parent, you know, a two income household that's that's that's silly. That's asinine and it doesn't need to be that way. You know, who used to agree with you? Who? Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Her name just the chick that ran for president. Oh, my God. You it is late. Organson. No. The Oh, my God. The Bernie Sanders female version from Massachusetts. That would be your realm. Oh, my God. No. She's like super popular and everybody loves her and she was. Oh, my God. How is my brain just so everybody knows I was really sick and for like a month and I didn't do anything. And my brain is still not fully like by this time of night, I'm normally getting into bed. Oh, my God, I cannot believe I cannot remember her name. She's a senator. She was the one who called Bernie Sanders a sexist. Warren. Yes, Elizabeth Warren. So she wrote a book called The Two Income Trap. Did she really? She did. She did. She didn't used to be the same kind of person that she is today. So she recognized that it's better that we've gotten into this. You know, our houses have gotten bigger. Our cars have gotten bigger. We have, you know, flat screen TV in every household. Everybody's got to have an iPhone and we have all this expensive stuff where our lives didn't used to be this complicated and we didn't used to think that we needed all this stuff. So families didn't need two incomes to survive. You know, one person stayed home and one person was the income producer. Yep. I think something that really compounded that that keeping up with the Jones Jones's mentality is our is our social media, like something, you know, as a financial advisor, it pains me to see all these people going on mega Uber vacations multiple times a year. I mean, if you can do it, fine. But that's a highlight reel. That's not real life. That's a highlight reel of somebody's like it's it's best of, right? Yeah. And oh, my God, that would be so much fun. I mean, I do this with my my better half all the time. You know, she tells me this looks this looks great. We should go do it. I did the same thing. And I realized, like, we don't have to do it. There are other things we have to do and, you know, that are a little more important. One of those is making sure we can live and and and save money. I mean, you're going to pay you're going to pay for everything at one point and not monetarily. But I mean, I can save a little bit today and live better down down range or I can live better today and live terrible down range. I just know that me I'm not going to want to work forever. So I want to make sure I'm putting enough money away or at least taking those steps toward that goal. And I to pay off long term. Oh, don't even get me started. I've got some clients that I wish would make different decisions with their money. It's very frustrating. OK, everybody watching today with me is Mr. Christopher Gilberto. He is a financial advisor. I can call you that, right? Absolutely. OK, fine. He's a financial. I can't call him a financial other word because that's not allowed. You can. I can't. OK. Just like I can't call myself an accountant in Texas, even though I have a bachelor's degree in accounting and have been an accountant for 20 years, unless you're a CPA, you cannot call yourself an accountant in Texas. You call you a BA accountant, accounting like a bad bad bottom accounting. That all that doesn't sound good. Like that bad bottom line. No, seriously, Christopher Gilberto, financial advisor. We're here talking today a little bit about how inflation is going to be affecting people. Let's get down. I don't want to bury the lead too much. The old Trevor says if you have anybody watching, if you have a question, feel free to type in the chat, a comment or a question for Christopher. For me, for us. But yeah, so not as to bury the lead a little bit. You know, I really wanted to have you on today. When what last week, when we were talking about capital gains, tax increases. Yeah, you were talking. It basically like some people, it's going to go up to almost basically 50 percent, right, like 48.5 percent or something like that. Forty eight point four. Yeah, 48.4. So this administration and Democrats in the last election central really repeated over and over again that they wanted to increase the capital gains tax to make the rich pay their fair share, make the rich pay their fair share. And they couched it as if only rich people pay capital gains tax. And being an accountant, I happen to know that that's not true because I've done enough tax returns for grandmas and, you know, your couple that has a retirement fund or what is that that kind of where it's to save for college or whatever. Five to nine. Five to nine plan. So I know people with these plans. What and I'd be like, why are they lying? Why are they saying it's only rich people that have capital gains? Like, that doesn't make any sense. And yeah. And so this idea that it's it's only going to, you know, it's only going to be the rich paying our fair share rather than hurting the general public. So if you would talk about what you mentioned, the interest rates going up, what they're going to go from and to. And then let's talk a little bit about how that actually affects the average person. So with capital gains, there are two types of capital gains, right? So if you open if you open a Robinhood account or an or an Acorns account or whatever it happens to be, if you come to me and say, hey, Chris, I want to invest in mutual funds, right? If it's if it's just a retail account or a brokerage account, you're going to have to pay what's called capital gains tax. And that's OK. It's it's not great. I don't necessarily like it, but it is what it is. Currently, there are three long term capital gains tax rates. There is zero percent. So if you are a single person making under $40,000 and below, you are in the zero percent long term capital gains bracket. OK. So if you make low 40,000 single as a single, yep, if you make 40,000 and a dollar up to I think it's five hundred thousand as an individual person, you're in the 15 percent capital long term capital gains bracket. OK. And then if you're single, make five thousand five hundred thousand plus a dollar or more, you're in the 20 percent long term capital gains bracket. Then I mean, getting into the weeds a little bit. There's also something called the net investment income tax. It's another tax that they that the government applies to people over certain incomes, right, the net investment income tax. It's section 1411 of the IRC of the Internal Revenue Code. But so those are the those are the current rates. They've been that way at least since I've been practicing and paying attention. What is going on? Is you so that was even. Oh, I'm sorry for interrupting. Was that and you may not know the answer to this. Was that pre Trump administration or has it just been that way for? I believe I believe so. Now, within this is different. There are income tax rates. That's different, of course. Yep, they have been lowered since the since President Trump. Yeah, he let people's. Oh, go ahead. Yep. So in 2017, there was the tax cuts and job act. OK, done by President Trump and that lowered a little bit of some of the marginal tax rates. Currently, there are seven income brackets on the books today. By 2025, they will go back to Obama era and income rates. OK, so if you're in that top marginal tax percentage on the books today, unless something happens, it's going to go back up from 37 to 39 point something percent. So but talking about long term capital gains again. So there are those three brackets here in the 20 to 15 or 0 percent. OK, Mr. Jeff Bezos, I shot. We shop at Amazon, I think at least twice a week. We have a Amazon box at our at our front door. But so you're welcome for sending you to space. Wish you would have stayed. Jeff Bezos gets around income taxes, right? He's an uber wealthy individual. He owns a lot of a lot of different businesses. I think he, you know, outside of Amazon, I think he owns the Washington Post and a few other things. But Jeff Bezos gets around income taxes by only taking a W to about one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Way less. Maybe it's not one hundred and fifty anymore, but it's way less than his his lifestyle than what he spends to maintain lifestyle. Right. So how does he make up the difference? Well, Mr. Bezos has what's called he liquidates, he liquidates brokerage accounts. So maybe he gets employee stock purchase plans through Amazon. Maybe he gets restricted stock restricted stock units or stock options. But he's got a portfolio. He probably has a portfolio where he liquidates on a yearly basis to maintain lifestyle. So now. So hold on. I just want I want to back up just to make sure we're clear about something that Jeff Bezos does this, but this is also open to every single American. Everybody's able to do this, right? So he has, yes, he has more money than because he created like the best invention of all time ever, apparently. Amazon and I'm not even going to do that. Like you cannot hate that man. Like he created something that makes everyone, everyone's life better. You can hate on that, but whatever. Anyway, but the point is there are ways around paying so much in taxes available to every American, whether you're a business owner or anything. Like there's always a way to manipulate information. Right. So so we're picking on Jeff. It's easy. It's it's an easy. He's an easy target the last year. I think he amassed a ton like his company. Amassed a ton of money during during the economic shutdown. Again, why I don't like the government and crony corporatism, but whatever, but whatever, I will let you finish. OK, so he's got a paycheck of 100,000 or whatever it is. It's way less than the highest marginal tax bracket out in California. That's that's the point, right? Right. But he's living like he earns top one percent of the of the world. So what is so what he's doing is he's getting around income taxes that way. So the talk is let's tax his investments, right? So let's increase his taxes. Well, if he's making a buck fifty and I haven't seen his W2, so I'm not going to sit here and say it's exactly 150,000. So let's say it's a hundred and fifty. That still doesn't even get him close to the top income of the top capital gains tax bracket at 20 percent. Right. So what is what is happening now is the current administration is talking about doubling long term capital rates going from 20 percent to 40 percent going from 15 to even 25 or 30 percent, in my opinion, that de-incentivizes the average American us here to open those types of accounts and to invest and save for the future. We invest and save for the future so that one day we can live how we want to live without worry that we're not going to be able to live the same lifestyle that we we want to make sure that last we know we don't want to outlive our money. We want to usually it's either one of two things. My clients say I want my I want that last checked about kids kids. Good luck. Well, I want to pass. I want to pass on my my my assets to my children, right, or my grandchildren. So if we're de-incentivizing that, we're going to or if we continue, if people continue to save, they might not live the way they want to live, meaning there could be more drain on the on the government to make sure that people are OK, which means more taxes are going to be coming or or someone else has to change it. I'm not I'm not understanding. Well, and that's why would I invest in the stock market? If whatever gains I have, I know the government is going to take half of. Well, there are some accounts that you can open that the government doesn't have any. They're not going to take long term capital gains, short term capital gains or income taxes. One of those, my favorite type of account is a Roth IRA. So there was a senator, Mr. Roth, who started this now. So the Roth has some limitations. If you're a single person, you I think the number is if you make more than one hundred and twenty eight thousand dollars of income a year, you cannot and you're or you're married filing individually. You cannot contribute to a Roth. You make too much money. If you are married filing jointly, that contribution, that that income limit for for the household is one hundred and eighty nine thousand a year. Now, if you're making call, if you and your your wife are making one hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year, most for most people, the Roth contribution limit, which is six thousand per person, isn't going to get you where you want to get to in the future. So you're going to have to open other types of accounts to live the retirement lifestyle that you want to live, right? Whether you want to retire at age 50 or 60 or 70 or whatever it happens to be. So sorry, forgive me. What am I missing? Why? Does it earn less money? Does it take less out in tax? Does it take no taxes out? So a Roth IRA is a completely tax free investment account. So is that because the money you put in is post tax to begin with? Yes. So after you pay income taxes, right? And you have your paycheck. You can do whatever you want with paycheck. You can, you know, put it to a house. You can put it up your nose. You can, you know, do whatever you want. I kind of your life. But you can take that and invest those dollars. Now, again, a Roth IRA is an after tax investment. So you're paying your fund funding it with after tax dollars and whatever that account grows to, whether you're sitting, whether the underlying investment of the Roth is a money market or an S&P 500 index or an ETF, whatever, whatever it happens to be, all the gains in that account will always be tax free when you pull it out. And so and the reason why we pay capital gains on these other these other products is because we invest in them. Pretax dollars, not necessarily. So a retail account is still funneled, funded with after tax dollars. But the gains in the account that you're going to see are are liable to be taxed. OK, so. Oh, my God, the government is so shiesty. This is like who wrote these laws that allowed. I'm sorry. I'm like, I'm listening to you and I'm going. Like what in the what? What? So we just OK, so you can actually be taxed like multiple times on the same dollars. Don't get me started on inheritance tax either, by the way. Oh, that is. I mean, that is just I want to know what. OK, I'm a swear again. I want to know who was in charge when these taxes were put in place and people agreed to them. Like what kind of shady act? I'm a swear again. Wow, it's really hard not to swear it. Like this stuff makes me mad. I don't understand. Like somebody had to go along with this and say, you know what? We're going to just tax you like three or four times on the same dollars. And oh, by the way, we're also going to do property taxes. So you actually have to pay government rent on your house that you bought and paid tax on. Yeah. OK, OK, I'm calming down. I'm calming down a little bit. OK. So do you have? OK, so they're going to basically they're going to double the capital gains tax. So that's what I'm talking about. Now, some some good news bad news, right? If they double it now. In the state of Texas, if you're in that 20 percent bracket today and they double it on the federal level, not only do you pay federal capital gains, there's state capital gains. And then you add the net investment income tax on top of that. Your your gains are going to be almost halved. Wait, what's the net income investment tax? What's that? So I've got to pull up here. The my God, is that on top of the capital gains tax? The net investment income tax imposed by Section 1411 of the Internal Revenue Code applies a rate at a rate of 3.8 percent to certain net investment income of individuals, states and trusts that have income above the statutory threshold amounts. So if that is if if you are that individual in the state of Texas, you're looking at a 48.4 percent long term capital gains bill. So that's in the women's terms. If you make a hundred dollars on your investment, you sell that investment after a year. It's holding the long term capital gains. You're going to you're going to get to pocket a hundred dollars minus, yeah, fifty one cents, fifty one dollars and twenty cents, fifty one dollars and fifty one cents on your dollar. That is wow. So so what is it? I mean, you probably don't have the answer to this. But then what would it be in a place like California? Because I imagine Texas has lower tax rates than other places. So the I can I had this tax foundation. So on the on the tax on tax foundation dot org. I'm looking here in California, you're at fifty six point seven percent. That would be the highest in the United States. The next highest would be New York at fifty four point three percent. Vermont, for those of us in Vermont, that your number six in the highest rate at fifty two point two and we're one of the poorest states. This is so crazy. Like, OK, I'm getting upset again. It's nice. I'm going to go ahead and it's not. So this is you can find this on on tax foundation dot org slash Biden hyphen capital hyphen gains hyphen tax hyphen rates. So I'll provide this this link to Erica and she can shoot it out. Yeah, put it in the description or whatever. But and that's just on the highest, right? That's that's not most Americans. Again, they're talking about that's not going to be enough to fix the deficit. I mean, I think last year alone, we were spending nineteen billion dollars a day. I saw a sitting senator. I'm going to pick on her a little bit. So if you're a fan of Senator Warren, Elizabeth Warren, I'm sorry. But she said under my tax plan, Jeff Bezos would pay five point four billion dollars a year. Lady, that's going to one of the government for seven hours. That's not going to do that's not going to do anything. So we don't necessarily. We've got a spending problem. We have a spending problem. And that's the thing is, you know, before covid, we had like what, a twenty four trillion dollar deficit? And then we've just spent trillions and trillions of dollars and printed a bunch of money. And I don't think that included the unfunded mandates of Social Security and Medicare. So it was like whatever was on the books was twenty four trillion. But it was really like a hundred trillion if you consider Social Security and Medicare. If you, the viewer want to see something nuts. Yes, to us debt clock.org. Hold on. I'm going to go there in real time. The U.S. National debt, U.S. debt track, U.S. debt clock dot org dot org. Oh my God, the top left number is our national debt. And I've never seen it not climb. OK, hold on. I'm going to share this. I'm going to share my screen. That was disgusting. We were real real time running total. So you can hover your mouse, Erica, over that top left number, that U.S. national debt. This one. And now the national debt outstanding represents the face amount. Or principal amount of marketable and non-marketable securities currently outstanding. Oh my God. That per citizen. So we six grand debt per citizen. That's women and children. So that's for every taxpayer. So that's the people not not not not children. Not young people, not old people because they might not be working or folks on welfare or disability, social security, any of that, right? Well, well, somebody in retirement, if they're withdrawing on a pre-tax investment like a 401k, that includes them. Oh, they would be a taxpayer. OK, so so it does it's it is going to include some retired people. So hey, you. Hey, you watching. Hey, listeners, viewers, you are responsible for two hundred and thirty thousand US dollars of our debt. What would you do with two hundred and thirty thousand dollars if you got to earn it and keep it instead of the United States government? If if you were a if you were a thirty year old and you had two hundred and thirty thousand dollars and you got to invest that until age 60. So for thirty years, yeah, your money would double at least on a conservative basis, your money should double at least three times. So that would get from two thirty to four sixty in ten years. And then from four sixty to nine nine hundred and two nine hundred and twenty thousand in the second decade and then from nine hundred and twenty thousand to one point eight million change, which is about on a withdrawal rate in retirement. That's almost eighty thousand dollars a year without worry. So you can count on at least eighty grand a year. I can tell you, sir, I can tell you, I would do much better with that two hundred and thirty thousand dollars. And here's the thing that's you know, what's actually interesting that you you you you couch it that way, Christopher, because what I just heard you say is I would have a better retirement if I invested myself than paying federal government social security. All right, there is a sitting politician the last five years who has come out and said, I am not counting on social security for myself. Right. That is what the politician who is sitting, who wants to continue sitting as a politician has said. How upset do you think his constituents would be if he went to those constituents to their face and said, I wouldn't count on social security. There are there are I think when social security first started, there were three people on social security per person working. I think is how it went. It broke down. OK. And now there's ten people on social security for every one person working. And is that just because of the boomer generation aging into social security? Or is that because of how they've expanded? So a couple of things in the United States, people living in the United States. Thank God for our health care system. And I mean, you might you might complain about it. My dad's a physician. I tell you what, I wouldn't want to live in Canada. I wouldn't want to live in the United the Great Britain, the UK. I think our health system is fantastic. It's not it's not the best. It's not, excuse me, perfect by any stretch of the imagination. But I think it's the best if you want to get any surgery. If you want to get a non if you want to get an elective surgery done, you can just say there's a check. I'm going to give it to the doctor. They're going to do X, Y and Z. You can do that. You don't necessarily need insurance to do to do anything in this country for your health, but people are living longer, right? So people when my grandparents were their life expectancy was maybe 70 years old, right? Or the generation before them was maybe seven years old. So you think people would be, you know, they work and save. All I have to worry about is maybe 10 years, 15 years after they retire. And now think about this. Let's say you get your career at age 30, you're going to work till your age 65. You're going to work 35 years. You might live to age 90, 95. That's another 30 years. So think about that. You're going to work for 30 years. And I hope you have saved enough for the next 30 years to survive because average life expectancy continues to increase. Well, and that's the sorry for interrupting. That's part of the thing. I mean, it's great that everybody's living longer and healthier in all of that. But that means more costs because you're invariably going to be sick. That means a heavier burden on the system to try to care for you way longer, like 20 years longer than people even lived. Did you say you might have mentioned this and I missed it. But the the way they set up Social Security at the time was basically retirement age to collect Social Security was like two years after your average life expectancy. So basically they expected you to die before you actually were going to collect Social Security. I don't think you're wrong. I don't know that I'm not going to sit here and fact check. I don't remember the exact ages, but I know that the way they said it was that you that you were not expected to live by the time you were going to collect it. And I know that I don't remember the exact numbers, but anyway. And now think about this with Social Security. This is this is a strategy. I sit with my retirement planning clients. I say how many years do you think you can push all Social Security because it's good it's a guaranteed 8 percent increase in pay every year you put it off. So think about that. You're tired at age 60. Yeah, if you can push it off to age 72, you're going to max. You could potentially max out what your Social Security benefits going to be. And then live for the next 20 years on that, right? That's that's incredible. I don't listen. The biggest Ponzi scheme in the United States ever. Bernie Madoff promised his clients 10 percent. The government is giving you a guaranteed 8 something. That's not like that is crazy. So I sit with my clients and say, OK, how can we make sure you have enough funds to push off Social Security as long as we can to make sure you're getting the maximum benefit you can get? Oh, by the way, here's the kicker. Social Security is taxable. You got to claim that isn't that they take your money. They give you money to take it back. This is what I said. This is like how these when I when we when I talk to people about this stuff, I go how is this that is literally double taxation. How is that legal? How is inheritance tax legal? I thought it was specific. Like, OK. So do you guys, do you and your people, you know, you you financial people? Has anybody sat down to do a model or. Or is there historical information from when there were higher capital gains rates? Like, is there a way to tell what we can expect will happen to the market, to retirement plans, to investments in general? Do we have any historical data or any models to predict what might happen because of this? So yes and no. So I can we just we just came out of the biggest 10 year bull market in the stock market history. We've never seen those types of returns. If you would have kept your money in at 08, if you would have worked with an adviser who said, hey, Mr. or Mrs. Client, I recommend you not liquidate these accounts. They will come back because they usually always they always do. Just it's just a tiny thing you would have seen in the first two years. Three, you know, I think it was like if you were in S&P 300 percent returns. Wow. If you kept that until today, I think, you know, it's it's been incredible. It's been absolutely incredible the last the last 10 years. So we can we can try to predict. But I mean, it's it's it's so difficult to see where markets are going with the with the changing economy. I mean, we're seeing more and more frequent corrections in the stock market. Like a couple of years ago, we had Brexit. There was a blip and it came right back last year. We had the covid shutdown. There was a 30 percent decrease and then two months later, it came back up. I think in the last 10 years, the biggest loss. Was from January 1st of 2020 to March the end of March 2020. The biggest run in the last 10 years was April 2020. To June 2020. So we're seeing these we're seeing these more corrections but because of technology and also because of technology, we're seeing we're seeing those those those corrections not last as long as they have historically. Historically, your corrections lasted roughly 18 months, give or take. Now they're lasting weeks to maybe a few months. Well, yeah. But last year, I mean, isn't that just because of uncertainty? Like, oh, we don't know what's going to happen. Oh, OK, we're going to be fine versus like major changes in government policy. So the stock market, it's a really a barometer on the confidence. The United the people investing in the New York Stock Exchange and markets in America, it's there. It's their confidence in the in the economic stability of the United States. OK, if you notice when there's a when there's a when there's a correction when it goes down, if people start pulling out, pulling out, pulling out, pulling out, it really compounds the the downturn of those stock markets, right, because there's less money for them to for those companies to continue to invest and continue to grow. If people put more and more and more and more and more money in there, you're going to see you're going to see the stock market increase at higher rates. So while it has something to do with the profitability of companies, it's also a barometer of the confidence of the individual investor in in the US markets. Well, see, that makes that is actually a really good explanation. First of all, write that down. If you don't already have that written down, you'll write that down. But that just sort of so to me, I'm thinking, OK, let me back up because I'm processing this. So I guess to me, again, if I'm a rich person, especially, say I'm a reasonably well-to-do person and I've got this ex-wife, we don't even have to be that rich. Let's just say I make, you know, two hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year or whatever. And I can and I want to put twenty or thirty thousand dollars a year in an investment. I'm just making up numbers. Sure. If I made two hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year, how much should I invest? Well, is it like a percentage of income? Do people? How do you? So in my conversations with clients, I'll sit there and say, OK, you're making this, how much do you think you want to live on? Like what are your bills? Oh, OK, that's too complicated. OK, so it's a bigger conversation. Yeah, OK, so it's not like, oh, you should invest 10 percent. OK, no, don't listen to me. Well, well, well, well, me saying that you were we're both right. So there's a range, typically, of how you want to live. You should save anywhere from 10 to 30 percent of your income. And that's that's that's the general rule, right? Now, Erica, your your number, whatever it is, might is going to be different than mine, which is going to be different than my client, the clients who I met with earlier today. Right, we all have different incomes, different wants and needs and all this other stuff, right? So it just depends on the individual person, but usually it's between 10 and 30 percent. OK. So let's say I make two hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year and I want to invest 10 percent of my income. So what's that, twenty five thousand dollars, right? So I want to take twenty five thousand dollars and invest it. And I go, OK, I've got this twenty five thousand dollars. I can put it in the stock market or a mutual fund or whatever. And the government is going to be half. Yeah, what's that? Actually, yeah, no, it wouldn't be half. It would be like, what was it, like twenty five percent? So currently, so currently there's so you would you be paying 15 percent? Currently, but it might go up to twenty five or twenty five or 30 percent. Yeah, we just don't know. So if I've got twenty five G's, I can either invest it in the stock market, but I know the government's going to take 30 percent of it, right? If I make two hundred fifty thousand dollars a year, I want to invest 10 percent of my income. The government is going to take 30 percent of the gains that I have on that investment. Or when you sell, right? Right. Or. I can take that money and put it in to real estate or a production company that makes movies. Right. But now you're now you're paying income taxes on that, right? So if you're if you're collecting rental income, I mean, I hate I if you think the potential for capital gains to increase is really bad. Yeah. In the late seventies, early eighties, seventies, early eighties, when four ones became really, really popular, the highest marginal tax bracket was 70 percent. OK, if you were in if you were a household, when was this late seventies, early eighties? OK, so within the last 30, excuse me, 40 years, give or take, right? Seventy percent was the highest marginal tax rate. If you were making a hundred thousand dollars, if you were if you were a couple household making a hundred grand, you were taxed at the 50 percent rate plus because state has taxes too. Right. So if you're if you have rental income, you put that money in a rental income, as you draw on that, yes, you can run off some losses. But if you're taking that as income, there's you're going to be paying whatever tax bracket that now puts you in. Right. In the 1920s and 30s, the highest marginal tax bracket was ninety three percent of income. I don't know what what people ever anybody who agreed to any of this nonsense. If they're still alive, they should be court-martialed. Would it be OK if I shared my screen just for a second? No, can we share screens in here? Can you can you send me what you want me to share? Yeah, I'll do that. I don't think I can let you share. OK, so this is I'm going to send you PDF, Erica. OK, real quick, but we'll continue on. Pull this up. OK, we've we've gone around the hour. So we probably want to wrap it up in the next five or ten minutes. OK, this is so fascinating. I want to talk about everything. All right. Are you emailing it to my personal email? It's the email you sent the invite to. Yes, ma'am. OK. Do do nobody can know. Reply. It's secret, not really. It's really not that secret. This is so fascinating, like. OK, so rental income and things like that. Hmm. Erica, right there. OK, I'm saying it twice, just in case my work email says, hey, you can't. Yeah, it didn't. Yeah, there we go. OK, do do do. That's freaking wild. So what I've sent Erica is historical tax rates, right? So generally speaking, if you're in the lowest bracket, you're not really going to have to worry about it too much. But if you're middle class or or or above, there's a lot to be concerned with. Again, we're operating we're operating in a big deficit. The only way the government can fix that is to either print the money, which compounds the the problem or tax more, which can also compound other problems, right? So yeah, this is going to show you what it's been. I think over the last hundred years, give or take. So there are two colors. There's an orange and there's a blue. The orange is the highest tax bracket. I mean, in nineteen nineteen forty four, the highest that that peak is at ninety three percent. Wow. And so this was all like during World War Two and all kinds of sucky stuff, right? Right. And as you can see, they've come down a bit. But at the very far left of the of the graph, you see them kind of climbing, right? So there's there's another visual I have somewhere deep in my PDFs and falls, but it shows you the tax rates, how they've come down, but how the debt has exploded the last ten years, give or take. And the only way to fix that, again, government's going to come for more taxes, some way, shape or form. Well, and that's what I remember looking this up for something and the debt doubled under Bush, the debt then doubled again under Obama and then it doubled, I believe it doubled again under Trump or it like significantly increased under Trump. Yeah. Well, we didn't think that's that was the problem. Right. So it was like Obama. We went from like 10 to 20 trillion. But Bush brought us from five to 10 trillion or whatever. So they basically just have exponentially. And this is why I tell people all the time, like I. I definitely I identify as a Republican. I identify as a Republican, but not because I think that all the Republicans have done a great job. You know, I consider myself a constitutional conservative. Some might call a libertarian, but they're both parties are trash. They're not good. This is not this is not a Democrat thing. This is not a Republican thing. You know, under this administration, all the Republicans voted along with, you know, all these crazy bills, like they're both just padding their pockets and their friends. The point in time where the U.S. decided we are no longer going to be a manufacturing society, we're going to move away from manufacturing and become a consuming society. Is when things started to go haywire, right? We are the only like our our greatest export is our dollar. Wow. It's not our cars. It's not our energy. It's not our it's it's nothing except our dollar. And you're joking. No, that's that's the most valuable thing on the world market right now is our dollar. Because, again, it's oil is traded via via the U.S. dollar. We've got all these other things, just, you know, international business is traded on the U.S. dollar. And again, as we further destabilize the dollar, it compounds the problem and it puts other countries in a better position. Is this it's see this is why again, I'm just a 30, almost 33 year old financial advisor. Maybe I'm wrong. I hope I'm wrong. Here's the thing. This is what like I hate to be like there's certain topics I've tried to avoid on my channel because they tend to be things that will get you kicked off of YouTube and things like that. But and because I haven't done enough research necessarily to feel like I'm speaking about it. But when when I hear stuff like that, like we're intentionally it seems intentional at this point. That's allegedly I know that those are my words. Allegedly, my words, not yours. Like we're intentionally devaluing the American dollar. And it makes me think of all of those speeches I saw about the great reset, you know, oh, you'll own nothing and be happy and all this stuff that you keep hearing about that is supposedly all in the realm of conspiracy theorists. But then you look at what's happening and you're like. It's just like to me how it's not how. Right. Explain to me how what is going on doesn't lead to the conspiracies being correct. And I mean, I it's I mean, I'm not saying America has to be number one forever all of the time. I mean, I think we should be because we're awesome. At least we used to be. And that's not to say that other people can't be good to. But we are the best. Let's just admit it. And it's OK to want to be the best. I mean, driving for the ideals that were set up by our founding fathers is not a bad thing. This is what I'm saying. Like if we actually had a government that looked like it was supposed to and we actually had some people with integrity in charge anyway, how does it how is this OK? Let me OK, I'm going to say something really controversial. If if if the great reset. Made it so that Americans went back to having a one income household and there was a parent that got to stay home with the kids and raise them and stuff like that. I might not even say it was the worst thing. But when you start messing with our ability to actually take care of ourselves, when you're diminishing our moral authority on the world stage, when you're actually putting people in harm's way, that's not OK. You know, I'm right there with you, Erica, and I've talked to I have clients of all different political backgrounds, right, of different. And that's that's great. I think I think I have a perspective. Like what I what I believe is that anybody from different political backgrounds, we all looking at a problem like. With a different unique perspective. So there's a coke can, Erica, between you and I, I can see one half of it. You can see the other half. It's the same coke can. We just see different sides of the of the coke can. Same thing with issues going on the United States. I have a perspective based on my upbringing, based on my beliefs, based on what I do. You're going to have yours. And I think most people want the best for the United States. What I'm what I'm seeing happening and where I where I have a disconnect with with people on the other side of the aisle, at least fiscally on the other side of the aisle. I hear corporations are bad because they chase profits. Yes, they absolutely chase profits. But if you look at our national debt tracker, you tell me the government's not chasing profits, too. They're spending, spending, spending, spending. Now, here's the difference, right? At least with a corporation, we as a people, we could say we don't like what Nike is doing or we don't like what Amazon is doing. We don't like what Chris Gilberto's widget manufacturing is doing. We're going to take our business elsewhere with the government. You're stuck. Yeah. People are fallible, right? Nobody's perfect. That the people in business, people in the in the private sector, people in the public sector in our government, we don't have the only choice. We have to get those people in the public sector out or vote and to understand what's going on and to say and to stand up and say, I don't think I like what's happening. Show me another option. Yeah, education, education, education, education. And I think what it boils down to is there's an emotion. Politics is so tribal anymore. It's kind of replaced sports, like I would say, right? Yeah. So there's an emotional connection to your decision, whoever you pull that lever for. And if they are screwing up, people take it as a personal attack. Like I voted for this person. I put my faith in this person. This person is not doing what's right. I think that's why there's there might be more more vitriol and more anger and hostility to the other side who was pointing out a problem that's not being fixed on both sides. I'm both left and right. And I'm right there with you. The left and the right, very disenfranchised with both sides. They don't represent me, what I want to do. Something that I was told and I firmly believe this. I'm a socialist in my house. Yeah, my daughter doesn't do anything except look, you eat my food. That's it, right? I didn't have to wipe her bottom. So I'm a socialist at home. In my local area, in the town that I live in, in the suburb of Austin, Texas, I'm a Democrat. I want my tax dollars to better this area. I want my schools to be better. I want my roads, my community. I don't want my tax dollars to go to Seattle or to New York or to Detroit, which is where I'm from that area. I love my city. I didn't choose to live there. I chose to live here in Austin. My in the state, I'm a Republican, you know, I want to be I want businesses to thrive. I want people to be able to to do what they want within reason. And federally, I'm a libertarian. Leave me the hell alone. Get out of my business. It's none of your job. And I believe that socially, too, you know, yeah, go ahead, finish. If you want to get married to whoever you want, as long as you're too concerning the bills, I don't care. Does not affect my life. Yep. I've got, you know, I'm a Christian. I believe that I'm going to answer for all my sins. I have no time to worry about yours. Oh, my God, isn't that the truth? Isn't that the truth? And that was actually a really good way to couch that argument because, you know, I. I don't mind paying for roads and bridges. I don't even mind there being a minimal safety net for people. Like there's certain things I'm willing to pay for. But when we looked at the budget bills the last couple of years and you're sending millions and millions of dollars to the Kennedy Center and for all of this nonsense that is like, no, it is not my job to support you as an artist or you as a musician is your job to figure that out. Now, if I personally as a human being believe that art and music are valuable, which I do and Benjamin and I support things like that, then I will pay for that and I will fund that. But like, why are you taking from me? Why are you forcing me? Think about with all this Afghans, the Afghanistan stuff that's coming out and you hear that, like hundreds of billions of dollars are just unaccounted for. We don't know where they went, that there was all these police forces and things like that that were being paid, but didn't actually exist. Like, you cannot think that the federal government should have more responsibility and more of your money. Like, I just don't understand how people land there. And then they're like, we're going to take even more of your stuff because rich people are bad. Like, what? Listen, and I'm going to pick on another person real quick. OK, but I agree with if you're a lifelong politician, I'm talking to you, but I'm going to pick on Nancy Pelosi because I know I know how much she's worth. So Nancy Pelosi is worth give or take forty four million dollars. I think her salary is about one hundred and fifty hundred and seventy thousand dollars. Let's just say it's one hundred and fifty because I know this argument. Yeah, she made one hundred and fifty dollars a year over forty year career in politics. She would have she would have had to invest in every single penny she made to make forty four million dollars at ten percent rate of return. I'm going to repeat that every single dollar she's earned in politics on the books, she would have to have invested one hundred and fifty grand over forty years to equal getting a ten percent return to equal her net worth right now. There's we we are we are. There's so much bleed over with politics and corporations. And again, it's not true capitalism. And I'm not and I'm not. Yep, you were absolutely correct. You can't you cannot. This is not a problem with capitalism. This is a problem problem with a government that is bigger than its citizens. So when they don't have to follow, they can do in Congress can do insider trading and they do and they get away with it. They are not subject to the same laws that we are. So think about this. The whole Robin Hood fiasco last year with GameStop and AMC, they halted trading on accounts. They just said, you're done. Well, what was happening? Well, these hedge fund managers, you have to have a lot of money. They were best in a hedge fund, which is different than a mutual fund. The hedge fund, they were shorting this stock. They were betting on an thing about this. They were betting that an American company was going to go under. They were betting that this company would go under, that these people that their employees would be have to find new new lines of work. Now, I'm not sitting here saying GameStop is the best. I, you know, I'd buy a game for 50 bucks. They'd give me two dollars and get out of here, you know, kid kind of deal. But I don't like how people can bet against an American company. Why would you want to do that? Why would you not want to help raise up GameStop or whatever company so that they can hire more people so that they can get more people off the government tit and so that they can start thriving? Right. I don't understand. And because it affected, I believe because it affected politicians, dollars and their net worth, they called their buddies, their buddies. At these places and said, stop trading, stop these trades. Dude, I don't I was thinking about this the other day. Anybody that thinks Obama was a great president, I don't understand because I was thinking about all of the all of the disasters that happened under him. And when you have bank bailouts and corporate corporate bailouts, like that is also the antithesis of capitalism. The government is not supposed to interfere. You are supposed to live and die on your own feet as a corporation. Suffer the consequences. And then you heard about them all making these billion dollar bonus a million dollar bonuses and all this crap. And you're just like, why? Yeah, you know, I thought for sure that that would have been like a turning point for people to distrust the government. Like they don't care about you. So in 08, so I'm a Detroit kid, right? Oh, yeah. In 08, you had the big three bailouts. You had Ford, Chrysler and GM bailout. Ford paid their debt back. Chrysler, who was bought by Fiat, paid their debt back. GM still has not paid their debt back. I don't. So I'm almost because it's I know so many people affected who work for those companies. I don't necessarily have a problem with assisting a company that large with that many people working underneath them. But if I got to pay my day in student loans, you got to pay your frickin bill like, go away. And that's what like that company. They made decisions and their union made decisions and all of those people made decisions. And I and I and this is the thing. This is the problem, right? Is we cannot have a government that is empathetic. It shouldn't be. It shouldn't be because there's always going to be winners and losers and the idea that we're going to put people in charge who are going to save these people over here and in order to do that are willing to harm these other people over here. That's a problem, like that's where this is where like my hardcore libertarian comes in where I'm just like, sorry. Yeah, you're going to have to like you're going to have to relocate. You're going to have to find another job. It's going to suck. It's going to be disappointing and it's a wicked bummer. But this idea that you can make me suffer to try to relieve the suffering of someone else. Like that is the that is what is wrong, I think. I think with our government. Thomas Sowell, I said something really smart. Why is it always greedy for me to want to keep my money? Why is it not talked about? It's greedy to want to take my money to give somebody else. Why is that not greedy? Listen, like he's he's brilliant. But, you know, it's kind of wrapping up the whole tax talk we've had. If we were living under the dictatorship of Chris, OK. This is my whole table and so this is your this is your closing. So I mean, take your time. I love the idea of dictator Chris just for the record. But please, if I had the keys of the kingdom. And I wanted to make sure the rich pay their fair share. And I wanted to make sure that people have enough money to do what they want and to live their own destiny. I would get rid of income tax. I would get rid of capital gains tax. You know, I, you know, I started doing federal national sales tax. And you can convince me about a progressive sales tax. But think about it. If Jeff Bezos is living on ten million dollars a year, he's not saving all that ten million dollars a year. What is he doing with it? He's spending that money on every transaction, on every transaction that he's he makes tax it. Right. So now the rich are paying their fair share because if they want more, they've got to pay more. You part you also go to the IRS. You don't want to be the IRS. That that that payments every year to to those employees goes away. Now, Eric, I know it's a little your industry may go away a little bit. Right. But how can you trust me? Trust me. No, people are still terrible with their money. We're leaving a couple of tax. I don't do taxes, so I'll be fine. You CPAs too bad for you. No, anyway, seriously, I would rather have a national sales tax. I think that makes more sense. If I want to live a certain lifestyle that's going to come with a certain price tag, I've got to pay for it. Part of the part of the part of the debate over illegal aliens goes away. I said part of not all of it because now they're paying into the system because they have to pay for food, groceries, gas, all that stuff. I'm not talking about a sales tax on just lunch, right? I'm no, no, no, everything food. Now don't tax food like you're going to tax a Ferrari. Don't tax a Ford like you're going to tax a Ferrari. Right. So some time, some type of progressive sales. Most food isn't taxable anywhere for sales as far as I know. But but I get what you're saying. I still hate the idea because it's a tax. But I get where you're going. I'm trying to marry ideas, right? How can we so would all income taxes go away? Why? Why do we have that? They only came about in the last hard years. What about property taxes? I haven't figured that one out. If you can't get rid of property taxes, Chris, forget it. Well, no, seriously. And no, but I am actually being serious thinking about this. So also people who come over from other countries, if they're just here visiting, right, they already pay a G. Like if they were in a hotel room, they're already paying a G.O. Bond, right? So the city's going to tax a host. There's a hotel room tax. Oh, yeah, there's rooms and meals and then hotel and then, right. But now if they're spending gas, if they're spending on an Uber, if they're spending on Nick Maxon, Disney World, whatever it happens to be, they're going to be taxed on that. So we're generating more tax revenue on people who don't even live here in our system. Have you done the math on this? I have not. I'm just sitting here. I usually have a glass of an adult beverage and talk to buddies about this. OK, I want you to do the math on that. I am really curious. I would be I'd be interested to do the math to see, like, what do we what actually how many dollars are used to purchase stuff here and what a sales tax would be? That is that is very curious. I'm not, again, taxes or theft. However, I am curious. But we all pay for public things. You mentioned it earlier. You understand you don't mind paying for some things in your local area. Yeah, I'm not going to go build a bridge myself. And I don't want to have to go bid a contract out for that either. Absolutely. Like there are certain things that I'm OK with the government doing. But like right now in Burlington, Vermont, they're trying to. I don't know what the word is, nationalizes if they're doing it at the federal level, but they're trying to make it so you can't just hire your own trash hauler. They're trying to make that a city department. So Burlington is so stupid. Their city of Austin, Texas, along in that same vein, I we keep talking because we can do this forever. I know, I know. But government doesn't is not incentivized to fix problems. No case in point, homelessness in L.A., homelessness in San Francisco, homelessness in in Austin, Texas. In Austin, Texas, in Burlington, Vermont. Think about this, the government creates positions probably pays those people six figures called 100 grand. OK, but if they fix the problem, guess what goes away? Their job. Government doesn't necessarily fix problems. You have like like the market. If you are an individual company, if you go around and you figure out what to do, you should be rewarded for it. I'm just saying, OK, OK, we're going to. OK, I'm going to close. I'm really going to we're really going to close here. I just noticed this one number that I want to make sure I point out. Look at OK. Remember, we were looking at the debt information over here. Can people can see my mouse? It's this little box, this first box. Look at revenue per citizen, debt per citizen. So debt per citizen is eighty six thousand fifty dollars and revenue per citizen is eleven thousand five hundred and fifteen. That's a seventy thousand dollar difference. Seventy five thousand dollar difference. We buy per person, spend seventy five thousand dollars more per person per year than we make than we make. Or now I think about it. How many loopholes are there in our IRS system? That's crazy. That is absolutely insane. People are wondering like this is what I'm. If anything is going to break this country, I think it's going to be the debt and the Federal Reserve. You know, you've got your stuffy, fuddy, dutty, Republican thing. Oh, what about the debt, right? But you it's really a problem. It really is. And it's going to come again. I'm going to go back to what I said earlier. It's going to compound as you destabilize a dollar. You can print no money because it means they're worth anymore. Mains that are worth less. Right. Why is Coca Cola bottle out of a vending machine? Fifty cents to a dollar more than it was when I was a kid. Fifteen, twenty years ago, Coke bottle hasn't changed. They're not sticking some magic fairy dust in there. It's the same formula that they've had for a long time. The Coke cans don't cost any more. Just inflation. And the more you destabilize it, the more the worse it's going to get. And and and what's interesting is people want to deride capitalism, but the United States and our capitalist system and our free market has only brought the everyone's quality of living up across the world. So, you know, it's significantly less. I don't remember the exact numbers, but we've basically brought most of the world out of extreme poverty, not just with our economic engine, but with the donations. The we are the most charitable country in the world. And so, you know, when we're going to see more people die of starvation because of the shutdowns that are going to die from covid, our our economy helps literally saves lives and helps keep people alive around the world. And so, you know, this this great reset sounds like a real sexy idea to a leftist, but I just I just they just must not be think they they cannot have a grasp and understanding of what the actual consequence of that is. Or or maybe that or maybe that's the point, you know, they all say we're overpopulated and we need less people. So maybe they want people to die like. I don't know. It's it's very confusing. I mean, this is a terrible note to end on terrible note to end on. But. OK, so that really was I was going to try to like keep talking to recover a good ending, but I'm not going to do that because there is sounding dumber. So there is there is hope there is. Yes. What is the hope? Start your own business, employ some people, stop being an employee. Get out, make the middle. If we better the middle class, I think a lot of these problems are fixed. Yeah, I think the big thing is stop being quiet. You know, if I can encourage people in anything, this inordinate fear to tell the truth or say your opinion is is not going to go well for us. And more than anything right now, we need people who are willing to share the truth and say what is true. And so that's my biggest encouragement for people is, you know, if all of us stood up and said what we really believe, they wouldn't be able to fire us all. We would, you know, people would still have to go to your business because they, you know, not it. It is not as bad as you fear it is, but the bad people are way louder. They're way louder and you think it's way worse than it is. There are way more people who are in the middle or right of center who believe in reason and logic and just want to be left alone. Yeah. So OK, so with me today has been Mr. Christopher Gilberto, financial advisor. I did share your LinkedIn link in the description of the video. So if anybody is interested or needs life insurance or has any questions, what products do you offer? So I can do anything for you, except buy you and sell you individual stocks and bonds. I do most of the work I do is planning. Most of my clients are in some form or fashion working on a plan to get them to be financially free, making sure that they can live the way they want to live. Happy to answer any questions if you're asking for a specific question. Probably need to have a phone conversation, but I'm happy to be a resource for you and anybody else. And they can message you on LinkedIn. Absolutely. OK, cool. And then let me see. So super helpful. OK, so we got you on LinkedIn. They can message you there. They can ask questions and get help. You're licensed in Texas, Vermont, Miami Dade County, Florida, Michigan, Massachusetts, but you can be licensed anywhere. So my viewers anywhere can holler at you and get help. Yep. All it is, it's a stroke of a pen and a check paid to your local state. So that's it. Like that. Is it like this? Is this how you sign checks? All the time. Big check. Yes. Pinkie out and everything. All right. So I'm probably going to bring you back when any of these things change, if we get some new tax laws and they do actually make these changes, I'm going to bring you back so we can talk about how it's affecting investments, retirement and all that good stuff. Fantastic. OK, hold on with me there, Christopher. While I close out the broadcast, we're going to play the little theme song for everybody because it's awesome.