 Because, because when you look at inflation, when we look at where we are economically and we are in a strong, we are stronger economically than we have been in history. When you look at the unemployment numbers at 3.6%, when you look at the jobs numbers, more than 8.7 million of new jobs created, that is important. Yeah, there you just saw White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre tell reporters that America is stronger economically than we have been in history. Yeah, let that sink in for just a sec. She makes a statement like that, but isn't apparently aware that millions of barrels of oil we released from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve have now been sent to foreign countries? And then there's a Reuters report out this morning that says that more than 5 million barrels of oil that were released from the emergency oil reserves were exported to Europe and Asia last month. And some of it, reportedly, was actually heading to China. Is the administration aware of those reports? And does the president mind that some of this oil that was meant to ease paying for consumers is headed overseas? I have not seen that report, so I would honestly have to go look into it and see what the truth is in that statement that you just laid out and see exactly what's happening. I just have not seen that report. All right, joining us live now to discuss your money, CEO and founder of Stock Swoosh, Melissa Armo and CEO of Saatchak Wealth at Terry Saatchak. Good to see both of you. Hello, Mariana. Good to see you. So the Biden administration sold roughly a million barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to a Chinese state-controlled gas giant that continues to purchase Russian oil. Just stick with me. A move the Energy Department said would support American consumers and combat Putin's price hike. The Biden administration claimed the move would address the pain Americans are feeling at the pump and help lower energy costs. More than five million barrels of oil released from the U.S. emergency reserves, however, were sent overseas last month. Again, according to a Wednesday Reuters report, at least one shipment of American crude went to China, this according to the report. They also claimed that the Unipack sale would support American consumers in the global economy in response to Vladimir Putin's war of choice against Ukraine and combat Putin's, again, price hike. But as the war rages on, Unipack has continued to purchase Russian oil. In May, for example, the company significantly increased the number of hired tankers to ship a key crude from eastern Russia, this according to Bloomberg. Melissa, gas prices have soared to record highs mid June. The national average for a gallon of gas well surpassed $5 for the first time ever. Still, the White House assured Americans that they need to pay high gas prices to support, this is a new term, the liberal world order. Just want to start with you, Melissa. Does this make any sense to you? Well, I think it makes a lot of sense to the administration. I don't think it makes a lot of sense to the American consumer because this isn't exactly what people bargain for. And I don't even think that people that voted for Biden thought that this is what would happen. So, of course, again, if you listen to really what Biden was saying and what the left part of the Democratic Party was saying, they really want to move away from fossil fuels. And maybe someday we can, but we're a long way from that right now. The fact is that gas prices could be up over $6 by the end of the year. I mean, at this point now, there's no stopping it. And the problem is that is what is causing the high gas prices, the high diesel fuel prices. That's what's causing the high inflation we have for food and literally everything else that we buy. Because every single thing that we buy gets to the stores or gets to your house and a truck. And therefore, the well has to go in the truck. It's really diesel fuel that costs have gone up so much. So I think that this is a problem. Going into the end of the year, the Fed thinks they're going to curb a recession or inflation by raising interest rates. But that's not going to bring down the cost of oil. And if we continue to do things like this, it's going to make the problem worse going into 2023. That's a problem for the Democrats in the midterms. But really long term, the next two years, it's a problem for the Democrats going into the next presidential election if they can't bring gas prices down for the American consumer. Well, speaking of getting worse, it just so happens. Hunter Biden, again, that's Joe Biden's son, has a stake in the company that the U.S. sold the oil to. So according to reports in 2015, a private equity firm that Hunter Biden co-founded bought a $1.7 billion stake in CinePAC marketing, the company wholly owned by the Chinese government that we just, again, sent our oil to. CinePAC went on to enter negotiations again to purchase Gazprom, the Russian gas giant, and in March one month after the Biden administration sanctioned the Russian gas giant. Very little has been mentioned about this at all, Terry, and I'm not sure why. What is your reaction that it's just being kind of, again, you just heard the White House press secretary, she wasn't even aware of these reports, and it wasn't just the Associated Press, but Reuters, Bloomberg reporting about this oil going overseas to China, let alone they haven't mentioned any connection that it may have to the president's son. Why aren't some of the mainstream media outlets reporting this? Because they're in the tank for Biden. I mean, they're all left-leaning organizations. I mean, just look at what happened during the election. I mean, they suppressed the laptop story. One thing after another, they killed Trump for four years. The pharmaceutical companies came out two days after the election and announced they had vaccines. This is all just one big effort to protect the elite regime, and so they're not going to do anything until they're forced into it. What I was hoping for, and even right now I'm not sure it's looking as promising as it was maybe a couple of months ago, but man, if Elon Musk had gotten a hold of Twitter, if he can get that deal across the finish line, I think that's going to be a huge shake-up, but I can tell you that the entire machine is doing everything they can to make sure that doesn't happen. Well, right now it looks like that may be in jeopardy reports of layoffs going on at Twitter right now. We'll continue to monitor that, but the jobs report also came out today that's making headlines, and it actually seems like it's a bit of good news for the Biden administration. So unemployment, again, according to this report, remains steady at 3.6 percent, and the economy added reportedly, again, 372,000 jobs, which is above, well above, the 270,000 that was actually forecasted for June. But there are 10 states that have lost the most jobs since the pandemic began. A preliminary analysis from the Brookings Institution shows that New York, your state, Melissa, has lost almost 300,000 non-farm jobs since March of 2020, but in states like Florida, where I live, we're seeing a record high surplus of, I don't know, $21.8 billion for the fiscal year. Just to put that in perspective, that's the highest in the state history. So, Melissa, your reaction to that jobs report, does it really paint the whole picture? And again, you're a New Yorker. What are your thoughts on this report? Well, as you know, a lot of people left New York, and specifically Manhattan, where I live, and money can talk and walk, and it traveled and went to Florida, but I didn't leave New York. I don't think it was anything like New York, and there's no place like New York, and so I tried to stick with it. I think people that left to Florida probably will regret it at some point when New York City actually finally comes back, but that being said, the state and New York City lost a huge, huge revenue base because obviously they lost a lot of that tax money. And one of the nice things about Florida is I will say they have no state income tax, and New York City has a separate income tax on top of the state income tax, and then you have to pay federal. So if you live in New York City, you actually be free taxes. So people left, and with the people working from home, there were many people that still have companies in New York, and they're allowed to live in Florida and work from home or really anywhere in the country. So it's a problem if you don't have people to where they have to be in the office, and that's heard. Urban cities, other cities besides New York, and cities like Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco as well. But as far as today's job report, going back to what you're saying, we can actually be at almost full employment. I mean, we can be closer to 3% than 4% at some point in the next 12 months, and we could still be in these high levels of inflation. And again, even though raises have gone up, they're not going up as much as inflation. So raises have risen about 5%, but inflation is like 8.6%, but for some goods, it's over 20%. So people are getting back to work because they have to work to pay for things. But you can't discount the fact that still a lot of people left the work for since COVID, and they have not come back. That's not accounted for in the numbers. And they want to tell the fact that this unemployment number is great and they've added more jobs. The fact is that these are just jobs being added back when Trump was president anyways to begin with before COVID. That's an interesting point that you make. Terry, do you agree with what Melissa said in regards to this jobs report that it's just basically people going back to work after the pandemic, that it's nothing necessarily to be celebratory about, especially when you consider high inflation, which you mentioned 8.5%. And a lot of places, a lot of goods way higher than that. Yeah, they're taking a victory lap. But what they didn't tell you is that they revised the two previous months downward by 75,000 jobs. So it was really only a net increase of about 30,000 jobs. And if you look at the number of people that are of job age and then you subtract the 750,000 fewer that are in the labor participation rate, we're actually like four to five million jobs or four to five million people that are just not in the labor force that aren't getting counted. So if you really look at the unemployment rate, theoretically, it would be much higher than that. And some of this is down graphics. The baby rumors are getting older, so they're not going to be in it. But there's a whole bunch of young kids that just don't want jobs. And if you go back to the New York and the San Francisco and the California, the biggest part of that is people left those states, not necessarily just because of taxes, but because of the draconian lockdowns and the terrible policies. And they went to free states like Florida where they could live their life without the government running roughshod over them. So this unemployment number is not good. And it's a lagging indicator anyway. So I think what you're going to see, and by the way, because that number, they're taking a victory lap on it, all that does is give the Fed even more fuel to continue to take this monetary tightening. And it's not about interest rates. It's about liquidity. They are sucking liquidity out of the system. And that will manifest in the second half of this year, I think is going to be very ugly. The market hasn't bottomed. The economy is not anywhere near bottomed. We've got a slog ahead of us and it's not going to be pretty. Yeah, I've heard reports of that. And I know it sounds like a broken record. So I'm going to ask each of you this question. Melissa, we keep hearing people go back and forth. We're in a recession. We're not in a recession. Even reports saying that this is going to be worse than the depression, that we're going to see more interest rate hikes, signs that the housing market has cooled down. What is your prediction for the next year? I think it's going to be a rough year. I agree with Terry on that. Between now and the end of the year, I don't think the market makes a brand new autumn high. We're too far off the highs from now to make it in the next six months. We're starting earnings season next week. And what does that mean? It means companies report their earnings. And I think that their outlooks for the next quarter is going to not be so good for many of these companies. Because, again, people are spending less money. What is a recession? What happens in a recession is that people don't spend as much money. The economy slows down. And that's really not good. I mean, the whole reason that Trump did so well in his presidency before COVID was that we had a booming economy. People were working and they were spending. You can't have people hoarding money and never spending it. Then how are businesses going to make money if people don't want to go out and buy wash machines and furniture and everything? Then all these things are going to slow down and you're going to see that in the housing industry. First of all, I think the housing prices went skyrocketed pretty much all across the country that could not sustain itself. But with interest rates going up now, people are changing their mind. They're backing out of contracts or backing out of deals. They can't afford to buy as much. That's a slowdown for the banks. Banks are falling, bank earnings start next week, JPM, Wells Fargo, all of these banks report next week. And I can tell you right now, it's not looking good for them because they make money lending. That's how they make money, lending and fees. And people are going to borrow less because they're not going to be able to afford as much. Number one, people are also scared. When people are scared, they don't spend money. That's not good for the economy. Terry. Yeah, I tend to agree. I think the one thing that keeps getting missed is that as a result of COVID, we pumped $6, $7 trillion into the economy through both fiscal and monetary means. And that money's gone now, right? And so to Melissa's point, it's not just that consumers aren't going to be willing to spend. It's that in the credit tightening process, liquidity drives up and there just isn't as much money to lend period. So if you take that, coupled with consumer spending habits that are changing and getting more conservative, we've got a recipe for disaster. In my opinion, we have not seen the bottom of the stock market yet. Typically, the market kind of bottoms 112 days before the economy bottoms in a recession. And so we haven't seen a market bottom. We haven't even really begun to see the teeth of the recession yet. We're by technical definition in a recession, but the earnings recession hasn't even started. And that's probably going to come in the second half of this year. So if I were the Biden administration, I would not be taking victory laps right now. I can tell you that. Well, it's the greatest in history. I joke. But speaking of COVID and spending, taxpayers paid $4 for every dollar in wages and benefits received by workers and jobs saved by the federal government's pandemic paycheck protection program, PPP. So according to a new study by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, they found that the PPP didn't support jobs at risk of disappearing and money flowed disproportionately into wealthier households. The people who conducted the study wrote that the PPP was a very large and very timely fiscal policy intervention saving about 3 million jobs at its peak in the second quarter of 2020 and distributing 800 billion well within two years of the onset of the COVID-19 crisis and added, but it was poorly targeted as almost three quarters of its benefits went to unintended recipients. We hear about this time and time again. Even when the money was going out, Melissa Terry, I've talked to both of you about this. If you weren't working for six months, $1,500, $3,000 wasn't going to save you from anything. And then to find out that some of this money didn't even go where it was intended to go to the people was intended to go to. I mean, how discerning is this for you, Melissa? Well, first of all, the government, I don't think investigated or had that had even the wherewithal to investigate where all the monies came from. So that's problematic. If you remember back when they did the first round of the PPP, many, many large corporations got the biggest chunks of the money, which didn't even need it. It was supposed to be originally for small businesses or medium to small businesses. Then they had to do a second round of PPP. So who's to say where all the money came from? You heard some of the horror stories and some of the companies that were even supposed to give money back. Did they give money back? Did the money go to the employees? Who knows? But the fact is here we are two and a half years later. And at the end of the day, you know, I don't think it's ever going to come to pass that it really is investigated where the money really was supposed to be spent and who was supposed to be given to him. All of that money pumped into the system was supposed to be to support people that were out of work. But I think one of the things that I disagree with President Trump with was shutting down the economy. He took the advice of people that he thought was giving him good advice. Fauci was one of them. And, you know, looking back now, hindsight's 2020, would President Trump make the same decisions or a different decision? I don't know. But I think we should never have shut down the economy. Still, a lot of people died from COVID. And I think people not going to work and people losing their jobs affected people, more people than the amount of people that died, in my opinion. Terry, I'm going to have you react real quickly to that, but also in the short time that we have remaining. And again, any advice real quickly that you could give our viewers who are concerned, right? I mean, they're seeing these jobs reports, but they know they're paying X amount of dollars. It's triple what they were paying a year ago for gas or whatever it may be. Any advice that you have real quickly on that? Yeah, I think cash is king right now, right? It's build up your emergency savings. One thing I would do, and this is, I don't mean to scare people, but I still think it's not a bad idea to stock up on some food. Even if we don't have any food shortages, the reality is you're going to pay less for it today than you will three to six months from now. And inflation will eventually roll over, but it's going to take a little while. And in the meantime, I think we're going to see a number of job losses and other things. So I would build up a cash reserve and be conservative. And that's not going to help the economy necessarily, but I think it's good. Just individual, you know, individual advice at this point. Last 20 seconds to you, Melissa on that. Do you agree with that cash is king? Cash is always king, but the fact is you can't stop spending. You know, I, I like to spend money. I'm going to continue to spend money and I'm a single person, only in one refrigerator. I can only buy so much if I buy too many things and hoard them, they're going to go bad. So I mean, you do what you can. We have to liberalize every day. We can't liberalize over here. Can goods and ready made meals just sorted out their protein shakes. Those are good. They do last quite a long time. All right. And all seriousness, thank you both for your time. Greatly appreciate it. It's great to see you. We'll be right back when we share your voice next.