2026 09 11 Financial Issues

0:00Welcome to Financial Issues, where we help you steward faithfully by honoring God with your investments. Now listen in as we give you the practical tools and advice you need to become a biblically responsible investor. This is Financial Issues where we help you de-fundartness and fund the light by investing with Biblical integrity. We're grateful to have you here folks on September 11th, 2026 on today's show. Is government-owned capitalism a good idea? Well, we'll discuss shortly. It is focused Friday and it is that an oxymoron. It is an oxymoron. I'm excited to get to that too, Sam. Seth is just like Sam Kays. That's right, I do. Especially the last part. And of course, there he is, your host, Mark Vanilla. Mark, it's great to have you today, brother. I'm excited. It is great to be here. You know, a focused Friday over time. I just love Fridays. More of a free for all Friday, going to the news.

1:01Really is. Get a little crazy, especially at overtime. Hope you all have access by the way to financialissues.org. Slash Watch, best place to watch overtime. Just stay with us as the main show ends over time begins. And the number to call in is 610-363-1110. Again, 610-363-1110. Guys, it is the 25th anniversary, the day of remembrance of the September 11th, 2001 attacks. And of course, our verse of the week, really, it is appropriate for this week. God is our refuge and strength, the very present help in trouble. That's Psalm 46, verse 1. Guys, it is a somber day, definitely, as we remember the 2,977 innocent souls who were killed by 19 hijackers that day. But Mark and Sam, I can't help but feel a tremendous sense of pride today for our great country. And also for the many acts of heroism that we're seeing that day. And so many different ways on flight 93 on the ground in New York and the towers. Just amazing. Yeah. And more than that, I mean, have you ever thought about almost every celebration there is somber

2:07moments in it? You have a birthday. You celebrate, people celebrate that birthday with you. But what that birthday means is you're one close, one year closer to going to the grave. So, you know, every even celebrations like that, wedding anniversaries, you know. 30th anniversary, 50th anniversary. It's like those are all wonderful things. But it also says that something in the future is coming. I'm not trying to be morbid. I'm trying to turn this around. You know, we have 9-11 this week. We had Charlie Kirk. Both of these were really incredibly painful times for the United States. But at the same time, we're celebrating something great. Look where our nation is today. That's the main thing. Look where we are at today. We're still standing. We're still strong. It brought out the best in America when those towers came down. We came together. We came to church. We stood tall. We did everything it was necessary to preserve a country that God started, laid his hand

3:11on and started. And it brought us back to the one true God. Charlie Kirk did the same thing. So though these are somber moments, though these are, can be painful for a lot of people because of the loved ones they lost in the pain and the misery that suffered. We also get to celebrate it. We celebrate what God has done for this country and for all of us. And that we have a one true God. You know, Mark, President Trump earlier this week, he was at a ceremony honoring the heroes of 9-11, making a lot of the points that you were making. And I just have a small clip from that. Here he is. 9-11 nearly 3,000 precious souls were stolen from us killed by evil terrorists at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and on flight 93. All of these years later, we gather on another Tuesday morning in September to reaffirm the sacred vow we made a quarter of a century ago. We will never forget.

4:13We say it and we mean it. We will never forget. It goes on to say we will never forget the tragedy of 9-11, but we also will never forget the heroism that was shown on 9-11, the best of America on display following that horrific, horrific evil. Really, it's amazing stuff. Guys, I'm always struck by the story of the heroic passengers on flight 93. By that point in the day, they knew that there was an attack on our country and Todd Beamer was among them several others. They were Christians. After praying the Lord's Prayer with the phone operator, Beamer said to the other guys who were about to storm the cockpit, he said, let's roll. And that attitude of storming the gates, of stepping forward and courage to fight for what is good, true and beautiful, that's what we have to have. So let's all resolve to do that today. Amen. Amen. Well, guys, let's switch gears here just a moment now. Government-owned capitalism. Is it a brilliant strategy or is it an oxymoron, as Sam said, or is it just an oxymoron? Moronic strategy, not just oxymoronic, but moronic.

5:15So Mark, the federal government is not just regulating American companies. It's becoming more of a shareholder in them. And it could be a smart national security strategy. It may even produce return for taxpayers, but it might also cross a line that should make every believer in the free market ask a serious question. If the government's going to own American companies, who is going to keep politics out of the boardroom? Sam, could you give us a little background on this? Because we've seen a lot more government's stake into U.S. companies. Under Trump specifically, the portfolio, at least it's diversified. It's 30 companies right now, sectors spanning the gamut of steel, nuclear energy, quantum computing, rare earths and semiconductors, notable examples include U.S. steel, providing veto rights. They have a golden share. The U.S. government does in that company. We also have an 8% stake in nuclear firm Westinghouse and a nearly 10% share in Intel, but that's just to name a few of them. And that should maybe put some concern in a lot of people, I believe.

6:19Now, I know everybody listening to the same mark, you've been so behind this administration. You've been proven the media wrong over and over again. You've been going out of your way to help show how this administration is doing the right things. I'm not going to be behind them for this. I didn't say that, although I do believe we need to be very, very careful. Let me explain. We have in the past done things like this, our country, whenever there's a need, a national security could do things. World War II, we did it. There's been other areas. It just seems like it's getting a little out of control now. Not because I don't trust this administration to do it right. I do have hope that they will do it right. And eventually this will work for us. But what I do have a concern with is, is this setting a president for the next administration that's not that doesn't love our country?

7:20What if the socialists get in? Do they just start buying up all the companies and taking control of them? Here's, I think there needs to be guardrails. Maybe there's more guardrails than I know. But even if it's a national, and only this should only be done under a national security emergency. Now, the good news is, I believe almost every one of these buys that, a buy-ins that our government has done has been for national security. If you think about it, needing the nuclear, our Westinghouse nuclear situation. In this day and age, this is really important. Unlike the previous administrations that sold all our uranium to Russia and other areas, we, they're pulling it back in. The materials needed, the rare earth materials needed for AI and all the technology, our government has seen this as a national security issue.

8:22And as such, they're going after materials worldwide and utilizing the full resources in the United States government to make sure we don't get stuck like we did during the Biden administration of having supply chain problems for everything, including masks that weren't needed. So they're doing the right things. I just want to make sure the right guardrails are put on that. Does that make sense? I've always had a problem that there's not more of a process for deciding that something's done in a national security mode. It seems like you can just declare that something's a national emergency, whether it is or isn't. And then that gives you all this different power. I mean, imagine if Democrats get in charge and they declare gun violence, a national emergency, now we're going to take over all the gun companies and basically shut them down. You mean if the auto pin declares? Yeah, yeah, that's right. Well, that's why I believe we really do need to take a look at this.

9:24Hey, Congress, are you watching this morning? It's very important. You get this one. I know you guys have followed us. I saw last night on the on the midterm election. What is it? The Republican first Republican midterm convention that they're saying that the free enterprise system is is so much better than socialism. And that's what they're going to they're going to plant their flag on for the sea election, which is good. And I'm glad you're watching us and hurt us over the last year talking about the house also passing a resolution condemning socialism. Right. And we're glad you're listening to us. Okay. So here, start listening to this. We really need you to realize we respect what you're doing, but you need to put some things in place. Government ownership should not carry authority to dictate things like hiring policies, environmental policies, our political direction and regulators should not be able to favor companies owned by the government. We also need them to stay away from from any power.

10:27And there should be a date on there on when they get out of it because if there's no date to leave it, then they could hold it forever. And then influence could become very, very corrupted. Hey, maybe you got a thought on that six 10, three, six, three, eleven, ten. I'd love to hear from you. There's more. There's more that we should put in place to protect ourselves, but hey, sometimes Congress you got to do some of the work, not just us. 10, three, six, three, eleven, ten. We'd love to hear from you today, folks, on this Patriot Day. You know, guys, not to apologize, I'm switching gears here and I didn't, I didn't alert either of you in the break there that I'm going to say this, but a couple of folks in our chat and mentioned this and I think it's important for us to say it as well that there is some

11:27revisionist history going on out in the education system. The 9, 11 attacks were perpetrated by Muslim terrorists. Okay. Absolutely. Muslim terrorists. Say it one more time. Muslim terrorists. It's God hating, America hating, Muslim terrorists. It is, yeah, the real story needs to be told, folks, has to be told. So just wanted to get that out there, Mark. I didn't get that off my chest, but praise God for his grace on our nation. Are you better now? I feel better now. I do feel better. Let's continue with, with free for all Friday. Amen. Why don't we take a look at the free for all the markets, guys? This September swoon has continued evidently, but the show must go on as they say in show biz Thursdays, bells, all the Dow S&P and Nasdaq all down more than a half percent. The Russell 2000 was down a full percent. However, this morning, a lot of green mark I'm seeing a lot of green. It's like Christmas markets are looking good. And there is a there is red and that's oil.

12:28It was down 3.2%. I'm seeing it at like below 100 at this point. So maybe maybe we'll survive, Mark. We will survive. I don't know. You know, hopefully I have another op-ed out on peak oil. And I know I've talked about it on the air and in our conference call. But as soon as it gets posted, we'll let you know. But I think maybe everybody's starting to read it and they realize that we have pointed out that the king doesn't have any clothes on with this so-called crisis that has happened once every three days in the oil market. Yep. There it is. 610-363-1110. Hey folks, our sponsor for today's show, Samaritan Ministries. I'm going to check them out at Samaritanministries.org. It would be a great thing for you to do to find true good, biblical, health-sharing, a great place to go. Samaritanministries.org. Sam, there was an interesting article that you had pulled up for today's show that the American people are actually much better off financially today, particularly in the

13:30middle class. Oh, that can't be right. Yeah, right. I'm listening. I listen to news and affordability is killing us. The affordability crisis, I know. It's killing us in the K-Shape economy. Everything's wrong. You must be using some bad numbers on this. Well, you can challenge me, Mark. I mean, where this came from was our conversation yesterday about Gen Z and housing and how they're really depressed because they're being told all these lies that they're so miserable and they can't escape things or worse now than ever. So I wanted to look into this and really compare the economic situation from the 1970s to where we are today. So this combines a couple different outlets. One of them being pure research showing that Americans are just so much better off today financially. The medium income of middle-class households when adjusted for inflation reached 60 percent, it increased 60 percent between 1970 and 2022. So when we factor in inflation, that goes from about 66,000 to $106,000 as the median income.

14:34And in fact, all Americans are better off. It doesn't matter if you're rich or poorer, the wealthier households increased by nearly 80 percent and income for lower-class households also grew by 55 percent. Some people were mocking at this article saying, look, the rich are getting richer even faster. I say, I don't care. I'm getting richer too. Right. I'm not envious like that. Exactly. Yeah. Well, that doesn't divide our country if you don't point out certain things that somebody's doing better than you. You know what this really hits me as? I can get so tired of economists talking about the K-shaped economy, how we're hollowing out the middle class. What this is really showing is the middle class isn't hollowing out. It's rising up. More upper middle class have become rich. More middle middle class have become upper middle class. And more lower middle class have risen up to middle middle class. And even the impoverished have risen up.

15:35There's so much less poverty today than ever before. That is what's incredible. And then even our impoverished are in better shape than most of the world's rich people. Yeah. In fact, there are like, it factors in how much money they have, but it's not even looking at their living conditions. What does the average poor person actually have in the United States? I'm glad you mentioned the shrinking middle class because that's kind of a narrative thing right now. Is it shrinking? Yes, but there's a catch because people are just getting richer since 1971. The percentage of the lowest income earners grew by 3%. But the percentage of high earners rose by 8%. So much more people are growing from middle class to upper class than they are going from a middle class to lower class there. Well, let's just boil this down to, if we can, a one liner, the lie about the K shape economy is now busted. It is not the richer getting richer in the poor, getting poor and more people are getting

16:36poor. And that's what's hollowing out the middle class. It's not that at all. Notice that all of America has been lifted up and actually the poor are getting richer. Mark, why do you think people hate that idea so much? Like Sam, you had mentioned it earlier. We seem to get so angry and embittered when we see other people getting richer, even if we ourselves are also getting richer, we focus so much on, well, that rich guy, he's super rich now. That makes me mad. I don't like it. Why is it just good old fashioned envy? Is there something else? Yeah, I've never understood this, especially with like Elon Musk to like, well, now he has $4 trillion. I'm like, and I don't know. I just had a fact in bad. Well, let's remember that not everybody is a true believer. We have our hope in God. We don't worry about these things because we know God's promises and we stand on them. We know that if he needs us to be in poverty, there's a good reason for that.

17:36For ourselves and for God's great plans. And we're honored that he allows us to walk in that plan. If he wants us to be on a yacht, we're what we know that God's got a plan for that as well, for us and for eternity, for everybody. So we have a different perspective. The world doesn't have that perspective. They have no hope. They have nothing to stand on, but whatever glitters or whatever can numb them from the pain of this life with no hope. So they stand on things like I'm a victim and the world is all against me. And it's not my fault. I'm not up there with with musk and everybody else in that top 3%. It's not my fault. I'm a victim. I can I'll just stay here and take government money and do nothing but play video games. But they're told they're being a victim too, which reinforces my idea. Well, I never become Elon Musk. If you didn't have that attitude, you can think, well, maybe I can make something for myself. Do you think Mark some of it too is just a financial literacy problem, this belief that

18:39there's only so much money out there. It's like a fixed tie. No, I do not. I really believe it's all propaganda. There's a reason socialists always tell you you're a victim. There's a reason socialists always tell you that you are being oppressed right now under capitalism, not under free enterprise, but under capitalism. There's a reason they point out all these very rich people that are not socialists so they can demonize them so that you'll come over to their side. You are being programmed to want so that they can move you to under their economic system where they are the elites and the rest of the world is their slaves to produce the goods and services to support their eliteism. Yeah, but that's what it's all about. They know what they're doing. It's evil. It's evil. It's downright evil. It all comes down to the difference between God and Satan. We have to admit that the battle is spiritual and that spiritual is very powerful and we

19:41don't buy into it because we have the Holy Spirit in life. He who is in me is greater than he who is in the world. That's why we can come on the air. We can talk about stewardship instead of gambling. We can talk about godly stewardship instead of putting our hope into all the glitters. We can handle gold and silver. We can do these things without becoming addicted to it because they're not ours. They're the lords and we know the Lord has great, great and perfect plans for all that including us and Ephesians to Tinigan. He saved us onto great works that we should walk in that he laid before the foundations of the earth. This is incredible. We have such hope the world doesn't. That's why we need compassion. That's why we need to be nice. I and Mark, I like that. Yeah. You potential op-ed coming out sometimes. No, but you do. That's right. That's right. But Christians being too nice. Yeah. Wait and see if it'll get placed.

20:42Be on the lookout for that one, folks. I address the what's the so-called 11th Commandment Mark, which I did not come up with that joke. His past and body box, and who's now with the Lord said, most churches follow the 11th Commandment, which is thou shalt be nice. That's obviously nowhere in the Bible. We're told to be Christ like not nice. Certainly we need to be kind. We need to speak the truth and love, but we've got to stand on the truth. Got to speak the truth. That's what we're trying to do here, Mark. It's a joy to do it. Yes. Yes. I can't imagine anymore. And, Seth, I think you and I and Sam, we all have this a little bit of this problem, is that we really can't relate to the world like we could before we came to Christ. Yeah. It's hard to do that because there are times when I look at the world and I do get a little bit depressed, but then his spirit in me says, hey, come on, get up. We got work to do. And this is a beautiful thing. We know who wins. Yeah. Amen, Mark. Especially on a day like today, you know, when we remember the 9-11 attacks, we know who wins in the end.

21:43We win in the end because Christ wins. That's a comforting thought. That's a really comforting thought. Folks, give us a call. We'd love to hear from you at 610-363-1110. Again, the number is 610-363-1110. Mark, several Brian's in our chat asking some really good questions. Brian from Virginia is asking, what happened to all the fraud investigations from Doge and throughout the country? It's so frustrating. The money hasn't been recovered. Fraud hasn't stopped and no one seems to be going to jail. Mark, do you have any comment on that? Yeah, actually, it might be worth our time to do a little deeper research into this. It's not being broadcast. I don't know if that's a Republican flaw or a Democratic over-overloading of the media or both. I, in fact, I wouldn't even call it a Republican flaw because what happens every time the administration does find fraud and they talk about it, immediately 400 lawsuits pop

22:43up against the administration, stop them from reclaiming the money and doing the things. So I think they're doing a lot of backdoor stuff, but some people are going to jail. I've read articles where probably I've seen about a dozen people that are going to jail because of the fraud and right now are being taken to trial about these things. So things are happening and they have recovered billions of dollars, believe it or not. It's just not being put out front. I think that probably we'll see as we get closer to the election, more of this coming out. I'm talking about the next presidential election. How this administration has reduced hundreds of billions of fraud, recovered billions upon billions of money and people have gone to jail on this. Don't get frustrated. It is happening. I know I'd like to see a list of like 400 people who have went to jail because of it. Let me know what you think about this. It's an important topic actually. 610-363-1110.

23:44610-363-1110. If you have to leave us, well, join us on financialisers.org. 610-363-1110. We'd love to hear from you folks on this Focus Friday. Give us a call. Love to hear from you. Guys, we were talking in that last segment just about fraud and what's going on. There's more to this than meets the eye, fellas. Am I correct in that? Well, that's true. Especially when you have these big stories like the war in Iran and the midterm sucking up all the oxygen out of the room. You do fail to notice that every week there's a bunch of stories coming out about JD Vance and his anti-fraud task force taking out operations of fraud. There was a major one involving illegal immigrants. I believe giving them driver's license in the state. I don't remember which state.

24:45Also him working with Dr. Oz and RFK to block Medicaid funds going to various states that are being really bad about fraud. There is stuff going on. If you want to get all the details, you can go to the Whitehouse.gov and there's the war on fraud page and that gives you all the updates of all the different investigations going on. Including the hundreds of indictments and convictions that the White House says their task force has secured. Things are happening and the billions of dollars they have recovered. I remember it was the unemployment role, unemployment insurance. They have tightened the rules and now are enforcing them. So we're actually seeing people applying for unemployment go down and people dropping off the roles of unemployment because they're not looking for work or they're not doing what they need to do to stay on it. There's some, which is really wonderful.

25:48Not alone is reducing the expenses. It may not be, you know, go grab in a dollar out of somebody's hands and putting back into treasury, but it's keeping money from going out of the treasury to these places. There's so much stuff going on. We just need to realize that if they put it out, out front all the time, they'll be spent. They'll be the White House will be buried in lawsuits. Ten times more than today. So they're doing it behind the scenes. They're doing it legally, but they're doing it right. Yeah. Guys, one thing that really comforts me when we talk about a lot of this stuff, even the affordability stuff and things that we're hoping to see the Trump administration really address the fraud as well, I think Trump is playing the long game. I really do as much as I love Trump 2028. And I love how it trolls the lips so much. He's not going to run in 2028, obviously. Someone else is going to run, but he's trying to set the precedent so that whoever takes the man on board, willing to 2028 can move the ball that much further down the field. Mark. Yeah, I agree with you.

26:49And you know, when Vance gets in, he'll just continue carrying that ball. Yeah, there you go. Any lips who are listening now, Mark, you just made their skin crawl on purpose. On purpose. Six ten. Hey, if we can't have fun on the free for all Friday, what's right? And we did. Why are you listening to the show if you don't want to? Exactly. Mark, here's a good comment from Brian and Wildwood, Missouri about some of these things that we're talking about. And I think it's a fair comment. I'd love to hear your thoughts on it. Brian says, sigh, Trump, stop talking about the $5,000 dividend checks. Congress won't pass it, so it won't happen. And your cause playing is a socialist Democrat trying to hand out money that we don't have anyway. Interesting thoughts there, Mark. What do you think? I think, I think you're right, Brian. We don't have the money, but at the same time, we do have the money. It's just going to the wrong places. We should be reducing taxes even more. You and I should not be carrying this budget. This budget is wrong.

27:49This budget takes trillions. I hate saying that term, trillions of dollars. You know what a trillion dollars is? What is it? A hundred thousand? It's a thousand billions. You know what a billion is? It's a thousand million. You know what a million is? It's a thousand thousands. I just had an aneurysm, Mark. I know. It hurts my head to be saying trillions. So effectively, we have two trillion dollars of fraud, waste, and useless money going out of our out of our treasury. That's what we're borrowing. That's what we're overspending. If we would just cut all that back, you and I could keep probably 50% more or 50% of the taxes we're paying right now to the federal government. Or we could get rid of the thing that causes us never to own real property called property, real estate tax. You know, that really, that really aggravates me. I'm looking at, you know, you can have your house paid off.

28:54You can have your, your, your farm paid off, but you're going to have to continue paying rent to the government to the state in property taxes. This is ridiculous for the rest of your life. Thousands upon thousands of dollars. It just doesn't make any sense. How can somebody who worked all their life and believe in the free enterprise system and the freedom of America by house, pay it off and then have to spend half their social security just paying the government taxes on their real estate, which they supposedly own? That's just wrong. I'm sorry. That wasn't what you were talking about, right? But I do believe, I do believe if we continue down this path, we can get in a place to where our government spends no more money than they brought in last year. If we could just set, I mean, that's so simple. Just Congress just do this. Come up with a law that says we cannot spend any more money than we took in last year. And then see if you get elected when you try to raise the taxes or when you try to do something.

29:58This would change everything. It would, it would cause us to have a balanced budget. We'd see our taxes go down. We'd see the debt go down. We'd stop from going over the waterfalls of destroying the dollar. We would reclaim America as a financial powerhouse in this world. Oh, this is a drop the bike moment when that happens. Amen, Mark. Guys, I couldn't help but think, Mark, when you were referring to, you know, a trillion being a thousand billions and just not being able to fathom that, Sam, that was the perfect time for the gene wilder drop from yesterday. That would be appropriate for hysterics. That's hysterics. Not a hundred dollar a barrel oil. Exactly. Exactly. That's funny. 610, 363, 1110. Guys, I don't know if we've taken a look. The markets have opened and everything. There's no hysterics today. They're actually, they're, they're, they're excited. Well, now's the up to, up over one person. Yeah, look at that. Wow. Where's the Russell at? Yeah, the Russell. So the, the Russell's counting mark is like 15 minutes behind.

31:01So I, I have not gotten the latest updates from them. They, they closed about a percent negative yesterday. I wouldn't be surprised if they're going to be positive today too though, as the trajectory of the markets is going. So no one's batting on it. Inflation report. No, they, they're finding it to be good actually. I think most, I think Wall Street is looking at and saying, hmm, this looks pretty good. Actually, core is down. That, that's going to cause the, that's going to cause a lot of the governors there at the Federal Reserve to have that aneurysm. You were just talking about. Are you sure CNBC is telling me right now, inflation persisted in August, potentially locking in a Fed interest rate hike. They want it so bad, don't they? Oh my God. Christmas. I like potentially locking in. Yeah, they do. They do. They do. They do. They do. They do. They do. They do. They do. They do. They do. They do. They do. They do. Our, our conference call yesterday, our partner call, you know, we talked about inflation

32:05and stuff. And as I'm preparing for that, a lot of the stuff that was coming up wasn't saying inflation was rising because it wasn't. It was saying that inflation fear was rising. So they, they'd start this headline, inflation fears rise as the new numbers come out and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's like, so instead of stating the numbers and what they actually represent, they impose an emotion that they have onto it to make it sound like the sky is still falling. We are in a terrible time of language manipulation. It's not just the election year. It's the socialist. It's the, it's the communist. It's the anti-American, anti-God, everybody trying to destroy America. We need to be awake. We need to be conscious. We need to realize things. That's what I'm saying. Never take what they say. Go to the data and then do the comparisons, you know, like I, I've been telling people, the average inflation rate for the last 50 years has been 3.7%.

33:07Where are we at today, Sam? What are we at right now? We are at 3.4. Three point four. Yeah. Exactly. So we're below the average. But how do they report it? Still not down to where the Federal Reserve wants it. They're 1.5% above the 2% where the Federal Reserve wants it. They say, hey, we're doing better than the average for the last 50 years. No, they want everything about this administration destroyed because if they can destroy that, they can destroy America. And then we become all, we all become slaves to the elite socialist. Yeah. There it is, Mark. Absolutely. Hey, speaking of which folks, conference call that Mark mentioned is posted, by the way, on the partner conference call page. Now this is for partners only. But if you are a partner, you can go to financialiscus.org, the partners hub, and click that conference call button. That'll take you right there. Yesterday's call is at the top. I got to say, Mark was cooking with gas yesterday, as it were, that's the official title. So make sure that you give it a listen. It was really, really good.

34:08After the show, obviously, after overtime go back and give that a listen there. And be on the lookout for next month's conference call as well. 610-363-1110. Mark, I do hope that our listeners, listen folks, I hope you're out there. Number one, I know you are. But you're a little quiet today. So why don't you give us a ring? The phone lines are wide open. We love you. We're going to be kind. I'm going to be. It's free for all Friday. We're still going to be, we're still going to be nice. Exactly right. 610-363-1110. You can feel us agree with us. Absolutely. And make sure folks that also you stay tuned financialiscus.org slash watch or the FISM app or our social streams for overtime, which is coming in about 15 minutes. The show doesn't end as long as you've got access to the website or the app or the social streams. So join us for overtime today. Mark, it's going to be a good time. It is. It's going to be an excellent time. And we're so glad you are with us. We're seeing a lot of great comments in the chat. I just wish you guys would call in instead of just keep it among yourselves in the chat. I know our listeners would love to hear these comments.

35:09We only have 15 minutes left of this segment before we go into overtime. Let's fill up that phone queue. 610-363-1110. The opinions and recommendations expressed on this program do not necessarily represent the opinions of the station or any of the program's sponsors. Additionally, all products or services offered by the program's sponsors may not be known by the program. You know, Mark, you were asking about the Russell 2000 earlier. It has opened very handsomely as well. It's actually leading right now according to what I'm seeing, up 1.16%. So nice to see the small caps going up. As you predicted, Mark, which apparently no one else saw except you.

36:10Pretty funny to see that there. 610-363-1110. Mark, why don't we get to it? Well, we have some breaking news here. So we just came in from our research desk. It's crude oil is dropping 3.58% just this morning. So that means below 100. What means the crisis is over? The crisis is endless. The sky has stopped. The people that were starving in the street are eating again. People are still get to keep their homes. Everything's going good again. What's that a little bit more news? Oh, yeah, but that's just for today. That's right. It'll be back up over 100. Oh, oh, something else. They're saying that it's on the same calendar as an Iranian deal. I wonder why. Boy, what a coincidence. That is crazy stuff. Mark, you have good sources, Mark. You can do, Mark. They're on it. Here's a good question, Mark, from John. He's saying, Mark, I'm curious about which type of account different types of investments would best go in such as ETFs? Are they better in the non-qualified account, aggressive stocks, better in the Roth?

37:12Would you help me determine which type of investment is best suited for which type of account? John, you're bringing us down back to the earth again. But of course, I would. What you're talking about is called asset location, not allocation, asset location. It's a little bit different from asset allocation. It's not just deciding what tone, but where to own it. That makes a lot of sense, actually, because taxes do matter. I mean, well, I don't know if matter is right. Taxes do hurt, right? So I wouldn't make a blanket statement like ETS belong in taxable accounts or aggressive stocks belong in Roth, although they do good in those. Instead, I'd look at how the investment is tax. Is it expected growth, how much income it produces and when you may need the money? A general principle, I want tax-efficient investments in taxable accounts. So if you're in a state of life in your portfolio where you're using treasuries or munis or

38:16something like that, that have better tax-efficient investments tax sheltered or taxed, you may want to put them in a taxable account. Investments, other investments, like something that is going to grow profusely, yeah, it would be good to be in a Roth. Actually everything would be good in a Roth, but we can't put it all in there. We're limited the amount of money we can contribute to a Roth. So we need to start with looking at the taxability of it. So general best suited for tax-efficient investments is a taxable non-qualified brokerage account. For a traditional IRA, you know, you often it's good home for investments that regularly produce taxable income. Possible candidates might be taxable bonds, bond funds, reeds, higher turnover strategies or certain high income investments.

39:17A Roth IRA, I particularly like the Roth. Obviously, I say it all the time for investments with strong long-term growth. Possible candidates would be growth stocks, smaller companies, mm, like those in the Russell 2000 we've been talking about. Growth oriented ETFs and others. So dividend stocks, it depends on the dividend. A qualified dividend stock may work very well in a taxable account. So I wouldn't just because it has a dividend throw it in a Roth. If it's a qualified dividend, you get a little benefit there. So a simple way to think about it, taxable account, tax efficient investments, traditional IRA for a 1K tax efficient income investments were taxed deferrals valuable. Roth investments with strong long-term appreciation potential. Safe money accounts, they're fine, they're fine for liquidity, you know, your money markets and stuff like that.

40:18But don't let your taxes drive your portfolio. Only when you can be as efficient as possible, but don't make decisions just based on taxes. In fact, the decision you should make is up front. You should decide up front. Uncle Sam's going to get a part of this one way or another. I just need to realize that if I don't have any room left in my Roth, I can go to my IRA. If I don't have any room left in my IRA, IRA, then I need to take those things that are more tax efficient and drop them in the taxable account. I hope that helps, John. That's a good strategy, Mark. Appreciate it. 610, 336, 311, 10. Folks, we got the lines open. They're staying open because we got overtime coming up soon. Mark, we got a call coming in from Wesley in Idaho. We're going to go to Wesley. Wesley in Idaho. Well, welcome to the show. Wesley, glad you joined us this morning. What's on your mind? Well, what's on my mind is the reason why these media outlets are doing the paramount reason because fear is the opposite of faith. So they're saying, oh, we're entering interest-free increases instead of, oh, we have faith in God

41:23that everything will work out. That's the whole point behind that. It tells you who they're backing when they tell you whether or not things are fear-based or faith-based. Also, as far as politicians go, they really are never talking about things that matter. Like for me, something that matters is, cool in the world is going to get rid of day-like savings, so I don't have to get up and now we're earning things up. Now we're talking Wesley. Let's stick to the important stuff, Wesley. No, you know, Wesley, you're just showing how smart our listenership is. You're nailing it, actually. It all comes down to if they don't, if you don't have Jesus Christ, if you don't know God sent His Son to die for you, to pay the price for your sins, for your rebellion, for your rejection of God, then you don't have eternity. If you don't have eternity, you don't have hope. If you don't have eternity through Jesus Christ, through what He did for you, then you don't

42:25have any hope and you don't have, as you have, is despair and that's what the media uses. So Wesley, you're right on with that. This is a battle, a spiritual battle and it starts right there. The more we can share the truth and love of the one true God, the God who desires, none to be lost, but wants all to come to Him and made it possible that we could do so. And it's not, we don't get there by what we do, but what Jesus did for us by just accepting that and turning around and hugging and grasping that. That's all we have to do is accept that free gift of salvation. When we do that, we have the Holy Spirit in our life, which then counters all the lies and counters and gives us discernment to be able to see through all that craziness. You're absolutely right, Wesley, especially about the daylight savings time. And you know, Wesley, it's so important what you brought up as well because so many people

43:25you got to ask the question, who do they run to when a crisis comes? For many people, they run to the government. Christians have somewhere else that we run to. We run to Christ. We run to God for our strength, for our source of help, for our comfort. And so I do think that a huge part of the fear mongering is because fear causes people to be able to be more easily controlled and manipulated. What do you think? Well, yeah. Well, yeah. I don't want to. Well, Wesley, we're so glad you're listening and participating. We're so glad we have such quality partners and listeners here at financial issues. Thank you so much for calling in. You'd be blessed. You too, Wesley. God bless you, brother. Folks, if you're like Wesley and you want to give us a ring, you can do it right now. 610, 363, 1110. Again, that's the number to call in. Hey, Mark, a quick question here before we go to overtime. Steven from Oklahoma is asking from an income perspective, which model provides more income? Is it the fund model or the regular FISM income model?

44:28Well, you know what? On one hand, I think that's an incredible question and it needed to be asked. On the other hand, it's like, unfortunately, there's no answer to that because there's no universal answer because financial issues, models, income model determines allocation, not the exact security you own. Your actual income will depend on what you choose within those allocation models and your personal sleep factor. So if you lean real conservative, you might buy into those income products and the growth products that lean more to preservation that they do to growth in larger income. If you're a more, if you're sleep factor is a lot sturdier, you may lean towards more aggressive fixed income, like using the other day, there was a question about one of the preferred we put on the buy list that was just below investment grade rating by fitches. So you may lean in that way because it has an 8% income level.

45:32So it really depends on that. So we don't dictate the individual holdings. The income model provides an allocation framework. Your security choices determine the actual yield on it. So the bottom line, I can't say one automatically produces more income than another. I do like the TPIF. I do like, you know, and also on the other side of the coin here, the different income, you know, the Timothy plan income funds, each one of those has a different yield as well. So we got too many variables to be comparing. If you could tell me exactly what's in your portfolio, I could compare that or you could compare it to the yield into the different Timothy plan mutual funds or ETF. So compared the projected income, then make sure the risk required to produce that income fits your sleep factor. And I think you'll be okay, no matter which one is better. I do appreciate you wanting to do the best you can. That's what stewards do.

46:34And that's what all our partners, listeners, watchers do here at financial issues is they do the best they can with what God has given them. And they explore their choices so they can make those great decisions as a godly steward. We're so glad you're with us. We're so glad you love the Lord and that you invest with biblical integrity. And we're so glad that you are going to stay for over time. You got about a minute before that happens. Stay with us. If we ever forget that we're one nation under God, then we...