2026 09 30 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 defund darkness and fund the light by investing with Biblical integrity. It is winning Wednesday folks and we're happy to have you on this winning Wednesday. Craig Halgard, our faithful financial issues ag reporter is going to join us a little bit later in the show. There's a variety of issues going on, including some pretty concerning things happening in the state of Minnesota. We'll talk about that a little bit later on. But it is winning Wednesday. Sethi Densky, Samuel Case here with you this morning. Mark Manilo, of course, on vacation. Spray for him for a great time for him rest and relaxation. But we are excited to be with you today. 6, 10, 3, 6, 3, 11, 10 is the number to call in. We'd love to hear from you folks. 6, 10, 3, 6, 3, 11, 10. Sam Raider, rock and roll this winning Wednesday.

1:01If I have to. If I have to. That's right. It's going to be a good time. Hey, listen, it is the last day of our year end campaign folks. This has been a wonderful campaign. We have raised a lot of money. We had a big day yesterday. We have right now, if you go on to our website, you can see our numbers right around 90,000 or so. The official number is actually closer to 100,000 based on some pledges that we've received. So we've got about $60,000 to go to be able to hit our goal today. Now we believe that we can do that folks. We really do. But it will take all of you to come alongside us. So one more time, I'll just ask you, if you feel the Lord leading you to give to help us with this ripple effect, as we seek to impact the world for Christ, go to financialisews.org and make a donation today. And the highest donation that we receive today, once again, we're doing this one one more time. You want a lifetime partnership to FISM where you never have to pay another cent to be a partner with the ministry, give the highest donation today, the highest dollar amount today

2:03and you will get that lifetime partnership with financial issues. It's a great gift. And of course, we'll throw in our special financial issues mug as well, our stewardship mug, the exclusive FISM stewardship mug. All the goodies. Exactly. All the goodies go to you. So highest donor today gets a lifetime partnership and the mug. Don't miss out on that. And to be here with you today, folks, the markets yesterday were down slightly. The Dow Jones was down a quarter percent. S&P was barely down. The NASDAQ was pretty much flatline and the Russell 2000 was down slightly as well, not too bad overall. It has been trending down where these last couple days for the markets, but seen a lot of green in the pre-markets this morning, which is nice. Looks like we did get some inflation data out this morning. The feds preferred gauge, actually. Lighter than expected. Hmm. So, Sam, I feel like we've been saying that a lot, actually, that it seems like things might be better than the news media is telling us. That core headline inflation, what are those numbers? Yeah, this one is, let me just get this here, making sure that I'm getting this correctly here on our site here.

3:04So this is the consumer price index. Again, this is the feds preferred gauge of inflation. And it was up 3% or so in the month of August. That was much lighter than what was expected by the so-called experts. So that's good to see that there. Hey, Sam, we did get jobs numbers out right at the end of the show yesterday. Can you just give us those numbers there as well? Yes, sir, not too flashy, but all things considered pretty good job opening 7.1 million in the month of August down slightly from 7.3 million in July. Meanwhile, hiring's 5.2 million workers found new jobs in August basically unchanged from July as well. That's been the main narrative coming out of these numbers. Basically everything's pretty flat here from the month before. Overall, the US job market remains steady with about 80,000 jobs added per month so far this year. And of course, we'll get a much deeper look at the job market on Friday when September payroll numbers are finally released. Awesome. So stay tuned. Yep, definitely stay tuned for that. One quick correction I need to make on my part.

4:04It was the PCE numbers. That's the feds preferred gauge of inflation. PCE is that one there for us. Sam, thank you for bringing those job numbers to us. And I know, like you said, we'll be seeing a little bit more about this on Friday when we get those payroll numbers out. But I think overall, good things to see. Speaking of good things, it is winning Wednesday and we have a triple threat winning Wednesday today. A lot of good things happen. And you know, folks, listen, before we get into this, let me just say Sam and I were talking before the show about the not all conservatives do this. Okay, let me throw that out there. But there is a tendency among our political contingent to just be doomers and gloomers and say it's all over. Our country is lost. And we're here to tell you that is simply not the case. You have a country worth fighting for. You have a world worth fighting for actually. And most of all, you have the Lord of glory, the King of Kings on your side. That does not sound like doom and gloom to me. That sounds like it's in the conservative character, though. And it makes sense because the whole point of conservatives is they want things to basically go unchanged with little exceptions here and there. And they can see disaster around every corner.

5:05They can say, hey, if you pull on this one thread, there's a potential that the entire suit's going to unravel. And you need people like that. It can be helpful. But take into extremes, it's basically just paranoia. Exactly. And so there's a lot of good things happening, folks. Obviously, we do need to temper it with wisdom, understanding that there are troubling things in this world, but there's good things too. Sam, let's start with that first one from the state of North Carolina. What's going on there? Yeah, for our winning Wednesday, winning Wednesday, yeah, our winning Wednesday wrap up in North Carolina, church baptize almost 500 people, 458 people. In one day in September, the largest baptism for that church in its 137 year history, the pastor said the day had a number of powerful stories, including people in wheelchairs being carried into the lake to be baptized. Also, some cases where children were being baptized and the parents of the kids were so inspired by the obedience of their children that they were like, gosh, Jarnat, I'm going to get baptized too. So that's so awesome.

6:06Meanwhile, other good news, a new report found that Christian couples report higher marital happiness than secular couples. 79% of Catholics and 74% of Protestants said they were very happily married compared to 66% of secular couples. So about a 10% difference there. Religious couples also reported, according to that survey, more children, lower divorce rates and greater sexual fulfillment. Not funny that all those things are correlated there when it seems like the world is telling you otherwise. Sam, I love what you said there. I wonder why Christians have more satisfying happier marriages. Oh, maybe it's because Christ is at the center. I'm no genius. Anyway, that's awesome. That's right. Yeah. Finally, other good news. Oklahoma, this is a court case, federal court, temporarily clearing an online Jewish school to participate in Oklahoma's Charter School program. Now why am I talking about a Jewish school? Well, this has been an ongoing issue of whether there can be religious charter schools at

7:08all. There was a case before the Supreme Court with a Catholic school. And I believe it ended in a tie. The school, because Amy Coney Barrett recused herself. So it was a four, four decision there. So this still is an up in the air issue. So so far, the court decided in this case that the school can receive state funds. Well, the lawsuit continues. It's a positive direction for this case, but it's not over yet. If it succeeds, this Jewish school will be the first religious charter school in the country and will open the door for other religions, including Christians to open schools of their own. Love to see that, Sam. That is awesome. Yeah, folks, listen, this is really good news here. I mean, look at this. You've got family. You've got marriage being upheld. You've got children being baptized, which then leads to the baptism of their parents. That is an amazing thing, Sam. By the way, I just wanted to point out there, you know, the statistics are generally speaking that when families come to Christ, it's usually because the father comes first. But occasionally you get you get it inverted.

8:08You get the child coming first. I know of people who the children of the families came to Christ and that then inspired. It was it was a ground up. It inspired the parents to then come to Christ. That's amazing to see there. And then yeah, with that charter school stuff also, how awesome to see that too. Seriously, I mean, that is amazing stuff. But folks, I think the point with all of this and frankly with winning Wednesday in general is we want to be able to highlight good things that are happening, good things that are happening and they are happening. We're gaining ground as we say often on this show. So so cool to see that praise God. There's a battle to be fought and it's a battle for the truth. And we're here. Financial issues is here to fight that battle and we need all of you to do it. I believe we're winning. I really do. And some folks in the chatter, maybe you disagree with me. Maybe you think I'm just a what would be the word overly optimistic, foolhardy, maybe. Oh, you know, so he's always pie in the sky. Absolutely. I mean, a happy, go lucky guy, right? No, but I mean, the proof is in the pudding, folks. So praise God. Good to see all of this happening here.

9:09Right here. Nell said, be careful what you ask or Islam's all through religion. They'll be getting state funding too. Fair enough. Fair enough. But you know what? Here's the deal. Nellson, and you know what you're exactly right. Islam does not have the Lord and King of the universe on their side. They worship a false God. We have King Jesus on our side. We absolutely do. He is not going to lose. His church is not going to lose. We will prevail. We absolutely will. Certainly, we will prevail in the new heavens and the new earth. That's the hope that we all have. And I also believe that we're seeing great strides and victory being made down here right now. So we can't stop. You never want your answer to be, well, maybe we should preach the gospel less because then other bad people might have some advantage somewhere else. That's not a good math equation. Exactly. Exactly. You know, we had Brian Mumbert on the program last week. And I had asked Brian, Sam, you remember this question? I asked Brian, you know, why do you guys basically like, why do you know, how do you guys navigate the criticism of people who say, stay out of the culture ward, stay out of the culture ward? And Brian said brilliantly, it's not a culture ward issue.

10:10It's an issue of stewardship. You've got a country to steward. You've got a family to steward. You've got a church to steward. You've got a neighborhood to steward. You've got a world to steward. Be a good steward. And if Christians, all Christians together become better stewards. If we honor God with what he's given to us, we're going to see things like this happen. We're going to see these wins. And we love to see that, folks. And we want to see more of it. 610-363-1110. We'd love to hear from you. Give us a call up next. Craig Halgard, our financial issues ag reporter, given us great stuff as he always does. You don't want to miss out on that. If you've got questions for Craig, by the way, stick them in the chat right now. We might be able to get to them. But you're going to have to throw them into our chat right now at financialissues.org. We'll be right back. I have been following the advice of FISM for at least eight to ten years. I've been well educated and informed by this ministry and all things financial.

11:10610-363-1110. Love to hear from you today, folks. Hey, I want to share some really great news with you, speaking of one more win on winning Wednesday. We just had an anonymous donor who is pledging a donation today of $5,000. That is amazing. Thank you to that anonymous donor. That is absolutely awesome. If you want the chance at a lifetime partnership, folks, you're going to have to beat that. That's our highest donation today so far. That's a real good one. If you want that lifetime partnership, what you got to do, make a donation, financialissues.org. We'd love to be able to bless you with that. You know what? We'll tell you what anyone who donates today, by the way, any of the mugs that we have left, I'm sure we have a lot. We'll make sure to give those to you. You've got to make a donation today. We'd love to be able to do that. 610-363-1110. All right, folks. We have our ag focus every week. Our Ag Report, daily Ag Report, of course, on our website. We believe this is a very important part of our ministry.

12:12The financial world is not complete. The understanding of it is not complete without an understanding of the agricultural world. That's why we have Craig Halgard, our financialissues agricultural expert, coming on our show periodically to talk about this. So grateful for Craig and his wisdom. Craig, it's great to have you back on, brother. Welcome back to the show. I appreciate that. Always a thrill to talk to a man with your intelligence and brilliance. You know, Craig, all I can say to you is I needed that. Thank you so much. I'm here for your money. Thanks, buddy. Don't encourage him. I have to deal with this all day. That's right. The feeling is mutual, brother. Hey, Craig, one thing that's mutual as well, speaking of which, is our hatred for government overreach. I know you and I both hate that. Many of our audience members do as well, especially as it pertains to agriculture. I can't think of perhaps a worse thing, except maybe the church that I would say the government needs to keep its sticky paws out of, but somehow it seems to wriggle its way into all those areas. So there was a story recently that you shared with us, Craig, about a deer farmer who is

13:15fighting for his farm survival because the state of Minnesota seized it. Can you tell us about this? What is going on with this? Well, they didn't release. Seize it, but they put laws in effect that basically eliminate deer farming in the state of Minnesota. When this started, and it kind of came to a head, I believe in January of this year, when the US Supreme Court refused to hear the case, it had been appealed all the way up. But they put in the effect laws that make it, if you're a deer farmer, you cannot sell that farm. You can only pass it on one time to a family member. And you have to ask yourself, if you have children and you have an asset that is going to be worthless after you pass it on one time because they're not going to be able to pass it on or sell it. Who wants to hang that on their child, right? So it really spelled the death of the deer farming in the state of Minnesota. When they started down this road, Minnesota had about 600 deer farms, and today they're

14:16down to about 80 of them left. They're being forced out of businesses, the result of the state of Minnesota's actions and lawsuits against them. Craig, how was the state allowed to do this? I mean, I know you had mentioned that the appeals kept going all the way up to the Supreme Court, and sadly, I think the Supreme Court didn't do its job and taken the case. But how was the state even allowed to do this? Well, and that's where it gets really interesting, and I think it has broader implications to the animal agriculture for sure in the United States. The way that they approached this was that back in 2009, they found a chronic wasting disease positive animal on an elk farm in Minnesota. Chronic wasting disease is a disease. Some were similar to mad cow disease. The difference is the mad cow disease can be passed on to humans. Chronic wasting disease, there's never been a case, and they don't believe that it's transmittable into the human population. But it is fatal to deer and elk and that type of animal.

15:20And it's a fairly nasty disease. Well, they found this one animal on a farm in 2009, and then in 2010, they found a wild deer with about two miles of that farm that also had chronic wasting disease. And so they used that to start to take action against deer farms, saying that deer farms were the source and it was spreading into the wild animal population and decimating them. The interesting is after that 2010 case of the state, the Minnesota then tested more than 5, 4000 wild deer around that farm and during their surveillance period and found no additional positives. But based on the fact that there was a chronic wasting disease on this farm and on the fact that a year later they found an animal about two miles of ways that also had a wild animal, they made the case that the spread from the deer farm to the wild populations for a particular reason. So we need to protect the wild population. We need to eliminate deer farms. And that's kind of how they got the ball rolling and what's from there.

16:24And Craig, you know, this is whenever I see something like this that's a specific state issue, my first question usually is is this happening elsewhere? And that's my question for you. Is this something we need to be concerned about that could spread beyond Minnesota? I think we need to be concerned about it. At this point, it is not spread beyond the state of Minnesota. In fact, there's a federal program to help that it's a voluntary program, but to certify a deer farm. And this was way beyond what the federal certification standards were as well. So it appears in this case that this Minnesota, I would argue with an agenda that they're trying to portion. And this is the way that they've attacked it. At the end of the day, people in St. Paul and many apples do not like deer farms. And I'm kind of ambivalent about it. I mean, for the listeners, the main ad be familiar was that it seems like there's really three sources of income that come out of deer farms.

17:26Number one, there's a big market for doe urine, which if you're a deer hunter, you probably understand the use for that. And secondly, they worked very hard on creating genetics that allow them to produce bucks with huge amers and in large racks that have a certain appeal to a population. And then they do high fence hunting. And I'm a deer hunter. I love hunting deer. High fence hunting is not something I would do, but I guess I'm not morally opposed to it if you want to do that. But there's folks in it that just wanted to eliminate that whole industry. And I think they found this is the way to do it. Now where I do think it has implications broader is that in the appeal level, appearing before a three-judge panel, one of the judges asked the state of Minnesota, I think it was the assistant attorney general, the comment was, you know, twice in a state's brief, you said there's no constitutional right to farm.

18:29Is it the position of the state of Minnesota that legislature could? If they wanted to entirely ban the raising of livestock and not violate the Constitution. And response was basically, yeah, that is our stand. So if we look at them seizing on credit-wasting disease as a reason to eliminate deer farming in the state of Minnesota, you could argue that we know that there's bird flu, right? That is infecting our flocks of birds and can also be transmitted to wild birds and vice versa. Could you eliminate poultry farming? Could we eliminate egg production facilities or turkey growing operations? Because that's potentially transmittable outside of that farm. Or as we've been following the new world screwworm, if you have new world screwworm that you show up in your feedlot, does that mean we should ban cattle feedlots? Because that can pass to deer or wild animals as well.

19:30So it's, I guess it'd be the slippery slope argument, but once the state or the government grabs that power to ban one type of agriculture, and in this case, we're very clear that in their mind state, they do have the power to ban all animal agriculture, should they so choose. I think that's kind of an alarming road to start heading down. It is, Craig. And for those in our audience who might be farmers and ranchers, or maybe they just have a little farm at something like that, how would you counsel one of these folks who hears a story like this and thinks, uh-oh, is the government going to come after me next? Are they going to take away my livestock, my agriculture? How would you counsel those? Well, I think that we know there's power and numbers, that there's farm groups out there that are working really hard, and I know government is in politics of a pretty dirty business, and a lot of times I think there's a lot of folks who would prefer just to not get involved,

20:30with that I do think we need to be involved in groups that are going to fight for our rights, and in agriculture there's groups like Farm Bureau and others out there that are doing that, so I get involved with that, but also when these types of things come up, contact your legislatures, and let them know that you're out there and really be proactive in defending your way of life and your business. Yeah, absolutely. Hey, Craig, we got a question from Brian and Missouri in our chat. He's asking, what is the solution to increase the cattle population in the United States? And could the government help with funding for that? Now maybe that'd be a good thing that the government could possibly do. What do you think, Craig? You know, that's a really interesting question. The problem with, well, there's several issues. Number one, it's a slower build up that herd, right? Yeah. By the time you have a baby, a heifer, and get her old enough to produce a calf,

21:35it takes time, so there's that going to be a real quick turnaround. The other thing that there's obviously is fighting against that right now is that it's just so profitable to sell cattle that guys are making the V decision that, rather than keep that in the heifer back for breeding purposes, I'm going to take the money now and push it through the feedlot and get that cash. Now interestingly enough, we're seeing it go the other way with dairy farmers where milk production is, milk is pretty cheap right now, and really if you had to produce milk and make a living on that milk check, it would be really hard, but we're seeing dairy numbers increase. And the reason we're seeing dairy numbers increase is they can take that calf that is produced in the process of milk production and put it into a feedlot and get a higher price, the normal for the dairy calf. So it's been kind of interesting we're seeing it. High prices keep deep numbers, I would argue, Dowler, keep that heard from building as fast

22:39as you normally expect. And at the same time, we're seeing it keep dairy numbers probably higher than we could expect based on the economics of milk production, because the value of the calf that's being produced, you know, yeah, the government could subsidize that and incentivize that, and we know that money can make things happen. I do get kind of nervous though anytime we get a government program that's going to produce, trying to produce an outcome, right? That makes me a little nervous just going down that road. I think that is potentially a, it could be a way to address the problem. I guess I would prefer to let market forces put themselves on. It's just going to take up maybe a little longer than people would like. Craig, you're the man, brother. We appreciate you so much and we're so thankful for your faithful service to our audience and providing us the information we need for the Ag update. Folks, that's Craig Hougard, our faithful financial issues agriculture expert. You can listen to him every day with his Ag updates on financial issues.org on the FISM app. If you have to leave us,

23:43hope you have a great rest of the day folks. Number 610-363-1110, stay tuned. I just wanted to call in and say what a blessing you all are. It's so easy. Some of you keep it to you. I don't know why people don't become partners. Always the pleasure to have Craig on our show folks. Hope you go back and listen to that segment. They're really good stuff that Craig shared as always. Hey, today's show brought to you in part by our friends over Crossroads Kids Club. They're doing great work in the public schools, reaching children for the gospel. ReachOurSchools.com is the place to go there. ReachOurSchools.com. One more win for winning Wednesday, Sam. I'm always honored when this happens and I don't say this to be self-serving but rather to say praise God and I'm so glad that other news outlets saw it worthy to publish some of my work in our work here at the ministry. But I just got an article published on the Christian post. The title of the article is Netflix's Narnia is an attack on

24:46Aslan's Christ figure. And this is a piece dear to your heart right now. You're a big Narnia. As our chat folks know, Narnia is special to me. I mean, I just love the story. I think it's such a good supposal of the gospel. And I'm the weird one who has probably read all of Lewis's work except for Narnia. I've read like two of them. Interesting. Interesting. I mean, it's just a maze. This is classic Christian literature up there with Lord of the Rings and different things like that. And so basically the point of this article is to point out what Netflix has pledged to do and how dastardly it is. So if you've missed it, if you lived under a rock for the last several weeks, Empire magazine came out with a picture of Netflix's imagining of Aslan, the Christ figure in Narnia. And of course, the big news was that Aslan would be voiced by a female actress, Merrill Streep, who I actually think would be much more suited to play the white witch. That's just my opinion. I mean, you know, I do too. It actually means that as a compliment. Yeah, absolutely. Very good in that role. And they're saying they're basing Aslan off of

25:47David Bowie. Listen, I love David Bowie, but he's not Jesus. Yeah, she's nothing like Jesus. Absolutely. And so this picture that Empire magazine put out was one of the face of Aslan and it's clearly transgender. Androgenicity. Clearly androgenic. You have rainbow colored whiskers, different colored feminized eyes. And so Christians, including myself, have rightly called this out as this is an attack on one of our clear Christian figures. This is a subversion of it. This is what the enemies of God try to do is they try to win a war of attrition of sorts for the heart of the culture by attacking Christian figures and turning them into whatever they want them to. And what we see clearly from the scriptures is that our God does not change. Okay, Christ, he is a man, the God man, not a woman, not transgender. Jesus Christ, the son of God. Aslan is called the son of the emperor beyond the sea. It's a clear proposal of Jesus Christ. And so I make the point in this article that this is an attack on Christianity itself. And we have to

26:48stand against this. Of course, if you're close to our ministry, you know that Netflix in terms of Biblically responsible is about the worst of the worst. It is not a company that you should invest in. Whether you want to have a Netflix account is an issue between you and the Lord. I don't have one. I'm not giving them a single cent of my patronage dollars. And I would applaud anyone else who would make that decision as well. Because we don't want to fund the companies that actively hate us. And so that's that's what that is there. I'd encourage you all to check that article out. Sam, is it on the newsroom? Seth, is it on the newsroom? He asks this because I'm the one who posts things on the newsroom. Yes, it is. Yeah, so you go to the top of the page, newsroom. It should be right there. Got the big old picture of the lion. That sets article. Be sure to comment too because he's been stirring up a firestorm with you. Absolutely. Absolutely. A gondor calls for aid to call to another Christian fantasy line there and Rohan will answer the FISM army. We'll answer. I'm excited to see that. Yeah, go ahead and check that article out. It was a joy to get to. It's talking rolling in his

27:50grave because you're blending. Because I'm just doing Lewis. Yeah, yeah, they're probably bickering in heaven right now over allegory in the proper use of it. Anyway, 610, 363, 1110. Hey, guys, let's get to this question here. This is one that we've received multiple times here. Carl is asking it. We actually just got a call from Ken and Arkansas. He was asking the same thing. But here's the question I've received a tender offer from Stern Ruger. Should I accept or decline? So we actually talked about this last week, Sam. And we actually have a clip rather than let me try to surmise it. We're just going to hear from the man himself. Mark gave a great answer to this last week. So why don't we play that clip, guys, of the answer to this question? Mark, what are our options and your recommendations on selling or holding RGR until it settles with Beretta? What do you think? So many jokes in there. But we're going to get serious here for a second holding RGR. Okay, so let's get to the roots of this. Let's get the root of this first. It's not a full buyout. RGR is still going to remain after they buy into it. Actually, they're just taking a bigger hold into it.

28:55That's all they're doing. They want to, they want to own as much as 25%. That's all they're doing. Now, maybe this is the beginning of a multi-year process where they want to own the whole thing. But right now, they just want to own 25% of RGR. So in doing this, what they did is they took a stock that was marginal right now with us and they caused it to rise drastically. So effectively, anybody who wants to go ahead and take this offer, which is still, I believe even today, a couple of bucks higher than what the market price of RGR is could do that. And then they could come back 30, 60, 90 days later after this is all done and RGR drops possibly because it's not being ran up by this buyout or this purchase offer and it drops back down and rebye it at a better price. Now, we don't talk a lot about strategies like this often. But when somebody offers you a premium for a stock and you have

29:59the opportunity and a high probability of being able to rebye it again later at where we would consider it a more reasonable price, why not? Why not, sir? That's right. So Carla, hopefully that can help you out there. I think Mark's wisdom is really good and I'd encourage you to follow it there. I think it's pretty simple there. Actually, if you go on to watch that, you'll hear me ask Mark and kind of follow up there. Hey, so can we still buy into it if it's going private because it's a private company and Mark made the point that it's not actually going private, but it's just a private company is buying a lot of shares in it. It's technically not a buyout. Exactly. It's technically not a buyout. Yeah. So all that to say, Carla, it's a decision between you and the Lord, but I think following Mark's insight, there would be a great thing for you to do. 610, 363, 1110 folks do help, you'll consider making a donation. Again, the final day of our campaign, I was going to hold this, but I'll go ahead and say it. I don't like to make a big deal about this because I think I think it's kind of an icky thing for men to do to make big deals out of the birthdays, but today is my

31:00birthday. I thought you meant just to have birthdays. This men should have birthdays. It's embarrassing. It's rude. Don't make a big deal about it. If you want to give a birthday gift to me, make a donation to financial issues. That was all all that I was going to say. So yeah, do that, financial issues.org be a great thing to do. Sam, let's get to Denise's chat there in Virginia. She's bringing up something real interesting and this was from Harkening back to our conversation with Frank Gaffney on Monday. It's continued in the chat on Tuesday about Islam and kind of what we need to do with it. What's Denise telling us? Yeah, so this has been an ongoing chat as you said about Islam and whether or not it's a religion, basically because of its political and military aspects too. She said, Nelson, I was just thinking that this nation needs to define Islam as a government and quit falling for the lie. It is a religion. Now Seth, you have some strong opinions about this. What do you think? I do and listen, Denise, I like your sentiment there. I think our nation needs to come down hard on Islam and treating it governmentally, meaning we as the nation need to wield the sword properly,

32:03as Romans 13 clearly dictates that a nation that is governed by God should do. I would disagree, though, that it's a lie that it's a religion. I think Islam is fundamentally a religion and I think we're we would be foolish to call it anything else. These people are deceived into believing a false religion created by a false prophet worshiping a false God. The story is that Muhammad was visited by the angel Gabriel. He was definitely visited by someone. It was not the angel Gabriel, though. I could tell you that. It was not anyone on our side. It was probably a demon or a host of demons who deceived him and then led him to leading billions of people directly to hell by following a false false God. It is fundamentally a false religion that does work out as a political system. I think, Denise, if I may be so bold, that could be a lesson for us as Christians. We are fundamentally what we do. Christianity, the Christian faith, fundamentally is a religion. It is the true religion,

33:07but we also have to be politically conscious. Now, I'm not going to get any deeper with that because I know that can get real hairy into conversations about Christian nationalism and all things like that. But all I will say is this, and I'm not the only one to say this, by the way, and these are not radically right-wing views, I believe that the best form of government is one where the Christian worldview is upheld. And if by believing that, I get labeled a Christian nationalist, fine. Sounds good. Well, the founding fathers would agree with me. Yeah, absolutely. It's not that complicated. That's not the accuracy. Yeah, absolutely. I think there's a lesson for us there that, yes, absolutely, Islam does operate very much in the political sphere, but they are driven. The heart of the matter is that they are deceived religiously. They're deceived religiously. They worship a false God. They don't worship the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus is part of their worldview, I suppose, in some sense, as a prophet, but he's not worshipped as Lord, therefore, it's a false religion. So I think it's really important for us to see this for what it is,

34:09but I like what you're saying there, Denise, in that we do need a government that's going to treat Islam as it should be treated. I think that's absolutely true. Interesting comment there, Denise. And you might have a follow-up there as well, folks, in the chat. I might be getting eviscerated in the chat right now. I don't really know. I'll have to go look and see it right now. I was told Seth not to read his comment. That's exactly right. So folks, listen, if you want to give us a call, the number is 610-363-1110. I'm grateful that you all are with me and Sam here on this winning Wednesday and again, the final day of our fiscal year end campaign. Can't stress enough how thankful we are for all of you having given, having donated. We plowed through our monthly soldiers goal. We're over 50. I think 53 is the number we're at right now. So all of that, we're going to start the new year very strong. We can't thank you enough for that. We've got one more segment of financial issues on the other side of this break. Don't go anywhere. 610-363-1110. The opinions and recommendations expressed on this program do not necessarily represent the opinions

35:29of the station or any of the program sponsors. Additionally, all products or services offered by the program sponsors may not be known by the program. Grateful to have you all today, folks. Well, I went into the chat in that break and I was flooded with birthday messages. So thank you all so much for those. It is so very kind. I appreciate them all. There's too many to say thank you to, but thank you to all of you for those sweet birthday messages. That is fantastic. Sam, speaking of the chat, let's get to Thomas' question. He's asking a good one from Texas. The chat. Give me just a second. Oh, yeah, I've got to pull that. Go up. I can always find it here too. In the chat, or is in the notes? It is. So Thomas has got it right here. I'll just go ahead and you want to read that. So Thomas and Texas is saying, someone check and see if P.E.W. is B.R.I. Thomas, I have good news for you. It is clean. The bad news is it might not be the strongest company to get into right now. There is some weak things and

36:32some strong things about it. Some of the weak things, I'm not a huge fan of its profitability right now. It's technicals seem a little bit weak right now. What I like about it is it has a pretty good debt level, relatively speaking. So right now, it's something that we can certainly keep an eye on, but it is clean. So hopefully that can be helpful for you there. But it's not one that we're actively looking at right now to see if it might become a buy candidate. But perhaps we can take a look at that at our next analyst meeting and see if maybe there's some things that I'm not seeing right now in it there. But that's just that's what I am seeing right now. So appreciate that question there, brother. We also have, let's see Robert in the chat, an interesting comment to my comment about biblical Christianity. He's saying biblical Christianity is not a religion. Religion is man made always has been always will be period. Robert, I appreciate your sentiment there. I would counter that just with the one verse in James that just put that in there. I said, you know, I get what you're saying, but James might disagree with you. I mean, fundamentally,

37:35James won 27 religion that gone our father accepts his pure and faultless as this to look after orphans and widows and their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. And this could be an argument of semantics, Robert. I think we're probably saying the same thing. But what we're talking about here, perhaps what you're talking about might be more religiosity or religious rituals or ritualism, but true religion like we just heard from James 127 is living a life that is honoring to Christ. And that is, I would say and I'd stand on this that there is one true religion in the world in its biblical Christianity and all the other ones are false. So there's really only two options, either the true one or the false one and you can take your pick of the false ones. If you want to, of course, we would encourage everyone listening to this show to trust in Jesus Christ as you're Lord and Savior, but it's either one or the other. So, but I think it's an argument of semantics, Robert. I think we probably would stand on the same ground there. What it seems like you're saying is more ritualism, which I would agree with you 100%. That's man made and there's no, there's no true faith in that at all. Not to say that traditions aren't bad or even like the way that we do church, the aesthetics, different things like that,

38:37but those things don't save, do they? Only a transformed heart can bring one salvation that only comes through Christ. Good comment there, brother. I appreciate it. Sam, let's get to this question from Paul. Paul is 69 years old. What is he asking? Paul says, after seeing by alerts, excuse me, by alerts over the last couple months, I purchased a couple stocks, wolf is among them, DLB, EXLS, among a couple. I'm not going to read them all, but says the problem is all these stocks are down for him. He wants to know now, is this a good time to add a bit more to these positions as they're still on the by list. According to my portfolio tracker, I'm not over invested in the categories these stocks are in. I appreciate you guys. So that's Paul age 69. Awesome. Paul, it's a great question. You asked a good one yesterday. We were able to address them. Grateful for another good one. So each of these stocks are on the by list right now, brother. So that means our general conviction is that they're fair game to add to. I love your thinking with that, especially since you're not over invested, you've got some room to add and create some of those

39:40new bottoms that our founder used to talk about when you add into a stock that's down, you're actually creating a new floor, so to speak, which generally can be a very good thing, especially if it's a, if you're a long-term investor, first of all, and second of all, if you are willing to hold that stock for a long time, we believe that that gives you a good chance to be able to enjoy the fruit of those eventually. Generally, Paul, I like that move. Now to help you be as informed as possible, let me just give you some quick facts about each of those that you mentioned. First is wolf, and wolf you said you're down, I think 8% in it. I would say proceed with caution because it's an aggressive buy. It's an aggressive buy. It's sam stock. Just know what you're getting into. We talk about that a lot in the chat. Wolf, wolf. The wolves are hallowing, so to speak. The interesting thing about it is the stock has actually fallen from our original by price, and so the company that was gotten stronger. So it is almost a stronger buy now than what it was when we first put it on the buy list. HPC Data Center leasing now represents 71% of quarterly value.

40:40Wolf also has a 20-year contract that's worth about $19 billion. The state of Kentucky has approved the power agreement necessary for this. For those reasons, again, it might even be a better buy now, but it does behave like an aggressive product. So you just have to be careful in Paul, since you said you're 69, it seems to me like you have an aggressive mindset, which is great. And if you've got good health and you've got a long time horizon, I see no problem with your sleep factor allowing you to be more aggressive than perhaps your average 69-year-old would be. And Paul, I want to say, though, one thing to keep in mind, you say that you're not over-invested in the categories. So a lot of these are tech stocks, I believe. So you might not be over-invested in your overall percentage of tech stocks, but you could still be over-invested in these individual stocks. Let's say 6% of your portfolio is Wolfstock. That might be a little too much. Absolutely. And Paul, did he say that which of his percentage for each of these seem? No, he just said how much down he is. He just said how much down he is. So Paul,

41:42that would be something for you to figure out. Like Sam said, maybe one of those particular holdings is quite large, 5, 6%, that would factor into this decision as well. But assuming that you have room to add in each of them, I see no problem with that. DLB, DLB is one of those companies we like because we're not paying a high growth valuation for modest growth. Outlook, certainly needs watching the growth outlook, but there's a combo of being nearly debt-free, a debt-free balance sheet, strong free cash flow, high licensing margins, a 2.3% dividend. It makes it an attractive one. Who doesn't like surround sound speakers? Especially at a 2.3% dividend. Surround sound dividend. That's awesome. EXLS, a strong business quality, strong growth potential, strong balance sheet. The valuation is pretty full, but it's defensible. That might be its one black mark, is that it's got a pretty big valuation. It gives us some AI data center infrastructure exposure. So that could be a good one for you. And then MLI, that last one, I think you said, what is that? You're down 4% in MLI. You were saying this balance sheet is almost exactly what

42:47we're looking for, honestly, brother. This is exceptionally conservative, as it pertains to a balance sheet. The prior year was even cleaner. So with no, and it's got basically no debt as well, which I love to see, $1.4 billion of liquidity. There's plenty of room for continued capital investments without compromising the growth investments. So Paul, to kind of bring it full circle, each of those positions, I think, would be green lights for you to add to. If number one, your sleep factor allows. And number two, you have the room to add to them both in the sector and individually also. Just keep in mind, especially with wolf. It's aggressive. As you guys know, our chat folks know this is aggressive. They tend to be aggressive. That's right. It's going to go up 9% one day. And it might go down 12% another day. And you just got to live with that. You just got to live with it. Sometimes like we mentioned yesterday, Sam, we talked about the virtue of not looking at your portfolio from time to time. That's the lesson that I've learned this past year, truthfully. You know what I did yesterday, though. What's that? I looked at my portfolio. Sometimes you got to look at it. And sometimes you don't like what you see. And thankfully,

43:50as a long-term investor, those daily looks where everything is in the red, it doesn't matter as much. I'm not selling out of it, barring a BRI and fraction, I'm planning to stay in this, these companies stay strong. I'm staying in them as long as they stay strong. And hopefully they stay strong for 20, 30, 40 years. So you might not have that time horizon, though. And that's why it's got to be so important for you to be able to know what type of investor you are and where you sit as well. And Sleep Factor has a lot to do with that as well, folks. Great question. Paul, appreciate your partnerships so much, brother. Let's see, Sam, I don't know if we have time to get to Steven here. I might save Steven for tomorrow as much as I want to get to it. I just, I just think it might be better for us to save that for tomorrow so that we're not. It's a fun question. It is a fun question. We have to hang it on for tomorrow. Speaking of tomorrow, folks, got another great guest coming on. I'll just spill the beans for you here. Our friend Debbie Woofnow over at I Voter Guide. I always love when we have Debbie on. It's usually not consistent because we like to have Debbie on whenever there's an election coming

44:51up or maybe doing a post-mortem. We got a big election coming up, don't we, folks? We got the midterms coming up. We need to know these different candidate races. We need to know what's going on. These elections are so important. I mean, they're, they're called the midterms for a reason. They're, they're the, they're the next most important, right? In the middle of the presidential term, after the presidential election, these ones. So, boy, we really need Debbie's wisdom and insight on this. A very important election coming up. So she's going to be joining us tomorrow. I hope that you will join us for that as well, folks. It's going to be a good time. Let's take one final look here at the markets. Now that they've kind of digested the PCE numbers that came out earlier, they were pretty pleased with that. The markets seem pretty pleased today right now. So, maybe this is a day you look at your portfolio. Who knows? The Dow Jones is flat. The S&P 500 is up almost a half percent. The NASDAQ is up about three quarters of a percent. The Russell 2000 is up about a quarter of a percent as well. So all good things to see there. Unfortunately, it's green where we don't like to see green, which is oil. West Texas Intermediate is up slightly, but it's

45:53still, you know, it's $91 a barrel, which is down considerably from where it was, I think a couple of weeks ago, Brent Crude Oil, right around 103 a barrel or so. Gold I'm seeing is up a little bit today, silver up a little bit as well. So rather, Ho Hum Day there for those commodities. Grateful to have you today, folks, on Winning Wednesday. Once again, feel free to make a donation to financial issues today as your final day to do it, to be counted in our campaign. Let me just say plus one more day. And it's my birthday. Give the donation. That's right. But don't make a big deal out of it because I'm a man. So listen, we we are so thankful for all of you. Thank you for joining us today on financial issues. Thank you for loving God. Thank you for keeping us going. We've had a great campaign and we are excited to start the new fiscal year with you all tomorrow. We're starting from a place of great strength. Once again, grateful to have you folks. Hope you'll join us again for the show tomorrow. Thank you for investing with biblical integrity. God bless you all. Have a great day.

46:53If we ever forget that we're one nation under God.