Trump’s Taxes, Tariffs, Immigration & the Market

0:00 Welcome to something more with Chris Boyd. Chris Boyd is a certified financial planner, practitioner, and senior vice president, financial advisor at Wealth Enhancement Group, one of the nation's largest registered investment advisors. We call it something more because we'd like to talk not only about those important dollar and cents issues, but also the quality of life issues that make the money matters matter. Here he is your fulfillment facilitator, your partner in prosperity, advising clients on Cape Cod and across the country. Here's your host, Jay Christopher Boyd. Thanks for being with us for an episode of something more with Chris Boyd. I'm here with Jeff Perry and Russ Ball, both from our team, the AMR team at Wealth Enhancement Group.

0:43 And today we're talking a little bit about what the new administration taking office momentarily. We're, we're talking about what some of the Trump anticipated or discussed topics when it comes to taxes, tariffs, immigration policy, and so on and so forth. We're going to talk a little bit about that. And I get this asked a lot from clients and who come in to the office inquiring, what's your take? You know, how should we be thinking about some of these issues when it comes to the markets and you know, just positioning of portfolios and so forth.

1:26 So I thought that would be a fun topic for us to talk about before we got even started, Jeff's got me all riled up, ready to jump on all these topics and get fired up for our conversation. I think you were riled up before we started talking out there. I think you came in, I think you came in this morning, ready, looking for a fight, quite frankly. Loaded for bear, huh? Is that what it is? All right. I don't know, but it's passion. That's what it is. So let me start off with a few things and then we'll dive in. Okay. So, you know, I think big picture I've been, when I've asked, been asked this, I've been saying that, you know, overall right now, the economy is pretty good.

2:07 Yeah. You know, general, general strength. Um, when we think about, uh, the, uh, uh, new administration, the expectation is that tax, lower tax rates that we have under the tax cut and jobs act, which has a lower rate of tax for corporations and, uh, it's a lower income tax rates, uh, that take longer to get into the next rate. So, and a higher standard deduction. So generally, I know this isn't always the way people talk about it, but in most instances, people pay less tax income taxation, um, across the board.

2:48 So, um, that would be beneficial in that consumers keep more money to spend and, uh, corporate, uh, or, you know, earnings there's less taxation. Therefore, there's more going into either the, the shareholders get more of a profit or they're going back into research and development or whatever, maybe. So that that's generally on the plus side. I think additionally, uh, you'd argue from a business point of view, from a profitability point of view, the expectation of a less burdensome regulatory policy, uh, we can debate whether that's good long-term policy or not, but from a profitability point of view, you'd expect that to be on the plus side for, uh, markets and for shareholders, for businesses to do well when it comes to, um, on the other side of the, you'd expect the possibility of tariffs being, and I only want to talk about this in a little more detail in just a minute, but you'd expect that to be on the negative side.

3:55 Cause that's an added cost. It's a drain, uh, on the economy. Then you'd have, uh, the question of, uh, deportation. Uh, you know, there's been a strong, uh, argument for stronger order control. I think also, I don't think there's a lot of people opposed to that personally, but, um, the issue then becomes, uh, what do you do with the people who are here illegally? Uh, I expect there'll be some sort of a big show of some deportation, but I think that the idea of mass deportation becomes really impractical and challenging.

4:36 So it's, again, there's all these things that were, uh, markets, I think are making assumptions, how much is rhetoric, how much is positioning and what's actually going to be implemented is to be determined, right, to be seen. But in the meantime, generally, uh, I think the market expects that there's some of these things, but not everything that's been talked about, uh, in, on the campaign trail. And so I think the market seems to be responding, saying all the good stuff mostly, and not, not so much about the worry stuff. Uh, so in any case, uh, that's sort of where I've been trying to set up the positioning of when talking with clients about here, here's what it looks like, but we have to be watchful of what happens and how this will affect the economy.

5:28 Let's start with the topic of tariffs, because we were talking a little bit about that before the show started. And I think it's really important that we understand essentially how a tariff works. So, uh, essentially my understanding is if a, uh, tariff is applied to, let's say China, we're going to apply, uh, you know, 10 to 60% on the goods from China. Well, the president's, the president Trump has been very clear on that, that where the starting point with China is 10%. So these are, this is what's been threatened, I think through the campaign rhetoric, right?

6:09 Right, right. And he, you know, last week he kind of doubled down on that. Let's just assume some element of tariff goes up on Chinese goods, right? Yep. Now, um, that means that the importer, the company trying to import those goods has to pay more for those goods. That means the U S consumer who's going to buy those goods from that importer, whether it's because that then it turns into a product or because it is the product either way, right? Somehow that cost gets passed on to the U S consumer. That's a tax. That's an tax increase. It's not necessarily called a tax increase, but it's effectively a tax increase.

6:52 Now, the reason for it is to try to dissuade the buyer from using that product that is made in this particular instance, China. So to find alternative, uh, sources of products, right? Um, now, but ultimately let's not, let's be clear. It's not China who pays that tariff. It's the U S importer or the U S consumer that pays for that tax, that costs that disincentive. Um, so that means there's less generally Jeff. I know you're not a fan of taxes, right? More taxes generally thinks it's a slowing economic impact, not generally a favorable, uh, position to have.

7:39 So, I mean, that being said, we do have a pretty big deficit. So maybe there's some favorability. The reality though, just as an aside is, um, we've seen this in the past. This is not a new playbook. What happens when one country increases tariffs on another country? The other country says, well, I'm not going to take that. I'm raising tariffs on you on something else. So if you're going to try to import here, we're going to have some, uh, in cost on you, or as we saw, we're going to boycott some of your product, uh, when it came to farmers or something like, you know, different, uh, goods of one type or another resource resources that we export.

8:24 So, um, it's not without consequence and it has, uh, generally an effect where, uh, it's inflationary costs. Just go up, um, on both sides of the, the trade arrangement. So in any case, and that affects, yeah, you know, that's one of the things that, uh, the Trump administration in the past has been kind of obsessed about is the idea of our, uh, trade imbalance. Well, this doesn't help a trade imbalance. If you start, um, it can, it can help. It can create a disincentive for people to import our goods.

9:06 So we have less exports going out. And I guess that's a, you know, it's an individual question country by country. And, you know, I hope that president Trump treats it as an individual question. You know, you can make this, you can make the arguments that there's other reasons besides tax income. And that's the, that's the reason for tariffs. You alluded to that, Chris, it's a, it's an income generating thing, right? Revenue in for the government, right? That's right. It also, if there's an unfair trade, not just balance, not just looking at, you know, imports versus exports, but import, uh, prices and export prices, but looking at fair trade or whether or not there's, um, criminal activity or improper activity going on between the partners, so it can be, it can be, uh, can be punitive, can be sending a message.

10:00 Like if you're going to, if you're going to steal our trade secrets, if you're going to have slave labor, if you're going to have this and that totally agree with your point, um, that doesn't seem to be the case when we talk about China and Mexico and, you know, essentially all of these other places that tariffs have been threatened as well. I don't, I don't know if I a hundred percent agree with that. He, it, I think it may be implied because those countries both have things that are not doing, you know, different things that those countries are not doing that the United States want them to do, but you know, we could debate that and whether or not it's in the motive of the president and his administration to be part of that. I can see, I'm not clear. I'd be curious in the case of Canada, for example, what are you writing?

10:44 I didn't put Canada in there. I said, China and Mexico. Okay. I Canada and Mexico. I meant to say when I said, uh, you know, Canada is another one where we've had this threat. I think we're trying to make Canada the 51st state or something. I'm not sure what's going on up there. But for, for, for Mexico and China, I think there's reasons to put pressure on their countries to get them to do things that we want them to do. And it's also a way aside from taxes and aside from political pressure, it's also a way to protect protectionism, which is certainly a word that can be used under the, um, Trump doctrine. If you want to say that, um, to protect certain American businesses from unfair trade practices, um, across the globe, if you will, but China and Mexico and to protect American companies who are competing in those sectors.

11:33 So I think there's a lot of things other than just, you know, the simple way to look at why we're doing tariffs to punish our enemies, if you will. I think there's other economic reasons to do them. And I just hope it's not broad based. The thing I liked least about some of the president, president Trump's proposals, um, was tariffs. I'm not in favor of tariffs. Generally, I think they have a place, but I certainly don't think they have a uniform place to say 25% for a whole, everything coming in from a country. I think if they're targeted, if they have a clear economic and political message, then they can be effective.

12:14 Yeah. And I think, you know, we've seen this whole question of, uh, technology, um, you know, the essentially, uh, whether things are being treated, uh, properly and fairly with the, uh, essentially stealing technological, uh, thought we thought, you know, uh, trades, whatever it is that, that, that seems reasonable to me to say, Hey, wait a second. Um, I mean, that kind of leads us to, uh, one of the other things you, you had brought up Jeff before we got started was the whole tick tock topic. All right. That's, that's, that's one of those going to be the, uh, hot news right after the inauguration here.

12:59 Um, as we know, when we're recording this, the Supreme court is, has a case before them, there have an appeal from tick tock to stay the, the elimination basically of tick tock. Congress passed a law, president Biden signed the law, which would ban tick tock from the United States. The Supreme court could put that law on a pause, you know, paste facing further review. Um, they may or they may not. And if they don't, by the time the president takes the oath of office, tick tock in essence will be gone from the United States, unless they make some deal with there's been rumors of deals, you know, part of the, um, legislation was that tick tock could divest himself of Chinese interest and sell it to an American entity.

13:44 And tick tock could survive. So at the time of the recording here, there's no deal sealed, but that could happen as well. Um, and then there's some rest. We were talking about before the show, there's some kind of political news about tick tock as well about who might be sitting behind the president. Right. Yeah. So the, uh, CEO of tick tock is, uh, in front of Congress and all these hearings, uh, over the past couple of years, um, is going to be joining for the inauguration and sitting in a, in a seat of honor, uh, behind, uh, the incoming president. So, uh, a little bit of, uh, interesting dynamics there. Yeah. Okay. And it feels like it's a political message, right?

14:25 I mean, president Trump's been saying that he's, he, he, he, and in essence asked the Supreme court to stay the decision so he could try to make a deal, right, instead of tick tock being banned, which is kind of a change in his position from what a couple of years ago, he had a lot of a very different kind of rhetoric around this, he did. And I think that his, uh, his, his win, he, you know, he said tick tock was, was useful in the campaign process. And I think he, uh, it kind of changed his tune around, uh, tick tock. It's really put, uh, Republicans in a odd spot because most Republicans, I don't know if it was all, but most Republican legislators, it was not all. There were a few that voted against the bill, but most Republican senators and reps voted to ban tick tock.

15:11 So now they're having to answer that question of what do you think about president's Trump's change of opinion? Um, just as an aside, uh, what, where do you, what are your thoughts around this, uh, this notion of that, uh, this creates the potential for some threat to the U S um, national security. I thought the bill was fairly balanced, balanced national security, uh, interest, uh, concerns about issues with, uh, personal information and certain content getting to children. Um, but it didn't, uh, it didn't say this has to be banned. It sets some reasonable conditions to address those specific concerns.

15:54 And the Supreme court basically agreed with that part of that the bill was, was constitutional. So I thought it was a balanced bill. And the most plausible is to, uh, have it sold. Right. That's right. Um, the concern is that the current arrangement has ties to the Chinese government and that could, that could be used in an adversarial way. That's right. And I think that's legitimate. I think as the world turns more and more to everything being online and the use of AI and the way, you know, communication and false communication and manipulative communication has been in existence between adversaries from planes dropping leaflets, you know, till now it's all in our television and such and radio, right?

16:44 That's right, Chris. So we do have to be aware of it and we do have to be vigilant to protect our military and social and I mean, I think it's going to create a little bit of an uproar if they actually have to close it down. I think they're trying to, I think that's the position that seems to be put forth right now is we're not going to sell, therefore they're going to create a lot of angst among American users of TikTok with the frustration of that and then, so there'd be some kind of backlash and the expectation that it would therefore be reversed, but, and I don't know. President Trump cannot reverse it, no, it's law, so it would take an additional act from Congress and that would mean something that legislators do not like to do is to change their vote.

17:34 Yeah, reverse themselves. In the matter of a year, it would be less than a year that they'd be saying, oops, I changed my mind. So, well, you know, the way it would happen is it gets slid in with something else, right? It could, but I think, I think I really liked this one, but I just had to go along with it, you know, I guess, I guess, I mean, honestly, I hope it's, it's like, they take the position of like, these are your options. You know, A or B, what do you want to do? If I was a member of Congress or the Senate, I would not change my vote. If I was that convinced that it was a national security threat, I think it would be very hypocritical to say now it's not, unless, unless they came up with some new arrangement on how the data is stored and such, you know.

18:19 All right, let's, let's move on from TikTok, although it's an interesting topic, let's, let's talk more about what are some of the things that are anticipated under the Trump administration that people think could move markets or have economic impact that ultimately would have some consequence. So we talked briefly about tariffs, the idea that, I mean, I put this in the negative column, personally. I understand your point, Jeff, that sometimes there's like targeted reasons. It could definitely be a negative. It's just broad-based, you know, punitive and no real, no real logic. It's inflationary, I think.

19:00 And I think it's likely to be retaliated and therefore, you know, you get into this, like, everyone gets wet, you know what I mean? It's not, not a great outcome. Or it could be a great tool to get our adversaries or countries that we want to do things to be more cooperative in doing the things that protect America. Yeah. And I suppose if you're using it for not just purely in this realm of tariff thought process, but other kinds of national security or, you know, leverage for one thing or another, you know, there could be some virtue in that, how it applies.

19:42 It does seem right now that, you know, when it comes to China, they're in an economic less leverage and, you know, coming from less from a position of strength than they might have at other times. China is, yeah. China. Yeah. So, so you do probably have the opportunity to use something like this for leverage and other elements of your negotiations, perhaps. Yeah. So and with Trump, maybe that's the game plan. You know, he's all about the negotiations. Part of the deal. Part of the deal. So, well, let's see what happens with tariffs. How much is rhetoric and how much is actually going to be implemented? I think that's rubber meets the road question.

20:22 You know, how's this really play out? And those are within his discretion. You know, most some of the things that we're talking about, TikTok and taxes, maybe we'll move on to taxes, but that those items and most items, quite frankly, take the act of Congress. Yeah, it's a good point. The tariffs do not. It's it's within the purview of the executive branch. Mm hmm. And President Biden continued, you know, just yeah, I know we're trying to get away from tariffs, but he can some of these tariffs are in existence today. So, yeah, I mean, President Trump implemented tariffs on China originally. Right. And the Biden administration didn't change that at all, which you would have thought, you know, just.

21:07 Policy wise, they might have been in a different perspective or whatever. But, you know, they really maintained the same same game plan would have been difficult for President Biden to do so. The relationship with China has degraded. In fact, you know, we had a period where we weren't even communicating with China, even on the even on the secure military, military to military communication. So I think it would have been difficult for him to ease up on China when kind of the relationship was so bad. Yeah. Yeah. So thinking about taxes, which is something our clients are asking us a lot to, you know, with will the twenty eighteen tax and jobs and jobs act right be extended?

21:55 And if it is extended, does it look the same as it does today? And of course, again, this is an element of crystal ball gazing to know what will happen. I think it is widely expected, though, that the the essence of the tax cut and jobs act, which is, you know, some of these key parts of it would be extended. Now, you know, that's again, it's a tight Congress. And as much as it is Republican leadership presently when it comes to both houses of Congress, it's pretty thin majorities. And it might might not be as easy as we, you know, just on its face what we might expect.

22:39 But I would say, I think that there's, you know, hope, expectation that just the current status quo gets extended. Now, the problem, of course, is we continue to be operating at a pretty big deficit. And, you know, one point nine trillion, I think we said previously, that was last year's last fiscal year. We still don't have any kind of budget for this year. We're operating on last year's. Yeah, we're going to launch. Right. Right. So, you know, and by then we're halfway through, you know, the fiscal year. Right. So you got to assume it's going to be something similar next year, you know, twenty twenty five rather, you know, this year.

23:22 Not but there's no reason to really be optimistic about it. So that leads us to this question of, you know, is it good policy from the point of view of the growth of our debt or, you know, that issue? But from, you know, the idea that, oh, there's less government burden, less there's more money in my pocket, I've got more money to spend. That's good for consumption. We're a 70 percent consumer driven economy. Well, by and by and large, that sounds like, you know, less lighter load on taxes generally is good.

24:05 So kind of mindset. My crystal balls has me thinking that to get the tax cut bill passed again. Yeah, this is in it's contrary to good government policy and how to do this. It's contrary to thinking about the debt. But this is what I think is going to happen. Salt state and local taxes, which impact typically states that have high property taxes and high state taxes, typically blue states, incidentally blue states, California, New York, New Jersey, just Connecticut, maybe just to name Massachusetts, I guess.

24:49 So to name some states. So I think there's a lot of pressure from Republican members of Congress and certainly Democrat members of Congress agree with eliminating salt. So if you have a bill to extend the tax cuts for a period of time, just to be clear. So for right now, there's a cap. I think it's $10,000 of what you can deduct when you have these expenses that you were just talking about. Yeah. And for many people in those states, you know, this their income tax and their property taxes are combined is over 10,000. Never mind if they have a second home or a high income or whatever.

25:31 So state and local taxes, salt ends up being limited as to how much you can deduct. Right. Doesn't work too well. So if they eliminate salt, the salt provision, it delays the Republican members from those states. California and New York are really the only ones that have many members of Congress. But it also makes it difficult for Democratic members who have run on this issue. And so I think that's one of the things they'll do is, of course, that's bad for the national debt and deficit. Right. But even even more disappointing, if you will, for good government, lower taxes is good government.

26:14 So I don't want to make it sound like it's not. But I think the tax bill, the border bill and some other types of bills are going to be in one bill that are going to be released as this massive piece of legislation, the Trump proposal, the Trump desires, right? The things he ran on is going to be put together in one single bill, February or March, and they're going to try to get it done all at one time. So they're going to use all the pressure of, you know, if you want better immigration, you have to vote for this bill. If you want lower taxes, you have to vote for this bill. And if you don't vote for this bill, you're voting against all those good things.

26:57 So we'll put the. Well, good luck with that one. Number one, that's that's entirely hypocritical based on, you know, if you remember, you have to pass it to read it kind of thing. Single subject rule, all those things. It's but anyway, that's what my crystal ball is telling me, it's probably the most plausible way that it would get past a number of things. You know, it holds the Republicans in line because if they don't vote for it. They're going to be voting if they vote, no, they're going to be voting no on immigration reform, they're going to be voting no on tax decrease and no on whatever else is in there that is on the Republican agenda now in the campaign trail, the president elect now probably on the day this airs, the president talked about eliminating taxes on Social Security benefits, eliminating taxes on tips.

27:56 I don't know if they're going to be in there. I don't know. I think that's going to be really hard to include all that stuff. But yeah, I'm sure that that'll be an effort to see what he can get in there. Yeah, I think not at this point. I think I think they won't formally take it off the agenda. But if they put too much of just try to extend what's there and then do some immigration stuff. Yeah. All right. So that and that leads to immigration with the topic. One is border control. I think there's no question we're going to see a more significant emphasis on border safety, border security, what that translates to in terms of more infrastructure for the existing structure of trying to do more legal immigration, the processing of legal applications, which is a big delay.

28:54 I mean, it's a long, long delay for people who are trying to pursue the immigration through the legal process. The system is overwhelmed, obviously. Yeah. So I think, you know, you need more infrastructure there as part of the way, as part of the solution. But in addition to the security of, you know, don't want people sneaking in. The the the bigger question, I guess, becomes what will really happen relative to the rhetoric around deportation? I think it's pretty clear if you listen to Horman, who's going to be President Trump's border czar, if you will, and the president himself recently, his tone on immigration has changed from the campaign rhetoric a bit.

29:43 Yeah. Being targeted against. Criminal aliens, criminal people who are illegally or here legally, but on a temporary basis, if they commit certain crimes, they had a big debate last week in Chicago where they tried to the city council tried to void the previous law that Chicago wouldn't work with ICE. And so this this discussion's happening around the country. And I think that the first thing and the first thing is so big that I don't know if you get to the second thing of getting the people out of the country who are committing crimes, harming children, you know, not being good citizens, if you will.

30:23 Yeah, I think there's enough work there to keep everybody busy in the system busy. On the other end of that spectrum, I would think you'd have more political cover, more support for that kind of thing to say, look, you know, these are people who are putting our citizens at risk. You know, that's one thing. And I think most people would say, OK, yeah, I agree with that. That is the low hanging fruit in this. Yeah, I mean, it's a term that we use. So that I think that's where that goes. And on the other end of the spectrum are the dreamers and dreamers are defined as a minor that was taken into the country, not on their own, taking in either smuggled in by a parent or, you know, across the border with a parent.

31:05 And the child, if you will, at the time had no criminal intent, no intent at all. They're just going where they're told to go. Yeah. And they become part of the part of their culture, their experience. They've been raised in this country, really have no ties to anywhere else. They speak English. They've attended school. They, you know, depending on how old they are, I mean, some are in first grade now and some are 30 years old. Right. So. Right, right. And President Trump just last week made comments about that. That was something that was on his agenda as well. So those two things in the immigration debate are the easy and right things to do.

31:49 Deporting people who aren't supposed to be here, who are harmful to our society, criminals, let's work on that. And the people who are. All but, you know, for that, they weren't born here, have been good American citizens, they didn't violate a law intentionally. Yeah. I think that's where you start. I know there's a big middle there. There's a lot. No, but I think you're right that there's a lot of support around both ends of that spectrum. And why not do the things that most Americans support makes our country safer and makes people make people have the legal ability to work and be good citizens? So I think, you know, when you talk about that and the economic consequence of that, you think, OK, that that's that's palatable.

32:33 It's not something that's going to be disruptive to the economy. The idea of deporting every person who's here illegally, though, you know, fair in some sense, OK, it's, you know, it's, you know, violates the our laws. You know, that that's one thing. But. As a practical reality, that becomes really disruptive to the economy and obviously these individuals. But, you know, the the economy impact, we're already short of labor. And if we then scoop out, you know, I don't know how many million people that is from 10 million, maybe 10 to 20, I think I've heard.

33:15 Right. Anyway, whatever the number on it on purpose, meaning. Yeah, at least. So you have this if you had this enormous and the logistics of that and the cost of that and just the whole endeavor would be so enormous. I think, you know, maybe there's an element of, hey, we do some deportation and try to encourage self-deportation, you know, that people go, oh, they're cracking down. I better go home, you know, that kind of thing. But by and large, I think, you know, what we often forget is that we don't we're not growing as a nation demographically by births.

33:56 And for an economy to grow and expand, in our case, part of the way it's grown and expanded historically has been because of demographic considerations. We've had more consumers. You know, growing population, and we rely in part on immigration for that. Now, we want that to be legal immigration. But the reality is, too, we do have people here who spend money, who are consumers, who are here as part of that group that you're talking in the middle, right? That's like, where do we go? So I just think there's likely to be a challenge for the economy in terms of labor and in terms of the consumer impact.

34:39 It is an economic component as well as all these other dimensions of the issue. And if you tried to do that first, you don't have the resources to do the other ends of the spectrum. Right. So and it's not going to work. So it just seems unlikely, I guess, is the expectation. You're not going to have as much of that. So I think most the market generally, I think, has dismissed some of that talk as not actually likely to happen and therefore less worrisome as an economic consequence and therefore how does it affect the markets? I would agree with that.

35:20 And Trump's going to be able to fulfill his broader promise if the border is actually secure and he's decreasing the number of criminals who happen to be illegal in the United States. And there's a lot of news on that. And the Dreamer question is solved. If those three things happened, I think he would deserve an A plus on his immigration policy if those get done in four years. What were some of the other topics that you thought would be relevant to discuss here, Jeff? Well, you touched on, you know, it's not a real exciting one, but it is impactful. I think is the regulatory environment, you know, the rules and regulations that agencies make.

36:03 Sometimes Congress passes broad, you know, inspiring laws that will do X, Y or Z and they leave it to the agencies to promulgate regulations. And oftentimes it's a complaint of conservatives, including myself, that these regulatory agencies act beyond the scope or, you know, or have broad powers that are somewhat you question is this beyond their legislative, beyond the intent of the legislation. You know, it comes up in all forms of businesses. But some of the two industries that I think the prognosticators are thinking will be beneficial, benefited by this less regulation or deregulation is energy, right?

36:48 More energy development, more drilling, drill, baby drill. And the finance industry, quite frankly, who is a general consensus among Republicans that the financial industry has been overregulated by previous the previous administration, the Biden administration. So I think it's interesting. I bet a lot of people would be surprised to know that we produce more oil than ever before, you know, that people think, you know, drill, baby drill, that there's been some restraint because of public lands and things like this that may be publicized. But when it comes to output, the U .S. is doing a great deal of production.

37:32 We are a net exporter of energy when it comes to that kind of thing. So that this also ties into that question of when you think about what will be the impact of, say, a more liberal regulatory policy in the case of energy, as an example, you might expect energy stocks to do better. When you look at the past Trump administration, energy did not do as well under that administration because the prices went down, I guess, and therefore the profitability was greater supply.

38:17 And the opposite is true under the Biden administration. You'd have thought it would be the other way around, that energy stocks wouldn't do as well. It's just it's one of these things where things don't always move the way you expect. You can't look at it overly simply. It's not as simplified as that. Yeah. So in any case, but yeah, I think there is expectation that those are two examples. What was the second one that you mentioned, by the way? It was security, securities, financial, financial sector. Yeah. And, you know, one of those instances, the current SEC chair who will be is being replaced, has been pretty antagonistic toward cryptocurrency and, you know, desiring to limit access or in terms of products like ETFs and mutual funds, they've been sort of guarded about this from the idea that this may not be always something consumers understand.

39:20 And would it be in their best interest? You know, that kind of thing. I think it's right, by the way, to go slow and make sure you don't just jump in. And I think that you're right, that Gensler was really more of a challenging, trying to add some regulatory burden, trying to be more proactive in a consumer protection kind of mindset. But in any case, so we'll see what what that translates to. Well, the market certainly thinks it's, you know, Wild West is coming because its price has gone up substantially.

40:03 Bitcoin people, there's lots of cryptocurrencies, but people, you know, casual viewer has heard of Bitcoin and maybe they follow the price a little bit. CNBC is flashing it every 30 seconds on the TV. So price of bitcoins, you know, when I'm talking today here, I think it was around $100,000 and that's up from the $70 ,000 range right before the election. And it had gone up before that in speculation that Trump could win. So it certainly thinks that Trump is going to be favorable to the industry. Yeah, I think that's very true. That's its own show. I mean, let's let's have more conversation about cryptocurrency.

40:47 Sometimes a bubble. There you go. I think it's I think it's a topic that's worthy of more in-depth conversation. I've heard repeatedly on the campaign trail that we really don't need an education department. What are some other examples of deregulation that might? Well, energy department, I think, is in that same bucket of things that might disappear. I'm not sure it's going to happen. I don't know that it'll actually disappear in any of these instances. But, you know, what's the the idea that government is an organism that doesn't like to shrink or something?

41:27 Well, we have we have another I don't know. It's not an agency. We have a group led by Ramaswamy and Musk who are who are delegated with the task of doing just that. Doge, they call it, which is, you know, I don't want to go back to cryptocurrency. Yeah, it is the same. I have a client who said, I'm going to buy that just because I think there's a lot of people because of this Doge department that are going to. Stranger things have happened, right? Yeah. Yeah. And so far, it's worked to his advantage. I don't know. Remember the dotcom days? Recently, Elon Musk was bringing down his estimate for how much they're going to he's going to be able to cut.

42:07 I think it went from two trillion to one trillion. Yeah, I mean, he's actually done some homework. He realizes there's it's going to be harder to do than he planned. Right. Yeah. But, you know, I agree with you, Chris. Government is ever expanding. And, you know, that's it's a natural growth of government where it's either under both parties. Yeah. I mean, conservatives, Republicans, we try to. The rhetoric is we want it to be small, but actually it's not made smaller when we're in office, unfortunately. But if it's ever going to happen, this is the opportunity that it could happen because you have a president who who campaigned on it.

42:48 He created an entity to focus on it, whether or not it can achieve the what number. Yeah. And how much fraud, waste and abuse, you know, that kind of thing that we always talk about, how much really they can identify and eliminate is. It's there, whether or not they can identify and eliminate it, but it is there. And so I think that's going to be one of the more entertaining aspects of this next administration in a good way is when they expose hopefully when they expose whatever they find. And there's a public debate of, you know, for example. Should we be paying hundreds of millions of dollars to subsidize public radio today?

43:31 I think that's a good debate that the country should have where we are in our society and how we get information and the resources available is certainly different than when this started. Should we be should we be doing that? And I know everything I know when this debate comes up. Oh, it's only a very small part. It won't mean anything to the national deficit. No. But when you have all of these things, you know, assuming they find hundreds of things like that, which I think they will, it does add up to something and it does matter. So I look forward to that entity releasing information and the public debate around it and hopefully finding some things to reduce our burden.

44:11 I think one of the things that is on undiscussed and maybe underestimated is the uncertainty that comes with the Trump experience, right, that, you know, there's a little bit of chaos that surrounds Trump when it comes to his management style. There's no uncertainty there, Chris. Yeah, it's going to be that. I mean, that's just there's nothing new there. And so my point is the market impact that that can have is what I'm driving at, you know, that we may have some unanticipated moves just because of. The way things are communicated, the.

44:55 The I think there's perpetually the notion that there's I remember in the last administration, it was drinking from a fire hose just trying to keep up with what was being talked about, what were some of the things being attempted to be addressed? And, you know, there is some sleight of hand in the way that's dealt with where we're looking over here, but there's something happening over there. And I think that's just an element that we have to be mindful of. There's other variables in terms of foreign interactions. And what does that create for market? You know, the last four years have been full of them. You know, we have a we had a calm president, I'll give you that.

45:38 But we've had a increasing geopolitical scene. So how does that play out over time? It has the potential to get better. Of course, it has the potential to get worse. I mean, I'm not saying it doesn't, but I think having a strong president who. Talks the talk of peace through strength and in his first year, his first term certainly exercised that, and we had more peace than we have today. I'm hopeful that that's a positive that we see in all the noise. I hope it's a positive element of it. I think the the other variable that we just will have to see how it plays out is how well does Trump and the Congress get along?

46:27 You know, will there be a collaborative effort or will there be antagonism? And I think the first day is the best day. That's why I think you're right. That's why I think this bill that my crystal ball, I refer to, is coming out is is in recognition of let's get done what we can get done, because. You know, the closer we get to the next election, I know it's two years away, but the less likely members of Congress are going to be willing to go along with everything that they have to answer for. Well, and I'm really concerned about March with the debt ceiling and just how that plays out and how that gets positioned.

47:14 You know, I just think there's a real I don't know, I feel more worried about it this time than in the past. We may see the elimination of the debt ceiling. I think that would be a favorable thing. And to deal with these issues on the budget, that's where it belongs. Where are we going to spend the money or not? Not at the time when we have to pay the bill that we've already spent. I think I think the idea of a debt ceiling was it had merit, but I don't think it's worked out. It has obviously hasn't worked out because it hasn't meant anything other than stress on the system and fear in the market. So it's a good point. It's not serving. It's not serving a purpose. We need a better way. Well, I don't know if there's anything else you want to cover.

47:56 We covered a lot and we went a little long, very long. But it was it was entertaining to me. I enjoyed the conversation. Anything you want to add to something, Jeff, that we didn't get to talk about? No, just be positive and enjoy the next four years of a wild ride. Let's hope it's good. Yeah, let me just mention that, look, you know, as you're thinking about these issues, a lot of times people will make the political, the primary decision. And factor in their portfolio and financial planning considerations, we generally discourage that.

48:37 Let's say it's not relevant. Let's not say it's not part of the equation. But, you know, we can be driven to the extremes of, oh, I'm I'm out, you know, the crazy town or I'm I'm out when the other guys are in, you know, like this notion of if it's not your cup of tea for who's running, in this case, the presidency or the Congress, you might be inclined to say, oh, I want, you know, it's bad or whatever. Don't necessarily do that. When you look back at various instances, I've had clients who are Democrats and I've had clients who are Republicans.

49:18 And we have probably have the same kind of reaction when the other team wins. It's just going to be a different group of clients in the next four years than it was in the previous four years. And what ends up happening is when we look back over a four year period. Almost always markets are benefited from time and, you know, increasing and profitability, so don't don't overreact. But if you have challenges, if you if you're or you if you want to be discussing, you can overreact on the other side to taking more, you know, abundance of risk because of your optimism or whatever.

49:59 When it comes to thinking about your portfolio and you need a little bit of interaction in that process, sometimes, you know, Jeff, when you came in before you were part of our team, you were looking for someone to challenge your assumptions to right. You know, I came in as a client and saying, what am I missing? Is there something I'm not seeing that, you know, you might see? Sometimes there's virtue in that getting a second opinion. And if you need a little help in that process, that's that's what we do. That's our here. So let us let us know if we can be a help to you in your financial planning and portfolio management. And then thanks for listening.

50:40 And until next time, everybody keeps striving for something more. Thank you for listening to something more with Chris Boyd. Call us for help, whether it's for financial planning or portfolio management, insurance concerns or those quality of life issues that make the money matters matter. Whatever's on your mind. Visit us at something more with Chris Boyd dot com or call us toll free at eight six six seven seven one eight nine zero one. Or send us your questions to A.M. R dash info at Wealth Enhancement dot com. You're listening to something more with Chris Boyd Financial Talk Show Wealth Enhancement Advisory Services and Jay Christopher Boyd provide investment advice on an individual basis to clients.

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