Pod Insights The Moneywise Guys 1/8/25 Scam Calls, Value Meals, and Trading Traps About this episode The Moneywise Radio Show and Podcast Wednesday, January 8th BE MONEYWISE. Moneywise Wealth Management I "The Moneywise Guys" podcast call: 661-847-1000 text in anytime: 661-396-1000 website: www. MoneywiseGuys.com facebook: Moneywise_Wealth_Management instagram: MoneywiseWealthManagement
Transcript 0:00 Speaker 00 From the padded radio room off Stockdale Highway, here is Money Wise. Call or text in at 661-396-1000.
0:09 Speaker 01 I need a dollar, dollar, dollar, that's what I need. Hey, hey. Well, I need a dollar, dollar, dollar, that's what I need. Hey, hey. Said I need a dollar, dollar, dollar, that's what I need. And if I share with you my story, would you share your dollar with me? Securities offered through SEF Securities, Inc., member FINRA/SIPC. Investment advisory services offered through SEF Investment Advisors, Inc. SEF Securities, Inc. and Money Wise Wealth Management are independently owned and operated.
0:39 Speaker 00 Now, let's start the Money Wise Show.
0:42 Speaker 02 Welcome to the Money Wise Show. We are live from the padded radio room off Stockdale Highway on ESPN Bakersfield, 1230 AM, 101.1 FM, and always streaming at MoneyWiseGuys.com. You can call or text into the show 24 hours a day, 661-396-1000. Today, you've got your host, myself, I'm Sharad Waite, and sitting here with me is...
1:03 Speaker 03 Debbie Lewis.
1:04 Speaker 02 Debbie Lewis, hey.
1:05 Speaker 03 Hi, Sharad. Happy New Year.
1:07 Speaker 02 Happy New Year to you. How you doing?
1:09 Speaker 03 I'm doing well. December was good to me.
1:12 Speaker 02 Good.
1:13 Speaker 03 I got in a lot of rest and exercise, and I feel, I feel good, and it's good to be on the show. It's been a while.
1:21 Speaker 02 It's great being on the show with you, Debbie.
1:22 Speaker 03 I love it, Sharad. I love doing it with you. I mean, the other guys are fine, but, you know, you and I go way back.
1:28 Speaker 02 We go way back, and I love getting your perspective. It's, it's more of the human-on-the-street perspective.
1:35 Speaker 03 That's a gentle way to put it.
1:38 Speaker 02 Color bringing here. Before we start the show, though, I've got to give a shout-out recognition to Doug DeRou and his family. This is a legend in terms of radio DJ. The lost, the, the, the slow-dying art of disc jockeying in local radio. And Doug DeRou, I grew up, you know, here in town, hearing his voice, listening to him on the radio.
2:04 Speaker 03 96.5?
2:05 Speaker 02 He was on a few different stations.
2:07 Speaker 00 He was Kern Radio when it was top 40.
2:08 Speaker 03 Okay.
2:09 Speaker 02 Yeah. That's right. And here, you know, our mothership, AGM, he was a big part of that over the years, being on Kern Radio back when it was a top 40 program, AM.
2:22 Speaker 00 He was a radio icon here in town, so.
2:24 Speaker 03 Well, with a name like DJ Doug DeRue, like, that is, that's pretty iconic.
2:30 Speaker 02 Yeah, very iconic. And, you know, just a, just a local legend and somebody who we have to give credit to here at MoneyWise is somebody, as a company who has benefited from the format of AM and FM radio and those that have, have laid the foundation before us, shout out to Doug DeRue and his family. Rest in peace and our prayers are with you. And, you know, Bakersfield and Kern County definitely lost somebody here in the radio world. So I had to, had to at least acknowledge that here in the very beginning. There you go. Now, let's move on. Some of these headlines. In fact, before we get to the headlines, we've
3:14 Speaker 02 got some great comments and questions. The first message here that I'd like to address, do you have it, Debbie?
3:19 Speaker 03 I sure do, yeah.
3:20 Speaker 02 Go ahead and read it.
3:21 Speaker 03 Okay. It says, "I signed up for an account with Equifax in November and recently I'm getting 15 to 20 spam calls a day. Did they have a data breach recently or is this happening to everyone?"
3:32 Speaker 02 Great question. Looked into it. I had not heard and nor could confirm of any further data breaches by Equifax, other than the one that happened.
3:41 Speaker 03 2017, right? There was a big one.
3:44 Speaker 02 Big one.
3:45 Speaker 03 I think they're still paying out.
3:46 Speaker 02 Yes.
3:47 Speaker 03 Settlement stuff from that.
3:48 Speaker 02 Yes, they are.
3:49 Speaker 03 Well, how's that going?
3:51 Speaker 02 It's, yeah, I have, it's a good question. I didn't look into where it is, you know, in terms of the consequences. It was an enormous financial impact on Equifax, but that was 2017.
4:04 Speaker 03 Yeah. Exposed the personal information of 147 million people.
4:09 Speaker 02 Million. You know, you and I, I'm sure, were involved. I was involved in that because, for whatever reason, Equifax had my information and I signed up for the free credit. Monitoring that they offer for whatever, however many, much period of time. But they also gave, I think, some cash if you didn't want to take the free credit monitoring. But let's address, though, the question a little bit deeper because if Equifax didn't have a data breach, why would somebody all of a sudden get a bunch of unsolicited phone calls right when they happen to, you know, sign up for a service like this? So let's, let's address it. There's a couple of things to be aware of.
4:51 Speaker 02 In fact, we mentioned some of this yesterday in yesterday's show with Alan Maderos and talking about the uptick of calls that people get once they apply for a mortgage loan. You get sold into a database that is managed and bought and sold by data brokers who sell these marketing lists and it's disgusting. I can't stand it. But it's a huge business that we have that your phone number can be collected, bought or sold by these data aggregators and marketing companies. Even if you, you know, you gave it to a legitimate resource like Equifax,
5:33 Speaker 02 this can still lead to receiving calls over time because Equifax then is part of this. It's part of their revenue that they receive as they sell your information.
5:47 Speaker 03 They, along with pretty much any other company that you're handing over your information to.
5:52 Speaker 02 Yeah, yeah. So what, you know, what can, what can you do about it? Well, there's, there's, there's a little bit that you can do and there's a few things that we would highly recommend. The first is always register for the Do Not Call Registry. It's free to all US citizens. DoNotCall.gov. This is the resource that you can go to and it is a legitimate government resource where you can be put on the list, in air quotes, right? Let me tell you, if you've talked to a, a, a salesperson, "Take me off the list." Click, hang up, right? "Please take me off the list." Well, you can take yourself off that list. Takes a little bit of time, but it's very simple.
6:33 Speaker 02 Do not call.gov is the way that it can help cut down on some of those marketing calls, on the legitimate marketing calls. If you have illegitimate marketing calls, there's a whole lot that you can do about it because these are just cruxes.
6:46 Speaker 03 Right.
6:46 Speaker 02 They're going to get your, they're going to get your information and try to get to you one way or another, but at least you can get rid of the, of the legitimate. Now, another feature that I would recommend, if you're concerned about your private information and are you getting unsolicited calls, is your phone likely, especially I know if it's an Apple, and I'm sure Android has the same feature, but it's, it's using your call blocking features on your phone. I have mine on my phone, which is do not let a call go through if it's not on my contact list. It will automatically, it will still ring from the other person and it'll go to your voicemail and then you can deal with it if you need to, but use your call blocking features on your phone.
7:26 Speaker 02 So you're not spending, you know, all that time every day picking it up and what's this unknown number? Just don't answer it, you know, and you don't even need to look at that. So be cautious with, with your phone number and then monitoring your credit reports. My guess is our listener was signing up for Experian because they want to monitor their credit reports. So great, you know, good job doing that, got that first step. Keep, you know, keep continuing to monitor your credit reports. Those services generally can alert you if anything is opened up under your social security number and birth date, so it can give you some protections there.
8:04 Speaker 03 Also, asking your cell phone provider if they have a call blocking app. Like I have Verizon, for instance, and, and they do offer as a benefit of being a Verizon customer. That is something they provide and for the most part, it's helpful.
8:22 Speaker 02 Yeah.
8:23 Speaker 03 Stuff, you know, occasionally things slip through the cracks, but it definitely, I've noticed a difference in the logging and the way numbers are presented to me when they pop up.
8:32 Speaker 02 I've used those too. I have AT&T, AT&T has a similar app that you can, you know, that they offer to, it's like a robo, robo killer app. And I've even used third-party apps that you can download where it will block robo calls and mess it. Now it's texting, you're getting so many constant, you get junk texts, right?
8:54 Speaker 00 The robo you?
8:55 Speaker 02 Yeah, oh yeah, you get it from me, right?
8:57 Speaker 03 Yeah, we get emails from you too, Sherrod. Weird hours.
9:01 Speaker 02 It's not just for me, though, right?
9:04 Speaker 00 I was like, Sherrod does not call me that name. When he texts me, he does not say my full name.
9:09 Speaker 02 This is the problem with the, with the, with the data breaches is that your information goes out there and then you're either, what are they, it's not phishing, but it's spoofed. Your, your, your identity is spoofed and so somebody will get a text that looks like it's coming from you.
9:26 Speaker 03 Yeah.
9:27 Speaker 02 But it's not from you and so, you know, you're, what you two are referencing is somehow my.
9:34 Speaker 00 I was like, when I text, we use nicknames, okay? He does not use my name like that.
9:38 Speaker 03 Why are you so formal?
9:40 Speaker 00 Right, what did I do?
9:41 Speaker 03 Two in the morning.
9:44 Speaker 02 Fraud is so, so rampant and so much of it is happening over your cell phone. Don't do business over the phone. If you get a call from, you know, somebody, hang up and call your bank. You know, you get a call from who they say your bank, they're your bank, no.
10:00 Speaker 03 And this is something we see a lot in our industry with our clients. You know, it's usually over, I don't have a specific year, but older leaning citizens, if you will, and, and with MoneyWise, our clients. And I'm seeing this with my parents. My mom is getting targeted left and right. She's 78, she's on her cell phone playing Solitaire.
10:22 Speaker 02 Yeah.
10:22 Speaker 03 All day.
10:23 Speaker 02 Yeah.
10:24 Speaker 03 You know, when she's not walking. But she's getting texts from the IRS, UPS, USPS, click this link, you're, you know, you have a package and the address was wrong, please click here. Like, just be careful out there.
10:38 Speaker 02 Yeah.
10:39 Speaker 03 Whether you're older or not, there, it's everywhere.
10:42 Speaker 02 As you age, it becomes much more difficult and it's no, it's not your fault if you are aging that that is the case. It's a human attribute that your, your cognitive abilities to be able to assess, you know, really what's going on and be confident in those decisions declines as we get older. It happens to all of us. It's an argument for setting. Up those guardrails and protections like you like with your parents and that that we've done undue for our clients and and and protect them from themselves. Basically, the elderly population is is the vulnerable group that usually gets hit here. And we're just talking about the robo attacks that are all digital. It's all, you know, through email or text.
11:25 Speaker 02 But now there is a new threat, which is the AI voices that are not only sound very human, but they can be matched to a loved one's voice. Right? So you sounds like your grandchild is calling you and desperate need for money. Yeah. And so again, it's going to come down to eventually what we'll essentially have key words or safe words that we use with our human friends that if you ever, you know, get a call, it's, you know, what's the code word? You know, you're gonna have to have some sort of system of verifying who we are dealing with. We're talking about people loved ones, let alone, you know, a politician or a celebrity, which we saw over
12:09 Speaker 02 this last election, a lot of the spoofing and made up, you know, news reports that look real, looks like a real video of whatever candidate saying some ridiculous thing, but it's not.
12:22 Speaker 03 I haven't thought about that. Their exposure, I mean, their voice and their their physical image is used and easily accessible to fraudsters. That's frightening.
12:32 Speaker 02 It's frightening because it's out there and it's available. Anybody, you know,
12:35 Speaker 03 It's kind of public domain.
12:36 Speaker 02 Public domain. That's right. It's not really hard to get somebody's, you know, voice or mannerisms.
12:42 Speaker 03 I'll just put my put pause on my plans to become famous in 2025, you know?
12:48 Speaker 02 There you go. There you go. All right. We're gonna do this. We have another question, and we're gonna take a break and then answer this question. I'll read the question first, and then when we come back from the break, I want to address it. Here's the question. It says, what advice do you have for new traders who feel discouraged by losing trades even when they follow their plan? What would you tell someone to help them avoid impulse trading? Thank you for the daily show. That's from Big Jay. Thank you, Big Jay. Great question. I love these questions about trading and investing. How can we prevent ourselves from, you know, making these, these errors? We're going to address that when we come back. We're Money Wise.
13:25 Speaker 00 Have you been putting off your finances? Seize the day. Call the Money Wise office at 661-847-1000, or email [email protected] for more information.
13:43 Speaker 02 Welcome to the Money Wise Show. Happy birthday, Elvis Presley. If you're out there listening, a lot of people still think he's still alive, Debbie.
13:52 Speaker 03 He's not?
13:53 Speaker 02 I mean, I'm sorry. A lot of people think he's dead. He's actually not. Elvis is alive.
13:59 Speaker 03 Did you see that Elvis movie, either you or Stephen?
14:02 Speaker 02 I did not.
14:03 Speaker 03 Like, two years ago, a year ago, the Baz Luhrmann one?
14:05 Speaker 02 I didn't.
14:06 Speaker 00 It wasn't bad.
14:07 Speaker 03 Yeah, it was good.
14:08 Speaker 02 It's like a bio, biop, biopic.
14:11 Speaker 00 It's kind of like the, the Bob Marley one they did last year.
14:13 Speaker 02 Yeah, I like that one.
14:14 Speaker 03 I haven't seen that one.
14:15 Speaker 00 That was pretty good, too.
14:17 Speaker 02 Weird birthdays today. Besides Elvis Presley, Stephen Hawking, David Bowie, and Kim Jong-un.
14:23 Speaker 03 That's a lot of big energy.
14:25 Speaker 02 That's a lot of big energy, like, all over the place energy. You know, born today, Kim Jong-un, David Bowie, and Elvis Presley. Pop singer Noah Cyrus. That's Miley's sister.
14:37 Speaker 03 Yes.
14:37 Speaker 02 I believe. She's very talented.
14:39 Speaker 03 She is.
14:40 Speaker 02 Very, very talented. She's got some great duets.
14:43 Speaker 03 She's like the Solange to Beyonce.
14:45 Speaker 02 The Solange?
14:48 Speaker 03 Beyonce's sister. She's amazing.
14:51 Speaker 00 Big energy.
14:52 Speaker 02 Yeah. All right, let's go right to our message board. If you've got a question or comment, you can do, you can send them our way 24 hours a day, 661-396-1000. Here's the question. Debbie, can you read that?
15:05 Speaker 03 Yeah.
15:06 Speaker 02 That's a question.
15:07 Speaker 03 What advice do we have for new traders who feel discouraged by losing trades even when they follow their plan? What would you tell somebody to help them avoid impulsive trading? Thank you for the Daily Show.
15:20 Speaker 02 Awesome. That's from Big J. And so, great question. How do you, how do you deal with losses? How does an individual trader, especially if they're new, how do they deal with the discouragement of losing on a trade? And this is the, this is the, one of the most important questions you'd want to answer if you are ever wanting to do this on your own, because losses are part of the game. It's, you have to recognize that losses are normal and accept the inevitability of losses. Even professional traders lose on a percentage of their trades. It's just
15:59 Speaker 02 part of the process. So you have to focus on your strategies, long-term edge. If your plan is well-tested, and the short-term losses shouldn't mean much to you. Meaning, you, every plan and every strategy you have baked into the plan that, of course, you're going to have some losses. If you have a plan of trading and you're going to never have any losses, that is not a good plan.
16:33 Speaker 03 Because that's impossible.
16:34 Speaker 02 It's impossible. Yeah, it's like you're saying, "I've got, I've got the secret to always win." It's like, it's like you, you know, you join a, a football team, and you say, "We are never going to be scored on," or "We're never going to lose, any season, any game." It's, no, you know, you're not going to find a coach or a player that's going to say that. They're just saying, "Now, this is our goal. This is what we hope to do."
17:01 Speaker 03 Right.
17:01 Speaker 02 But we recognize that there will be some potential losses along the way. So you have to... Essentially, think of your losses as a tuition. You're paying tuition in each trade. Whether you win or lose it, you're paying a tuition. And the benefit is it's going to provide you some feedback that should maybe refine your approach. So let me give some tips, though. Let me give some things that besides recognizing that, okay, you just, you know, losses are just part of it. Have the first piece of advice is making sure that your risk management plan is well-defined.
17:43 Speaker 02 This is essentially part of your overall investment. First of all, have your overall investment strategy planned. What we call in our business are investment policy statement or APS. And that's essentially, you can write this for yourself. And that is, what do I want to accomplish with my investment? What are the policies in place that are guiding this investment strategy? So think about, for example, what your goals are, what assets you're willing to hold or buy or sell, whether it's certain stocks or certain bonds or mutual funds or ETFs. Maybe you also address the taxation issues if there are any.
18:25 Speaker 02 So you sort of have this plan that's devised overall broadly speaking about this is what this investment strategy, these are the rules that are going to guide this investment strategy. Part of that would be this, what I mentioned is now the risk management plan. So you're putting your position sizing, risk is essentially how much, what percentage of your trading capital or each trade are you willing to put in on any position? Are you willing to, you know, put over 5% in any one stock? Or is it 10% or 1%?
19:02 Speaker 03 Meaning like Vegas money. What are you potentially okay losing?
19:07 Speaker 02 That's right. Yeah. And how much are you willing to, how many positions are you willing to diversify across? Another part of this risk management plan would be stop-loss orders. You can place a stop-loss. Order, which is essentially an order in your
19:29 Speaker 02 outstanding order inside your portfolio that says, sell off that stock or that asset if it ever drops below a certain amount or a certain value.
19:40 Speaker 03 Oh, you can preset that.
19:42 Speaker 02 You can preset those. So you have these stop loss orders so that you know that if you happen to take a nap that day and you didn't wake up and make your trading and all hell broke loose and your and your and your account dropped below a certain point, boom, it can it can sell it. It can protect your your your your position to a certain extent. But remember, all of this is related to your overall portfolio risk. So you have to know as a as a trader, how to analyze what your current risk profile is of your portfolio. What it whether or not it is providing the the what we call alpha
20:22 Speaker 02 or that added benefit of increased returns on your portfolio based off of whatever it is that you're doing. And that's that's a really tricky, that's a really tricky thing to do, which I what I'm describing is an individual beating the average benchmark or or the the broad market.
20:43 Speaker 03 Yeah.
20:44 Speaker 02 So somebody who's doing trading on their own, generally what they're going, they're saying is, I could just buy the stock market, let's say the S and P 500 or the Dow. And I could just, you know, get stark stock market like returns, but I want to get more than that. So I'm going to, you know, create an alpha or an increase on the normal stock market returns because I'm going to wake up every morning and I'm going to follow XYZ.
21:12 Speaker 03 I'm going to time it and.
21:14 Speaker 02 Time it or analyze it.
21:16 Speaker 03 Do you really have that much time every day consistently?
21:19 Speaker 02 Very tricky. And even if you are good at it, it's, you know, it's just, are you really going to do better at it than professionals that have been doing this for a long time? And then you got to stay up on top of the trends. You have to know what your trend might be working for a certain amount of time. And then, then it's, then until it doesn't, and that will get in your head. So individual traders will have this problem where right now, what I, what I predict will happen is you have traders over the last few years who are just doing great. Because at least if they're, if they're long in the market, that means they're, they're anticipating the market to go up. It's, it's gone up for everybody that's been in the market.
21:57 Speaker 03 Right.
21:58 Speaker 02 Like a blindfolded monkey throwing darts at a stock chart would have done just as well as almost anybody else over the last several years. But so if the humans behind it, all of a sudden they start giving themselves credit, patting themselves on the back and look how good of a trader I am and I'm so great. They're just great until we, we, we get into a bear market or a, or a recession and all of a sudden, or some pullback and they're, oh my gosh, this isn't working anymore. And they start questioning and then, well, what is working? Well, I don't know what's working. And then they throw in the towel and they've usually, the average investor has given up most of the gains that they thought they got, but they just stayed in the market, you know?
22:36 Speaker 03 Woo.
22:37 Speaker 02 Yeah.
22:37 Speaker 03 How many people do you, would you classify doing their own day trading are adrenaline junkies?
22:45 Speaker 02 Yeah, I think a lot of them. If it's not adrenaline junkies, it's more of like a, what is the word? Like they're,
22:56 Speaker 02 I want to say, um, just very, you know, analytical, hands-on.
23:03 Speaker 03 Control issues?
23:04 Speaker 02 Control issues, maybe that's it. I hate to throw like a broad industry under the, under the, under the bus, but like engineers type people.
23:13 Speaker 03 Yeah.
23:14 Speaker 02 You know, that are used to and, and get some satisfaction out of getting in, getting into the weeds of, of the, of the process, you know, and, and it can be very. Satisfying to do that, but it's usually it's usually a waste of time.
23:29 Speaker 03 I wonder if there are any studies on blood pressure in people associated with increased, you know, higher, lower blood pressure with people that decide to get into this.
23:40 Speaker 02 I'm going to find out.
23:41 Speaker 03 And do it long term.
23:42 Speaker 02 That's a great question.
23:43 Speaker 03 I mean, I would, just from my seat as a normal, non-financial advisor person, I would say if you have high blood pressure, maybe don't look into this being something that you do. And if you like to look at your phone, you know, compulsively throughout the day, this is also maybe not a good fit for you.
24:04 Speaker 02 That's right. I've described those people from my evidence of anecdotal, you know, real life evidence, I've described those traders as generally very pale and oftentimes living in their parents' basement.
24:21 Speaker 03 Yeah.
24:21 Speaker 02 Or on a couch somewhere and isolated.
24:25 Speaker 03 Yeah.
24:26 Speaker 02 And then they are, they become increasingly isolated or paranoid over the period of years, not months, like, you know, traders will go in and out for, you know, a period of months or even a year or two. It's when they get past a norm, one or two normal business cycles.
24:43 Speaker 03 Right.
24:43 Speaker 02 They get through one recession or an expansion and a recession, and then all of a sudden, they're just like, they're a mess.
24:52 Speaker 03 I mean, this is another, it could potentially be another form of addiction.
24:56 Speaker 02 Yeah.
24:56 Speaker 03 Right?
24:57 Speaker 02 It definitely feels like gambling.
24:58 Speaker 03 Dopamine hit. It's, I don't see any difference, really.
25:01 Speaker 02 It is. It's 100%. It's a, it's a, yeah, it's, it's an addiction or it's fulfilling a need that, that can run, can get, can get bad real quick.
25:14 Speaker 03 Yeah.
25:15 Speaker 02 We got another great message here, but I want to take a break before we address this. Actually, I'm going to read it right now and then we will, we're going to answer this after the break. And here it is. It says, earlier this week, you discussed the $20 fast food minimum wage resulting in increased jobs in the industry. Anecdotally, I'm hearing. Hearing about workers' hours being cut to keep them from full-time status, which forces them to get a second or third job to earn the same amount. I'm not convinced these restaurants are adding labor hours. Rather, I think they are scaling back their overall hours while employing more part-time employees. Thoughts? Man, this is a great question, Debbie.
25:56 Speaker 03 Yeah.
25:57 Speaker 02 They're referencing, I think we talked about this a couple of days ago, a study that I read that showed that in California, since the wage, the minimum wage for fast food workers went up to $20 an hour.
26:10 Speaker 03 Yeah.
26:10 Speaker 02 The number of those jobs has actually increased. I mean, there's more of those positions than there were before that minimum wage went into effect. There's more people working in fast food by the tens of thousands than there, almost tens of thousands than there were before that minimum wage.
26:25 Speaker 03 Okay.
26:25 Speaker 02 It can be a little deceiving, and this listener here picked up on exactly how that data can be deceiving. I want to talk about this when we come back from our break. We're Money Wise, and we'll be right back.
26:36 Speaker 00 Money Wise Wealth Management is the only locally-owned, independent firm that uses a comprehensive wealth, tax, and estate approach, working closely with a highly trusted CPA and attorney. For information on how Money Wise can help you invest and plan for your future, call 661-847-1000. That's 661-847-1000.
27:05 Speaker 02 Thanks for tuning in. We're Money Wise. 661-396-1000. That's the number you can call or text 24 hours. Send us your comments or questions. Got a question or comment right now we're going to address. Debbie, can you read it?
27:17 Speaker 03 Yes. Oh, yes. Sorry. I keep going out of my window here.
27:20 Speaker 02 Yeah.
27:21 Speaker 03 Earlier this week, you discussed the $20 fast food minimum wage resulting in increased jobs in the industry. Anecdotal, anecdotally, wow, I can't say that word. Let's skip over that. I'm hearing about workers' hours being cut to keep them full-time, to keep them from being full-time status, which forces them to get a second or third job to earn the same amount. I'm not convinced these restaurants are adding labor hours. Rather, I think they are scaling back their overall hours while employing more part-time employees. Thoughts?
27:52 Speaker 02 Yeah, so this is a great question. Essentially, if labor hours have been shrunk, but job openings have increased, well, what are we gaining? We're not really gaining anything if we're just hiring more people, but cutting their hours. Right. So that would be true if that's the case. I don't know if that's the case, and I don't have access to that information right now to know whether or not that is the case. But you have to understand that that hasn't, that has always been the case in terms of employers shrinking their employees' working hours to avoid that level that the employee would get to, that full-time level where now they're entitled to more benefits, which
28:36 Speaker 02 is more expensive. Yes. Right? It's a catch-22 that an employer has, is that they want to attract good employees and offer, you know, benefits to them, but that's generally for full-time employees. Part-time employees, you sort of get a pass, right? But somebody who wants to be full-time that is made to work part-time, that's really not going to be a satisfactory job for most of those people. And what we're finding is, at least since the implementation in California of the new minimum wage, the $20, at least in the first six months after that new minimum wage came
29:17 Speaker 02 into effect, which was last April, the state's fast-food sector actually has gained the number of jobs. There's actually more jobs there. So another way of putting that is employers are still paying more because they're still, well, I guess it's not necessarily true, but they're hiring more people. There's no way they're going to turn all of their workers into part-time workers. And I haven't seen anything that has shown that that is what employers are doing any more than they were previous. Previously, before the increase of the minimum wage, there was still that. Employers were still doing that. Right. Like, the increase in their minimum wage, I don't know, really affected that too much. So...
30:02 Speaker 02 And the other thing, as I mentioned, is that the leading explanation to why when minimum wage goes up, that low, what these low wage jobs generally become more attractive is because it, the employee is willing to stay in that job longer. That means you have less turnover for the company. That means the company is spending less time recruiting and training new hires. And therefore, the workers themselves become more productive and less prone to mistakes, all which essentially lowers the employer's labor costs.
30:38 Speaker 03 Right.
30:39 Speaker 02 And so.
30:40 Speaker 03 Which In-N-Out has always kind of blazed the trail in this, this sector. As far as, I'm blanking on what their, their wage, their hourly wages, but they've always known to pay very well.
30:52 Speaker 02 Yes.
30:53 Speaker 03 Offer benefits and, you know, and people that have worked at In-N-Out have typically, they just have a really good reputation. For training people, training them up.
31:04 Speaker 02 And their attitudes. Like when you go in, do you go in and out?
31:07 Speaker 03 Uh, I don't go as much as I used to, but that, but that being said, it was pretty gross for a while. Yes.
31:13 Speaker 00 Friend that works there, they started at 25 or 26 bucks an hour.
31:16 Speaker 03 Yeah.
31:17 Speaker 02 Yeah, it's up there. It's a little higher than I thought where they would start, but it, it is a different level of service that you get when somebody gets paid a little bit more. The new law applies only to employees at chains with more than 60 locations nationwide.
31:33 Speaker 03 With at least one in California.
31:34 Speaker 02 One in California. So like, you know, we're talking about the major players here. McDonald's, Burger King, Subway, the big, the big players.
31:42 Speaker 03 Right. And this is a little interesting thing that when I Googled it, it said it also includes places that people may not typically associate with fast food, such as boba, tea shops, cafes and ice cream parlors. But those will still be typically chain.
31:58 Speaker 02 Right.
31:59 Speaker 03 Big chains. But that, that's interesting.
32:02 Speaker 02 Have you, it doesn't affect, yeah, a big change, but I have noticed, I asked Sammy, who was on the show with me the other day, have you noticed, I'm getting McDonald's?
32:13 Speaker 02 Do you ever go to McDonald's? That the service has gotten better, like the workers have a different attitude since, at least when I'm piecing together, since the minimum wage increase.
32:25 Speaker 00 I take my, my son, once a week, on the way to music lessons. That's his, his treat for the week.
32:32 Speaker 02 Yeah.
32:32 Speaker 00 He gets his little Hi-C orange and, I mean, it started with a six-piece chicken nugget. Now he's a quarter pounder guy, but yeah, and that's not cheap. So, um, yeah, but it was quick. And a lot of these places, especially like McDonald's or the Taco Bells or, you know, are using the, the apps. So if you have the app and you order it, you can actually save money because you're getting these reward points. So if you're going, you know, once a month, twice a month, then you, uh, I mean, the service is a lot quicker and they seem a lot nicer. Um, but that, that might just be because they see me every Wednesday.
33:12 Speaker 03 And you're really nice, Stephen. I'd be happy to see, I'm happy to see you every Wednesday.
33:18 Speaker 02 Well, McDonald's just updated their value menu for the first time in seven or eight years. Uh, have you been, have you seen it yet, Stephen?
33:25 Speaker 00 I have.
33:26 Speaker 02 And?
33:26 Speaker 00 Um, they, it's just like everything else. We buy one, get one for a dollar, buy two, get six free. And it's, it's a, it's not cheap. I'll tell you that because I didn't eat anything and it still cost me like 18 bucks to get a value meal for this.
33:42 Speaker 02 Boy.
33:43 Speaker 00 Yeah.
33:45 Speaker 03 Sharad, what's your order at McDonald's?
33:47 Speaker 02 I love their breakfast. I mean, the egg McMuffins are just like so like easy to eat.
33:53 Speaker 03 The hash browns.
33:54 Speaker 02 The hash brown and the coffee. I, no. I haven't had a McRib in a long time, but I know.
34:00 Speaker 00 Those are so sick.
34:01 Speaker 02 They're so weird.
34:02 Speaker 00 Yes.
34:02 Speaker 02 But, but they've done is they've hacked, McDonald's is very keen in hacking into the, the human mind in terms of like ordering where it's almost like a bait and switch. They're hooking you into thinking that you're getting a deal. But then if you change any one thing of that meal, it's, that goes off the charts. Say, for example, you know, you get, I'll get, when I go to McDonald's, usually what I'll order is if it's for breakfast and it's not that often, but when I do, I'll get the meal.
34:30 Speaker 03 Yeah.
34:30 Speaker 02 But if I add another, you know, hash brown, or if I add another drink or anything else, boom, it's like, what happened to my $3 meal? My $5 meal just turned into $15.
34:39 Speaker 00 The hash browns are more expensive than. The sandwiches.
34:41 Speaker 02 That's right.
34:42 Speaker 00 And I remember it was two for three. Now it's two for 650.
34:47 Speaker 03 Whoa.
34:47 Speaker 00 Yeah. So you get two sausage McMuffins for 650. You add that hash brown, you're going, you're looking at 10, 11 bucks.
34:53 Speaker 02 Yeah.
34:54 Speaker 00 I'm like, what?
34:55 Speaker 02 And that's what they've done. They changed their menu so that you have this $5.
34:58 Speaker 00 You have, you have to know how to manipulate your order.
35:01 Speaker 02 Yeah.
35:01 Speaker 00 Or they'll get you for an extra five, 10 bucks.
35:03 Speaker 03 And you're going there. You know, you, you're in your mind, you're going to eat that thing. So you're, you're, you're stuck. You're going to pay that money. You're not going to walk away without your hash brown.
35:13 Speaker 02 Right.
35:14 Speaker 00 That's funny because you, you have to know how to order it or they're going to, you know, tax you for an extra four or five bucks. If you don't buy two, then you're going to pay, you know, $4 more for the one you want.
35:26 Speaker 02 Well, and sometimes if you just want the sandwich and a side, but you don't want the drink. So you don't want the meal, right? You just want the sandwich and a side. It's more expensive than if you buy the meal with a drink. But the, but the worker won't tell you that. Hey, by the way, if you just got the meal, it'd save you 20 cents plus you get a drink. But you're thinking, well, I don't want a drink because I don't want to pay extra.
35:46 Speaker 03 Goes up to 25 an hour. They'll start offering some tips.
35:50 Speaker 02 Oh, the robots are pretty good at taking your order. Have you been to the, the Taco Bells here in town that? See, we gotta, we've got to have a whole segment on a whole show on just fast food.
36:00 Speaker 03 Out on the road. Can we, we should take, can we do a mobile show, Stephen? We'll just go around eating all day.
36:05 Speaker 02 Yeah.
36:08 Speaker 02 Yeah. Okay. We're going to take our final break of the day. I've got some headlines that we haven't even gotten to because we've gotten some great comments and questions, but keep them coming our way. 661-396-1000. We have our final break and then we're going to get to a message and a couple of headlines. We're money wise. We'll be right back.
36:24 Speaker 00 Are you curious to learn more about how you can be money wise? Check out the money wise website at moneywiseguys.com to get more info about what we do.
36:37 Speaker 02 Thanks for tuning in. We're the Money Wise Guys Show. Wow, I haven't said that in a while.
36:43 Speaker 02 661-396-1000, that's the number. We appreciate the comments and questions we've gotten. Just got a message here. It says, "Hey, Money Wise, you have great DJ voices." Thank you. "Can you share the IRS changes for 1099s in 2025?" I'm sending love to the DeRue family, R.I.P. Thank you for that, listener. So, question about 1099 changes in 2025. I do not know of any changes that are happening to 1099s in 2025. And doing a quick research, just, you know, before the break, I do not see anything from the IRS that is giving some update
37:27 Speaker 02 or guidance specifically to 1099 changes for 2025. Generally, those are released on a year-by-year basis by the IRS. And so that usually happens towards the latter half of the prior calendar year. Sometimes the IRS is a little bit slow on this. I'm not saying that things couldn't change. But be cautious if somebody is telling you that there is some brand-new finalized changes as there is no publicly available IRS publications or official notices that I see that are coming yet. But what you might be thinking about are the effects that happened to 1099s that was part of the American Rescue Plan of 2021.
38:11 Speaker 02 Now, we're going back to COVID times, and there were a lot of changes that happened to the tax code and to the IRS, including the threshold of how much you needed to have before a 1099 was required. So, as an employer, as a person, where you need a 1099, another person that they, you know, you paid them. It was, the old threshold was $20,000 in total payments and 200 transactions. The new threshold is $600 in total payments with no minimum transaction count. But there were some delays in updates. The IRS announced this first in 2022, that tax year 2022, but then...
38:55 Speaker 02 There was some ongoing debates and administrative action that needed to happen. And so it was sort of delayed and pushed forward. So, so there you go. Hopefully that helps a little bit clarify the 1099 rules that you're talking about.
39:14 Speaker 03 When in doubt, ask your CPA.
39:16 Speaker 02 Yes, that's for sure. Good, good, good point of, good, good answer. Okay. Lastly here, Debbie, I want to talk about some interesting, well, first let's talk about the fires that are happening down in LA.
39:29 Speaker 03 Catastrophic.
39:30 Speaker 02 So crazy. You just mentioned the statistic. This is now the, the most.
39:35 Speaker 03 The Palisades fire is the most destruct, that fire, which there are multiple fires burning down there at the moment, but the Palisades fire is alone the most destructive fire in LA history, allegedly. 80,000 people, over 80,000 people have been evacuated so far. The Palisades fire has burned through more than almost 16,000 acres.
40:00 Speaker 03 The Eaton fire, which is east of that area has exploded to, you know, almost 11,000 acres. It's just, it's insane. And you, you were talking about the power outages that have already happened and then the potential, like how far that might actually spread. I would love, I mean, no, I would not love, that's bad wording, but the economic impact of this on that city is huge.
40:25 Speaker 02 Yeah. If this is the biggest, I mean, the most devastating fire and we're in the thick of it right now, the winds are picking up today and they're not expected to die down till after tomorrow. And it's, you know, you have these fires being, getting winded. This is catastrophic and it's just right down, right down south from us. The fire is very close there to, it's from I-5. My guess is you could probably see it because I read earlier it was impacting the Getty grounds. So it's all that area of sort of west of, of I-5 towards the, towards the coast. Lot of big, you know, big properties.
41:05 Speaker 02 We have a lot of celebrities that live there and a lot of wealthy people, but there's also just normal, average, everyday people that live in these areas. Four hundred, four hundred thousand people are what's estimated could be impacted in terms of the power today. So in California, Edison is going to have to shut off because of the winds and the fires have to shut off power to people who maybe wouldn't be particularly under threat, but they're under the grid and the electrical system is under threat.
41:33 Speaker 03 By tonight, they're saying 1.5 million customers without electricity.
41:37 Speaker 02 I mean, it's literally just in the last hour has grown. Hour by hour, this grows, this fire is just catastrophic to our state. It's not going to help our insurance problem that we have here. Homeowner's insurance is going to continue to struggle. And now you have the lives of our neighbors right down south. This is, this is bad news. So our hearts are going out to our neighbors down here and hopefully Mother Nature cooperates or something happens and this doesn't get too as out of hand as all the experts are saying this could. It's tragedy. We might as well stay on this theme of sort of bad, strange news.
42:17 Speaker 02 There was another person on board a plane that did some crazy things. There was trying to taxi for takeoff. This is yesterday at Boston Logan International Airport on a JetBlue air flight. All of a sudden, they get up, try to open the exit door, quickly restrained by other passengers, of course, was the plane had to then, you know, stay there, had to arrest this individual and they had to go to a new plane. I thought, what is going on? This is like, this is, this is on the heels of just the two bodies that were found also in a JetBlue flight in Fort Lauderdale.
42:53 Speaker 03 What is going on?
42:54 Speaker 02 This is what, yeah, this was just earlier this week that that happened. The two individuals were found in the, in the wheel well of an airplane. This is after not long ago, just, just on December 25th, when a body was found in a United Airlines plane that had flown from Hawaii to Chicago, from Chicago to Hawaii. What, you know?
43:17 Speaker 03 Desperate times.
43:18 Speaker 02 Help me out here.
43:19 Speaker 03 Well, we were asking the question of how does somebody end up in these positions? And, you know, we did look up a couple of the stories in the past, and it's people in really dire, desperate situations where they're just trying to get the heck out of Dodge.
43:35 Speaker 00 Trying to get a free ride?
43:35 Speaker 02 Yeah.
43:36 Speaker 03 Yeah.
43:36 Speaker 02 The FAA Civil Space Aerospace Medical Institute used media archives and documented 89 people across 79 flights who have attempted to fly in a wheel well or other exterior compartment of an airplane. Of those 89 people, only 18.
43:52 Speaker 00 It's like people that get under the buses.
43:53 Speaker 02 Yeah, and hang on.
43:55 Speaker 03 Oh, man.
43:55 Speaker 00 For the trains.
43:56 Speaker 02 Out of the 89 people that have tried to like, jump on an exterior compartment of an airplane, only 18 have survived. That doesn't seem like a good way to go.
44:06 Speaker 03 Hey, we had a quick question pop in. A listener called and asked if it's true, if the markets are closed tomorrow.
44:12 Speaker 02 Oh, yes. Yes, markets are closed tomorrow for President Carter's funeral.
44:16 Speaker 03 Yes.
44:17 Speaker 02 And that is true. I wanted to mention that, too.
44:20 Speaker 03 But we will still be on the air, correct? Or we are not on the air tomorrow live?
44:24 Speaker 02 We're not live tomorrow, but we are going to be on the air.
44:27 Speaker 03 We'll be here, you guys. Tune in.
44:30 Speaker 02 Our office will be open. Markets will be closed, but our office will be open. Yeah, thank you for bringing that up. Jimmy Carter's funeral tomorrow.
44:36 Speaker 03 And thank you for asking out there, listener.
44:39 Speaker 02 Wonderful question. We've got so much great interactions. We love our listeners. Thank you so much for participating. We want to encourage you. If you've got any questions or comments, send them our way, 6613961000. And if you miss any of these shows, tune in to wherever you download your podcasts, you'll find us there. Remember these three things: be smart, be safe, and always be money wise.
45:02 Speaker 01 Securities offered through SCF Securities, Inc., member FINRA/SIPC. Investment advisory services offered through SCF Investment Advisors, Inc. SCF Securities, Inc. and Money Wise Wealth Management are independently owned and operated.
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