9/18/26 Fear, Futures & Fastballs

The Moneywise Radio Show and Podcast Friday, September 18th BE MONEYWISE. Moneywise Wealth Management I "The Moneywise Radio Show & Podcast" call: 661-847-1000 text in anytime: 661-396-1000 website: www. MoneywiseGuys.com https://www.moneywiseguys.com/ facebook: Moneywise_Wealth_Management https://www.facebook.com/moneywiseguys/ LinkedIn: Moneywise_Wealth_Management https://www.linkedin.com/company/moneywise-wealth-management-bakersfield/ Guest: Corey Davisson, Special Edication Teacher for the Kern High School District, Owner of Corey Davisson Baseball & Next Level Baseball website: https://www.diamondvillage.net/ The opinions voiced in this podcast are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. To determine which strategies or investments may be suitable for you, consult the appropriate qualified professional prior to making a decision. Corey Davisson, Kern High School District & Diamond Village Baseball are not affiliated with nor endorsed by LPL Financial or Moneywise Wealth Management

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Live from the basement inside the historic Woolworth Building in downtown Bakersfield. Call or text in at 661-396-1000.

• 0:29Speaker 01

  Securities offered through LPL Financial, member FINRA/SIPC. Investment advisory services offered through LPL Financial. LPL Financial and MoneyWise Wealth Management are independently owned and operated.

• 0:37Speaker 00

  Now, let's start the MoneyWise Show.

• 0:40Speaker 02

  That's right. Welcome to the MoneyWise Show. We are live from the basement of the historic Woolworth Building in downtown Bakersfield. I am your host today, Chris Pelster, with?

• 0:50Speaker 03

  Justin Leland. How you doing?

• 0:51Speaker 02

  Mr. Justin Leland, we don't get to be on the show very often together.

• 0:54Speaker 03

  It's a star-studded show.

• 0:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm very excited.

• 0:57Speaker 00

  And, and, and, and, happy belated birthday.

• 0:59Speaker 02

  Oh, thank you, yeah.

• 1:01Speaker 00

  I'm not gonna sing, cuz I enjoy our listeners.

• 1:03Speaker 03

  Cuz we suck at singing.

• 1:04Speaker 00

  Yeah, I'm not a singer.

• 1:05Speaker 02

  We should've had Gero Ellis's happy birthday on the key, dude. He, uh, sent me a text message on Wednesday, so he can text. And, uh, and his wife helps him out a little bit, and he had a beautiful rendition of, uh, of happy birthday. He still has a golden voice, little vibrato in there even on the, uh, the, uh, the closer.

• 1:25Speaker 03

  The cowboy, cowboy strikes again, huh?

• 1:27Speaker 02

  I was lucky enough to get out on, uh, on the golf range and got to enjoy a couple hours out there and literally was bawling in my, uh, golf car, cart as I was enjoying my birthday. So, Gero's got that effect on people, so thank you, Mr. Gero Ellis. And, uh, for the listeners that love him, thanks for all your love and support of his recovery. And he's doing good. So, uh, we, we are gonna, uh, definitely do what we do. We're gonna go over a little bit of market numbers. It's been a wild week. We have the 10-year Treasury kinda, uh, moving around, and so Mr. Justin's gonna talk about that. And we also have a wonderful guest joining us today, so stick around. We have Corey Davisson, who's, uh, making headlines here in Bakersfield. He is, uh, he is fixing up the beautiful Northwest Fields, which is now Diamond Village.

• 2:12Speaker 02

  We're gonna get the story. We're gonna get a little bit about it. It's kinda made, made some news. And so, uh, definitely, I, I saw him at a wonderful fundraiser for a mutual friend of ours that's battling cancer as some of our friends and family go through, so that was great to see him there. And, uh, and I was like, "Man, you got some, some news out there. Like, let's get your side of the story." So, very excited to get his side of the story and what's going on there at those fields that many of us, uh, got to, to enjoy as, as, as young lads. And, uh, has there ever been female sports out there?

• 2:42Speaker 02

  One softball field? So, maybe some of you guys also played some softball out there, but we will get the full story here in a second. But, Mr. Uh, Justin, what, what's going on in the markets?

• 2:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, honestly, after a lot of news that happened this week, I mean, the, the, the Bank of Japan raised interest rates, uh, the Fed raised interest rates, uh, we're getting some numbers from the PPI and CPI. You know, a lot of things happening this week. And the 10-year Treasury is at its highest point, um, interest rate since June of 2007.

• 3:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:14Speaker 03

  Think about that for a minute, since June of 2000, nearly 20 years. And what was happening right before the 2007?

• 3:20Speaker 02

  2007 led into some, some really-

• 3:23Speaker 03

  Really good market numbers, uh, after that. Um, yeah, no, so the-

• 3:26Speaker 02

  And that's why I'm looking right here on a, there's a, there's an indicator on this, uh, CNN business, and it says, "Fear is driving the US market."

• 3:34Speaker 03

  Yeah, kind of, a little bit. And so, the, the 10-year yield right now is sitting at 5%, uh, which is the highest point since 2007, um, which is kinda, you know, you gotta look at that as well. Are we gonna be at higher interest rates for longer? Yeah, inflation's really high, and the only real lever that the Fed has to pull to drop inflation is to raise interest rates, make, make money a little bit more difficult to get to. And so, the 10-year's sitting at 5% is a, a, a real indicator of that. Now, what does that do to the stock market? Well, on Wednesday, the market fell after the Fed raised interest rates, and there was fear that, "Hey, maybe they're, they're gonna raise interest rates even more between now and the end of the year," which is, is very possible. They may raise rates at least one more time between now and the end of the year.

• 4:19Speaker 03

  And, uh, so Wednesday markets were down, Thursday, you know, markets came roaring back. And today, we have a mixed market, and it's basically flat. Uh, the Dow is down about, what, a tenth of a percent? S and P 500 is flatlined, and the NASDAQ is actually up about two tenths of a percent. So, a bit of a mixed market out there. Um, but really, that's, uh, kind of from the, you know, it, it's kind of running opposite. So, the, the, the, the stock market basically being, uh, Dow is down for the, the week. The S and P 500 is down slightly for the week, basically flat. And the NASDAQ actually being up for the week, so kind of a weird, mixed week. But the yields have gone pretty much sky-high.

• 5:03Speaker 03

  So, normally, you'd think that when the, the yields on these things go up and the prices of bonds go down, stocks tend to go up, right? So, there's kind of that, that weird kinda negative correlation between stocks and bonds. Well, bonds right now are down. You would expect stocks to be up, and they're not. They're just sitting there kind of flat, not doing much right now. So, we'll, we'll see what happens over the next couple of weeks and what happens maybe after the election and, you know, what happens with the Fed chair, and are they gonna raise it, interest rates another quarter point or maybe even a half a point, uh, between now and the end of the year? We'll kinda see what happens from there. It really kind of all depends a little bit on Iran, and oil prices still sitting at a hundred dollars a barrel, you know?

• 5:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:43Speaker 03

  I don't know if you've, uh, filled up your diesel truck recently?

• 5:45Speaker 02

  Uh, I, I cried when Gero sent me the birthday message, and I also cried this morning when I filled up with diesel on my way to the-

• 5:53Speaker 03

  What was it, nine bucks a gallon at this point?

• 5:55Speaker 02

  Well, I, I, I don't, I can't even just, I just can't even use my credit card anymore cuz most, most of them will cap you out.

• 6:01Speaker 03

  They cap you out, yeah.

• 6:02Speaker 02

  So, I go in, and I'm always like, you know, 200 on whatever, or two, you know, and this time I'm like 220 on whatever. I figured that was plenty.

• 6:09Speaker 03

  And you, you still had a quarter tank to go.

• 6:11Speaker 02

  And it capped out, and I wasn't even all the way to full, so that's-

• 6:15Speaker 03

  Oh, boy.

• 6:16Speaker 02

  That's where, I don't know, man, I, rollerblading is starting to get more attractive. It's not super far. Can you rollerblade on the parkway across town?

• 6:25Speaker 03

  If you, you can do like the Marty McFly and hang on to somebody's, uh, the rear bumper.

• 6:29Speaker 02

  At this point, you know, a couple more weeks of this-

• 6:31Speaker 03

  As long as your knees and hips can handle it, go for it.

• 6:32Speaker 02

  All those big, big truck diesel drivers out there, good night, uh, you know, I feel your pain. Uh, this morning was painful, so, so, yeah. Hey, uh, one of the things that I was gonna mention, we, we did get a couple of questions that actually asked some good questions about higher interest rates, higher inflation numbers and stuff like that, that I think are good to remind yourself of. But, um, also, one of the things that I like to do, when we, when we talk about 2007 and, and 2007 obviously led into 2008, 2009, we still hear a lot of clients talk about that. It was a very, uh, you know, scarring time for a lot of investors. It was a, you know, like, housing markets and all these different things. And, and perspective right now in the markets is, over the last five years, the S and P 500 is up 72%.

• 7:17Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 7:18Speaker 02

  So, just remember that. If the market quote-unquote "crashes," why we say that you should be invested, stay invested, have a good investment strategy. The market over the last five years, or at least the S and P 500 specifically, is up 72.3%.

• 7:33Speaker 03

  And that's taking into account 2022, which was a, a, a heavy down year. That was down, what, 22, 24%?

• 7:41Speaker 02

  Yep. Over the last year, S and P 500 is up 15.2. Year-to-date, S and P 500 is up 11.6. So, a, a crazy mental game to play with yourself right now is to say, "What if the stock market gave up all of the gains over the last year?"

• 7:58Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 7:59Speaker 02

  That's a 15% drop in value.

• 8:02Speaker 03

  Right.

• 8:02Speaker 02

  Now, I don't want that.

• 8:04Speaker 03

  No, nobody does.

• 8:05Speaker 02

  And, nobody does, but if something was to happen big enough, if, if something was to come out that was just to really shockwave the market, and we gave up all the gains over the last year, which would be a 15% drop in the value. Again, that's not unheard of.

• 8:20Speaker 03

  Right, that's pretty normal.

• 8:21Speaker 02

  The market actually has a 10% drop every single year. Most people never even realize it. I'm just saying, you almost wanna prepare yourself, know how you're invested. Look at what the market has been doing for the last five years. Look at what it's been doing for the last 12 months and year-to-date so far, and prepare yourself. How are you invested? How is your portfolio going to react if the markets hiccup or if something happens? Do that now. Don't do it two weeks into a market collapse where then you're stuck in the emotional spin cycle, and you're trying to make decisions, and then you're reaching around, or you're talking to your friends, or you're somebody at the water cooler, and you get stuck in that chaos world, and you make bad financial and investment decisions.

• 9:02Speaker 03

  You're trying to jump off of the roller coaster mid, mid-loop-de-loop.

• 9:05Speaker 02

  Yes, yeah. Do it right now, and we, we always tell people, like, these are the times to, you know, take a deep breath if the market, you know, starts to hiccup one way or the other, that we're starting to see, uh, you know, interest rates go up, and, and it is challenging. I was just looking at a thing with, with my wife the other day about how a $500,000 loan, back when interest rates were like two and a half, compared to now, it's like twice as much. You're just scratching your head. We're all wondering what's going on and how is this all gonna play out? And it can, you know, it can push us around with emotions. Don't get fear and get greed out of your portfolio, make good decisions, and stay money-wise. So, anyways, just wanted to throw that out there to those folks. Uh, but I did wanna bring up this one comment that came in, cuz it kinda talks about this a little bit. It says, "Hey, guys, I've listened to every show for the past two years.

• 9:50Speaker 02

  Really enjoy learning your guys' thoughts on Social Security lately. I am still 15 to 20 years away from retiring. Should all this talk about tariffs, interest rates, Social Security actually change what I am doing right now or just ride it out?" Um, not exactly sure what, what you're doing now, or so when you say just ride it out. But here, here's the reality of one of the things that we were just talking about. Uh, inflation and interest rates going up and things getting more expensive. The pressure on Social Security, if inflation is going up-

• 10:20Speaker 02

  Raises that they give to retirees goes up.

• 10:23Speaker 03

  Right, because the COLA adjustments.

• 10:24Speaker 02

  Right, the cost of living adjustments go up, which means the pressure on the social security system gets worse.

• 10:31Speaker 03

  Which means it runs out of money quicker, at least the trust fund runs out of money quicker.

• 10:35Speaker 02

  And so, let's clarify that. When we say it runs out of money, it doesn't mean that it's.

• 10:39Speaker 03

  Insolvent or goes away.

• 10:41Speaker 02

  Insolvent, or nobody gets anything, but they're using a bucket of money right now to pay about 20 to 25% of the benefits to retirees.

• 10:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think it's like 22, 23% is what they're giving.

• 10:51Speaker 02

  That will run out of money.

• 10:52Speaker 03

  Right.

• 10:52Speaker 02

  If inflation goes up, cost of living adjustments go up, that will run out of money even faster. Now, they can fix it, they can change taxes, or how they're paying for the system, you know, all these different things. Unfortunately, that might mean more money out of your paycheck. Whoever sent this wonderful message, appreciate it. Thanks for listening to the show.

• 11:10Speaker 03

  The one silver lining about interest rates going higher is that the social security bonds that are issued from that holding, from that trust fund, means that they're getting more money. So, it doesn't run out, I mean, it will still probably run out faster because of the COLA adjustment, but not as fast as if there was no interest rate increase.

• 11:30Speaker 02

  Right, which, there's a lot of misconception about that, about the borrowing against the social security money.

• 11:35Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 11:35Speaker 02

  A lot of people don't realize that it's, it has stayed as healthy as it has because they're making interest on that.

• 11:41Speaker 03

  Correct.

• 11:42Speaker 02

  Now, we can disagree, or we can agree that maybe they borrowed to use that money in foolish ways.

• 11:47Speaker 03

  Right.

• 11:47Speaker 02

  And I don't think anybody would, would maybe fight too hard on, there's probably not been 100%.

• 11:53Speaker 03

  Right.

• 11:53Speaker 02

  You know, home runs has not been chosen with some of the use of those funds, but the interest that they've been paying on the money that the, that has been used or borrowed against the system has gone back. So, there's a lot of confusion about social security. But anyways, back to the wonderful listener that is saying, should I, should I change what you're doing? This is why you can't completely like really bank on social security being like this big part of your retirement. It is a part of your retirement, there's nothing wrong with planning for it. I tell people, what I would do is plan for 20 to 25% less of what they're telling you you're going to get is going to be there.

• 12:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, so if you're looking at your social security statement, you know, you go online and you go, my social security, whatever, you look at that and they're like, oh, we estimate you're going to make $3,000 a month in social security. Immediately take that and drop it by a third.

• 12:42Speaker 02

  Right. Yeah, and then that means you're, you're planning cautiously, you're planning conservatively, which means then.

• 12:50Speaker 03

  You're putting more money into your 401K, right?

• 12:52Speaker 02

  More money into your 401K. Do anything else to pay down debts, do anything else to build up assets, do anything else that's going to help you create income when you're ready to, to be, you know, self, self-reliant, and you don't have to go to work anymore to pay for your, your lifestyle and stuff. So, another comment came in that I completely agree with is, great job, Steve-O. I mean.

• 13:13Speaker 03

  He's the best.

• 13:14Speaker 02

  I don't even, it, pick your, pick your reasoning of why somebody would have sent that message in. It's, there's like a million reasons, but.

• 13:22Speaker 03

  It's mostly just the bumper rotation.

• 13:24Speaker 00

  I think that's what it was.

• 13:25Speaker 03

  I think it was mostly just.

• 13:26Speaker 00

  It sure as hell wasn't my Dolphins, I'll say that.

• 13:29Speaker 02

  Were you, were you sharing, were you sharing football picks and you make money, make money for some people, or is that your other show?

• 13:36Speaker 00

  That's my other show.

• 13:36Speaker 02

  Oh, that's your other show.

• 13:37Speaker 00

  I cannot do that with the regulations of the Money Wise Wealth Management.

• 13:40Speaker 02

  Oh, oh, so if you do want to tune in, you just need to turn to, no, just kidding. Another comment came in. Let's go ahead and jump to the one about the, the diocese, because that's been a topic this week. The Catholic Diocese in Fresno, if you guys haven't heard, had some issues with their retirement plan failing. And so, pretty long comment that came in, but in respect of the great comment, it says, I was surprised to hear about what's going on with the retirement account for employees in the Fresno Catholic Diocese. Current employees and retirees in their account are at risk for losing their retirement benefits due to the financial instability of the diocese. The diocese is facing multiple lawsuits which contributed to the organization's filing for bankruptcy. You can read the story on KGET's website. My question is, how can this happen and how

• 14:25Speaker 02

  can a person, how a person can protect themselves from losing their retirement contributions that were made with the understanding that the benefit would be received when they retire? Can an employee's retirement account be at risk of being lost if an organization is facing harsh financial situations? I want to hear what the Money Wise Guys expert have to say about this and surprising situation. Keep up the awesome show. The one thing that I want to say real quick is, a lot of times, I don't care if you're participating in a pension, a government pension, which would be like if you work for, you know, school districts or whatever.

• 14:59Speaker 03

  Right.

• 14:59Speaker 02

  Private pensions, like, it's overwhelming because there's a lot of stuff that you would have to be, stay up with, but not every single retirement pension is the same. Like, Cal Stairs has all kinds of different districts, and all of them are funded at different levels, and their health, like, if you're participating in a pension, it may not be your jam to read through documents and all this stuff, but if you want to know the health of the pension that you're participating in, you have to be involved at least a little bit. You don't have to become an expert.

• 15:31Speaker 03

  Read the document.

• 15:31Speaker 02

  But, you know, there, there are some pensions out there that are well-funded and doing great, and there are some pensions that unfortunately, they are, they're not funded correctly, which just means they're not paying enough money into those pensions.

• 15:46Speaker 03

  Well, and this is where it kind of becomes weird with this particular case. So, the, the diocese of Fresno funds their 403B and their pension plan through a company by the name of Christian Brothers Services. And it, it's not just the Fresno Diocese that uses Christian Brothers. Many other dioceses across the nation use Christian Brothers as their, their provider, if you will, for pensions and 403Bs. So, this organization, you know, we all know that the, the diocese filed bankruptcy a few years back, and they're still kind of wading through that. The diocese has actually paid all of the money into the plan that

• 16:31Speaker 03

  they were needing to pay into it. They've made all of their contributions into it. However, there were still some unfunded liabilities, simply because of maybe some of the mismanagement that came from Christian Brothers. Christian Brothers is the one that's actually having some real financial issues. And so, they, the, the diocese initially had planned to spin off their part of their pension slash 403B from this nonprofit, the Christian Brothers, to create its own plan. Problem with that was that the legal issues that the diocese was running into with their bankruptcy would not allow them to do that, because then it becomes an issue for creditors and all the other stuff that goes along with

• 17:15Speaker 03

  that. And so, they've had to kind of go through this whole process, and, you know, not necessarily the fault of the diocese, although it's, it's easy to throw blame, you know, at, at the organization.

• 17:29Speaker 02

  Right.

• 17:29Speaker 03

  But there's also blame to be thrown at this, this third party that was managing the funds.

• 17:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 17:36Speaker 03

  Right? And so, in a situation like this, in, in most cases, you're, you're going to see that, you know, for every pension that's out there, any kind of pension you have, you have to pay premiums and pay for insurance on the pension. And the company that actually handles that is a company by the name of PBGC. It's a Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation. It's a quasi-governmental agency created, you know, to kind of handle some of these issues if there's unfunded liabilities, or, you know, the pension, you know, goes bankrupt, or whatever, the PBGC is supposed to come in and try to fix that or make it better. Now, it doesn't necessarily mean that if you were getting paid $800 a

• 18:20Speaker 03

  month from the pension, that you're going to continue to get $800 a month.

• 18:23Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 18:23Speaker 03

  You may wind up getting like pennies on the dollar.

• 18:25Speaker 02

  Sometimes it's much, much lower.

• 18:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly. So, you know, there's still more to come out of this. You know, it's still relatively new as far as the news has come and hit since like Tuesday or Wednesday of this week. But at this point, it looks like Christian Brothers, the plan was frozen back on June 30th, meaning that active employer, employees are not accruing any additional benefits after that date, and that current retirees may have received their final check at this point. So.

• 18:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, the diocese has said that the retirement benefits will ultimately be re-reduced in any scenario that they choose to take. Um, but it's not fully determined how much that's going to be yet.

• 19:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 19:07Speaker 03

  They're still working through it.

• 19:09Speaker 02

  And, and so, you know, to, to the, to the, you know, the question that came in is like, how to protect yourself is, is understanding that if you're participating in a pension program, like sometimes somebody will come in and ask like, hey, I'm part of, part of this pension. And they'll be like, you don't know about it? And it's like, well, there's, there's hundreds and thousands of pensions out there and each one of them are different and, and each one of them are specific to a set of employers. There, it's going away. It happened a long time ago with the advent of the, uh, the 401k. And so a lot of companies were not wanting to be on the hook for paying for long pensions for people and retirees. Obviously people started living longer. That was a big liability for a company to have to cover. Um, but, uh, but yeah, you know, uh,

• 19:54Speaker 02

  pensions are, are lifelong income streams and there's a big bucket of money that's being put into this based on your years of service. And like I said, each one's a little bit different as far as what the benefits and how they pay out. But you, you would want to like, when you're saying, how do I protect myself? Well, you want to work at a company that's financially sound.

• 20:13Speaker 03

  Right.

• 20:14Speaker 02

  They're funding the pension.

• 20:15Speaker 03

  Right.

• 20:15Speaker 02

  Um, all the pension programs are based on assumed rates of return with the bucket of money that they have.

• 20:22Speaker 03

  Correct.

• 20:23Speaker 02

  And a lot of these are not meeting it, but it still doesn't mean it's horrible.

• 20:27Speaker 03

  Yeah. And you also have to remember, so like, what's the difference between a pension and let's say a 401k, right? A 401k is your money. You put it in, you get a match. It's named for you under your social security number. Yes, it's in a plan that's governed by ERISA and all this other stuff, but that's your money. If you leave the company, you can take that with you.

• 20:49Speaker 02

  Right.

• 20:49Speaker 03

  Pensions are different. Pensions are not an individual kind of a thing and it's a pooled asset. It's a pooled amount of money and there's people putting money into it and people taking money out of it at the same time. And you're still having to make sure that you're getting the right returns on that. So, you know, pensions can be, you know, what, what a lot of people think, or maybe they're, they're more safe. Um, when in reality, they're, they're not necessarily less safe, but they're just different.

• 21:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:18Speaker 03

  And they're funded in a different way and the actuaries are run in a different way and the investments are run in a different way. And so it's not necessarily your individual funds.

• 21:30Speaker 02

  Yeah. And when I started in this industry too, they would talk about like the three-legged stool of financial security and retirement. And it was social security and a pension and your savings, which, you know, it would, would maybe be your 401k or whatever. But, you know, it's still kind of the same thing, but not a lot of folks have access to a pension anymore. They, you know,

• 21:48Speaker 03

  Only 12% of, uh, companies, private companies.

• 21:51Speaker 02

  Private companies.

• 21:51Speaker 03

  Only 12% of private companies still offer a pension of any kind.

• 21:56Speaker 02

  And that's why a lot of folks go into government jobs. We, you know, we talked about teaching earlier and stuff like that.

• 22:02Speaker 03

  You take a lower pay, but you get a nicer benefit.

• 22:04Speaker 02

  Possibly. I mean, there, there's still great, great, you know, great benefits and stuff. It's a trade-off or whatever, you know? And so each of these different directions have different things, but there's still some truth to the whole three-legged stool. And if you're, if you're at a company that does not have a pension, then you're going to want to fight for a, a 401k match and hopefully you're getting that. And if you don't have that, hopefully you're making enough money that you start to get serious about how much money do I need to save? How do I need to be invested?

• 22:29Speaker 03

  Start your own IRA or Roth or brokerage account, whatever.

• 22:33Speaker 02

  You can still win with money. Um, but obviously each of these different directions have different trades. Um, there's no way to completely, uh, avoid all risks. But like I said, this question that came in that said, you know, how do you avoid situations like this? Well, it's like, you need to at least somewhat understand when, when you have a pension that's at a company, they are supposed to be, uh, you know, sharing some of this documentation. There's probably like an annual meeting or a report.

• 22:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, there's the annual reports and documentation and disclosures that come out. And it's honestly, in many cases, it's a cure for insomnia.

• 23:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:05Speaker 03

  Nobody's wanting to read those documents, right?

• 23:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:08Speaker 03

  But that's, you really should. You really should kind of know what's going on with those.

• 23:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:12Speaker 03

  You know?

• 23:13Speaker 02

  And, and honestly, like it's tough because at the end of the day, if you have a great job, making good money and you're putting money into a 401k and they also have a pension. And if the pension is not being run right, you, you don't necessarily have a lot of say, but, but you get enough employees maybe that are like saying, hey, like we need to, to take care of this. But, uh, it's one of those things where usually it's flying under the radar and, and it's not being funded correctly or whatever. There's something going on, you know, Enron had all their issues. A bunch of their pension money was in Enron stock, which obviously.

• 23:41Speaker 03

  Obviously a not a good idea.

• 23:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:43Speaker 03

  I'll get, I mean, this is one of those things. I'll give you a little quick personal thing is that, you know, my wife receives a pension from LaSara, the LA County Employees' Retirement Association. And, uh, so every year annually, we get a, a report from LaSara with the health of the pension, right? For all the LA County employees. And, uh, she opens it up and immediately just hands it to me. She doesn't look at it at all. And then I'm like, this is probably close to a hundred percent

• 24:12Speaker 02

  99%.

• 24:13Speaker 03

  Of their, of their employees and pensioners.

• 24:15Speaker 02

  It's really hard, but just even understanding that, you know, there's, there's a health rating of your pension programs and at least be somewhat involved that if things are starting to go off the rail, hopefully maybe somebody could say something soon enough. But hey, uh, thanks for those comments that came in. We are going, when we come back, we're going to be joined by Corey Davisson. He is not only a special education teacher in Kern High School District, but also owner of Corey Davisson Baseball, Next Level Baseball. So when we come back, we're going to get the story of what used to be Northwest Baseball. We'll be right back.

• 24:54Speaker 02

  Welcome back to the Money Wise Show. I'm Chris Pelster with Mr. Justin Leland. And like I mentioned before, we're really excited. A buddy of mine, Mr. Corey Davisson's not only changing lives in the Kern High School District as a special educator there at West High School, but also, uh, a man of the people in the baseball world, uh, running not only Next Level Baseball, Corey Davisson Baseball LLC. And, and, uh, like I said, has been, um, making waves in, in, uh, in the news a little bit. Cause there's kind of, I mean, how would you explain what's been going on with the, with the, uh, what, what has always been known as Northwest Fields? So there's still Northwest Baseball. Explain a little bit about what's

• 25:38Speaker 02

  going on for those don't know what I'm talking about and what's been going on and what, how you guys have stepped in and what the issues were.

• 25:45Speaker 04

  Yeah. So, uh, Influencers Youth Sports is the nonprofit organization that, that we run. Uh, we run a lot of travel baseball tournaments. Um, last year in December or October, whatever it was, uh, the county which operates the metro complex, which is where Northwest Baseball, uh, the fields were or are, they put out a RFP, a request for, uh, proposal to see if there was anybody else that would want to operate the complex. So with us running travel baseball tournaments and using multiple fields and locations around town, it was like, okay, let's try this and see how it is, how it works. Um, knowing

• 26:28Speaker 04

  that, you know, we've got the funding and all that kind of stuff and the backing to help the complex. Uh, it allowed us to run our tournaments at one location or two locations rather than four or five.

• 26:41Speaker 02

  Right.

• 26:41Speaker 04

  Um, so put that, we put the proposal in and, um, there were two other, three other, uh, people or groups that put in their bid and, uh, the county selected us, uh, to kind of take over operations. And it's, we took over September 1st and we're now 18 days in and, um, it's a lot of work.

• 27:06Speaker 02

  Yeah. I know. I see the social media posts, man. I told you, you're like a farmer now. So do you guys own the fields or you're just, you're leasing it from the county? How does that work?

• 27:15Speaker 04

  So we're leasing it from the county.

• 27:16Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 27:16Speaker 04

  So the county owns Samlin, the batting cages, uh, the BMX track, the RC track. Um, and so they own all of what they call the metro complex. So that is all considered the metro complex. And we decided that, you know, tying it back into the community with Pioneer Village and the museum, to name it Diamond Village. Um, there is one softball field out there. It's Dave Frye that was big in the men's fast pitch back in the seventies

• 27:47Speaker 02

  Gotcha.

• 27:47Speaker 04

  Um, and eighties. And prior to Northwest taking over, uh, in 2003, when, uh, Steve Holloway, uh, was the president and was the president that signed this, this last lease for them. Um, it was JBA, Junior Baseball Association. And when, uh, Mr. Holloway's group came in to take care of the snack bar floor for us after we demoed it, um, there was a, a number, I think it was 1963 or 1965 from when that place was built.

• 28:18Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 28:19Speaker 04

  So it's been around a long time. Um, we've found some.

• 28:23Speaker 02

  That's where I played for 15 years, JBA.

• 28:26Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 28:26Speaker 02

  Good old days.

• 28:27Speaker 04

  Yeah. You know, now, I mean, there's 13 fields out there. There's two, two T-ball fields, uh, 11 baseball or 10 baseball, and then the one softball field. So, uh, we've started. On the infrastructure, as far as the sprinklers weren't working, the pump's been leaking for I don't know how many years. So we got the pump taken care of. It got put back on, put back together last Friday. And since then, we've, we've had water and about 80 pounds of pressure, thanks to Farm Pump out of Shafter, helped us out with that. And, you know, now it's our job to, to, you know, get with the community and, and see what, where we can get some help because

• 29:10Speaker 04

  we've got some funding and some backing, but that's going to run out real quick with a lot of the other things that are going on.

• 29:16Speaker 02

  Yeah. And so, uh, cause one of the things that I was kind of asking about for clarification is so, so it's, people are probably confused and there's different names involved and so, so Northwest Baseball is still going to operate out there. They're still a rec league and they're still going to operate. They're just going to be using your facilities or the facilities that are maintained by you guys. So what, what, what, what was a little bit of the, uh, there was kind of a little bit of a pushback from it, from what I understand. What, what was the concerns or what was the community concerned about with you guys taking over this?

• 29:45Speaker 04

  Uh, there's just a lot of miscommunication and, and false information coming out from, um, some former board members that were at Northwest for many years that did take care of it and did a lot for it. Uh, the fear was that we were going to eliminate recreational baseball. Um, and that is by far the farthest from the truth because everybody that plays in this game, uh, needs to start somewhere. And recreational baseball is where I started. It's where everybody started. Um, and to eliminate that, to make it a specifically, uh, travel baseball complex is-

• 30:22Speaker 03

  Club kind of system or whatever.

• 30:23Speaker 04

  Yeah. It, it makes no sense. Um, you know, the, the club does run year round. Um, we actually don't do anything in July or December, January. We do one toy drive tournament in the beginning of December. Um, and then we take the month of January off. But so we don't run any events in, in July and, and January, but, um, the, the club scene is crazy and it is evolved to be much more, um, of a business for a lot of people in the country, uh, than what it should be. But it's, it's pushing kids to focus on one sport and, and that's, I'm, I'm totally against that.

• 31:08Speaker 02

  Yeah. So why don't you share a little bit about your story? You grew up here in town and then like you got into baseball. Share a little bit about your story and how it evolved into you doing this business. Cause technically you're part of this business and this thing that you're doing. I, I love the heart, I think, behind what you're saying and what you're saying makes a lot of sense. And it is, uh, you know, I can see how there can be so much synergy between doing the travel ball for those folks that are pursuing that and that's what they want to do. But then also, yeah, you get rid of rec ball and how in the world will, will any of these diamonds survive? And obviously I'm sure the diamonds were struggling. That's why they're in the shape that they're in, not to take anything away from those that were trying to pour into it up until this point. But there was a reason why they didn't

• 31:51Speaker 02

  have the resources and the people. And so there can be a great symbiotic relationship, it sounds like. But share a little bit about your story with baseball and, and what brought you back to Bakersfield to, to, to, to kind of get into this?

• 32:03Speaker 04

  Well, I was, uh, lucky enough, I played at West High and I got drafted out of high school by the Red Sox, uh, as a catcher, didn't sign. Um, ended up going to BC for a year, catching, and then was playing summer ball up in Fresno. And, and one of the coaches had a buddy back in the Midwest at University of Evansville and, uh, ended up getting a pitching scholarship after not pitching for a year at BC. And, uh, uh, went back to University of Evansville and got to play back there for three years and pitch. Um, from there, you know, I, I was lucky enough to get a scholarship that took care of my education for the most part. Um, because I don't know that many people notice, but football scholarships,

• 32:48Speaker 04

  most teams have 50 something scholarships, 60 scholarships, whereas baseball for 35 guys get 11.7 scholarships. And then to try and divvy that out gets difficult. Um, you know, so I was lucky enough to, to go that round, play division one baseball and lucky enough to sign a contract with the Arizona Diamondbacks, uh, from out of there. Uh, played two years in the minor leagues and, you know, at that point I was married with my first and, uh, I've got two daughters that don't play softball at all anymore. Um, which sometimes is a blessing with how crazy that, that world is.

• 33:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 33:26Speaker 04

  Um, you know, once, once I moved back to Bakersfield in 2018, I got with a couple of people that had a travel team and I was just helping coach. And it evolved to nine travel teams and right after COVID. Um, and we said, well, why are we traveling every weekend instead of playing here? Luckily, uh, my dad's the athletic director at West High. So we were able to utilize the five fields that we had there and start running tournaments. Um, and as far as the tournament stuff goes, I mean, I started doing that in 2013 when college coaches were contacting me that I knew from back in the Midwest going, hey,

• 34:06Speaker 04

  how can we get some California kids to our schools? So we started running college showcase events. So where we'd fly those guys out, they'd be able to recruit. And then it, it worked out quite well because, you know, there were some kids that probably won't have the opportunity to play in California, being that it's one of the, the highly touted, you know, areas. Whereas a second and third tier player in California is now a top tier player in the Midwest. You know, so that was a big reason for the showcases and the tournaments. And so getting back to town and, and getting back into the, the youth stuff, um, you know,

• 34:47Speaker 04

  I was lucky enough to live in, live in nine different states, travel the, I think I didn't play in 13 of them, you know? And so for me, my goal was to try and give those kids the opportunity to have that same opportunity and go and travel and see different places. Um, you know, and that's kind of where it all led back to this. And then now this tournament stuff is done really well. Um, I mean, this weekend we've got over 60 teams coming from as far as, uh, Orange County up to Fresno, from the coast over to Palmdale, Lancaster. Um, you know, and it's, it's, it's doing good things for the community.

• 35:26Speaker 02

  It's huge for the community. Like, you know, I mean, part of our, our show, like, you know, we're friends with old Richard Chapman over at the Current Economic Development. You think about doing things in our community that's bringing folks into town. That's, that's hotels, that's food purchases, that's, that's good for, you know, putting us a positive spotlight, uh, on this community. So I love it because, I mean, I didn't even think about it from that perspective. I didn't know you were doing kind of that big of tournaments, but, but we kind of had a similar experience with our softball experience because, um, we, we played with the, the babes and, and Mike Havens, he's an educator too. And he's like, you know, there's so many, these teams go out of town all the time and stuff like that. And so we did a lot of stuff local. We tried to play other teams locally. And

• 36:09Speaker 02

  I know that for some reason it doesn't feel the same, but you're playing the same kind of level of talent usually and this and that. And we would always show up to tournaments and it would crack us up because they would be like, who's this little team from Bakersfield? And we would beat these highly ranked and highly touted, you know, much more expensive teams that are traveling every single weekend. And so, you know, it's definitely can be a, a burden on a family and stuff like that. So cool. And, and, uh, it's great to hear what you're doing. Um, what's, what's next? So you have this big tournament coming up. What else do you have, uh, something else this year or is it?

• 36:43Speaker 04

  Yeah. So tournament wise, we've got, uh, our breast cancer awareness tournament at the end of October. Uh, we'll do a turkey drive tournament, uh, I think the 14th and 15th of November. Um, and then we'll do a toy drive, uh, December 5th and 6th. Um, and a lot of those toys utilizing the high schools that we do, um, we give them back to their parent centers and their, their community center, uh, representatives so that those kids, you know, can get an, a toy, um, for Christmas. You know, so our, our big thing is we want to give back and, and that's the biggest thing with, you know, taking over the complex is we've got a lot of work to do and we've got, you know, right now I got

• 37:25Speaker 04

  a guy that, uh, is coming out to do a demo for a machine that's going to laser level fields and all that kind of stuff. And, uh-

• 37:32Speaker 02

  It's going to be a robot, right? You guys aren't going to have-

• 37:34Speaker 04

  Oh no, I do. I do have the robot.

• 37:35Speaker 02

  You got the robot? Of course.

• 37:37Speaker 04

  I got the robot painter.

• 37:38Speaker 02

  And you don't have to have Bob come out there and, you know, he'll, his lines are always all crooked, you know?

• 37:43Speaker 03

  But sometimes Bob's a little cheaper.

• 37:46Speaker 04

  Right now my lines are

• 37:47Speaker 02

  Eventually, no, Bob's more expensive.

• 37:49Speaker 04

  Right now my lines are kinda crooked because we're painting them by hand, but November, we do get the turf tank.

• 37:54Speaker 02

  That's awesome, man.

• 37:55Speaker 04

  And got a little bit of a sponsor for that. So, you know, a lot of things that we want to just make it more inviting.

• 38:01Speaker 02

  Yeah. So somebody did reach in and said, did I hear him right that they're bringing back baseball out by the old Bakersfield Dodgers stadium? I don't know the name of those fields, but played night games on the Metro field. Do they still have the dirt bike track out there too? So yeah, you've covered all that, but you want to speak to that?

• 38:17Speaker 04

  Yeah. So same fields as, uh, back then, and now it's just called Diamond Village. It's right, uh, just north of the little BMX dirt track. Um, and so, you know, we want to hopefully be able to turn this around and make, make the kids, make the fields, uh, somewhere the kids enjoy going.

• 38:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:38Speaker 04

  Cause

• 38:39Speaker 02

  And so is, is the BMX still operational?

• 38:41Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 38:42Speaker 02

  And the, and, and the remote?

• 38:43Speaker 04

  And their RC tracks still going as well?

• 38:46Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 38:46Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 38:47Speaker 02

  So all different organizations just kind of renting out those spaces from the county and, you know, hopefully making it as, as good as possible out there. That's awesome. So yeah, thanks for the comment. Uh, and then if people want to find out more information, they can go to, uh, just nextlevelbaseball.us?

• 39:01Speaker 04

  No, we're going to go, uh, diamondvillage.net.

• 39:04Speaker 02

  Diamondvillage.net. You heard it here. Steven will have the stuff on our website and stuff like that. Diamondvillage.net. Thank you very much for coming on and sharing the story, man. Really appreciate it. Anything else you want to tell the listeners about what's going on out there? But it's really exciting.

• 39:18Speaker 04

  No, I mean, the biggest thing I think, you know, if, if, uh, any businesses are interested in, in sponsorships, we do have that available. Um, science sponsors, we got field sponsors, you know, they range from $500 to $7,500, uh, for the year. So, um, anybody that is interested in, in helping out and giving back to the community, know we are a nonprofit, so it is a tax.

• 39:40Speaker 02

  And if you ever put together, you know, it sounds like you have some really fun events to, to, to be, uh, charity minded and as far as like the turkey stuff and the, uh, uh, stuff for

• 39:51Speaker 04

  The toy, the toy drive?

• 39:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, toy drive and stuff like that. So anything like that, come back on, share it with the show, you know, so we can get it out to the listeners. But, uh, if you played baseball out there, if you got a business now kicking butt or something like that, want to, want to throw a little love back out to those fields, uh, love seeing what you're doing on social media and fixing those fields up. So hopefully everybody can work together and, uh, and for whatever level of baseball the kids are playing at, they have a great place to be proud of out there. So thanks for what you're doing out there, Corey.

• 40:18Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 40:19Speaker 02

  All right. We're going to be right back after the break.

• 40:30Speaker 02

  Red Clay Strays, don't miss. If you can ever see them live, make it happen. Very talented. Uh, wanted to jump into this last question that came in because I think it's important. We just have a short little segment, but I think it will work out perfect. Says, I don't know if you guys can talk about this, but my parents want to leave their house and investments to me and my siblings. My question, will a living trust really be necessary? Or is that something people, uh, only need if they're wealthy? Is that something you guys can set up? Uh, so this is a great question because, um, what I tell people is everybody has an estate plan, whether you know it or not.

• 41:09Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 41:10Speaker 02

  And what do I mean when I say that? If you die, all your stuff, investments, real estate, if you own it, uh, I don't care whether it's a million dollar account or a $50 account. Well, there is small estate, you know, affidavits and stuff that you can write. But anyways, long story short, if you understand this, all your accounts have to go somewhere if you die. And so what, what a living trust is, is part of a quote unquote estate plan, and you're just taking steps to make sure that all your stuff goes where you want it to go without having the government step in or it out, without it having to go through probate. So when you talk about their house, real estate,

• 41:52Speaker 02

  if it's not in a living trust, has to go through probate. And so you want to put a living trust together to identify that the trust owns it. If both the people or a single person who is the only person that's the living trustee, both pass away, now the living trust takes over and that house can go to who you identify as the beneficiaries without it having to go through probate.

• 42:17Speaker 03

  The one big thing I would say on, in this particular case, and maybe if I'm reading between the lines here, is make sure that those, uh, investments and real estate and those things are not pre, you know, uh, pre bequeathed, if you will, like gifted to you prior to them passing.

• 42:37Speaker 02

  That's what a lot of people try to do.

• 42:38Speaker 03

  We, yeah, a lot of people try to like, oh, I'm going to just put my kid's name on the house so they don't have to do it. No, now they're going to have to pay taxes on that, on that property for capital gains and everything else. So you want to make sure, you know, talk to an estate attorney, talk to, you know, call us, we'll, you know, we can't give legal advice, but we can at least point you in the right direction.

• 42:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:57Speaker 03

  Um, but yeah, you want to make sure that you got that stuff dialed in. Um, you know, we hear it all the time of, well, is this only for wealthy people?

• 43:05Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 43:06Speaker 03

  No. If you have a house, you know, real estate,

• 43:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 43:10Speaker 03

  that, that gets you over the, over the hump on the small estate plan already, right?

• 43:14Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, there are situations where if you don't own real estate and there's a couple of small estate affidavit things and stuff like that, you might be able to avoid probate, depending on your situation. This is where, you know, an estate planning attorney, um, are walking through some, some, some real basic processes can help you. Uh, it says in here, can you, is this something you guys can set up? We're not estate planning attorneys, but we do have a solution to help our, our, our clients, uh, address those needs and can walk through that process. But we also work with a couple of great estate planning attorneys here in town. If someone would rather sit in front of somebody and walk through these processes and ask these questions. I will say that most folks that have investments accounts, um, and, and if you own

• 43:58Speaker 02

  your real estate, it's going to be needed. If you own no real estate and all you have are accounts, sometimes you can identify beneficiaries directly on those accounts and that counts

• 44:09Speaker 03

  Right.

• 44:09Speaker 02

  basically just like a living trust because you've identified those beneficiaries. Sometimes

• 44:14Speaker 03

  It goes on a contractual basis, right?

• 44:16Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah. So sometimes estate planning is simply just making sure the accounts you do own have beneficiaries attached to those. So make sure to take a little time, do an inventory. What do we own? What do we have? Do we have beneficiaries on those accounts? We have a house. The only way to leave the house with avoiding probate is a living trust. Um, uh, and I think there, there might even be one other way, but, but you just want to make sure to take those steps so that it all goes where it's supposed to go. Um, so, uh, so yeah. And then another one that did come in.

• 44:48Speaker 03

  Yeah. It says here, so my wife has a pension through her job and I have a 401k. Is one actually safer than the other when it comes to retirement? There's no way to say that one is safer than the other. They're both just different. And the way to look at that is just, you got to look at the, the documents that you get on an annual basis and then, and then just be informed of,

• 45:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:07Speaker 03

  what your benefits are and how solvent, uh, those companies are that you are, uh, tied to.

• 45:13Speaker 02

  Right.

• 45:14Speaker 03

  So that's just really what it comes down to.

• 45:15Speaker 02

  Yep. Yep. 401ks in your name. The pension is, is through the company. And so, uh, and then inside of them, both of them are investment based. And so how they're invested, they're going to be at different risk levels based on how they're invested. So you have a little bit more say in your 401k, the pension is chosen by a team usually or something like that. So

• 45:33Speaker 03

  Committee, yeah.

• 45:34Speaker 02

  Hey, but thanks for those wonderful comments and questions. Thank you to Diamond Village and what they're doing out there and, uh, all of our wonderful listeners. Be smart, be safe, be money wise.

• 45:47Speaker 01

  Securities offered through LPL Financial, member FINRA, SIPC. Investment advisory services offered through LPL Financial. LPL Financial and Money Wise Wealth Management are independently owned and operated.