3/17/25 From Concept to Reality: The Creation Story of the Middle Eastern Chamber of Commerce

The Moneywise Radio Show and Podcast Monday, March 17th 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 Guest: Mai Shawwa - President of the Middle Eastern Chamber of Commerce of Kern County Instagram Facebook

• 0:00Speaker 00

  From the padded radio room off Stockdale Highway, here is Money Wise. Call or text in at 661-396-1000.

• 0:09Speaker 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?

• 0:30Speaker 02

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• 0:40Speaker 00

  Now, let's start the Money Wise Show.

• 0:43Speaker 03

  Welcome to the Money Wise Show. We are live from the Garo Ellis padded radio room off Stockdale Highway on ESPN Bakersfield, 1230 a.m., 101.1 FM, and always streaming at MoneyWiseGuys.com. You can text into the show 24 hours a day at 661-396-1000. Today, we're your hosts, I'm Sharad Wait and?

• 1:03Speaker 04

  Sammy Abiyawi.

• 1:04Speaker 03

  Sammy Abiyawi. Good day, sir.

• 1:07Speaker 04

  Very good day. It's raining.

• 1:08Speaker 03

  It is. Can you believe this weather? I think we're gonna get like our, our annual, like, average rainfall.

• 1:16Speaker 04

  Look, I don't complain about the rain. It cleans the air. We don't have, we have water.

• 1:23Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:24Speaker 00

  What is that? What is that I see over there? Is that a mountain?

• 1:28Speaker 03

  You can see the mountains. The snow capped mountains.

• 1:31Speaker 04

  That postcard you got from 1986 is actually real.

• 1:34Speaker 00

  It's a real thing?

• 1:37Speaker 03

  I've heard, this story's been told maybe a few times, but there's this story of, actually, John Duffield told this to me. He said that he was, he was recruiting somebody to come, come serve in some high position here in town. He was on the board and, and he had to pick him up from the airport and they were from Denver, Colorado, and it was like this type of weather. It was kinda clear. And he says he picked him up and he was driving him from the airport and he, the guy says, "Man, this is, this is wonderful. This just reminds me of home." Looking at the mountains, the snow capped mountains, and he just kinda kept his mouth shut and smiled. Yep, yep, this is it, you know? It's that one day of the year.

• 2:14Speaker 04

  What's funny, a lot of the recruitment happens during this period.

• 2:17Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:17Speaker 04

  Doctors, high positions and things like that. It happens during this period because people are like, "Oh, my God. Yes, I can live here."

• 2:23Speaker 03

  It's so green.

• 2:24Speaker 04

  It's so green.

• 2:25Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:26Speaker 04

  I can see the mountains.

• 2:27Speaker 03

  No, it's, it is so nice. This is, this is where we get our money's worth.

• 2:30Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 2:30Speaker 03

  In Bakersfield for sure. Well, we really, we got some great comments and questions over the days and keep them coming our way.

• 2:38Speaker 04

  Yes, and we have a question, Jared.

• 2:39Speaker 03

  Let's do it.

• 2:40Speaker 04

  A small, as a small business owner, I'm confused about when I need to collect sales tax, especially for digital products and services. Can you share the current rules?

• 2:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, so this is interesting. There was a recent legislative change in the state of California. It happened in June of last year. California expanded its sales tax to cover certain digital services, especially those that are related to data extraction or analytics and even advertising. So, you know, first of all, you need to, don't, you know, don't, don't take our word for it. You, you need to consult a tax professional. There's a reason why somebody has to get certified and become a, you know, either a certified public accountant or, or, or have some, some tax specialty. So, but do be aware that I know from many other stories that you do not want to mess around with

• 3:34Speaker 03

  sales tax. And if you, you know, you have a business and you are, are, especially if you are selling a product, even if it's electronically delivered, or especially if it's physical components, that is part of a sales tax. And you do need to follow the procedures that California and other states have put into place to make sure that you're collecting the applicable sales tax and that you're sending that on. It's similar to, there, there are a few taxes that, that government does not mess around with. One of them that is sales tax. The other would be payroll tax. You know, if you're an employer and you're withholding money from

• 4:19Speaker 03

  somebody's paycheck and then you're, you're just like not paying it and just keeping it or doing-

• 4:23Speaker 04

  That's a no-no.

• 4:24Speaker 03

  Big time no-no. The penalties are steep. It's anytime you're handling other people's money.

• 4:31Speaker 03

  And not forwarding it on, you'll get yourself in trouble, much more than like your individual tax, your income tax, or even your business income tax. Like, there's leeway on that. You're not going to get a knock on the door by IRS agents. It's going to take a long time for them to come and start, you know, sending letters and that kind of thing. But when it's these other taxes, don't mess around.

• 4:52Speaker 04

  That's fraud.

• 4:53Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 4:54Speaker 04

  It becomes fraud.

• 4:54Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 4:55Speaker 04

  It becomes wire fraud. And when it's, when you hear the word wire fraud on sales tax and payroll tax, run.

• 5:02Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 5:02Speaker 04

  Because, to your point, penalties are very steep, and it can carry some jail time as well.

• 5:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, that's right. They just don't mess around. You can, you know, you lose licenses and all that, all that kind of stuff. So, you know, there you go. That was a fairly recent change to how certain digital services, whether or not yours qualifies or not, but make sure, you know, consult with a tax professional to determine if the specific taxability on your services fall under this new legislation. It's always worthy to have a good accountant, a good tax professional.

• 5:39Speaker 04

  Yeah, we're not stressed enough. The team you put around yourself as a business owner, you have to have a good attorney, you have to have a good CPA, you have to have a good banker.

• 5:47Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 5:47Speaker 04

  And you have to have a good financial advisor.

• 5:49Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 5:49Speaker 04

  That's the team you want to surround yourself with.

• 5:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's, that's, that's a, that's a good, good point. All right, Sam, we move on to some of these headlines. You know, we got, we're finally getting, taking a breath from last week where the S and P 500 and the Dow both went into correction territory. So we define correction as a 10% from its peak to trough. So we saw just over a 10% drop in the S and P 500 last week, but we now are going on a two-day win streak. The markets have closed today, and now we're on a two-day win streak. Last week was the worst weekly performance in the market since March of 2023. So you can go back over two years before we had a week that bad. And there's a lot of people very nervous, and

• 6:35Speaker 03

  they're not, they're nervous about the markets, but they're also just nervous about the potential economic slowdown and the fears that are coming from...

• 6:42Speaker 04

  And we have some data about the economic slowdown, or just, just consumer...

• 6:49Speaker 04

  Spending.

• 6:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, like retail sales.

• 6:51Speaker 04

  Retail sales. How did we fare in the month of February?

• 6:54Speaker 03

  So retail sales fortunately were still up, but they were not up nearly as much as the estimates were. There was an estimated rise of 0.6%, ended up being a 0.2, which is a pretty dramatic, you know, underperformance there. The previous month saw a 0.9% drop. And but then it was revised later, like many of these economic reports are, to a 1.2% drop. So we had now two months in a row where we've had a drop in retail sales. Retail sales are really important because the most of our economy is consumer, is the consumer. Two thirds of our economy is the consumer.

• 7:38Speaker 04

  And that's why you never mess with cell stacks.

• 7:41Speaker 03

  That's right. It goes, it goes somewhere. It definitely goes somewhere. Yeah, speaking of this, also in headlines, this came out last week. It was Kern County's budget deficit. So the Board of Supervisors met last Tuesday, and this is where leaders were made aware of the projected deficit that they are expecting in coming up for the next fiscal year. Reporters are saying that there is a $9 million deficit, expected deficit for 2025. And so, you know, this sounds, this sounds like a lot of money, right, Sammy?

• 8:25Speaker 04

  It does. It's a lot of money. To me, it's a lot of money.

• 8:28Speaker 03

  Well, yeah, I mean, to any individual, it's a lot of money until you look at what their annual, total annual budget is, which is 4.4 billion. That's with a B.

• 8:41Speaker 04

  $4.4 billion, and we're talking about a $9 million. Maybe, maybe, do they have a Doge?

• 8:50Speaker 03

  They don't even need a Doge. All they need is like, I mean, nine million off of 4.4. And by the way, this is an increase from the previous year of 2023. Kern County had a budget of 3.6. So we saw a 900, what, 800 million dollar increase in the budget? And this is what kind of gets me. I've said this so many times. You can have a headline that says, $9 million deficit. And 99% of the population will react the same way as if it was a nine billion or a nine trillion dollar. They're like, they don't know, we don't know the difference between

• 9:26Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 9:27Speaker 03

  A billion and a trillion and a million. It's just our mind, my mind, like I know theoretically, but in my mind, I can't like, I can't picture. It's like, like, can you, you could probably fathom how long a few years is. Maybe even like 10 or 20 years, like, cause we're old enough to like, okay, I can get a feel for how long that is. How about a thousand years?

• 9:51Speaker 04

  No, I cannot.

• 9:51Speaker 03

  It's impossible, right? And let alone you, you take like a million years. It's, it's just like, your brain is just like, I don't know. What's the difference between a thousand years and a billion years? It's a lot, you know, it's, it's all going to be like an impossible amount of money or time.

• 10:04Speaker 04

  I'm 48 years old and when I talk to a nine year old and I say, I'm 48, he's like, man, you're a baby. Shut up.

• 10:11Speaker 03

  Exactly. Yeah, it's not until you get there, then you're like, oh, okay.

• 10:14Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 10:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, I really was a baby.

• 10:16Speaker 04

  So, so, so talking, going back to the Kern County deficit or, or revenue in general.

• 10:21Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 10:22Speaker 04

  The, the percentage of revenue coming from oil, gas, exploration.

• 10:28Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 10:28Speaker 04

  Then and now, it's probably different.

• 10:32Speaker 03

  That is the, that's one of the key differences. Well, there's a couple of key differences that I could see. One is the fact that the revenues that we receive from property tax from oil producers. It went from being 33% of our property tax to now just 9%. That's, you know, two third drop in our property tax. So that's the main reason, that's the main revenue generator for. For the county.

• 11:01Speaker 04

  Correct. So, absent of that, what do we have going for us? I mean, we have a little bit of ag, but ag has been taken, you know, a beating a little bit too in the last couple of years for almond prices are down, pistachio prices, water issues. So that leaves us with sales tax.

• 11:17Speaker 03

  That's it. Sales tax.

• 11:18Speaker 04

  And, and property tax.

• 11:20Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 11:21Speaker 04

  So, so I'm, I'm.

• 11:24Speaker 04

  In my mind, how are we going to replace that revenue loss from oil? How are we going to replace that? Well, you have manufacturing and, and, and other things. But property tax is the, the second most, um, generating item from a, from a sales tax standpoint for the county.

• 11:44Speaker 03

  That, that, to add insult to injury, it's not just the oil that's going out of business. It's the, you know, you mentioned the ag and the water issues, especially in permanent crops like almonds with the prices going down so much. A lot of that land is being replaced by solar and solar does not collect.

• 12:03Speaker 04

  That's correct.

• 12:03Speaker 03

  A property tax because it's, it's considered like this.

• 12:06Speaker 04

  Renewable.

• 12:07Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 12:07Speaker 04

  And we need to meet this thing by 2030.

• 12:10Speaker 03

  Right.

• 12:11Speaker 04

  Or 2035 or whatever.

• 12:12Speaker 03

  Right. Which is now, now this is, this is the, I mean, every government has its problems. California is such, it is such a massive state with so many people and such a large bureaucracy. It takes a long time for things to shift that, you know, that, this is, that we're now in a, in a position last summer where the state of California was actually exporting or just dumping excess solar power, you know, at the peak time during the day. So we have, more solar isn't necessarily going to get us any closer to the, to our goals. And it takes unfortunately a long time, I think, for some of these policies to change so that we don't, you know, we're, we're, things are,

• 12:55Speaker 03

  money is being spent, resources are being put in the right place.

• 12:58Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 12:58Speaker 03

  And in the meantime, I, I don't know, I, I, I just, these headlines, you know, of the county and it's, it's, it's fiscal prob, it's money problems. Ah, it's just like, they're, they're gonna come up with nine million dollars, isn't gonna be a problem, but you know, I think a lot of people might read this and think, oh no, our county's gonna be

• 13:17Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 13:18Speaker 03

  Go belly up. And it's like, oh, I mean, do the math. What's nine million of 4.4 billion? It's point zero something percent. It's hardly anything.

• 13:27Speaker 00

  That's right.

• 13:28Speaker 03

  Well, then we got a few headlines out of the way, Sammy, before we take on our next guest. After the break, we're gonna be joined by our guest, Mai Shawa. She is a president. She is the president of the Middle Eastern Chamber of Commerce here in Kern County. She's also criminal defense attorney. We're gonna pick her brain on what's going on with the, the, the chamber. We're Money Wise and we'll be right back.

• 13:50Speaker 00

  If you're a business owner who provides a retirement plan for your employees, contact Money Wise Wealth Management to see if you're maximizing your options and minimizing your liabilities. Money Wise 401k plans are customized to you and your company's needs. 661-847-1000.

• 14:13Speaker 03

  Welcome back to the Money Wise Show. That's Sammy Abiyawi. I'm Sharad Waite. We're your hosts today. We're privileged to be joined right now by May Shawa. She is the current president of the new Middle Eastern Chamber of Commerce. May, welcome to the program.

• 14:31Speaker 05

  Thank you so much for having me.

• 14:33Speaker 03

  This is, this is really exciting. We've had, over the last few months, the Asian Chamber of Commerce, which is new, the, oh, Veterans Chamber of Commerce, and now the Middle Eastern Chamber of Commerce. So I'm gonna ask you the first question I've asked all of those people, just why has it taken so long to have a Middle Eastern Chamber of Commerce? It's a pretty sizable percentage of our population.

• 14:59Speaker 05

  I could not agree more. It's always something I thought about, wanted to do, but kinda in light of the recent political climate. I was like, we're lawyers, we're doctors, we are very successful business owners, so the time is now.

• 15:17Speaker 03

  Yes. Yeah, like I was gonna say, it's almost never a good time when you're because this, these are all volunteer volunteering, like nobody's getting paid here. And okay, so you've got a group of working professionals that said, let's, let's start a Chamber of Commerce. And I mean, that means you're going to rely on volunteers and get this thing going.

• 15:36Speaker 05

  Absolutely.

• 15:37Speaker 03

  So it's, is it up and running now?

• 15:40Speaker 05

  We are up and running. We're actually going to have a mixer pretty soon that's sponsored by our amazing Motor City Lexus here in Bakersfield on May 14.

• 15:51Speaker 03

  Thursday.

• 15:53Speaker 05

  Yeah, so we're definitely in the process of inviting our guests so we could introduce them to our wonderful chamber so they could get to learn what we could do for them and why they should join.

• 16:05Speaker 03

  So maybe you can tell our listeners, why would, why would somebody want to join the Middle Eastern Chamber of Commerce?

• 16:11Speaker 05

  Well, as you mentioned, we have a huge Middle Eastern owned business population here in Kern County, and especially in Bakersfield. So we want to unify our voice so we could actually help them promote their business, create their networking opportunities. We can, you know, collaborate with other businesses here in Kern County, other chambers, our local universities to just have educational seminars for whatever they need to promote their business, whether they need financial advice, whether they need to know how to start

• 16:51Speaker 05

  up a business, tax advantages. We have, you know, so many professionals that are Middle Eastern or not Middle Eastern that willing to step in to help promote the businesses, which ultimately will help our community as a whole.

• 17:08Speaker 04

  It's a section of the population, the business population that on average share does not belong to a chamber. Okay, so they keep to themselves. They don't have access to certain resources. So I'm, I'm speaking on behalf of the chamber because I am a member alongside with, with May. And our goal is to bridge, to bridge the gap for not just Middle Eastern, Middle East business owners, but basically overall, just bring the gap between that, that population and the population that has been doing business. Because on a daily basis, they do. Business together, but sometimes they still remain excluded, secluded.

• 17:49Speaker 04

  And sometimes it's just by choice because they feel like they don't have the resource to go and do certain things. Now, we are trying to get those resources up and running so they can take advantage of that.

• 18:01Speaker 03

  I think Sammy, I've asked you this when I first heard about the Middle Eastern Chamber of Commerce. I said, what, well, Middle Eastern seems like a broad term. It's similar to like the Asian Chamber of Commerce. Asia is huge. Many, many countries and cultures. So how would you, how would, how do you define Middle Eastern?

• 18:21Speaker 05

  That is such a good question.

• 18:24Speaker 04

  We debated that.

• 18:25Speaker 03

  It's so diverse. And it's not just the middle. I mean, you have the Middle East geographically, but you have Middle Eastern or Arab culture. You have so many different like.

• 18:36Speaker 05

  Persian culture.

• 18:37Speaker 03

  Persian, yeah.

• 18:39Speaker 05

  Pakistani.

• 18:40Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 18:41Speaker 04

  Moroccan. Morocco is not even in the Middle East. It's in North Africa.

• 18:46Speaker 05

  But you're considered an Arab.

• 18:47Speaker 04

  That's right. That's right. So belonging to this just gives me a self of identity. But also just helps me reach out to others. They might not know my background or what have you. But there's so many businesses, small businesses that I want to help. You know, just financial education, for instance. How to go get a loan. Now they're going to have somebody in me that belongs to the chamber where they can come and seek that advice, a class, whatever. Curriculum even maybe. Our, our aspiration is huge.

• 19:22Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 19:23Speaker 05

  Yeah. And you know, we initially thought we were going to do like the Arabic Chamber of Commerce. But then we thought, well, we have a lot of successful Persian owned businesses. So we didn't want to exclude them. We have a large even, although it's debatable, I don't think India is part of the Middle East. But I know Pakistanis sometimes.

• 19:46Speaker 04

  But they're welcome to join.

• 19:47Speaker 05

  Absolutely. So we really wanted to be more inclusive than limiting. And we thought if we go Middle Eastern, we could expand even more. And just let people, you know, know that we're here to help.

• 20:04Speaker 05

  Quite a large sector of our businesses here in Kern County.

• 20:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's it's specific, but it's not it's it's it's it's also very, very broad definition. Middle Eastern. So and it might be hard to answer this question as well. But what? What do you see as some of the unique challenges from Middle Eastern business owners? Compared to just, let's say, just the Greater Chamber of Commerce?

• 20:31Speaker 05

  I'm going to be completely frank with you. Our community tends to be not trusting. So I think the first concern that a lot of people are going to have before joining our chambers, like, what are you going to do for me? Like, you just want to collect that money and then what? You know, so we want to show them that this is a nonprofit. We're, like you said, we're all volunteers. So whatever the chamber collects in dues, we're going to spend and more to help our community and help promote business growth and connectivity to the community and being out there. Because, you know,

• 21:14Speaker 05

  I want us to have the best image any business owner can have in Kern County. I want people, when they say, I'm for the Middle East, to be proud, like, yeah. And we have this unified chambers that's going to speak on their behalf and lobby for policy changes that is going to help them. So our goal is make us the greatest business owners in the county.

• 21:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 21:41Speaker 04

  So Sherrod, back to you, you sit on the board of the Greater Chamber of Commerce.

• 21:46Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 21:46Speaker 04

  Right? So we we're going to partner up with the Greater Chamber of Commerce. In fact, we might be even looking at a space within that building.

• 21:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 21:56Speaker 04

  For our own offices for the Middle Eastern Chamber of Commerce. Because we see this partnership as a catalyst for a lot of smaller business owners that maybe did not want to join the Greater Chamber of Commerce for lack of trust. Maybe now they can trust these officers because they like them. They immigrants, maybe first, second, or maybe third generation immigrant families.

• 22:20Speaker 04

  So there's a lot to be shared between us and these business owners that we can actually help the whole community.

• 22:26Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 22:27Speaker 04

  Eventually.

• 22:27Speaker 03

  Yeah. No, I'm a big advocate of chambers of commerce in general. I've seen, we've been members at Money Wise of the chamber, of various chambers for now 20, almost 20 years. And it's, you, you, it's amazing, this community, how large it is in population. The county has nearly a million people. But really, there's maybe, there's, there's like a hundred or so people that are involved in the community and in terms of leadership roles. And business leaders, community leaders, government leaders. It's a small group.

• 23:08Speaker 03

  And being a member of the chamber allows you to be connected to that in some way. You know, it's, I think it's okay to say, I want to, I want to join the chamber because of networking. And I'm sure networking is a big part of, of the Middle Eastern Chamber.

• 23:23Speaker 05

  For sure.

• 23:24Speaker 04

  Sure. We're putting that to work actually at the upcoming mixer. And eventually, we're going to have our own event somewhere towards October, November of this year.

• 23:35Speaker 05

  Yeah, we're planning our gala for sure. Yeah. But, I mean, we're definitely going to be, as we are right now, a huge, huge employers in this community. We are huge supporters of other chambers. So why not create our own? So the smaller businesses that, like you said, that were not keen on joining other chambers can feel like, you know.

• 24:06Speaker 04

  No, I can't.

• 24:06Speaker 05

  They have people that look like them.

• 24:08Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 24:10Speaker 05

  Run the show.

• 24:10Speaker 03

  Yeah. Again, we're joined by Mai Shawwa. She is the president, current president and founder. We can call you the founder, a founder of the Middle Eastern Chamber of Commerce, the new, newest, one of the newer chambers here in town. Can you explain how, how have?

• 24:30Speaker 03

  What drove you to do this? What this is your, your full time gig is criminal defense.

• 24:36Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 24:37Speaker 03

  Attorney.

• 24:37Speaker 05

  Yes, absolutely.

• 24:39Speaker 03

  You gotta be incredibly busy.

• 24:40Speaker 05

  I am. I am. I carry quite a large caseload. Yes. Yes. But the good of the community is very important to me. So if you is OCD like me, you know how to manage your time, you'll find something to do for your community and to help the community. So we, between, you know, us founding members, between the collective number of us, we definitely can get stuff done. And this is my baby. That means a lot to me. So I definitely will find the time to, to make it one of the greatest chambers in Kern County. Yes.

• 25:21Speaker 03

  No doubt. We've got a listener that just sent a message, says, great job money wise. It's about time the chamber has been started. How can local business owners help out? I'd love to help out, whether it's volunteering or sponsoring a future event. Do you have a social media page? Thank you.

• 25:39Speaker 05

  We are actually in the process of building our website. And we have an Instagram account and I don't know if we started our Facebook yet. But I will gladly share my email address. If you want to help, we will take you. So I, I think.

• 26:01Speaker 03

  Yeah. Do you know what the Instagram page is?

• 26:04Speaker 04

  We will, we will, we will get that to you. If I may answer maybe a part of the question, how, I think, for me, the way to help is we can send you the questionnaire. See if this is something you'll be interested in and join the chamber. The cost is not substantial. We, we try to make it low enough where a lot of people can afford, a lot of businesses can afford it. That's one way for us to help because those resources are eventually going to be shared to create curriculums for financial literacy, for other things that we feel that the business owners will take advantage of.

• 26:44Speaker 03

  How much is it? How much is membership?

• 26:46Speaker 04

  That's a good question for me.

• 26:48Speaker 05

  Uh oh.

• 26:48Speaker 03

  Approximately.

• 26:49Speaker 05

  Nobody told me to bring the, well, it actually varies. Like if you have a business that has employees from like over 10, there is a certain price. I think it's like $490. We honestly, what we did, we just looked at the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and just kind of get an idea of what their prices look like and we just mirrored that.

• 27:13Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 27:14Speaker 05

  So.

• 27:16Speaker 03

  That's that's similar to also the Bakersfield Greater Chamber of Commerce, which is depending on how many employees you have.

• 27:22Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 27:22Speaker 03

  So it gets, it's a little bit more.

• 27:24Speaker 04

  It's a scale.

• 27:25Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 27:26Speaker 04

  Per employee, if you have 25 employees or more, you know, 10 to 25 and below 10, then the price is, or if you are sole per potter, then the price is much lower.

• 27:36Speaker 03

  Yes, yes. And I'm sure just as it is with the Bakersfield Chamber, there can be some, there can be some help financially. And there are also, even if you don't become a member, I think becoming a member is a great way to support because especially at a chamber that's just starting out, you want to have people that are like recurring, are repeat customers, basically. And, and building up the numbers helps, helps carry some weight as you're trying to, to promote and, and do things for the, for the business community. But you can also just participate, certainly come to the fundraisers, come to the mixers,

• 28:21Speaker 03

  buy, buy your ticket and, you know, support and, and come to these events.

• 28:25Speaker 05

  Yes, absolutely. And I just found out that our Instagram name is info, M E C C K C, which stands for Info Middle Eastern Chamber of Commerce of Kern County. That, you know, if they're interested in attending the mixer, just go to our Instagram and let us know. We would love to have you.

• 28:46Speaker 03

  Yeah, wonderful. Anything else that you can leave, leave us with in terms of the Middle Eastern Chamber of Commerce?

• 28:55Speaker 05

  I mean, I'm excited and thank you so much for having me.

• 28:58Speaker 03

  Oh, it's great having you. Thank you so much for doing this, for coming on the show, but also for taking time out of your life and starting up a chamber and working with people like Sammy and others in the community. It's, as you mentioned, it's nice to be able to go to an organization with people that maybe speak your language, maybe look like you. And that, it's, we can't overstate how important that is versus as humans to be able to have that sort of mentorship and that support.

• 29:26Speaker 05

  Absolutely. And we understand the struggle of, you know, especially like you said, Sammy, the new generation, first generation coming to the States. They probably don't even know where to start to start up their business. And that's why we're here.

• 29:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you so much.

• 29:43Speaker 05

  Thank you.

• 29:43Speaker 03

  That is May Shaw. She is the president of the Kern County Middle Eastern Chamber of Commerce. Thank you so much for coming on the show.

• 29:51Speaker 05

  Thank you for having me.

• 29:52Speaker 03

  We're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back.

• 29:54Speaker 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.

• 30:13Speaker 03

  Thanks for tuning into the Money Wise Show. I'm Sherrod and that's Sammy. I want to thank May for coming on the program. I have so much admiration for anybody who's willing to like take up a project like starting a chamber.

• 30:25Speaker 04

  Yeah, she's been, she's been at this thing for about two years now.

• 30:28Speaker 03

  Oh, really?

• 30:28Speaker 04

  The idea started two years ago and she's been at it.

• 30:32Speaker 03

  Sheesh.

• 30:33Speaker 04

  And last, our first meeting that we had a couple of weeks ago, I was hesitating. You know, I'm busy. I have my mom and dad. I have my kid and his activities. And she was like, no, you're not quitting. Okay.

• 30:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, you got roped in. Well, rightfully so.

• 30:51Speaker 04

  Yeah, no, it's good. It's good. It's good. I'm excited for what we can bring.

• 30:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, I like, yeah, I'm biased for sure because of the the chamber, the benefits that we've seen. Our our own company from the chamber have been, you know, been great. I just I'm a big fan, especially a business that's just starting out. You just don't, you know, where do you go? Where do you go to to learn and get support and get mentorship and to network? And the chamber is just the the perfect organization for something like that.

• 31:23Speaker 04

  Agree, agree.

• 31:24Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 31:24Speaker 04

  We have a listener question. Do you want to go over that first?

• 31:28Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 31:28Speaker 04

  Sure. I've been thinking about Trump's new term and remembering how his previous tariffs ended up costing more than they helped. I think the ITC found they reduced output by about three billion. Do you have any investment thoughts or ideas for dealing with the likely price increases and supply chain issues we might see in the next couple of months?

• 31:47Speaker 03

  So, oh, go on.

• 31:49Speaker 04

  No, I was just gonna say, this is from our listener, Daily Dan.

• 31:52Speaker 03

  Daily Dan, dang, great question. It's a loaded question.

• 31:56Speaker 04

  Very.

• 31:57Speaker 03

  I was on Channel 17 last week and did we did we post this on our social media, Stephen?

• 32:02Speaker 00

  It's going through compliance.

• 32:03Speaker 03

  Okay, so soon we'll have it posted if you missed it. And that was essentially the question was, you know, what's the impact of tariffs? It was more about individuals, you know, how will how do how will these tariffs impact individual individual investors? And what, you know, what can people do to prepare? So I'll repeat some of the answer that I gave there because I think it applies to this question as well, which is the, you know, President Trump's first term was very similar to the start of this term in that there were a lot of things that were pushed right out of the gate in terms of tariffs on other countries. There was, I remember very clearly, the threat of NAFTA just completely being blown up, which it kind of it kind of was.

• 32:48Speaker 03

  It was it was kind of off the table for a little bit before NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, went back. Back on the table and it was just named something else with some minor changes. But there was a period of a few months there of uncertainty. And I think that a lot of these changes and a lot of these threats, especially the tariff threats or the imposed tariffs is the is the tool that the president is using to push a political agenda. And that means that if it is a political agenda,

• 33:25Speaker 03

  politics are going to only have so much impact or only so much sway on economic policy until the economic policy has such a detriment or such a negative impact that then there's a shift, there's a change. Now, maybe this term is different than than President Trump's first term. But I see a lot of similar patterns in that, you know, we had, for example, the Canadian and Mexican tariffs were were taken and pulled back and and now there's this these tariffs, for example, on on that are being retaliatory tariffs

• 34:05Speaker 03

  against, you know, bourbon or whiskey, you know, as a way to just target a certain voting base to try to sway, you know, these policies to change.

• 34:18Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 34:18Speaker 03

  And so it's as a business owner,

• 34:23Speaker 03

  these tariffs are going to impact you certainly if you are in, let's say, in the sales of, you know, commodities or, you know, where you are importing a bunch of steel, for example. I mean, what do you do? I mean, what can you do now? It seems as though you I don't know that there's a whole lot that you can do now. Now, maybe a few months ago, there were ways that you could hedge your your purchases. Maybe you could advance a bunch of purchases, maybe even now, if there if you're in a business where you're you rely on certain number of imports before it's going to hit. It might make sense in some cases to go ahead and pre-purchase a bunch of materials

• 35:07Speaker 03

  or figure out a way to load up on some of these goods before tariffs hit.

• 35:13Speaker 04

  Yeah, you can you you could have done that.

• 35:17Speaker 04

  I I still I still think I first, I agree with you that these moves are.

• 35:24Speaker 04

  Political and they have they they are meant to sway and and get certain things accomplished. I have my own theory about the tariffs and what they're trying to accomplish with that. I think there is there is a there is a um a legitimate um thing here going as far as bringing back manufacturing to the United States, high paying jobs and what I think there is something about that. The way or the speed with which we we can switch is not overnight. It's got to be over time. Okay. And and we our tax code needs to change for ma for manufacturing companies that are willing to keep the jobs here in this country.

• 36:07Speaker 04

  So our tax code needs to adjust to um give benefits or give incentives to these companies. The other thing too, I think we gonna have an impact on interest rates eventually. If if this if this tariff stick and and and interest and the economy stalls a little bit, the feds have to make a move. You know, we were projected to make three cuts this year and then they pulled back. I think eventually we're gonna have to if the economy stalls, we're gonna have to have some type of a um a jolt to the economy through a fed through the Federal Reserve and cutting rates.

• 36:49Speaker 03

  Today's market move upward in part has been credited to the fact that retail sales were down and the Fed is meeting tomorrow and Wednesday. They're not expected to make any changes on the interest rate this time around, but like you said, there's three that are project three cuts that are that are projected this year. Certainly, if retail sales continue to go down, if the if the if the economy continues to slow down, that could give some more reason for the Fed to lower rates.

• 37:20Speaker 04

  I know that President Trump asked Powell, the the chairman, to reduce rates and he did that on his first term and he's doing that again.

• 37:27Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 37:28Speaker 04

  I think the tariffs are that that lever that the president is is is using to get his rates because what what why are aids very important?

• 37:39Speaker 04

  Well, they're important for manufacturing companies. They have lines of credit. They're borrowing on those lines of credit. If interest rates go down, then their borrowing or their interest expense is going to go down. We can stimulate the economy through that. Now, we have construction. Construction also relies heavily on borrowing. If interest rates go down, then our construction activity and other things will go up. Now, mortgage rates will go down if interest rates eventually move down. That will stimulate the demand for housing. Now, that demand still exists today, even in the interest rate environment we're in today, but it will even be better when interest rates go down, or if they further go down.

• 38:21Speaker 03

  If, in speaking to individual investors, this is, this is an argument for diversification and why you would want to have different sectors invested inside your portfolios. So, for example, last week we saw a lot of the consumer defense stocks or consumer staples. These are, companies do okay. They held up. Think of like Procter and Gamble and Coca-Cola. These are companies that are resilient to some of these market moves that are based off of

• 38:55Speaker 03

  larger global economic factors. So, and you also have other companies that have massive pricing power. So, huge retailers like Costco and Walmart that are able to hedge and buy mass quantities at locked-in certain prices, so they can ride out some of these headlines or some of these threats, tariff threats, for a while.

• 39:19Speaker 03

  The concern that I have is, and I talked about this, I don't think it was on a show that you were on, maybe it was. Would you talk about the iPhone? Were you on that show?

• 39:27Speaker 04

  No, I wasn't.

• 39:28Speaker 03

  So, you know, the iPhone uses a dozen different countries to create and manufacture the iPhone.

• 39:35Speaker 04

  That's right. Oh, no, I was with you on that show. I'm sorry. Yes.

• 39:37Speaker 03

  There's, there's no single country, including the United States or China or India, that could make an iPhone now. In fact, it would take 10 to 15 years for any single country to build up the supply chains, the Rare earth minerals, the technologies, the chips, all of those things that go into just the iPhone. Yet, this is the, you know, the world's greatest consumer product, you know, most widely, one of the most widely used, you know, valuable consumer product. And so a tariff isn't, there's no amount of tariffs that's going to change that overnight. It'll take, it'll take nearly a generation for a country to be able to build up. We have gone so far beyond the Adam Smith days of this, these, these giant.

• 40:22Speaker 04

  Offer and demand?

• 40:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, where it just comes down to supply and demand, where you just have, you know, you know, these, these sort of economic policies that ignore globalization. Whether we like it or not, globalization has been here for a long time. We're all connected, the businesses, multinational corporations are all incredibly connected to, you know, these, these very extensive supply chains. And, you know, we rely on each other. And so now it's being used for political moves to try to get, you know, certain policies taken into place, but we can't, it takes years for their, for an auto manufacturer to build a plant.

• 41:05Speaker 03

  Even, even the, the, those new up and comers like Tesla that can just go in and build a plant super fast, you know, they've got these amazing engineers that can do this. Even them, it, it takes a couple of years. And, and they rely on imports and, and all of that stuff, so.

• 41:23Speaker 04

  Yeah, no, I agree. I agree with you, Sherrod. I agree. We have another listener question.

• 41:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, go for it.

• 41:30Speaker 04

  Is the Chamber event Thursday open to the public? I am so looking forward to the estate planning event Wednesday at BC. Thank you so much for the education you share with the community. Now, if people can just learn how to drive in this town.

• 41:47Speaker 04

  Sprinkled a little bit and you'd think the world was ending on how people are driving today.

• 41:53Speaker 03

  Oh my gosh, two part question. The drivers and then, and then the chamber. So you know about the chamber event. How can people participate?

• 42:01Speaker 04

  Yeah. So you can, you can show up if you're, we don't have members yet. So, so yes, it is open to the public. Please show up. It's gonna be a fun event because we're gonna have some Middle Eastern food. We're gonna have some, hopefully some people dressed and the servers dressed in some Middle Eastern clothing and and maybe some Middle Eastern music. We're still looking for a band to show up and do some.

• 42:26Speaker 03

  Oh, that's, that's cool.

• 42:28Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 42:29Speaker 03

  This is a really ignorant question, but are there Middle Eastern bands?

• 42:33Speaker 04

  Oh, yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

• 42:35Speaker 03

  So.

• 42:35Speaker 04

  You can, you can pick three, you can pick four, you can pick, yeah.

• 42:39Speaker 03

  That's awesome.

• 42:39Speaker 04

  Dancers as well. You can have dancers too.

• 42:41Speaker 03

  That's awesome.

• 42:42Speaker 04

  So they had one at the Blue Fig Grand Opening.

• 42:45Speaker 03

  Oh, oh, that's right.

• 42:46Speaker 04

  It was a success. It was a success. A lot of people showed up and they did.

• 42:49Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 42:50Speaker 04

  It was, it was fun. A lot of people dancing, all sorts of life, like, like everybody you can, it was fun to see, fun to watch.

• 42:59Speaker 03

  Yeah. I was gonna say it's so diverse.

• 43:01Speaker 04

  It is.

• 43:01Speaker 03

  It's like, we were talking earlier about Middle Eastern. Middle Eastern is like, like you're Middle Eastern, but you're from Africa.

• 43:08Speaker 04

  That's, yeah.

• 43:09Speaker 03

  You know, how many continents does the Middle East cover?

• 43:11Speaker 04

  And it's not defined by religion either, by the way.

• 43:13Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 43:13Speaker 04

  So this is not just one religion doing this. No, we have, we have members of all sorts of religions. So we're all inclusive.

• 43:19Speaker 03

  Yeah. The, the listener also mentioned the estate planning event that is being held on Wednesday at Bakersfield College. My understanding is that we're.

• 43:29Speaker 04

  Bakersfield College, south.

• 43:30Speaker 03

  South, over here by Cal State Bakersfield. There, I think there are slots open to attend virtually. I think we can take people because that's obviously we can fit a lot more on Zoom than we can in person. So if you're interested in attending and you'd like to learn about estate planning, you know, wills and trusts.

• 43:49Speaker 04

  I'll leave it in the, the show notes for today and tomorrow.

• 43:52Speaker 03

  Great.

• 43:53Speaker 04

  Um, if, if not, just text in and. I'll take care of you.

• 43:56Speaker 03

  There you go. You can text six, six, one, three, nine, six, one, thousand, and Steven will make sure that you're taken care of. As far as the drivers, like, you know, because we get so little rain, we, I think we average just under five inches of rain a year. You know, so our average year here in the valley is, is just under five inches. We've gotten just over an inch in the last few days. So like, you know, almost a quarter of all of our annual rainfall is coming in, in just, you know, a few days.

• 44:22Speaker 04

  Atmospheric river that just passed.

• 44:24Speaker 03

  Yeah, but it does like, it is kind of funny how people don't know how to drive in the rain.

• 44:30Speaker 04

  My 12 year old, the other day we were, I was dropping him off and it was raining and it was raining hard. And couple, a couple of drivers, he called them certain names.

• 44:40Speaker 03

  Easy.

• 44:41Speaker 04

  No, no, no, he, he did not cuss or anything. He's not allowed to. I am. He's not. He was like.

• 44:46Speaker 03

  He's not in front of you.

• 44:47Speaker 04

  He was singing, he was singing this song, who led the dogs out, but instead of the dogs, he used, he used a different.

• 44:56Speaker 04

  I was laughing. I was laughing so hard that I thought that was funny.

• 44:59Speaker 03

  Oh, that is funny. Uh, hey, there's been a bit of good news in terms of egg prices.

• 45:04Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 45:05Speaker 03

  The wholesale egg prices are starting to come down. It may not have trickled down to the retail price, but wholesale egg prices finally starting to come down from their peak back in February. Are you seeing this?

• 45:16Speaker 04

  I saw a four dollar difference.

• 45:19Speaker 03

  Whoa.

• 45:19Speaker 04

  I got a dozen this weekend for 10 bucks.

• 45:23Speaker 03

  10 bucks?

• 45:25Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 45:25Speaker 03

  Holy cow. Even that, that seems high.

• 45:28Speaker 04

  Are they US, US eggs or imported eggs?

• 45:31Speaker 00

  They're US.

• 45:31Speaker 04

  Yeah, wow. The price, I'm sorry, the prices of eggs were so high, you know, you will think that the chicken went to the hospital to deliver versus just, you know, just.

• 45:43Speaker 03

  Well, um, yeah, I was gonna say, how high were they? The eggs have, you know, part of this started because of the avian flu outbreak that started in early 2022. Do you know how many hens, egg laying hens have been? Cold have been killed since then?

• 46:01Speaker 04

  No.

• 46:01Speaker 03

  Hundred and thirty million, hundred and thirty million egg laying hens have been culled in the United States. This is all an effort to control the virus. The virus has also started to to spread to some dairy farm farmers, which is terrible.

• 46:15Speaker 04

  It is terrible.

• 46:16Speaker 03

  This, this can affect animals. Fortunately, we're just one mutation away from it impacting humans directly, which is way more than scientists had thought. They thought that this, this virus had a few mutations before it could start to impact us. But it's only one mutation, which is if you remember.

• 46:37Speaker 04

  So we're on the verge of COVID.

• 46:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, we are, we're on the verge of something like that. Certainly, we're going to have some other, you know, pandemic. I'm not saying that this will be it, but I mean, people are losing their minds over just the eggs.

• 46:52Speaker 04

  But see, go back to the global market. You know, define, defining the word pandemic to me is like it's all over the world.

• 47:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 47:00Speaker 04

  Right?

• 47:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 47:01Speaker 04

  Now, even viruses, they're easy to spread faster, right? Because of all our connection flights coming from all around the world. It takes a couple of days for this to travel to reach the rest of the world.

• 47:14Speaker 03

  That's right. Yeah. No, it's frightening. It's really scary. The USDA and other agencies have announced strategies to try to combat the avian flu. There's been a billion dollar investment by the USDA to protect the poultry industry and also stabilize egg prices. I know the administration has talked about, you know, coming up with some agreements with other countries to try to import.

• 47:42Speaker 04

  That's why I was asking if the eggs are coming from other countries, like Turkey. I think they had, they had an agreement with Turkey. Wow, that would be a, a flight.

• 47:49Speaker 03

  No kidding. Isn't that wild that they ship a bunch of eggs? Cause the eggs aren't easy. They can't be easy to ship. I mean, they've got a, I'm sure they.

• 47:56Speaker 04

  Definitely not fresh, Jared.

• 47:57Speaker 03

  Hmm, yeah. How fresh could it only? I mean, you can get a flight from Turkey in.

• 48:02Speaker 04

  That's true.

• 48:02Speaker 03

  Ten hours or whatever.

• 48:03Speaker 04

  No, fifteen hours.

• 48:04Speaker 03

  Fifteen hours?

• 48:05Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 48:07Speaker 03

  I don't know.

• 48:08Speaker 04

  Flying eggs.

• 48:11Speaker 03

  Flying eggs. Yeah, let those chickens, let those chickens wings spread.

• 48:17Speaker 04

  It's wild what's going on in the world, I'll tell you.

• 48:19Speaker 03

  Yeah. Also, in headlines, this has come out, there is, the deadline is quickly leaving. It'll be April 15th. Not only is that tax day, but it's also your last day to be able to file for your 2021 tax return and get a refund that may be owed to you.

• 48:36Speaker 04

  And, and they do not forget about past due taxes. I'll tell you, I got a phone call or I got a letter for $21.46 from 2021.

• 48:44Speaker 03

  Oh, really?

• 48:44Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 48:45Speaker 03

  It had to be a letter. Wasn't a phone call, right?

• 48:47Speaker 04

  No, it was a letter that I, and when I called, then she was like, yes, sir, you need to take care of this. If you don't want your account to be levied.

• 48:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, 21 bucks. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. So you're, if you haven't filed, you want to do it now because there's a billion dollars in tax refunds from the 2021 tax year that may become property of the US Treasury. It's over a million Americans are owed this money. They just need to file their return.

• 49:10Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 49:11Speaker 03

  And it always makes sense to file your return, even if you don't owe anything, file your return because then it allows you to be, take advantage of credits and, and, and rebates and things like that. So just in the state of California, there are 116,000 individuals that are owed over $92 million.

• 49:33Speaker 04

  I average about $786 per individual.

• 49:36Speaker 03

  That's, that's some change right there. That'll pay for a dinner or two.

• 49:40Speaker 04

  Half iPhone.

• 49:40Speaker 03

  If you missed any of this or previous shows, go to MoneyWiseGuys.com or wherever you stream your podcasts. And remember these three things. Be smart, be safe, and always be money wise.