The State of the Union Show: Politics, Promises & Political Theater

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It’s the State of the Union show. Listening, I didn’t watch. I saw some clips. I listened to the State of the Union address and I couldn’t get the Muppet song out of my head. know, it’s time to play the trance. It’s time to light the lights. You know, the Muppet show tonight. Don’t don’t don’t do it. Got it in my head. Watching, listening and watching some of the State of the Union address and here it doesn’t.

It doesn’t matter if there’s an elephant, if there’s a donkey, this thing has gone straight downhill. I keep thinking about trying to get control of this. in my mind, I see Arnold Schwarzenegger in kindergarten cop, you know, in the beginning there when he’s got to take over the kindergarten class and he’s trying to get control of the kids. Did you watch? Watch some of the shenanigans and

freak shows that were happening outside the state of the union, some of these alternative events that were taking place. Do you people understand how stupid you look? You understand how ridiculous you are? And to all of everybody out there, do you understand these are the people that we elected? You voted for this crap.

I’m gonna go out on a limb here.

your representative, again, decided to sit on their hands.

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sit on their hands rather than applaud what happened in regards to, it was the family that’s daughter was killed on the bus, we all saw it. Putting the interests of Americans above illegals, all of these things. Why would you ever vote for them again? Unless you actually believe that BS.

Because there’s nobody better. You know, certain things disqualify you, quite frankly. One of the things that does it for me, I won’t, is if you have no spine. Obviously the Democrats that were sitting there were given marching orders. Given marching orders, you do not applaud anything. One thing you can applaud, war. You ever notice that? Yep.

Yeah, you had boats out, had bipartisan support for going to war in Iran. Yeah, they stood up both sides. Don’t believe me, go back and take a look. Yeah, they were given marching orders. And again, because these people have, yeah, I’m gonna say it, they don’t have any balls. Okay, they’ve got no spine. They do what they’re told. And again, you vote for them, you pay for them. Why would you vote for somebody?

that’s gonna listen to Hakeem Jeffries or Mike Johnson rather than their conscience. Is that what you want? Not me, not me. The conduct and some of the yelling and screaming, this again, this is not the first time. The performance, know, the theater, they’re holding up signs.

a myriad of different things, it’s completely unacceptable. It’s completely unacceptable, it’s uncalled for. And again, both sides have done it. What was his name? it Joe Wilson? I forget. I forget the guy’s congressman’s name. Remember he yelled at Obama, you lie! Unacceptable. If you feel, if you feel that you’re unable to control yourself,

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in that form. You’re so upset. You might get yourself riled up, you know, with something that someone is going to say. Don’t go.

Don’t go. don’t have, it’s not, you’re not paid to go. It’s not part of, somebody actually made, isn’t part of their constitutional duties? No. No, you don’t have to go. Like I said, I didn’t watch the bloody thing live, you know, quite frankly, you know, I gotta get to bed early. I got things to do.

Yeah, I’ve had to have this conversation with unruly parents when I’ve coached I’ve seen them yell at kids, even their own kids. I’m like, listen, if you can’t control yourself, okay, don’t come. Don’t come, because if you do it again, your kid’s off the team. I don’t care, I can’t have this.

You make a fool out of yourself and buttons and signs and what was it few years ago? was wearing all white, Me Too movement, usual bullshit. I do remember. Remember a point in time in our country that just didn’t happen. It didn’t happen. You let the president give his speech and that was it. They would talk about it after and whatever it may be. And quite frankly, we all-

that this is theater.

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A week from now, a week from now, is anybody gonna be talking about the State of the Union speech at all? Anybody remember most of what’s in this? Are members of the media gonna go back? Well, the president said this at the State of the Union speech. Let’s see if he followed through on it. Because last year, the president didn’t have a State of the Union speech. He gave a address to both houses of Congress. was in March.

was in March. Anybody remember what he said back then and what he was talking about back then? I do, but most don’t.

Most don’t and again, it doesn’t matter. It’s TV, okay? It’s the State of the Union show. Gives the people something to talk about. Get the people going. The same thing. I used to go, in my younger years, I used to go to many of these political events. Never been to a State of the Union, been to inaugurations.

know, political conventions, donkey, elephant broadcasts and they’re invited to CPAC, all these various different things. I don’t go anymore. And get asked, why don’t you go to these things anymore? How come? Because it’s a waste of time.

It’s, there’s nothing to be gained there. I’m not gonna learn anything. I remember, oh, trust me. I remember, we all excited, went to the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York and all this stuff, and I’m interviewing Newt Gingrich and John McCain, all these people. What did I?

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Nothing. Nothing. I kind of learned my lesson with that stuff. think it’s a little bit of wisdom from Gordon Gekko when it comes to that. Remember that line he said, know, rich enough not to waste time. I just might have rich enough, smart enough not to waste. I’d rather spend my time quite frankly, you know, practicing, you know, trying to brush up on my Italian and do better than that. It’s a better use of my time. But it’s my hanging out.

Doing stuff with my wife going to see my kids ball games. I’m not gonna waste my time with this nonsense. And again, that’s basically everything that’s transpiring right now is one colossal waste of all of our time. State of the Union dress included. great, some rah rah moments, know, with the hockey team, fantastic. Some of the things, I get that. All presidents do it. I was thinking about, do you remember the standing ovation? Do you remember? bipartisan.

By the ovation that was given, remember to Hamid Karzai, when Bush brought him over and he’s wearing all, look, and all the media, wow, he’s a very impressive, look at the outfit that he’s got on in traditional this, and what a great, yeah, this is a great statesman, and what’s going on in Afghanistan, freaking crook. He’s a criminal, okay? Do we ever go back?

And actually, they’re going to back and review state of the unions in the past and the crap that was proposed. Actually, know, Bush went through a lot of the stuff that he proposed, decided to turn America into team America, world police and invade everywhere, thinking that everybody’s going to want to be an American tomorrow. Right. How’d that work out? Anyway, I took some notes on some things because, again, that’s what I do.

And I try to basically sift through the BS. The numbers, okay, the economic numbers, know, golden age, golden era of the economy. Okay, I would come back and say, by what metric? By what metric? Is the economy doing horribly? No.

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No, economy didn’t do horribly by any stretch of the imagination. Economy is doing okay.

If you listen to a podcast I did last week talking about this and breaking down GDP numbers by year and where we’re at. Golden, what are you talking about? Tariffs. Tariffs raising prices. has without a doubt. Put a put a dampen or damper on business investment.

without a doubt. It’s hurting job growth here in this country. It hasn’t helped the manufacturing sector. Growth forecasts, we’re not in a recession, okay, which we had under Biden, even though they didn’t call it, we had two quarters of negative economic growth. The growth forecasts are, meh, meh, 1.8,

Percent. Only 181,000 jobs. I put mentions before were created last year. It has averaged 1.8 million over the past decade. That is not a good year by any stretch of the imagination. Job postings are down. But again, I threw this out with a caveat saying, you know what, I think companies are just taking postings down that they weren’t planning on hiring anyway.

We’ve talked about the crony nonsense that is going place. Real personal disposable income has not grown. Consumer confidence, 12 year lows, budget deficits skyrocket. I can go on and on and on. With that being said, with that being said, are we falling off a cliff? No. No.

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But it’s it’s not a golden age. And you know, I from one I you know, I like to be given things straight. I know it’s Donald Trump. He’s not going to give the Bill Clinton, I feel your pain. He’s not going to do that. This is not who he is. But they’re going to have to do something. Okay. Other things that were mentioned that I have to touch on. He’s talking about mortgage rates coming down, which they have.

Okay.

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Has that made home ownership cheaper? Yes, if you refinance. Refinance your existing mortgage, absolutely. But mortgage rates coming down does not drop the price of a home. It drops the price of money. And when the price of money comes down, people will then be more inclined to sell their house for more.

because it’s an inverse relationship and it’s based upon what people can afford to pay. Cheaper money means higher asset prices. Now when Trump came out and said that he’s gonna lower the prices of homes, well lower the cost of home to buy a home, but then also at the same time, because people feel rich because their home value’s up, he’s gonna keep the price up, that doesn’t make any sense, okay?

That’s black white. That doesn’t make any sense. It may sound good to the people that are uninformed, but it doesn’t make any sense. And because your home value is up, it doesn’t make you rich. It would be better to be helping people to get out of homes without getting, you know, whacked upside the head with taxes or getting their property taxes reassessed and being able to move in downsize into something that is more realistic and free up

inventory. The other part of that is with the corporate ownership. Okay, that is one big fat nothing burger. If you actually take a look at it. For the most part, yes, it allows corporate ownership. It hasn’t changed it in force anybody to sell any of their existing portfolio 98 % of private equity and funds out there will still be able to buy homes 98 %

It’s not that hard for a black rock to open up a smaller font and do the exact same thing. It’s a piece of cake. So again, that’s nothing. Again, sounds good.

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might make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Okay? But it’s not true. I was just thinking of Tommy Boy. The movie Tommy Boy when he was talking about the guarantee on the box. Oh, makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside. It’s like politicians promising stuff. Oh, makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside. No. No. People, you have to look deeper. Again, you’ve been alive long enough. There’s politicians. Some people just don’t wanna know. They really don’t.

Tariffs.

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I may do another podcast on this today, the new tariffs that he put on quite frankly, are not legal. They’re not. Congress knows this Congress knows this and I again, I think it’s more chatter, quite frankly, and it’s going to go away. It has to do with balance of payments, which is something that was an issue.

prior to the United States coming off the gold standard, it’s a whole different ball of wax, it’s not applicable to trade deficits. lawsuit will be fine, and that’ll get thrown out too. He keeps repeating this idea. And you’ll have influencers out there parrot this nonsense that tariffs are gonna replace the income tax.

with any idea what tariffs would have to be.

Do you have any, you’re talking over 100%.

In order to raise the revenue to replace the income tax, they would have to be over 100%. Okay, and no, it’s not gonna get eaten by China’s not gonna pay it. Okay, if that was the case, which it won’t, it’s never going to happen. Okay, again, I have no problem. No problem at all with doing a national sales tax.

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I get that but first and foremost you have to make the income tax illegal. You pay at the point of sale as well. Okay? In Europe they have the value added tax. As a foreigner you leave European country at the airport, you spend over X amount of dollars on items, you show them your receipts, they give you that money back. You’re not a citizen. How in the world are gonna start returning people? You think people are gonna come to this country?

and spend any money with tariffs at over 100 % we’re gonna have to we’re gonna have to refund all that at the airport. It’s not going to happen. Not gonna go happen. You know, you may like you know, listening to your favorite moronic influencer out there talking about how great this is going to make America great again. It’s not going to happen. America we’re being on tariffs for a long time over 100 years. Are you really comparing?

the United States of America prior to the income tax and prior to the size of our military and all the social programs we have and the expenses we have you comparing that hey listen you you want to cut the size of government down back to those levels I’m all for you I’m with you okay you could do it then

Okay, with $39 trillion in debt, Social Security just announced, you might have heard, no, you probably didn’t because nobody really covered it, cut by 7 % payments, 2032, 2033, 25 plus percent moving forward. There’s no money. Tariffs are not making us rich. Okay, they’re saying 175, Scott Besson said 135.

Now that money is going to get people suing the government to get that back. How’s that going to work?

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Anyway,

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You know, go some of the other things, the 401ks for everybody. Creation of a government backed 401k like plan for us workers who don’t receive a retirement match from their employer. My administration will give these off forgotten American workers great people, the people that built our country access the same type of retirement plan offered to every federal worker.

We will match your contribution with up to $1,000 a year. Where you getting the money from, man?

Where are you getting the money from? Listen, okay, I’m all for simplifying the whole retirement process as it’s, I’m in the business, it’s a pain in the ass. Okay? Pain in the, oh, no, can’t do ketchup now in a 401k, make over X amount of dollars, gotta open up a Roth, gotta do all the freaking bells and whistles, bullshit. That makes Wall Street freaking money, not to mention.

These money, these 401k plans, how shall I put it? Suck in regards to the offerings that they have in them. Got one account, same for everybody. Employer wants to contribute to it. They can do that. They can match. Why not? But no, no, no, no. Cause again, there’s, there’s too many little grifters that are involved with this entire system. where is the money going to come from? All of the people that do not have.

a match from their employer. And again, what if you have a 401k? You have a 401k and your employer doesn’t match, but you still have it. You have to open up another account and put that there. Do you understand how ridiculous this all is? Not to mention the fact that all to respect.

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Now I have to pay for the Trump accounts for kids. Okay, I’m putting money into Trump accounts for kids every year. We all are, know, a thousand bucks there. Now I’ve also got to contribute to people’s retirement because their employer didn’t want a match. We do full match at Markowski Investments, but now I have to do it for other people too.

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From where? What money? Here.

Well, money, I’m trying to figure the whole thing out because believe it or not, this actually happened yesterday. The Trump administration invited various different people, media people to the White House, kind of give them a preview on what they were going to talk about and what they told them they didn’t talk about. The story was going out there and for my sources is that they were planning

They were telling me, we want you guys to run that the president is going to do another reconciliation bill and there’s going to be more tax cuts, more, more individual tax cuts and corporate tax cuts. And they didn’t do that at all. I don’t know why. I don’t know they changed it at the last minute. Who knows? Who knows? But that’s what the media who was invited to the White House had lunch with the president yesterday was told. Okay.

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What else should we go over here? You know, that’s, I guess that’s enough.

put it to you this way, okay? Wednesday, day after, day after the State of the Union show. Next Wednesday.

No one’s gonna remember a damn thing. Not a thing. Watchdog on wallstreet.com.