00:00
Peter Dunn
Do. Fire. Fire. Welcome, everyone, to the Pete the Planner show. Dame. What would be without technical difficulties to start the show?
00:17
Damian Dunn
You know, just when you think you've got all the problems solved, you get this.
00:23
Peter Dunn
So, dame, here's what's happening on the show this week. We are now turned into the speed round. I have a very important meeting in 53 minutes. So we must record this 39 minutes show with whatever we need to do in that time frame. So it's with that, sir, that we are going to begin the show too. By the way, if you want to join us and watch this thing happen live, which is very exciting, you can do so at Facebook Live or YouTube Live every Friday at noon. And for all the viewers and listeners in there right now probably won't interact with you today, I like you. Not going to interact with you. Dame. Let's start, because I've got to start because we got to get going. Someone said hello. Zencaster acting up. No, Danza, we canceled.
01:07
Damian Dunn
Zencaster just said you weren't going to interact with people.
01:10
Peter Dunn
Sorry. Here we go. In three, two, one. This week on The Pete the Planner Show we answer your money questions. Here's how the show works. You email us. Askpete at petetheplanner.com that's. Askpete@petetheplanner.com. We will answer your question on the air. By we, I mean Damien Dunn. Hello, Dame.
01:30
Damian Dunn
Hello, Pete.
01:32
Peter Dunn
Dame. This is the last moment of my week until I'm on vacation for one week. In fact, next week's show, we will have a best of because, well, the idea that there is a best of what we've done is sort of funny in itself. Right?
01:47
Damian Dunn
Indeed. It's mind blowing to think that somebody would listen to a replay of us.
01:51
Peter Dunn
Dame. Did you hear the rumor that taxes are about to go up for a certain population of Americans?
01:56
Damian Dunn
Yes, I have heard that, Pete.
01:58
Peter Dunn
So what I want to do now is I want to talk about how a person is supposed to get their head around retirement savings choices in relation to tax rates. So. I mean, it's very exciting. I'm a lot of fun to hang out with. Oh, by the way, you know how I always say that A, I don't get invited to parties, and B, if I do get invited to a party, I am the first to be there in the last to leave.
02:28
Damian Dunn
No. First to get there and first to leave.
02:30
Peter Dunn
Oh, yes. First to get there. First to leave. Sorry. FIFO. I did that this past Saturday at an outdoor surprise party for my college roommate. I was the first one there. Almost ruined the surprise because I was there so early and then left well, before anyone else.
02:46
Damian Dunn
A total time in the party.
02:47
Peter Dunn
Was that's a good question? Probably 2 hours and 40 minutes. And that's being early. That's Good. No one needs any more of me than that. So this All Came about I think I wrote a USA Today column about it this week because I got this email. This guy said, look, I think taxes are about to go through the roof. In this guy's mind, I think his name was Michael from Chattanooga, Tennessee. Whatever. In his mind, he could not see a scenario in which tax rates would come back down anytime soon, including into his retirement period. Okay, so far we're tracking, right?
03:23
Damian Dunn
Okay. Yeah.
03:24
Peter Dunn
So he was like, okay, I have been a traditional 401k guy my entire life. But now I think if rates are going to go up and I will theoretically have to pay a higher tax rate at retirement, if I have a traditional vehicle, shouldn't I switch to a Roth vehicle, which is after tax money that you can withdraw tax free at retirement? And I was like, that's a really good question because I think sometimes we forget that this whole scenario around whether you should have a traditional or Roth is really built on your prediction of what your tax rate will be at retirement.
04:02
Damian Dunn
Yeah. There is no shortage of speculation when it comes to what tax rates are going to do in the future, whether it's for the $400,000 income plus crowd or whether that's going to come back to the middle class. Wherever you stand on that, your judgment, your decision, is going to be based largely on where you think tax rates are going to go and when that's going to happen. So if you are in the same boat as Michael, whether you think you are already in that group where we assume tax rates are probably going to increase or you think they will in the future, that's when it becomes important to decide whether or not a traditional type of retirement investment a 401k IRA, Sep, whatever it may be, where the money is taxed later is most appropriate for you. Or whether a Roth where you pay the tax now and you don't care what happens.
04:50
Damian Dunn
Well, you might care what happens to tax rates, but it's not going to have nearly as much of an impact on you in the future. And this is a tough decision.
04:59
Peter Dunn
It is a tough decision because it's based on theory. Like there's math involved, but you have to try to figure out what your tax rate is going to be later. I think too often people choose the traditional 401K when they shouldn't because it's the default setting. I will say if you can find yourself in a lower tax bracket now with that contribution to your four hundred and one K, I think that makes a lot of sense. But for a lot of people, they don't actually do that and they don't know why they're using the traditional four hundred and one K, and they also don't realize that they likely have access to a Roth 401K.
05:36
Damian Dunn
Now, first and foremost, I want to say this is my personal opinion pete, I'm not going to try and make you agree with me on this.
05:42
Peter Dunn
I'll try.
05:43
Damian Dunn
I am most concerned with, are you saving enough for retirement regardless of where you're saving it? Whether it's a traditional 401K or Roth 401K, Roth IRA, whatever it is, are you putting enough away inside of your regular saving habits to try and get there? Let's leave tax rates out of it. Can we agree on that?
06:02
Peter Dunn
Yeah. You know what? That's funny because that reminds me of our conversation we've had about I don't particularly care what sort of life insurance you have as long as you have the right face amount of life insurance. Isn't it funny how we often get caught up in what type of this or that when we don't even have the right quantity of this or that?
06:19
Damian Dunn
Absolutely. Yeah. We get caught up in these very small details that we think is going to help may help us get one over on our friends so we can brag about it at a cocktail party. Frankly, I don't care. Do the basics, right? Block and tackle, move on and make sure that you're set up for the long run. Now, if we're doing that consistently and we want to start working on ways to be a little bit more strategic, then, yeah, let's talk traditional versus Roth.
06:47
Peter Dunn
Yeah, I'm with you there. So I bind to that point.
06:51
Damian Dunn
So I don't even remember what the original question was. I made that point, so well, I.
06:58
Peter Dunn
Have to admit, I was sort of testing you there because I could tell that when you were like, point number one and then you went and then I was like, yeah, honestly, I knew you had forgotten point number two.
07:09
Damian Dunn
Totally failed. So what's the point?
07:12
Peter Dunn
The point is I think more people should have Roth instruments. I really do. Now, that being said, we're being transparent. I use my traditional IRA, my traditional 401K contribution to dip a bracket. So that's not going to change for me, I don't think, anytime soon. I don't know. I know it's funny. So I do payroll for our organization as the CEO, and I look at all the people in our organization's, different choices of whether they use pre or post and a traditional or a Roth in terms of their four one K contribution. And I think it's really fascinating knowing what I know about different people's financial lives is why they choose what they choose. I don't know. Just fascinating to me.
07:59
Damian Dunn
Yeah. I'm a firm believer in having some money in a Roth instrument, whether it's a 401K or an IRA. I think there's too many advantages that are available to you in retirement for you not to have something in there, even if it costs you a little bit now. But be able to have the flexibility to access a chunk of money without having any tax consequences associated with it can come in really handy in retirement, especially if we're talking about tax rates going up.
08:29
Peter Dunn
Since we're talking Roth. How often do you consider being able to use a Roth for college costs when you talk to people about this? Because I know a Roth 401K is clearly different than a Roth IRA in this regard, but I think a Roth is a very flexible vehicle for that particular reason. You can always withdraw your principal without having penalties and those sorts of things, or tax implications for that matter, because you've already paid tax on the money.
08:55
Damian Dunn
Yeah, I try and avoid it. Just like you, I like to keep retirement instruments for retirement purposes. If you are trying to double dip for a Roth account and use part of it for a 529 sorry, college funding, then you might end up hurting yourself in the long run with the retirement side as well. So I want to have dedicated college savings. And if you want to put it in a 529, great. If you want to use an UGMA, fantastic. There are some headaches that come along with that potentially. Maybe just a non qualified account to have ultimate flexibility in that and not really worry about anything. But I much prefer to keep retirement.
09:33
Peter Dunn
How much do you buy into this idea that tax rates are always going to go up? I know sometimes we get disenchanted with government and so we're like, well, they're always going to go up. How much do you buy into that idea that someone can make that assertion that, well, we're in trouble, so you might as well pay our taxes now.
09:53
Damian Dunn
I try not to put too much weight behind it, and I try and gently tiptoe on that tightrope whenever it comes up, because there has to be a ceiling for the vast majority of us. Now, if you are of a certain income, parts of your income, maybe even wealth, may get taxed in the future, but I don't think it's an unlimited ceiling. We'll hit 100% eventually.
10:15
Peter Dunn
I will say this the top tax bracket in 1944 was 94%, and during the top brackets were all north of 70%. So times certainly change. Dame coming up after the break, we're going to talk about the economy recovering and where the jobs are going. All. That's next on the Pizza Planner show. I'm Pete the planner. Dame during that segment, I forgot to mark where I started my clock. And so then I had to do math while you were talking. While you got lost on your own point.
10:49
Damian Dunn
Yeah. Very difficult. Well, I'm glad I could help you with my verboseness.
10:54
Peter Dunn
Verbosity. Verbose. Whatever word.
10:57
Damian Dunn
Nobody likes somebody that's smarter than everybody else.
11:00
Peter Dunn
I've never experienced that personally. Okay, let's do that jobs thing. There was another point I was going to make.
11:10
Damian Dunn
You forgot, too?
11:12
Peter Dunn
Yeah.
11:14
Damian Dunn
Gerbs.
11:16
Peter Dunn
All right, we got to go. I'm with Jeremy. Bad idea. Leave retirement alone. Hello, Jeremy. Good day to you, sir. There he is. Hold on. I believe Jeremy. Correct me if I'm wrong, Dame. Did Jeremy not give me guff for not participating in a beverage last week during the show?
11:34
Damian Dunn
Oh, probably, yeah.
11:36
Peter Dunn
I feel bad about that. And I was going to do it today, but again, I have a meeting in a few minutes that I definitely cannot have partaken.
11:43
Damian Dunn
Feel like this is going to be a recurring theme for you.
11:45
Peter Dunn
It does feel that way, doesn't it?
11:46
Damian Dunn
It does.
11:47
Peter Dunn
All right, in three, two, one. Back on the Pete the Planner show. Almost forgot the name of the show there. Dame. Dame, did you see the outstanding jobs report on Friday, April 2? Did you happen to see the March jobs report and how good it was this week?
12:08
Damian Dunn
Came in above expectations, if I am not mistaken.
12:12
Peter Dunn
Yeah. Okay. So if we step back for a second and we think about what's happened in the last year and where we've come from beginning of January to where we are now. If you just had to go 30,000 foot view and say, well, yeah, that actually makes sense, march would have a pretty reasonable jobs report, you would think that would be the case, right?
12:33
Damian Dunn
Sure.
12:34
Peter Dunn
Last April's jobs report was terrible. I think we all know that makes sense. You knew that probably jobs report in August in September of 2020 would probably be pretty good as unemployment in it. I mean, you can just sort of say, qualitatively, we think that's what's going to happen. What I thought was the most interesting part about the jobs report, which is I wanted to spend some time on now, is where are the jobs that are coming back and what can that tell us about what is next? So that's what we're going to do. We're going to go to through the jobs report and we're going to talk about what industries added jobs in March. And the first one, right off the bat, Dame, is probably the least surprising thing I've ever seen in my entire life, and that is that 280,000 jobs were added in leisure and hospitality.
13:21
Peter Dunn
That's not surprising.
13:22
Damian Dunn
No, not at all. We've got things opening back up. We've got vaccines that are starting to be readily available to the vast majority of Americans. So we're going to get out. We're going to do things. You've got restaurants that are rehiring. We've probably got amusement parks and things of that nature that are going to be hiring for the summer season. There's all sorts of reasons to think that leisure and hospitality is primed for a massive summer this year.
13:47
Peter Dunn
Combine that with what happened on Friday, April 2, is the CDC says if you've got your vaccine, it is very low risk to travel, which I think is going to take that jobs report of 280,000 new jobs and take it in April to heights unknown. I think even United or American Airlines, united, I believe, announced that they're going to be hiring hundreds of new pilots here in the coming months. So from that perspective, we're looking good. The next one is slightly deceiving, admittedly disconcerting. 136,000 jobs were added in March in government. Let's talk about that. So I wish I had more time to research the ins and outs of that, but a lot of those jobs were based on local municipalities and states as opposed to the federal government. Although if we're being honest and if we're being transparent, a Democratic administration, to say that 136,000 jobs are added in government, you could say, well, that tracks, right?
15:01
Peter Dunn
I mean, that tracks. Government tends to grow good, bad or otherwise. It just does. Thoughts on that?
15:08
Damian Dunn
As much as I don't like to see that number, I'm grateful that there are more incomes being had inside of families, and I'm really hoping that a lot of those jobs weren't in the IRS enforcement arm for audits. I love you, IRS don't come look at me.
15:26
Peter Dunn
I have two letters on my desk right now from the IRS that I've received last week. Yeah, once. Okay, so the first one was let's just go through it. I mean, since we're talking about it. They sent me a letter in October of 2020 saying I owed them money, which I don't. So I had my accountant send them a letter that says, we do not. And so I got a letter two weeks ago confirming that my accountant send them the letter saying I do not owe them. And they're like, we'll get back to you. A week later, I got an email pardon me, a piece of mail about this, and it says, I'm sorry your accountant doesn't have the ability to send us the letter on your behalf. And so now you're going to have to give him the power of attorney and declaration of representation.
16:14
Peter Dunn
So I'm glad that this is all going on in my life.
16:17
Damian Dunn
The accountant didn't sign your tax return.
16:19
Peter Dunn
He did. I'm going to go ahead and just go out on the limb here and say that the IRS is wrong. So anyway, back to the bill. 110,000 in construction jobs. Not surprising. It's not only construction season. I would have to admit, though, I can't see a lot of commercial buildings being built right now. I mean, it's got to be all residential.
16:40
Damian Dunn
Residential. And from what I saw an article this morning, I think it was, that said mortgages are drying up unless you have an absolute perfect credit score and impeccable financial records, and that a lot of the purchases right now are because people are buying second and third homes.
16:59
Peter Dunn
Wow. I didn't even consider that. At the risk of alienating and frustrating my friends in the commercial real estate business, including one of my good friends, will a commercial real estate building ever be built again?
17:14
Damian Dunn
You would think in major metropolitan areas, it seems like there's always plenty of capacity as you're driving down the major highways. It's going to be a while, I think, before somebody sinks some cash back into new construction.
17:27
Peter Dunn
Levi on Facebook lives makes an interesting point right now. He says infrastructure is going to be booming here soon, especially with this infrastructure plan. We just assumed this construction was built around buildings, could be road construction. And I think he makes a really interesting point. Anytime you hear the term infrastructure spend, you got to think, yeah, there's going to be a lot of jobs. Roads, bridges, railways, all those sorts of things. If that's what ends up happening.
17:58
Damian Dunn
I'm just waiting for the American auto bond, Pete. That's what I'm banking on.
18:02
Peter Dunn
I know that's the case for you. I want to talk to you about that infrastructure plan so badly because of cars. Very frankly, I know what a car enthusiast you are. Is that fair? I can call you a car enthusiast. You have posters of cars behind your head right now, as I can see them.
18:21
Damian Dunn
You may.
18:22
Peter Dunn
So I am not a car enthusiast. I think electric cars are neat and all, but I don't have any desire to necessarily have one because I like the idea that I can jump in my car and drive to Florida or Hilton Head or something like that and not really think twice about it, despite the fact that I only do that once every year to two years. Dame this idea that everyone would be in electric cars and we'd have the infrastructure deal with it. It somehow still doesn't seem that practical to me, because that would mean I would have to drive to a hotel somewhere in Kentucky or Tennessee, probably Henderson, Tennessee, in that area and stay there, hoping that they had something I could plug my electric car into so I could get the rest of the way to Hilton Head. That's what we're talking about.
19:07
Damian Dunn
No.
19:08
Peter Dunn
Or am I being too over simplistic?
19:11
Damian Dunn
That may be part of the overall infrastructure plan, and I think there'll be some money diverted towards that, for sure. But electric cars are going to make great strides with the charging capacity and how quickly that can happen in the near future, I believe. And it's going to become a lot more tenable for the average person to make an electric car their only car, and road trip it right now.
19:32
Peter Dunn
I really wish I didn't have to own a car. I really do. And that's not me being like a green guy, because sure, we recycle and whatnot, but I don't know.
19:45
Damian Dunn
You got a bicycle.
19:46
Peter Dunn
I do have a bicycle. It's almost bicycling season. Dame adding back to the jobs, we have 66,000 in professional and business services, 53,000 jobs in March for manufacturing, which seems a little bit light as plants get opened back up. Transportation and warehousing at 47,500. Thank God the Suez Canal situation got worked out, because I don't know if that would have been there. Health care and social assistance. D***. I read an article. I believe it was in the New York Times. Maybe not. It's likely that's where it was around. Mental health professionals are in such high demand now as we enter two years of a lockdown and people staying at home. I agree. But then it comes to this really hard question of, like, well, where do the funds come to pay for those services? Because a lot of times it's more of a social service.
20:40
Peter Dunn
If people are struggling, how do you pay for all the need for mental health right now? Especially since health insurance doesn't really help with that.
20:46
Damian Dunn
How do you pay for many of these things that are out there at this point? That's kind of one of the big questions that are on a lot of people's minds, is there are a lot of worthy things to throw money at, but we've got to come up with it somehow. The money printer runs out of power at some point.
21:03
Peter Dunn
All right, let's do that. We're going to continue this conversation after the break. I mean, we have to bring up the student loan thing and all that's next. I'm Pete the planner. Almost ran out of time there. We do have to talk about the student loan thing that popped back up today and yesterday. Did you see?
21:19
Damian Dunn
I didn't know.
21:21
Peter Dunn
Well, it's biden exploring whether he can legally cancel up to $50,000 in student loans.
21:25
Damian Dunn
I saw that in a sidebar. I just assumed it was linking to an old article.
21:28
Peter Dunn
No, it's happening now, in fact. Well, we'll get into it. It's funny as we're having this conversation. I read a lot. I read a lot of news, and there was this article about how I can't even get into it because I didn't read the article. And all I'm saying is I wish I would have read the article because it would have informed this conversation, but I was about to weigh in based on the headline, which is just stupid.
21:56
Damian Dunn
It would have made our show so much better.
21:58
Peter Dunn
Did you get this yet?
21:59
Damian Dunn
No.
22:00
Peter Dunn
It hasn't arrived at your house?
22:02
Damian Dunn
No.
22:03
Peter Dunn
Okay. It's really good.
22:06
Damian Dunn
I mean, maybe my TD is reading it. He could probably use it.
22:09
Peter Dunn
So everyone on the podcast right now, what I'm holding up is a book called this Book Will Make You Kinder.
22:15
Damian Dunn
I'm sorry, Thomas. I didn't mean it.
22:17
Peter Dunn
It is a really heady book about empathy and why we could be kinder, but our mistakes around empathy prevent that. Empathy is a really important part of our organization, the work that Damien and his team does on a regular basis, and everyone at an organization, whether they're part of the advice team or not. And sometimes you feel like empathy is finite. My longtime contention is that it is not finite. This book talks about why it is infinite, however, why we make it finite with our own mistakes. So this is very much appeals to me. I sent a copy to everyone on our team. So there you go.
22:59
Damian Dunn
Looks like a very nice doggie on the front of that book, too.
23:02
Peter Dunn
It is. There's a name for the dog, but I don't remember. Dame we got to keep going. And three, two, one. Back on the Pete the Planner show. Dame, were talking about, there's a lot of spending going on right now in terms of this idea around infrastructure. Of course the stimulus bill, and now, of course, student loans, as the Biden administration almost had admitted. Announced this week that the President has asked Education Secretary Miguel Cardona to prepare a memo on the President's legal authority to cancel up to $50,000 in student loan debt. There was a study done that was trying to understand the difference between canceling $10,000 of student loan debt for anyone who has it versus 50. You and I on this show in the past have contended that we thought $10,000 was the more likely solution. We thought that's what would happen. But the way this article paints it in CNBC suggests that the President is getting incredible pressure from Democrats in Congress to make it $50,000.
24:12
Peter Dunn
So what I'd like to do is to put some numbers around that, if we can. Dame if all federal student loan borrowers got $10,000 of their debt forgiven, the outstanding education debt in our country goes from 1.3 trillion to 1.7 trillion. So it basically is a 400 billion dollar expenditure. And I can't believe I'm saying this, but $400 billion just simply doesn't seem like that much these days, given that we've been talking in trillions for the last 13 months or so.
24:42
Damian Dunn
My, how things have changed. Right?
24:44
Peter Dunn
I know it's almost like you've been saying that all along. And canceling $50,000 for all borrowers would take the debts down to 700 billion from the 1.7 trillion it's at. So that alone would be another trillion dollars of spending is not necessarily what we're talking about here. We're basically talking about foregoing receipt of future payment, but it's not exactly spending. But it still gets to the same point if you've got fewer receipts and more obligations. Dame here's long been my concern about doing this without any teeth around what is happening in higher ed altogether is that let's say this app, let's go the full baloney here. I don't know if that's a phrase, but it is. Now, let's say we do the 50,000. I like the we part of this, but let's say the government does the 50,000 and we've knocked down debt levels to $700 billion.
25:46
Peter Dunn
That means nothing to anyone who is yet to be in college. And then ten to 15 years from now, where that 700 billion is probably over 3 trillion at that point. So is this just another form of stimulus? Is that the idea here? That it is simply a temporary move? Because it's certainly not a permanent solution to the troubles of higher edge cost of education.
26:10
Damian Dunn
No, it absolutely won't fix the problem. So yes, you are freeing up millions of people from their student loan obligations in hopes that they will use that to stabilize their own finances, prepare for the future if they can. But we're going to find ourselves right back in the same situation. At least I think we will in another however many years it takes to build that back up. So there needs to be some sort of reform on how either people are charged for their education post high school or what it costs or whatever that may be. I am not suggesting that the government pay for college, please make that distinction. But I think there are some changes that certainly need to be addressed.
27:02
Peter Dunn
I have opinions on all of this stuff. I think it's worth noting as a syndicated radio talk show host, I sort of should have opinions on these sorts of things. I guess what I have to tell you is maybe where I'm different from other radio show hosts, I don't have very strong opinions about these things. I'm not suggesting the way I think about it has to be the way that anyone else thinks about it. But I do like to critically think through it. For instance, Dame, I believe that our economy still needs a degree of stimulus because I would argue everything that happened last year was in fact not stimulus. It was preventing people from what would have been much worse of a tragedy. I don't want to split hairs, but last year's bills weren't stimulus bills. And this last one, whatever the 1.9 trillion I think it was, I don't know, that was a stimulus bill very much believed that it was meant to create economic activity and to get the economy heading in the right direction.
28:03
Peter Dunn
This, in my opinion, would be another form of stimulus where it says, okay, whatever you were paying in your student loan debt, you don't have to pay anymore. But my challenge to that, and this is where my opinion really comes in, these people that sounds how come any time you say these people are those people, it sounds bad.
28:26
Damian Dunn
Yeah, that's not great.
28:28
Peter Dunn
Okay, here's what I mean. I don't have student loans. So these people that are paying on student loans haven't been paying on their student loans for over a year. They don't have to have had to have paid that good English there, you know what I mean? They had no obligation to pay for.
28:43
Damian Dunn
The last year if they were federal.
28:45
Peter Dunn
If they were federal student loans. So is that really going to stimulate the economy? I'm not sure. Now there's also the argument though, if you were in default on your student loans, if you were default on your student loans, then you don't get a tax refund because that refund is garnished by the IRS. So that could theoretically free up some money. But I'm just struggling to see how this actually matters.
29:11
Damian Dunn
And if you haven't been paying on your student loans for over a year, what have you been doing with that money? Can you restart paying your student loans or have you assumed it into your lifestyle? And it's going to be really tough to get that $500 or whatever it was a month that was going towards your student loans pulled back out and going in another direction.
29:31
Peter Dunn
That's why I think the 10,001 makes more sense. Again, I think it's important for us to say I have opinions on this. They're not strong opinions. I'm not trying to convince you to think what and I know that's what radio is supposed to be. I mean, I'm fully aware that's what it's supposed to be is me trying to give you my big hot takes and get you mad or happy. I'm not really interested in that. I think, based on what I know about this stuff, that I feel that ten is thousand is better than 50,000. But you and I are both also coming from a place in which neither of us have student loans obligations that we have to deal with right now.
30:04
Damian Dunn
Correct. It doesn't mean that we didn't at some point in our lives, or maybe our spouses didn't at some point in our lives and we made it through. We were fortunate enough to be able to pay for them. But these are obligations that people willingly enter into. And I'm of the opinion that if you're going to give help, it needs to be on the smaller end of the spectrum, which I think goes back to maybe we need to reconsider how people who have small loans who maybe went for a year or a semester and then decided college wasn't for them. Maybe we reconsider how that first year of college is structured and what we charge for it. So I think that could prevent a lot of unnecessary student loan debt going forward.
30:53
Peter Dunn
I will say this. I haven't thought a whole lot about college costs on a personal level since I was in college, and other than starting a college fund for my kids when they were born. But my daughter's twelve now, she's in middle school, she now has a GPA. You start to hear these terms that make you think of college. I got to admit, Damon, in the last six months I've thought more about college costs on a personal level than ever before. I look at the school that my daughter thinks she wants to go to, right? And I look at the cost of it and I go, okay, we're doing okay. But bam. That is brutal. Especially if it continues on that same track. I'm not sure college inflation is at the six to 7% per year that it used to be when I used to study this stuff a lot.
31:37
Peter Dunn
But I'm sure it's probably still up there a bit.
31:39
Damian Dunn
I think it's still outpacing normal inflation by a considerable amount. I don't know if it is still six or seven though. I would love to play a guessing game on what school she wants to go to, but I'm going to stay. Local butler, of course.
31:53
Peter Dunn
Yeah. I'll say this, butler University has done more to attract the interest of young local hoosiers based on their mascot program. My daughter stood loving Butler because of the bulldog. That was a real bulldog that would just be seen around town. And I have to say I think a lot of kids in central Indiana feel that way.
32:17
Damian Dunn
Yeah, the picture with the bulldog and was it Sister Mary from Loyola? Chicago?
32:23
Peter Dunn
That's amazing, Jean.
32:24
Damian Dunn
Yeah.
32:24
Peter Dunn
There you go, sister. Yeah.
32:29
Damian Dunn
Somebody's.
32:29
Peter Dunn
Sister Dame. Let's do this. After the break, we'll come back. We've got biggest Waste of money of the week. I actually spent some time on that this week, so I'm excited to share that with you. All that is next right here on the Pete the Planner show. All that is next right here on the Pizza Planner show. I'm Pete the planner. I like that I stopped that segment early and so now my executive producer back at the station is going to have to figure out how to fill 7 seconds of airtime. And I didn't even try to stretch it out because I'm feeling really rushed today.
32:59
Damian Dunn
I thought maybe I just didn't start my clock on time, but whatever.
33:03
Peter Dunn
No, I was a moment of complete dismissal for someone else's day. And that's not usually how I roll. No, but today it's where I'm at. There was a line in this book. I bought this book for my dad's birthday this week. My dad turned 68 years old.
33:19
Damian Dunn
Happy birthday, unrelated dad.
33:20
Peter Dunn
Yeah, happy birthday, unrelated dad. And I bought this book for him and before I handed it to him, I started reading through it. And then I was like, oh, my God, this is so good. Then I ended up buying it for everybody. By the way, those just tuning in this book will Make You Kinder is the book by Henry James Garrett. But d***. So I was reading I was just getting stunned by some of these lines, but I couldn't mark it, I couldn't highlight it or circle it because it wasn't my book I was giving my dad. Would be a little weird if I.
33:47
Damian Dunn
Underlined the exclamation point a few points.
33:50
Peter Dunn
Yeah, it's really interesting. I hope you enjoy it. The first part of it, though, you got to be in the mood to think, right? It's not like a anyway, you know what's also weird about this book? And I don't know why I'm doing this because I have to go soon. I picked this up at the bookstore and I was like, thumbing through it at the bookstore and you know that profanity doesn't particularly bother me. You know this, right? We're well aware. It doesn't bother me. And the big bomb was in this book. I just was coming through, and it's one of the words I saw in here, the big one. And I thought, yeah, which is weird, because I was like, oh, this is a great book for my dad. Like, my dad's the kindest person I know, and I went ahead and bought it and gave it to him anyway.
34:38
Peter Dunn
And it's funny, because over the years, whether it be on the radio show or in a blog post or even a newspaper, I would use sort of minor pieces of profanity even in speaking gigs like the D word, the H word, and I would never go any further than that. And you'd get the feedback from certain people like, well, that's completely unnecessary. Don't do it, because it can turn off your audience. And in that moment when I was buying this book, I was like, yeah, I actually finally see their point here, because this is something like I don't particularly know the context of which the person used the F word, but I guess you will find out when you read the book if oh, Dame, come on.
35:21
Damian Dunn
Dan's ICU, by the way.
35:23
Peter Dunn
Oh, there it is. Okay, we've got to start this segment.
35:27
Damian Dunn
What's happening?
35:27
Peter Dunn
We got to start I got to go. Here we go. In three, two, one. This week's biggest waste of money of the week right here on the Pizza Planner show is do you see it? Dame, do you see it? It's the Volonic, which also rhymes with colonic.
35:50
Damian Dunn
Yeah.
35:51
Peter Dunn
18 carat gold valet charger using the finest materials on the planet. Volonic. Do you think it's pronounced volonic? It's V-O-L-O-N-I-C? Or is it like Volani as a volunteer? Volunteer. That sounds better than volonic, right? Yeah, you just don't want to rhyme anything with colonic.
36:12
Damian Dunn
Colonic.
36:13
Peter Dunn
No, I'm going to start over saying it right. Using the finest materials on the planet, volonic assembled the most extravagant charger on the market. The limited edition valet is made with a solid 18 karat yellow gold frame and a surface wrapped in vacuna wool. Softer than cashmere, the Peruvian fabric is known to be the rarest and the most expensive wool there is. Inside the lavish exterior, an 18 coil matrix with era free power technology provides position free wireless charging for any Qi enabled device. It can power up to three devices, while three Led indicators show the charging status. So, Dame, obviously, we're in a live stream, and we're also doing radio right now, and so it's sort of confusing, but can you see what we're talking about now? It holds three devices. You can see on the screen what we're talking about, right?
37:10
Damian Dunn
Yes, I can.
37:11
Peter Dunn
And I have properly described the Volonic volunteer, correct?
37:16
Damian Dunn
Yes, you have.
37:17
Peter Dunn
Dame, how much does this charger made of? 18 karat gold and vicuna wool. How much does it cost? $350 is what you're going with?
37:31
Damian Dunn
That is what I am going with?
37:34
Peter Dunn
Try $250,000. Wow, I really won that time. $250,000, Damien.
37:46
Damian Dunn
Now did somebody NFT this? And that's how they're getting $250,000 out of it.
37:53
Peter Dunn
Who in the world would spend $250,000 on a phone charger?
37:58
Damian Dunn
That's got to be a marketing exercise, right? Like just to draw eyes to something else that they produce.
38:05
Peter Dunn
To me, there's nothing better than buying a pack of lightning cables off of Amazon for close to nothing and just like going through them like they're kleenex and you pay like 699, that's $6.99. And you get like seven different chargers. That's crazy.
38:21
Damian Dunn
Indeed. I will agree with you on that.
38:24
Peter Dunn
Can you hear all the noise in the background? My kids, it's their first day of spring break and I feel like every word they're saying is coming through. Can you hear it?
38:30
Damian Dunn
Not a lick.
38:31
Peter Dunn
That's good. I'd yell at them.
38:34
Damian Dunn
Dame.
38:34
Peter Dunn
What's in the news?
38:36
Damian Dunn
The offshore wind industry is getting a major boost from the Biden administration as the White House aims to reinvigorate a potential source of renewable, emissions free electricity that has never fully taken off in the United States. What is that? Oh, hold on.
38:51
Peter Dunn
I'm like Michael Winslow.
38:52
Damian Dunn
Yeah. That is a reference that maybe 30% of the audience gets. Nice job. As part of a government wide effort announced Monday, the White House set a new target to deploy enough offshore windmills to power millions of America homes. 30 gigawatts by 2030. That sounds like a lot of energy. It is. 1 GW is estimated to be able to power 300,000 homes.
39:19
Peter Dunn
What?
39:20
Damian Dunn
So 30 gigawatts means do the math. 9 million homes could be powered from this wind farm. Well, all of the wind farms or if you want to think outside the box a little bit, that means Marty and Doc could make twelve round trips in the DeLorean.
39:34
Peter Dunn
So what's the b*** here? Because I feel like there's a but.
39:40
Damian Dunn
Will it be approved? The wind farms are going to be owned by at least the three that are proposed are going to be owned by European companies. The federal government is going to have to lease space in the ocean, which sounds ridiculous, to build these I don't know. I'm reading the news, Pete. I wasn't paid to commentary.
40:02
Peter Dunn
Did you give a cost to how much that would be?
40:04
Damian Dunn
No, it doesn't matter. It's for the environment.
40:09
Peter Dunn
That's interesting, especially in light of the Texas situation where some of those wind turbines, not all of them, and it wasn't a huge impact, but they did get shut down based on being frozen and not working. Now that wasn't the issue, the power grid issue in Texas. But that's fascinating. That's a lot of homes being powered by wind.
40:32
Damian Dunn
Yeah. On the face it sounds like yeah. This is a no brainer, but hurricanes happen in the ocean. I've heard that's the most likely place they do happen. Breaking news. So I don't know.
40:47
Peter Dunn
What else is in the news.
40:49
Damian Dunn
Let's stay with the government side of things. Congressional Democrats in the Biden administration are planning another round of health care initiatives that could include lowering the Medicare eligibility age following a major expansion of the ACA Act earlier this year. The package is likely to contain measures to reduce drug prices and expand health coverage. Lawmakers said proposals to expand Medicare eligibility from age 65 to 60 okay, I.
41:18
Peter Dunn
Have not heard anything about this and I'm listening. That is fascinating. I really want to think about the ramifications of that.
41:24
Damian Dunn
Well, let me read. You can think while I read just a little bit more. They want to also give the federal government the ability to negotiate drug prices in the program for seniors, both of which President Biden supported during the campaign trail. They're both also likely to be included. No official word on how the administration proposes to pay for this proposal either. Any guesses?
41:46
Peter Dunn
Corporate taxes. That's interesting. Okay, so let's think about the ramifications of this. One of the reasons people stopped retiring early as frequently as they used to was because then they had to find a way to fund health care from whatever they age. They retired to the age of 65. So that was a pretty big issue. But dame what this would do is would allow that decision be much easier by age 60 so that could theoretically free up jobs, which seems like a really good thing. But I would also argue the lack of retirement readiness is just as much. They would have to move Social Security age up to 60 to make that particularly matter. Which would also be a really bad thing though because they have to move Social Security age back or the program runs out of money. This is complicated.
42:41
Damian Dunn
Yeah, there's so many considerations here. It's a huge conundrum because the programs are already going to run out of money or at least scheduled to run out of money in the relatively near future. By the way, running out of money isn't the dire circumstance for most people as it is because there's still going to be some level of benefits that are provided. But this is crazy. It could really help the employment side of things by freeing up some jobs for younger workers coming into the workforce. However, it will put a huge strain on government resources paying for all of these extra services.
43:18
Peter Dunn
I would love to. Really? Can you send me that?
43:20
Damian Dunn
I will see if I can refine.
43:21
Peter Dunn
That because again I'm thinking about this for a second. They would have to change Social Security age to match. It part of the reason Medicare was at 65 because that was at full retirement age at one point in time, which is now 67 for most people 66 and change or 67. And then the thought was that's going to be pushed to 69 or 70 or 72 going forward. But then this sort of flips that on head. So it solves some problems, but I think the problems it causes might be worse than the problems that solve.
43:57
Damian Dunn
Yeah, I can't disagree with any of that.
44:00
Peter Dunn
One more story, Dave.
44:02
Damian Dunn
I will try and give you the abridged version of this piece because it will surely make you upset. Do you remember when hospitals were required to start publishing the prices for services online?
44:13
Peter Dunn
I do, yeah. Healthcarebluebook.com was one of the services.
44:17
Damian Dunn
I don't know if that's one of the services, but they're required to publish it on their own websites. Well, they've done that. However, they've buried those prices so far into the website, making it very difficult to come up with. And by the way, they changed the coding on those pages so they don't pop up on Google searches.
44:35
Peter Dunn
Oh, so they're published, but you can't.
44:38
Damian Dunn
Find them very difficult to find.
44:40
Peter Dunn
Is this everyone or is this a trend?
44:44
Damian Dunn
This was a survey done by some company to go out and see if hospitals were playing fairly, and they found that a number of hospitals are skirting the rules a little bit.
44:55
Peter Dunn
I have to admit, sometimes we do web design on our site that we want certain people to find, but others don't. But it's usually not something like the transparency of healthcare prices. It's just generally proprietary information. Yeah, Dane, that's all that we have time for this week. I'm sending you good vibes because good vibes are all that's in the budget. I'm Pete the Planner and this was the Pete the Planner show. All right, I have to go here in a second. I know Jeremy says wants to know about my squirrel catching. And Jeremy, I just have to let you know, it is a form of ground squirrel. It is a chipmunk. I have not caught any chipmunks this year, although there was one guy that's really been taunting me on my front porch. So I will keep you posted. I plan in the spring here because we're going back to our offices on June 1.
45:44
Peter Dunn
The show will then be probably there. I'm going to do a live squirrel cam. Live chipmunk cam on the show here, so you'll get to see that as we catch chipmunks midday.
45:54
Damian Dunn
It'll be riveting.
45:55
Peter Dunn
Doesn't that sound like a product feature that I just announced that no one cares about except me?
45:59
Damian Dunn
That will never come to fruition.
46:01
Peter Dunn
Oh, wow. In what way? That it's just the timing won't work out or you don't think I can pull it off?
46:06
Damian Dunn
You're just going to put a still picture up there of the trap and we'll never see anything. It'll just be a tease.
46:13
Peter Dunn
I actually have video of a chipmunk being captured that I'm going to show you right now.
46:19
Damian Dunn
Okay, bring it. It's going to be great for the podcast listeners.
46:22
Peter Dunn
Podcast listeners are going to love this. But you know what? The podcast is free, so they can pipe down a little bit here. All right, Dame, this is going to happen. Hold on. Can you see? Okay, hold on. That was my daughter acting strange. Big surprise there. What's the video icon look like on a riveting? This is good show. Okay, hold on. Here we go. Oh, here we go. Okay, everyone on the podcast you are about to see no, they won't. All right, so here is a chipmunk being captured. Here we go. Let's play. Is it playing?
47:07
Damian Dunn
Yes.
47:08
Peter Dunn
Okay, so I'm narrating if you're listening on the podcast right now, there is a chipmunk that potentially he is approaching the trap. He's standing up on top of the trap. He is going into the trap. And he sees the bait, which is a peanut butter covered oh, he took the bait, and he has been captured. That's the sort of riveting things I can bring you here on the Pete the Planner show. Dame, did you like that?
47:37
Damian Dunn
It was amazing. Everything I thought it would be. I was just waiting for Noob to be ill.
47:42
Peter Dunn
It happens. But I didn't put the sound into that video. Dame, I really do have to go, and I wish you the best of luck to everyone else. I'm not going to see anyone here for a couple of weeks because I'm going on vacation. Dame, good day to you. Good day and goodbye, everybody.
