Justin Mohr Show

A new study from the University of Washington has shown that Seattle's new $15 minimum wage is actually hurting those low skilled workers that it was intended to help! It's amazing how people are still shocked by things like this but I guess maybe it shouldn't be, since the average person out there is economically illiterate! Many of the so called "experts" out there are also economically illiterate! A minimum wage is pricing low skilled labor out of the market entirely! If you can't gain job experience from getting a first job, how in the heck do you climb the ladder to obtain that more skilled second job? This is just one more lesson of the government destroying the lives of those it's intended to help. It's a sad story indeed.

With the republicans in charge on Capitol hill, it seems we might just get some tax reform. Many republicans seem to think that if we can just cut taxes we can get the economy booming and the debt problem we have right now will be no more. This view sounds all well and good but if republicans are really thinking cutting taxes and at the same time growing the size of government will make things better, they are delusional! All government spending is taxation so therefore we need to cut the size of government in a meaningful way! That's the only way out of this mess!

69% of Americans admit to have less than a $1000 in the bank! Why is this? Even the retirees out there die broke. 46% of retirees die with less than $10,000 in the bank. That's not much money when you're not bringing in income and are relying on savings! There's no question there's a lot of factors that have led to the average American being broke and the payment mentality is certainly one of the many contributing factors. In the last 17 years we have seen a 4% rise in median wages and an 89% increase in home prices. So the purchasing power of our wages has gone down so the average American is poorer today! This is the result of government spending hitting record levels! The governments spends money at the detriment to the average American.

Jared Bernstein, from his new piece at the New York Times discusses what the lefts agenda should be. He makes the case that progressives must remain in waiting and be ready when it's time to act but always be fighting. All of the agenda items he wants to see calls for more government programs, more regulations, more subsidies for the poor and he thinks this will make life better for the averages American! Has he learned nothing from LBJ's great society in the 1960's. This is why we free market types need to continue to learn more as much as we can and become more effective communicators because the fight will continue to go on.

Half of the cost of an electric car is from the battery packs and cost of these battery packs are projected to fall 77% by 2025! Just back in 2010 it cost $1000 per kWh and today Tesla is doing it at a cost of $190 per kWh. So prices have already fallen significantly and will continue this trend. This is encouraging to see and this is why we don't need to subsidize and encourage people to go "green." When the price is right because of production prices have drastically fallen then the consumer will step up to the plate and make the transition from a conventional gasoline engine to an electric car. Isn't the free market a beautiful thing?

Many conservatives and supply siders seem to think we can grow out of massive debt problems but that is not the case. Even if we achieved economic growth of 3% instead of our current average since 2010 at 2% that will cut the deficit by $3 Trillion over the next decade. That sounds all nice but we will still be adding another $9 Trillion to the debt over that same decade! Entitlements need to be addressed if we want to get serious about our debt issues. Unfortunately for us, the politicians out there will take the easy way out by destroying the value of the currency via inflation.

Capitalism today is seen as a bad word but this is because what people see as capitalism is really crony capitalism! This is what we need to change in people's minds! This is not how capitalism really is! Capitalism is about exchanging value for value. The very wealthy are getting wealthier at a faster pace today compared to every other income group out there because the very rich benefit from an inflationary monetary policy from the Federal Reserve! We need to stop this cronyism now before it's too late and all we are left with is an authoritarian regime.

The crisis in Venezuela just continues to get worse. Riots have been going on for 2 months now and protestors have taken down a statue of Hugo Chavez. The crisis continues to get worse as the government continues to take more and more control. Seizing private property, having majoring ownership in 511 companies and things just get worse for the Venezuelan people. When will people put 2 and 2 together? I won't hold my breath.

April 29th marked President Trump's 100th day in office. The importance of the first 100 days is stressed day in and day out in the media but what's to make of Trump's presidency thus far? Some libertarians were enthusiastic supports of President Trump. They thought Trump's foreign policy would be very much isolationist. What we have learned of Trump's first 100 days in office is that he's an interventionist domestically as well as internationally. This isn't good news for lovers of liberty!

American Airlines now has its own incident and I don't see the news headlines for this one like we saw with United. An employee of American Airlines hits a woman with a stroller while me pulls it out of her hands and the stroller almost hits the woman's baby as well. After this incident the employee comes back on the plane and asks a passenger if he wants to fight and go at it. Also, the former king of cable news, Bill O'Reilly is fired from Fox News! In political news, Trump said in a Wall Street Journal interview on April 12th that he thinks the dollar is too strong! This is why the focus of my show is on economics because the world is full of economic illiterates! https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2017/apr/22/american-airlines-employee-clashes-with-passenger-video

United Airlines was the topic of media discussion all last week with the bloody Dr. David Dao. There're some simple solutions that could have prevented this horrible incident from ever occurring! Obviously compensation greater than $800 should have occurred to entice passengers to voluntarily give up their seats. Also, last minute changes to flight crews should be avoided when everyone had already boarded the plane. People are less likely to give up their seat when they're already sitting it in. The media really has blown this United story to hell and back and most people need to take a step back and look at everything in it's entirety. Some people like Senator Chris Van Hollan think a government law is the answer! Are you kidding me!?

Danielle DiMartino Booth has a new book out on the fed from an insiders perspective. She says many things that Austrians can agree with and other things where she doesn't go far enough! She says we shouldn't get rid of the fed but rather just need more competent people in charge. John Tamny offers critiques on her book but John misses the point in many respects. John Tamny thinks we mainly don't need a fed because it's largely irrelevant as it is. The way Mr. Tamny sees how the banking system works would still depend on a federal reserve so I can't agree with his analysis either. There're many opinions on the fed and it seems Ron Paul and Murray Rothbard are the most correct on this issue.

Elon Musk successfully launched and landed the recycled rocket, Falcon 9. This is such a perfect example of how the private sector does things better and far cheaper than anything the government can do. The private sector can launch a rocket at a price tag of $200,000 compared to NASA's cost of $450 million! Isn't that insane!? The more money that goes to government than that's more money that is just being pissed away to the inefficient and wasteful government! Government invests for a political return, not an economic one!

Paul Ryan pulled the vote expected vote for the republican healthcare bill. The republican party is at war with itself. We see the establishment types blaming conservatives for not falling in line. The republican healthcare bill was a disaster and this goes to show that all the republican votes to repeal Obamacare, while Obama was in office was a bluff! The republicans never did want to fully repeal Obamacare! Big government only continues to grow under the supposedly "small government" republicans.

The Federal Reserve raised interest rates for the 3rd time in 10 years at its March meeting. Most of the "experts" out there didn't expect this rate hike until the week before! Janet Yellen is more aggressive to raise interest rates simply because Trump is now the fall guy. Trump from his tweets has taken ownership of this economy from the political perspective. Meanwhile in Venezuela, things are getting worse…People are standing in bread lines and the government has decided to make standing in breadlines illegal! And they're arresting bakers for overpriced bread! Yes, the insanity continues!

People are upset with what I had to say in regards to Indian reservations and capitalism. People today like to see themselves as victims. Once you see yourself as a victim you have already lost! You have the power to change your thinking at any time and how you choose to let things effect you. Most people don't get this and they settle for mediocrity in life. The latest jobs numbers released were the first to come out of the Trump presidency and they're better than Obama's last year in office. So there's some optimism out there with a jobs number of 235,000 for February but we're not out of the woods yet. We are nearing the point at which the bubble is popped and all the malinvestments come to the surface.

Trump addressed Congress for the first time and his speech had a very nationalistic and police state sort of vibe to it. The republicans that were against a big government when Obama was in office, now seem to be falling behind their leader supporting a $1 Trillion infrastructure program! President Trump also suggested five things that he wants to see done with healthcare and it really sounds like Obamacare lite! The only way to reduce the severity of our future economic crisis is to shrink the size of government and there's no willingness to do this from either side of isle!

A local radio host at KCTR in Montana, Paul Mushaben, was taken out by the politically correct culture that's overwhelming the politics of today! He has been indefinably suspended for pointing out the property destruction that has taken place when Native American basketball teams have played other schools in Montana. To boil this all down, what is it that has led to this sort bad reputation from these teams? Race has nothing to do with it! It's a lack of capitalism on Indian reservations. When socialism and government dominate society it literally destroys people! When the economic collapse in the United States comes this way, the people who have been sucking off the government teat for years will be in big trouble because they're not capable of providing for themselves. And how will they react to this? Unfortunately, with violence.

The stock market continues to hit record highs and the Dow is nearing in on its next target, a 21,000 point DOW. How much more will the markets go up before the big crash? That's something hard to predict but gold and silver have also been on the rise. Gold is up nearly 8% in 2017 and silver is up 13%. Gold and silver are still not anywhere close to their record highs from 2011. With I high risk stock market, gold and silver at this point, is incredibly cheap insurance! Also, unpiloted flying drone taxis are coming to Dubai this July! This technology is amazing and shows the private sector at work making life better for everyone. Here's a link to the drone video mentioned on the show. http://www.wsj.com/video/flying-drone-taxis-could-take-off-in-dubai/F329FEAC-2366-4796-9205-72C0344F17D0.html and here's the article: http://www.economist.com/blogs/gulliver/2017/02/taxi-take-0

The super bowl this year turned out to be an incredible game with the comeback win by the patriots. Tom Brady, who is arguably the best quarterback of all time, was a 6th round draft pick! When each NFL team has a salary cap of $155 million a lot of strategy and opportunity cost comes into when putting together a "winning" team. Then we move over to Venezuela and those people are going through a lot and have been for some time now as they are going through an economic collapse. The people of Venezuela are starving to death and are now eating pink flamingos, ant eaters, dogs and cats just to survive! This is what central planning looks like in all its glory!

The 2,300 page Dodd-Frank bill that was passed into law back in 2010, is seen as a way to prevent another 2008 like event. This line of thinking is totally out of wack with reality and another financial crisis is coming! Politicians always think if we just add another regulation that will protect us but unintended consequences come with these new regulations and Dodd-Frank is full of them! The partial repeal of Glass-Steagall is seen as the deregulation that led to the financial crisis in 2008, this is not the case at all! Even if there never was a repeal of Glass-Steagall at all we still would've had the financial crisis in 2008!

The GDP growth numbers for 2016 were recently released and it was below expert expectations. GDP growth for 2016 was only 1.6%! The average GDP growth for the last 7 ½ years was only 2.1%! Those are some really lousy numbers! The question is, why has our economy grown so slowly these last 7 ½ years? It's mainly because government spending is crowding out private sector investment! We need to shrink the size of government! That is how we make America Great Again!

On January 20th Donald Trump was officially sworn in as the 45th President of the United States. The 17 minute long speech he gave had a very nationalistic sort of tone to it and that is not a good sign for lovers of liberty. Obama added $9.3 Trillion to the national debt in 8 years, while Bush added $4.9 Trillion. The problem with our economy today and the problems our country is facing is we're spending too much money and the government is too big! Both parties are at fault and the only way to make America great again is by reducing the size and scope of government!

Vehicle discounts increased in December of 2016 to increase auto sales to yet, another record year! Demand for cars has fallen because the auto bubble is deflating and it took a decrease in vehicle prices to bring people into dealerships. How much longer will this go on? The auto loan bubble will be fully pricked by the time the next economic crisis is here and we seem to be very close to that. Also, companies like Cadillac are offering a new program where you pay a $1,500 subscription and you can drive any top of the line Cadillac car you want. There is no contract, just a $1,500 a month subscription. This new program will begin to roll out on February 1st, 2017 in New York City. Is this the future of the car industry? What's coming next?

Donald Trump is 10 days away from being sworn in as the 45th President of the United States so we have to ask ourselves what will a Trump presidency look like? The way Trump is on twitter all the time saying he will put tariffs on a company that sends jobs overseas is rather concerning. It's going to be an interesting 4 years of the Donald and I don't think they will be good for liberty at all.

Thomas Sowell wrote his last column on December 28th and he decided to give it up after about 40 years of doing it! Sowell has had a huge impact the economic world because of the amazing books he has written over the years! He's an extremely gifted writer who writes very clearly, concisely and is just a brilliant mind. A few points he makes in his last few columns are discussed to pay tribute to an incredible mind that has done lots of work defending the free market and making the moral case for capitalism!

Who do you think is the biggest political loser in 2016? I would argue the biggest, political loser in modern American history is Hillary Clinton! Hillary Clinton has always been seen as the inevitable first woman president but that no longer seems probable at all! Also, a woman in France is literally engaged to a Robot and she plans on marrying this thing when it's legalized! This world is literally insane and I think things will only get more insane in 2017!

No one was shocked by the FEDs recent decision to raise interest rates to .5-.75%. The FED has raised interest rates a total sum of .5% in 10 years! That's not much of a move but the markets think the FED is being very hawkish right now with the dollar hitting a 14 year high! During the campaign, Trump stressed to people how he will make America great again but really it's an impossibility. The only way for things to turn around is if the government shrinks and the free market is allowed to prevail! Trumps natural instincts is to fix things with government. The markets wishful thinking in regards to a Trump presidency are vastly overblown and will crash back to reality rather soon.

Donald Trump agreeing to a deal with Carrier to keep jobs in the U.S. is the crony capitalist system we have today. This is how business in America is done today and why we are very far away from any kind of free market system! Granting special deals and privilege to government favored businesses is the government picking winners and losers! The government protecting businesses from competition makes them actually less competitive and less responsible to the consumer. So we, as taxpayers, are soaked in more than one way! Many people out there are optimistic of a Trump Presidency but this Carrier deal shows it's more of the same.

Just after Thanksgiving, Fidel Castro died at 90 years old. Fidel first came to power in Cuba in 1959 and ruled there for over 50 years! People on the left love to praise Cuba and they loved the heck out of Fidel! But what is really the truth? Did Fidel really improve the lives of the Cuban people or did he make life much worse? What is life like today for the Cuban people? Cuba really is a good example that communism doesn't work and socialism/communism is anything but compassionate! Capitalism and the Free Market are the best ways to help the poor and with examples like Cuba, Venezuela and North Korea, it's amazing people like Bernie Sanders still get the support they do get.

Many people are fearing deflation but is this really something to be feared? Not at all! If we had an unhampered, free market deflation would naturally occur in the economy! We would have slowly falling prices because we are more productive and at the same time, real wages are rising! Today, real wages are falling and the Federal Reserve is slowly eating away our purchasing power via inflation! The deflationary death spiral is a myth and can never happen. Only when government gets involved can a great depression like scenario occur.

Prior to Donald Trump being elected, it was said the markets would crash! The stock market is at record highs and the dollar is at a 14 year high! So does this mean our economy has recovered? No, what we are seeing now is short-lived and once Trump is sworn in as the 45th president of the United States, this optimism will have disappeared. The only way out of our excessive debt problem is inflation. They will paper over these debts. QE4 is coming my friends so prepare yourself!

Donald Trump will be the 45th President of the United States. A guy who has never held public office will be serving in the most powerful position in the world. The world of politics today is crazy, to say the least and as some people are happy with this victory, others are crying their eyes out! What will 4 years of a Trump presidency bring us? I fear it will be a much bigger government and we will continue to add to our debt until the day of reckoning finally comes. The biggest conservative voice in the land, Rush Limbaugh, thinks a Trump victory was a repudiation of big government! I think Rush completely misses the boat with this comment among others he made the day after this historic election.

Out of 330 million American our 2 choices for President came down to an alleged criminal or a crony capitalist! Both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump want to grow the size of government. Our national debt is nearing $20 Trillion in debt and the next president will continue to spend like we don't have a debt at all! I think we got to this moment because the vast majority of citizens out there are economically illiterate! Nobody understands what truly makes an economy grow and it surely isn't the government! Unfortunately, those in power think that to get out of a massive debt problem we need to go deeper in debt! Hold on to your hats folks, this economy is going to have a very bumpy ride!

Hillary says the rich don't pay their fair share and she wants to go where the money is! Where is most of the money at? The majority of people are in the "middle class!" The dirty little secret is that Hillary will tax the middle class to get through her programs! The top 1% pay an effective tax rate of 27.1%, while the bottom 50% pay an effective tax rate of 3.3%! The rich pay more than their fair share! We are less than a week from Election Day and regardless of who wins the government will continue to grow! Our national debt is approaching $20 trillion and our day of reckoning is fast approaching. Prepare yourself now because the politicians out there will not protect you!

I recently got back from the Contra Cruise that was hosted by Tom Woods and Bob Murphy. The Contra Cruise was phenomenal and it was such a great group of libertarians to connect with. What came up often amongst the group was a question of messaging and converting people to libertarian ideas. What is the best way to do this? The last part of this episode, I have a few answers.

John Hunt talks about the new book he has co-authored with Doug Casey called Speculator. John talks about how it is living in Africa and he points out how they actually view money in a much different way, than we do in the United States. If you have money, it's best to hide it and not tell anybody about it because they like to borrow it without any intention of paying it back! John also explains how Doug and him started on this project together and what's to come in this incredible series! This book is a must read and you can purchase it from amazon at this link: https://www.amazon.com/Speculator-High-Ground-Doug-Casey/dp/0985933259/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1475817771&sr=8-1&keywords=speculator

Doug Casey talks about the economy and he sees the inevitable is now imminent! What's coming in the economy won't be just economic but it will also be social, political and military! Doug talks about how to invest in a gold mine and what to look for. He also gives advice to young people and why they should move to Africa as a way to increase their odds at being successful. This is a wide ranging interview and Doug provides so many insights from his experience as a successful speculator and a world traveler! You really can't afford to miss this interview!

The first presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump was not very impressive at all. Ok so Hillary did the best she possibly could during the debate, which isn't really saying much. Then we have Donald Trump who missed opportunity after opportunity to throw egg in Hillary's face and he didn't do it! Trump was on the defensive the entire time while Hillary stayed on offense. According to the average American voter out there these two clowns are the most competent to be the next President of the United States! I'm not impressed to say the least.

The FED didn't raise interest rates in September and this comes as no surprise to any listener of this show. Raising interest rates right before a presidential election is extremely improbable and our economy is not as strong as the "experts" believe! Steve Eiseman also has been in the news recently for his view on the economy. Steve Eiseman is the real life guy from the movie, "The Big Short." This guy made million shorting subprime mortgages in 2007. He sees things will continue to slug along until the world loses faith in QE (money printing). Our economy has some rough times ahead. It's best to prepare now while you still can!

The EpiPen story has been huge these past few weeks and this story actually shows us a lot of what's wrong with the "system" today! EpiPen now costs $300 for one syringe and when it first came out in in 1977 it cost $57! How is it the cost of EpiPen has soared in price? This is the result of government intervention! The FDA has blocked out competition due to cronyism and the government playing to favored companies like Mylan! Even the patent that Mylan has had on EpiPen is yet another reason, why there's so little competition against the EpiPen! We need to get the government out of our lives and we will all be better for it!

Janet Yellen and the FED are giving a very confused message to the markets. Janet Yellen sounds like she wants to raise interest rates but she wants to wait for data to confirm it while other dovish FED governors want to raise interest rates in September. Anytime any of these FED governors speak, it's what completely moves the market and causes a massive sell off on WallStreet and in the precious metals market. The market fears an end to easy money but increasing interest rates is what should have happened years ago! This is why our economy is not recovering and it's actually these low interest rates that will lead to a massive bust, in the economy, that will be much worse than 2008! Hold on to your hats ladies and gentleman because this is going to be a wild ride!

James Grant, in a recent interview, discusses what he sees going on in the U.S. economy. James makes the point that in 5,000 years of world history negative interest rates have never happened before! This is how absurd negative interest rates are! This is the end game before the entire global economy unfolds and leads to a massive collapse. Having all of your assets denominated in a fiat currency like the U.S. Dollar is a very risky move. James Grant is a legend and his views on the economy definitely confirms the views that have been discussed on this show since it began. You don't want to miss this episode to hear what James Grant says and here's a link to this very interview. http://www.fuw.ch/article/the-fed-is-now-hostage-to-wall-street/

Janet Yellen's recent comments at Jackson Hole on August 26th are really much of the same stuff. There is a few things in Yellen's speech that are quite revealing. Yellen suggested that QE4 (more money printing) is on the table and even negative interest rates! Yes, Janet Yellen makes a comment saying rates you should have went negative in response to the housing crisis in 2008! Negative interest rates seem to be the last resort effort by central banks to keep things under control. This seems to be the end of the road and it's not going to end well. Prepare yourself now while you still can!

This question sounds crazy but, should we legalize insider trading? As crazy as this may sound, legalizing insider trading is the right thing to do. Today, insider trading is considered a criminal act, why is this? It's a victimless crime! If you're the CEO of some company and you leak out information against your contract or your fiduciary duty then that's a civil case with the company you work for. If we want prices to reflect the most accurate and up to the minute information then we need to legalize insider trading! Having insider trading illegal doesn't level the playing field like most believe, it actually does the exact opposite. We have enough government laws as is and law enforcement can't keep up with those! Lets legalize insider trading so law enforcement can go after actual criminals with their very limited resources!

The economy is not strong like the "experts" out there have led us to believe. Quarter 2 GDP came in at 1.2% when the Atlanta FED was predicting 2.4% GDP growth! That's a big miss! And under Obama's presidency we haven't seen one year over 3% GDP growth and this is unprecedented in modern American history! We have had interest rates near 0% for Obama's entire presidency because this was supposed to stimulate the economy and it has done nothing of the sort! Now countries around the world are engaged in negative interest rates to "stimulate" the economy! Ladies and gentleman, we are at the end game of this monetary experiment and it doesn't end well!

Donald Trump literally lays out what he's doing now in his presidential campaign from his 1987 book, "The Art of the Deal." Trump says you need to be a little outrageous, controversial and talk big! Yes, Trump says play to people's fantasies because most people don't think big themselves, but they love to rally around someone who does! Can you say, build a big, beautiful wall?! The most fascinating quotes from Trump's book are read in this episode. Also, Rush Limbaugh is considered "Mr. Conservative" but is conservatism really at the top of his list? Don't miss this episode where all this is explained!

Interest rates have been near 0% for almost eight years now and we have printed trillions of dollars into the economy since 2008! Negative interest rates are happening all over the world… What does all this really mean!? Where is the U.S. economy going? Are we really in a recovery like Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen says? Is gold a good place to put money even after the 25% rally just this year? Don't miss this panel discussion with top Austrian economists from FreedomFest 2016 where these questions and more are answered!

FreedomFest was an absolutely fantastic event. If you didn't make it this year you missed out! So many fantastic speakers and debates and all the biggest names in the liberty movement were there. Going to events like this shows us there's a reason to be optimistic. Just look at all the talent we have on the libertarian side. We may be small in number but we are extremely effective and some of the smartest guys alive today are libertarian! You really don't want to miss out on this event next year and I will tell you how to safe a bunch of money if you do decide to attend.

Alan Greenspan recently sat down for a 30 minute interview on Bloomberg TV and what he said in that interview is shocking for a former Federal Reserve chairman to say. A few of the shocking statements Greenspan says are played on this episode. Greenspan sees inflation coming our way and he says just way, it's coming! Alan Greenspan even says we should return to a gold standard and that our country experienced the most prosperity when we were on the classic gold standard from 1870-1913. For those of you who sense that many things are wrong in this economy and that things are about to get much worse, this episode confirms those beliefs with some astonishing facts you won't find in the mainstream media anywhere! You need to buy gold and silver now!