Is The Economy Good? How Current Economic Conditions Affect You.

[00:00:01.140] - Alice

Welcome to Books in the Biz, a podcast that looks at both the financial and operational sides of success. Please welcome our hosts, Dan Paulson and Richard Veltre. Dan is the CEO of InVision Development International, and he works with leaders to increase sales and profits through great cultures with solid operations. Rich is CEO of the Veltre Group and a financial strategist working with companies to manage their money more effectively. Now on to the podcast.

[00:00:29.450] - Dan Paulson

Thank you, Alice. Thanks for the wonderful introduction. She is just spot on always, isn't she, Rich?

[00:00:37.510] - Rich Veltre

Yes, she is.

[00:00:39.340] - Dan Paulson

It is the best we've got for AI around here, anyway. Welcome to Books in the Biz. Welcome, Rich. How are you doing today?

[00:00:48.150] - Rich Veltre

I am good, Dan. How are you?

[00:00:49.700] - Dan Paulson

I am awesome. So thinking this weekend about what should we talk about today, we are still lining up a couple of other interviewees. And there's one thing I always hear about, and it depends on which news set you listen to. Either the economy is really, really good, and why are you whining about everything, to the economy is really, really bad, and we're all going to die. And I think somewhere in the middle is probably the truth. So I thought it'd be good for us to get into that a little bit today. That was good. Especially since many businesses are probably on the fence of what's actually going on here. So here's some of the stuff that prompted this thought, and I know you've seen these articles as well. But if you read what's in the highlight here, and for those who are just listening to the audio, how many Americans are living paycheck to paycheck? And what it says is there's about 78 % of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. Now, they also go in to define a little bit about what that means. It basically describes where you're spending all the money that's coming in that week, versus saving anything that you are getting.

[00:01:59.950] - Dan Paulson

So does that mean the economy is good or does that mean the economy is bad? Rich, what's your thoughts on that?

[00:02:07.690] - Rich Veltre

I don't necessarily equate that to the economy. I mean, if you take it across and say, okay, 78 % of all people are just living with, I bring in this money and I spend this money. Okay, I don't think that's changed. I think the percentage of people that are affected may have gone up, because I think somewhere I saw a stat that said it's higher, it's higher than it used to be. But the fact that five years ago, it was 64 %, I don't think that's an indicator of the economy. I think that's an indicator of people's patterns of expenses. And possibly you could attack people aren't making enough money to cover. So maybe there's a labor portion in there. But does that mean general economy? Not necessarily. That's not really my take on it, because I do think that there are a lot of people out there that say, I'm going to go make $100, I'm going to spend $100.

[00:03:09.390] - Dan Paulson

I think that is very common. We live in a consumerism society We have been conditioned to spend pretty much everything that we make. If you look at any of the commercials that go on, there's a lot out there that promotes that. Now, I will say, going from you said like 60 some % to now close to 80 %. I do believe there are possible flags in there, possible warning signs, because what it might be saying is that 10 to 20 % that would normally save some of that money, put it away, now due to inflation, everything else has eroded their ability to save. So now they are living paycheck to paycheck. I think there is some of that out there. We do have to be realistic that, yes, a A large portion of our society is conditioned to spend pretty much every dime that they make. But I would say there are signs here that we should be concerned about. Sure.

[00:04:12.000] - Rich Veltre

I agree. I think the only thing I would add to that, if I'm playing devil's advocate for what I said a minute ago. Sure. The other fact of the matter is that two thirds of the US economy comes from US purchasers. So if we're not spending the money that we're making and we're not spending that money, then your economy factor goes a different way because all of a sudden, well, what happened? The economy is not strong anymore because people aren't buying. So you're right. So there's factors that... It's so complicated because there's so many pieces to the spider web.

[00:04:46.950] - Dan Paulson

Well, and if you listen to the news, that's exactly what they hone in on. They hone in on the fact that people are spending their money. They are buying goods. They're still buying homes. All that comes into play, no The other thing here is credit cards. We hear a lot of talk about credit cards. Now, I've heard stories of better than 50 % of people aren't paying off their credit card bill each month. This particular article which is from, looks like it's from March 10th. So it's not that old in comparison to what we're doing here. Our credit card savings debt threatens to swamp our savings. Here's how to deal with both. They're basically saying that 36 % of Americans have more credit card debt than emergency savings, roughly half. So it is pretty close to half. Carry balances from month to month, which means they don't pay off that balance. I don't know what your average credit card percentage, but I'm seeing anywhere between 20 to 30 % on credit card fees for anything that is carried over that you are going to pay on that balance. That It's pretty expensive. So that could also tie into the previous stat that we talked about.

[00:06:06.800] - Dan Paulson

But this is what a lot of people are carrying credit card debt, unsecured debt, which is mostly credit cards This one definitely alarms me a little bit more and leads me towards...

[00:06:23.110] - Rich Veltre

Because I think the overall piece here is what's going on? If we go by stats and we say, oh, by the statistics, the economy is good, the labor market is good. Okay, but there's so many other factors that seem to be showing themselves and saying, we might be the new leading indicator. New business starts. This credit card debt. I think a lot of people during the pandemic, which I don't want to be the guy that blames everything on the pandemic all over again. But the pandemic had a significant effect on how people lived, how they worked, how they spent their money. And I think what goes through my mind sometimes is people ran up their credit cards because that was how they were affording what they were doing. And then right after that, the credit card company said, well, interest rates went up. So bang, here we go. We're going to raise our interest rates. So now people can't get out from under their credit cards because the interest rate is now double what it was before, and the balance is still there. So I'm not sure that people not paying off their credit cards because they spent.

[00:07:34.830] - Rich Veltre

I think there's a residual effect that doesn't get figured into the economy numbers.

[00:07:40.620] - Dan Paulson

Yeah. And if we look back again to like 2020, there were a lot of people that were getting monthly checks from the government because government had shut a number of businesses down, and they weren't able to work. So people were often making as much or more off of the government subsidized checks, which then led to a lot of consumerism. People buying goods, buying homes, remodeling, travel where they could. They were taking advantage of the fact that they had that cash, and that cash, of course, eventually went away. Well, if you spend money on a credit card today, you don't get the bill today. You get the bill 15 to 30 days from now. And if that money is dried up today, well, when the bill comes If you do, now there's no cash to replenish that. So I believe there's some of that going on in here. And we can see that the average borrower holds $6,300 in credit debt, credit card debt. That's pretty substantial for most people. And you look at those balance and interest rates, and they keep going up. Now, the tricky part is, if the average credit card now, and we're highlighting this on those who are viewing this, is roughly about 21.5 % interest.

[00:09:00.710] - Dan Paulson

And that's if you got good credit. Now, if you got not so good credit, I guarantee is pushing 30 to 40 %. Well, imagine how much of your monthly payment, because monthly payments haven't changed all that much. It's still what is it, one 20th of your total balance or something like that. Basically, it's not even enough to pay off the interest in most cases. So if you're just paying the bare minimums, you're accumulating more debt with each month you carry that balance. Bankrate found 43 % of card holders with debt, don't know how much interest they're paying. Here's another stick my head in the sand. I'm just going to pretend this is all going to go away. That gets a little concerning to me. There's a number of issues here that depending upon which stats you read, again, it either sounds really good or there's some real areas of concern here.

[00:09:56.120] - Rich Veltre

Sure. I think I worry a little bit, too, because most of the credit card issuers are banks or backed by banks. And one of the stats I did not see is the fact that with the run up of interest rates, savings accounts are paying a certain amount extra, but credit cards have gone from as you were just showing, what was a 10 % credit card a couple of years ago could now be a 30 % credit card, right? So you've tripled the rate of the interest that people are paying. And now what? A one % savings account went to five %? So it's five times, but it went from one % to five %. I mean, it's one of those things where you can play with a percentage in a dollar amount, and one will look really good, and the other one will look like, what are you talking about? That doesn't match up. And that's what That's what I'm going through my head, is that if they've got savings deposits that they're only paying five % out on, but they're loaning credit card interest at 30 %, who's benefiting? I mean, who's benefiting at a rate that's out of realism.

[00:11:18.110] - Rich Veltre

It's not normal.

[00:11:20.130] - Dan Paulson

So 30 % credit card, I just can't believe anymore. Yeah, we should also put a caveat on that. Your local small town bank typically doesn't have its own credit card or is charging that interest. Most of the banks, especially the credit cards you're getting Bank of America, City. These are huge, huge conglomerate banks that are charging that. So if you're Having a savings account or a CD that's paying you five, six % interest, which think back the last 12 to 15 years, that's a pipe dream. Most of our savings accounts were paying like 0.1 % interest for the as long as time. But you're right, there's definitely a disconnect there between what banks are able to pay out or what they are paying out, I should say. Your community banks are a different story than, again, City and a lot of these other ones. They're also footing the risk that if you default on that credit card, that's unsecured debt, they can affect your credit rating, but it gets a little bit more difficult to come after you for that money. Typically, they just keep assessing more and more fees, hoping that you'll pay enough in interest that by the time you do default on everything, they can write that off and still be ahead.

[00:12:34.480] - Dan Paulson

So there's a lot going on there, too. And maybe that's a whole another episode where we talk about how the banking system works and how credit works. But I want to switch gears a little bit here because, again, part of the economy is politics, and we're not going to pick any sides here because I believe both left and right do the same things to our economy, which tends to screw it up. So we won't get into that. But What are people feeling? It drives a lot like going into this election, going into, are they going to buy a new home? Are they going to buy a new car? Are they going to take that vacation? And what we're starting to see here is if the economy is so good, why do people not feel that way? The polls are saying that there's really two or three major issues outside of immigration. The next one is the economy. And if people aren't feeling good, about spending money, then I think you have to dig into a little bit of what they're spending money on right now. And I'm guessing, because I don't think we have really, I couldn't find a clear article as to where all that money is going.

[00:13:45.000] - Dan Paulson

But I do believe in some of the stories I hear, you're seeing more people put more things on credit cards that would be considered cost of living items, food, car repairs, repair to your furnace or something like that. That's what's carrying a lot of that debt over. They're less likely to spend it on a new car. But I was seeing, you remember our friend Jay that we had on? Jay going in a couple months ago or a month and a half ago? He had posted something yesterday on Twitter where he's like, you better get used to the shock you're going to see for getting a car repair done because there's higher overhead, there's higher labor costs, there's more technology in the vehicles. So that fix is now exceeding, I think in a lot of cases, $1,000 for an average fix on a vehicle. You start doing the math on that. All as it takes, most people, if they at least have one vehicle, if your transmission goes out, well, that's probably a four to six thousand dollar fix. If your engine goes out, it's about the same. Anything else breaks on the car, you're probably a thousand to fifteen hundred dollars pretty easily.

[00:14:57.380] - Dan Paulson

And you need that vehicle just to get in most cases, because I think I looked up at 91 % of Americans own at least one vehicle to their name. That's your primary way to get back and forth to work. So there's a lot going on here, which then leads to why do people not feel like the economy is good? I believe it's because they're not spending money on things they want to spend money on. They're spending money on things they need to spend money on.

[00:15:24.840] - Rich Veltre

Yeah. And I think this is what I was trying to say in the beginning. I'm questioning some of the factors. I'm questioning the factors that people use to come up with your standard, this is why we say the economy is good. Well, if all the big corporations that have a lot of flexibility are changing their fee structure, changing what they pay out, changing their pricing and raising it, the excuse being, oh, well, there's inflation. So now what we used to charge $50 for is now $150. It doesn't sound like a lot, but multiply that times the million people that bought whatever that is.

[00:16:08.340] - Dan Paulson

Okay? Well, take your groceries. I can speak personally that what I would spend would be about $90,000 to $120,000 a week on grocery bills. And now if I get in at $150, I'm considering that's pretty good. And that's per week And it's not too hard to push that up to 200 pretty quickly. What are you seeing in your neck of the woods? Is it about the same?

[00:16:38.360] - Rich Veltre

Right now, my cats eat better than I do. Yeah, you go into the food store and it's ridiculous. You wind up spending a bunch of money that by the time you're done with the cleaning supplies and cat food, you're like, oh, my God, I'm at $100 already before I even before I even eat. So it gets to be crazy that you're looking at it saying, how can anybody say that this is normal or good? Or look, if we get into that phrase that I hate, the new normal. This is the new normal. I think what I'm trying to get is, I don't think it's going to come back down. So what's bad is the media, the government, they're looking at this saying, Well, everything's good. I don't know what you have a problem with. Well, if it was bad for me before, during the pandemic, et cetera, and I'm still living with the residual effects, and you're just telling me, Well, it's fine now because we've stabilized it, but you didn't reverse it. And I don't know that you can, but you're not saying that because that would make a lot of people upset.

[00:17:52.670] - Dan Paulson

Well, what they are saying is your inflation rate is now at, I think this last month, I thought I saw it was 3.8 %. And they're saying, well, that wasn't the 7.8 or 8 % that we had back a couple of years ago. It's like, well, but that 3.8 % is on top of that 7.8 %, which was on top of 5 % or whatever. Or else that was going on in the year before that.

[00:18:19.150] - Rich Veltre

What are they asking?

[00:18:21.480] - Dan Paulson

If you're asking me to get used to the new normal, and we go back to that stupid phrase that everybody used so many years ago, I can get that if you're actually honest with me and you tell me this is what we have to get used to.

[00:18:37.650] - Rich Veltre

You and I have been talking about in the labor market, get used to it because the labor market is short. So prices are going to be higher because people have to pay to get those people who are far and fewer. So if that's the case, you're going to expect an increase, and you're getting used to it. And I think people who listen to that and understand it are saying, Okay, I get it. This is a piece. But this We're not going to tell you anything because it's an election year and it's politics, and we have to make Biden look good, or we have to make whoever on the other side is going to look good. That doesn't tell me anything. It doesn't tell me what to get used to. I can't plan. I can't think about it. And now I'm going to be one of those guys that's going to take my head and put it in the sand. Hopefully, it just blows over.

[00:19:21.820] - Dan Paulson

It would be nice, but I don't think it's going to do that. So you started shifting it there. Sorry. No, That's good. That's a good segue in. We're a business podcast, so we've talked a lot about consumers. Obviously, consumers affect business. What's your prediction on, regardless of who wins an election, What do you see happening here that is going to directly impact our clients, our potential clients, our non-clients, anyone who's in the business world right now?

[00:20:00.820] - Rich Veltre

My biggest concern is the credit cards. I think there is a collapsing effect that can happen if the credit cards continues to go the way it's going. Because don't forget, we talked about, oh, these are the people who aren't paying the debt off every month. Right. Problem is credit cards have a limit.

[00:20:22.630] - Dan Paulson

Yes. Okay.

[00:20:23.690] - Rich Veltre

So if people have gone out and actually run their credit cards up to the point we're at the limit, they're not going to be able to buy They're going to hit the point where they're going to be forced to not buy. There's an effect there on the economy. Because immediately, if two thirds of people support the economy, if our economy comes two thirds from the people that are actually sitting in the United States, then if they lose their buying power, the economy goes lower. So what does that mean? You can't go and say to me that the economy is strong wrong if it's now threatened, because that's the one piece you don't see anybody saying. It's threatened by the credit card. They just report that credit cards are high. But that's a threat. And that's my biggest prediction. I think that people have hit the ceiling They're managing and maintaining. They're upset by it because now they can't do anything. So they're stuck listening to people say, economy is good, labor market is good. Okay, but I'm sitting in my house not able to do anything. No vacation, no anything, no prosperity whatsoever. I'm just going to sit back and stare at the wall.

[00:21:34.560] - Rich Veltre

That's why the polls say that people are upset, because they're blaming the economy for the fact that it's not... That they're not able to do what they would normally do. And you can find 10 ways to put a label on that. It's three dollar gasoline. They didn't like four dollar, but three dollar didn't really fix it. And then, groceries has been the biggest The biggest name on all the headlines that talk about why people are upset, you go to groceries.

[00:22:06.650] - Dan Paulson

Well, that's the easiest one to see because you see that effect every week. I mean, it's one thing with housing, and I'm good. Housing is going to be my biggest one. But typically, if you have a mortgage, and if you had that mortgage for at least five years, you're probably in the three % range for what you're paying on your mortgage rates. If If you refinance now, you're paying seven to eight %. You're more than doubling what your interest rate is, which then pretty much more than doubles what your monthly payment would be. So I think that has muted it some But here's where the problem is, and I agree with you on the credit card thing. My issue is the housing thing, and for a couple of reasons. One, we have a housing shortage, and there are numerous reasons why housing shortage exists. While we are trying to build up to that housing need, cost of materials has gone up due to inflation. So here's the snowball effect. What has that led to? Well, that has led to, again, mortgage interest rates increasing. There's a number of reasons for that, that tie into primarily the Fed and the past inflation and everything else, and them trying to cool the economy when everyone had free money and was just spending like crazy.

[00:23:28.560] - Dan Paulson

We're still sitting too much of that mortgage interest rate, which makes it hard for people who do need to refinance or who do need to buy a new home to do so at a reasonable rate. So now they're investing more in their monthly mortgage. But here's the other issue. Rentals are going up. You can now, it's not too hard to pay $2,000 to $3,000 a month for renting a small apartment. And that's not just in places like New York or New Jersey. I'm seeing that out here in Madison, Wisconsin, and Even when you get out in some of the the smaller communities surrounding that, you're still paying 1,500, 2,000 for rent. Well, if your rent keeps going up and you got to put more money towards that, where do you reach the breaking point where now credit card debt, like you said, you're maxed out. Now you have no money to spend. You're saying, well, I'll sit in my living room and stare at the wall. Well, what happens when you don't even have a living room or a wall to stare at?

[00:24:28.350] - Rich Veltre

This is true.

[00:24:29.210] - Dan Paulson

Now What's going to happen? Well, the government's not going to let a huge chunk of the population go homeless. So what are they going to do? There's going to be another assistance package or something to subsidize rent more than we already do for certain classes of people. Those classes will now grow, and you'll have to pump more money into that. Well, what does that do? That increases our national debt. What does that do? That increases our inflation rate and so on. And now we create the spiral. And for me, because I work in manufacturing and construction, when somebody would ask me, well, how is this going to impact me? I'm like, well, your impact isn't today. It's probably not even tomorrow. It's probably not even next week. But you're probably already starting to see some rumblings, and And I would say within the next three to five years, what you are going to see is really your industry go through a lot of turmoil. And you're going to need to figure out how to manage that, because if housing prices keep going up, and there has It's been no sign. I have heard nothing on the news to say housing prices are going to stabilize or go down, because, again, tight housing market, cost of materials going up, cost of buildings going up.

[00:25:40.510] - Dan Paulson

So everything's increasing. And you're now stuck in a situation where at what point are people going to say enough, and that the last straw is going to break, and now we're in this situation where we can't build anymore because the cost of building far exceeds the cost of what you're going to get back out of it. Once the profit's gone, you're pretty much done. So you're going to have to find creative and efficient ways to build more effectively. You're going to see probably American housing shrink to maybe something that's more comparable to European style housing to make it more affordable. I've also seen articles and heard things about that. There's going to have to be changes. And I'm already talking to construction companies that are saying, well, we're still busy now, but the number of jobs we see coming in in the future is starting to drop, and they're starting to get a little concerned about that, where it was even during the pandemic, it was high time, and you could pretty much, you were guaranteed work for the next several years. We're seeing some of that starting to slow down. Now, it's not stopped.

[00:26:46.260] - Dan Paulson

They're not in panic mode yet, but we're starting to see where they're cutting back. This is the part where you can jump in. Sorry. No, that's all right.

[00:27:04.400] - Rich Veltre

A little technical snafu there. Other industries as well. It's probably to a certain extent, I see other industries hitting the same thing, where there's a rumbling coming. And I'm not sure what the impetus will be. What's the starting point? I think interesting interest rates right now are unsustainable at where they're at. And I think that's the biggest thing. Cost of borrowing becomes an off-it. It becomes ridiculous.

[00:27:40.230] - Dan Paulson

You know, that's funny, because my first mortgage was eight %. And it's interesting that we say that 8 % is unsustainable because there was a time when that was the norm. There was also a time when you did buy a house pretty much on a reverse mortgage situation where you paid off part of the interest and hoped that at some point things would turn around and you could either refinance or your house would appreciate more than what you were paying was. I agree with you.

[00:28:10.080] - Rich Veltre

My first mortgage was probably, I think it was eight, eight and a quarter. Then I did ride the wave of living 20 years in a house that I did refinance to a point where I had it pretty low. And the threes, I think, was my number. And now I did buy another house, and my interest rate is seven and a half. So I get that part of it. Where I see it being unsustainable is the fact that we didn't really even touch on this, did. But the cost of capital for a business right now is not eight %. Most people are not at eight %. So this scary part is the fact that, yes, on a long term residential mortgage set up, it is not out of the realm to say, okay, so eight %, it is what it is. We can make that sustainable. Yes, agreed. Cost of capital, SBA loans are over 10 %. Typically not long term. If your credit is not stellar, it's not 10 %.

[00:29:16.470] - Dan Paulson

Then it goes up from there.

[00:29:17.860] - Rich Veltre

And then it goes up from there. And then you could also throw in there, well, what about commercial mortgages? What about office buildings, industrial buildings, retail? Those mortgages are not structured like residential. Those guys didn't get to keep a decent three, four % rate because they refinance every three years. So every three years, those interest rates went up. And recently, everybody hit that ceiling. And those guys are all shaking in their boots because you also then had the fact that those commercial buildings are based on valuations that are tied to occupancy. So all these people that left because of pandemic, whatever, the shift to working from home, you got all these buildings now that are trying to be refinanced. And their valuations may have gone down. So you got a whole shake of... You got a whole earthquake going on here. And it's a question of how big that winds up being and what the effect is on everyone else, because it just has this spreading effect.

[00:30:34.300] - Dan Paulson

So what should you do about it? You're the finance guy. If I were a business, what would you tell me I should be doing right now, even if my business is going well?

[00:30:44.650] - Rich Veltre

I can tell you one thing not to do, don't put your head in the sand. Because if you miss it, then you become one of the ones that's directly affected. So I think people really do have to sit down, plan it out, say, this is what I can do. This is where I have to be at. These are my warning indicators, meaning I have to have this many sales a year. I have to have this many... Depending on what industry you're in. If you're in real estate, do you have enough occupancy? What's your valuation look like? Maybe at that point, talk to your banker ahead of time. If it's something that you think you can do, I mean, hopefully they're going to work it out with you because they don't want it back.

[00:31:30.030] - Dan Paulson

No. Everybody seems to think they do. Yeah.

[00:31:34.030] - Rich Veltre

So this is why I'm saying to people, look, be prepared. Think about it. Talk to people that you can talk to. Get your advisors involved. And if you're on the personal side, same thing. It's no different. I focus most of my comments on business owners and say, don't put your head in the sand. Put down your plan and walk it by your advisors, because everybody should have advisors, legal, insurance. Let people know this is what's going on. What can we do? Other people have thought about this, and other people have come up with solutions. So don't try to think like, well, I'm the only guy here. I'm the only one who can do it. Talk to people. People will help. And you'll be amazed at how many people want to help.

[00:32:21.440] - Dan Paulson

Yes. There are more people that want to help when you're proactive about it than when you're reactive about it. Then they're just trying to figure out how to cut their losses at that point. And I agree with you 100 %. I think we're on the same page here. When times are good, most people look past the minor issues that turn into major ones later on. They'll figure, well, I'll work through it when things slow down. Well, the problem is when things slow down, the money dries up, and now you don't have the resources you need to fix the issues that are at hand. And to me, it's critical right now. If you haven't done a planning process in a while, you need to get back on it. You need review the good, the bad, the ugly of what you're doing, and see where those kinks in the armor are so that you can deal with those. If you're just going to say, well, times are high, and money is still rolling in, and we're fine, we'll be okay, we can weather anything. Those are the people that usually struggle three to five years down the road when something shifts that they weren't aware of, and they were not prepared to handle it.

[00:33:24.470] - Dan Paulson

So back to what you were saying, you have advisors. If you don't have advisors, you get advisors. There are plenty of people that will help you without charging you a fee. And those are your bankers, your insurance people, people that you're already paying in something to, and they want you to stick around. So they're going to be likely to help you. In some cases, they're going to refer you to people like us. So here's our Shameless self-plug, is you're occasionally going to need somebody who's going to look at your business in a different way than you do, then your banker does, your insurance company does, then your accountant does. And you really need to think about bringing those people in now when things are good and not waiting till something changes. Now, maybe you'll look out, maybe you'll ride whatever wave is coming, and things will be fine. There's a lot of signs, though, that have me concerned, and I have a lot of other people concerned. That means you should probably at least take a glance and make sure you're really as stable as you think you are.

[00:34:26.340] - Rich Veltre

I 100 % support that comment. Absolutely 100 %. Just make it vocal. Yeah, communication is it.

[00:34:37.750] - Dan Paulson

Yeah. I think that's going to be the key. And I think that's where we can wrap up today. So as far as what my takeaway from this whole economy thing is, is there are good signs, but there are also a lot of warning signs. And in my opinion, we're in the warning track right now. We need to get back square up, and we can't rely on what's going to happen with the election to do that. So take care of yourself. Do your strategic planning, get out there, and really tighten things up now while you can. And that way, you'll be better prepared for whatever comes in the future. Rich, how about you?

[00:35:16.720] - Rich Veltre

I am 100 % in the same vein. I think there are a lot of warning signs. I think there's going to be a shift, and I don't know which way. I'm not really a good predictor that I'm just telling people this is where you're on the warning track, and you got to talk about it. So definitely take the communication and talk to people and make sure that you're on a sound footing as you might think that you are.

[00:35:43.350] - Dan Paulson

That is awesome advice. And I think they should talk to us, too. So Rich, how do they get a hold of you?

[00:35:49.590] - Rich Veltre

Send me an email. It's the best way to go. Rveltre@veltregroup.com.

[00:35:53.730] - Dan Paulson

My email is too damn long, so I'll just tell you to go to danpaulsonletsgo.com. And there's a form you can fill out there. I'll be happy to get a hold of you and see how either one of us can help you out. We got some tools that can help you figure out where your weak spots are at and what you can do to fix them. So please reach out and contact us today. Rich, it's always been fun, and we will talk again next week.

[00:36:16.580] - Rich Veltre

Sounds good, Dan.

[00:36:17.410] - Dan Paulson

Talk to you later. All right. Take care.