A (10:57)

Quick buzz to tell you about our first sponsor for the day and that is Constitution Wealth. Constitution wealth are the financial advisors that many of you know and trust. They are merging now with Worth Point Wealth Management. This is really good news because you are getting the same trusted team and same values aligned approach so you can make sure that your investments are not conflicting with your biblical values. But now they have a much larger platform now that they are joining forces with Worth Point. They manage over $1 billion in assets and share Constitution Wealth's commitment to helping you invest according to your principles and not Wall Street's agenda. So get your free consultation today@constitutionwealth.com Ali see if they're right for you. You will not regret this. Constitution wealth is a registered investment advisor. Registration does not imply a certain level of skill or training. Before considering their services, you should carefully review Constitution wealth's disclosures@constitutionwealth.com to understand all material risks, conflicts of interest and fees. All investing involves risk, including the risk of loss. This is a paid endorsement and I am not a client of the firm.

B (12:17)

So you can see that they are. It is a crackdown and we're going to see some information here in just a few minutes that there are even some people that are way far on the other side of the aisle that are admitting that President Trump and his team are doing a really good job on that. But there definitely has been a crackdown. And, but it's not what you're hearing from the mainstream media as far as they're, you know, separating families and what have you. The policy is, is that if you're here illegally, you are subject to deportation. No matter what the scenario is now, our first priority is getting the bad folks away. You know, the gang members and people like that or people that are, have committed a crime here or committed crimes back in their home country. That's the first priority. And they are looking for those people. Now a lot of times they will know who they are. They just need to figure out how to find them. The challenge that we're having, of course, is in some of the blue cities around blue states, around the country, our law enforcement are being obstructed from being able to do that. And then, you know, they talk about that these ICE people wear masks and all this. They wear a barraclava over their. Over their face. Well, the reason they have to do that is because the left will expose them. They'll try to tell them who the ICE officer is. They've even had some of them that they have posted where they live and all that type of stuff, which is totally, totally. It's immoral as well as illegal and irrational. But that's what people do, because a lot of people on the left are like that, unfortunately. Also, the other thing to remember, you know, you keep hearing about, well, illegal aliens contribute to society and what have you. And I don't have any doubt that there are some undocumented people that are here that are just here for the work, and they're not here to cause any harm. I got that. But there's a lot of people that came here legally. So every time someone comes here illegally, that disenfranchises the immigrant that came here legally. There's no two ways around that. You can't. You can't reward one for bad behavior while you make the other people jump through the hoops to do it properly. Now, should it be easier to be here legally? Probably. So if we can have the right vetting system and all that type of stuff, that's something Congress has to handle. That's not the executive branch of the government's responsibility. The executive branch of the government's responsibility is. Now, listen up. This is important, okay? If you were my age, or even my kid's age, my oldest one, anyway, you had this something on Saturday mornings called Schoolhouse Rock, I don't know if you remember that, where they kind of told you how things became a bill and the different branches of the government, the executive branch is only there to carry out the laws that the legislative branch has put into place. That's what the executive branch does, all right? And the judicial branch obviously determines whether the laws are constitutional or whether they're being carried out properly. That's what happens. And so what the executive branch, the Trump administration is doing is they're carrying out our laws that are on the books. And our laws on the books say that you have to come into this country through a certain process. And if you don't go through that process, and there's two or three options for that, then you are subject to deportation. You have committed a crime. You have committed a crime. And I 100% support the enforcement of that law. Obviously, we want to get rid of the most of the bad, all the bad people first. But then I also don't think that the people that are here illegally should be able to stay. I mean, I'm sorry, that's just the way it is. That's what our law says. Other countries have the same thing, right? Just like you don't want somebody coming into your home without your invitation. That's why you have door locks or why you maybe have a gate or you live in a gated community. It's the same way we have for our country is that we don't want people coming in without our invitation. That's the way. That's how you have a country. Another thing, though, that happens is it's costing us money. There's no question about it, because some states, and here's a list of them that we, that we were able to find, some states actually do provide health care to illegal immigrants. Now, the Democrats will say that's not, they're not doing that. Nobody's doing that. And the federal government doesn't technically allow that. However, one thing we learned hopefully from listening to me and Allie on this and some of her guests, is that money is fungible. If I send money to a state to help pay for their health care, I'm the federal government, and they do that for everybody that's on Medicaid and other programs, and I want to use that money for, to help cover illegal immigrants, then all I do is move money around. You know, it's supposed to be state money, but if I want to use the federal money, it's just, it's moving the chess pieces because money is fungible. Just like when we sent money to Iran for supposedly humanitarian reasons, and they used it for, you know, increasing the uranium to try to increase it to weapons grade. They, they, they took the money we sent them for human aid and humanitarian aid, and they just replaced that with other money to go into the nuclear program. So that's what happens in some of these states. Here are the states. California, not surprising. None of these are surprising to you. New York, Illinois, Washington, Oregon, Maryland, and Colorado, all of those states provide some type of health care to illegal immigrants. And that is costing these states money. In California, that's over $8 billion. All right? In New York, that's two and a half billion. Illinois, 300 million. Washington, 750 million. Washington's not even a hugely populous state. 400 million. In Oregon, same thing there. Maryland is starting this coming up, and it's 150 million and in Colorado 300 million. So it is a huge cost. And if you live in those states, okay, and really all of us around the country, we're paying for that. Most of that is technically state money, but as I said, money's moved around, it's fungible. We're paying for that. And that. Why couldn't that money be used to give you a break on health care? You know, if you're like me, you pay a lot of money for health care and why couldn't that be used for you? You know, but it, but the states, those states are ones that are simply providing health care to illegal immigrants. Something that is should not be done.

A (19:12)

Second sponsor is Good Ranchers. Good Ranchers is all about bringing family back to the dinner table and making sure that we are eating American meat. We should be supporting this really important part of American industry and the American economy. And their meat is so good. We get the better than organic chicken, their chicken breast. We also get their seed oil free chicken nuggets. I love their ground beef. Their cuts of steak are so good. They also have seafood and bacon, literally all of it. And it is all from an American farmer ranch. I can tell you every single kind of meat that I've gotten from Good Ranchers tastes so good. This is another Christian conservative, America loving company that you want to support. It shows up on dry ice and a cardboard box to your front door. It is so easy, so good. Go to goodranchers.com use code ally for $40 off. That's good ranchers.com code ali.

B (20:11)

The other thing is, is that we've had, and we talked about this a little bit earlier is we've had obstruction, okay. And you've heard some of the Democrats and what they're saying about ICE agents and all that type of stuff. I'm going to put up something on the screen in here in just a second. But one of the things that really ticked me off is something that Nancy Pelosi said when she was being interviewed and joining Democrat Representative Kevin Mullen in a statement on October 23rd. Then this statement said our state and local authorities may arrest federal agents if they break California law. And if they are convicted, the president cannot pardon them. And this is also something else. I'm going to put it on the screen now of what Nancy has said, what her tweet was. As you can see that a mass deployment of federal agents in the Bay Area is appalling and abuse is an appalling abuse of the law and enforcement power. The people of San Francisco stand with our patriotic immigrants who are the constant reinvigoration of America. We will not be intimidated by politically motivated fear tactics. That statement is so inappropriate and in some ways factually incorrect that it just, it's just appalling. Now, Pam Bondi, though, on this next little video clip we're going to show you, has a response to that. So we're going to go and listen to Pam Bondi. Pelosi got a letter today from Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche. So did Brooke Jenkins, that DA in San Francisco. We told them, preserve your emails, preserve everything you have on this topic, because if you are telling people to arrest our ICE officers, our federal agents, you cannot do that. You're impeding an investigation. Investigation. And we will charge them if they think I want. They have not met me because we will charge them. If they are violating the law, I say hooray. Thank goodness. Thank goodness that they're willing to do that. And, you know, Blanche went on to say that in this letter that if you any arrest, attempts to arrest or interfere with federal agents is illegal and futile. Also, one should know that touching federal agents during their duties constitutes a crime. So I hope that they'll enforce that to the fullest extent of the law. All these men and women are trying to do is carry out their responsibilities that are passed down from the leaders of the executive branch. That's what they're trying to do. And again, they're not deporting US Citizens, and they're focusing primarily on those that have committed crimes here in the US or at home. And then the other people that are here illegally, they also are subject to being detained and determine whether or not they should be here or not. So it's very, it's just sickening to, and almost, in my opinion, what some of these people are dying to do is on the border of treasonous. When you're trying to impede federal law being upheld, I don't know what else there could be. I mean, you become almost an enemy of the state. And I know that's harsh to say that, but it's true. Now. It is. I will tell you this next video clip that we're going to show. It's surprising to me. I will just tell you that I thought I was living in an alternative universe when I first watched this. So we're going to show you a video clip from our good friend Bernie Sanders. You don't have any borders, then you don't have a nation, right? In a sense, so has historically the United States done well on the Democrats and Republicans protecting the border, the answer is no. Trump did a better job. I don't like Trump, you know, but we should have a secure border, and it ain't that hard to do. Biden didn't do it. Those before him did not do it. We should have a secure border, period. Okay, you did just not leave your body and go into a different world to watch that. That was actually what Senator Sanders said. And it's the truth. It is just simply, the truth is that Trump has done the best job on the border of any recent president in history. And that even goes back to some of my favorite presidents, President Reagan, of course, and, and President Bush. But Trump has done the best job on that and very proud of him for doing that. And as even Senator Sanders says, we should have a secure border. And I think that's what President Trump is doing. Do not be. Listen, as Christians, we do have empathy for people, okay? But we don't, as Ali talks about, we don't want that to be toxic empathy. And we got to be careful because the left will use that against us. Do we want to support people as human beings and as fellow children of God? Absolutely, we do. However, we also must obey the laws of the land. That's talked about over and over in the New Testament and in the Old Testament. But in the New Testament, especially where it talks about, Peter talks about it multiple, multiple times. And that's where, remember, the government is ultimately set up there because God allows it to be set up. And even the ones we don't like, he allows that. And maybe he allows it to bring us closer to him. Maybe he allows it so that we can learn a lesson to be able to change that in the future through our election process. But remember, there's nothing, as A.L.I.E. always says, God's plan's going off without a hitch. And just need to remember that. And remember that we need to be able to have open borders, but we also need to update our immigration policies, our actual statutes, our laws, and that falls on Senate and the House of Representatives.

A (26:29)

Let me tell you about crowd health. You know that health insurance can be a total hassle and a headache. And this open enrollment health insurance companies are hoping that you'll just sign up blindly, but you don't have to to do that. It might be time just to opt out and join crowd health. You join a crowd of people who think just like you do, who want to help cover the cost of other people's healthcare needs. And you don't have doctor's networks. You don't have high premiums and deductibles or anything like that. It really is so easy. This is healthcare coverage for under $100. Because if you use my link, if you use my code@joinpowerdhealth.com use code ALLY and you get the first three months for just $99 a month. So how does this work? What if something happens? You go through some kind of healthcare situation, you pay the first $500, then the crowd steps in to help fund the rest. It feels like the options that we used to have before Obamacare kind of messed everything up. Well, you don't need to worry about that. They make it so, so simple. This open enrollment. Take your power back. Join Crowd Health to get started today for $99 for your first three months. Crowd health is not insurance. Opt out. Take your power back. This is how we win. Join Crowd Health.com.

B (27:49)

Speaking of that, the Senate. Let's talk about the government shutdown. I think we're at about day 2728. I'm not sure exactly. And I think the biggest concerns that are out there right now with the government shutdown is There are about 40 million people in the US that are dependent on what they call Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and that's called snap. And these are what we might, when I was growing up would call food stamps so that people can have federal assistance in being able to get groceries and food and those that takes about $8 billion a month in federal funding. And that funding is going to run out if it hasn't already run out. And it's amazing the hardship it is putting on the people that need it the most. And remember, the reason that the government shut down is 100% the Democrats. 100%. And I invite any of you that disagrees with that to please email me ronsimmons.com and we can have that discussion. We can have that debate. But when they pass a resolution to keep the government open, the House passed it with virtually no Democrat help. I think there may have been one or two that voted for it. So that's passed. It got over to the Senate. And of course it takes 60 votes in the Senate, not just a simple majority. The Democrats have blocked it with only two or three going along. I think Fetterman from Ohio and the two Georgia senators, which are both up for election. So I know why they voted for it. They don't really believe it. They would. Schumer must have given them the okay to vote to open it up. But the Democrats, Schumer's the Schumer shutdown is happening because of what the Senate is doing. And the reason that they're doing it is they believe that the pain that's being caused is giving them leverage. Listen to this next SOT by a Democrat congressperson. I mean, shutdowns are terrible. And of course there will be, you know, families that are going to suffer. We take that responsibility, responsibility very seriously. But it is one of the few leveraged times we have. I want you to play that one more time. Let's, let's listen to. I want you to listen very closely to the last five seconds. I mean, shutdowns are terrible. And of course there will be, you know, families that are going to suffer. We take that responsibility very seriously. But it is one of the few leverage times we have. One of the few leverage times we have. While there are people that can't get enough food that they need, that were dependent on the program that is under federal law. I cannot believe they said the quiet thing out loud. That is just ridiculous. And it is all on them. I do so much appreciate Senator Fetterman standing up and saying he says this. I'm a country over party guy. It's wrong to shut our government down. And you know, the reason it's shutting down anyway is because the government, they can't decide on a full year's budget. So they just keep doing these temporary resolutions, which also drives me crazy. And again, they're being shut down because the Democrats want to extend additional subsidies for health insurance, which when Obamacare came into play, there were certain subsidies that were available to help pay your health insurance premium based on the amount of income that you made basically around the federal poverty level. And we've talked about this before and above the federal poverty level for a certain percentage. Well, when Covid came along a little bit after that, and I think it was in 21, they, which they, when they passed what was the so called. Actually, it was not the Inflation Reduction act, it was the inflation Enhancement act, which is what happened. As you know, they, the Democrat Congress increased those subsidies so that more people would be eligible for healthcare subsidies. But when they did that, they also put in there that they would end at the, in 2025. So the Democrats are the one that put the limit on it. All right. And properly. So, by the way, they should not be extended. In fact, probably maybe they should have been raised temporarily because of the pain people were going through due to lost jobs and stuff during COVID But now that they are supposed to expire at the end of this year, the Democrats want to keep going on those. Again, they want to take your money and give it to somebody else. All this is, is income redistribution and we're not talking about money from the, you know, the multi billionaires. That's not going to have one effect on them. But for the average person, you know, having to have increased taxes because the subsidies are going out to other people and some of those subsidies were going out to people that were able bodied and could work. Remember I told you last time, people that are on moms with young children that are at the poverty level, there's nothing going away from that. Okay. That's not, that's not going to be a negative for them at all. Right. But the able bodied people or the people that are making a medium income, their subsidies should not be continued at the enhanced level. And the Democrats are trying to make that a point of contention. Now the Republicans already said they would negotiate that once we open the government back up. But the Democrats are saying no, we're not willing to do that. We want it negotiating, negotiated as part of opening the government up. I don't think the Republicans are going to, they've already, you know, they, whatever damage they never hit, they were going to take politically has already been hit, already happened. So they're not going to, in my opinion, buckle on this. That's what I believe. Now again, I'm not there. I don't have the back room information, but the people that I talk to that I know that are there tell me that you're going to stay strong. I actually think I heard one congressman say yesterday on one of the, one of the news stills that he thinks it'll happen, you know, go through Thanksgiving. I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't get opened back up right after the November election of this year, which is just in a couple of weeks. Okay. I think any Democrats on the ballot, you know, probably are, are saying, well, let's hold this off and then let's, then we can do something after the election that's coming up in November. So we'll see if that's true or not. There's some states that are going through some elections and things like that. Of course we have the New York mayor, which we're going to talk about in a few minutes also. But it's a problem and there are people that are going to suffer. I know I have one of my children that is a federal government worker as an attorney and I think that they are missing their paychecks. So that's not much fun whatsoever. In fact, what's happened in a lot of ways is the critical workers, like now we're talking about people that can't, they can't miss. They can't miss this. They're essential workers, people like the air traffic controllers missing their paychecks and whatever, talking about needing to go to the food banks and what have you. So it's a, it's a mess. In fact, we've got a video clip here of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy talking about that. I don't want air traffic controllers going to a food bank. These are, these are, we don't have the best technology, as I've talked about with you, Maria, in our airspace, but we do have the best controllers. These are well qualified professionals that keep our airspace safe, our planes moving on time, and the fact that they have to think about how they, how they put food on the table and need airlines to put, you know, food into the towers so they can have a lunch, a dinner is outrageous. So again, I see that burn coming from the controllers. And again, I think it's going to play out as we look forward into the coming days. You know, the, the Republicans have even tried to pass miniature bills to keep paying these essential workers, and the Democrats have stopped those as well. I mean, it's just totally out there on the ludicrous edge. And I'm not sure exactly what's going to cause the breakthrough, but there will be a breakthrough. All right. All of this will pass. I want to make sure that you understand that, that it all will pass. It's not going to, you know, it's not going to be there forever. And all these people will receive back pay. Now, some of the people are actually, which I think is a good thing, some of the people that have been laid off or furloughed, whatever, they're not ever going to be coming back because we have a too, too much of a bloated federal government. So I'm, so, I'm happy that this is happening. And of course, the Democrats are throwing a fit over that as well. They want as many government employees as they can as they can get.

A (37:04)

Let me tell you about Fellowship Home Loans. If you are looking to refinance your home or you are looking to purchase a new home, you want to be working with people that align with your values, people that you can trust that work with honesty, transparency, integrity that are going to work hard for you, and that is Mike and Brian at Fellowship Home Loans. They are doing business not just by the book, but by the book. Now is the time to try to get into the home that you and your family need and they can absolutely help you do that. Right now. You can meet with them for free. A free consultation@ Fellowship homeloans.com Allie and for my listeners only, you you even get a $500 credit at closing term supply C site for details Fellowship Home Loans Mortgage Lending by the Book Nationwide mortgage bankers DBA Fellowship home loans equal housing lender NMLS number 819382.

B (38:04)

Little bit lighter note, in a way, I guess to me it was a lighter note is that they had the no Kings Day protest. And I think they were, to their credit were, were mostly they were mostly non violent, which I think is a good thing and we should be able to protest our government. And some of them were actually kind of funny, some of the silly costumes that they had on. But I really got a kick out of Donald Trump saying on one of his posts on social media that says a huge thank you to all the no Kings protestors. I was very concerned a king was trying to take my place, but thanks to your tireless effort, I am still your president. Great job all. Now that is just funny. I don't know if he came up with that himself, but that is just funny. And he was asked on Air Force One about the no Kings protest. Here's a clip of that. Over the weekend the new Kings break this. I think it's a joke. I looked at the people, they're not representative of this country. And I looked at all the brand new signs paid for, I guess it was paid for by Soros and other radical left lunatics. It looks like it was. We're checking it out. The demonstrations were very small, very ineffective, and the people were whacked out. When you look at those people, those are not representative of the people of our country. Country.

A (39:30)

Mr.

B (39:31)

Besides San Francisco, by the way, I'm not a king. I'm not a king. I work my off to make our country great. That's all it is. I'm not a king at all. You know, just because you don't like a president doesn't mean that they're a king or trying to be a king or something like that. Certainly we didn't like some of the policies that President Obama had. We certainly didn't like almost anything President Biden's done. But I don't think you ever saw an uptick of saying call him a king. And those people did lots of executive orders. But this is just something that they, you know, that they, that they want to prey on. And it's all. It's all Trump Derangement Syndrome. That's all it is. They hate President Trump no matter what he does. It's all Trump Derangement syndrome. And you guys may have people in your family that are falling into that case. We have people in our extended family that, you know, have been at some of these protests and, you know, hate Trump and what have you. And, you know, that people believe what they want to believe. I hear that all the time, and I think that's true. But those of us that are seeking the real truth are the ones that need to be speaking up and paying attention and what have you. We asked, as we always do, we ask for questions. And the kind of. The questions that we got this time were very kind of closely related. One of the questions or one of the things that came across and the most common was the growing dominance of Islam in places like Minnesota, Dearborn, Michigan and other places around the country. And I get what you're saying about the. Is the Muslim population in the US is about 2%, and it's kind of stayed about that for a while. But what's happened is, is there have been concentrations of people from coming in from basically Muslim countries to the US Settling in one in various particular areas. And while what I'm asked what I think, what can we do about that? Well, I believe that we. One of the problems that we've had is we've had chain migration, okay. Which is something Schumer put in to where, you know, one person comes in legally, let's say it's a student or maybe it's a professor or something like that. And then they can bring in. They can. They can ask and use generally approved to bring in other members of their family. All right. That don't really have to go through at getting at the back of the line of just normal legal immigration. They. Because they're linked, they can do that. I think we need to eliminate chain migration. That's one of the things I think we need to do, and I think it'll help us in that scenario. The other thing that's happening is a lot of these people are coming over here on HB1 visas, and they're getting married and having kids that are born here, which they're US Citizens if you're born here. That's the way. That's the way it works currently. And I think we need to. I think that we need to be much more restrictive on some of these visa programs. We need to make sure that we are giving our US Citizens the absolute first and best opportunity. We should be prejudiced in favor of US Citizens so that to get these jobs that we're saying that we need to hire these engineers and other places for from around the world. I don't think we need to do that. All right. I think that we need to first make sure that we're given a clear path for our students to be able to participate in these high paying technical jobs that are out there in engineering and software development, software design, all those types of things. We need to be really looking at the economy of the future. The economy of the past is not the economy of the future. And we need to make sure that our education system is looking at that. What are we doing at the basic levels of our education to make sure that we're training our students to be able to take to have those jobs. And our universities, our universities should admit every US Citizen before they admit foreign citizens. I just do not believe that we should be recruiting foreign foreign students to come to our universities when we have students here. That would be very good representations in those universities. It makes me sick. Even here in Texas, at some of our leading universities, it's harder for someone here in Texas that has a high grade point average to get into the University of Texas or Texas A and M or some of our other top universities than it is for someone coming from another country. And that just shouldn't be that way. And that's something that absolutely we need to handle. Of course, the other thing that we need to do is in our neighborhoods and things like that, we need to show the kindness of Jesus in those particular areas so that they have a desire. I mean, it's up to us to be the messenger. It's up to Jesus and it's up to God to change people's hearts. But we need to show them that being a Christian is something that's a positive and that the true son of God is Jesus Christ. That's what we need to show. But I do think there are things that our government can do. We should try to, when we have immigrants come in, we should try to have them assimilate into society just like it has been done for hundreds of years now. You're always going to end up, you know, you're always going to want to be around people that are familiar to you and you like and like the same things and what have you. But in general, we need to assimilate people into American society. Not under some, you know, foreign theocracy that they want to Follow, that's absolutely not what we need to do. And the way the government can help on that is just to make sure that, you know, there's no local ordinances or regulations or laws that take away from what our constitution says. And we should totally get rid of chain migration. And we should really rethink our. Any of our. All of our visa programs so that we put Americans first before we put people from other countries. That's what I think we should do, and I'm hopeful that we can do that. But you should be making sure that you're communicating with your elected officials on those things. Absolutely. Here's another one that's. Here's another question that's come up. Is, is AI ethical and its economic implications? Well, it's just like anything. The Internet, as you both know, there's really, really good stuff that comes out of. Ali gets her messages out via a lot of it through the Internet. Right. So what she does on social media and what have you, I think that's been very beneficial to a lot of people that are listening, based on the messages that I see that she gets back. So it's good and bad, and AI is the same way. AI can be used for good and AI can be used for bad. What I have to rely on is what it says in the Bible, where it says what man intends for evil, God can make good. And that's a paraphrase. But you understand what I'm saying. That's the way it works. But I do think we have to be very, very careful about. In fact, I hope in one of the future episodes that Allie or I1 will have my friend Giovanni Capiglion, who's one of the leading experts on artificial intelligence and cybersecurity on the show, to talk about that. How families can protect their kids from the evil parts of AI and the evil parts of what's going on out there in social media. He's a state representative here in Texas and really someone that not only people at the state level, but at the federal level have sought his advice on. Just a really, very smart guy in this area. Hopefully we can have him on in the future.

A (47:58)

Last sponsor for the day is Jace Medical. You need emergency readiness should something happen. Say someone gets an infection and you're not able to get to the doctor quickly, something happens with the supply chain. You can't get the antibiotics that you need. You need to have a stash of common antibiotics on hand that could literally save your life. If you go to jace.com and use code ALI, you'll get a discount on their Jace case. This is an emergency supply of those common antibiotics and you can also get their Jace daily case. That's a year long supply of the prescriptions that you and your family rely on. Again, this could be life saving. It is so much better to be prepared than to not be prepared should you need this. So go to Jace.com, use code ALLI. You'll get a discount. They'll take you through their confidential telemedicine process and secure the medicine that you and your family might need. That's Jace.com code Allie.

B (48:55)

The other thing is what's going on with the economy and I was looking at this some more and we've had a couple of shows about this as you know. So gas prices, you know, those are down since the height under Biden by almost 30% if not more than that. So they're, they're coming, they're back into more reasonable range, at least reasonable based on what you and I know today. When I started driving, which was a long time ago, but it was right after the, there was a huge oil crisis in the early 70s because Saudi Arabia quit pumping oil for a while to hurt our economy or at least they slowed it down. And we had gas prices, you know, double overnight. But they were doubling from like 30 cents a gallon to 60 cents a gallon. So it's nothing like it is today. But I'm hopeful that gas prices can get back down to gasoline anyway, you know, in the low $2 range. I don't know if that'll happen or not. We saw some just a week ago or so down in the 230s which I thought was pretty good. Now we were also out in California, my wife and I were last week and I saw that still over $5 there, close to $5 a gallon in California, which is crazy. Most of that's California taxes by the way. That's not, that's not just the underlying price that people pay for gasoline. The wholesale pretty much the same all around the country. I want to talk to you about food inflation because that's important. I know that we go to the grocery store, things are expensive. The average increase over the last 20 years, the average annual increase in food prices is about 3%, 2.9% and 20, 25 it's about 2.5% so we're pretty much an average. But what happened was in 21 and 22 food prices grew almost 40% and they came down a little bit in 23, but they didn't come down to the 2019 level. Right. And so the increases since that time have been roughly in line with what history has been. But because they were already at the inflated rate under Biden, a hugely inflated rate, they. And so when they increase 2 to 3% on that, we obviously feel it more. I don't know that they're going to come down a lot. Honestly. I do think that they will not rise very much. They'll kind of stay in the pattern. There have been some things that affected that, like the bird flu and the war in Ukraine, which is cut down on some of the wheat supplies and what have you. But I think that what will happen is, is that the food inflation anyway will probably kind of go back to what it has been in the past, 2 to 3%. That's what's been able to maintain. The only way that will go down drastically is through a massive. Either few things, a massive increase in productivity, all right, so that they can actually make the, you know, end product less expensive, or a huge recession, which we really don't want to have, where demand will go way down, and then the prices generally would follow that. What I think has to happen, all right, is that for us as individuals is that we have to make sure that. That we are performing at our highest level of ability in our job or career market. This, our economy is not set up for someone that has no skills. And I'm sorry about that, but it's just not set up for that. It's set up for. To reward people that have skills. Now you don't have to go to college to get those skills. If you want to go to college, that's fine and get a degree and become. Seek a career that requires a college degree. But you do have to have some type of skill. And there are so many opportunities out there. You know, we have certification programs for all sorts of things, whether that's computer design, whether that's welding, whether that's plumbing, electrical, whatever it is. You can get certified relatively inexpensively through a community college or through a program. And you may have to go at night. I'll tell you, I went to college, but I did it almost all at night. I tell people all the time. I squeezed four years of college into 10. And I did that because I was working full time during the day. All right. And you may also. I've had second jobs a lot. Part of my early life. I had second jobs when I was working and we had a. When I was working full time and also going to school. We also had a little. We Ran a concession stand at a sports field to make some extra money. We did all sorts of things. And I think you have to be creative, right? What you can't do is sit back and blame somebody else. Do not become a victim in this, okay? Do not become a victim. Let's move forward. Let's get you a skill either through college or trade school or something, and make sure you're earning at the highest possible rate you can earn to take care of your family. The other thing is really look where you really have to look at your budget. And we're gonna do an episode on that in the future as well, on where are you spending your money? Where are you really spending your money? Will you be honest with yourself and say, okay, I am absolutely spending my money in the most efficient way possible? Chances are most of us are not doing that. I probably don't do that either. Now we've got to a point in our life where I don't have to look at every penny, although I am still a steward of what God has given us. So I need to make sure that I'm as good at that as I should be, and I need to be better at that. There's no question I'm not as efficient as I should be. And I. And I, you know, I tell myself that I need to pay more attention to that. I will tell you, when the kids were younger and when things weren't as good financially for Lysa and I, we were very diligent in making sure that we were utilizing the funds that God had given us in the best way that we possibly could. We prioritized them. Like I told you, our kids all went to private Christian school, and that was a priority. I sacrificed. We both sacrificed things that maybe our friends were able to do or have because we wanted our kids to go to Christian school. That was important to us. May not be as important to you. Okay, I get that. I'm not saying it should or it shouldn't be. I'm just saying that it does require sacrifice to be able to do those things. But you can do it. I mean, there's no question about. There's nothing. If you had a chance to even flum through my book back there, Life Lessons from the Little Red Wagon. You read a lot of my story, you'll know that there was very nothing special about us. My mom and dad were public school teachers. Never made a lot of money. You know, they weren't great money managers either. And so I had. There was. My mom and dad divorced when I was 17. There was nothing special. I don't know what your situation is, but I promise you that God didn't put you here so that you know, you couldn't make it through the next day because of finances. You can do that. He wants you to do that. But we have to do our part as well. So thank you for having me today. Listening in. Allie, of course, will be back. She'll just be down doing the Turning Point USA thing tonight. Ellis, you pray for her, please. Just. You know, she has got a lot going on and she is doing the most she can, her and her husband, and just ask that. They covet your prayers. I know that for sure. So thank you very much and we'll hope to see you next time.