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- [00:01]
Kiana
I'm Kiana. And I leveled up my business with Shopify. Once I figured out that Shopify was a thing, I never turned back. I can create a site with my eyes closed. Shopify thinks ahead of us, you know, and it thinks about the customer more than anything. Every day I'm thinking about some other new business, but Shopify is doing it to me because it's so easy to use. It's like I can't stop. I'm addicted.
- [00:26]
Mary Walter
Start your free trial@shopify.com the Rob Carson show is presented by Paramount plus the agency.
- [00:35]
Rob Carson (advertisement/narration voice)
All episodes now streaming on Paramount Plus. In a world of espionage, truth is a moving target. And every decision carries a dangerous consequence. This new mission explores what it means to live as a double agent. Twice the lies, twice the risk. The lines between ally and enemy blur like never before. And survival depends on trusting the no.
- [00:55]
Kiana
1.
- [00:56]
Rob Carson (advertisement/narration voice)
Starring Michael Fassbender, Jeffrey Wright, Jody Turner Smith and Richard Gere. Don't miss the Agency. All episodes now streaming on Paramount plus,
- [01:06]
Mary Walter
you don't need to live with aches and pains. Visit relieffactor.com today.
- [01:16]
Kiana
Hold it. Now.
- [01:20]
Rob Carson (advertisement/narration voice)
You are about to hear the most
- [01:22]
E.J. Antoni
interesting, informative, thought provoking and funny show
- [01:26]
Rob Carson (advertisement/narration voice)
in America on air and on the world wide web.
- [01:31]
E.J. Antoni
This is the Rob Carson Show.
- [01:37]
Mary Walter
And welcome back, Mary Walter with you in for Rob Carson today. I'm assuming Rob's back tomorrow. That's what my assumption is. But no one told me one way or the other. But that's okay. Oh, I really didn't realize. Sorry. There was that, that long intro. I think I talked over it. But if I didn't talk over it. Hi, I'm Mary Walter in for Rob Carson. Think he's back tomorrow with you. You're always welcome to join me. 8009-2266-8080-0922-6680. Or you can hit me up in a post on X at Mary Walter Radio. My live cast is tonight. You are welcome to join us. Rob's been on it before. A lot of faces that you would know, a lot of names that you would know, and some you wouldn't. But we always seem to always have a good time. So tonight we're going to be talking about some documentaries and some movies that my guests write, they direct, they produce. The latest one debuted on Newsmax just this past weekend. So we'll be talking to them and it's usually a lot of fun. I like to do sometimes. Not politics. Right? Not to. Not to necessarily talk politics. So breaking news. Bernie Sanders has now called for Graham Platner to step down. Chuck Schumer did, of course we talked about. But Chuck Schumer endorsed him. Kirsten Gillibrand endorsed him. Now she's asked him to step down. Ro Khanna. Now he's backed off Gallego, he's backed off Bernie Sanders, he's backed off John Favreau, who is Barack Obama's former speechwriter. I haven't seen anything. But he tweeted out, Graham Platner isn't just our best and only chance to beat Susan Collins. He's a good, decent man who struggled and grown and he's always trying to do better. I hope everyone with reservations takes a little time to get to know the real life version of him. This is what had. They just make excuses for these people. You know, Nazi death tattoo wasn't enough for them. They just keep going. Of course, Elizabeth Warren has not dropped her endorsement of Graham Platner.
- [03:53]
Kiana
All right.
- [03:53]
Mary Walter
As that's that story is just updating, updating, updating. And maybe by the end of this show we'll find out that he has decided that the pressure is long enough. I have to, I have to drop out because they're going to make him, they're going to make him drop out. They have ways to make them do so. So we all enjoyed the past weekend, right? We all enjoyed America 250. Right. Well, apparently Democrats are not happy. Shocking. And they are now threatening to investigate President Trump because they're investigating everything. Once Trump's out of office, they're going to drive that man into the ground. They will investigate him until the day that he dies. And then when he's gone, they will investigate his family. And James Comer was blasting Democrats on Sunday who were accusing Donald Trump of hijacking the America250 celebration for political and financial gain. Well, political gain, of course. Of course. Financial gain. Really? He's, yes, he made a ton of money in crypto. But okay, talk to me about, talk to me about Nancy Pelosi. Comer told to be the big weekend show that Democrats would rather Donald Trump fail and America fail than celebrate the success of our founding fathers and the fact that we're the greatest nation on the planet. Jared Huffman is a Democrat out of California and he's on the House Natural Resources Committee. And he did a report, 55 page report. This man couldn't tell you that Joe Biden was not running the show, but he did a 55 page report. He had time for that. Accusing Trump of transforming the America 250 celebration. Into a partisan spectacle that advanced his political and religious agenda. They did not like the religious overtones at all. But they'll show up at a hijab at a or or they'll show up in a church, in a black church, that's okay. An AME church, that's fine. But they didn't like this at all. Press release said of the report. This follows months of investigative work by committee Democrats exposing how Donald Trump hijacked what was supposed to be a unifying non political celebration of our country's 250th birthday. And he made it all about him. His vanity projects, his political and religious agenda, his business ventures and his cronies who gorged on public funds under cover of a shadow corporation shielded from public scrutiny. Can you imagine going through life like this? Spun up every single day about every single thing. Look, Trump used his own money to restore some of the fountains in Washington D.C. he got those billionaires that the left hates so much to give their children money when they're born. And now they expanded it because more people are giving those horrible billionaires. He got billionaires to help help clean up some of the fountains in Washington D.C. but they just don't understand someone who could possibly love the country so much that they will give up their own money. They just don't get it. More specifically, the release accused the Trump administration of creating the, quote, Shadow Organization Freedom 2:50, LLC and making it a central part of celebrations after the America 250 Commission, quote, refused to bend to the president's demands. Okay, so he said, I'm the president. This is what I want in Washington D.C. to celebrate the 250th anniversary.
- [07:13]
Kiana
Okay.
- [07:13]
Mary Walter
Is that illegal? I don't think it is. It's just me. It alleges that the group used the nation's semi quincentennial to sell access to Trump to redirect donor money intended for America to 50 and enrich Trump allies through lucrative contracts. Adelita Gravalia from Arizona told Ms. Now I believe it will be investigated now. Comer was just like, this is, this is. I'm on the House Oversight. Oversight is in charge of this. And he said the Democrats criticisms are politically motivated. The party is more interested in investigating Trump than actually doing conducting so oversight. He said, we're investigating waste, fraud and abuse. That's what the oversight committee is about. Democrats don't want an investigation into that. President Trump made the focus about honoring our heroes and being proud to be an American. And all the Democrats want to say is if you vote for us, we'll investigate Trump for wasting money on an independent celebration that, by the way, mentioned Christianity, even though our country was founded by principle, by people speaking freedom of religion. So this is just a perfect example of the Democrats. And I think that they're all going that all they're going to do is if they flip the House and become the majority in the House is investigate and harass Donald Trump. And they are because they said that's what they're going to do. That's what they're going to do. They just want to harass him. While Gavin Newsom cries that Donald Trump is is investigating his political enemies. And that's fascism. When that investigation was actually started under Joe Biden. Oops. Inconvenient Truth. Yeah, pretty much. I also want to talk about this. We have EJ and Tony coming up and we're going to get into Trump accounts with him and also maybe Social Security and where that's going with it becoming on the verge of bankruptcy and people sitting in Congress right now may be there when it goes belly up. So they're going to have to do something. So we're going to talk to him about that as well because I don't know if we can depend on the next generation to actually get a good job to be able to contribute into Social Security. Because the Chronicle of Higher Education, it's, it's an essay. There's an essay in there. It's new and it's by a right. A university level literature and writing instructor. That's pretty niche, but okay. His name is Tyler Jag and he talks about how when he was teaching in college that not a single one of his students could get through an assigned 20 page article. Couldn't get through it. He said he read it without complaint as an undergrad 10 years ago. But in 10 years, students don't have the attention span. They confessed that they didn't. What One of the reasons they didn't finish was that they kept losing track of what the paper was about. The 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress showed that the 12th grade reading scores are at the lowest level since they started this assessment. Now, they only started it in 1992, but still the lowest level. It's going down. We keep giving the ne more money and the reading levels keep going down. Nearly a third of those 12th graders scored below the assessment's basic level in reading, meaning that they likely cannot draw general conclusions based on concepts presented explicitly in a text. It's very true. It's an emotion driven generation. They've never been taught how to reason. They've never been taught how to think. They've just been told taught what to think. And it was very effective. Younger children aren't any better off. Another report found that 70% of 4th graders can't read at a proficient level. 70% of 4th graders can't read at a 4th grade level. Uh huh. He writes. There's a measurable generational collapse in sustained reading and writing and the academy is responding to it with improvisation and exhaustion rather than the structural overhaul it requires. Pupils arrive unable to read arriving college to read Pupils arriving unable to read is an increasingly common complaint from college level educators. Many and they think the problem is AI. Many students treat AI as a genuine learning tool. They you know, but they use it to summarize a lengthy article that they can't understand. But they become reliant on it because it's fast. They can race through their coursework and then go do what they want to do. It's an easy way more fragrant. Fragrantly flagrantly. Not fragrantly flagrantly. They use the tech to generate entire essays and solve math problems. So they're cheating. There's a way. Now I saw a video about how a teacher says he goes through and he uses this tool to figure out if the the essay in front of him used AI. There's a way that they can do it to figure it out. I guess AI can recognize AI. One of the few major studies that purported that chat GPT improved learning performance was retracted last month. So saying it doesn't improve anything. They find it impairs critical thinking and it's a link to memory loss. So what do we do? I've got an experiment that was run on some kids from a teacher who was noticing this problem in high school. Tell you what she did and I'll tell you how it worked out. What the results are. That's coming up on the Rob Carson Show.
- [13:07]
Rob Carson (advertisement/narration voice)
Hey guys, it's Carson for Relief. Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. Those words weren't written for history books, they were written for you. But it's hard to pursue happiness when pain is a part of your everyday life. Relief Factor was created to help people address inflammation, one of the most common causes of ongoing aches and pains from aging, over exertion and daily living. It's a 100% drug free research based formula that works through multiple metabolic pathways to support comfort and mobility. No prescription, no masking symptoms, just real relief so you can keep moving forward. I work out every other day. I crush it at the gym and I ride my bike 100 miles on the weekend. I credit Relief Factor for making all of those activities pain free. And as America celebrates 250 years of independence, give yourself a chance to reclaim yours. To commemorate their offering a special patriotic price, just 1776. Yeah. So you can pursue your happiness being pain free. Your $17.76 three week quick start is ready for you. Visit relieffactor.com or call 800-number-4 relief. That's relieffactor.com or 800-4 relief.
- [14:34]
Mary Walter
And welcome back to the Rob Carson Show. A quick update here before I tell you about this little experiment. Sean Farish saying, keep an eye on Susan Rice. She has a home in Maine. She's going to be the one to replace Graham Platner in the Maine Senate race. Very interesting. And I did look it up. She does have a home in Maine. And Scott Jennings, and I'm glad he posted this. So now we know a little bit more. I spoke to my old friend Mitch McConnell this morning, the senior senator from Kentucky. He's still recovering in the hospital. We talked for just shy of 20 minutes about Iran, Ukra, the unfolding situation in Maine, my visit to the Teddy Roosevelt Presidential Library, and even a little bit of Senate history. I told him we want to see him back at work as soon as possible. So there you go. Those other rumors are just rumors, which is fantastic. And maybe that's why his wife went to China, right? Because he was doing well, still in the hospital. And maybe he was like, yeah, go. Like if my husband had business and I was in the hospital, I was like, okay, I'm going to be fine. I got people watching me here. I'd be like, I understand it. Go. I get it. So it looks like all of that is just rumors. And I'm glad that it looks like we some kind of resolution to those because that was not good.
- [15:44]
Kiana
All right.
- [15:46]
Mary Walter
So college students losing the ability to read and concentrate. So a woman in a high school in Minneapolis, she's in literature and English teacher. She got the support of the parents and she banned phones and laptops. And she required all the work in her class to be done with a pencil and paper. Before the experiment started, only 46% of her students said they felt confident about their reading ability. By February, that share was 95%. She said, we have a lot, we're having a lot of trouble in education. I think what my kids told us is that there's a solution. And the solution is to go Low tech. Go back to the old ways of doing things. You remove the distractions. We get our kids back. She eased her kids into a tech free environment. The first day, she said, was rough. Most students quit after just half a page of longhand composition. They started with just 10 minutes of silent reading and then writing by hand. I told the kids, you don't go into a gym and just lift, you know, 180 pounds. You got to do it slowly. By February, most students could write at least two pages, and some were writing five or six pages. 79% of the students said it was easier to write and organize their thoughts on paper than on a screen. It was honestly really fun. One student said, I enjoyed not being on tech, and I think that everyone connected a little bit more. Another student said that after the experiment, he enjoyed writing by hand more than typing on a laptop on a Chromebook. I might be tempted to maybe look something up, find a definition of something, but when I'm on paper, I feel like I can use my writing for me. Another said, when we use paper, there's no temptation to use AI. I have to force myself to come up with my own ideas. So I do. And what's interesting again, AI and phones. This is the first time many classrooms are banning phones. Many schools are banning phones in the cloud, in school, and they're finding that it actually is working wonders with the kids. They're starting, they're in the, they're in the cafeteria and there's no phone out. So they're making up games and they're talking to each other. And there's more talking in the hall. Halls are louder. Kids are, you know, learning how to communicate with each other because so many young kids cannot talk face to face with someone they refute. They won't pick up a phone to order a pizza. They have to do it online because they can't pick up the phone to do it. I've seen it. They're like, no, I'll use my phone. I'm like, no, no, use the phone. No, no, no, no. When they say, I'll use my phone, they mean they're going to order it online. When I say you use your phone, I mean talk to a human being. So because they didn't have their portable computers, because those computers, you can play games, you can shop if you want to, you could talk to AI to get information and then just copy it. You take, you copy it from AI from on your computer and you put it in whatever paper, whatever it is you're doing, and that's all you're doing. Now, remember how many times have we been told that taxpayers need to pay more in schools because every kid needs a laptop and not every kid can afford a laptop. So the school buys everybody a laptop. So everyone has the same laptop. So one kid doesn't have one better than somebody else. But now they're pushing back on that idea as well. And I know parents were very uncomfortable with their kids not having phones in school because what if there's something happens? Well, the teachers have phones in case something happens and so the kids are safe. And I think it bothered the parents, the no phone thing, the parents more than the kids. But the kids and the teachers seem to be happy, so hopefully this will spread. I love this. They say it's also promising how quickly she got her adults. And she said the kids haven't changed, education has. And we need to go back to what works. You can't have kids arriving to college who can't read. You can't have kids who have for so long been using chatgpt etc to, to get answers to math problems that are supposed to be homework done at home. Show your work. They just copy it off of what what they see on the screen. An MIT study found that users who use ChatGPT during cognitive tasks like writing essays showed lower brain activity in areas associated with creativity compared to students who traditional Google search or didn't look up information at all. And that's what these kids were talking about. I have to. It's more me. I let my writing speak for me. Now, 83% of AI users couldn't quote a single line from the essays that they had just written, allegedly. But what they're doing is they're just copy and pasting from a bunch of different sources because you don't want your teacher to know that, you know, you just copy and pasted an entire essay, maybe throw a couple of other words in here or there. The brain activity in the AI users didn't return to normal when they were later asked to write without AI. A 2017 study found that simply having a smartphone physically nearby, even if it's face down or it's turned off, reduced cognitive capacity and impaired cognitive functioning. I see that. I'll tell you, I'll see that if my phone isn't near me and I've fallen victim to this. So I try to just, well, I don't have free time to read. But if I did have free time to read, I would read something that's not news because that's all I read, because that's my job. But if I had free time, I would, I would pick up a book and I would actually read a book in, have it take less than two years to get through a book. That, that's something I would do. But I notice I have to put my phone away like I have a charging in the other room because I fall victim to it too. It's natural to pick up your phone, check the weather, play a game, see what's going on on X, get sucked into Facebook videos. It's super easy to do so he said. When a student tells me they kept losing track of a 20 page article, I have to acknowledge they may be describing something that's a problem and needs to be fixed. So coming up, EJ and Tony will be joining us to talk about those Trump accounts and also what are we going to do about Social Security? That's all coming up next on the Rob Carson Show.
- [22:15]
Rob Carson (advertisement/narration voice)
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- [23:28]
Mary Walter
Welcome back. You know, we wouldn't be celebrating America 250 if it wasn't for a strong foundation set by the framers. Hamilton built America's financial foundation on the principle of sound, stable money, a principle later embodied by the gold standard. However, we abandoned that discipline in 1971 and have since seen inflation erode the dollar's value. What is the foundation of your savings? Is it gold or something that can be shaken, disrupted or devalued? Birch Gold Group has been helping Americans solidify their savings with gold for the past 15 years. And they'll help you convert an existing IRA or 401k into a tax sheltered IRA in gold. Learn how gold fits into your portfolio by texting the name Rob Rob to the number 989-898. You'll receive a free no obligation info kit with an A rating with the Better Business Bureau and countless five star reviews like Birch Gold. Help build your foundation with gold. Text Rob to the number 989-898. That's Rob. Rob to 9,898. I'm Mary Walters sitting in for that man, Rob Carson. And joining us now on the Newsmax Hotline, it is E.J. antoni. He's the chief economist for the Heritage foundation, all around good guy. And you can find him on x@real EJ Antony. EJ thanks for joining me.
- [24:55]
E.J. Antoni
MARY My pleasure. Thanks for having me.
- [24:58]
Mary Walter
Absolutely. So talk to us about the Trump accounts. I'm sure the left hates them because they're called Trump accounts, but are these things really going to make an effect in the, in the lives of these kids if their parents choose to enroll them in Trump accounts? It's $100 that gets gets in the kit that's put in accounts, correct?
- [25:20]
E.J. Antoni
Well, you get $1,000 initially as thousand, okay, from the treasury, but but the real, the real magic happens, Mary, if people are going to continue contributing year after year. And it's not just the parents who can do it, other relatives can. A lot of employers actually, the Heritage foundation announced they're going to do a kind of match program as well for making contributions to these children's accounts. So if you do that each year, it's up to $5,000, which may not sound like a lot annually, but if you do that and you get the normal like the essentially the average returns on the S and P, which is where these, these things are going to be invested. Essentially, this money you're going to at the age of 18 have about $300,000 in these accounts. I mean, that's absolutely phenomenal. Imagine turning 18 and instead of going a quarter million dollars into debt to pay for college, instead you can pay cash or imagine being able to use that to start a business. Or let's say you don't want to go to a traditional four year school, let's say you want to do something maybe more practical for a lot of folks and do a trade school, whatever the case may be. Again, you can use it for buying a home, for starting a business. It's incredibly flexible. Unlike a traditional maybe 529 plan that really hems you in to only using the money for certain things. Otherwise you're going to take really big penalties on it. Again, this is incredibly flexible. So I really like that. And then maybe you don't want to even use it. Maybe you don't want to touch it when you're 18. Maybe you just want to essentially turn it into something more like a traditional ira. If you keep going with those, that you keep maxing out Those contributions past 18, by the time you retire again, you're assuming normal returns here on the S&P 500. You're going to be a multimillionaire. You'll have well over $10 million. It'll be about $13 million by the time you retire. That's absolutely phenomenal. Forget Social Security, you don't need that anymore. And that's one of the reasons why I like that. Mary. This is the last thing I'll say here is the fact that I think programs like this are going to prove ultimately to be a viable off ramp for the Ponzi scheme that is Social Security.
- [27:31]
Mary Walter
Yeah, yeah. Unfortunately for the people who were never given that opportunity and paid into it and they're like in their 50s now, they, they're not never going to get the money back that they put in. I mean they're the ones on whom this is all going to come crashing down on. If you're, if you can get in before it all comes crashing even then you may wind up being screwed over because they're going to probably means test it. And if you were responsible and put money away, maybe live below your your means your whole life in order to sock enough money away for retirement. They're going to look at you and go really sorry, but we're going to cut what you have because you met you have X number of dollars, you know, available to you and we're going to give it to people who don't have that money available to them. And I think that that's going to be very, very, very ugly. Do, do you agree, do you think being means tested?
- [28:25]
E.J. Antoni
Well, I wouldn't be surprised. But Mary, I agree with a lot of what you're saying there, but here's something really important for folks to consider with this whole idea of, you know, these, you're going to have certain groups of people who don't get back what they put into it. That's actually true already. That is true right now for the vast majority of folks who never actually end up getting out of Social Security, what they put into it, most folks end up having a negative rate of return. I mean, you would have been better off if you just stuck the money under a mattress. The problem with Social Security ultimately is that it genuinely is a Ponzi scheme. As I said earlier, it is not that the money you pay in somehow goes into an account with your name on it. No, the money you pay in today goes to pay today's retirees. The whole idea of a quote, unquote trust fund was a complete. Was a complete sham. There never was a trust fund. It was simply the fact that at one point there were more people paying into Social Security, or I should say the total amount being paid in was greater than the amount being paid out. And they called it a trust fund, but that's never how it functioned in the first place. So, yes, it's true that, that more folks are going to essentially lose out on Social Security in the future, but I think we should realize that folks are already losing out today. It's already a problem.
- [29:47]
Mary Walter
It is. It's a huge problem. And so. But want it again. We're going to get into Social Security because I want to talk a little bit more about some things that Trump has planned. But with, with the Trump accounts, the thousand dollars comes out of the treasury, so now I'm paying for that, too. So I'm paying into Social Security. I'm not going to get my money back. And now I'm paying for the younger kids to not have to deal with Social Security and have more money than I ever had. So I'm paying out on both ends.
- [30:13]
Kiana
Right.
- [30:13]
E.J. Antoni
Don't forget, though, we have seen this is, this is, I think, one of the examples where a public private partnership can actually work fairly well. You have seen a decent amount of private individuals of private businesses who have come forward and said that they want to help, they want to contribute. You know, the munificence of these generous men still means something in 2026, which is, which is nice to see. And so, yes, it is another expense on the treasury, but you have to remember that it is only this initial expense. And I would much rather see, look, the ideal is you don't have any government intervention or involvement here at all. But I would much rather see this small amount of seed money going into these accounts. And again, it's serving as a kind of off ramp for programs like Social Security. Then we continue down the current road we're on.
- [31:03]
Mary Walter
Yeah, I've already given up. I'm just pretty much convinced that all I do is pay out. I don't get anything back. So. And I'm, you know, I'm like, oh, I'm gonna get Social Security and I'll get my Medicare. I'm like, I'm not gonna get that either. So I pretty, I've existed to just pay into the system because I pay, I pay into, you know, schools and I kids in school. So, you know, I'm paying right, left, and sideways. But I've just come, as I said, I've just come to the, come to the realization that that's pretty much my role here in this country is I just, I just pay out. So you talk about these, you know, the evil billionaires. Oh, you know what? We had to take a quick break. Hang on. We'll come back on the other side. All right. Can you hang with me?
- [31:40]
E.J. Antoni
Sure.
- [31:41]
Mary Walter
Okay, great. We'll come because I want to talk about these evil billionaires. And because the Democrats wanted to socialist, the communists want to take all their money because they know better what to do with it. And let's talk about what they're doing and how they're helping this out and how we make the transition from the generation people even in their 20s, you know, is there a way for them to not have to pay into the Social Security system or is it going to take, you know, an entire more than a generation to get out of that system and into something different? We're going to have more of that. All that coming up with EJ And Tony in a very little bit of time. But we're going to try to do it. Coming up next on the Rob Carson Show. The Rob Carson show is presented by Paramount plus the Agency.
- [32:28]
Rob Carson (advertisement/narration voice)
All episodes now streaming on Paramount plus. In a world of espionage, truth is a moving target. And every decision carries a dangerous consequence. This new mission explores what it means to live as a double agent. Twice the lies, twice the risk. The lines between ally and enemy blur like never before. And survival depends on trusting no one. Starring Michael Fassbender, Jeffrey Wright, Jody Turner Smith and Richard Gere. Don't miss the agency. All episodes now streaming on Paramount Plus.
- [32:58]
Mary Walter
Now back to the Rob Carson show, presented by Paramount. And we are back. I'm Mary Walter. We're here with EJ and Tony on the Newsmax hotline talking about the Trump accounts now. So the initial Trump account is for. They put $1,000 from the treasury for babies born between 2025 through 2028. But any child under 18 with a Social Security number can make. Someone can make a $1,000 pilot program contribution for them.
- [33:43]
Tony
Right.
- [33:43]
Mary Walter
So you can open it, but somebody's got to put the money in it. Is that correct?
- [33:47]
E.J. Antoni
Yeah, absolutely. And then you can continue making contributions each year thereafter. So, so that's how you get again with not only those annual contributions, but then the power of compounding returns through private investment. That's where you can get these incredible, these incredible balances where again, by the time you're 18, assuming you start as a newborn, you're going to have hundreds of thousands of dollars in that account. I mean that is, that is the definition of a financial head start on adulthood.
- [34:20]
Mary Walter
Absolutely. Now the Dells, let's talk about Michael and Susan Dell. They committed six and a quarter billion dollars to give kids in low income zip codes who were born or later, I mean, who were born earlier a shot at having a similar type of savings account after the $250 is put into an account for them. Does it then work the same way where people can donate up to $5,000 a year?
- [34:47]
E.J. Antoni
Right, exactly. And it's not just parents. Again, you can have other relatives or friends. You can even have employers make contributions. A lot of different companies, JP Morgan for example, is one. A lot of different companies have announced that they're going to be making contributions as well. So it really is, again, it just, I love to see so much private sector contribution that is then going to be invested back into the private market. Because this is not money that's just going to go and buy government bonds and basically essentially lose real value. No, this is going into low cost diversified mutual funds, low cost index funds. It's going to go into the S and P. It's private sector money going back into the private market.
- [35:31]
Mary Walter
So which is great. Now how do we, how do we transition though from what other question? Can parents just like take the money out of that or is only the child can take it out and only when they're 18. And can it only be used for certain things?
- [35:45]
E.J. Antoni
You can use it for a whole host of different things. It is way more flexible than traditional kinds of savings accounts that can only be used, let's say when you retire or can only be used on certain types of education. So it is much, much more flexible in terms of the timing here. If you do, if you do something out of the ordinary like those early withdrawals and stuff up, there are all kinds of different penalties that, that can be attached to that depending on your circumstance. So if you want to consider that that's definitely something you're going to want to take to a Financial planner. And likewise, if you're considering a Trump account versus something like a traditional 529 or other savings plan, depending on what you want to use it for. Again, very good idea to consult with the financial planner because our tax code is so incredibly complex. Complex. Everybody's situation is going to be different.
- [36:37]
Mary Walter
Yeah. And parents can't just take the money out like mommy and dad. Like mommy can't just take the money out and spend it on a new car.
- [36:44]
E.J. Antoni
Right, right, exactly, exactly. There's, there's a lot of different rules here that have been put in place to try to protect, essentially try to protect the children and the money because it is, after all, the kids money.
- [36:57]
Mary Walter
Yeah. I only have three minutes here, but President Trump mentioned working on an Australian style retirement savings plan for American workers. Just very quickly, what is that? What do they do? They, they have the money taken out of your, your paycheck and automatically put in a savings account for you. Is that how it works?
- [37:17]
E.J. Antoni
Essentially, yeah. So this, this could go really well. It could go really bad, essentially, Mary, if you're, again, if you're going to use this as like an off brand for Social Security, I like it. Because the government already forces your employer to withhold money from your paycheck for quote, unquote savings. The problem is it doesn't actually get saved anywhere. Right. It just immediately goes to pay today's retirees. This would change that to be an actual type of savings plan where the money is coming out of your paycheck, which I don't like that it's forcibly done. I wish people could have a choice. But again, it's better than the current system because the money doesn't just go to pay somebody else. The money goes to into actual private sector investment for you that is in your account that nobody else can touch. So that part of it I like. So that's where it could go really well. The way it could go really bad, Mary, is if you simply impose this on top of the already ridiculous system we have and now you're forcing people to have more money withheld from their paycheck. Again, we just said that everybody's circumstance is different. Right. Well, if that's the case, then people need to be free to choose what to do with their income, how much they want to save, how much they want to spend. I don't need Big Brother telling me exactly what percentage of my income I should be saving. Every paycheck.
- [38:38]
Mary Walter
Yeah, yeah. It's at least. So this sounds to me like it's what Social Security was supposed to do, which was put the money away for just that person. Right. And the government can't read it.
- [38:47]
E.J. Antoni
Exactly. And be. What I like here is the fact that you're taking people's money, but it's going back into the private sector. It's not just going to go buy government bonds where it'll lose value over time. It's not just essentially being stuffed under a mattress where the literally nothing is done with the cash. The cash is being put to work and it's being put to work in the productive private sector. So we do like that part of it.
- [39:13]
Mary Walter
Right. Listen, I honestly, I just wish, my feeling is life is hard and if you don't prepare for your retirement, why am I paying for your retirement? Why am I living below my means now to save all this money and then in the end get dinged for it and have to pay for your retirement because you didn't. Do you know what I mean? Like, part of it just seems very un American to me. The whole entire system.
- [39:35]
E.J. Antoni
Well, you know, Mary, the irony here is that so many of these programs literally created the very problem that they were allegedly going to solve. Of course, Social Security people saved on their own for retirement. But then once Social Security came into play, a lot of folks decided, well, now that there's Social Security, I no longer need to save for retirement. And so you actually had a lower percentage of money being saved for retirement after that, after the fact. So again, it didn't, it didn't eliminate dependency. It created it, or I should say, it helped to create it, of course.
- [40:10]
Mary Walter
And because when you tell them it was never meant to live on, it's a supplement, they get all mad. Ej, thank you so much. Really appreciate you letting us use your brain. Thank you.
- [40:19]
E.J. Antoni
Hey, my pleasure, Mary. Great to talk with you.
- [40:21]
Mary Walter
Have a great week. More coming up on the Rob Carson Show. And welcome back to the Rob Carson Show. I am Mary Walters sitting in for Rob Carson. All right, I want to share a little something with you. Everybody's talking about affordability, affordability, affordability. It's the left because they said nothing's affordable. And they have all their little, their little minions who agree with them. Nothing's affordable. Oh, my gosh, it's so expensive. Donald Trump's the worst. Even though inflation under Joe Biden was 9%. Donald Trump's worst. So a lot of people eat out now. My husband and I don't do fast food. We just don't. It's the way we grew up. And we just don't every now and then, if I have to, I will. But Adatta 3 recently went viral because he has a hack at Chick Fil A to help you save money.
- [41:30]
Tony
So listen, okay, here's the thing. We're at Chick Fil A. I have a hack for every dad who is always thinking, why are we spending so much money at Chick Fil A? Kids are annoyed. Love it. Okay, here's the deal. Instead of everybody ordering their fried chicken sandwich and their meal, here's what we just did and what we have been doing. And y' all need to know about this. We ordered. Look at that. How many nuggets? 30. 30. We order 30 nuggets. And you know how much 30 nuggets is on this? See here? 30 nuggets. $17. $17. And the buns. Then they each get. We order. Each one gets just a bun, just a buttered bun. Okay. Which is the sandwich. They each get the buttered bun for 75 cents or 25 cents each. So for 75 cents, we get the buns. Then everybody eats for $20. Every kid gets a chicken salads or chicken fried chicken sandwich. Look at that. Fill it up. Make their own sandwich. They still have all that extra. Everybody's happy. Dad's happy. No one's happy. We have saved so much money. I'm just telling you, you can eat under $45 at Chick Fil A as a family of five if you do what I'm saying. That's all I'm saying.
- [42:49]
Kiana
Bye.
- [42:50]
Mary Walter
I just love that they had the kid, the older kids, like, nobody's happy because he's at that age. He's at that age where he's like, I wanted a Chick Fil a sandwich. I don't want the nuggets. I love these type of things. You know, going into the next hour, if you want to call in if you have any hacks like this, like, if you have any, like, inventive ways to save money, I'm sure people would love to hear them. 800-922-6680. We got another hour to go. All right, I'm Mary Walter. You're listening to the Rob Carson Show.
- [43:18]
E.J. Antoni
Don't go anywhere.
- [43:18]
Mary Walter
Anywhere. The Rob Carson show is presented by
- [43:27]
Ornod Founder
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