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The World and Everything In It
3.13.25 The viability of the CFPB, the recuperation of a former hostage, and raising a child with medical needs
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- [00:06]
Mary Reichert
Good morning. A government watchdog or more bureaucracy. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau may be on the ropes. We'll hear from opposing sides.
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Myrna Brown
And an Israeli father held hostage since October 7th is finally home. But the road to recovery is long. We'll hear from the brother of or Levy. And a family's perspective on God's mercy changed while caring for their disabled son.
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Kara Dietert
Our suffering is never pointless. And actually this is the very means that he will use to know him more and to bring joy in ways that you had never imagined.
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Myrna Brown
An economic deja vu. World commentator Cal Thomas brings a history lesson.
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Mary Reichert
It's Thursday, March 13th. This is the world and everything in it from listener supported world. Welcome to World Radio. I'm Mary Reichert.
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Myrna Brown
And I'm Myrna Brown. Good morning.
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Mary Reichert
Now here's Kent Covington with today's news.
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Kent Covington
The world will await Russia's response. Two days after Ukraine agreed to a 30 day ceasefire proposed by the United States. President Trump said a US Delegation was on its way to Moscow.
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Howard Lutnick
People are going to Russia right now.
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David Bonson
As we speak and hopefully we can.
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Howard Lutnick
Get a ceasefire from Russia.
- [01:31]
Travis Kercher
And if we.
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Kent Covington
The ceasefire proposal that Ukraine agreed to this week also calls for both sides to spend that time negotiating a lasting peace. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy heard here through a translator.
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Michael Levy
If we are going to have 30.
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Kent Covington
Day truce, these 30 days will have.
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Michael Levy
To be used to put certain matters on paper.
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Kent Covington
President Trump briefly halted military aid to Ukraine to pressure Kyiv to the bargaining table. And he hinted that he's prepared to play hardball with Russia as well if it comes to that, possibly through sanctions and tariffs. But he stressed that he is not anxious to do that and that he's hopeful that Moscow will agree to a ceasefire and further peace talks. And at the Oval Office on Wednesday, Trump hosted Ireland's prime minister in the Oval Office.
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Howard Lutnick
Thank you very much.
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David Bonson
It's a great honor to have. Michal Martin Taoiseach Ireland It's a special place and he's a very special guy.
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Kent Covington
The two leaders honored the annual White House shamrock ceremony, a tradition that dates back to the Truman administration in 1952. Martin called it a great honor to.
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Travis Kercher
Celebrate St. Patrick's with you.
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Kent Covington
And I thank you for your hospitality.
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Myrna Brown
And the warmth of your reception.
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Kent Covington
The annual ceremony is a symbol of the two nations close partnership, but it does come at a time of somewhat heightened trade tensions. The European Union just announced retaliatory tariffs on US Goods in response to new US Tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. But Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said the EU measures will not change the president's mind.
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David Bonson
Nothing's going to stop that until we've got a big, strong domestic steel and aluminum capability. And by the way, he's going to add copper to that mix, too.
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Kent Covington
Trump sees strong domestic production of things like computer chips, steel and aluminum as vital to America's economic future and national security. The EU announced that the tariffs on about $28 billion worth of US goods will begin on April 1. The trade war has triggered some anxiety on Wall street in recent days, but markets finished up on Wednesday, encouraged by better than expected inflation numbers for February. Inflation, measured by the Consumer price index, rose 2.8% compared to February of last year. That's better than the 2.9% that analysts had expected, and it breaks a four month trend of rising inflation rates. Education Secretary Linda McMahon says big cuts at the Department of Education are necessary and a part of an effort to return power over education back to the states.
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Mary Reichert
We're not taking away education. The president never said that he's taken the bureaucracy out of education so that.
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Howard Lutnick
More money flows to the states.
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Kent Covington
Roughly 2,000 workers at the Education Department have been laid off or have agreed to retire or resign. That is about half of the department's workforce. Those affected by the cuts will receive pay and benefits through early June. President Trump's ultimate goal is to shutter the department completely, but that would require an act of Congress. Demonstrators shouted outside of a federal courthouse in lower Manhattan on Wednesday in support of Mahmoud Khalil. He is the Columbia University student who helped to lead pro Palestinian, anti Israel protests on campus last year. White House press Secretary Caroline Levitt.
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Myrna Brown
Secretary Rubio revoked this individual's visa based on the Immigration and Nationality act because this individual clearly poses an adversial effect consequence to the foreign policy and national interests of our great country.
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Kent Covington
The Trump administration charges that Khalil showed solidarity with Hamas, a designated terror group, and that is grounds for deportation. Leal's attorneys say he is now a legal US Resident and argue that the administration is violating his First Amendment rights. A judge has temporarily halted his deportation while his legal challenge plays out. I'm Kent Covington and straight ahead, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is on the proverbial cutting block. Plus finding faith and hope through disability. This is the one world and everything in it.
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Mary Reichert
It's Thursday the 13th of March. This is World Radio and we thank you for listening. Good morning, I'm Mary Reichert.
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Myrna Brown
And I'm Myrna Brown. First up, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Its past, its future and the debate over whether it should even exist.
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Mary Reichert
Last week, the Senate Banking Committee advanced President Donald Trump's nominee to lead the agency, former FDIC board member Jonathan McKernan. The committee vote was split along party lines, 13 Republicans in favor, 11 Democrats opposed. The nomination now goes to the full Senate for a vote.
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Myrna Brown
The CFPB was formed in response to the the 2008 financial crisis. It aimed to protect consumers from deceptive lending practices. But even its existence has been controversial. The agency's been in limbo since early February. That's when the Trump administration ordered it to suspend all operations, canceled $100 million in contracts, and fired 70 employees. Some people are outraged. Others see it as much needed reform.
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Mary Reichert
The CFPB is the brainchild of Senator Elizabeth Warren, and she is its fiercest defender. Here she is touting its successes at a rally last month to bolster support for it. The CFPB is the cop on the beat.
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Kent Covington
That's right.
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Howard Lutnick
And that cop is the one that.
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Mary Reichert
Caught the crooks and so far has.
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Howard Lutnick
Made them give back $21 billion.
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Mary Reichert
Abuses the CFPB has uncovered include banks opening accounts for customers without telling them Wells Fargo comes to mind and payday lenders that make sure consumers never pay off the debt. Adam Rust is with the Consumer Federation of America. He argues that the CFPB plays a critical role in financial oversight.
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Adam Rust
The CFPB has penalized those institutions, payday lenders. There was one that was again incentivizing employees to make sure you rolled over your loan, that you never really paid it off, but kept adding another round of fees and another round of fees that traps people in debt and can actually just destroy their financial stability. So those are some examples.
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Myrna Brown
Some rules in limbo now are quite popular among consumers. For example, a rule that bans inclusion of medical debt on credit reports. The CFPB says this would keep debt collectors from using erroneous medical bills to pressure people to pay up to improve credit scores. Rust says that without CFPB enforcement, predatory financial practices will flourish. But financial analyst David Bonson sees the CFPB as poorly run and structured and another unnecessary bureaucracy for taxpayers to fund.
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David Bonson
Why would we have needed new Alphabet soup regulatory? With all of the Alphabet soup regulatory we already had, if Wells Fargo was opening accounts for people that didn't need them, which they were, and we don't want that to happen. What is the FDIC doing? What is the Federal Reserve doing? What is the Treasury Department doing? There are plenty of other regulatory bodies, including state regulatory, which has primary oversight of this, that would have, could have, and should have done the exact same thing to identify Wells Fargo's bad behavior that the CFPB ended up doing. What the CFPB did was get the press release for it. Any number of other regulatory agencies would have, could have and should have stopped Wells Fargo's bad behavior.
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Myrna Brown
Rust counters that the CFPB fills a particular role in the scheme of government financial regulation.
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Adam Rust
Nothing is really out there aside from the CFPB that is focused exclusively on consumer financial protection. Those kinds of gaps at the federal level were identified prior to the financial crisis when there were a number of especially non banks for so mortgage lenders that aren't banks, that were employing risky practices and pursuing short term profits, but at the expense of the broader economy. And so people lost their homes, they lost their jobs, businesses. There were all kinds of impacts. And it really raised the issue that we had gaps to cover and the CFPB was assigned to that.
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Mary Reichert
Yet Bonson points to the unintended consequences of well intentioned people. Layers of regulations have burdened small banks in a way that just doesn't affect big banks. The CFPB reduced or removed overdraft fees, for example, which led small banks to end points and rewards programs on their credit cards that consumers liked. That weakened the small banks. For big banks, those fees are only a small portion of their business, so they find ways to absorb the costs.
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Myrna Brown
Bonson says those unintended consequences of CFPB rules hurt the very people the agency was created to protect.
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David Bonson
There's no question that a focus on things like paycheck loans, where people are able to get loans on payday at high interest rates a couple days early before their paycheck has come, for low income people that are in need of extra liquidity, that those things sound like they're really helping people because these are high fees and it sounds predatory. And yet there's no question that the consumers receiving those loans vitally needed them. And so what they did is demonize an element in the economy that was actually needed by low income people that the CFPB says they were there to protect. And so their efforts there harmed those that they were there to protect by taking away a form of liquidity that was necessary to people who didn't have necessarily another avenue. And all it did is force them into a black market, loan sharks, other, you know, arrangements of desperation that were suboptimal in every way.
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Myrna Brown
Rust sums up his take on that argument.
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Adam Rust
You don't want access to dangerous services. That's not what anyone wants. And if you want to argue that it's the underserved that are going to be the ones that lose out on access to credit. Well, essentially what you're saying is the underserved won't have access to dangerous credit.
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Mary Reichert
The larger question brings to mind a famous exchange from 1979 between economist Milton Friedman and talk show host Phil Donahue. Donahue asked him if it isn't better to just let the experts govern us.
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Howard Lutnick
You know, I think you're taking a lot of things for granted and just tell me where in the world you find these angels who are going to organize society for us.
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Myrna Brown
That argument aligns with people who oppose the creation of the CFPB and see it as an unnecessary intervention in the free market.
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Mary Reichert
Yet supporters say financial institutions left unchecked have a history of preying on the vulnerable. And without an independent cfpb, they argue, the burden falls disproportionately on consumers alone to figure out the complexities of the financial system.
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Myrna Brown
Meanwhile, the agency's fate remains uncertain. President Trump has made known his desire to dismantle the CFPB, and McKernan, his nominee to lead it, has pledged to enforce consumer financial laws but also criticize what he calls the agency's excessive enforcement. As the full Senate prepares to vote for a new director of the cfpb, one thing is clear. A number of lawsuits are pending, and the battle over the CFPB isn't over. Coming up next on the WORLD and everything in it. Home at last. Now, just a quick word of warning. This story may be too intense for some of our younger listeners, so parents, use your discernment. But you may want to fast forward 7 minutes and come back later.
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Mary Reichert
On October 7, 2023 Hamas terrorists stormed the Nova Music Festival where Orr Levy and his wife Enof were celebrating enough was killed or was dragged into Gaza and held hostage for nearly 500 days. He was finally released last month as part of the initial phase of the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. But the conditions of his captivity and release drew international condemnation. World reporter Travis Kercher spoke with Orr's brother Michael Levy about the long and difficult road to recovery.
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Travis Kercher
When World Blast spoke with Michael Levy in January, the last images he'd seen of his brother Orr were from a Hamas video taken on October 7th. It was day one of his time.
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Michael Levy
As a Hamas hostage for 491 days. We didn't know if he is alive.
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Travis Kercher
Or dead, but all of that changed on Saturday, February 8, or and fellow hostages Eli Sharabi and Ohad Ben Ami were released as part of the initial phase of Israel's ceasefire with Hamas. Before they were freed, armed Hamas militants paraded the three hostages onto a stage before a crowd of Palestinians. Michael was watching the video and says he was shocked at his brother's appearance.
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Michael Levy
The only time I saw people looking like this was back in the Holocaust.
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Travis Kercher
Despite their appearance, Michael says Hamas forced the hostages to thank them for feeding them. He also confirms that Hamas gave some of the hostages, for lack of a better term, a grab bag before they were handed over to the Red Cross.
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Michael Levy
It's just another demonstration of how sick and twisted they are. They gave them their version of souvenirs from Gaza. The only thing all got was a certificate. But I know from other hostages that were released that some of them got pictures of the city of Gaza, scarf of Hamas or the headband of Hamas or something like that.
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Travis Kercher
Meanwhile, in Hostage Square in Tel Aviv, cheers of a different sort as Orr and his two fellow hostages arrived by helicopter at the hospital and reunited with their loved ones. Audio here or reuniting with Michael and his other family members, courtesy of the Hostages and Missing Families Forum.
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Michael Levy
His legs were so thin. I don't think I've ever seen someone so cane. It was ethically bones and skin. That's it.
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Travis Kercher
Michael says his brother was still clinging to the hope that his wife, Inov, had survived. Michael had to tell him that Inov had indeed been murdered more than a year earlier.
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Michael Levy
He kind of knew, but he wasn't 100% sure. He did not see it. And actually his first question was, is ask for assurance that Enav is not alive. And unfortunately, that was the fact.
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Travis Kercher
But despite the bad news, there were also moments of sheer joy, like the moment Orr reunited with his son Almug, now 3 years old. Michael says these reunions are sensitive and must be handled with care. They spoke first on the phone, then there was a video call.
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Michael Levy
Then when Almug got into the hospital, he ran to the corridors of the hospital and yelled, where's my daddy? Where's my daddy? Everyone was crying around him. Obviously, it was an amazing moment to see them hug. And it was as if they were never apart for a second.
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Travis Kercher
In the past few weeks, Michael says he's been learning more about the conditions his brother endured in Gaza. He's upfront about the fact that he's withholding some of the more horrific aspects of Orr's captivity, but here's what he can share. He says his brother was kept in underground tunnels where he couldn't stand and was barely able to breathe what little water he was given was either polluted or seawater. And at times, he was forced to live on no more than a single bite of pita bread a day.
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Michael Levy
The conditions that all and the rest of the hostages were in was worse than anything human mind can understand.
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Travis Kercher
But now that he's home, Michael says his brother is relishing the simple pleasures of life, like eating Shabbat dinner on Friday evenings with his family, something Michael admits a non Jewish audience may not understand.
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Michael Levy
It's a very special day. We drink wine, we talk, we laugh, we celebrate, we argue about meaningful things that are not very important sometimes. But it's a little fun.
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Travis Kercher
Orr has been home for every Shabbat dinner since his release, and he's rediscovering another basketball, Michael says. On Friday, he and Orr attended a game to support Maccabi Richon Lesion, their hometown team. Michael says it was an emotional moment for both his brother and the team.
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Michael Levy
When we got into the arena, everyone cried. It went after the game, the players took us to the circle in the middle of the arena, and we celebrated together with them, hugging and jumping and dancing. Just seeing his face was an amazing moment.
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Travis Kercher
For now, Michael says his brother's life consists of normal things, like taking his son Almug to kindergarten, trying to keep him out of trouble, and grappling with the horrific things he's endured. Michael says he knows world listeners have been praying for his family.
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Michael Levy
So I want to thank them for that, and I want them to keep praying, not just for us, but for the rest of the hostages that are still there.
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Travis Kercher
And Michael says his brother hasn't forgotten those left behind. One of the first things Orr wanted after his release from the hospital was to visit Hostage Square against his doctor's wishes.
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Michael Levy
After a lot of fights and arguments with us, we and the doctors finally agreed that he'll go.
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Travis Kercher
So the two brothers went with their father early on a Friday morning when the square was nearly empty. Then Orr did something he'd been wanting to do for a long time. He tore down the signs with his picture on them.
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Michael Levy
And it was amazing to see, an amazing closure to see him there alive and that he was able to remove those signs.
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Travis Kercher
Today, Michael says, they still visit Hostage Square, but instead of holding signs about Orr, they're there to represent Another hostage, Alon O'Hell who was kidnapped along with Orr.
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Michael Levy
Obviously, we want all of the hostages back, all of the 59 that are still there. But Alon has a special place in our heart because all love him like a brother.
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Travis Kercher
Mediators continued to meet in Qatar, hoping to negotiate a new ceasefire deal that would see the release of more than half of the remaining hostages late last week. Last week, the Trump administration confirmed that it is now engaged in direct talks with Hamas. Reporting for world I'm Travis Kercher.
- [22:32]
Kent Covington
Additional support comes from Ambassadors Ambassadors Impact Network, helping entrepreneurs who are looking for more than just funding discover a community of Christian faith led investors more@ambassadorsimpact.com from the book from Eden to Egypt by Alex Duke a guided tour of Genesis from edentoegyptbook.com and from Reformation Bible College, offering classical Christian education that prepares students.
- [23:05]
Travis Kercher
To glorify and enjoy God in any career.
- [23:08]
Kent Covington
Reformationbiblecollege.org.
- [23:27]
Myrna Brown
Katharine Kiefer thought she'd lost everything in January's Palisade wildfire, including her cat Aggie. But two months later, the cat came back, skinnier but somehow still alive. But maybe cats really do have nine lives. Kiefer's daughter racked up a million likes on social media of their tearful reunion at the vet's office. Hi, Aggie.
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Howard Lutnick
Hi, sweetie.
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Kara Dietert
Look at this girl now.
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Myrna Brown
Aggie's vet bills are piled, but so are the donations, so they're going to be all right. Kiefer says she can't wait to bring Aggie home today. And she has just one don't underestimate cats.
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Mary Reichert
Yeah, because clearly they always land on their feet.
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Myrna Brown
It's the world and everything in it.
- [24:28]
Mary Reichert
Today is Thursday, March 13th. Thank you for turning to World Radio to help start your day. Good morning, I'm Mary Reichard.
- [24:36]
Myrna Brown
And I'm Myrna Brown. Coming next on THE World and Everything in it, finding purpose in life's hardest moments. World's Leah Savvis takes us to Michigan, where one family's journal of caring for a child with disabilities has reshaped their understanding of suffering and the dignity of every life.
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Leah Savas
It's a little after 8:30 in the morning in the dirt. Home nurse Brenda Van Anhold is busy in a sunny back room where a boy lies on a bed. He's hooked up to tubes and cords. That white noise is the sound of an oxygen machine and a ventilator. Brenda holds the boys arms and swings them as she sings. Calvin Dietert is 15 years old, the fourth of five siblings, but he can't talk, walk or move much on his own. He has a laundry list of medical conditions, including cerebral palsy, chronic lung disease and microcephaly. That's a neurological condition that results in a small head and brain. Calvin can only see light and dark, but he has great hearing and he can move his eyes, wiggle his tongue, and smile.
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Travis Kercher
Get your other nabphone, Calvin.
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Leah Savas
Calvin is in the middle of his morning routine.
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Myrna Brown
Move on to the next thing.
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Michael Levy
Right, Calvin, you're always busy.
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Leah Savas
Brenda is giving him medication and then will use a few devices to clear his lungs of any fluid that might have built up overnight. She pours formula into a plastic bag attached to a feeding tube. He's had it since he was about a year old. That was the first of many hard calls his mom, Kara, says she and her husband Darryl, had to make after Calvin's birth. But the first warning signs of his conditions came during an ultrasound at 38 weeks.
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Kara Dietert
We saw there was definite, like, a deficit where the brain matter was supposed to be. And so we knew something was very wrong. Just as a mom, you're just. You're reeling. We just had no answers for it.
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Leah Savas
They were missionaries in Cambodia at the time, and it wasn't until later that they discovered the issues were likely due to the Zika virus, which Kara had contracted at about 13 weeks of pregnancy. As a newborn, Calvin seemed like a normal baby. But they eventually discovered that he was aspirating while nursing. The milk was going straight into his lungs. They also learned from a neurologist that Calvin would never walk or talk.
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Kara Dietert
She recommended not doing anything. And we said, well, we've also been considering a feeding tube. And she was very much, if you do a feeding tube, almost like, I wash my hands of. This is what the feeling was. She didn't say that directly. We felt this weight of, are we causing additional suffering?
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Leah Savas
And I think Kara and Darrell later realized the doctor's issue was less with the tube and more with the value of Calvin's life.
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Kara Dietert
There is something totally unrelated to quality of life that is so valuable to recognize in every single person. There is just intrinsic value in being brought into life.
- [27:58]
Leah Savas
The desire to meet his basic needs fueled their decisions. As the years went by and other interventions arose.
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Kara Dietert
He would have these episodes where he would cry, and then he would go completely blue and limp. And we thought he was dying.
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Leah Savas
Turns out his airways were collapsing. He wasn't getting the oxygen he needed. That led to a tracheostomy tube or trach in his neck. By then, he was about three years old. But Calvin's condition remained fragile.
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Kara Dietert
It was constant trying to keep him from basically suffocating from the fluid that would constantly build up in his lungs.
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Leah Savas
That meant repeated stays in the ICU for weeks at a time. As Calvin fought infections with the help of a ventilator, they Often didn't expect him to live.
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Kara Dietert
I mean, I wouldn't buy clothes often for the next season because he was so frail and so fragile.
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Leah Savas
During one extended hospital stay, it became clear that he could no longer live without a ventilator. Going home without it would just mean a slow, painful death by suffocation. So when they left the hospital that time, they brought a ventilator with them. That was in 2020. He's been on it ever since.
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Kara Dietert
Where we are today is. It's a progressively deteriorating situation and yet.
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Michael Levy
But.
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Kara Dietert
Just a surrendering of his life to the Lord, knowing that the Lord knows how many days he has. All right, calm.
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Leah Savas
Back in the sunny room, nurse Brenda operates a lift to move Calvin from bed. Now that he's a teenager, he's too heavy for anyone to lift him except his dad. So to get him out of bed, they strap him to a hammock like seat hanging from a track on the ceiling. It moves up and down with the push of a button. Brenda lowers him onto a blue mesh stretcher and rolls him into a bathroom with a walk in shower down the hall. Calvin is totally dependent on the help of others. From the world's perspective, he doesn't contribute to society and uses up time and resources.
- [30:14]
Kara Dietert
We equate all suffering with bad things. But God actually creates different meaning for suffering for those who are trusting in Him. Our suffering is never pointless. And actually this is the very means that he will use not only to refine you, but also to know him more and to bring joy in ways that you had never imagined.
- [30:41]
Leah Savas
Kara said Calvin's life has taught her to seek the Lord in ways she never did before he was born. There was even a time she resisted learning about how to care for each one of Calvin's medical needs. She didn't want to be a neurologist or respiratory therapist. She just wanted to be a mom. But she's since embraced it as an intentional work God has done in her life.
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Kara Dietert
The way I view Calvin, the way I view even the mundane things like changing diapers and caring for him, these are actually acts of faithfulness and trust. And these are the good works that he's prepared for me to do.
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Leah Savas
Kara recalls one time in church years ago when the pastor asked a loud rhetorical question during his sermon. Have any of you ever experienced the mercies of God at just the right time? Almost as if in response, Calvin let out a loud, satisfied yellow and we all just looked.
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Kara Dietert
He was so, it seemed so intentional towards the question. And just this huge smile on his face. And sometimes those coincidences just seemed too coincidental that it just seemed like he was testifying. Yes, I have received, I have experienced the mercies of God many Times.
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Leah Savas
Reporting for World, I'm Leah Savas in Belmont, Michigan.
- [32:36]
Myrna Brown
Today is Thursday, March 13th. Good morning. This is the WORLD and everything in it from listener supported World Radio. I'm Myrna Brown.
- [32:45]
Mary Reichert
And I'm Mary Reichert. Up next, economic deja vu. It's been a bumpy week for the US Stock market, but world commentator Cal Thomas says we've been here before.
- [32:59]
Howard Lutnick
When I began investing in balanced mutual funds in 1983, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was just under 1200 points. Even after a few choppy days this week, the Dow is still hanging out around 41,000. It's the difference between looking at short term versus long term investing. I called my financial advisor who told me not to worry about the latest declines because I'm diversified. Besides, she said, it's only paper. Well, that may not sound reassuring until one considers we've been here before. The year was 1981 and the country was struggling with double digit inflation, 13.5% at the end of the Carter presidency. Unemployment was high at 8%. Interest rates were even higher as mortgage rates soared to well over 16%. Public confidence was at a historic low. It took Ronald Reagan nearly two years to turn the economy around, beginning with the 1981 Economic and Recovery Tax Act. It substantially reduced taxes and eventually led to strong economic growth. Bruce Bartlett, who drafted an earlier version of the bill, defended it in an article for the Washington Post. He wrote, quote, the dominant theory at the time said that higher taxes would curb inflation by reducing people's disposable income and spending and that any tax cut would exacerbate inflation. He goes on to say, quote, our thinking by contrast, was that lower taxes would increase the incentive to work, save and invest. If that led to an increase in the supply of goods and services, then the impact would be anti inflationary. And so it was. And so it did. Reagan's approval rating sank to 35% in 1983, but as the economy began to recover, it soared to 61% by November 1984. He won reelection in a landslide. President Trump has expressed a wait and you'll see attitude about his economic policies. He promises a great economic boom and a new golden age. We'll see if that replicates the Reagan pattern. Trump didn't help consumer confidence when he punted after being asked twice whether a recession might be coming. Writing in the New York Post, Fox Business commentator Charles Gasparino advises investors to ignore the stock market because Wall street is dealing with what he says is PA painful detox from its government spending addiction. Gasparino writes, quote, think of the current US Economy as a junkie weaning himself off heroin, which is never easy, unquote. As with President Reagan, Trump is still having to deal with a fallout from his predecessors economic policies. Those include Joe Biden's Inflation Reduction act, which caused inflation and produced the high prices and other negative consequences Democrats are claiming are Trump's fault. Really? After only six weeks in office and with his last cabinet officer confirmed by the Senate just this week, detox is painful, but the result is worth the effort. Our problem is that too many Americans have become over reliant on government to take care of them while ignoring the old puritan ethic of self reliance. Politicians don't care because it contributes to their careers and power. That attitude has Contributed to our $36 trillion national debt and inflation, which the administration, with the help of Elon Musk and Doge Squad, are trying to reduce. Economic roller coasters can be scary, but like the rides at the fair, the end produces satisfaction, relief and even a thrill. So hang on. I'm Cal Thomas.
- [36:32]
Mary Reichert
Tomorrow, John Stonestreet is back for Culture Friday and Colin Garberino reviews a new Looney Tunes movie that offers some fun nostalgia for the family. Plus wordplay with George Grant. That and more tomorrow. I'm Mary Reichardt.
- [36:46]
Myrna Brown
And I'm Myrna Brown. The world and everything in it comes to you from World Radio. World's mission is biblically objective journalism that informs, educates and inspires. The Bible says so. Jesus said to the who had believed him, if you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. Verses 31 and 32 of John chapter 8. Go now in grace and peace.