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00:00It's an unscheduled guest, Barry Chapman, and Barry is going to give us a briefing as to what
00:08is going on with the elections, the 2026, the midterms.
00:16Good morning. Welcome to the Myers Report Fast 15. It is Friday, January 30th, 2026.
00:24Today, we have with us Donde, our weather and climate guru. We have Isaac Issa, our logistics guy,
00:35who gives us real-time information on the economy, and Dr. Bob Janetsky, nationally and world-renowned
00:43economist. But we also have with us an unscheduled guest, Barry Chapman. And Barry is going to give
00:51us a briefing as to what is going on with the elections, the 2026, the midterms, because there
00:59is earth-shaking, there are earth-shaking things happening, particularly down in Fulton County,
01:05Georgia. Barry, what's cooking? Well, there's, as you've probably heard by the news reports,
01:12the FBI conducted an investigation in Fulton County, Georgia, with an indictment to recover
01:24information regarding the 2020 election, including ballots and voter registration data, things like
01:34that. So they went down and basically collected that information. And if you read the indictment,
01:42it's a pretty lengthy indictment on the charges. Do we have a copy of that indictment, Barry?
01:51Yes. Okay, we'll circulate it. If you can send it off to me, please.
01:56Yes, it's, I think, about 140 pages, something like that. So, but anyway, this was resulting from,
02:06I guess, a lawsuit where a judge ordered that data to be preserved back in 2020. And it's been
02:17set in a warehouse. And so they're taking a look at it. But one of the big things that Congress is
02:24working on is the SAVE Act. And they've been working on that act for quite some time. And
02:30there are several things that they're adding to the SAVE Act to strengthen it. And some of these
02:38things that they're talking about is requiring photo ID instead of just an ID.
02:44only have a 15-day blackout for voter registration updates prior to an election, also requiring
02:57people being registered to be citizens in-
03:03They're going to have to show proof of citizenship, not just taking the word for it.
03:07And check, well, check the felon list to make sure they're not on that. Make election day one day
03:16from a standpoint of you cannot count ballots after election day or receive new ballots.
03:24What about mail-ins, Barry?
03:27You can count after election day, but you can't receive new ballots. For mail-in,
03:34one, they're basically going to ban universal vote by mail so that it'll only be for certain
03:49people. And they're also going to require that the states clean the voter rolls and maintain
04:01the voter rolls every 30 days, ban ranked choice voting. And they're going to make sure that states
04:10have a paper trail on ballots. And they're going to criminalize ballot harvesting. So those are
04:17some of the major things that they're doing with that bill.
04:21If this bill gets passed, we could have honest elections, at least federal elections that were
04:27going to be honest. Am I getting that wrong?
04:29Yes, it would reduce the risk of fraud in elections by implementing those controls.
04:38In any system, to make it secure, you have to have controls. And the federal government has a set of
04:46IT controls called FIPS 200, Federal Information System Processing Standards.
04:52And so this is kind of like taking that methodology and applying it to election systems, which makes
05:00things more secure.
05:03So this is a monumental thing. And we believe it's got, it will get through, it will pass,
05:10because they've got at least, what, 50 votes already, 51 votes at least already in the Senate?
05:15They, I think they have sponsors. Yeah, for 50 plus one.
05:22So what plus one is J.D. Vance?
05:25Yes.
05:25So that one will pass in the Senate. How's it looking for the House? Do we know yet?
05:29I think it, I think it looks good in the House also. I'm not sure.
05:34This is going to be huge.
05:37Barry, thank you very much.
05:39Moving on. Don, your forecasts continue to be chillingly accurate. Over the next 10 days,
05:47do we have any relief in sight?
05:51Yes and no. We'll do the no part first.
05:55The next four to five days.
05:57If you're in Cabo, it doesn't matter, but go ahead.
05:59Yeah. It depends on where you are. If you're in San Diego, you're loving life. If you're in
06:05Charlotte, North Carolina, not so much. We have another Arctic wave coming in this weekend.
06:12So for the second weekend in a row, weather's going to make headlines.
06:15We're going to have a really nasty storm. I'm going to call it a snow-a-cane for eastern North
06:20Carolina. 8 to 12 inches of snow, 60 mile per hour winds. It's going to snow all the way down to
06:27Atlanta. Tampa could have snow flurries. We have freeze warnings all the way into South Florida.
06:32Atlanta. So, you know, a monumental last couple of weeks in terms of winter weather. Now,
06:39after that, I do see a little bit of a moderation in temperatures and some relief.
06:44When you say after that, what kind of, what days?
06:48So after, towards the middle to the end of next week.
06:52Okay.
06:52Okay. There's going to be relief, but it's going to be slow. It's not going to be rapid. You know,
06:57a lot of the ice that accumulated last weekend and a lot of the snow that fell in the deep South
07:02really hasn't melted much because it has stayed so cold. So this is going to be a slow slog to get
07:08back. And some of the long range trends we're seeing for February looks like the opportunities
07:14for cold and snowy weather to continue. There's, there's going to be breaks. There will be some
07:21episodes where we'll have a little bit of a thaw, but I think the next five or six weeks,
07:27winter weather is still going to be very much a factor in North America and over in Europe as well.
07:33Well, you, you told us six, eight months ago, this was going to be a cold, snowy winter.
07:41And you were right. From a military operations perspective in Russia and Ukraine, what,
07:48what are the weather conditions like over there? Well, challenging. Uh, if, if you want to get
07:54assets in the air and have clear skies and good visibility for operations, we're not going to see
08:00that, uh, Iran in particular, uh, short term might have a day or two of good weather, but they're going
08:07to be seeing one system after another go across Iran. Uh, the weather has been very challenging in
08:12Ukraine. It's been very cold there this winter in, in, uh, Eastern Europe and Western Russia.
08:17So the weather is a factor there as well, and will be for the next couple of weeks.
08:23Okay. Now that the U S has a full compliment of Naval and other combat assets within striking
08:29distance of Iran, what I hear you saying is the weather may not be cooperative for us to do much.
08:35Yeah, I, I would bet that the, uh, the weather forecasters for the military, all branches are
08:42very busy right now trying to find opportunities, but it's going to be tough.
08:46They're going to need probably to do whatever they want to do a minimum of one day, maybe two.
08:53Does it look like they may get that within the next week or two?
08:57In the short term, in the next, if there's a window, it's going to be over the next four to
09:02five days. After that, it's going to be tough.
09:05Okay. Isaac, how has the winter, how has winter storm fern tightened U S trucking capacity
09:12and affected, uh, rejection rates this week?
09:16Yeah. The winter storm firm knocked out capacity in a major way, uh, last week. Uh, most markets
09:23across the United States hit a tender rejection level of 10 per north of 10%, uh, tender rejections
09:30measure the amount of contracted freights that carriers pass up on. They'll pass up on it,
09:36weather related safety related issues. And a lot of them pass on them to, to go and chase higher
09:43paying freight on the spot load boards. Um, again, north of 10% across almost every market in the,
09:49in the nation, some of the larger markets, Chicago, LA, Miami, um, actually hit north of 12%. Yes.
09:55Even Miami, uh, felt the effects of trucks not able to get into Florida. So, uh, big impact,
10:01uh, the entire industry's bracing for a 2026, which much with, with much less capacity, uh, than prior
10:09years. Okay. So with truck capacity already tightening heading into 20, 2020, we're in 2026,
10:16how sensitive is the system going to be to future weather shocks, uh, this year versus say last year?
10:24Yeah. There's not much slack left in the system. Um, any type of, uh, disruptions like weather,
10:30uh, major events, holidays, the industry this year will feel the impact of it. Shippers will feel the
10:35price pressure. Carriers will have the pricing advantage here. Um, people have, yeah, many carriers
10:42are very optimistic about 2026. In terms of profitability. In terms of profitability rates. Yeah,
10:47absolutely. Okay. Thank you, Isaac. Bob Janetsky, uh, what's happening? There's a new appointment
10:56to the fed. Can you tell us about that? Given more, uh, interestingly, uh, I've, I've got mixed
11:03feelings about this. I have a lot of, um, friends and people who I, I respect very much and they speak
11:11very highly of him. Uh, I have, I have a problem. Uh, he was the, he was on the federal reserve board
11:18back in 2008 serving. Uh, that was a time when the federal reserve made, I think this, the second
11:27of two terrible decisions. The most recent one of course was pouring money into the economy and seeing
11:33the worst inflation in 40 years. That was a bad decision. Uh, and I think everyone agrees and
11:39including Kevin Walsh agrees with that. The problem I have is back in 2008, the fed made the opposite
11:45mistake. They took 40% of the money out of the economy at a time when they felt the economy was
11:53weak and getting worse. And that just didn't make any sense to me. It ended up leading, I believe,
11:59the main factor that led to the great financial crisis. And he voted along with the rest of the fed
12:05members for all the moves that, uh, created that terrible situation. So I have doubts as to whether
12:12he really understands monetary policy. I have my own doubts and I would love to see some of the
12:19congressmen, uh, when, when he comes up for approval, ask him some questions about his tenure at the fed
12:25and highlight why he would be part of taking 40% of the money out of the system leading up to the
12:32financial crisis. I think it's a question that I would love to see answered. No one has answered it.
12:37What's the good part of his coming in? You said you had mixed feelings. What's the good part?
12:41Well, well, again, um, he's, he's been, he was right about the fed, uh, not pouring money into the
12:48system. He's right about the fed having a responsibility to have price stability. Uh, the
12:55questions is, does he know enough about the details of the money not to make a mistake, uh, in the
13:00opposite direction of unfortunately not putting enough money into the system. And I haven't seen
13:06any indication based on his previous tenure at the fed that he really understands money to any deep
13:13extent. Okay. Bob, we are on the cusp of military action against Iran. How did the, uh, stock markets
13:20react? How did the markets react? The market I think is getting used to major events. The Venezuela
13:28thing was the, uh, a major event when we took Maduro out. Uh, it was a question of whether we were going
13:36to go in there and fight a war. And the answer was no, we're not. We're going to be a little more
13:42precise in terms of taking any military action or any action against our adversaries. And I think the
13:49markets are pretty much braced for the fact that, yeah, we will have a one day. If Trump acts,
13:55we'll have one day of, uh, confusion and then, uh, likely going to have success as we did in
14:03Venezuela. So there hasn't been a better factor for the market. I don't think it will be unless
14:07something were to go wrong terribly with that. On Wednesday, the S and P 500 broke 7,000
14:14because way cool. It's good. We've seen a sharp increase in commodities prices, particularly gold,
14:23silver, and oil. Is this temporary or would you think of it as being permanent?
14:27I expect it to be temporary, but it is disturbing. The increase in commodity prices wasn't just in
14:33gold and silver. It was right across the board. We had a nice, not a nice, but a very sharp increase
14:40in many raw commodity prices. And that's usually disturbing when you're trying to get inflation
14:46under control. Not usually. It is disturbing. Uh, I expect it's going to be temporary. Our forecast
14:52has been that we will have a continued gradual lowering of inflation this coming year, and that's
15:00going to bring interest rates down and the economy is going to do well. And certainly, uh, that blip in
15:06January with commodity prices soaring is not consistent with that forecast. So we'll have to
15:12see where we go from here. Okay. The Fed appears to have backed off, uh, from their monetary easing,
15:18but interest rates have barely moved. The 30-year fixed rate home mortgage is still at 6.1%, up only
15:26one hundredth of a percent, uh, from a percentage point from last week. And the 10-year treasury is at
15:334.23%, at least it was closed that way. Yeah. Long-term interest rates, uh, are really a reflection
15:39of whether financial markets are confident that we're going to get inflation rates down. And the,
15:47the, the financial markets are just not as confident today. And the reason they're not as
15:52confident is, first of all, you have President Bush, uh, President Trump talking about the Fed should
15:59lower interest rates dramatically and appointing people to the Fed who wanted to do that. That
16:05makes financial markets nervous because lowering interest rates in the short-term area by putting
16:11more money into the system would actually raise interest rates in the long-term area because of
16:17the fears of future inflation. What has to happen is we have to convince the financial markets that the
16:24Fed is going to do the right thing to get inflation down. And the first right thing is not to pour money
16:30into this economy if you continue to have people concerned over inflation. It's to be relatively
16:37restrictive, uh, but not overly restrictive. It's a tightrope that they have to walk. And my guess is
16:43that the Fed is going to move, walk that tightrope pretty, pretty effectively. Um, we have one thing,
16:51weird thing happening. It's kind of technical at this time, even though the Fed is not purchasing
16:57securities anymore, they're not pouring money into the system. The banks, which hold about $3 trillion
17:04in deposits to the Fed have been reducing those deposits and putting that money into the economy.
17:13So that's increasing the effect of money supply. Yeah. We've had an increase in the supply of money,
17:18not because the Fed has done anything great, but because these banks have done something great.
17:23And I have more faith in the banks making the right decision here than I do in the Fed making
17:28the right decision. So from the time being, I'm still optimistic that things are going to turn out
17:33really well. So what is your stock model? What is your stock market model, Shell? It is still, um,
17:40um, a bias to the upside. It says that we are still in a rising market, um, but it's only slightly
17:48bullish. Uh, we, it wouldn't take much because we have three months of flat market, pretty flat. I know
17:56it's hitting new highs, but when you look at it, there's hardly any sort of up, upturn pressure in
18:01the market. And that makes me worried. Also, the market is overvalued, just like I think it is in gold
18:07and silver. I think it's really significantly overvalued. So when that happens, you don't need
18:13much of a downturn in stock prices to start momentum in a negative direction. So people still have to be
18:20very cautious. Uh, I'm, I'm still holding onto my stocks at this point, but I'm cautious about the
18:28potential for things to go in the opposite direction. So, uh, what I've done is certainly not
18:34buying any new stocks. Um, but I would also, uh, look at really weak performance in some stocks to
18:42get rid of them and not to just hold onto them as that weakness continues. Okay. Uh, Barry,
18:50we're going to roll out our normal, uh, session ending question each week. Are you optimistic about
18:57the future of our country? Uh, yes, I am. How optimistic are you? I think that, um, laws are
19:07being put in place to increase the security and lower the risk of elections and things like that.
19:15Um, I, I think, uh, a lot of the economic things going on in the background are going to come to
19:24fruition and, uh, uh, there's probably going to be a lot more going on, you know, with the economy.
19:32I don't see it slowing down. Uh, American Express just, uh, announced a huge increase in spending on
19:40certain types of goods, you know, uh, from, from their operations. So, um, yeah, I'm, and the other
19:50thing, I think more people are, um, turning to the news and, and analyzing it and, uh, you know,
19:59uh, using logic, uh, and going a little deeper into the news than they have before.
20:06I tend to, I, I, I actually agree with that. I also might point out that the SAVE Act, which looks
20:12like it's going to get passed, we had forecast that being passed in either 25 or 26, but that was
20:19back in November of 2024. Don, are you optimistic about the economy or do you see any pessimism out
20:28there, weather-wise, economically, whatever? Well, yeah, we're always going to have challenges,
20:34but I, I remain optimistic. Isaac, and you? Well, today's pretty cloudy, single digit, so it's
20:42definitely cold outside, but I see sunny days ahead. So definitely very optimistic. Fair enough.
20:47And Bob. Yeah, there will, there will always be setbacks. We'll never have things occurring
20:53exactly like we would have them. But when I look at the overall picture, when I look at the money
20:59supply, when I look at the change in policies that have gone into effect, I continue to expect
21:05very positive momentum to build this year on the changes that were made last year. So I'm very
21:12optimistic. Well, I am equally optimistic, particularly what I see on how the election
21:19systems are getting cleaned up. I think we are heading into a golden age. I think Trump is right
21:26in that respect. And with that, I want to wish, say thank you to everybody. Thank you, Barry, for your
21:31very timely report. We're going to cover that subject about election reform again shortly. So be safe,
21:39stay warm, and God bless America.
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