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00:09Good morning. Welcome to the Myers Report Fast 15. It is Friday the 13th of February. It's
00:172026. Friday the 13th. Very interesting. With us today we have Don Day, our everywhere super
00:27weather and climate guy. In for our traveling trucker, Isaac Issa, we have Linda Sinkowitz.
00:35Linda is the CEO of Fight Voter Fraud, Inc., a national organization working for clean elections.
00:44She is, as I said, the CEO. We also have with us, as usual, Dr. Robert Janetsky, our economist who
00:52simply gets it right again and again and again. Don, more than six months ago, you told us this
00:59year was going to be cold, snowy, and that there would be price spikes and fuel shortages here and
01:05in Europe. As you forecast, heating costs have skyrocketed. According to the Midland Reporter
01:14telegram out of Oklahoma or Texas, gas prices in January rose 81% over December of 2025. That's in
01:30one month. It's just as bad or worse, it seems, in February. One of our Highland Park homeowners just
01:37saw his gas bill, which was ranging from January 10th through February 10th, hit $650 when the normal
01:46winter cost is $175 to $225 for the same period. Wow. I mean, you got that one really right,
01:57unfortunately. Okay, so weather. What can we expect for Ukraine and Russia? What is the forecast for
02:04those poor people over there? Well, Europe is going to undergo another cold snap here in the next week
02:12or two, and it's going to get all of Europe. Western Europe has been able to escape some of the
02:17cold
02:18recently. It's been focused in Eastern Europe, Ukraine, those areas, but this will be a little
02:23bit more widespread, you know, and I'm looking at the EU. If you take all the EU countries, they're down
02:29to 35% of their reserves of natural gas. Nine EU countries, get this, are less than 19% of
02:37their
02:37natural gas reserves. So with some cold weeks in February here to come, they're going to be taking
02:44these numbers very, very low. I don't think they're going to run out, but again, this is driving energy
02:50prices in Europe through the roof as well. So as long as there's this reliance, heavy grid reliance on wind,
02:58when we have these cold snaps, they've got to bring in natural gas, and that spikes the prices.
03:03This is from countries like Germany that are closing down their nuclear power plants,
03:09and now they're desperate in reopening coal-fired power plants. Yeah, and they're down to 25%,
03:1425% of reserves. So you can't, I mean, the insanity of not only just decommissioning some of the nuclear
03:23power plants in Europe, but destroying them, like leveling them to the ground is just unthinkable
03:29that they would do something like that, but they did.
03:33Okay, Iran is still a question mark as we move more naval assets into the area.
03:39What are the weather conditions over there for combat?
03:42Well, the weather's getting better, better if you are a military planner. While there is going to be
03:50some occasional precipitation and some unsettled weather in Iran at times, it's been a pretty
03:57stormy period over the last two or three weeks, but that's going to ease some. There'll be some
04:01weather, but it does look better.
04:02You did tell us that there was going to be 10 days of bad weather when military activity would be
04:08a
04:08problem. Don, you gave us a few days of warmer weather in the U.S. Will it last?
04:14It will for the central and the east. We're going to see stormy weather more in the western United
04:19States. And when it's stormy in the west, that usually brings milder temperatures to the east and
04:25midwest. So while I still expect plenty of winter to occur, we've got another week of temperatures
04:31remaining a lot more moderate.
04:33Okay. California has a climate problem called Gavin Newsom. He created water shortages. He created
04:41fires with empty hydrants, power outages, and now fuel shortages. California needs water. Is there any
04:49help coming from the sky?
04:51There is. In fact, California here over the next couple of weeks is going to get very good rain,
04:56very good mountain snow, and that will help. Their snowpack has suffered a little bit here over the
05:01last month or so. So things are looking a little bit better there. California's water problems can't
05:06go away with one good year or even two or three good years. There's structural problems with water
05:13in the west, and California is at the tip of the spear.
05:17Don, I have to leave Cabo to go to Chicago. Am I going to be enjoying some of that warmer
05:23weather?
05:24Yeah, you will. But as we get deeper into February here heading to the second half, heading towards
05:30March, you know, we all know about what March can bring. I'll make my plans accordingly.
05:36Yes, sir. Thank you. Linda, Linda Sinkwitz, welcome.
05:42Thank you for having me.
05:43Well, we are hearing a lot about the SAVE Act getting passed by the House. Can you tell us what
05:50the SAVE America Act is, and what are its chances with the Senate?
05:55Okay, so the SAVE America Act, Trump just renamed it from that, and that actually stands for
06:03Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act. All right, so it passed 218 to, I believe, 213
06:12in the House with all the Republicans voting yes, and there was one Democrat from Texas,
06:19Henry Kular, who also voted with the Republicans. The problem we have is going to be in the Senate.
06:26You have Murkowski out of Alaska, who is an absolute no. You have Susan Collins out of Maine,
06:37again, that is a no. You've got Senator Mitch McConnell, who has issues with it,
06:44and Senator Thoom said, you know, we're going to have a robust discussion about this,
06:50but he does not believe that they will do away with the filibuster, needing the 60 votes.
06:59So this is a huge problem, because we need to get this passed.
07:05I don't understand this. This is all about showing photo ID in order to vote and to register,
07:13and proof that you're a citizen. And virtually every state in the union says that you have to
07:20be a citizen in order to vote, but only a few states will do anything about proving it.
07:26Right. And not only that, I got to tell you, it is so hypocritical, because our legislators,
07:34when they vote, there's a system where they have to put their photo ID into the system
07:41before they can actually make a vote, because they want to make sure it's accurate and it's
07:48that person's vote. I mean, you can't make this stuff up on why they are so against having the
07:58voter ID and proving that you're a U.S. citizen. And I read through the 32-page document for this
08:07that the House has forwarded along to the Senate, and it's not complicated. Again, it's just voter
08:14ID proving you're a U.S. photo. It's got to be a photo. And they give the different things that
08:20you need to have, that you're a U.S. citizen. And it also did put something in there concerning
08:26election officials that if they don't verify, they could be ones in trouble. And they have to
08:34actually write down how they verified a person's identity. And it has to have an expiration date on
08:40it as well as a photo. It's ridiculous. It is so ridiculous when, what, 90-something percent of
08:48Republicans across the country want voter ID and only U.S. citizens. It's not just 90 percent of
08:55Republicans. And 80-something percent of Democrats. Of everybody, yes. Linda, do you think it's going to
09:03get passed? No. No. I don't know what we can do to make it get passed when you have Schumer
09:14with all
09:14his lies out there and calling it, you know, the Jim Crow 2, which is totally ridiculous, by the way.
09:22Yeah, you got all that rhetoric out there. So, I don't know. The Jim Crow laws were laws by the
09:28Democrat Party put in place. Thank you, Linda. Thank you. Bob, the stock market keeps on rolling.
09:36Is this going to continue between now and the end of the year?
09:41I think it's going to continue, but not just yet. We have a short-term model, which is based strictly
09:48on the momentum in the market, because momentum can play a big role in the future. And right now,
09:56our model is saying that it's most likely that we're going to continue to see the markets in the
10:02current range that they've been for the past two or three months. That is, they'll go up, they'll go
10:08down, but we won't have a suspended sharp increase or decrease. Now, what are the odds? The odds on the
10:15model are about 60 percent. So, nothing is definitive. We just have to continue to watch day by day. But
10:23as of
10:23now, we're getting a very neutral meeting, which means that there's only maybe a 20 percent chance
10:29that we could break out on the upside and another 20 percent chance that we could break out on the
10:35downside. So, the odds for up or down are pretty even and relatively low at the current time.
10:42Okay. Are the markets reacting at all to the new Fed share coming in in May?
10:46Not really. It seems to be a non-event to the markets. And that's true with respect to
10:52both the interest rates and the stock market. The interest rates, the good news is we've just got
10:58some good numbers on inflation. The inflation rate continues to come down, not quite at 2 percent yet,
11:05but it looks like it's somewhere in the vicinity of 2.5 percent instead of 3 percent, which is where
11:12it was. It's been coming down gradually. We're going to have some problems in the next couple
11:17of months because the cold weather sent oil prices, gas prices soaring, as you appropriately
11:24mentioned. And that's going to hit the inflation numbers in January, perhaps February. And by March
11:33or April, we'll start to see that weather out when Don's weather finally starts to heat up. But a
11:40couple of bad months on inflation, again, up and down. But eventually, as we go through the rest of
11:48the year, our expectation continues to be that this long-term inflation rate is going to be coming down
11:54toward the 2 percent vicinity, which is good news. And if they come down, then if the inflation comes
12:00down, the interest rate should follow. What are you laughing at?
12:03I'm laughing at Don Day's dog, who is very affectionate. It's a beautiful dog.
12:13We should give the dog's opinion, too, on this.
12:16Yes. The jobs report looks pretty good. How good are they and what do they mean, Bob?
12:24The job report was like spectacular. All of a sudden, we went from no jobs growth, which gives
12:32you an idea of how wrong these data can be, to explosive job growth with 100,000 coming in each
12:39month, maybe even more than that. Some of the figures said half a million jobs created in January.
12:45There are lots of different job figures, but not all of them. One, which has been a more reliable one,
12:52showed only 22,000 jobs. That's really weak in terms of job growth. So we've got a lot of mixed
12:59data. We expect that on balance, the job data are solid, but there's going to have to be some
13:08confirmation of that. It's not just one number or a group of numbers. We have to start seeing
13:14increases in spending, increases in incomes, increases in wages. And we've seen a sample of
13:22that in January, but it's got to continue in February and March.
13:25December retail sales came in lower than most expected, though we had forecast that as a real
13:35possibility here.
13:36Okay. I do not have a whole lot of faith in the retail sales numbers. I've seen revisions there
13:43that have sent the early numbers in an exact opposite direction. So I don't put much value
13:49in those numbers. But the good numbers, hopefully, were the employment numbers. And we expect to see
13:57those good numbers confirmed in the months ahead.
14:00Okay. Mortgage rates continue to decline slightly. The 30-year fixed, according to Freddie Mac,
14:06is at 6.09%. And the 15-year fixed is at 5.44%. Historically, these are low rates, even if
14:15they
14:15seem higher or are higher than what they were a few years ago. How do you think this is going
14:21to impact
14:21the home buying market in 2026?
14:26Well, the key is going to be the inflation rate. This morning, we saw those rates come down even
14:32further. So you should see, we've seen the key government rates come down further. And the mortgage
14:37rates are tied to that. So in another week, we should see the mortgage rates coming down even more
14:43by a tenth of a percent or maybe more to 6% or even just below 6%. However, if we're
14:51right on the
14:51inflation picking up because of the weather-related things, then we could see those rates tip up again.
14:58The weather should only push the inflation rates up temporarily.
15:02Yeah, for one or two months. But that should also affect the long-term interest rates. I know it
15:09seems strange. You would think people would look through this, but they don't. They don't look at
15:14the overall downward trend. They get very excited when they see more of a downward trend in inflation.
15:21And then they get concerned, even if it goes up for a month or two. And usually,
15:25the interest rates will follow that concern. The key is, where are we heading as we go out through
15:30the spring and summer and into the fall? And I continue to believe that we are heading in a
15:36direction that we're going to have strong growth, but not a lot of inflation. And both the inflation
15:42and interest rates will come down. So far, we've had that forecast has been pretty good.
15:48The job figures indicate that it may continue to be good, but we just have to wait each month and
15:55see more and more confirmation. Okay. Linda, our normal question at the end of each of these sessions is,
16:03are you optimistic or pessimistic about the country, the economy, and in this particular case,
16:10the SAVE Act? Okay. Well, first of all, I hope I'm wrong about the SAVE Act at this point not
16:16passing.
16:18But I am optimistic that we can pull through all of this mess. I know we can.
16:26Okay. Bob, are you optimistic? Are you remaining optimistic or do you see anything negative on the horizon?
16:32No. All the data that I'm looking at on balance tell me that we're going to continue to have
16:39good, strong growth and lower inflation. So I'm optimistic.
16:43And you don't see any market crashes coming this year?
16:46No.
16:47Okay. Don Day, two things. First off, are you optimistic or pessimistic about what you're seeing?
16:54I'm generally remaining optimistic.
16:56Okay. And the next thing is, bring your dog on whenever you want. Be adorable.
17:02He would like that.
17:04Okay. Have a good weekend. Be well, everyone. Stay safe. And God bless America.
17:26God bless America.
17:27God bless America.
17:29God bless America.
17:32God bless America.
17:33God bless America.
17:33God bless America.
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