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00:09Welcome to the Myers Report Fast 15. It is Friday, March 20th. With us today we have Don Day,
00:17our ever-dependable climate and weatherman. Our logistics guru Isaac Issa is vacationing today,
00:25but will return next week. And we have the ever-faithful, the ever-reliable Dr. Robert
00:32Janetsky, our chief economist. On a first note, we will be one of optimism about getting the SAVE Act
00:41passed. As a special guest today, we have Barry Chapman, who is part of our Myers Report team.
00:48He is also part of the Election Integrity Network. He is going to give us an update on the Senate's
00:54work for getting this bill passed from his briefing, which was 30 minutes ago. Barry,
01:00what's happening? How does it look? Well, it looks like the U.S. Senate is locked in for the entire
01:07weekend, and they're refusing to recess because of the top priority for the SAVE Act. It seems to be
01:17an 80-20 issue with most voters across all political parties. It varies from 70 to 90. And
01:29the senators' offices have been getting an immense number of calls to the point where when you try to
01:36call the office, you might have to try four to five times just to get to their voicemail.
01:41So the bill demands proof of citizenship in order to register for federal elections,
01:47and it requires a photo ID to vote. And these are safeguards to ensure that only American citizens
01:55vote in elections. So Senator Mike Lee's taking the charge to the floor.
02:03He's comparing the black selection rules to selling alcohol to minors without checking ID. And so the
02:12Democrats are afraid that the voter ID would actually impact people that don't have ID or have a hard time
02:25getting ID to vote. So there's going to be a lot of discussion back and forth. But what this
02:32is going to do is to require both Democrats and Republicans to actually debate this, which is a great
02:42thing. It's what the Senate was designed to do.
02:46Barry, how often does the Senate actually debate something on the open floor?
02:52Rare.
02:53Rare. This is a rare incidence. And so they're kind of jumping in. They're going to try to jump in
03:04to advance
03:05the bill and also Senator Mark Wayne Mullen's nomination. So there's a big grassroots effort has been
03:15calling in on this. And I think that's actually been the reason for Senator Thune's actually, you know,
03:24taking it to vote, getting it on the floor, getting the debate up, things like that, so that the U
03:30.S.
03:30citizens have expressed their concerns and the Senate has listened to them.
03:39That's neat. You know, one of the things that we also hear is that foreign, illegal aliens voting is
03:46not a big deal. Maybe it's 20, 30, or a couple of hundred. But the issue isn't, well, it may,
03:52well,
03:53even those numbers may seem small. There's also the issue of concentration. And particularly in a local
03:59election where the vote may be decided by one or two votes. So it is an important issue.
04:10Yes. And it's not just that, but the fact that if you have thousands of voters registered that may
04:16not vote or may be afraid to vote because they may be breaking the law, it creates a threat vector
04:24that allows bad actors to use those registrations to vote on their behalf. And that's a, that's a big
04:33issue that can number in the thousands if that happens. Okay. As a quick summary or quick question,
04:43do you think the SAVE Act is going to be passed? Yes. I think it's too much. There's just too
04:51much
04:52support overall on both sides for this among the citizens of the U.S.
05:00Okay. Thank you, Barry. Don Day, important question. When is your next balloon assignment?
05:07So in the month of May, I'm going to be trying to help two gentlemen fly from Maine to mainland
05:15Europe in a balloon across the ocean. Are you going with them?
05:21No, I have to stay on the ground to make sure that they don't go splash.
05:26That's a pretty dangerous thing that they're doing, isn't it?
05:28Yeah. In an open wicker basket. There'll be actually right now, two U.S. gentlemen,
05:36balloonists, and one young balloonist from England who will be doing the crossing.
05:43Geez. Can you give us an update and maybe they could set with, uh, how long is it going to
05:47take?
05:48Probably five or six days, you know, and that's my job is to get them across as quickly as possible
05:54and as safely as possible. Um, you know, this has been done before, uh, but they are open wicker
06:01basket. Yeah. Colonel Joe Kittinger did it, uh, back in the, in the late eighties, I think was able to
06:08do
06:08it. So it hasn't been done by many people in an open basket before. Isn't it cold up there?
06:13Yeah. They'll be flying between 10 and at times up to 15 or 16,000 feet.
06:18No, I meant, but it's cold. Yeah, it is cold. Yes. But it's not as cold in May as it
06:24is now,
06:24or even January or February. So that's why they're, that's why we're going to do it when spring starts.
06:29And we get some live video from them. Uh, they're, they're going to have Starlink.
06:33So the, so the opportunity to talk to them and get video is there.
06:38So let's do it. Okay. You called the cold weather snap and it appears to be over. Uh,
06:46what's next for the U S the whole lower 48 is going to really warm up. There's
06:51record breaking heat out West right now. We're breaking records all over the place in Arizona
06:57and California and the Rockies with, uh, 110 yesterday in parts of Southern Arizona. Uh,
07:04and this warmth is going to spread bringing relief from, you know, just, you know, we, when we talked
07:09a week ago, you know, we were talking about the big snow and miss, you know, parts of upper Michigan
07:14got 52 inches of snow, uh, last, last Friday. And now we're talking about, you know, sixties and
07:21seventies, uh, coming back on in, I guess it's springtime. Um, but you know, are we done with
07:27snow and cold for parts of the U S no, uh, we'll probably have some cold weather in early April
07:33coming, but at least here over the next week, it's going to be a pretty quiet pattern across
07:38the nation. Really. There's not a lot happening. And how's it looking for Russia and Ukraine?
07:44Not much weather at all over there. Uh, the weather's going to be pretty nice. No big storms,
07:49uh, over in Iran early next week, we're going to have some rain and thunderstorms, uh, in
07:54western areas of Iran, including the Strait of Hormuz. So there is going to be some, some
07:59weather there. It might, I might point out, as I like to point out, uh, the forecast for
08:06the general weather conditions for this winter, uh, uh, Don has called that. He, he basically
08:13forecast this almost nine months ago. Okay. Uh, moving on Dr. Bob. Yes. How is the market
08:25reactive? One second. I've messed this up. Uh, the Iran war has pushed, uh, WT prices up briefly
08:34to 120, but now they appear to be back down into the mid nineties. Uh, how is the stock markets
08:41reacting? Uh, it's reacting by going down the, uh, we have now had off the peaks, uh, decline
08:50in the S and P 500 of roughly six or 7% and the other markets are down as much
08:57as 10%. So
08:59the markets have reacted negatively. What is happening is we're sorry. Is this a buying opportunity?
09:05Um, I would not say just yet. I think it's going to be a buying opportunity. I think this
09:11is all temporary. It's all tied to the war. And once the U S gets control of Iran, uh,
09:18things are going to be fine. But the key event that has not happened yet is the U S to
09:23get
09:23control of Iran. Iran has still been able to create a great deal of disturbance. They are
09:29like a, uh, cornered animal. They are just trying to do anything they can to destroy, uh, the, uh,
09:38gas and oil infrastructure. They're sending bombs and missiles to their neighbors and trying
09:45to destroy their refining capacity, trying to destroy their oil fields. And so the question
09:51is, how long is this going to last and how effective is it going to be? So far, it's been
09:56very effective in sending the oil prices up there. Uh, what I look at is not the West international,
10:03uh, West Texas international crude price, but there's another index. It's called USO that takes
10:10into account the futures markets as well. And the near term futures markets and that figure jumped
10:17to 120 a couple of days ago. And it's just about the 120 area. It's fluctuated up and down,
10:23but not by much. And that indicates that, uh, there is a great deal of concern out there among
10:29investors, among oil people, that this oil price could be a heck of a lot higher than what we're
10:35currently looking at in terms of the nineties. And that would, uh, disrupt economic activity,
10:41not as much here in the United States, Gary, I think, as it would in the rest of the world.
10:47So we have a, uh, potential global issue that's coming up here that could slow
10:52economic activity outside of the U S a great deal more than in the U S.
10:58But Bob, despite the war, the 30 and 15 year home mortgage rates are at, uh, basically 6.22
11:07and the 15 years at 5.52, uh, respectively. These are historically, these are still low rates.
11:16They're low rates, but, uh, Gary, uh, I'm concerned that they may go up further. Uh,
11:22we have to get control of Iran. Uh, when you think about it, uh, Iran is still creating chaos
11:29in the middle East. It's still able to fire missiles over to Israel. Uh, they're not all
11:35getting through, but when they get through, they do some damage, but more importantly than that,
11:40it's basically targeting oil and gas resources in their neighboring countries.
11:44And to the extent that it's effective in getting them out, they can do a great deal of damage.
11:49The only thing I would like to people to have to think about is what would have happened with a
11:55country like this, if Iran had gotten the nuclear weapon, I mean, given its behavior, they basically
12:02would have gone out and done whatever they could to destroy anything in the middle East.
12:08Well, when someone is, when their whole raison d'etre is death to America, I believe them.
12:13Yeah. And they wouldn't come after us too.
12:16They didn't need, they don't need, uh, an ICBM. They could, if they have nuclear weapons,
12:23they could build them into a suitcase and smuggle them here. They wanted to kill us.
12:28Yeah. And this is, this is not Trump's war. This is hopefully he's ending a war that began 47 years
12:35ago. And, and, and we'll end the U S military. I think we have had, had an awful lot of,
12:40uh, faith
12:41in they've been able to accomplish things before they, they adjust their, uh, procedure. It's just
12:47going to take longer than we thought, but there's no question in my mind that, uh, they will subdue
12:53Iran. And the unfortunate thing is because Iran has acted in the way that it's acted in terms of
12:59creating so much damage, uh, that the real loss here is going to be to Iran itself and its resources.
13:08It's going, they're going to be lost and out of commission for a long time to come.
13:13Hey, Bob, I noticed that gold and silver prices are way down. Um, you know, a lot of times in
13:20a
13:20international conflicts like this, it goes the other way. So is it because they were over overpriced
13:26and they're just coming back? I think so. I think so. I, as a matter of fact, what I have
13:31done
13:31historically, and I have to admit, it hasn't worked out very well is I look, I look at gold.
13:37Nobody's perfect. I look at gold prices relative to all other commodity prices. And over time,
13:43if you do that historically, the price of gold today, if it just was in line with all other
13:49commodity prices should have been something like $1,200, not $5,000. So gold, from my perspective,
13:57has been significantly overvalued for a long period of time. And when that happens, an awful lot of
14:03people get caught up in the euphoria and end up losing a lot of money. Okay. Uh, Bob, despite all
14:12the war and everything else going on, how do the other economic indicators look for the US?
14:17They look good. Uh, now again, we don't have much in the way of indicators since the war started. It
14:23only was three weeks ago that we started to see the bombing of, uh, Iran. Up to that point, we're
14:30seeing really good numbers on the economy. We're seeing real strength in terms of new orders for
14:36things. So the US businesses are picking up. Now that may slow a little because of the oil prices,
14:43depending upon how long they're up there, but basically beneath the surface, prior to the war,
14:48things were great. We're going to start to get some, uh, post-war numbers in terms of business
14:54surveys this coming week. And we'll be able to see if any of that war activity has affected the
14:59economy. I don't think it's going to affect the economy. I don't think we're going into a recession.
15:04I think the US is going to end up, um, coming out of this stronger than just about any other
15:10area in the world. In a word, are you still forecasting that this is going to be a good
15:16year for stocks by the end of the year? I am. Okay. With that being said, our final question of
15:23the day, Barry, Barry Chapman, are you optimistic or pessimistic about the future of our country going
15:30forward? Optimistic. And I think because of the huge influx of cash into building infrastructure
15:40to get around tariffs, um, you know, and, and the, uh, the business, uh, investment in the country
15:50is going to create, uh, jobs and fuel the economy. Don Day, are you still optimistic?
15:58Optimistic. Yeah, I still remain the, uh, the level of optimism that I've had here for quite a while.
16:04Um, just got to be able to get through all these ups and downs.
16:09Bob Janetsky. Of course, still optimistic. Okay. Have a nice weekend. Thank you, everybody.
16:16Barry, thank you for the update. Stay well, be safe, and God bless America.
16:30Okay.
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