Showdown
Showdown Episode 36 4-8-24
(upbeat music) - Welcome to Showdown, I'm Mark Casein. And it is Monday and that's the 8th of April. And most importantly, well, I don't know which is most important. Most importantly maybe is that the country is in the grip of Eclipse Mania. And I actually had a picture for you that was gonna send to Joe, but hey, maybe tomorrow. Anyway, that's not the most important, but that's sort of where everybody is leading off the day, so why not? Let's just all be insane. And now, speaking of insane, this is what's really happening today, and that is that Donald is suing his judge in the upcoming case. He's also suing his partners in true social. In fact, he's suing everybody that he can find, anybody that he sees, he says hi, I'm suing you. So, and that's what he's done all his life, so no big deal there. Hold on, Joe, are you looking for me? - Yeah, I was just sending you a message. I think I might have the picture that you need. (laughing) - But it's not a picture of me. - No, no, no, I got one with me with the glasses on, so. - Oh, okay, I might have it. - Yeah, and on top of that, I have been told that the glasses that I was wearing were actually part of a recall. Just, you know, people being crazy. - Was it showing you this? Is this what you saw when you looked at it? (laughing) - That too, that too, yeah, absolutely. Unbelievable. Well, I'll have to get your mind tomorrow. We'll get it up there and see who looks better. So, we'll check that out. Anyway, yeah, Donald's suing everybody inside. He's suing his partners. He's suing the judge in New York. In fact, he's suing the judge in New York on the basis that he would like to see the case halted. I mean, forever, yeah, just halted. And if it ever starts up again, he would like it to start up in Australia. Or New Zealand, he'll take either one of those. You could put it either place. Get a jury in those places, although I hate to tell you, around the world, they don't like this guy. So, I think he may find that trying to find a corner of the planet won't solve his problems unless possibly he can find some guards at the Arctic Circle in Siberia. I'm sure that Vladimir will help Donald to work that one out and perhaps that'll save him. But actually, nothing's gonna save him. And one week from now, the case begins. April the 15th, we are going to see the beginning of what we call voir dire, which of course, is picking the jury. And there's no question, like Donald says, it's gonna be a little difficult to find a jury that doesn't know what's going on. But then again, where does he think the publicity comes from? He's the one screaming his guts out day after day about how mistreated he is, what a victim he is and all of his accusations, which by the way, are rapidly becoming a problem for him in terms of a gag order, which it allows him to attack the judge and it allows him to attack the prosecutor, but that's it. He can't go any further than that. He can't attack the judge's family. He can't attack the prosecutor's family. Can't attack the jurors. Gee, isn't that a shame? I mean, you can't just attack people. He's very angry about this and he thinks that he's just being wildly mistreated and he's now in front of a judge who he is hoping will be somewhat like a lean cannon in Florida who goes along with everything that he says, every last thing. And if you don't believe that, just take the last decision that she came up with, which was, I'm not going to end the trial here, Donald. We're not going to dismiss this. What we're going to do is we're going to move forward and we're going to get into the phase of the trial where we impanel the jury. And then bring me your dismissal suggestion at that point and we'll see what we can come up with because of course at that point, you've got double jeopardy attaching, which means that you could dismiss it and everybody could walk away. And that of course is one of the worst cases that he's got because we all know that the evidence is the evidence, the paperwork is there. He's got it, all these documents that he stole. He says that he has a right to the documents, but he doesn't have a right to lie to the FBI. He doesn't have a right to lie to Congress. No, he can't do that. But of course in his theory of the case, he has such broad-based immunity that he can do anything. He can lie, he can kill, it doesn't matter. And they've already said that in one of the briefing sessions as we know in front of the Supreme Court. So don't even imagine that that's not true because he said it and it's on tape. Well, his lawyers said it and they said it for him and certainly he didn't dismiss those lawyers because they're doing exactly what he would like. And by the way, there is a group that stood up today to speak out against Donald Trump's immunity claims. And that happened to be a long list of generals. And these generals are of course military people who would never insert themselves into our democratic process. But at this point, they say they have no choice. They must. And they feel that they must in order to protect our democracy that they have to explain what the consequences would be of putting Donald Trump back in office. Because Donald wants to say that he can tell the military to do anything and he must be obeyed. He's the dictator. Well, these generals are all saying very explicitly. If you allow Donald to have this position, he will order them to do things that will require them to stand up against the president in order to protect the democratic processes of the United States. Now, they're just saying, look, it's a bad idea and they're asking the justices, is this what you want? Is this the battle that you would like to see? Or do you want to stop this nonsense right here where it belongs to be stopped? So that's going on right now in front of the Supreme Court. The actual oral arguments will be heard on April the 25th. So first of all, we get the Manhattan case on April the 15th, where we begin the jury process. Then 10 days later, we're going to hear the immunity case argued in front of the justices. So that's on the 25th, 10 days after the New York case gets underway. And in the meantime, Donald is desperately, and I mean desperate, desperately doing everything he can to stop this case from going forward. And in fact, as we're sitting here on the air right now, Donald has his lawyers in front of an appeals court judge in New York attempting to get that judge to block this case, to protect Donald and to allow an unlimited period during which there either would be no trial waiting for it to resume, or simply no more trial at all. He'll take that too, that he'll go for that one. He'll go for anything that can be done to stop a jury from hearing the things that he did with regard to Stormy Daniels, with regard to this McDougall lady, how he wrote the checks, how he ordered his fixer, Michael Cohen, to follow up on all of his ideas for blocking this information from ever being heard by the voters, which by the way, is the entire case in Manhattan. This is not a case about who Donald Trump had sex with. This is a case of Donald Trump attempting to block the voters in order for Donald Trump to interfere with the election in order to be sure that they would not be aware of his transgressions and not just transgressions with regard to his family. That's something anybody gonna have to think about and decide what you believe and where your morality is. That's one part of it. But the other part is this whole question of whether Donald Trump has the right to play with his books, to fake his books at his company in order to hide the money that he is transferring so that he can affect the election for the president of the United States. And clearly, this is serious business. You'll possibly remember that messing with the books is just a misdemeanor, but messing with the books to interfere with the election turns that misdemeanor into a felony and there are 31 counts. So you can be assured of one thing. Donald's got a trial coming, but it's extremely dangerous. Now, is it as bad as stealing nuclear secrets and turning them over to the Russians? No, that wouldn't, that would be worse. And of course, Donald would say, well, I haven't turned them over to the Russians yet. No, he certainly has not, but he definitely was hiding the information and he was definitely showing those documents to people who he told, I shouldn't be showing these to you. So, we know an awful lot about what's going on here from tape, from Donald's own confessions. You know, Donald confesses almost every time he speaks. And I guess that's one of the reasons he's so afraid of this case, because this case has documents, this case has witnesses, in this case has Donald Trump confessing, confessing to his own crimes. So, when the jury hears all of this, they're gonna be hard pressed to do anything, except for come after Donald Trump with what they've got, which is a vote that you're guilty. So, we'll see, but I'm telling you too, if this thing starts on April 15th and I'm sure it will, if it starts on the 15th, it's probably gonna be over by July 1st. And that means if he's found guilty, there's gonna be a sentencing. So, you know, we could have a sentencing that places Donald Trump on the way to jail by July 1st of this year. It's not too far away, it's a couple of months. We are rapidly moving down the line, and that's why Donald is desperately, right now, as we sit here on the air, Donald Trump is desperately begging judges to stop the trial, to save him. That's what he's begging for. He's not going to get it. It's just not happening anywhere in the country, and it's not going to happen in New York State this afternoon. You know, there's some other things that are pretty interesting with regard to Donald and his inability to ever tell the truth. You will remember that just a few weeks ago, we were looking at this whole issue of a bond having to be posted for $500 million. That's in the wake of another bond for $5 million, which was covered, I'm sorry, 90 million, 90 million. Yeah, it would have been five, but unfortunately for Donald Trump, he got himself into more trouble because he couldn't close his mouth, and he had his lawyers doing things that no lawyer would have ever done, but at any event, so he ended up with 90 million, I forgot, sorry, just missed 85 million. Anyway, so he posted the 90 million, so then he's got to post 500 million, and he's running around the courts of New York saying, through his lawyers, I can't get this done, I don't have the money, and I don't have anybody after talking to 30 different companies that will post this bond. So what happens? There's an appeal in the state of New York, and the appeals court agrees to lower it, lower the deposit to 175 million from the original 500 million, so he puts up 175 million, and then the appeal moves forward, which means that the state of New York will at least get 175 million if it turns out that Donald's broke, and he probably is. However, lo and behold, what a surprise, because I said this at the time, and I'll tell you, I have never been wrong, not when I say that Donald Trump is lying, because he's always lying. If he speaks, he's lying, and he lied here, and now it's all coming out, and this bond, well, I don't know from a legal standpoint where it's going to end up, but I can tell you that Donald's got trouble, and his lawyers have potential trouble, because here's what's up. Apparently, this Don Hanky, who is the head of night specialty insurance, the group that put up the bond, the 175 million, Don Hanky said, well, I don't understand this whole thing, because I was ready to put up a bond for $500 million. I would have done the whole thing. Now, that's an interesting point, because if that's true, then Donald and his attorneys were lying to the court, and furthermore, Hanky afterwards, after all this got discussed, and after he realized that he shouldn't have admitted what he said, he sort of backed up and said, oh, I didn't exactly mean it that way. Nevertheless, he said it, he meant it, and all of this is going to be investigated. It's being looked at right now, because there are questions about this bond. And like I've said, I'm not the lawyer. I can't tell you the ins and outs of bonding in New York state, but I can tell you sort of the broad outlines of these issues, and one broad outline is that if you've told the judges that you can't get a bond, and you've talked to 30 different groups, and they've all said no, and then it turns out that you've got a guy who posts a bond for $175 million, which is a lower number after an appeal, after you have withheld the information from the court, which would have allowed them to hear the fact that Hanky and his night specialty insurance was prepared to write the bond. So once again, Donald has lied. Now, at the time, I was thinking, something like Vladimir Putin would give him the money, but as it turns out, it's a whole different story, but it never matters because when it comes to Donald, there's always something going on that is just horrible and is a complete affront to the justice system in the United States at the very moment when Donald is using our system to beg judges, please don't make me go to trial. Please don't do this to me. We'll see. It's always, we'll see, but I can tell you too, that I speak to so many of my friends and family and they all fear that Donald Trump will always get away with everything that he wants. And I just have to say, it's not true. He's not gonna always get away with these things. And one thing after another, point by point, he keeps getting shot down. And in the process of getting shot down, his rights are being protected. And by protecting his rights, when the eventual decision is made, no one will be able to say, well, poor Donald Trump has not received the protections that everybody in the United States is supposed to receive. See, that's really what he wants to say. That he's just not being protected, that everybody's out to get him and it's all coming down on his head unfairly. So you need to just stop it and let him go and forget his crimes. But you know, this time they're not gonna forget his crimes. And let me give you an example of how we know they're not going to forget his crimes. And this is aside from the fact, I mean, some people are gonna say, whatever happens to anybody else, don't worry because Donald J. Trump, they won't get him. But listen, they will. And here's an example, John Eastman. John Eastman is one of Trump's former attorneys who came up with some great theories for how to replace the real electors with fake electors and to have the Vice President of the United States, Mike Pence, stand up in front of Congress, refuse to certify the election and then turn it all over to these fake guys who would then vote for Donald Trump and end the entire discussion. And then we have a second term for the dictator. However, that is not what happened and instead what happened is that John Eastman ended up in front of a judge in a courtroom. And this was not a court where a judge simply said, "Eastman, you're a crook and we're gonna do something about it." That isn't what they did. Now, that has happened, by the way. I mean, appropriately so. I mean, a judge has a right to say what they think about a certain case in some situations. The judge can actually decide a case because it's put before a judge and not a jury. But in this case, it went to a jury. In the trial in front of this jury lasted for 34 days. This was not a trumped up charge. This was not a fake case. This was a serious case that sat for 34 days in front of a jury. And in the end, the jury found Eastman guilty. Now, somebody may wanna complain because this is a situation where they were finding this guy guilty of actions that will get him disbarred and instead of being a criminal standard for the jury, the jury's standard of evidence was not the simple one. This was not a preponderance of evidence where 51% chance that he did it is good enough. It wasn't that. It was clear and convincing evidence that he was guilty. Clear and convincing evidence that he was guilty of conspiring against the United States government with Donald Trump. So this wasn't just against John Eastman. This was against John Eastman and the decision was that Donald had actually conspired with Eastman in order to try to overturn a United States election. That's what the jury found. So as a result, John Eastman isn't gonna be practicing any law anywhere, anywhere, anytime he's not. And listen, he's not the first lawyer that Donald Trump has taken down. And that's why I bring it up because remember, these lawyers that he just had lying for him on the $500 million bond, they're now in jeopardy because according to his buddy, Hanky, Don Hanky says, yeah, I knew about the $500 million bond. I was ready to write it. And while he was ready to write it, the Trump lawyers were in a courtroom telling the judges, no, we can't get anybody to write it. So where does that put these lawyers? Could put them in a jail cell, you know that. That's what's happened to others. And that's what can happen to these guys too. Not to mention the fact that Donald Trump also personally bears responsibility for perhaps lying to his attorneys. Now the only thing to say to the attorneys is if Donald Trump was totally lying to them and they had no idea that this Don Hanky deal was sitting there and then okay, they might get away with their law license maybe, but then Donald Trump is going down. So none of this is good for him and in the process, he's standing through his attorneys in front of a judge in the appeals court of the state of New York. Right now, begging to move that court trial anywhere and to stay it, well, temporarily at least and maybe forever. He just doesn't want to be held accountable and I understand because if I had this problem, I wouldn't want it either. Donald has lied so many times. He doesn't even know who he's lied to. He doesn't even know which lie he's told. But I can tell you that attorneys all over the United States are pleading guilty, some in Georgia, John Eastman just found guilty and others have had to give up their law license including Rudy Giuliani. So, you know, it's not like dealing with Donald in a legal situation, it's not like it's dangerous from the standpoint of just getting paid and that's a problem in itself because we know that Donald doesn't pay. But on top of that, you may lose your ability to continue your profession because Donald will both lie to you and he will ask you to lie for him. He'll do both and then see where it shakes out as far as how much trouble you're in. Not him because then he'll go to another attorney and somebody else will fall for this all over again. Why? I can't tell you. What's the sense? Why risk your livelihood for this man who gives you nothing but trouble? But people have done it and I guess they continue, will continue to do it for whatever reason there is. I just can't tell you that answer. I can tell you what is happening and what's happening is these people are in trouble, these lawyers and Donald is also in trouble. And we're gonna find out later tonight how it looks in New York where he's begging at this very moment for the trial to be extended into oblivion, I guess. But listen, when we get through here, we've got more to do than to simply check on Donald's legal woes, we also have to get something to eat. And so the place to do that is going to be wenties and wenties is at 18,000 Chesterfield Airport Road in the Valley and Chesterfield Valley and they've got wings and smoked meat and patty melts and pizza, great pizza. Like I always say, you can't go wrong with the pizza. Pizza is phenomenal, they've got it. They've got baby back ribs, they've got onion rings, they've got everything. It's just a great place to enjoy all the great food and wings and you can go up there and have a drink with Ben or have a drink with Vic or all the good people that we all know who go to wenties and love it. And you know, it's pretty funny. The more I talk about wenties, the more I talk to people who say, oh, I love wenties. That's the truth and you will too, go there. Go to wenties, 18,000 Chesterfield Airport Road. Now, jewelry, you can't go wrong at 4506 Hampton, jewels on Hampton, I promised you. They will take such good care of you. They will repair your watch. They will design jewelry for you creatively. If you give them the opportunity to decide or you can tell them what you want and they'll do it for you there, they'll do it your way. So everything is open and great and professional at jewels on Hampton. Al is the owner, he's there. He'll always take care of you because, you know, we keep saying these businesses with the owners at the business are just the best. They take care of their customers. They care about what's happening to their business. They really do a great job and jewels on Hampton always has. They buy and sell coins in jewelry at great prices for the consumer. You go to jewels on Hampton, you will love them. And they are at 4506 Hampton in St. Louis. Now, I always finish with my suits because, you know, I love my suits. I really do. And at the moment, I'm wearing, it's a gray one. I mean, a lot of everything's gray. I've been told time and time again, being colorblind, that I can't go wrong with gray suits that match, you know, blue and red and other gray and purples and everything. So gray is great. And here I am with gray again, and I love it. And this is just an excellent suit. I love my suits. I love my ties. This is a blue tie for sure. There's probably some other colors in it that I can't even tell you what they are, but they're in there and they match nicely because they tell me at St. Louis suit company that they match, that they are great. So go to the St. Louis suit company. They are on Forsyth and Central in Clayton. They have been there for 29 years. And that's another thing. The more I tell about the St. Louis suit company, and they've been with me forever, but still I find new people, I tell them about it, and they say, oh, I love that place. That place is great, and it is. Jay and Nick are there all the time. They'll take care of you and your needs for suits. But in addition, they do a lot of weddings. So if you're thinking about weddings, and you know, we're in April, and you know, May and June, people love to get married. And if you're in any of that, St. Louis suit company is a place to go. They will take care of your wedding. They'll help you to get what you need for someone else's wedding. They're just really good. So St. Louis suit company in Clayton, 29 years, Clayton, I'm sorry, Forsyth and Central, St. Louis suit company. You'll love them. Okay, I'm gonna take a little bit of a turn here for a minute because there are some interesting things going on in the country, and besides Donald, and certainly Donald could impact all of this, and he would because one of the things that he's promised is he's promised his billionaire friends that he will give them not only the tax cuts that they got last time, he'll renew them, 'cause they're coming up in 2025 for renewal. He will renew their tax breaks, and in addition to that, who give them new benefits? He'll make them richer than they've ever been. Not that they necessarily need it with the billions and billions of dollars that they have, but I guess Donald feels like maybe if he helps them, maybe they'll help him because as you well know, he's got a problem when it comes to his money. And let me also add this to it, 'cause there's another aspect to this besides where I'm really going, but I'm gonna pull it up here because I did not look later in the day to see how badly Donald is being destroyed when it comes to his stock ownership, because as I pointed out at the beginning of the show tonight, Donald is suing his partners in truth social, and I can't even tell you all the ins and outs of why he's suing them, I mean he's suing them because the price of the shares started to go down very rapidly after the company when public. So he wants to stop that really fast and I'm just gonna pull up the right symbol here so that I can give you this important information about how poor Donald is becoming minute by minute and believe me, they're getting him. And I've said before that they would do this and so trust me, they're doing it. So here we go. Oh, isn't that nice, couldn't find it. Anything to cause problems here, okay. Well, I'm gonna leave that alone for the moment, but I'm gonna tell you, the last I checked, his brilliant idea of a company was down another 10%. So it's dropping about 10% a day after dropping 50%, the first day and Donald is rapidly hitting for the same house that he lived in prior to this SPAC, which of course is a special purpose acquisition company that he now calls Trump media. And again, dropping rapidly, last I heard it was into the mid thirties and falling. And of course this is only three days into the deal and Donald has to wait six months before he can even touch this money. And of course he fears that and he's angry. So as a result of these prices going down, he is suing his partners. Again, you know, I have not read this one. So I can't tell you exactly why he's suing them except for the fact that he's suing them because well, he doesn't like the results. He wants to win. And the funny part about that is that, you know, Donald has never won, never, he doesn't win. So, but it doesn't matter. Let's see, true social dropped by another 8% on Monday. Okay, so I saw it down 10%, apparently it ended up only down 8%. So it gave Donald a 2% reprieve for today. It's nice. I mean, you know, I don't want him to lose it all in one day but don't worry because he's suing his partners anyway because they, you know, they just, they're not propping him up properly. And he doesn't like that. So he's suing them. He's suing them. He's promising billionaires anything that they want. That's why he says, and I love when they report this, he says that he received $55 million at a fundraising event over the weekend, 55 million. Now, no one has seen the data. So we're going to find out if he got 55 million. You know, you got to be careful because almost every time, and I shouldn't say almost, every time. When Donald says something like that, it's never true. Nothing he says is true. So it could well be that Donald did not get $55 million over the weekend. Don't worry. It didn't help him to catch up with Joe Biden's money. He's hoping, but it's not because as he gains some, Joe Biden keeps gaining more, but that's okay. It's just life in the big city for Donald. And I'm sure somewhere along the line, he'll find somebody else that he can sue because that's what he does. He sues everybody, but he always loses, but he just keeps suing because it does help him in one respect, delay. He loves delay, just like the piano tuner in Trump Tower. Guy wanted his money. Trump says, nope, I'm gonna sue you. And no, get out of here. So, you know, Donald doesn't pay, he sues. Why anybody does business with him? That is something, maybe we could have that discussion with some brilliant psychologist someday. I've been quoting this John Gardner from the Baltimore Medical Center, John Hopkins, the Baltimore Medical Center, John Hopkins. You know, I would love to talk to somebody like that, even to marry Trump. I mean, she's a psychologist and knows more about Donald than anybody, but every, one of these psychologists says the same thing, that the man's in trouble. Gardner says he's going off the edge of a cliff. And I think that based on all the people who he's suing this afternoon, I think that that may well be the case. I think he knows he's going off the edge of the cliff. And these lawsuits are the preliminary to whatever the final act is gonna be. And I have to tell you, it's gonna be terrific. I mean, there's no question. What he is going to do in the end is going to amaze everybody. Because see, he thinks that he's doing a reality show. And he's just looking for how to end this program. What he doesn't understand is that we've got the end of the program. We know what the end is. It's called jail. Okay. But here's where I really wanna go. I wanna talk to you about interest rates because, you know, inflation has diminished a bit and a lot of people are hoping that the reduced inflation rate might eventually lead to some of the prices coming down that went up right after COVID. But I have to deliver at least this much bad news. And that is those prices aren't gonna be coming down. And if they are, it's not gonna be in a good situation, I can tell you. The one area where the prices could come down without causing dramatic disruption, that would be the oil pump. So, you know, you could get gas prices that would ease back down to $3 or maybe even $275, $250. I mean, that's very possible and very likely to tell you the truth. But the problem is something that I talked about last week and, you know, I worry about this for Joe Biden to tell you honestly. And that is that the stock market could be in some trouble again. Now we've had periods of significant stock market declines over the last five, six years under Trump, somewhat under Biden. Each time the market has come back, no question. But in the meantime, Joe Biden is looking at the Standard and Poor's 500 index, just above 5,000. The Dow Jones industrial average just under 40,000 and these are record numbers. The problem is that there are other indexes. As an example, there's the Russell 2000, naturally. That's 2,000 stocks. And those 2,000 stocks are what we call small cap companies. That is, they're not like Microsoft and Amazon and Facebook, Meda. It's not like those. These are small companies and there are a lot of them and they are lagging considerably. If you go look up the Russell 2000, if you go look up the value line geometric index, that's almost 2,000 stocks. These indexes normally in a really strong market, they lead the way. And, you know, what I've been talking about here recently is the fact that the market has turned very narrow again, meaning Amazon, Meda, Microsoft. You know, these stocks are moving higher. JP Morgan and some of the financial companies have done the same. Unfortunately, the rest of the marketplace is just hanging there and that is a bad sign. And it usually precedes significant declines in the stock market. Not forever, not the end of the world, but enough that it could certainly impact people's 401Ks and I am sure that everybody on the right will start pointing fingers at Joe Biden to say that he did it. Of course, he's been responsible for the prices going up all this time, all three years according to their theory, which, you know, I wouldn't even go for that because I've always said that the president doesn't make stock prices go up and down. The president doesn't make oil prices go up and down. Those prices are really determined by the marketplace and the only way to judge what's happening in the marketplace is to know how it works. And I promise you, that's one thing about our country. As smart as we are and as wealthy as we are, we really don't know much about how these markets work. Unfortunately, but in the meantime, here we are and we've got the indexes at these really high levels, a lot of times people call them nosebleed levels. That's, you know, an official stock market term. And so at any rate, there's some danger in all of this and one of the places where you can see a problem in terms of this danger is treasury instruments, various bonds and bills, and they are moving back up in yield again. And in fact, they are very close to busting out over levels that have not been exceeded for the last, say, three or four months. And if interest rates begin to rise in the marketplace, I have no doubt that the markets, that is the stock markets, the oil markets and others, they will respond by going the other direction. It could cost a considerable amount of money, although it could accomplish the other thing that people are talking about. And that is, how do we get prices, prices that we pay, how do we get them to come back down again? And that's one way that you could get some of that is if you see the stock market, the stock market going down, the bond market going up, which would mean that interest rates would be going up if the bonds, I'm sorry, if the bonds go down, then the interest rates go up. And so the result of all of that would be some pain, pain in the economy. Now, the Fed has said that they would like to lower interest rates three times in the remainder of this year. Now, that was their theory of the game here, that they would like to do that. But they've sort of been hesitant in recent weeks because the numbers that keep coming out in the job market are just too strong. And look, here's the issue. If the Fed lowers interest rates while the economy is booming, I can assure you inflation will spike again. So that's something that's a problem. The Fed knows this, they know it and they're worried about it and they keep talking about it and the market, well, the market's just not sure what that means. So let me say this, if this narrow rise in the stock market gives way to a sharp decline in stock prices, well, then I think you will see the Federal Reserve Act. That could be the reason that the Fed would actually lower rates. So, you know, when you listen to the news today, and I know I've listened to economic newscasters for a very long time in my career. And throughout that, I've found that they always seem to get this wrong. They don't seem to be the experts in economics, but they seem to be mostly just good news readers. News readers, you know, we can find plenty of them. Where do you find economists who know what they're talking about? That's another story. But I can say that if the stock market begins to fall, first of all, Joe Biden will take some hits. I don't like that, but, you know, you can say what you want. If the markets start down, there's no way to stop it. You can't talk them back up. You can't make them go back up. All you can do is what we would do. And that is that the Federal Reserve would step up, lower interest rates, and try to put some breaks on any declining stock prices. So that's what we would have to look forward to if there's any chance of the Fed lowering rates. 'Cause I can assure you that if the economy continues strong, if the stock market continues to rise, if oil prices, gold prices, if they all continue the upward course that they're in right now, Federal Reserve is not gonna lower rates. They'd be crazy and they know they would. They would, instead of mitigating a problem, they would exacerbate it. They would create real inflationary pressure upward in a way that they would have to come back again and raise rates back up. So they don't wanna do that. They don't wanna keep bouncing around. What they wanna do is wait and see how this shakes out. Now they're not telling anybody this, but if the stock market starts down, well, then the Federal Reserve will move to try to mitigate the damage from a falling stock market because as everybody knows, there's a wealth effect in the marketplace. If it's going up, that increases people's wealth. If it's going down, then it's the reverse. So the Fed will act if necessary, but the moment it's not necessary at the moment, the best thing that the Federal Reserve can do, at least from their point of view, is nothing. If they do nothing, that would be the safest bet and even that won't stop prices from coming down. And then on top of that, there's another point here. And that is that with the easing of interest rates that we have seen in the actual treasury market, 'cause we've seen the easing, there's no question. The Fed didn't do it, but the market itself has brought rates down a bit. The problem is that with those rates coming down and now stabilizing and threatening to go back up again, none of this has been done by the Federal Reserve. None of this has been accomplished through some kind of government action because this is not a command economy like you would see in some kind of a communist government, all these people who say, "Oh, Joe Biden's a communist now." No, he's not. No, he's not. The government doesn't get in the middle of all of this. And if they get in the middle of anything, it would only be the Fed's normal procedures for trying to mitigate problems that sometimes are felt by the public due to changes in the marketplace. So all of that, let me just go back and make it clear with a few minutes left that what's happening here is, interest rates have begun to rise back up a little bit. And in the process, there is something that we have that has remained in place throughout, which is what we call an inverted yield curve. That means the far out months in the bond market, the far out months are selling at higher rates than the immediate, I'm sorry, lower rates than the immediate. So what happens is short-term rates put pressures on everything 'cause short-term rates right now are higher than long rates. And that has always led to recessions. A lot of people have looked at this and they've said, "Wow, we have had an inverted yield curve "for about eight months and we haven't had a recession. "That is so good." Sure, that's nice, but don't worry, the pressures are there. And those pressures can be felt six, eight, 10 months later. Doesn't mean we're coming apart to seams today or tomorrow, but we could, and we certainly are in a position where the markets have weakened because these big institutional companies continue to run up in price while these very small business companies that they're important companies, very important, important to the marketplace, that's for sure, and they are lagging, they're nowhere close to new highs. So again, look at the Russell 2000, look at the Value Line Geometric Index. These will show you the problems that we potentially face here in what we call a divergence between these big companies that are getting all the money and then these other little companies which are the heart of America which frankly are lagging. So there's a problem there. And we're going to watch it every day, I watch it all the time, I'm only emphasizing it now because it's becoming so apparent that I think it's important for people to realize the dangers that can come from this. And like I say, nothing that you wouldn't expect in a capitalist system that is, eventually things turn down. Anybody who thinks that there's such a thing as an ever expanding economy, well, that's just impossible. It's just out of the question. Now, the next thing is though to consider is that if we did start down, the one thing that Donald Trump would never do for you is to act within the economy, within the economic system to try to mitigate the damage where Joe Biden, I mean clearly is going to take that democratic party position that's been around since Franklin Delano Roosevelt. And that is, if there's trouble, the government steps in and takes certain actions in order to help people, not the least of which I can tell you right now, one of the first things that they would do would be that child tax credit that was in place for a couple of years and then blocked by Congress when the Republicans took over and Joe Biden keeps talking about restoring it and it would make an enormous difference for people. Very important. But, you know, it's getting ahead of ourselves, of course. And, you know, let me also say that the Republicans have promised recently, recently Donald Trump said we can cut social security. When they get in the public, they say no, and then they get into these private meetings and they say we'll do it. And, of course, the Democrats say we'll never do it. So, you know, there's some important economic issues in front of you and Donald Trump is not your friend. Okay, I'll be back tomorrow and we'll see what the results of all these lawsuits are and we'll see who else Donald wants to sue tomorrow afternoon out of desperation. For right now, Wendy's, Jules Unhampton, the St. Louis suit company, I'm Mark Casein. This is Showdown.