Is the economy bad right now?

The Street

The state of the economy varies quite a bit based on where you're looking at it from.

Transcript

00:00well hello there the street i am dan klein i am one of the editors of the street along with my

00:08friend todd campbell uh todd is joining us today along with maury backman and this is our first

00:13ever the street podcast but many of you may know we're calling this street smarts to be fair this

00:19is our first ever street smarts podcast many of you may recognize us from other places and i will

00:26just say yes we are those people you've seen us in podcasts i am an expert in retail and travel and i

00:33dabble in some other areas todd what are your expertises i just love the stock market man i

00:39just anything having to do with the economy things that can move the stocks that that's what that's

00:44my that's where i love to live maury backman what is your background what is your expertise

00:50you can pretty much ask me anything about social security and i'll be able to tell you

00:55i've done a lot of writing on retirement and investing strategies and here at the street

01:01i pretty much cover retail up and down i may not have the same knowledge as you dan though because

01:06you've been doing this a little bit longer we've all been doing this together there have been many

01:10long car rides trips a lot of alcohol involved between the three of us we're going to open up

01:15talking about something that i think is on the tip of everybody's tongue and it's uh how do you feel

01:20about the economy and then i'll just i'm going to weigh in just very quickly on one hand i feel

01:25great like things are going pretty well on the you know we we have good jobs things are things look

01:30good in our lives on the other hand there's this like giant looming i don't know but feels like

01:36something terrible is about to happen todd am i am i reading this incorrectly yeah i think you know

01:42one of the things that's really interesting to me and when i say interesting it's like interesting but

01:46it's bad for some people is that you know the i think your view of the economy really has to do

01:52with what you're where you are financially you know i mean i think if you're making 75 grand or less a

01:58year you're really looking at the economy going i feel left out where is all of this pie that i'm

02:04supposed to be able to eat um i think higher income households tend to respond to all the surveys

02:10as saying things are okay you know i'm still spending money and things are all right for me

02:15um so i think it really is kind of a barbell i think you know those people who are you know like

02:20like my son you know he wants to buy a house he can't he's priced out of the market for a house right

02:25and he's got a good paying job but it's just he just can't buy a house so for his perspective the

02:29economy stinks you know i'm just remodeling my exterior of my house for me the economy's all right

02:35it's funny my son is 21 and lives at home so he views it as he has all the pie money he wants like

02:41no matter he can go out to eat he can do all because he lives at home he doesn't have that yet

02:45that fear so like working a sort of you know decent restaurant job he's on his way up but he's in a

02:52different place in life so for him the economy's great because he can buy whatever the heck he wants

02:56now maury you live in a different part of the country you live in new jersey you're you i know the

03:01taxes on your house i won't say them out loud but i know you live in a tax heavy area um but you're

03:07successful your husband is successful um you have pressure with with uh i won't mention but a bunch

03:12of kids um in college someday how do you feel about the economy you know it's weird because on one hand

03:20um i feel reasonably confident just because my husband and i have always been good to the point of

03:26anal savers and because of that i tend to walk around feeling a little bit secure just

03:31knowing that you know if something were to go sour we have a little bit of a cushion there that that

03:37we've worked hard to build um i have this very weird feeling of guilt you guys you know in that i just

03:45know so many people who are not thriving in this economy like todd mentioned people i guess at a

03:52certain income level where inflation has just been a beast costs have been up for years and it's weird

03:59but i have almost a little bit of this like earner's guilt you know where it's like well

04:03i'm not going out and just you know buying fancy things every day but i feel that i'm reasonably

04:10comfortable but at the same time i sometimes feel guilty when i see that there are so many people who

04:16are struggling and i'm like well you know i'm not upgrading to a mansion and buying a porsche but like

04:21i could grab a pizza without having to check my checking account balance you know so

04:26i think more the answer here is and then we're going to move on i think it is pay for the pizza

04:31when when you're with your friends when you're out with people and i've sort of been like this my

04:35whole life i worked in high school so i always had money and my friends didn't if all of us could

04:39afford a pizza if one of us can afford a pizza then all of us can afford a pizza so like you can't pay

04:44your friends mortgage you can't put their kids through college but you know what you could do

04:48you can buy them a starbucks you can make things a little bit easier so

04:52you know

04:58you

05:00you

05:02you

05:04you

Category

Transcript

Recommended