Every day, unborn babies very lives are under attack at preborn
>> Jeff Chamblee: This July we celebrate the birth of our nation and remember the heroes who fought for our freedoms. But did you know there are Americans today who don't have the freedom of life and liberty. Every day, unborn babies very lives are under attack. But because of preborn, we can rescue them. I got to hear and see my. Baby for the first time. Hearing the heartbeat made me cry. And it was certain that I was going to keep my baby forever.
>> Jeff Chamblee: Ultrasounds save lives. And when, when you save a life at a preborn network clinic, you often save a Soul as over 85,000 women have come to know Christ. To learn more about PreBorn's life saving work, call pound250 and say the keyword baby. That's #250baby. Or visit preborn.com/afr that's preborn.com/afr all gifts are tax deductible. Your love can save a life.
>> Walker Wildmon: We inform religious freedom is about people of faith being able to live out their faith, live out their convictions no matter where they are.
>> Jeff Chamblee: We equip
>> Rick Green: Sacred honor is the courage to speak truth to live out your free speech. We also rejoice in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance, character and character Host this is At The Core on American Family Radio.
Welcome to The Core here on American Family Radio
>> Walker Wildmon: Welcome, to The Core here on American Family Radio. Glad to have you with us on today's edition of the program. We'll have a special guest with us in the second segment. And, and then you'll have me the rest of the program. Chris Woodward is our usual on Friday afternoons. Chris is off today, so you're going to have me for the last segment. And maybe you'll have a little. Bobby, Bobby, I think you can fill some of the void that Chris brings.
>> Bobby Roza: Just a little bit. Just a little bit. I know he's short, but he's got big feet.
>> Walker Wildmon: Yes, he does. He fills big shoes. so you'll have me most of the. No, you'll have me the whole show. But we'll have Todd starrings in with us in the second segment. And, so you will not want to miss that interview on his latest book. And so stick around for that.
Proverbs chapter 16 says it is an abomination for kings to commit wicked acts
We've been in Proverbs chapter 16, and I've been highlighting verse, 12, which says it is an abomination for kings to commit wicked acts. For a throne is established on righteousness. Well, here's another way of saying that. This is a paraphrase. It is an abomination for government leaders to commit wicked acts. Does m that translate Better into today's term. Understanding history is important in understanding the Bible, because when you read about kings in the Bible in 2025, especially as an American citizen, it just doesn't resonate. It just doesn't resonate because a lot of people haven't studied world history and understood how this whole king thing has gone in the past, and how that was the norm for, centuries, is to have kings and kingdoms. And there's still some today, not as many, but, definitely not. They're not structured the way they used to be. But, the point here in verse 12, Proverbs, chapter 16 is that it says here that it's an abomination for kings to commit wicked acts. So the conclusion you draw from this is that God intended government to be, ah, a force for good. God intended kings to do righteousness and it says that a throne is established on righteousness. So, it really alludes to this reality, this fact, this hard truth that thrones established on unrighteousness and on wickedness are illegitimate. Thrones established on wickedness and evil are illegitimate. And this helps the believer as we, as we. And this is a deep theological debate that we don't have time for. but this helps the believer understand this, this, this balance between when do you obey government versus when do you obey God? And put things simple, you obey government so long as it doesn't force you to, to disobey God. That's kind of been the simple Christian standard when teaching on this subject. And if you're one of those believers that has a really hard time because of this culture that we live in and how, the American system is set up, having a hard time not judging harshly the revolutionaries of the past, including America's founding fathers, by the way, the reason I think modern Christians have a hard time reconciling the revolutionaries of the righteous revolutionaries of the past is because we assume that all kingdoms and all thrones are legitimate. But what the scripture is alluding to here is that when you have kingdoms and you have kings and you have rulers and you have government officials committing exceedingly wicked acts and exceedingly evil deeds, they are undermining their very own authority. And it brings into question the legitimacy of their authority at all if they are not functioning as God intended them to function. And so now that I've opened Pandora's box to a very deep theological debate on when it is proper to obey government and when it is proper to disobey government, we're going to move on to the next subject.
The first weekend of October with AFA is coming up in Mississippi
All right, let's move in to some of the events that we have coming up later this year and early next year. The weekend with AFA is coming up in October. This is the first weekend of October and this is going to be a great time of fellowship and fun here in Tupelo, Mississippi at our national headquarters. We're going to have a fellowship here at our national headquarters, a reception. All of our team will be here on site and, and then we've got a venue off site where we're going to have most of our events and our speakings, our speeches rather, and our time together of fellowship and worship. That's going to be over at the Kingfisher Lodge. But if you would like to join us here in Tupelo, that's October 2nd through the 4th. We would love to have you coming up in October, early October. Join us here in Tupelo Mississippi. It's a weekend with afa. We're going to have several great speakers, just to name a few. we're going to have David Tim Barton of the Wall Builders. We're going to have Tim Barton with Wall Builders. We're gonna have Jerry Boyer with Boyer Research. We're going to have Abraham Hamilton iii, Jenna Ellis, JJ Jasper and our entire leadership team will be at the weekend with afa. So if you want to come join us, we would love to have you here in Tupelo Mississippi October 2 through 4. Well in the fall. Speaking of the fall, in September, the only dates that are available for our Washington D.C. and Williamsburg trip is the Williamsburg portion in September. So the 14th through the 17th, that's the only seats available for that portion of the trip. Colonial Williamsburg, Jamestown, Yorktown, that will take place mid September. And the other trips that are coming up that are in the spring are our trips to Greece and Israel with Greece being a brand new trip. Discovering the footsteps of Paul. So if you'd like to go with us in March of 2026 to Israel and or Greece, you can simply go over to wildmangroup.com to check out the dates, pricing and the itinerary, all the information you need to know. I was over at Wildmon Group.
President Trump's crackdown on illegal immigration seems to be showing up in jobs data
All right, jumping into some of the stories of the week. The economy is, is beginning to boom, it is beginning to grow and President Trump's policies are already beginning to kick in. One major problem that we saw over the last four years under Biden was the number of foreign born workers that were gaining jobs in America and American, born workers were losing their jobs day in, day out. Listen to this jobs report, coming out just this week. Clip 1.
>> Speaker D: President Trump's crackdown on illegal immigration seems to be showing up in the jobs data. It's a point that the White House is making. Here's what they said about the latest jobs report. It shows that American born workers have accounted for all of the job gains since President Trump took office and wages continue to rise. So here are the numbers that they're talking about. Foreign born employment has fallen by 543,000 since January when President Trump took office. Native born or US born, jobs have increased by more than 2 million since the month Trump started his second term.
>> Walker Wildmon: Well, there you have it. The foreign born workers are shedding jobs like nobody's business. And American born workers are gaining jobs, losing like crazy. And this is President Trump's strategy. Look, the illegal labor is a problem. It takes American jobs. And this notion that Americans aren't willing to work is just not true. It's not true. And so here we have Americans getting jobs, getting jobs at a much faster rate, than foreign born workers. And what we've seen here over the years is that companies have been relying on legal, cheap foreign labor through the H1B visa process and other processes. they've been flooding the labor market with cheap foreign labor. Meanwhile, Americans are having trouble getting a job. And that's undoubtedly going to cause wages to go up. It's undoubtedly going to cause wages to grow, go up, because the labor market will begin to tighten, not tighten in a bad way, but it will begin to tighten in a degree that will not allow cheap labor to be as readily available which will force companies to pay their workers more, which is good for the workforce. And we're seeing wages go up. And the, one big beautiful bill extension and permanency of the tax cuts, is now in place, thanks to the Republicans in the House and the Senate.
Democrats used Matthew 25 on House floor during deliberations on tax cuts bill
The other story I wanted to get to this segment is the fact that Democrats love, love, love taking the moral high ground. They love virtue signaling, they love using things, like the Bible against conservatives and to show that we're just these mean, bigoted, mean hearted, mean spirited people. Well, Democrats spent no time, no, wasted time on the House floor during the deliberations on the tax cuts bill, using scripture, specifically Matthew 25, to talk about how we should just take in the stranger, we should take them all in to our country, no questions asked. Clip to for I was hungry and.
>> Minority Speaker Hakeem Jeffries (D): You gave me something to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger and you invited me in. A stranger. and you invited me in. E pluribus unum. Out of many one, I needed clothes and you clothed me. I was sick. I had medical problems. Maybe I needed Medicare or Medicaid or the Affordable Care Net act or the Children's Health Insurance Program or Planned Parenthood. I was sick and you looked after me. I was in prison and you came to visit me.
>> Walker Wildmon: I'm laughing and Bobby's mad because if I don't laugh, Bobby, I'll get mad.
>> Bobby Roza: Oh, it is so blasphemous to take scripture and twist it the way he did.
>> Walker Wildmon: Yes, it is, Bobby. And this is coming from a group of people, Bobby, that don't even believe in the Bible. Yeah, they don't even believe in the inherited Scripture.
>> Bobby Roza: Well, it's like you said, in the title of this clip, let's throw Scripture around haphazardly and not mention anything about God or Jesus.
>> Walker Wildmon: Yes.
>> Bobby Roza: Everything they're talking about, he's talking about. That's, Hakeem Jeffries, in case you didn't recognize the voice.
>> Walker Wildmon: Yep.
>> Bobby Roza: all of that is relative to what an individual should do.
>> Walker Wildmon: Correct.
>> Bobby Roza: Has nothing to do with what governments should do. And by twisting and integrating Planned Parenthood and Medicare and Medicaid and all this, those are totally unconstitutional expenditures, first and foremost. And to say that a, government is responsible for that is totally wrong and out of context as Jesus clearly, ascribes to, in terms of what a government's responsibility is in terms of borders, sovereignty, laws, government as God directed, etc. Etc.
>> Walker Wildmon: That's right. Yeah. Folks, this is, as Bobby said, it's a, it's a massive misapplication of Scripture. It's, It's a straight up heretical, ah, type statement to use this scripture, improperly. And God did not intend, and nor is it biblical under any circumstance to suggest that the government is responsible for letting anybody and everybody and their third cousin and their second cousin into this country because of whatever need they might have, both legitimate and illegitimate. The. The teachings of Matthew are written to the church. They're written to the believer, not to the government.
>> Jeff Chamblee: At the Core podcasts are [email protected] now back to at the Core on American Family Radio.
People who deny God exists are intellectually dumb
>> Walker Wildmon: Welcome Back to the Core here on American Family Radio. Glad to have you with us on the program. You know, as we wrapped up the last segment the, the reality here is that from a respect standpoint, I have more respect for people who, with honesty, say, I just don't agree with the Bible and I don't submit to its authority. And they may have seven reasons from Sunday to tell me why they don't subscript submit to the Scripture. Either they don't believe in God or they don't like God. and by the way, there's some people, and you can see this. The scripture talks about it, about how the demons believe. Right? That doesn't mean they experience salvation, but they, they have knowledge that God does exist. but there are people that will. Will say, that, that they don't think they should have to follow God's precepts, which they allude to the fact that they're not denying that God exists, they're just saying that they don't think they should have to follow his precepts or they reject his authority, or they just want to do what they want to do. Whatever the excuse is. it's definitely possible to, to in a mental sense believe that God does exist, that his deity is true. but you don't believe in the salvific nature of Jesus for our sins. And so I would almost. From an honesty, back to my point before I get too. I'm getting into these theological rabbit trails today, which are going to get me in trouble. But, the. Because people want to have debates and they want to spend three hours on this, and that's not what the show's for. but from an honesty perspective, I would have more respect for someone who just says, you know, your God may exist. I understand that you follow the Bible. but I don't, and I don't want to. And so good. luck with it. but what you have here with Hakeem Jeffries as the House Minority Leader speaking on the. On the floor of the House chamber with the inscription In God we Trust in front of him, as he's speaking over the speaker's gavel, you have Hakeem Jeffries quoting the Bible. Quoting the Bible in a manner that is meant to convince you and me that our country and government should let anybody and everybody in to this land, because after all, they're all foreigners and they're sojourners. Matthew 25. But the easy and quick debunking of this total misapplication of Scripture is that Matthew's writings are to the church. It's as simple as that. Matthew's writings are to the likely Greek Speaking Christians of Jewish descent. And furthermore, to blur the lines between the role of the government. I'm talking about the moral responsibility of a government and the moral responsibility of the believer. To blend those two together in the same conversation is just intellectually dumb. We don't walk around conflating the role of government and the role and responsibility of the citizen or the believer in any other, conversation. We have debates on politics, we have debates on government, we have debates on policy, we have debates on what our government should and shouldn't do. And then we have debates on what our responsibility as citizens of this nation and our responsibility, more importantly as believers in Jesus Christ and part of the household of faith. What is our moral responsibility day to day? What does it look like? How do we treat other people? How do we treat our family? How do we disciple people? How do we share the gospel with people? How do we convert unbelievers? How do we be salt and light? These are conversations that take place in two different contexts. And the whole theological like structure around our view of government and our view of the individual, it's two different ball games. And so this notion that everything in the Bible applies to government, it's almost as bad. Well, it is as bad as Ketanji Brown Jackson's terrible dissent recently where Amy Coney Barrett. I don't know what's up with all these three, you know, these triple names. And but anyway, acb, kbj, elementop. Yeah. And anyway, the, where Amy Coney Barrett basically, basically said, you know, I don't really have a lot of time or energy to spend more than one page of this, this majority opinion talking about how dumb your opinion is and how out of context it is and how improper it is and how it doesn't make any sense in addition to how to hold up to truth. And so she basically said, look, your viewpoint is so outlandish, it's so far fetched, it's so not rooted in truth that I really don't know what to say. I really don't know what to say. What do you say? Right, what do you say? And the equivalent is here with Hakeem Jeffries. Matthew 25 means that governments should let anybody and everybody into the country. Unfiltered, unpermitted, Anybody and everybody can come. Do you understand what you're saying here? And m. This is coming from. This is coming from the country that has the most generous immigration system that currently exists on the planet. And that's not an exaggeration. You can go to Africa, you can go to India, you can go to any country on the planet and you will not find a more generous immigration system. I don't care. You name that, you name the country, it doesn't matter. Ours is the most generous. You want to know why? Because we permit legally over a million, a million legal immigrants every single calendar year. That's a million a year, 10 million over a decade. And the numbers go on. Who else does that? Nobody. I know people that go on missionary journeys and they have to come back because they've stayed in this foreign land too long. And this, this impoverished, corrupt government sends them hiking, sends them back. You know, you can't stay here. Even though you Americans are bringing wellness and prosperity to our region, you can't stay here. So they send them back, they boot the Americans from the foreign land. How mean spirited. They must not be following Matthew 25. no, they're doing what governments do.
>> Bobby Roza: Or the Gospel of Hakeem
>> Walker Wildmon: Yeah, exactly, exactly. They're doing what governments do. And that is enforce immigration laws, control the borders, who comes in, who goes out, and everybody, every country has its own vested interest on why it conducts immigration the way it does. And this, this, this, this treating government as the church is the problem. Capital T H E. But this is, this is how, this is how secularists operate. We shouldn't be surprised here. After all, government is God for them, the government is God. And they like to apply spirituality to government.
>> Bobby Roza: Very good point.
>> Walker Wildmon: And treat it, Bobby, as the church. What the church is supposed to do. And when you look at our entire welfare program system, our entire welfare program, plural, poor grams. Many of the welfare programs are doing functions that have historically pre, you know, this, this last two centuries or century and a half have been functions of charitable organizations and churches.
There are some things that have been done in the past that were better than today
This notion that free health care, free food, free everything, free housing before America, that wasn't a thing. That wasn't a thing for government to do. you might, you might have find organized groups or organized, you know, localities. But this nationalization of the welfare state.
>> Bobby Roza: Not to mention that the, you know, our forefathers and those who came along thereafter, you know, exploring the west and so on and so forth, the new horizons, they didn't want help from the government. They were either going to be, autonomous and in charge of their own life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, or they weren't and they were going to do what it, it took to make those ends meet. So.
>> Walker Wildmon: Right. And that's why, that's why studying history is so important. People I know, I say that all the time. And, but studying history is so important, to understand what people have gone through in the past and how they handle things. And let me just tell you there, I don't. My wife calls me an old timer. She says, I'm, you know, I'm, you know, I got an old, I got an old spirit and I tucked my shirt in everywhere. But there, there is, there are some things that have been done in the past that how they were handled was, was better than how we're doing it today. And that's not in every scenario, that's not in every case. But for example, you know, the, in the back in the day, I'm talking, I'm talking it's, you know, 70 to 100, years and before, since the founding of this nation. And I can speak mostly to this nation, if you didn't work, you didn't eat. And that's not an exaggeration. Like, it's biblical. Yeah, it is biblical. That's why I said it. If you didn't work, you didn't eat. And there wasn't somebody standing right beside you just to give you handouts, you know. Now was there hospitality? Was there charitableness, if that's a word? yeah, of course. Yeah. There were people that, you know, helped pick you up and let you shelter for a couple days or whatever kind of difficulty you were going through. But this level of prosperity and this level of food at every street corner and this level of if you don't have a house, we'll get you a house, hasn't always been a thing. Like, this is a modern concept of if you don't have, we shall provide. I'm talking about the government. It hasn't been a thing. I mean, I mean, back in, in the early days of this country, like, things were rough. They were rough. We didn't have all this technology and modern medicine and you can get to a doctor's office in three minutes. and if you can't pay for it, no problem, we'll pick up the tab. this just wasn't a thing. People had to scrap. They had to work. And in that sense, it taught people, number one, hard work, but it taught them responsibility and character. And it also put the onus on the Christians to do true charitable work. And when you have the Christians doing the charitable work, it has built in guardrails. And I can give you example after example, but every single faith based, nonprofit charitable organization that serves people, not goods and services, serves people. They do it in the most efficient Manner. And when people abuse their charitable programs, they don't come back. And that's the beauty of the local church doing the charitable work is because there's built in guardrails and people that are swindlers and abusers and wrongdoers, well, they get spotted out pretty quick because we all know them. I mean, how many times have I been asked to give someone cash? someone who claims to be homeless on the side of the street, they ask me for cash. This happens. Not all the time, but it happens frequently. I get asked for cash and I say, no, I'm not giving you cash. Number one, I don't carry cash anymore. Who carries cash? Number two, I'm not giving you cash because I don't know what you're going to do with it. Right? But I will take you to go get food so we can go next door and I'll buy you a meal and be done with it. And you know what they say? No, thanks. I just want cash. I just want cash. And when the scripture talks about when you don't work, you shouldn't eat, that's the exact person it's talking about. Someone who has offered charity, someone who has offered a practical, meeting of their physical needs. And they say, no, thanks, I'd rather be a swindler. I'd rather steal your money. I'd rather use it for drugs. I'd rather use it for cigarettes. Fill in the blank. The government doesn't have the capacity to handle those situations in a proper manner. Oh, they can handle those situations. It depends on what your definition of handle is. Meaning they can write them a check, we can put them on, put them on Medicaid, give them an EBT card, We can handle their situation in air quotes. But you can't truly take care of their needs if in an honest and respectable manner. Because God never built government, and it was his idea, by the way, to be charity. God never built government to be the welfare state. God built government to protect life, liberty and property. Does that sound familiar? Sounds a little bit like our founding fathers. It's like they were reading the Bible or something. And anytime we take government and try to get it to do anything other than the core fundamentals that our founding fathers write about, and we're in the Constitution as far as the guardrails of government. Here's what government should do, here's what it shouldn't do. By inference, everything goes into off the rails. And immigration is the same way. If you don't understand it properly at.
>> Jeff Chamblee: The Core podcasts are [email protected] now back to At the Core on American Family Radio.
American Family Radio does live stream the video on Facebook and AFA stream
>> Walker Wildmon: Welcome, to The Core here on American Family Radio. Welcome back to this last segment on the program or of the program. Glad to have you with us. I like to remind our audience about the way that they can, or the ways, plural, that they can keep up with the show. we do live stream the video on Facebook and over on AFA stream stream.afa.net stream.afa.net you can watch the video there and on Facebook at the course Facebook Facebook page each and every day. We do live stream the video over on X as well on the afr, the American Family Radio X page. X handle. Lastly, and what's most popular is just simply subscribing to the podcast. So if you go to your podcast library, whether that's on an Apple device, an Android device, Roku, etc, you can subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen to podcasts. So we'll hope you'll do that.
Jamie Dimon: President Trump will be judged on how he handles debt and deficit
Well, the tariff, conversation continues and, President Trump continues to work through tariffs and the reshoring of a lot of America's manufacturing and industrial base. And that's happening now with a reshoring. And, you know, we were told if President Trump does these tariffs, it's going to be really bad. It's going to be really bad. And we're gonna see prices double, inflation is gonna spike back up, and, we're gonna go into a recession. And, some even talked about a Great Depression, because of the tariffs. And the reality is that that has not come to pass. As a matter of fact, none of the predictions, none, of the negative, apocalyptic predictions have come to pass when it comes to tariffs. Now, it does help that President Trump has struck some trade deals with, with some of our top trading partners, and then some of the, tariffs have been delayed. But not all. But all in all, there's been no downside, to the tariffs. And as a matter of fact, President Trump would say there's been a lot of upside to the tune of $100 billion in tariff revenue just since he took office in the last six months, $100 billion in tariff revenue. But the, economy is doing well. Here's where I think President Trump will be judged, from the populace on his presidency, his final term is how the debt is, handled. And that includes the deficit. Well, let's put deficit over on the spending side, how the debt is handled. We're at roughly 37 trillion now, which is quite Baffling. so we're at $37 trillion. And so I think the only. So the two things that I think President Trump will be remembered for is what he did with the debt and the deficit, and did he shrink the size of government? I think that that'll be a major part of looking back at his presidency in five years. And there's two things that have to happen in order to really, really put our country on a trajectory that is sustainable, that can be continued by a future administration. The, the spending is going to have to come down. The spending is going to have to come down and the growth is going to have to continue. The growth is going to have to accelerate. And if we want to Talk specifics, the 2% GDP growth, 2.5, even 3% GDP growth is just not enough. It's just not enough. If you listen to Ray Dalio, if you listen to, J.P. Diamond. not J.P. diamond. Jamie. Jamie, yeah. He heads up Chase. Yeah, used to be J.P. morgan. Chase. Yeah. Jamie Diamond. If you listen to these guys, which not everything they say I agree with, or is true or is the gospel, but on, on the growth trajectory, I think they're right. You're going to have to get the growth, the GDP growth up to 6%, 7%, 5 is honestly too measly. You're going to have to get it up 7, 8, 9% GDP growth, which I know is aggressive, in order to, in order to get to a place where you're growing enough and you're slowing down the deficit and the debt in a way that you can get to a balanced place, or at least a place where it's. The bleeding is not as bad as it was. And this is, this is the challenge of President Trump. I mean, this is the challenge because what you, the, the alternative is the continued degradation of America's middle class. And the middle class has been largely gutted. And I know that that does sound, that sounds extreme. The middle class has been gutted. When you look at history, the, the wealth is continually being consolidated at the top. That's what I'm talking about. The wealth is continually being consolidated at the top. And long term, that's a problem. It's a problem for the middle class. And what concerns me about this is that there are these new trends, these new fads that, run counter to traditional wealth generation practices. An example, and this is the difference between this show and some of these other podcasts out there on the Internet. A lot of people, you know, you'll listen to them. And they talk hypothetical and theoretical and they never give examples. But here's an example. Homeownership. Homeownership used to be the thing. And in some regards it still is. It's still a lofty goal for people. But homeownership, used to be the thing. You know, this idea of getting out of college or graduating from high school or starting a career, whatever you do with education, doesn't matter. but this idea of renting used to not be a thing. I mean, it might have been a temporary thing for certain people, different circumstances. Right? If you're, if you're getting relocated for your job, or you're in the military, or you're in some kind of other, you know, workplace situation that you just can't sit still at the same location. But, but this, this widespread, you know, mass rental, approach used to not be a thing. And you've seen the growth. I mean, how many of you try, you drive home and see apartment complexes? I mean, this is, these things are, if you're into commercial real estate, you know, you're making a killing on these, these, these rental properties. But there's the problem with this, with this trend, this fad that it is. And, and how many of you have seen the, the, the tiny home fad? And I'm not talking about tiny home on a slab, I'm talking about tiny home on a trailer. These people that are selling their house and they're moving into a storage shed on the back of a double axle trailer. I mean, this is a thing. Bobby. Bobby's laughing. It's a thing. I think he likes how I'm explaining it.
>> Bobby Roza: I do.
>> Walker Wildmon: Because it's so true, though.
>> Bobby Roza: A shed with a bath.
>> Walker Wildmon: Yes. Yeah, yeah, right. And a toilet and one bed and a loft. these trends that we're seeing, folks, they are wealth deprivers. They just are. They're wealth deprivers. And it's not that people ought not be able to do this or whatever. I'm just telling you the habits that these up and coming generations, including myself, are creating run counter to habits and practices that have historically generation, generated generational family wealth. Okay? That's a fact. And I don't think that our leaders and people that should be speaking truth into this area, including in the church, I don't think they're speaking to this area enough. I just don't think they are. And, you know, Dave Ramsey is notoriously good on this. he's a born again believer and his company Ramsay Solutions doesn't explicitly always talk about the scripture, although it's clear when you listen to him, he's a believer. but the principles they preach are wealth generating principles.
Our economy has disincentivized the wealth generation path and incentivized inequality
That's what they do. but nonetheless, the reason I got here is because the continued degrading of the middle class, the continued degrading of middle class and as it relates to housing. The dots I'm going to connect here as I'm talking are going to make sense the more we talk about. But our economy has also disincentivized the wealth generation path and incentivized the wealth gutting path. Example, home ownership and renting are not equal anymore. Renting is now more, at least short term advantageous than home ownership. Why? Well, one of the reasons become home ownership has become astronomically expensive. And it's not just Jerome Powell's fault, right? With high interest rates, the, the inflation in the economy because we're running under modern monetary theory and we ditched the gold standard because we thought we knew better. And Washington can't stop printing money and adding zeros to the excel sheet. Because of that we have inflation, persistent inflation, even under, best case scenario, 2 to 3% persistent inflation year over year, adding to the cost of building or purchasing a home. And so if you can ever get into home ownership, it's great because asset prices continue to appreciate. But another trend I've noticed, more recently is that parents aren't planning for the future like they used to in order to help up and coming generations get into their first home. I mean my wife and I wouldn't have been able to come up with a down payment had our parents not planned to help us with a down payment to get into our first home. And so there's, and homeownership is just one of the areas that you can generate wealth and obviously have a dwelling place and a home for your family. And there's other, you know, you can get into retirement planning and things like that and investing. But the you have the consolidation of, the continued consolidation of wealth at the top. And then these habits and good practices of wealth generation for the middle class are continuing to be undermined and disincentivized. And now renting is the cool thing and leasing is the cool thing and buy now, pay later is the cool thing. And the old, the saying, this isn't an old saying, this is a more modern saying. With socialism and communism on the rise, you'll own nothing and be happy. Right? That's what they're Talking about, and they're publicly talking about this. This is not a, conspiracy theory or, you know, one person 30 years ago who was a Marxist said this. This is their new way of operating. When I say they, I'm talking about the Democrats and this modern economy and the modern corporate culture. They are structuring things where they don't want you to buy the things up front. They want you to perpetually pay for the things forever. Another example of this, the mobile phone. How many of you remember when you could buy a phone with one payment up front, cash, and then all you had was the data plan? Now I might be young, but I'm not that young. I'm young enough, I'm old enough, Bobby, to remember when you could actually buy a phone. Not, not, not lease a phone. You could physically buy a phone and then you could upgrade for pennies on the dollar. Right. Remember the two year upgrade?
>> Walker Wildmon: Absolutely.
>> Walker Wildmon: It was like a steal for like, I don't know, 50 or 100 bucks, you can get a brand new phone and upgrade.
>> Bobby Roza: Now you need a second mortgage.
>> Walker Wildmon: Exactly. But they, Bobby, Bobby, they pivoted and this is the model I'm talking about that they're pivoting to, which I think once again undermines wealth generation. They pivoted to the. I, will put you on the payment plan. Right. The, the cell carriers and the phone providers, they literally moved away. You, you, you can technically probably buy a phone up front, but you're gonna pay over a thousand dollars.
>> Bobby Roza: Right. They took the car dealers model, correct?
>> Walker Wildmon: Yes. Yeah. Everything's a payment plan. Right. How much can you, how m. Much can you afford? That's right. How many months do you want to finance? And so that's another example. I mean, they moved away from it and for, it's very lucrative for the industry, very lucrative for the business because they're, they're perpetually receiving income Right. From you. And it may only be 30 bucks a month. It may only be, but forever. And then by the time you, quote, pay off the device, well, it's, it's four years down the road and, and your, Your iPhone's now seven models behind. Right.
>> Bobby Roza: It's like leasing a car.
>> Walker Wildmon: Yeah.
>> Bobby Roza: And your three or four, four years term comes up and it's time to continue the lease and.
>> Walker Wildmon: Yeah.
>> Bobby Roza: Continue to be on the hook.
>> Walker Wildmon: Exactly. So that's my, that's my one segment spiel for the day about how companies and our government and the economic structure is, is, is undermining wealth generation and incentivizing wealth gu.
>> Jeff Chamblee: The views and opinions expressed in this broadcast may not necessarily reflect those of the American Family association or American Family Radio.
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