Canada Tariffs, Child Care & a Badger Punt for the Ages

0:00Broadcasting live from the Annex Wealth Management Studios at the Avenue. It's time for Point Take-In. Here's Kristen Brigh, an in for Steve's graffiti. Here's Todd Alba. When Tuesdays feel like Monday is it you're just happy to be here in person and you made it and you're all in one piece? You look at fantastic. Sure, we'll go with that. But it certainly does not feel like Tuesday feels like Monday. Yeah. But I'm happy you're here, man. I'm happy to be always happy to be here pinch hitting for the wonderful and tell this Steve's graffiti taking some well-deserved time off at the tables out in the desert. Out in the desert. He is doing well. We've had sign of life as of this morning. So he's doing well. I'm not going to say whether he's up or down because that's his business to share if he wants to when he comes back on Friday, but he's alive. And he does the right thing about that. Fashion way. Not the Calcheer Polly. He goes to the table and actually makes the place. And actually puts on the at the black check to pit table if I'm not wrong.

1:04I think that's his choice. Blackjack instead of poker. What's your are you a gambler? Not really. That's a whole other. I just never got into it. I never really had enough money to get. I know that's why I feel I don't have them. I don't have to add my extra money laying around. Well, let me let me let me lose this. Let me like maybe lose this. Well, I went to you to be a plat fill back in the day back in the 90s. We would go to East Dubuque to go to the boat. And I would take my 20 bucks out of get our roller quarters. And that's when you actually pull the blackjack machine or the the slot machine. And when I was done, I was done. I was like entertainment. I've just never been one like I can't I can't afford to lose 500 bucks or whatever. I hear you speaking of a UW plat fill. I was I passed your neck of the woods. Yes. I was in Casville, Wisconsin. Beautiful Casville. I've never been. Didn't know didn't even know it was a thing until we were actually there. We were at the Nelson, Dewey state. I know this is a state park. Yep. And so didn't get to go but the Stonefield kind of Wisconsin historical society,

2:07smaller version of Old World Wisconsin. But it was beautiful. It's a beautiful part of the state next to the Mississippi River down there. So if you ever get a chance to go and like Kristen, Mike and Frankie did go go check it out. Yeah, it was great. But then I was very happy that we timed it almost perfectly, not on purpose that we got back right before literally we were passing American family field on our drive back and they called the game. And so I did not get stuck on Brewer's traffic. But we won. Big win last night. How about Brewer's come from behind to feed the evil and terrible Chicago Cubs and you know, great defense by Luis Laura. Cheerio, cheerio gets a great hit. I know the guys at Swarty were talking to manage your pat Murphy and Murphy and hey, that's a great win because Cheerio had three not so great at bad. He comes up with a fourth and basically gets the game winner. Trevor McGill closes it out and the Brewer's magic number to win the NL Central for a fourth straight time is now at nine games.

3:08Okay. It was always like the morning show game as far as like what is the magic number because there's depending on which achievement you're striving for the numbers. Well, it's a combination of brewers with the Cubs losses, but because they also clinch the tiebreaker of the series last night between the Cubs and the Brewers, they actually picked up three numbers last night. Okay. And so I find no champagne yet though. No champagne yet. But the Miz is on the mound tonight. I will be there looking forward to nervous anticipation to that. Although my friends carry a bill pink by buddy Rob Daggett from Madison. My former trainer is going to be in town. It says birthday today and his wife is letting him off to come down to the game tonight. So that'll be fun. I'll report back tomorrow. I'm excited. I've yet to see the Miz pitch in person. Really? Yeah. But I might get to meet the Miz in person at event on Thursday. Of course because she's just in Brian. No, it's nothing that I haven't gotten invited by a friend. All right. So is Ed, are you expecting with the midnight at midnight? We had new tariffs. Is there anything at the game that is going to be more expensive than it was yesterday?

4:10Maybe not tonight. But there could be, I've heard or tell that these sauce, if you're coming to the mall park tonight at Ampham Field, I'll prepare the kids for tears. These sausage races may be off tonight. Why? Thank you very much for asking because of the damn Trump tariffs and Canada. And we're going to come back and talk about it. All right. Yes. Well, we come back of what you may or may not expect to hit your wallet with the new Canada tariffs that just went into place at midnight last night. He has taught Alba. I am Kristen Brice. Steve will be back on Friday. And this is point taken. Special request for bumper music today by our guest co-host, Todd Alba, who is in for Steve. Because yes, are... What do we even want to spat, tariff, or how do we want to refer this right now as far as...

5:13That's a great job, Andrew. Yeah, Andrew Zimel. Yeah. Second show. Nicely done, Dan. Doing great. Really bringing it. Welcome back. So yes, as of midnight last night, Canada's new counter tariffs on hundreds of American products went into effect. And this is ranging from 15, so that's one five to 50, five zero, present on about $20 billion worth of US goods. And this is in response to the Trump administration's levies on Canadian imports. And the big question now is with the kind of cost of everything being all over the place, what about these tariffs are we actually going to feel? Because we've been talking about this for what two weeks now, as far as them coming, but now they are here. So where are we actually going to feel it, especially in Wisconsin, which is specifically poised to feel it more, at least some of our businesses and our farmers than other states. Yeah, the quick, that's all serious. So serious, but I thought we thought we'd have a little bit of fun with this this morning.

6:16And but the real serious, as you said, Kristen, is Trump administration, they can't really point to any specific, oh, this is why we're doing this. And this is why it makes sense. And I think a lot of this is just to divert people's attention away from the Iran war and the impact on goods there. Record high gas prices, if you traveled like I did, and Kristen did across the state of Wisconsin, diesel now, five bucks a gallon, and out in California where you used to live, this is real. They're panicky because prices are at eight bucks a gallon out there, and they don't have room on some of the machines to go to $10, which they think is possible. To say that again, so the fact that on the display screens, when you're pumping your gas, it's kind of like a Y2K situation, where it's like, oh, we didn't think it could ever be this high. So we didn't make the machines capable of displaying that number.

7:17Correct. Or like the big signs as you go down the road, it says what it is digitally. There's only room for one number in the five, six, seven, eight, nine dollars a gallon. And so this is the real impact that this is very serious. And if you have, well, regardless whether they have a family or not, this is impacting your wallet. And as you and Steve, Bill and Joe talked about in the show, you'll continue to do that. I know this is going to make a difference in how people vote in the midterm elections coming up here in a couple months plus. And so I think this is why we, and people say, well, what doesn't affect me? And so I think the point of this is to say, no, this stupidity out in Washington and the congressman in Wisconsin that support this is going to have an effect on each and every Wisconsinite in our wallet. All right. So tell me, let's walk through a little bit of what people may or may not expect, especially as a Wisconsinite. You want to play the feud? All right. Here we go, Andrew, let's play the feud. All right.

8:17What is it? Donald Trump family feud with Canada on team A, the Kristen Brides. The only team. The only team. All right. Nicely done Andrew. All right. Family feud. I was a Richard Dawson original guy. Now he got Steve. What's his name? No, it's Drew Kerry now, isn't it? No, Steve Harvey. Drew Kerry does. Price is right. He, but yeah, exactly. Okay. Price is right is Drew Kerry. Steve Harvey. Yeah. But I have for the rich. Steve Harvey is pretty funny. He is funny. He's pretty funny. I like the family feud guy. I like Richard Dawson, you know, anyway. All right. All right. So what are the rules? What are we doing? Top five answers on the board. And Kristen Brides going to see if she can get the top five. These are the top five exported goods from Wisconsin to Canada, which now because of the Trump tariffs will be higher, which means that Wisconsin producers are going to receive less money. So top five goods that are exported from Wisconsin to Canada which equals 7.5 billion with a B.

9:20Wisconsinites get, they make 7.5 billion dollars on goods they export to Canada. So any. All right. My first guess is going to be dairy related. So like way protein or some kind of, is are we separating the dairy products or is it dairy in general? That's just going to be all under agricultural goods. Okay. That is the number one answer. Nice. The don't interested, Brian. But that feels like a very wide umbrella. It is because we also are we sending them cranberries too? Yes. Exactly. So one point, one point two billion dollars of agricultural goods are sold to Canada every year from Wisconsin. The top one, as I touched on before, the break, sausages. We at Wisconsin. Is that considered an agricultural export? Of course. It's a meat product. Yes. I just think of things you're actually actually. When is usingers get their meat from? I am. Pork. You know, I just think of it something different than like, I don't know why. Okay. So. I'll give you a, don't argue with your sausages.

10:21All right. $1.8 million in sausage. grain alcohol, 1.4 million beverages like soy and cereal and water. I think a nickel A water, other water, Wisconsin. 68.5 million. And here's one chocolate. $58 million of chocolate is exported from Wisconsin to Canada every year. I don't think if I says a big chocolate producer. Yeah. Well, there you go. All right. Top five, Kristen got the number one answer. A goods exported from Wisconsin to Canada every year. Okay. Well, I feel like you just listed a whole bunch of them under one category. It's all under agriculture. So then I never even know where to go after that. All right. Well, let's listen off. Number two, plastics. Okay. Plastics at $566 million. Number three, you grew up at a rapids or at least spent on there. Paper, paper, paper, board. $523 million. Number four, top category of exports from Wisconsin to Canada every year.

11:22Electric motors and generators. Good things. Caffeini got a new generator. You know, $423 million. And the number five category of items of goods exported from Wisconsin to Canada every year. Beverage is of course. Alcohol. Thank you. $23, uh, for $231 million. A beer at alcohol from Wisconsin. So a lot of Brandy. A lot of Brandy. But it goes both ways because isn't there a fair amount of, because someone on the text line already said that they like, thank God I already got my Canadian whiskey. You and me both listen or fan because one of my favorite whiskeys I told Kristen during the break Pendleton. Pendleton, Canadian windy. Oh, whiskey. Their, uh, their tagline is letter buck. Good tagline. All right. Uh, when we come back, we'll talk a little bit about what's going to be more expensive on the way coming in from Canada. And also just in general, I have a game back for you. Right. Not because of tariffs, but on a variety of things. Looking ahead at the midterms, what's more expensive?

12:24What's less expensive than when Trump took office? He has taught all of, uh, I am Kristen Brey and this is Pointtaken. Welcome back to Pointtaken. I am Kristen Brey. Todd Alba is here, filling in for Steve, to date, tomorrow and Thursday. So happy to have you here, my friend. What's what you're talking about? New tariffs, new costs. So we talked before about the things that are going to mostly hurt suppliers and business in Wisconsin who has selling things to Canada. But as a consumer, that is, isn't necessarily what we're feeling. We're feeling things that we're used to getting. From Canada that could go up if the buyer doesn't eat the cost. Correct. So what are some of those things? So things that, uh, that we send, we import from Canada, I'll just list some, ordered the top one, industrial machinery. Number two, plastic products. So we send plastic to them both ways. Both ways. I get paper products. I think some of that is we send the raw stuff and then we get the refined stuff back. Mineral fuel. So we get the fuel. So we get the fuel.

13:26Mineral fuel. And then here's one aluminum and copper are tied for five. So, you know, but you think, well, how the cycle it affected? Well, copper coils in air conditioning, this made by Carrier. I believe here in Wisconsin. So it's a domino effect. Well, and I probably should have looked at this before we started talking about it this morning. But what I haven't looked into is, obviously we know that the Supreme Court ruling earlier this year marked that the tariffs were unconstitutional. Some of the tariffs, a lot of the tariffs were unconstitutional. What I don't understand is where these fall, and if there is active lawsuits happening with this new round of back and forth with Canada. It's a great question. You and Steve say this is one of the reasons I love this show. We have smart fans, smart listeners. I don't want to say something I don't know, but here's my understanding of it. Thanks for your question. I think some of this is tied up in, used to be called the North American Free Trade Agreement, NAFTA, then Trump changed it to a new name.

14:26So I think he's trying to skirt some of this new stuff under that. But I believe like so many things at Trump, he's just trying to push it and say, well, the Supreme Court ruled on the first batch of tariffs. Now this is different, quote unquote. And he's just waiting for another lawsuit to see how far he can go. Or until he tacos out, you know, Trump-wise changes his... And I haven't heard that for a while. Yeah, right. Trump taco. Yeah. All right, so speaking of some of the other things that are more expensive or less expensive, these don't necessarily have to do with tariffs. But I saw this this morning as we look at head to the midterms and obviously the thing that keeps popping up as the number one issue for most voters when pulled is affordability. So as far as just simply higher or lower, let's see how you do, Todd Alba, on since Trump became president, what is higher or lower on these eight different items? So the first one would be gas prices. Higher. Absolutely higher. As you said, we're going to talk about that with Dave Spano

15:27later. Record highs as of Labor Day of how expensive gas is. All right, what about electricity? Higher. Also higher. The next one was mortgage rates. Lower. They are. Good job. Not quite. It's the 30 year fixed mortgage rates have fallen slightly. But technically, yes, lower. This next one, pharmaceutical prescription drugs. That's a tough one. He partnered with Mark Cuban on this. I'm going to say lower. It is lower. This is actually one of the wins that I give Trump a lot of credit for is the fact that he did partner with Cuban, who those two have not always gotten along. But they kind of. A Cuban adoris taleriko, this other story. Yeah. But then the next one is grocery prices. Higher. Absolutely higher. I shop on like Steve. Substituted of grocery prices. Eggs. Eggs, I'm going to say are lower overall. Eggs are lower overall. But beef. Beef much higher. Beef is much higher. And finally,

16:28tariff revenue is going to bring down the cost of child care. And that is completely incorrect. It's higher. It is absolutely higher. And so when we come back, we're going to talk about child care or being paid to stay at home with your kids. But now ABC and then local headlines. Welcome back to Point Taken. I am Kristen Brie here with Todd Alba. For today, tomorrow and Thursday, Steve is in Vegas. He's actually texting me currently. So we're trying to do. Is he already at the tables? He made it. He's an early riser. So I don't know if when he first wakes up, if he like immediately beelines for the tables or if he gets coffee first or something. But he and I are trying to figure out a day for a get together with our fans. So he was texting me. Oh, nice. All right, so I feel I was joking at the top of the hour as far as feeling, you know, like it's a feels like a crazy Monday morning and I feel a little scattered. But I feel scattered not only because we went camping over the weekend. And I think whenever you don't have, for me, whenever I don't have that day before the week starts

17:31to get like acclimated for the week. It's always kind of a hectic Monday, even though it's Tuesday. But I doubled, like, doubled down on that today because my husband is also sick. So whenever there's just like the single more, like single parent mornings of getting ready for work, getting ready to be live on air at 10 a.m., while also having to get your child ready and out the door for school is always like added pressure. And it's always mornings like that that I'm reminded what superheroes single parents are who do this all the time. If they're themselves ready and their kids ready for work on their own. And how much easier it is when you're dividing and conquering with a partner. So just why I think having the funds that are available for working single parents to help them pay for childcare is good policy. But this proposal, this is not a law yet, got circulated a lot, at least in my circles and my side of the internet. But at the end of last week, there was a New York Times article

18:33that highlighted the fact that the, this is more of like a JD Vance initiative, it sounds like, but they're working on a plan to pay at home parents, which if you stop the sentence there, I have no problem with. Unfortunately, the rest of the sentence is, there's more tele into the Child Care and Development Fund, which is a $12 billion pot that is currently reserved for working parents, mostly single moms, who need care in order to hold a job. So this isn't creating a new fund or new money. It is, once again, I think creating culture wars between the nuclear family encouraging one parent, usually mom,

19:33to stay home and we are now going to allocate funds for you. But oh yeah, those funds are coming from people who need to be able to pay for childcare in order to go to work. And I, like I am on the side of all caretakers, whether that is for a child, for someone with a disability, or for your aging parents, should they deserve support. What frustrates me always is it feels like, it's a divide and conquer, that it is like pitting families against each other of who gets this slice of the pie instead of just making the pie bigger. And so I stand on, like I do think stay at home parents should get paid. What a reward sense. I do think stay at home parents should get paid, just not at the cost of parents who need money to be able to afford childcare, which is not getting any cheaper. My parents got divorced when I was 10-11.

20:34My sister was six or seven or so. Dad had an affair with basically the secretary. Oh wow. Spicy to the wife. Didn't pay child support for three years. And my mom was a manager to small independent or a small camera store in a town of 5,000 people. She had them going back to school for a year, finishing her teaching degree, and going to be a kindergarten teacher for 23 years. But there was a period of time when my mom could only afford by a tombstone pizza. She'd cut it a little squares, and had my sister and I eat, and whatever was left over, that's what she ate. And oftentimes went to bed hungry, bought clothes at the thrift store, or hand me downs from an aunt that were too big for her. And she sacrificed so much for my sister and I. And when she went to ask for some assistance, a little bit for food. From the government. From the government. My grandparents had put like a couple of thousand dollars in my sister and I, you know, for our college account.

21:37But it was still listed under my mom as well. And she was told, oh, sure, you can have some assistance for food. If you get rid of that $2,000 savings account college fund for your kids because that's under your name. And she was an eligible. So what this would have been like 80s, like early mid 80s. So she was not eligible for any kind of assistance because she had savings. A little bit of savings. And she was working full time 40 hours plus. And this is the point that you just made so well is that particularly Republicans like this, they want to inject my full party, which I left by the way in 2011, is that they mix this weird, and I'm a person of faith, but they mix this weird religious theology in with government politics. And they penalize working people, people who want to work full time, particularly single moms. And they want to transfer funds from there

22:39and give it to stay at home moms because it fits an ideology, a theocracy of religion. And yeah, look, it'd be great to have a stay at home parent full time. That'd be a great thing to have. That's not reality. And this is cruel and it's mean and it's a terrible idea. Well, not only that, it also potentially, if this were to go into effect, makes the childcare situation even worse because it is like, it's like, sci-fi, sci-fining, that's the word I want. Sci-fining funds that is going to childcare and makes it even more, even less money that's going there because it is going to stay at home parents. So there's a lot of different ways to go with this. I think the first thing is like, do you think as a society we could get back into the idea of paying parents to stay home just in order to take care of kids? Like you're going to pay for that. That is a question. So like, on its face, are you okay with this? Like, let's take away the idea that

23:39where the money is coming from. Even on its face as a conservative value, do you think paying parents to stay home with their kids is a good idea? 855-616-1628, he is taught all about I am Kristen Breye and this is Point Taken. How do you feel about paying parents to stay home because there is a new proposal spearheaded by JD Vance through HHS to star pain. I think it's around $9,000 for married couples where one parent stays home. The rub here is that where the money is coming from but even like taking that part off, I think it's an interesting question specific to the public. I think it's a very important thing interesting question specifically to Republicans and conservatives who even looking at the text line right now, 855-616-1620, like aren't necessarily huge fans of paying people from government money for any kind of quote unquote handout, right?

24:42No, I'm just saying like I think it's an interesting thing as far as who is from a JD Vance perspective, like who is going to be on board with this because I think there's a lot of people who, like you're waiting into progressive left leaning territory when you're supporting government funds to help people who do other work that is not necessarily through an employer, right? Like this idea that we have government programs to help people stay afloat and not fall through the cracks like is a more left leaning progressive ideal than a conservative one and yet here is this ultra conservative official who wants to pay like the why behind it we can get into but I think there's gonna be a lot of people who aren't necessarily who are conservatives who are not necessarily for this program because women's work and mothering doesn't necessarily always consider, isn't always considered work.

25:42Nailed it. I mean nailed it. Again, as a former 30 year Republican who still considers myself fiscally conservative to a large degree. Man without a party. Well, I'm a man without a party, but you're absolutely right. This is why Maga Republicanism is not true Republicanism. It's antithetical to it. You're 100% right. That traditional Republicans' conservatives would say, why is the government paying parents to parent? It's just not what we do. And you're in this. I don't have kids in my own. $9,000. How far is that gonna take it in childcare, Kristen? Well, if you're staying home, right? Like if you're staying home, then that's extra money. There's basically some kind of money to pay, but if that's on a wage, like $9,000 for the year is not a wage that to for how much work it takes to stay home with a child full time. And I want to be clear, you mentioned this before, I agree that parenting and stay at home moms or dads

26:44is a job, it is a tremendous job. And should not be overlooked at all. It should be lifted up, but not every couple, every person can do that practically or financially, and that's okay. But I know you said take it away for the purposes of the poll, which is fine, but I do think it's important that JD Vance is saying, let's take money away from money set aside to help single parents, predominantly mothers, and get working parents. Working parents. But like it ends up, cause here's the thing, think about being a single mom. And I think about this as far as even if this was $9,000 to a single mom, and you didn't have to have these other rules that they're putting into this, into criteria for this thing where you have to be married. And one parent is staying home, let's be honest, one of those parents, it's probably in heterosexual marriage. But in the reality is if you just, it was for any parent, but as a single parent, like there's no other person in the picture, let's say, like $9,000 wouldn't be enough for you

27:45to even stay home, right? And so that is for the ability to, you have to go to work and subsidize some kind of care for your children until they're old enough to go to school, right? And I guess I just don't understand what this is actually doing besides virtue signalling, we're trying to be pro-family. Like it doesn't necessarily make a strong economic argument. It's not a fiscal argument for anyone who is fiscally conservative, and it is also just more of a sign of, we want women back in the home versus this making any sense policy wise of what it's actually solving. And that's where, why the big problem this comes from is the theocracy part of it. The real, let's use religious values and implement that in government to try it as you said, signal this. And it's, you know, this comes from the same sponsor JD Vans who, you know, let's have more kids. Women should be having more children and bigger families, but they don't actually make it more affordable to do so.

28:49They don't actually make a child care more affordable to do so. They just want you to pro-create and be a good Christian family. And again, if you could afford it, great. I'm not anti-kid or anti-family in any way, shape or form, but I just think it's so out of touch to stand in a position of power and use these religious overtones of the man and the woman to the woman just stay home and take care of the child, have more children, pro-create, but you're not actually making it more affordable to do so in the first segment. It's less affordable to raise a family today in Wisconsin now more than ever. Why don't we fix that first? And then maybe on their own, I mean, as a married person, would you and your husband, if you could afford it, would one of us stay home? Would one of you stay home? That is a loaded question. I know it's a loaded question. And we're gonna use it as a tease and come back and I'm gonna think about it at commercial break. If we could afford it, would one of us stay home

29:51and a bigger question, which one of us would stay home? Stay with us. Stay with us. This is Point Taken. Only a couple of minutes before we go to the top of the hour news, but Todd Alda here in Four Steve's Cathedral. And we're talking about this proposed new, I don't even know what's a deal, new initiative. We'll see if it even passes like the legal smell test as far as pain married couples where one parent is staying home around $9,000 a year. And like there's one side of the argument as far as where that money is coming from, but I also think the more interesting argument is, should the government be paying people for doing in-home work? Like should that be seen as work? Should it be paid for as work, which I think is an ongoing question as far as when we talk about like paid leave for all? But you asked me, Todd Alda, if we could afford it, which we can't, like right now like I would say, well, I mean, if we really cut back on our budget, we could probably afford it.

30:51But for now, we're not in the situation where neither Mike or I make enough where we could live comfortably and one of us stay home. But if we did, Mike would love to stay home. Let's be honest. Mike would love to tinker at home. He's a great dad. I was in a big shop with him. Somehow I was like just raking in dough from a content creation and brand deals. I think he would love to stay home. I don't think for me, I could ever just stay home. Meaning, like I could not have a job, but if I was staying at home parenting, I would probably find a lot of different projects to be doing simultaneously. I think, so, but I think about it, right? Like I don't think there's any working mom, and I'll speak from a mom standpoint. I don't think there's any working mom who doesn't daydream of what it would be like to not have to work and just take care of the house and just take care of your kids. And like more the more projects you would get done. How much healthier your kids would eat if you actually had time to grocery stop

31:54and like make fresh food. How much cleaner your house would be? How many projects would be done? Like I would be lying if I don't say there's moments where I daydream about being able to stay home, but I also think grass is always greener and very quickly if I was just staying home, I'd probably want to go to work. So with that, when we come back, Dave Spano here on a Tuesday but first, happy hour news. The work week is here. Let's begin with your Monday market preview with Annex's health management CEO, Dave Spano. On point taken. We were working on Monday, so Dave Spano's here on a Tuesday. How was your long weekend, Dave? Nice. I was in northern Wisconsin, chopping wood and piling it and doing all the fun stuff. Oh, do you properly up there? We do, up in Vila Scone. All right, so we're going to work on Monday. All right, so you're preparing for the fall in the winter? Yeah, you could start to feel it. It was nice. You could smell it in the air. The leaves were starting to fall a little bit.

32:54I mean, they haven't changed colors yet, but you can start to feel that it's common. So it's great. I love this time of year. Question before we actually get into what we are here to talk about. How are the yellow jackets up north? Are they as bad as they are in southern Wisconsin right now? No, not really. Funny. I did get bit playing golf at Aaron Hills. Okay, so yeah, it's like a record bad right now. How bad the yellow jackets are as far as this last month has just been terrible. But I didn't know if you got some reprieve from it by going north. Yeah, no, they weren't bad up there, but you don't want to get bit by those suckers. That's for sure. It's no fun, especially when you're a child. We had some bee stumps over the weekend with toddlers. Not good. Bum are really. They lived to tell about it, but there's some screaming involved. All right, our friend Todd Alba is in for Steve. And Todd, you were talking earlier today about, obviously at midnight, the Canadian tariffs went into play. But Todd had a fun fact that he specifically wanted to ask you, Dave, about where they comes to these tariffs. It's a pleasure to meet you at least here on the show.

33:57Dave, a long time list. I love this segment every week with Kristen and Steve. So it's an honor to be able to chat a little bit in person on the show. Philip Tittin for Steve's graffiti. But here's the thing. So President of the United States, Donald Trump's new tariffs. Go into place now against Canada. The reciprocals are coming back to Wisconsin. And we at Chris and I, the first hour talked about goods, but I did not know this to quote Johnny Carson. I did not know that. 777 million dollar of services are exported to Canada from Wisconsin each year. And according to the US Census Bureau, the number five top services from Wisconsin to Canada are financial services. 60 million dollars of financial services go exported to Canada every year. A, explain what that means and B, are these Trump? How does that Trump tear of affect folks like you? Yeah. So first of all, let's, if you're going to go all Johnny Carson,

34:59take one of those cards, go Karnak on us, right? And play connected to your forehead folks. Those of you who are on the radio right now, we can he is actually doing that to his forehead right now. So nice move. You know, you just think about, for example, a very local example would be banking services. Obviously BMO is the Bank of Montreal. Yeah. Who bought M&I many, many years ago. And so that would be the best example is financial services. A TD is Toronto Dominion, which is based in Toronto, of course. So TD bank and BMO would be the two things that jumped in my, when you say financial services. Of course, they're insurance companies. There's very large insurance companies that are based there as well. And then of course, there's things like the Ontario teachers fund, which has money that's, that's managed by advisors in the United States. So that's how it is. It's we don't have any relationships like that with our firm. But if you can think about it in a bigger picture, we're, you know, BMO TD, TD Dominion or financial services

36:01that are managing pensions in Canada would be the ones that jump to mind. So Dave, with the tariffs going into play as of midnight last night, what is, what are we seeing as far as how we expect that to impact the market or any of the other services you provide? Like what are you advising for your clients as of now, as long as these are in place? Yeah. First of all, I still believe this two shell pass, despite the, the rhetoric that is even continues to heat up right now. So, you know, and we just, you just, your news just talked about Bombay air. So there's not a lot of things that they're transferring back and forth. At some point that they are a neighbor and I'm sure it's going to get worked out. I think they're trying to do the best they can. But, you know, the flip side, if you really want to go to the negative side of it, you know, what Canada is trying to do is protect their workers, right? So there could be a situation where they go to an auto manufacturer, for example, in Canada and say, why don't you come to Detroit or, you know, or come to Cleveland or something. And then you bring those services and things that can be built there here to the United States.

37:05The things that you can't, obviously, is lumber and fuel and energy and oil, all of those things, because they're very rich in natural resources. So those are the things. Would you look at, for example, oil prices would be another really good example. Now that's basically from the straight to her moves, what's happening there. But higher oil prices is going right into inflation. And that is something that we have to worry about because inflation continues to be higher than the Fed's self-directed mandate of 2%. It's been over that manned that 2% now for five and a half years. So we keep saying that we want to lower that interest rate. We want to lower the target of inflation, but the input costs, oil being one of them, is what's driving that up. So if that could go away, you know, obviously a ton of oil comes from Canada into the United States. If those two things can go away, Chris, and maybe we can get inflation down. But when we come back, we can talk about what next week is, which is the CPI report? What's the purpose of this? Do we want to take a break? And when we come back, we'll talk about the CPI report because it's the CPI report

38:07and then also the producer price indexes this week as well, right? Exactly right. All right. Well, let's talk about what we can expect from those Dave Smotto. Always good to have you here, even on a Tuesday. We'll be back after this. Welcome back to Point Take and I am Kristen Brey along with Todd Alba, in for Steve and we are talking to Dave Smotto, CEO of Annex Wealth Management on a Tuesday because we were all enjoying the day off yesterday. But as we said right before the break, so they're getting two price checks. It's this week, right? There's both the price index report, the producer price index report, and the consumer price index report. What are the differences between those and what are they going to tell us, Dave? Yeah. So the difference, of course, is the producer prices. You're producing some goods and then that goes to the manufacturer and then they sell it to the consumer, right? So that's the step before the consumer, the producer's price index. And so generally that's more of a leading indicator because if the producer's price goes into a product, then of course the prices will go up and then you and I are going to pay more as a consumer.

39:10That leads to the consumer price index, which we're looking for this week. And there's going to be a lot of eyes that are on there for many reasons. But ironically, by the way, Kristen, it's coming out on 9-11. And so that certainly jumped out at me and 25 years later, I just thought, you know, you think about, you know, everyone knows where they were, right? If you're old enough, you know where you were that morning, that Tuesday morning. And just think about, you know, all the things that have changed in the world since then, right? How we think about, how we travel, how we think about, you know, how we think about foreign investment. For example, it goes back to the beginning of our conversation, you know, and think about national security, you think about public perception, you know, safety around us, all of that. That really was a major change. And I think about changes that I've seen in my business with our clients. That certainly was one of them. There's no doubt about that. You've fast forward, of course, to 2008, September 15th of 2008. And of course, COVID, those are three major things that changed how Americans invest, frankly,

40:15and just think about not only changed our world. But to come back to go, I got off target a little bit just because I see that's out of 9-11 reports. It's a consumer price index is coming and we're going to watch for that. And, you know, followed by the Fed's report and, you know, they're coming up with, should they raise rates or not? And after Friday's jobs report, the odds went from, you know, in the 30s and 40s, almost up to 65%, which still does not make sense to me that, but even though the betting odds have gotten that over to 2-3rds, that's today, we'll see what the rest of the CPI report looks like. I mean, if that's a lower report, that could lower the odds. But to raise rates in front of election is generally, you know, one of the things that the central bank tries not to do. So we'll see if that actually happens in the number one. And the number two, it just can't be a one-off rate raise. So if they're going to do it, I mean, you're just going to have one rate raise and then leave it alone. That's illogical to me, too. So I think it's going to be really telling to see what they do.

41:16And, you know, Kevin Worsh's job is tough. I mean, it's really a difficult job, especially when you have Mr. Trump as your boss, even though he shouldn't be the boss. I mean, it's a central bank. So a lot of these things are very interesting to me. And the reason why it's important to your listeners is because higher interest rates affect the equity's market. It affects not only mortgage rates because it's tied to mortgage rates. It makes houses more unaffordable of rates go up. And number two, if rates go up, you could go to the bank, Kristen, and say, I want a locked rate in a CD at 5% versus being an equity's market. So the higher interest rates put more pressure on companies and that puts more pressures on equities. So it's very important to us as well. So David, I get it as far as what you just said as far. They typically don't touch rates before an election. And I'm assuming it's four political reasons of looking like they're, it's not political. Is the history behind that? That's correct. They don't want to get in the way and say that someone's touched the, you know, the outcome of an election.

42:18So does it ever happen? Because it does because since they are supposed to be separate, right? It's like, what is the best fiscal policy regardless of the election site? Don't be so logical all the time. Yeah, but that's exactly right. So, you know, they shouldn't, but, you know, I think if you look at the actual facts and the actual circumstances, right now, the way I look at it, it's not calling for higher rates. It's calling for just to stand pat and see as this cycle goes through. I mean, there's, you know, we're going to go into some seasonality right now, which is September is a tough, a tough month. And then you get into Q4. And so this is, we could have a lot of fluctuation here in the month of September. I wouldn't be surprised to see that. We've seen it before. It's a tough month. And then secondarily, it's seasonality before you get into Q4. And so all of this could suggest that just stand pat and get more facts first before they do anything. But the baddie nods are have it up. But, you know, to me, it doesn't make sense. I would say, how often are you looking at the baddie nods these days? No, well, I mean, you do look at it.

43:19And so it's, you can be a Fed watcher and not actually bet on it. But there's a thing called the CME, which is the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. It's called Fed watch. Okay. And so that's really one, when I say baddie nods, that's what I mean. You're not talking about Kelsey? No, I don't want to equate what we do investing with baddie. But it is, it is a way to look at it. And now, you know, it's at 58 to 60%. I mean, that's obviously above the halfway mark. So we'll watch it. But that could drop in a big way coming, coming after the CPI report and the PPI report. All right. We'll have plenty more to talk about with you about those reports next week. But before that, tomorrow, you guys are having an event in Brookfield, single in retirement. We were talking about single parenting earlier, but there's also single in retirement. So you have a workshop that's going to identify sources and best practices around your health care, housing finances, and creating a support network. So that's tomorrow, September 9th, from six to seven. And then when Steve's back, you guys are going to have a WTMJ webinar

44:19along with director of financial planning, Annex Wealth Management, Eric Strom. Strom, Strom. Strom. Yeah, Strom. Yes. And that's going to be Tuesday, September 22nd at 3pm. Just go to events at annexwealth.com to sign up for both, either always good events. Eventually, they're going to have me post one of them. I'd love to have you over. You know that. They'd be great. And if you know, listen, if Jeff keeps doing, maybe we'll have him over too. We'll see how things go. Exactly. You know, you know, that's going to make graffiti mad when he hears that. I said, I'm still getting these fines. He's up. He's got a lot of work to do. Yeah, exactly. All right, Dave. We'll see you next week. Have a great week. All right. See you. Bye. We'll have more after this on Pointtaken. Oh, welcome back to Pointtaken. I'm Kristen Brite. Todd Alba is here today tomorrow and Thursday while Steve is out. So you have the distinct privilege. Of going to the Badger football game this weekend. How was that, Todd?

45:19It was an experience, Kristen Brite. I'll tell you that. I was all you were over in Castville. I was in Richland Center Springgreen, Green Bay, Shano Springgreen Madison. All over the weekend. All over the weekend. Wow. And now here. So happy to be here. Yeah. Was that the big kickoff? Lots of anticipation. Hot seat for Luke fickle this year for those kinds of badger head coach. Lots of anticipation. The fighting Irish Notre Dame. The best t-shirt I saw outside Lambo. It said Catholics versus alcoholics. Are those mutually exclusive? I don't think so. But yeah. So Badger's held tight, playing pretty good first half. So first of all, let me say it. What do you think of the new uniforms? I think I have one person who liked it. I just, they're too blingy for me. Do you think they had a roll amount to compete with the gold helmets? Yeah. Maybe a little bit.

46:19How gold are the helmets? 20 see them in person. But that is bad. I was at the Rose Bowl in 2019, Wisconsin versus the dreaded Oregon ducks. And those silver helmets, the Oregon wears, those should be outlawed. Because it just blinds you. Well, they also, because they're, they mean they're just like in, in, uh, lockstep with Nike, right? So like, Oregon, Oregon, Oregon, Oregon, Oregon always has new uniforms. Anyway, so we hate the new uniform. I hate the new uniforms. I ended up in, I've never sat because I'm from, I went to school to be a flat fill. Both my godson's are UW Madison Badger alums. I never sat in the student section. A bunny of mine, Chris Gesey had tickets. He got them from an alum. We end up in the student section in the end zone. So here's the right page of, what are you 57? 56, 56, sorry, A.J.O. All right. All right. So I'm, did you feel like rejuvenated? Did you feel the, the, the, the, the, the, the. Camping like hormones of a 22 year old. To pick up on your team's topic from last week and in your newsletter, find

47:22it by the way, I signed up for the newsletter right now. Lots of fair mone maxing. What's there? Can you confirm that this is actually a trend that you, did you have some men who needed to take a shower in the student section? I smelled it. Yeah. That's a fair-mode maxing in the end. Oh. And I can't say I didn't enjoy it. But anyway, that was another subject. It works, at least on you. I guess a little bit. But you know, so beer being thrown over during big plays, and we sat right in front of this poor mother and high school boy from Notre Dame that somehow ended up in the student section. In the Badger Student section as well. Yeah, so we were trying to care for them. But anyway, that's, so when we were in the student section and it was a great experience, I can't repeat what section I was in, but there's a particular chant that goes back and forth between the students. Yeah. Yeah, I was in, anyway, I was in one section of that. Okay. It was a lot of fun, but here's the deal. Badger's held tight until half time. Yeah. And then it kind of fell apart.

48:22I predicted last year, my pre-season prediction, Badger's had four wins. They had four wins. This year I said, five, I feel five or six is realistic. I disagree with Mark Tauser, although I never played in the NFL. Anyway, the big star of the show was the punter of the game. His name is Sean West from Meckone. From Meckone. Yeah. I'm telling you, we all play it. We come back. Yeah, let's play it when we come back. Because you pulled some one of his big kick that was. Big kick and a 70 yard pun and people are saying on the internet, I actually agree. Best pun I've ever seen. A 70 yarder that went right at the, like one inch yard line. All right, we'll do that after this. I guess I didn't ask that. Todd Alba, filling in for Steve's The VD, sitting in the student section at Lambo. How was jump around at Lambo? Incredible. Right in the heart of the students bouncing up and down. Did you break a sweat? I did. I didn't just, you know, cop out and stand there.

49:23No, I know. But I feel like it's like a little bit of a cardiovascular strenuous. You got it. I'm not as fit as I was, but I could still do a jump round for a whole segment and keep on going. You can do the whole segment. You can do the whole song. Yes. Good for you. Yeah. I was a badger. Should have had that kind of energy. They lost 41 to 13 to Notre Dame up at Lambo Field in the season opener. So we'll see your predictions. What? You said five or six games over. I said before the season started, I thought they win five this year. Maybe they win six. I hope, by the way, I'm not like a bat. Anybody want them to win? Right. Anybody who's been a realistic Cardinal and a white fan, a huge badger fan. And by the way, you can hear him this year on 620 WTMJ Matt LaPay and Mark Taujure every Saturday afternoon for the rest of the season. I'm still happy to have him back here on 620 WTMJ. But they badgers did not get it done at Lambo. But the star of the show was the punter for the Wisconsin Badgers, mechwan native, Sean West. Have you been to mechwan? It's been time there. Yeah.

50:24I've definitely been to mechwan. But is he a freshman? I don't know what Yuri is. Okay. But he's from mechwan, one of my best friends Ryan Lee's from mechwan. It's been time there. Great custer. You can get up there in the mechwan. And so here is mechwan's favorite native son now, Sean West. We got a 70, 70 yard punt that went out basically the one yard line. It was fantastic. And TMJ 4 is on television side. Carly Morota did a little interviewing after the game spoke with Sean West mom, brother, and a few fans. We have the cut from Carly Morota from TMJ 4. Oh my gosh. So proud. He works so hard. It's so nice for him to show what he could do. And we're so grateful that he has this opportunity. I made two of my battery drain 50 percent in 15 minutes. Yeah. Everyone is just like for him. I'm just happy he's out there helping him at a good time. I think it was one of the best puns of college football. The way it just stopped on the dime right on the goal lining. Putter down the bounds. The right day is beautiful. I think it was beautiful. Textbook. Textbook.

51:24Textbook. I like is that that's his go to thing is to do the golf swing. He must be in there a freshman or a transfer because of a junior. A junior. Maybe transfer didn't after going somewhere else. But yeah, apparently a signature thing when he has a good punt, he does the old golf swing, kind of the old Johnny Carson swing at the end of the monologue. So but as someone, those of you who may have tuned in before while I'm filling for Steve, I'm a Richland Center native Southwest Wisconsin. And one of my mom's neighbors are the Uens Brady Uens. Long time full back for the Badgers and now back helping with alumni. And so I know what it's like when our family would go watch Brady and he had a big play. His first, I think he was on the special teams. He had a great, great run back. It wasn't even for a touchdown. It's just like a 50 yard run. And my sister, I got Tiriied and I know what it's like to see somebody that you love and know on that stage, especially at Lambo in front of a national audience. So I could not be happier for Sean West from Meckwan that puntured his family and friends

52:25who got to see him be this. You have this big play on the national stage. National stage in a historic setting. Yeah, that is pretty cool. I didn't get it at first when you wanted to talk about it. Now I get it. Pretty cool. It's a good story. It's a great feel good story. And I think that we just shot with, we were so much negative stuff at news or sports. Hey, when somebody makes it, especially from your hometown in Southeast Wisconsin from Meckwan and does this in his home, the Packer Stadium for his home estate, his state team, got to shout that out. Got to shout it out. All right. Hot Alba, you're a good one. All right, we'll bet back with more after this. Welcome back to Point Taken. I am Kristen Brie. Steve, Steve is out. Hot Alba is here from two more days, two more segments and two more days after today. I looked something up this weekend because you know how there's kind of the annual reminder as we go into Memorial Day weekend to not say happy Memorial Day. Correct. Right?

53:25There's certain holidays that just because you have the day off doesn't necessarily mean they're celebratory versus observances or things supposed to be more like a memory and honoring but not necessarily celebration. So I was looking at like, do you say happy Labor Day? I think it's definitely, can you, I mean, it's not Memorial Day, but like, is that the, is that like, etiquette? Does it say happy Labor Day? Other dual meetings like a, you know, have a great time family of friends as you maybe close out the summer for lack of a bit. Get your last trip to the lake or a relaxing Labor Day. Yeah, I'm happy to say Labor Day. But I was trying to think because in the similar vein as far as, you know, when we think about Memorial Day and what it's supposed to be versus what for a lot of people that ends up being the beginning of summer and barbecues and more, less in the spirit of like remembering those who have fallen and given the ultimate sacrifice and then Labor

54:27Day, a totally different kind of sacrifice that we are honoring as far as when you actually look into 150 years of like the labor movement and how many strikes. But not only how many strikes, how many massacres, including like the Bayview Massacre in Milwaukee of laborers fighting for their right to have, you know, more equal pay, an eight hour work day, a five day work week and all of these different things that we take for granted now that came from a labor movement, which is what the day is supposed to be about. And like, ultimately, many lives were lost in that fight, including I was, so I had, I knew that the Bayview Massacre existed, but this came across along with some other labor struggles like I didn't know Hershey, Pennsylvania, the whole labor movement there where there was a riot. And so, but the Bayview Massacre one, the 12 people were killed, including like a 12 year old boy.

55:27Was it 12 with a 12 year old boy and then was it seven, seven people were killed, including a 12 year old boy. But as far as I think sometimes just the things that we take for granted and we forget the origin of why we have the day off and it is to literally honor the people who risk their lives in order to make working conditions better for everyone. I'm still glad to mention this because we forget about it. I certainly don't always take time to do what you did and look back and we think, oh, well, it's always, you know, they, my employer can't require me to work more than eight hours. I mean, if I work overtime, I need to get overtime pay. It's a taken for granted thing. And there are people who literally thought and died to have those rights as workers today. And then I know you have a disagreement with Steve on this, but I tend to side with you on act 10 in this state during the Walker era, which really was a front to public employees in the state and taking the right away to negotiate and to collectively bargain. That was a step back for our educators in the state in particular.

56:32So these fights are still going on. Women in particular, the total have equal pay in the workforce. So that's what it should be about in addition to having, I guess, a happy Labor Day with your friends and family. Quick, couple of quick stories, traveling around as I said and was in Toronto. My dad's a memory care as I may have shared before. So I went to Duncan Donuts up there quickly to get a dozen donuts to take the workers that were working on Memorial Day, taking care of my dad, the other residents. I think there were three, I'll call them girls, teenagers to early 20s, working this Duncan Donuts in Sean Wisconsin. And the line of cars and the drive through is around the building. It was about eight deep inside. People were coming in and picking up mobile orders. And these poor young women were just, they were doing a great job, but just frazzled. I thought, good gosh, the Sean County fair is going on. Sean was a vacation community. It's Labor Day where the few places are open and your manager only has three people. And these poor young women are being worked to death. And they're doing as best as they could, but here they are, Labor Day working for us.

57:35We stopped at a diner in Bondoel, Wisconsin, my buddy Christy, the way back from Green Bay at 11 o'clock at night, have a late bite to eat. Quick trip has bought this now. And so these are like quick trip employees that are doing like overnight stuff. We're also having to wait tables. And this poor woman could barely, I shouldn't say barely walk, but it's having difficulty walking. She was so pleasant and so nice. And I'm not going to say how it just being self-aggrandizing. I gave her a very nice tip. And I built this 27 bucks. I gave her a very nice tip. And her face just lit up. And she's like, well, thank you very much. I said, I appreciate you. And look, I've been there. I've worked, I've worked with the service industry on the holidays. I've worked retail on Christmas Eve. And it kept me a lot of fun, you know, helping people pick things out. Like all people of the service industry and retail are asking for, be seen. Don't just say thank you. Say I appreciate you. Let them know they're being seen for what they're doing. If you can afford it, I'm not saying every time.

58:37But if you can afford it, tack on a little bit of an extra tip for people who are serving you particularly on holidays. That's what all of us could do to make people in the service industry and the workers and the laborers who are letting the rest of us vacation feel better. All right. Hot tip. I'm Todd Alba on a Tuesday. We'll be back with more after this. All right. Only a couple of minutes left before we hand it over to midday news. Todd Alba, as always, so happy that you're here this week. I appreciate it. Always a great opportunity. I never take it for granted. I appreciate the good folks here at Good Karma Sports and W620WTMJ. You and Steve for having me. I'm going to say that we're going to spend this afternoon because I'm trying to figure out all the topics I want to be able to talk about with you this week, including more political stuff. I'm like, I cannot get over. I talked about this a little bit with Bill and Joe on Friday. How sleepy this doesn't it feel like is this? You've been in politics a lot longer than I have in Wisconsin.

59:38Is this abnormally sleepy for governors, right? It seems abnormally sleepy. I think Joe and McCosch on a greed last week. It just seems like it hasn't really taken off now. But they also kind of, I mean, Joe also was like, you know, this is, you know, it's like after Labor Day weekend, and it'll pick up. And I'm sure we'll all be a month from now wanting it to sleepier than it is as far as how inundated we are. But I don't know what I was expecting that I just feel like, hello. Was a little bit of it. Right. Was a little bit of it the last two and a half or three weeks of the Democratic Guboid Journal of Primary was so explosive and unprecedented that suddenly, it seemed sleeping afterwards. But it also just feels like, you know, we have one, one was the last time that we've had a no incumbent for governor. 18. No, no, no, no, because because Walker ran, we have to give her a thought out. Yeah, walk out. And I'm saying as far as this just feels like it should be a bigger deal. And it's surprising to me that we're just not hearing more about it. And I'm not seeing Tiffany or Crowley in more places.

1:00:39And so I kind of want to get into it with quick. That's super quick take is I think Tiffany's in a box because he can't embrace Trump, which is his record because Trump's numbers are so bad. And Crowley seems to still be catching up from kind of a weird primary. And I know people who know Crowley are like, why isn't he running the way he used to run his is County exact campaigns. But more of that later this week. All right. We'll get into it this week because you're here for two more days. But I wanted to settle because after today, we probably will move on from any Labor Day talk. Yeah, your name Todd Alba. Can you wear white after Labor Day? As a fan of queer eye for the straight guy. I think it depends. Oh, I think it depends on material. Maybe in the situation like I don't think a white sweater around the holidays is a faux paw. I agree. I think that I think for guys, white pants in like October, November, I wouldn't wear it. Okay. Women, I think have a little bit more latitude with that. But I don't know.

1:01:39I mean, you're a very fashion forward. I don't know if I'm that fashion forward. You lived in LA, Kristen Bry. You better. Apparently. Apparently, but apparently this is, I mean, it's not based in nothing, but I was reading about this morning, not shockingly. One is, one theory as to where this debate came from. I guess was like most fashion mechas are in cold, or at least areas that have winter. Winter. So like a New Yorker Paris. But also apparently it was a way to delineate class. Really? I've learned two things. I know that was super interesting. But in general, when talking to most fashionistas, I am not one of those. Apparently, it is kind of a myth that it's not really a rule that you can't wear. Although I would say white linen after Labor Day, maybe not. But look at it. Like a white sweater, white polyester. But to your point, if you're Miami versus Milwaukee, that's true. I think that's probably two different things. That's true. So yeah, I will probably continue to wear white even after Labor Day.

1:02:42Will you really? You wear a little white? White button up shirt. Yeah. Right? That's a classic thing and you can wear all year round. Andrew, are you a producer here? Andrew, yeah, you're in a white shirt. He's very fashionable. Yeah. Not a lot of white button up shirts. All right. Okay. So no. Not really no. You have to own white pants? I used to. I don't anymore. All right. Well, if you still had him, you could wear him tomorrow. And with that, news is next. Taddle you back tomorrow. I'll be back tomorrow. But for now, midday news.