The Economy Still Not Looking Good for You and Me (Video Transcript)

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 The Economy Still Not Looking Good for You and Me

Hi, this is Bob Barney from Plain Truth Today, brought to you by theplaintruth.com. Well, today’s show is going to be about the disappointing news that came out of the economic data over the sales in December. I had been pointing out back in December when everyone on the TV stations was telling us how great the sales were in December, and this was going to be an all-time high Christmas shopping season. I didn’t believe it, and I didn’t believe the reports at the time.

And I thought, again, like much of the economic news coming out of our press, in America anyway, is false, fake news. I believe that when the reports came in, it was going to turn out to be a disappointing season. And all of these cheerleaders on CNBC, on Fox Business Channel, and allthese other business news shows, not even talking about the actual news broadcast shows, as Wall Street Journal, for example, in the newspapers, talking about how great the Christmas season was, it just didn’t seem possible for me.

I am in business. I understand what it’s like to be in business in bad economic times, and we are in bad economic times. Listen to this report from Rick Santelli on CNBC, and a different tone than the normal Rick Santelli who tells you how great everything has been going, and it just simply is not the case.

At the CME in Chicago, Rick, the numbers, please. Yes. Let’s start out with the employment cost index.

We’re expecting a fourth quarter number to end up around up eight tenths of a percent, comes in one tenth light, up seven tenths, up seven tenths of a percent. How does that rate? Actually, that would be the smallest quarterly price movement since going all the way back to the second quarter of 21. The second quarter of 21, where it equals 0.7, you have to go back to the thirdquarter of 20 to find a smaller number up half a percent.

So that is indeed good news. Retail sales. These are December numbers.

Headline, expected up four tenths, comes in light. Only zero goose egg unchanged. That would equal where we were.

Well, actually, to find a lower number, you’re going all the way back to May of last year when it was down eight tenths. That’s the last negative number we had. So that’s unchanged.

If you strip out autos, it remains unchanged. And if you strip out autos and gas, it also remains unchanged. The control group or the core retail sales comes in at down one tenth of a percent.

Down one tenth of a percent will be the weakest since September of last year when it was down two tenths of a percent. So not good news on retail sales. And if you look at the rear view mirror, X autos downgraded from half a percent to point four X autos and gas last look from point four to point three.

And the core number, the control number, our last look was up four tenths. It gets shaved in half to up two tenths. Now let’s look at import prices.

Month over month up one tenth for December. Strip out petroleum. It’s up four tenths.

Four tenths would be the warmest going back to April of twenty four. So April of twenty four.That’s something to pay attention to.

Those are month over month. Let’s look at import prices year over year. We are expecting a number on the year over year to be roughly up one tenth.

It comes in unchanged. Month over month export prices up three tenths. That tripled up one tenth.

We’re looking for that would be the warmest going back to June of last year. And finally, on a year over year perspective, Becky, for export prices up three point one percent, one tenth hotter than we’re expecting, but a little cooler than the three point three in the rearview mirror. And how does that relate? Three point one would be the smallest going back to July of last year when it was two point four.

So a real mixed bag. The market did a nice job of defining all the information. But we see yields moving a bit lower for sixteen.

It’s about where they were. But that’s minus three basis points on the session for tens. And if we look at the two year three forty five, it was a three forty six, three forty fives down four basis points.

We have options this week, today, tomorrow, the next day. And that’s three. Well, I interrupt now.

I mean, the guy Rick Santelli is always trying to find the best news possible. And even here, he tries to confuse you for listening by all of these statistics and going back and mumbling and jumbling all over the place, because the truth of the matter is we are in a very poor economy. This has not gotten any better than when Joe Biden was president, no matter what Donald Trump wants to say.

But the key points to remember here in this latest report that came out, retail sales were flat in December, following a point six percent increase in November. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had expected an increase of almost a half of a percent. That’s the problem is all these economists keep expecting great increases because they’re trying to tell themselves, I guess, and everybody else that the economy is running and humming along.

Well, somebody in business, I can tell you that’s just not the case. And everybody telling me elsewise are lying to you. We don’t lie to you here at Plain Truth.

On an annual basis, sales rose 2.4 percent, failing to keep up with inflation, which is 3.1 percent, which I’ve been telling you, this is the effects of tariffs, my friends, as the consumer price index for December posted a 2.7 percent increase. Consumer activity slowed sharply for December.The holiday season is not what was expected.

They, in spite of a very good weather during December, by the way, December was not like January that had very poor weather. It was a decent weather. Retail sales were flat on the month following the 6 percent or 0.6 percent rise in November, and it just expected much more.

And it’s one of the reasons why gold went up high in December, kind of crashed in early February, but it’s coming back again. And you’re going to still see gold on its pace because gold is showing you that the economy and the people who are investing their money knows this. The economy is just not in good shape.

In digging in deeper in December, multiple categories posted losses, while only a few showed any gains. Miscellaneous retailers and furniture stores posted declines of almost a percent, while clothing and accessories were off only seven tenths of a percent. Electronics and appliances were very important for the economy, dropped 4 percent, and online sales grew only by 0.1 percent.

This is, honestly, as bad as news is, as I’ve been telling you, what the real plain truth is, when you go and you are reading your newspaper or Wall Street Journal or the London Times, well, that’s been pretty good. But local CNBCs or Fox Business or even Bloomberg, you’re getting a rosy picture that just is not the plain truth. It’s not what’s really happening.

It’s not the real world we’re living in. The economy is really suffering. The people who have a lot of money are doing well, but the people on the bottom end and in the middle of the spectrum just are not doing well, and the top 10-15 percent are buying 50 percent of all the goods, and pretty soon they’re going to stop buying as well come spring and summer, and I think we’re going to see a real mess come summer of this year, unless something changes.

These tariffs have done us in, and nobody wants to go against Donald Trump and tell you that except this show. And another marker about how poorly this economy is doing is that is the fast food industry. You know, it’s always been known that when the times get tough, Americans head for drive-thrus and they don’t go into restaurants and sit down and eat and leave tips and things like that.

However, today we have what’s called a K-shaped economy, and analysts say that the old playbook about even the fast food restaurants and restaurants in general and the economy are breaking. The rules are breaking, and some of the biggest chains are finding that even price cuts are not bringing their customers back. One quote from a restaurant business owner told Business Insider, we have a consumer that’s cutting back on dining, and that’s been happening for reallyprobably two or three years.

Yes, in the heart of the abiding economy, Joe Biden destroyed this economy, not COVID, Joe Biden did, and Donald Trump has done nothing to save this economy. In fact, he doubled down with his tariffs and other programs that just has not happened. So he goes on to say, so now we see large numbers of chains that are using discount strategy as a crucial form of marketing.

That’s what I’ve had to do, by the way. I’ve had to do the same thing with our company. We usually have two big sales a year with our company, and that’s all we ever had to do.

Last year, we had 11 sales for the year in order to maintain our sales. And so 72 percent, the total sales we did last year were only done during sales. So we had to discount the living heck out of our prices and our profit margins in order to maintain our sales.

And that’s what everybody in the industry is doing. That’s what people are doing at McDonald’s.That’s what they’re doing at Burger King.

And this is a trend that is going to really upset our economy. Here’s another report about the rise and fall of U.S. restaurants and what maybe is causing it. Something is happening to American restaurants right now.

And if you have not been paying attention, you might have missed it. Red Lobster, TGI Fridays, Denny’s, Hooters, Applebee’s. Some of the biggest names in dining are closing hundreds of locations, filing for bankruptcy and laying off thousands of workers.

In 2024 alone, according to the National Restaurant Association, over 72,000 restaurants closed across the United States. That is not a typo. Seventy two thousand.

But here’s what makes this story so much bigger than a few chain restaurants shutting their doors. Americans are not just losing places to eat, they are losing something that has been part of this country’s identity for over 100 years. The family dinner out, the Friday night tradition, the place where your parents went on their first date and where you took your kids for their birthday.

So what went wrong? How did an industry worth over one and a half trillion dollars start crumbling from the inside out? And the answer to that is quite obvious. It’s the consumer has run out of money. When you run out of money, you have to start deciding what you’re going to spend, what little bit of money you have left.

And the average American today decides they can’t really afford restaurants like they could, you know, 10 years ago. And now the top 10, 15% of America who are making and spending all the money, well, they keep eating out. They keep going to restaurants, but they don’t go to McDonald’s and they don’t go to Cracker Barrel and they don’t go to Hooters and they don’t go to Applebee’s or these other restaurants closing their door.

No, they go to very high end, very expensive, $100 a plate type restaurants in the big cities. And those restaurants have long lines, long waiting lists. You can’t even show up and go and sit down in one of those restaurants.

My wife and I went to a particular restaurant in Tampa when we were doing some business down there a few months ago. And there is a restaurant that holds, I think something like 11 or 1700 people. It’s in a very old restaurant in town and it was standing room only, but it’s very expensive restaurant.

He was going to spend a lot of money and it was packed with people, but it’s not packed with, you know, Johnny and Joe America. It’s really, it was packed with the well-to-do people working in theTampa that make a lot of money in the financial industry or in stocks or whatever they do. But if you are working at the Ford factory, or if you’re working at Nestle’s or you’re working at Kimberly-Clark, you do not have the money to go out, eat like you did 10 years ago.

America is going broke and the American public is going broke, whilst the American government keeps going heads over heels in debt. And that debt is driving inflation as well, because there’s only so many dollars and when our government needs to borrow all of that money, then there’s not enough money to go around for you and I to get any loans or to do anything or buy any appliances on credit or anything like that. And so across the board, we are seeing the shrinking of the consumer in this economy.

And unfortunately, we have not been a manufacturing type economy now for many, many years.We have become a consumable economy and now the consumers are missing in this economy, so we’re not even a consumer economy anymore. What are we? Well, I think we’re becoming a third world economy and that’s not good for you and I. I’ll be right back after this brief message.

Hi, Bob Barney for the plain truth today, brought to you by the plain truth.com. The place to go to, to get the real news, not the fake news, the news that you need to know for you, your family, and for your future, some of that news, by the way, was predicted in the Bible and we talk about that as well on the plain truth.com. Please go there every day. Well, we’re back and you know, one of the most profitable businesses that it costs about a buck to make a pizza that you sell for eight, 10, 11, $12. And so pizza places make a lot of money and pizzas are great profit.

And it’s actually still a very inexpensive meal for most people. I know I grew up eating pizzas and I guarantee you a lot of people here love to have good pizza and have a lot of pizzas in their diet, but there’s something going wrong with the pizza industry. And that’s a real wake up.

Listen to this one. News pizza huts are starting to close around the country. And I got some notes.

I want to bring you this story. Hey, everyone. Economic ninja here.

Hope you’re doing well. It says pizza hut closings. Uh, they’re closing hundreds of locations in 2026.

And here is why we all know it’s because the economy is total crap. You know, honestly, I haven’t had a pizza hut play in a while. I’m more of a Costco pizza kind of guy.

Let me know down below or unless wait a minute, hold on now. Now here’s a very interesting thing that he just said. You know, it’s true.

We all know the economy is crap and that’s the thing. You watch your TV news, you watch your business channels, you read your newspaper. And for some reason, I think there’s this fear of Donald Trump.

Maybe, I don’t know what it is, but everybody’s trying to tell you this economy is booming. And you are just, you can’t believe how great this economy is going to do. Donald Trump said the other day that the Dow is going to hit a hundred thousand by the end of his presidency.

I don’t think that’s going to be the case. And this is the thing is he makes these stupid statements and everybody just publishes those statements. And most people think they may come true.

And that’s exactly what the reporter said. But the truth is, if you talk to the average person out there, the person who works every day, who lives paycheck to paycheck, they’re going to tell you the economy today is a lot worse than it was just five years ago. It’s even worse than it was during COVID.

Going on with the pizza gate thing here. Let’s see what Yum Brand’s strategy is for their pizza huts, because they are hurting bad. It says right now, Pizza Hut is set to close 250 underperforming locations in the United States in the first half of 2026 as its parent company, Yum Brand.

How do you like that? What are we going to name our company? Yum. It would have been better if it was Yum Yum Brand. The man here continues a strategic review of the struggling brand.

During a February 4th Yum Brand’s earning call, chief executive officer, Rometh Roy, said that the move was part of the hut forward. They should call Java and see if he’s upset with using his name. I’m Java the Hut sometimes.

Why are they getting rid of all my pizza huts? I’m sorry. Cheap, cheap humor. A strategy, which includes vibrant marketing, modernization of technology and franchise agreements.

This is a big deal. While we don’t share specific details on the franchise agreements, we are pleased to be working in partnership with our franchisees on increased efforts to deliver near-term sales while advancing long-term strategies. Yum Brands told restaurant business owners online in an emailed statement.

Well, I’m telling you right now, when you’re not making money selling pizzas at 900% profit, there’s something wrong with the business. And the businesses is the consumer is not showing up and buying that pizza with the 900% markup and that’s happening in restaurants across theUnited States and it’s other businesses as well, I’ve talked about my business, which is the automotive and fleet and industrial paint business, but let’s look at a few other businesses that are really suffering this article in financial buzz magazine talks about 14. I’m not going to go all of them, 14 struggling companies that may not survive 2026, Spirit Airlines, one of the fastest growing good airlines in the past went bankrupt back in 2025.

And they are still in trouble and barely making it go over. And most people think that 2026 will be their death year. Target, they have not been able to keep up with Walmart.

They have faced multiple quarters of sluggish sales. They have a new CEO. They put some new people in as the chief financial officer and chief operation officers, and their stock is in half of what it was just three years ago.

And I think target is another company that just simply is not going to make it. Another company you want to talk about a bad economy. Another company that can’t make it is something called family dollar family dollar while not in bankruptcy yet has been sold off and is closing hundreds of stores under its parent brand dollar tree, following declining sales, restructuring, and trying to make themselves marketable in a market that nobody wants to buy their products.

Porsche, you think about a Porsche car? Well, Porsche warned that restructuring costs associated with tariffs and expenses for us strategies and other ways saw 99% drop in sales in America.Walgreens, here’s another drug company, right? In October, Walgreens announced plans to close more than a thousand stores, a thousand stores over a declining sales in each of these locations, according to an advisory board, Walgreens reported a net loss of $8.6 billion in 2024, about the same in 2025, and it doesn’t look much better for them in 2026. The pharmacy chain has struggled with reimbursement pressures and theft concerns.

One of the big problems happening is happening in the paint business, all retail operations, parts businesses like Napa’s or CarQuest is the incredible theft going on by employees, probably all part of Mexican drug gangs, in my opinion, that are robbing these stores blind and they put their stolen products on eBay. I know for a fact, by the way, certain products made by big paint companies that you can find a fraction of their real cost on eBay, they’re either one of two things, they’re either counterfeit and there’s counterfeit products all over the place. As a matter of fact, we, Tamco Paint went international last year, we’re an international paint company now with locations both in a plant in Italy and in China.

And this year, about a week ago, we found out that our product was being counterfeited in Pakistan. And we are going to take the necessary actions to do something about that. But even we are being counterfeited.

So when you see something on eBay, let’s say for example, a particular product costs in a store a thousand dollars and that when it goes on sale, it’s $500, right? 50% off sale. That store probably paid $300. Now, if you see that same product on eBay, brand new in a package for $99, it’s either A, stolen from that store by employees or B, a total counterfeit from China.

That’s what the deal is. But other stores or businesses, 7-Eleven. I mean, I have known about 7-Eleven since I first went to Florida in 1972.

7-Eleven, 1970, I’m sorry. 7-Eleven US locations have faced declining foot traffic, I should say car traffic, and revenue this year. Store closures and franchise disputes have increased with hundreds of locations being shut down in the past two years, raising concerns that even convenience stores like 7-Elevens may fail.

Convenience stores failing. Even major manufacturing brands like Procter & Gamble are not doing well in this economy. In fact, they laid off 7,000 jobs recently to try to make a profit.

The bottom line, watching familiar companies struggle in these unsettling times should be a wake-up call of what’s really happening with our debt at $39 trillion, our unbridled government spending, and the runaway inflation that is not, no matter what you’re being told, under control.And I’ll be right back. If you’re looking for a place to go every day to look at the news, what’s the headlines, and also maybe stories you don’t ever see anywhere else, theplaintruth.com is the one place to go.

You have these podcasts that you’re listening to right now, plus you have your health today about health issues and what you should do to keep yourself healthy and you and your family. Then we have a message board where anybody can post the kind of water cooler news of the day or whatever’s interesting you, and the main page of The Plain Truth where we have timely articles that will help you plan your future and realize what to expect in the days to come. That’s theplaintruth.com. Please go there every day.

Well, we’re back for the final moments of the show. We’re talking about the economy as it is right now. And as I have been pointing out here in this show, with all the restaurant closes and business problems, the economy is hurting in every aspect.

And you can try to wish it away and say it’s not true, but the truth is it is true, and when you think it’s only happening to you and your immediate loved ones, no, it’s happening throughout this whole country. This country is hurting and it’s about time that people start reporting the true news, not the fake news. Job cuts for the middle-class and for the lower class people, it just keeps going.

January was horrible, and I know a lot of the economists and the media wants to say it had to do with the bad weather, but the bad weather really didn’t hit that bad until late January, early February. And the January jobs number was horrendous. And I’m going to play, like I said, I’m going to play a little outtake here of a report that was about five days ago about the numbers in January, which were the worst since, I’m sorry, 2009.

And this is the report from Bloomberg. The Challenger report is out and it is a pretty dismal one.108,435 job cuts announced in the month of January.

That is the highest January total since 2009. As far as the numbers go, it’s up 205 percent from December. There were 5,306 employers announcing hiring plans, and that is the lowest Januarytotal since 2009 as well.

So some particularly bad news on the Challenger front. We don’t usually talk about it, but sometimes lately when Challenger has come out, we’ve seen big market moves on the pessimism about what it might mean for the economy. Who cut the most? Well, transportation was the biggest, and that was largely due to UPS announcing 30,000 job cuts, followed by Amazon and their 16,000.

But health care, which is an unusual one to be in this category, was also big. The caveat, as we always mention with Challenger, is these are announcements, not actual job cuts. And some of those job cuts don’t get carried out.

So we’ll have to see how this is reflected once we get into the jobless claims numbers and once we get into the payroll numbers, which is now next Wednesday. Which will be announced later today and we’ll see where they come in. But I’m telling you right now, do not expect good numbers.

There may be a blip up and a blip down here and there. But the numbers are very staggeringly sober, to say the least. Our economy is suffering.

Anybody in business knows it. And it just is one of these things that people just don’t want to talk about it. They don’t want to.

They don’t want to really know what’s going on. They want to hide their heads in the sand like an ostrich and believe it’s only happening to them. But the rest of the world is doing great and the rest of the country is doing great.

It’s just simply not the case. Wall Street’s doing good because where else does rich people have to put their money? Gold, which is doing great. Wall Street, which is doing great.

But when you are invested in your local town, in your local town businesses, it’s not doing great. Just look at Main Street in your town. I don’t care what town you’re listening to me from.

Everybody, especially mom and pop type businesses in your town are hurting. I do hope you support small businesses in America, by the way. And a side note, too many of the big businesses get unfair advantages.

They get relief from tariffs. That doesn’t happen for the small business people. They get all kinds of tax breaks that you don’t even realize.

They just do all kinds of unsavory type things. And they are not the people, if you can help it, to spend your money with. It’s always best to spend your money with small companies that are run and owned by small family people who you can get to talk to the owner if you need to.

That small businesses is what makes America strong. And unfortunately right now, it’s what is making America weak because it is Main Street, small businesses that probably are hurting worse than anything else. And when we talk about all these restaurants that were closing, 72,000 plusrestaurants last year, that is, just remember this, most of those businesses were small owned businesses.

They weren’t big corporate chain businesses. And even those pizza huts and places like that were closing. They are not pizza hut, per se, company stores closing.

They are franchises. And what is a franchise? If you’re a franchisees, you’re a small family business with a big name that you rent. That’s what a franchise means.

You’re actually borrowing the name Pizza Hut to run your own business under certain guidelines.You have to buy all of your supplies from them. You have to buy all your food sources from them.

And you have to follow whatever is in your contract that you have to do to do your due diligence to represent Pizza Hut. But you are your own business. Pizza Hut don’t loan you money.

They don’t stand by you if you’re losing money. They let you shut down. And so of the 72,000 restaurants alone that closed down last year, probably 68,000 of those, no matter if they were franchises or not, were small family businesses.

And that’s who’s really hurting in America today. That’s why I just said, if you can try to buy from small businesses, it’s hard sometimes. You live in places like I live.

There is not very many small businesses. And much of the time, small businesses are not really run well on their own. And that’s their problem.

But that’s the plain truth. But if you can try to help the little guy along, because nobody else is helping them. And this administration is not helping the little guy.

Hopefully the new tax bill that takes effect for 2026 will help a little bit. I will admit that. But I think the biggest problem with the big, beautiful bill is it’s going to put us in big, beautiful debt, which is going to destroy this economy even further.

Well, that’s the show for today. It’s on the economy. This is Bob Barney for theplaintruth.com.Thanking everyone that has been listening and continue to listen until tomorrow.

Bob Barney. Bye bye.