Capitalist Investor

Can Gen X Retire? Pop Culture, Trump & Hot Takes, Ep, 327

• Strategic Wealth Partners

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This week on The Capitalist Investor, Tony and Derek ask a big question: Can Gen X really retire? From inflation and rising healthcare costs to underfunded savings and Social Security uncertainty, they break down the biggest threats to the 45–60-year-old crowd’s financial future.

They also dive into how pop culture has influenced Gen X's spending habits, the impact of Trump headlines on the market, and a few favorite things from their week. As always, it's real talk, practical insight, and a few hot takes you won’t want to miss.

📩 Got a question or a topic idea? Email us at info@SWPConnect.com

#GenX #Retirement #Investing #SocialSecurity #CapitalistInvestor #FinancialPlanning

So this week on the capitalist Investor, we're going to talk about can Gen Xers retire? We're also going to catch up on some President Trump induced pop culture hit list, Eric. And also we're going to talk about 4th of July barbecue. Hot takes. Heard. All right. Good morning Tony. How are we doing today? I'm good man. Good. It's a week of 4th of July. And, looking forward to, lands on a Friday, so I'm sure that helps a lot of people with vacations and things like that. They get an easy Thursday maybe, but they definitely get Friday off a long weekend. I'm all in. Yeah, I'm all in. All right. So what are we going to talk about today? So we're going to talk about Gen X. Can they retire. Those are those people ages about 45 to 60. And then we're going to talk about, you know, just President Trump and all the rifts that he is creating. Amongst a lot of people. And, and, and actually the the big takeaway from that is how resilient the market has been with all this stuff. At the end of the day. Yeah. And then you and I are going to share some of the most favorite things that we can pull off of our smoker. We both got we both got our own talents. And, we're going to share that with everybody. So. All right. Can Gen X retire. You know that's that. Again 45 to 60 year old person. So here's some of the tail or here's some of the headwinds right. So insufficient savings I think that's just been I don't care what generation you are. You the a lot of people landed that right. But I do believe that the Gen Xers might be the worst savers. They've always been kind of the, keep up with the Joneses type of mentality. Or they grew up with, MTV and, you know, MTV cribs and like, I mean, you name it, man. Like, we we have been, you know, Derek, you and I kind of fall in that like that 45 age range. So like, that's what I remember. It's like, hey man. Like that was like when Ferraris and Lambos and big houses and crystal and all this stuff was like becoming a fad, right? Like, like a thing. Health care costs, you know, like, I would say that. Yeah. The the cost of inflation on health care is a lot higher than nearly everything else around us. Social Security uncertainty. Well, will it be there for us? Longevity, you know, outliving your savings. Yes. There is advancements in medical technology. And yeah, we could be living longer. It is. That is something that could be happening. Right. Market volatility market is more volatile I would say, than it ever has been ever just constantly I mean we you know Trump rolled out his tariffs. Market fell was down 8% going into it fell another 10%. And in six weeks later we're at all time highs again like an incredible rebound. So can you you know can we like navigate through volatility. That again kind of goes into insufficient savings because we're racking up debt because we're trying to be ballers out there I guess I don't know. And then and then job security. Well yeah I mean I got to take a job. They took the jobs from South Park, right? I don't know, but job security is always, always, a concern. And, you know, companies are always trying to make things more efficient. And, you know, AI is developing in front of us. So is that, you know, these are all headwinds. So I kind of want to spin it and make it like, what are the tailwinds for for everybody? Is there any is there any, any headwinds that you can think of, Derek or any, any and any, any, any like, like I talked about like all the concerns. Is there any that you'd like to add or. Yeah, you know, I think, you know, honestly before really thinking about this very much, I didn't think it was going to be this big of a problem. But yeah, I mean, you outlined it pretty well there. You know, in some of these surveys I've been looking at, Gen X, 70% of them think they will retire later than expected. Yeah, I found that to be a huge number. So they they kind of know that the, you know, early retirement is an on the horizon for them. Yeah. And yeah, you know Gen X has gotten sandwiched in between a lot. You know, whether it's kind of starting their career, you know, you got the, the decade of no returns right between 2000, 2000 and tannish, with 200 year floods in there and the.com bubble and the housing in the housing crisis, you know, a lot to endure for sure at the same point in time, you do have to acknowledge that they've also hopefully, you know, taken advantage of the markets between 2010 and now. Yeah. So that's been a pretty nice run. Well, I think that's why the baby boomers are in such a good spot right now. Going in to retire meant like their portfolios have 2 to 3 next. Yeah. You know like I mean they're they're launched right into retirement. So good for them. Yeah. You know, I was, you actually saw me the other night, finishing my for my life insurance license. Yeah. And, one of the, the, one of the only things I learned in that process was that 70% of the wealth is controlled by people 55 and older. Yeah. 70%, one. Hundred percent. That that is a huge number. So, you know, that's that's something the, the gen AXA has, overcome that. That's my biggest that's what I was going to end with. You stole my thunder a little bit. But yeah we'll get to that. So let's start. Let's start from let's talk about the positive. So you are in your peak earning years. What does that mean. You should be able to save more and pay off that right. So we talked about that insufficient savings debt. This is your peak earning years. It's not as an American most people fall into this rut of hey, I'm making more money now, I can afford that, or I can afford this. And it's not like, hey, I'm going to save more. I'm going to pay that off. It's more it's like, what can I buy now? Right? Unfortunately, that's just the American way. But we need to recognize that peak earning years are right now. Social security, will it be there? Well, I say yes, it will be there. Why? Because the way it's structured right now, 75% of payroll tax pays Social Security recipients. Now, the other 25% that support that comes from a trust fund that's supposed to run out in less than a decade. Right. The number keeps on move in this, that and the other. Well, I mean, maybe we get a little bit less, but you're going to have to you're going to rely on the working class like everyone else. But at the end of the day, we the, you know, the Congress kicks the can down the road as much as possible. There will be a solution for Social Security, and that's probably going to be more taxes. Yeah. Somewhere, somehow, some way. That's it. I mean, I, I don't know how else to sum that up. I of this cut to the point, they're just going to raise taxes to, to to cover that, that deficit. Right. But you also, you know, I, I think the biggest, the most people receiving Social Security are, you know, baby boomers. And within two decades, those people will be fallen off the payroll. I want to say it that way. But like, there, you know, they will pass on. Right? And there will be, yes, more people to fill those voids, but not as much. Not as many. Right. So there's more financial tools to for us today than there ever was for anybody. Yeah. We have obviously 401 cases have been around a long time IRAs. But HSAs is another idea right. So we have more financial tools for diversification for the different things coming up in, you know, the future. So rising health care costs good. I can start saving for that now. And another bucket of money. The HSA. We can also when it comes to like saving more, we got the catch up provisions in the 401 K and the IRAs so we can force feed our retirement, in the tune of, you know, an additional 7500 for 401 KS and a thousand bucks for IRAs. Right. So again, you you have to be disciplined. You need to understand that you need to save in you need to do it. Yeah. Right. You need to be disciplined. Longevity. Yes. We are designed. We might be living longer. That means we can work longer. I think you brought that up. There's like, you know, like, hey, most people could be working longer. And that's the unfortunate fact that, yes, that is maybe what some people are going to have to do. Technology might be eliminating jobs, but it also can help us with financial planning. Right? We can use the technology to help us figure out how much to save, how long to work, how, you know, I can rattle off ten things that a financial planner can tell us. Education is rampant. We you can learn about anything you want right from anybody you want, tax planning. I mean, if you're a CPA today and you retired and you. I'm worried about the future CPAs, I do believe that I like there's there's tools in our our firm and and like that I know of I available to financial planners where you take somebody's tax return, you scan it, put it in the software and it comes up with like ten tax planning strategies. Right? I mean, you don't have to like think about it. It'll tell you generally what to do. Now does all of them work. And no, because everyone's situation's a little bit different. And then budgeting. Right, making sure we're spending enough money. And then we have the gene pool, right. That, like, what you just said, people are. It's hard to narrow in this number because I was looking it up. But over the next two decades, the baby boomers are are supposed to, you know, as they pass on, they're going to pass on their wealth to and it's in the tune between 30 to $50 trillion. And I call this the gene gene pool lottery. You know, maybe you're maybe you're heirs are rich or maybe they're not. So, if they're rich, then you're you're okay. If they're not, then you might need to work longer. Yeah, but I mean, but I think that's just life in general. Right. So what do you I, I just spoke a lot. Dude, these are, these are all the tailwinds. These are all the positives that I can think of for Gen-xers to, like, hang their hat on and and dial in thoughts. You know, I think I think you covered it all pretty well there. You know, the, I, I do think you kind of inadvertently hit the nail on the head there. The Gen Xers are, you know, you know, they've been brought up to, you know, aspire to certain material things, which has caused them to save less. I think, rack up debt, you know, that that didn't used to be a huge problem. So, you know, making you mentioned all the tools there. The tools are there to make smart financial decisions. I just don't think it's happening yet across the board. There's also a lot more pressure on, you know, getting a lot of that stuff, you know, from, you know, society from, your own family sometimes, you know, kids pressuring for this and that and the other. So it's, it's it's definitely a balance. It's definitely kind of like a sandwich, generation for sure. But based on the age ranges, of Gen Ax, you know, there's there's still a lot of time to to kind of turn around some of the pessimistic numbers. But yeah, you know, it's it really comes down to all the things that, that we, that we always talk about, you know, saving, saving into the right spots, having a plan. So, you know, Gen X will catch up. But it's not the prettiest picture right now. It's. I know, and you know what I'm like, think about this if you're a Gen Xer, too. Like, you're gritty. You're gritty, pretty productive, hard working person. And it's kind of it comes from the baby boomers because they were so hard, like, get out of the house, go get a job. You're stupid. Go to school. You know, like, whatever that might look or sound like. And it made us, like, really? Right, you stupid. Go to school. You like that, don't you? Yeah. So, like, they're like. Like, I'll show you Mom and dad, right? Like that kind of mentality. And and it's detrimental to the millennials because then you get these kids and be like, I ain't going to be as hard as my parents were. And now you got a bunch of, you know, cupcake cupcakes out there. Yeah, right. You know these? Yeah. These bunch of softies. So but I mean, you're, you're it's a gritty it's a gritty generation. Right. And that's another thing to hang your hat on. So there is, there is light at the end of the tunnel if you're Gen Xers. But you need to be disciplined, I really do. I mean, I we've talked about in so many shows, but it's about, you know, saving more, being disciplined with your money, like, you know, if you can't, you know, you don't have to have everything. Right. It's nice to have everything, but you don't. Because if you can look into the procrastination, do not procrastinate on saving. You can't do it, you know, save as much as you can while you're working because that that runway will run out. You will come to the end of that runway. And then at that point you need to you'll you'll be looking yourself in the mirror. And I hope you made the right decisions. Yep. So all right, let's put that one to bed. Any unless you want to add anything. No. Let's get into Trump. Oh, man. So the. All right. Yeah. So we gotten away from this and we'll bring it back like you know some of the, you know headline stuff. But like, man, we've been so distant from this. There's so many headlines to catch up on. And, and right now, you know, President Trump just really takes the he takes the limelight almost every day on something that's happening. And and and we were and we knew that was going to happen because we saw the first you know we saw his first run as president. Right. I'll start with Elon. Good God man. I thought I, you know, them two together is greater than them two apart in my opinion. They're just really just dynamic. People call them smart, call them whatever, right? But they're just dynamic and being together, I just feel makes things a lot better. But that relationship has fizzled out. And it's basically Elon saying, you know, you guys like, you guys are spending too much money and actually you Republicans and Democrats, as much as you hate each other, you're the same freaking people. Yeah, you're the same goddamn people, man. Like you spend money like it's not yours. Which it isn't. It's ours. It's our tax money, right? That they make decisions on whether we like it or not. So Elon wants to come out and make a his own party, you know, and America's Party or something like that. That wants to be more fiscally fine, you know, financially fiscal, responsible, whatever you want to call that. But man, what a what are what a ride for this guy, man. He, you know, as soon as he joined Trump's side, every Democrat hated him. He's going to profit off of this. And his stock actually went down right. And then when he started having his rift with Trump, Republicans hated, you know. All right. I mean, I hate him, but like, like, it's not as high as it used to. Now you just got two parties that don't like it. So maybe it does make sense for him to make his own thing, because if you like what Elon was saying, maybe this is maybe this is his. Maybe that is his calling. Yeah. Yeah. I think Elon is at the core of the problem. Elon, you know, stuck his neck out on the line to support Trump. And then, you know, I think that all the the DOJ's work for free, and then you know, the this bill was the chance to codify a lot of those spending cuts. And, you know, there and there was no spending cuts. So, you know, basically Trump's plan is to make up the tax revenue in other ways, primarily through tariffs. The market seems to be picking up what he is putting down. As for making money. Yeah. What the tariffs. Yeah. They're making a. Lot I don't know what that I mean I again inflation takes a long time to, to ramp up and rear its ugly head. But as of right now there's not a much, there's not much creep and and inflation. Yeah. What I do know overall that that bill I think moves us in a better direction. Obviously for you know, the House and the Senate to pass it, they're going to stuff it full of other stuff. But you know, at some point it has to get past, you know, the base tax. Yeah, that has to. Law is is important. And you know, at the end of the day, you know, I do believe that an increased, you know, competitive, America that, you know, isn't as constrained as it has been in the past, will produce more tax revenue, right? That's really the only way out of this mess. Which I thought Ellen was on, on board with. Right. The he said it a number of times. You know, we have to, you know, the only way out of this is to produce more essentially raise the GDP. And I think that's what they're trying to accomplish with us. And I don't think a lot of that is being factored in. It's not we talked about that a few episodes ago where we they had the same exercise back in 2016 and say, oh my God, this is going to you're spending so much in cutting taxes, you're going to cut into our revenue. Yeah. Lower taxes actually generate more growth. Yeah. And we've seen it right in recent history. So you know I don't know why people. It's not hurt so much for some reason. They're just again not taking it into consideration. But I guess we'll find out. Yeah. And then your boy Powell, you know. Yeah. He's, The fed chair. Yeah. Publicly come out and said, yeah, fire. You know, it's, not, you know, Trump's, when when he goes after people, you know, it's it's hard to get behind him, the way he does it and things like that. Right. But this happens to be one I 100% agree with Trump on everything that he's saying. There was that note, handwritten note that was making the rounds a couple days ago that he sent to Jerome. But, I mean, what the facts are, the facts. I mean, we the if you don't know what I'm talking about is basically a list of countries and their prevailing interest rates. And, you know, the United States was at the bottom with with the highest at 4.5%. Interest rates should be lower. They should be they should be lowered already. Why I don't understand why they're not. Quite honestly, I. Saw a statistic. So I believe there's like eight positions in the fed, like eight different chairs or whatever. Right. Whatever you want to call them, and I and, and 14 out of the 18 or I was like 12 or 14 out of the 18 believe that we're headed towards a stagflation type of environment where that is slower growth, so lower GDP, higher unemployment. We're starting to see unemployment tick up again. It's not, so much that that's an overly concern, but it's it's rising, and increasing inflation. We have yet to see that. So like all of these things are still not there. You can see signs of them. But I mean, but that's normal to have things kind of ebb and flow through highs and lows. But 14 out of the 18 are predicting it and that's a little scary. And that's why they haven't done it yet. They'd rather see the economy break. So they have quote unquote bullets to shoot to resurrect the economy. If, again, there wasn't much wiggle room. When you're at zero interest rates and something happens, there's nothing to do except what they did do was print money. That's not good. Right. I'd rather have some bullets in the chamber where we can lower interest rates by 1% overnight and watch you know a lot of that you know economic activity happen. If we're at zero right. And I don't know like we can argue where interest rates could or should be. And Donald Trump wants them to be at one. We're at four and a half. You know, could we argue that 3 or 3 and a half would be a good number? Sure. I but again, Powell is doing this because there's he's not seeing too many too many chinks in the armor. Yeah. Right. There's no cracks. And we're, But Donald wants ultimate immediate growth. And that's just Tim type dude. Right. So, geopolitical man, he's involved with Iran, Israel, Ukraine, Russia, China. And, hey, what happened to Rocket Man over in North Korea? I don't hear about that guy anymore, but I'm sure he's still around. So I guess it's whatever the, you know, whatever TV wants to talk about at that time. But man, you know, he's just involved or he's so involved. Yep. And he's very vocal throwing F-bombs. Hey, they don't know what the f they're doing. That's not good. And then, man, and again, it's just such, a circus, you know, I I'm on my hardcore right side. No, I'd like to say I'm moderate. I can see both. I like to try and see both sides, but, man, dude, like, I see President Trump on TV yesterday, and I'm just like, what the hell is going on? He's on Fox. He's at the soft opening of the alligator. Alcatraz is what I'll call it. And in the same picture that he's at this new, you know, immigration prison, he's the headline is big, beautiful Bill, and he's wearing a Golf of America hat. And I'm just like, God, man, like it's. Oh, okay, we own it down. Can we just like, can we tone it down just a little bit? Well, it was a couple days ago. Where what was he saying or. No, it was at that event, wasn't it, where he said basically like these people try to put me in a place like this. Yeah, it's. It's like Biden and try to put me in here. Son of a bitch. Yeah. Oh. God. Yeah. All of this, all of these quote unquote shenanigans, man, in the markets at all time highs. Yeah, it's just that just, that's just a testament about how much money is in the system. From what I believe, the helicopter money that was dropped during Covid like that, it really, really did juiced the economy for now, over five years. Yep. And that's my opinion, right? I mean, so but the market continues to roll up. We're expecting another good earnings season because they lowered the bar in the beginning of the year. Earnings growth was at 12. Then it was lower to eight. And now it's somewhere around 4 to 6%. Yeah. The bar just continues to lower and it's you know, like I still feel like we're still spending the same amount of money, like everything's still happening. Right. So I 2025 should be a good market, a good year in the market again. So how much you thought any any take on that. And since I'm ready to get to the barbecue. All right baby. All right. Give me your give me your top three things that come off your smoker and are you making any of them this this weekend? Well, actually had the, the kids, birthday party last weekend, so that was my first big smoke of the year. Okay. What do they did? Pulled pork. So two, two. But so probably, like 15 pounds of pulled pork. It basically all went. I know you didn't come in Monday with anything for your boy over here. I got nothing. And then we did. I did some beef back ribs. Nice, though. You did you do a good job with those? Well, so I usually do like the, the beef plate ribs. Yeah. That's like a short rib. So it's like those big dino ribs that you see back then. Yeah. These were beef back ribs. Okay. So it's kind of like a beef, like pork rib, essentially. It's actually like the top of, like, a rib eye, you know, like a bone in rib eye. I just sliced that off, so, but they were really good, actually, they were selling them at Costco, so I just threw one of those on there. Oh, nice. Yeah. So, but, you know, I think, I think this weekend, since we got an extra day, I think I might do a full brisket this weekend. I haven't done one of those in a long time. I got two in my freezer that are that are just calling for me to. It's just such a commitment. For the really. Good man. It's like a. You got to do an overnight. It's an 8 to 12, the 14 hour process, depending on how big that bad boy is and. I think I'm going to try it though I. Yeah. Because one of my favorite things is burnt ends. Yeah. And, and I got some of those I actually so I cheated a little bit at Costco. They have like a really good, like, brand. They're already cooked in, like, vacuum sealed. Okay, so I just threw those on the smoker and warmed them up. Those ones in, like, two seconds. They were gone. Really? That's it. Just get them already. Yeah, because I, I actually did see, like, a beef burn rib, thing on, on, Facebook that I really want to try just, beef spare ribs, cut them up, smoke them, bring them in, throw them in a tin foil kind of container with all your juices, butters. All this stuff. Put the lid on and let it. Let it just sauna in there. Right. I'm going to be making those here. So I've never made them. So I can't put them in my top three yet. But dino. Eggs. Oh yeah. That's where you take a jalapeno, you hollow it out, you throw some cream cheese and mozzarella in it, wrap it up in Bob Evans country sausage. And put a little bacon weave on top of them and smoke it. Man those go so quick I am a big fan lately of rack of pork. So at Costco for like 15 bucks you get a, you get like 6 or 7 bones. It's about I don't know, seven, six 7 pounds. Throw it on there. It's done in a few hours. And it's so good now. So so good. And big fan of rack of lamb that those come out. Little lamb smoke lollipops. Yeah those are good. And favorite. It's more of a cold smoke but like smoke and cheese man I, I got this little contraption where it just spits out smoke with really no heat. Put the, put your, put your cheese in there for about two hours and those go quick too. I've had that. That's. Yeah. Those are, those are the smoked cheese. Man. That stuff's good. So, the dino eggs, man. Know what you're like? What a. Classic. Oh, it is such a it's it goes so hard. Oh, man, that they go so quick. Two people are like, oh, this is great. I love them, I love making them. They're kind of a pain in the butt because you got to, like, mold the meat around the, the the jalapeno and stuff. But it's, it's worth it. Yeah. Flavor labor love. All right man. Well good. Stuff. Yeah. Everyone enjoy the the long weekend. Have a good 4th of July. If you guys have any questions, comments, show ideas. Hit us up at info at connect to.com and we'll talk to you next week. The opinions expressed in the podcast. Are for general informational purposes only, and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any investment, legal, financial or tax strategy. It is only intended to provide education about the financial industry. Please consult a qualified professional about your individual needs.