Financial Survival Network

STOP TALKING OVER YOUR GUEST.

I agree stop talking over your guest

I enjoy listening, Kerry brings on interesting guests and offers a variety of information on many topics. His regulars keep you informed on specific topics and he has a pleasant interview style and amusing stories and ideas. I hope to get in on his Clepto-currency tulip coin 😉 at it’s ICO

I had high hopes for this show, but unfortunately, I found that after only a couple of episodes, the unsubstantiated rhetoric was no better than what I would find on FOX News or CNN. Here's an example of what I am referring to: In the episode dated October 7, 2015, featuring guest Frank Vernuccio, the host (Kerry Lutz) starts off the show stating: "Government is the enemy of truth. Government is the enemy of freedom, and government is the enemy of your wealth." I happen to agree with the host on this completely, so I was starting off a big fan from the get-go. It quickly went downhill from there... His guest then continues on to completely blame the governments of the middle east for all of the refugees folding into Europe at the moment. Now, far be it from me to defend autocratic dictatorships; to the contrary, I find them quite despicable, but the guest pins 100% of the blame for this crisis on the middle eastern governments. How can you possibly overlook the role of the US government and their "western" allies who have completely destroyed many of these countries for the past several decades, which completely set the stage for all of the militant groups to have an impact today? The host then goes on to counter his guests point, but completely pins it on the Obama administration. Again, you will not find me defending the Obama administration - the man is a war criminal, but no more so than George Bush and all of the other recent presidents we've had. The host is just engaged in partisan politics. If he were honest, he would be informing people about how both major parties (Democrats and Republicans) are screwing over the American people, but it seems he has an agenda, and that certainly is not exposing the truth. His guest then goes on to accuse Iran and Russia of "...causing most of the problems around the planet." Really?!?! You mean it's not the United States with our 900 military bases in over 130 countries and decades of killing millions of people, but rather it's Iran and Russia that are causing all of the problems? Again, I'm not defending any governments here, but to completely overlook all of the death, destruction, and mayhem the U.S. has caused over the past several decades is inexcusable. It's a downright lie. His guest then goes on to talk about "...cuts in US defense spending..." but gives no such example of any cuts. He doesn't cite a single example or even mention a single dollar value. Perhaps that's because if he did, he would have to talk about how the US government spends 40% MORE on the military spending in 2014 than it did in the last year of the Cold War (1991), and that is in inflation adjusted dollars. His guest then goes on to explain that this is a particularly bad time for these "spending cuts" (which he gives no data to back up) because "... they are the opposite of what is needed at this point, particularly when the threats the United States, NATO, and our allies face around the world is getting EXPONENTIALLY GREATER BY THE DAY." Wow. Talk about a hyperbolic statement. So the problems here are two-fold: 1) As I have laid out before, military spending has not been cut, and we are spending as much in constant dollars at any point post WWII, so this proves that all of this military spending has not been making as us any safer, as by his guest's own admission: 2) the threats grow "greater by the day", so this means that we need to spend EVEN MORE according the guest. And I thought this show was supposed to highlight how huge government spending was the big problem that we all face, but they are saying we need to expand military spending even more? Keep in mind that the United States represents only approximately 5% of the world's population, yet spends OVER 48% of all military spending for the entire world. We spend more than the NEXT 10 countries (including, Russia, China, Iran, and India) on the list COMBINED... The guest then continues on again to say that the US "slashed" our Navy, but gives no justification whatsoever to back up that claim. The guest then goes on again to state that Obama "...unilaterally slashed American defense spending..." which is an outright lie. Congress controls spending, and although the president does have some veto power, the budget is set by congress, and once again defense spending has not been "slashed" by any objective measure. The guest then goes on to make some statement about how cutting military spending along with Russia would have been good for the taxpayers... Yes, it would have been good, but since when does this guy care about cutting spending? He has been using the entire show to complain that we aren't spending ENOUGH. The guest concludes that now the US faces "...the greatest threat in our history...". Again, another completely hyperbolic, unsubstantiated claim. As the final nail in the coffin for any hope that I had for Kerry Lutz as the host, he immediately replies to his guest that "I couldn't agree more." So there you have it - a couple of talking heads spewing unsubstantiated talking points completely based in fantasy - sounds exactly like what I would expect from FOX, CNN, MSNBC, etc... I listened to a couple more episodes just to give him the benefit of the doubt, but unfortunately, the hyperbolic punditry continued into other episodes. So, far be it from me to just complain and not offer solutions... If you would like a show that accurately analyzes financial markets, I would recommend Peter Schiff's podcast or the 'Justin Mohr Show'. The Jason Stapleton Program is also pretty good, and Tom Woods has an excellent daily podcast where he has very educated, well-read guests (many university professors) that cite facts to back up their opinion, not just spew unsubstantiated talking points as I found on the "Financial Survival Network". We have enough of that already - what we need is more truth, and unfortunately, after initially high hopes, I can state confidently that you will not find that here.