Happy 250th America…Let’s Celebrate all year long!!
Jobs… Nonfarm payrolls rose for a third consecutive month in May, well above consensus estimates.
What does it mean – Unemployment rate is steady at 4.3% and the three-month average job gains has risen sharply. ADP private payrolls rose by the most since January 2025, with businesses of all sizes adding to their payrolls.
The ISM manufacturing PMI accelerated to a four-year high…Onshoring and continued investments in manufacturing in the US continues to drive record recovery and growth in manufacturing in the US.
What does it mean – Firms boosted orders and production and continues to see strength across most sectors since the lows of 2022. Massive capital investments is driving the markets and the economy.
Data center construction spending surpassed $50 billion…For the first time, data centers are widening the lead over general office construction.
What does it mean – As technology evolves and the more people adopt AI, data needs to be stored and accessed. Every day we add massive amounts of data requiring more chips, more energy, and more facilities to house and protect that data. As long as we are accessing information, creating content, and AI continues its parabolic demand, we will see this trend continue.
The trade deficit narrowed more than expected in April…Driven by a significant jump in exports that outpaced the rise in imports.
What does it mean – US exports of crude oil and petroleum remained higher than usual as demand for energy continues to grow as data centers and AI’s insatiable appetite for energy continues to ramp. Not to mention Iran still has not figured out that they will not be allowed to develop or purchase nuclear weapons and material. Nor will the world tolerate the continued support for terrorism throughout the world by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) or by its proxies in the Middle East and throughout Africa, Latin America, and in Asia. Energy and specifically oil is in the cross hairs and on the mind of every American; and it powers everything.
New home sales decrease 6.2%…Month-over-month new home sales fell in April to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 622,000 from a revised 663,000 (from 682,000) in March.
What does it mean – On a year-over-year basis, new home sales were down 11.3%.
Below is a great look at housing prices and the percentage of growth due to cheap money and compounded by the government printing presses working overtime. This massive injection of money drove prices in all asset classes and inflated home values that nearly doubled the price of a home in CA over the last 6 years. Nationwide, it has pushed prices out of range for the average American and delaying purchasing for first time buyers average age up to nearly 45 years old from the early 30’s just 20 years ago.
The massive increase in home prices over the last few years means your cost of ownership and ability to own your own home has gone up significantly. For homeowners and for those who do not get the benefit of California’s prop 13 that protects your property taxes from increasing as your property value increases, you are now enjoying higher property taxes as you continue to rent your home from the state you live in. Let that sink in for a moment. You are renting your home from the state you live in.
For example, if you paid $800,000 for your home in 2020 in California and your property tax rate is currently about 1.3% your average property tax was roughly $10,400 per year. If you bought that same home today at a price of $1,600,000 your property tax is now $20,800. Could you imagine what that would mean if you did not have Prop 13 and your taxes doubled in 10 years? Not to mention the massive printing and failed policies by the Federal Reserve and our government made everything more expensive including the ability to ensure your home. The significant increase in home values has also increased the cost of insurance. A double whammy when it comes to the real cost of owning a home.
Health insurance now costs more than your mortgage…According to Realator.Com, data shows the average mortgage payment rose 44% in roughly four years, from $1,390 in early 2021 and now just over $2,000 per month while the average cost of health insurance for a family of four is about $2,230 per month according to Money Geek and the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
What does it mean – National health care A.K.A. Obama Care was sold as a lifeline for struggling families. Instead, it became the golden goose for big insurance and kick backs to our elected official’s election campaigns and Political Action Committees or PAC’s.
In 2024, 87 percent of insurer revenues from ACA premiums were taxpayer funded. Regardless of you, your children, or your family using any healthcare, your cost of providing this service to your fellow citizen is going to cost you more money. Your premiums have skyrocketed and will continue to go up as long as the government mandates that you subsidize your fellow citizens by force and threat of the federal government and the IRS. You are paying for it by force. Evidently the courts ruled that forced premiums are not a tax. HMMM.
Democrats and Republicans who refuse to acknowledge the mistake of Obama Care or refuse to end the unholy alliance between big government and the insurance and medical industry are not helping Americans afford insurance or access to great healthcare. In fact, it is the exact opposite. We just witnessed the Democrats shut down our government this year because they wanted to make permanent the emergency funding of COVID era credits and continue to fund the very companies supporting their reelections. The COVID era credits only increased your costs by an additional 10% per year, adding billions to the coffers of the insurance and medical companies supporting our do nothing, virtue signaling, fear mongering elected officials on both sides of the aisle. Both houses are writing blank checks to the very industry that is gouging the American taxpayer who they swore an oath to defend.
Among the 312 insurers participating in ACA Marketplace plans, premiums for 2026 rose anywhere from 12 to 27 percent for most enrollees, with some insurers hiking rates as high as 59 percent in a single year. Because health insurance is now mandatory, and even though your forced premium payments are not called a tax due to court rulings, this is a forced cost that they are extracting from every American. This is a “cashectomy” that goes well beyond our constitutional right protecting us from taxation without representation. Changing the name from tax to “premium” does not change the intent or the burden.
Every year, patients are paying more while getting less, and taxpayers are footing the bill.
Obama care promised us we could keep our doctors. That we would not see the cost of healthcare skyrocket. Premiums would stay reasonable and health care accessible and would lower and help control the cost of healthcare and protect it for generations to come.
Reality check:
- You can’t keep your doctor.
- Healthcare costs more today than ever before – It may be free to some, but it is costing us all $ billions in higher premiums and rising debt.
- Premiums or the Obama Health Care Tax is far more expensive today than ever before and increasing far faster than the rate of inflation.
- Destroyed the access to the family doctor. Most have retired and are now gone and are not being replaced by the next generation.
- Medical schools are falling apart. Government mandates and removing the economic value and reward of becoming a doctor is reducing the quality of care (fewer doctors graduating or applying) and many of our brightest no longer want a career in medicine as the cost and time associated with becoming a doctor is not worth the effort. This has also led to our government taking over the student loan industry. Just another byproduct of more government.
- In the first 10 years federal spending on healthcare increased 84% or at an inflation rate of 8.4% annually.
The Obama Care deception. What was supposed to be a safety net and lifeline for about 26 million Americans who struggled with the cost of healthcare. Since its inception, the Obama Care has ballooned into a monster with an insatiable appetite for more control. At the federal level, Obama care dolls out billions to the underserved and in many states, it subsidizes healthcare for illegal aliens and allows for all sorts of procedures that go far beyond what 99.9% of the population would consider healthcare. This system is fraught with abuse and fraud as there are next to know checks and balances for those who are allocating your federal tax dollars to states that provide healthcare to illegals and do not get me started on gender affirming care. This was the greatest government takeover in US history.
After all the virtue signaling and shaming of the job creators and very businesses that pay the lion share of healthcare in the private sector, the fear mongering by socialists and unions, hell bent on a bigger government, has lead us to massive fraud, waste and abuse by NGO’s, government agencies, and individuals who manipulated a system that took control away from the consumer and put it in the hands of the very insurance companies and medical companies that support the election of our so called leaders. These companies and agencies are now the gate keepers to your healthcare. They benefit from rationing care and eliminating costly services without the consent of the doctor or the patient. In fact, all one must do is type in to google to see a massive list of insurance companies that have been caught manipulating the billing system or individuals gaming a system backed by taxpayers. Unfortunately, when it is other people’s money, no one cares. It’s why we need a limited government with limited control over one’s life.
Today, our health care system no longer innovates and struggles with a free-market solution. It lacks the flexibility or ability to provide plans that meet the needs of younger healthier citizens who are mandated to buy more comprehensive insurance than they actually use. It is unable to meet the markets demand as the free-market solutions and choice have been removed by government mandates failing the needs of all Americans. Its ongoing migration to a one size fits all solution for the masses will lead to a more expensive and less capable and less innovative healthcare system.
Over 300 million Americans are forced to subsidize roughly 30 million Americans through forced premiums. Through the generosity and charity of our elected officials we are also forced to pick up the tab for an additional 30 million illegal immigrants, sacrificing the quality of our healthcare and at the cost of the American taxpayers. It is redistribution of wealth and hitting the economy and your pocketbook. This is not humane or wise. It is economic suicide and in the long run, will result in worse healthcare and less of it.
If you want to help people, there is nothing wrong with donating to causes and concerns that provide those services, but compelling people by force to pay for things they can’t afford destroys the family’s ability to care for one another and undermines the value of charity and self-determination and independence. It eliminates choice and ultimately removes the patient and the doctor from the decision-making process. It will lead and has already led to massive healthcare rationing. It is insanity. Prior to Obama care, and while it was not perfect nor perfectly fair, Obama care, with its overbearing regulations and taxes has destroyed what was the best, most innovative healthcare system the world has ever seen.
It’s never too late to fix a problem. And the biggest problem is that most people working within the government do not understand that a bigger government and more control equals more regulation and is a huge cost and burden to the economy.
Those in government truly believe that regulation is making it safer, cleaner, fairer, or more “diversified”, etc. Yet, it is out of convenience or because it goes against their mantra or their doctrine and invalidates their purpose or importance. Left alone with minimal government interference, it is and always will be the free markets and capitalism that innovates and solves the consumers’ most pressing needs and concerns. It is why you buy an iPhone or go to Starbucks. Capitalism rewards well-run companies and flourishes on solving consumers’ problems and needs and most importantly, doing what is right. And when they don’t, they get called out for it or lose to the competition. Bad companies rarely make it and only survive with the help of governments that overregulate and create regulations that make it difficult for capital creation, competition, and create more barriers to entry. It is one of the reasons why Europe has far fewer companies formed and many more oligarchies.
It must be confusing for young people when they hear in our universities or from the likes of Bernie Sanders, Mandani, AOC, Schumer, The Squad, and the rest of the left or Democratic Socialists praising communism and voting for more regulation and screaming about the evil of corporate America. Yet when confronted they cannot define what an oligarchy is, the benefits of more regulation, or the cost of that regulation they propose. In fact, they blame the capitalists who invest in the very companies that create the very technology, healthcare, tools, and products they use every day. Total hypocrites. It’s why they won’t move to Russia, China, Cuba or Iran. What they are doing is making it much more expensive, forgetting or not understanding that free markets and a free consumer who can decide what they want to buy leads to private sector innovation that solves much of what they spend their time fearing.
Between 2006 and 2016 the “Unregulated Government” led to a doubling of the budget that regulates our businesses and the economy. With out any oversight from Congress…No the Taxpayer, the cost of just monitoring and tracking businesses doubled. That is a massive tax on the consumer and our economy. The EPA was the most guilty and largest offender. They target all sorts of industry with climate, gender, and racial DEI regulations. These unelected bureaucrats cost the American consumer and taxpayer $ billions to produce products and services and compete against China and other nations that do not protect patents, honor free trade, or value the environment. The DOGE effort and the deregulation and the reduction of 358,000 federal employees will dramatically reduce the cost of compliance and cost of production for American products, services, and housing. The tax reductions for CapEx in the new tax bill and the benefits of AI will add tremendous value to our economy and your economic freedom. Corporate earnings should expand significantly for years as long as the next administration does not impose new regulations. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, it is estimated that large companies spent $20,000 per employee on compliance and regulatory issues, and all companies saw an average cost estimated to be $10,000 per employee. Thanks to DOGE, that is all being reduced.
More government is not the solution. The consumer drives demand and innovation. If it was, the governments of Russia, China, Cuba, Iran and every other failed Utopia would lead the way in patents and technology. None do. They are not even close to you, America. The freedom loving Americans lead the way in every category and it’s been that way since the ratification of our constitution. Celebrate your success!! You deserve it! But you better protect the document that made it possible!!! Your Children and their children’s, children’s freedom and prosperity depend on it.
Let’s roll America!!
Doug De Groote, CFP®, MBA, CTC
Managing Director
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