Эксперт Роб Уэст: хроническая нехватка времени и отдыха разрушает здоровье и отношения

Rob West: Dr. Richard Swenson, author of The Overload Syndrome and Margin, writes that we must have room to breathe. We need freedom to think and permission to heal. Our relationships are being starved to death by velocity. I'm Rob West. These days, too many of us are physically, emotionally, mentally, and financially overloaded. So we'll look at rest from a biblical perspective today, and then we'll take your calls at 800-525-7000. That's 800-525-7000. This is Faith & Finance on American Family Radio. Biblical wisdom for your financial decisions. Well, the room to breathe that Dr. Swenson writes about is called margin. It's taking a break before you break, so to speak. For many people, there just isn't enough time or money or energy left at the end of the day to recuperate, and then everything starts again at full throttle the next day. Unfortunately, a no-margin lifestyle can have serious physical and financial consequences. Let's take sleep, for example. According to the Sleep Foundation, nearly half of people in the US have trouble sleeping, and around one-third of adults sleep less than 7 hours each night. Chronic sleep deprivation can lead to expensive health problems, including diabetes, anxiety, obesity, and heart disease. Studies show that lack of sleep deeply affects our emotional health, relationships, and decision-making, reminding us that rest isn't a luxury, but a necessary part of living wisely and well. Perhaps you find things moving too fast in your life. Working late nights and weekends might seem necessary, but burning the candle at both ends is ultimately unproductive. You'll find that exhaustion leaves no energy for the most important things—your relationships with others and with the Lord. Now, don't get me wrong. God calls us to work for our families, for His kingdom, and for the community. We work to pay the bills, to give, to save, and to invest. It's part of how God made us. But work isn't all there is. We need to rest sometimes, too. You know, rest is God's idea just as much as work is. On the seventh day of creation, God rested. Not because He was tired, but because His work was completed. God blessed that rest and called it holy. Later on, keeping the Sabbath holy was enshrined as one of the Ten Commandments. Like author Rich Villodas puts it, God gives us Sabbath, He gives us rest, as a gift to remind us that our standing in Christ is not based on our works. Days of rest are days where we can tell ourselves, "I'm not producing anything, yet God still loves me." Technology makes it easy to work from anywhere at any time, but just because we can doesn't mean we should. Margin in work means getting enough rest so that you can do your job as unto the Lord, with purpose and energy. Staying late at the office or skipping vacation days might make you look like a go-getter, but stress and broken relationships are a high price to pay for professional progress. Now, perhaps I need to point out that there's a difference between getting proper rest and being lazy. Laziness is choosing not to do what you're supposed to do, or only doing the minimum to get by. In his first letter to the Thessalonians, Paul tells the church to warn those who are idle and disruptive. The suggestion here is that being inactive can lead to mischief. You've probably heard the saying "idle hands are the devil's workshop." We can see this effect all over our culture. Scripture warns against idleness masked as busyness in 2 Thessalonians 3. Without rest, our constant activity can become aimless distraction rather than faithful work, draining our purpose and clouding our calling. Proverbs 31 describes the noble woman as hardworking, caring for her home, business, and the poor. Verse 27 says she does not eat the bread of idleness, showing that fruitful labor honors God while idleness ultimately leads us into trouble. Laziness can sometimes look like spending more time on distractions, like scrolling or shopping, than on what matters most, like caring for our homes, our relationships, or the work God entrusted to us. Proverbs 24:30 and 31 paints the picture of a neglected field overgrown and crumbling from despair. If you wrestle with laziness, don't run from it; bring it to Jesus. He offers not only forgiveness, but strength to live faithfully and diligently in every area of life. The good news is that God's grace meets us right where we are. Whether we're burned out from overworking or stuck in patterns of procrastination, He invites us into rhythms of grace, not guilt. Rest isn't something we earn; it's something we receive. So, if you're weary, come to Jesus. His yoke is easy, His burden is light, and in Him, you'll find true rest for your soul. All right, your calls are next. The number: 800-525-7000. I'm Rob West, and this is Faith & Finance on American Family Radio. We'll be right back. David Wollen: For your walk with Jesus, I'm David Wollen with Haven Today, inviting you to anchor your day in God's Word. How's your summer going? Kids are out of school, the days are longer and filled with fun, hopefully outdoor fun for everyone. It's a season for families to take joy in God's creation. Psalm 74:16 and 17 says, "The day is Yours, and Yours also the night; You established the sun and moon. It was You who set all the boundaries of the earth; You made both summer and winter." In His kindness, God gave this season and all the others each with its purpose, and so now as you're enjoying the warmth of summer, give thanks to the One who made it. This season belongs to the Lord, and in Christ, so do we. Get more encouragement for your walk with Jesus at haventoday.org. Announcer: Are you a financial professional looking to grow your practice while offering advice that aligns with your Christian values? 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Break free from the huge costs and hidden fees of traditional health insurance. Learn more at faithfi.com/chm. Rob West: This is Faith & Finance on American Family Radio. I'm Rob West. Well, it's time for your calls and questions here in just a moment. So go ahead and pick up that phone. If you have a financial question, something going on in your life financially, we'd love to hear about it, help you think it through in light of biblical wisdom. The number to call is 800-525-7000. Our team is standing by, we've got lines open for you right at the moment. So call right now, 800-525-7000. We can get into spending, that is your budget, your spending plan, maybe it's your saving and investing. Where do I save? How much do I save? Where do I park it to get a good interest rate? By the way, more and more of our listeners are connecting with AdelFi Christian Banking. They're the largest Christian banking option in the country, and so if you want to align your values with your banking partner and get a great rate on your savings, their money market's at 4% for at least a year. Head to faithfi.com/banking. It's one of the most common questions we get, "Where do I go to get a good interest rate and be aligned with my values?" Faithfi.com/banking. Make sure you check out the bonus that's available for FaithFi partners. But whether it's your spending, or your saving, maybe it's your investing as you try to navigate this market. We're on pace for another fifth consecutive winning week on the markets despite the lingering conflict in the Middle East and oil prices elevated. Those corporate earnings on top of a little bit better than expected news on inflation here as we end out the week has caused this market to continue to move higher. If you'd like to help get help navigating your own investment strategy, you can call with that, or maybe for you, it's getting out of debt or preparing the next steward. Whatever you're wrestling with, call right now, 800-525-7000. We will dive into those questions as they're coming in here in just a moment. In the news today, despite increased cybersecurity spending, US data breaches are on track to exceed last year's record. More than 471 million victim notices were tied to data compromises in the first half of 2026. That's according to the Identity Theft Resource Center. A breach involving education platform Canvas, you might be familiar with it, my kids use it for their education, that accounted for 275 million notices. The ITRC also recorded 1,803 incidents during the period compared with 1,732 a year earlier. Artificial intelligence is contributing to the rise. IBM found that 1 in 4 breaches between March of 2025 and February 2026 involved AI, that's up 56% from the prior year. Malicious insider incidents are also increasing sharply, with 21 reported in the first half of 2026 versus just 3 in all of 2025. For consumers, experts recommend regularly reviewing credit reports, using credit monitoring services, and considering fraud alerts. On those credit monitoring services, I would say, you know, if you have been the victim of a breach and you have that free to you, absolutely take advantage of it. Otherwise, you can use most of the free safeguards to protect yourself, the strongest of which is the credit freeze. Now, this needs to be done with all three credit bureaus: Equifax, Experian, TransUnion. That can prevent criminals from opening new accounts in your name. So if they did compromise and access your data, perhaps on the dark web, and use that to attempt to open or take out a loan in your name, they'd be stopped in their tracks with that credit freeze, primarily because in order for that new account to be opened, the lender's going to want to check your credit. Well, they'd be unable to do so because the PIN number would be required, and the fraudster would not have it. They're free, but they have to be temporarily lifted when applying for legitimate credit, so that's the only hassle factor, but hopefully you're not doing that very often, maybe buying a car every few years or some other need for credit. But that credit freeze is going to be your strongest tool. Beyond that, I would say strong, unique passwords. And I know this is easy to do, but don't use the same password across accounts. Check out a password manager like LastPass or 1Password, or even the one built into the Mac operating system or Google, because that's going to help you generate unique, long passwords and then be able to call them up quickly as you need them. I realize that can be a hassle. Pay particular attention to your email and financial accounts because access to email can allow a thief to reset passwords elsewhere and use that password reset feature with your email address to be able to get in and change it. Also, just a few others, and then we'll dive into some questions here. Turn on two-factor authentication. So you enable it on email, banking, investment, credit card, and other accounts. You could use an authenticator app or a security key. That's preferable to text message codes, but if you don't do anything, just make sure you at least do the text message codes for the two-factor authentication. That's going to make sure that even if they have your password, you're going to stop them from getting in because they're not going to be able to get that second source of authentication. Be extremely cautious with personal information. This is another big one. Never give out your Social Security number, passwords, account numbers, verification codes if someone calls unexpectedly, texts you, or emails you asking for them. I don't care how good the person sounds or how accurate it looks. You know, just because they can get that logo up at the top of the email that matches, you know, the company you do business with doesn't mean it's legitimate. So if they ask you, you know, for your personal information, especially if there's any urgency involved, I would just hang up or close or delete the email and then go to them directly using a trusted phone number or email address. And then finally, monitor your financial life. You're going to want to regularly review bank and credit card transactions, bills, and credit reports. Yes, it's some extra work, but it's worth it. Unexpected accounts or charges or withdrawals or bills can be early signs that someone is using your identity, and you want to stay on top of that. So, hopefully, that gives you a few things to think about today as you're trying to stay safe. I realize these problems are on the rise, and we want to help you avoid them as best we can. All right, lines are filling up. Rob West: Let's dive in. We're going to start in Texas today. Brent, go ahead, sir. Brent: Yes, sir. I have several retirement accounts, and I am a registered nurse, so this is susceptible to having my accounts confiscated because of lawsuits. How can I protect those? Rob West: Mm, yeah. Do you have anything going on actively, or is this just trying to anticipate any problems? Brent: Uh, no, not actively. Just, just—I am 61, fixing to be 62, and I just want to make sure that I have something to leave my wife and my family. Rob West: Yeah. Yeah, no, I totally get that. You know, as you think about this in terms of protection and being sued, which would be likely what you're talking about here, you know, you want to separate your professional liability protection from protecting the assets you've already accumulated. The good news is your retirement accounts are among the best-protected assets. So employer-sponsored retirement plans are covered by something called ERISA, E-R-I-S-A, and this is the strongest federal protection against ordinary creditors. You know, there are exceptions, but very few of them. I mean, generally, it would be like a domestic relations order on a divorce or a federal claim. But you have a lot of protections kind of already built in from creditors and lawsuits where you're covered by ERISA, and that would apply to your retirement accounts. But I'll mention a few other ideas. I'm up against a break here, so I'll do this, Brent, right after the break and maybe give you a few things to think about. We'll be right back on Faith & Finance. Announcer: Hello, my name is Andy Miller, and I'm the president of Wesley Biblical Seminary based in Ridgeland, Mississippi. We are developing trusted leaders for faithful churches, and we do that based in the authority of scripture and in the reality that Christians can be transformed. We do that also through bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees. We'd love for you to learn more about Wesley Biblical Seminary at wbs.edu, where we're developing trusted leaders for faithful churches. Announcer: Faith & Finance is grateful for support from Eventide Investments, a faith-based asset manager pursuing investing that makes the world rejoice. Eventide invests from a biblical worldview, helping values-aligned investors pursue integrity, impact, and performance through their portfolios. 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Guided by a mission to love and value people, Movement seeks to help individuals and families make informed financial decisions, from buying a home to planning for retirement. More information is available at faithfi.com/movement. Movement Mortgage LLC supports equal housing opportunity. NMLS number 39179. For licensing information, visit nmlsconsumeraccess.org. Rob West: Great to have you with us today on Faith & Finance. Calls are coming in, just two lines available. If you have a financial question, call right now: 800-525-7000. Before the break, we were talking to Brent in Texas. Brent is 61, he's a registered nurse, has a traditional IRA, a 401(k), a 403(b), and wondering, with regard to those accounts, how does he protect himself against potential lawsuits to make sure he's got something for the future. And I was saying before the break, Brent, first of all, the good news is that retirement accounts, for the most part—and we'll talk about how they vary—are covered by ERISA, especially the 401(k) and the 403(b). And those have the strongest federal protections against ordinary creditors. In terms of the exceptions, let me just kind of run through this here real quick. A private employer 401(k) or 403(b) are going to be the strongest with that ERISA protection from lawsuits. And 403(b), which would be common for a private hospital or a non-profit, very strong ERISA coverage. Private pension, the same thing. Government 401(k) or 403(b), different rules. Government plans aren't covered by ERISA; you've got the applicable federal and state law. Traditional IRA, some protection, but different. So, strong federal protection in a bankruptcy, but outside of bankruptcy, the state law becomes most important. So, I guess the only thing I would say is you might want to investigate before moving a 403(b), let's say, to an IRA, because you don't want to assume that the rollover preserves every protection in every situation. Now, once you are beyond your working years and, you know, that's no longer a concern, or at least less of a concern related to a lawsuit, then you might want to roll that 401(k) or 403(b) into the IRA just for simplicity and having everything managed in one place. So, that's something to consider. Now, what do you do beyond the protections afforded to you related to those retirement plans? Well, I would just say make sure you have adequate professional liability and malpractice coverage. You know, even if your employer provides coverage, you might want to understand exactly what it covers and where an individual nursing professional liability policy makes sense. I would always carry a personal umbrella policy—we have one. You know, that's going to address another category of risk, maybe an auto accident, someone injured in your home. You know, you're going to want to make sure that you've got something that goes beyond the standard limits of a homeowner's or an auto liability policy, that's where the umbrella policy comes in. And then, you know, I would just say for significant wealth, you could look to an estate planning attorney for asset protection. But apart from that, those are probably the main steps you'd want to take. Is that helpful though, Brent? Brent: Yes. Rob West: Okay. Very good. Well, listen, hopefully we've given you a few things to think about. If we can help further along the way, don't hesitate to reach out. Lord bless you, sir. Thanks for being on the program. Let's go to Louisiana. Hi, Lynn, go ahead. Lynn: Hi. Um, we are—thank y'all for answering the phone and allowing us to answer these—answer these questions or ask these questions and get answers for these questions. But, um, anyway, we have two businesses, um, two separate businesses. One's a service business, one's a rental business. And, uh, both, you know—the service business is completely paid for, land and everything. My son runs it, and we're thinking about selling it to him that way, because, you know, it's just—it's costing us in the sense because I don't have any overhead and those type of expenses. And then the rental property pays off, um, probably around December. And we're looking into a few options, but do not know exactly what to do because when it sells, or if it sells, or whatever, it will probably be somewhere around $2 million. And I know that I have to do something because if not, I will have a lot of taxes that I have to pay, so I don't really want to outright sell it and not be able to put that money somewhere else or, you know, lose—lose more of a duck to put up because it is my retirement. Um, and also we have looked into, you know, maybe owner financing it, which is how we were able to do it, but nowadays that's real scary. Rob West: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Give me the the estate planning decisions you've already made on this. Did I hear you say on the service business, you said it's paid for completely and your son runs it and you're looking to sell it to him very soon? Did I understand that right? Lynn: Yeah. You know, that way he can—because I know when you start a new business, um, you have more deductions and different things you can do, you know, because he wouldn't be losing so much money because of where we're at, you know? We've had it forever. So it would be better for— Rob West: Okay. So you're mainly looking for how do you minimize the taxes on the rental property versus your versus questions around how do you efficiently transfer this at death to heirs? Is that right? Lynn: Correct. Yes. Rob West: Okay, yeah. Very good. So in terms of, you know, this business, this $2 million rental property, you know, in terms of the rental property, you're going to want to consider where you go from here in terms of your next investment opportunity, you know, what you're going to do with the money. You know, the—if it's worth $2 million when it's paid off in December, you know, if you want to stay invested in real estate, then that's, of course, where the 1031 exchange would be great, because you'd want to have that structured so you could defer that capital gain. Um, if you sold a $2 million rental and, you know, you didn't want to go into something else, um, then the owner financing isn't crazy, but the concern is legitimate. I mean, that can, uh, potentially spread the eligible taxable gain over several years, which is a real benefit. And, you know, if you receive at least one payment after the year of the sale, the transaction may qualify for an installment sale agreement. But there is risk. Um, instead of having that $2 million safely in your hands, you're becoming the buyer's lender. Uh, so if you consider it, you'd want to have an attorney involved and want to understand things like the buyer's creditworthiness, a substantial down payment, the interest rate, the collateral, the personal guarantees where appropriate, and then what happens—and this is huge—if the buyer defaults. Um, it doesn't make the tax disappear, but of course it spreads it out, which is a real benefit. Now, I have a few other thoughts that I'll share with you right after this break. So stay right there, Lynn, and we'll pick it up on the other side. We'll be right back. Announcer: Feeling burdened by credit card debt? As faithful stewards, we are called to manage our finances wisely. Christian Credit Counselors can help with a debt management program that allows you to pay off debt up to 80% faster while honoring your commitments with integrity. 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Your call is confidential, and we will help you find healing. 866-482-LIFE. Announcer: Every day, thousands of women face an unexpected pregnancy—scared, alone, and unsure where to turn. Faith Fi is partnering with Preborn and you to bring the hope of Jesus to these mothers through free ultrasounds at pregnancy centers across America. When a mother sees her baby's heartbeat, everything changes. Your gift of just $28 saves a life and shares the love of Christ. Give today at faithfi.com/preborn. That's faithfi.com/preborn. Announcer: This is American Family Radio. A listener-supported ministry of the American Family Association. Rob West: Well, you just heard it, our goal between now and August the 31st, just two weeks from now, is to fund 1,500 free ultrasounds through our partnership between Faith Fi and Preborn. You can help us get there. We're not there yet. Uh, just go to faithfi.com/preborn. Every $28 given is going to fund one of these free ultrasounds for a mom uh in an at-risk pregnancy or considering abortion uh where she can see her baby, they'll share the gospel with her, and if she chooses life, they'll journey with her for up to a couple of years providing really uh critical resources, diapers, and so much more. If you'd like to uh fund one of those or maybe many of those free ultrasounds, uh just hit #250 and say the word "baby" on your phone, #250 say "baby", or go to faithfi.com/preborn. That's faithfi.com/preborn. Every $28 given is going to go to one of those 1,500 ultrasounds. Let's reach that goal. We've got two weeks to do it. We could use your help. Uh 800-525-7000 is the number to call. Before the break, we were talking to Lynn in Louisiana. She's got a couple of businesses, she and her husband, uh a service business, a rental business. The uh service business, it's on its way to being completely uh paid off uh or or already is, and they're looking to sell it uh to their son that runs it. The rental property is going to be really paid off in December. It'll be worth a couple of million dollars. Uh they want to sell it, but they don't want to pay a lot of taxes and just wondering the best way to do that. And I was saying, even though I understand your concern about owner financing, there is a way to do that, especially if you get an attorney involved and kind of deal with all of the uh the various issues and personal guarantees and and buyer defaults in advance, and check the buyer's creditworthiness. But I would say, you know, that's probably your one of your best tools to uh spread out that tax uh hit that you're going to take on that. I would say second, you know, get your tax basis before doing anything. You may already know it, but you know, understand what that basis is. And because it's a rental, depreciation matters of course. But I think, you know, knowing exactly what you are going to have to pay, um, and and really looking at those uh those details is going to make the decision much clearer on the front end. Don't overlook charitable planning either. The extent to which you have charitable intentions could allow a lot of this, even, you know, by giving a portion of the property away before the sale, could allow you to avoid tax on it altogether. And maybe you do several years' worth of giving instead of out of checking or savings like you would have done. Maybe you do it from the sale of this property, and you can give a percentage of that property to a donor-advised fund before the sale. And then that portion, you would not pay any capital gains tax on, and you could give it away over time based on however you were planning to give charitably anyway. And maybe you just replace it with the proceeds from the sale, or at least part of it. So, uh, is that helpful though, Lynn? Lynn: Yes, yes. That's a—that's a really good thought because we do a lot of charitable giving, so that would be, um, I guess I didn't realize you could do it in that manner, so that that would—that's... yeah. Rob West: Yeah, and our friends at the National Christian Foundation could be a real help here, so you—you could go to ncfgiving.com, uh, was founded by Larry Burkett and Ron Blue. You know, they give away billions every year. It's the largest Christian charity, but they—they exist to serve believers in their giving intent, not to formulate their own giving strategies. So they're just the—the vehicle. And if you opened what they call a giving fund, it's essentially a donor-advised fund, you could, before the sale, uh, gift a portion of this property—whatever percent you want—to your donor-advised fund, and then when it's sold, that portion would immediately fund the donor-advised fund, would skip the capital gains, and then just like a checking account online, you'd log in, and whenever you want to gift it out to a 501(c)(3) ministry or your church, um, you know, a couple of clicks of a button and it's gone. But it doesn't have to happen in that year. You can do it over whatever time period you want. And the extent to which there's money in there that's going to be there for a while, you can even invest it inside the donor-advised fund. Now, the—the returns just create more money for giving. You can't pull it out for your own use, but it's a really effective tool and it's very inexpensive. Lynn: Okay. Rob West: Yeah. Lynn: All right. Well, thank you. Rob West: All right, Lynn. Listen, all the best to you and your husband. You guys uh I think have built quite a portfolio here, and I love that you're being really thoughtful about how to structure this to be a good steward, save on taxes, and uh, you know, be wise in your estate planning and giving. Call anytime if we can help. Uh let's go out to Texas. John, go ahead, sir. John: Hey, how you doing today? Rob West: Great! Thanks for calling. John: I really enjoy your show, you know. I've been listening since Dan Celia, and so, but you guys have so much good information. Rob West: Well, thank you. John: Um, but uh, uh the uh my my thing is that I I'm I'm about 10 years out from retirement, you know? But uh I want to kind of start kind of getting rid of this debt that we have, you know, and consolidate it and uh start doing improvements on on my house. And uh so I want to um my house is paid off, I want to take some equity out. I just want to know what the best option would be to to do that. Whether it be a HELOC or equity uh plan or, you know, just a uh a conventional, you know, uh mortgage loan. I'm not too sure what the benefits of each... Rob West: Yeah. Yeah, it's a—it's a great uh question, and I think, you know, the goal is you don't want to enter retirement, you know, with a a big debt. You want to keep your fixed expenses manageable, and so let's try to borrow as little as we can. Uh and the HELOC is a great way to do that, Home Equity Line of Credit, because, you know, the imp- improvements uh probably are are going to have costs that come in stages, and that's really one of the best features of the HELOC is you get the line, but you don't have to take it until you need it. And there's a variable rate, which is good because rates are elevated right now and we expect over the next few years for rates to slowly come down, and you'll get those lower rates uh with that variable versus the fixed rate. But the key idea is I think you borrow as little as possible, you don't borrow it till you need it, and then you focus on paying it back so you can get back to a place where you're uh debt-free, versus the home equity loan, which is a a known one-time amount that you get at closing and a fixed rate. And then a new mortgage would be, you know, they're going to typically have minimums, so, you know, that would be where you have a very large borrowing need requiring a long repayment period, but, you know, hopefully that's not the case here, which is where I think the HELOC is is best suited. And then obviously, smaller improvements wherever you can support it out of current cash flow, that would be even better, but you don't want to drain your liquidity. You want to keep plenty of reserves, and so again, that's where I think the HELOC would be uh the winner here. John: Okay. Yeah, that that really helps out right there, you know, because my my plan is to to take it out, you know, they they give 30-year, 15-years, but, you know, my plan is to double up on my payments, try to make it five years, you know, as quick as I can, you know. Rob West: I think that's great. Yeah, and that that would really I think support the HELOC, and I love that idea that while you're working, you got good cash flow, let's try to really knock this thing out so that you're entering retirement debt-free or close to it, and uh, you know, we're keeping those fixed expenses manageable. Uh John, great question. We appreciate your call. If I can help further, let us know. Uh let's go to Arkansas. Hi, Rob. Go ahead. Rob (Caller): Happy Friday there, Rob. How you doing? Rob West: Yes, sir! I'm doing great. Thanks for your call. Rob (Caller): Okay, so I got a question to ask you, then I want to do a follow-up statement, okay? Rob West: Okay. Uh, by the way, let me just tell you, I've got 30 seconds, so give me the question, and then I'll answer it on the other side of the break. Rob (Caller): Cool. Okay. The question is, is you were talking about uh not using the same password, but what I wanted to know that on all my accounts and everything, I use my fingerprint. How secure do you think that is? Rob West: Ah, yeah. Uh definitely uh secure. It's a good security practice. It's much better than leaving your phone unlocked or relying on a simple PIN. It's not enough by itself, but I like it. It's strong. That, paired with a strong password of at least six digits, is a good baseline. We'll pick up the rest of your question on the other side of the break. We'll be right back. Announcer: Hello, I'm Sam Rohr, president of the American Pastors Network, a growing national network of pastors committed to the authority of scripture and preaching the whole counsel of God. 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This institution is not federally insured. Rob West: Well, Jerry Bowyer is here, we'll get to uh that conversation here in just a moment as we get his take on the markets and an update on his work alongside his incredible team in the area of corporate engagement. But first, before the break, we were talking to Rob about uh security and identity theft, and Rob, you were asking a great question about the fingerprint security and uh you know, just to recap, I think that's a great idea. That uh is much better than leaving the phone unlocked, either the uh fingerprint or the uh facial Face ID that comes with the Apple devices, paired with a strong password of at least six characters, I think is a great starting point. Uh obviously, you've got to go beyond that, and we've talked about some of those best practices earlier in the program. But did you have a follow-up question on that, or another thought? Rob (Caller): Well, I uh two things. I wanted to touch up on that real quick that uh, yes, uh some of my accounts uh do do a two-step verification, but I also have one account that automatically forces me to reset my password every six months. And I think that's a good step. Uh it's sometimes hard for us older people to remember passwords and everything. But uh, so the other one thing I wanted to touch on, Rob, was that uh I've been getting some uh scam alerts. Uh they claim to be from TransUnion and the other two credit bureaus, but they're saying that a change has been identified on your TransUnion credit report, click on this website to do that. I do not suggest anybody does that, because that tells me that they're attempting to get your your uh your Social Security number and any other valuable information that's going to break the security for you to be scammed on, and somebody gets your money. Rob West: Oh, that's such a great point, Rob. It can't be said enough. I'm glad you called that out because yeah, I mean, the best practice here is just don't ever give any information to anyone—phone, text, web—where you didn't initiate the contact using known and verifiable contact data. So unless you're getting the phone number from the trusted website and calling customer service yourself, or you navigating in your browser—not clicking a link, but, you know, to your institution's primary domain—and then engaging with them further, or reaching out to the Social Security, yeah, inbound requests for personal information is just an automatic no, no matter how good it looks. Don't trust the caller ID by itself, don't trust an email that looks legit or somebody that sounds, um, you know, like they they are legitimate, because even the AI now is making these calls, whereas the, you know, broken English and, you know, the problems with the emails you could spot these things, they look identical to the real thing now. And so we just need to, you know, not respond at all to those inbound requests. So that's a great uh thought, Rob, and I appreciate you calling that out today. Thanks for being on the show, sir. Rob West: Well, Jerry Bowyer is here. Uh you know, Jerry, we've we've talked about just the incredible strength of this market and that continues. Earnings continue to be really strong. It seems like in the Middle East, the US is headed toward an economic isolation policy, you know, as we've moved away from, you know, the wartime efforts, and even the Strait of Hormuz, it just seems like that's really problematic. So maybe we're going to just try to choke them out economically. Is that the strategy at this point? Jerry Bowyer: Yeah, moving from kinetic war to economic war. Um, and I mean, we've tried that before. They have been, to some degree, economically isolated for a long time. Uh, we tried that with Iraq. We've tried that, you know, with Cuba ever ever since JFK was president. I mean, this that was when I was born, we were doing that to Cuba. Uh, and it still hasn't worked. Um, so I'm not highly confident that that kind of economic isolation is going to lead to the kind of meaningful change that we want. I think it's basic maybe a little bit of a face-saving exercise. Um, I think that the president wanted regime change uh in Iran. I think the great success of an extraction operation in Venezuela maybe created a sense of invincibility, um, but it's a completely different operation than going in and grabbing one guy uh as opposed to toppling a regime. I think that the fact that there were widespread protests in Iran maybe gave uh some people in the White House the sense that if you just, they're about ready to fall, just give them a little nudge. None of that happened. They fought harder than we expect. Uh, that's not to their credit because essentially it's the dictatorship imposing pain on its people and on just ordinary Iranian soldiers and sailors. Uh, so I think the evil of that regime runs very, very deep, and maybe we underestimated it. Um, and so Hormuz is the choke point, and I think we're just trying to kind of stabilize the situation a little bit. And that might be the only, that might be the best—now I won't call it the best—the least worst available option in this situation. Now, I don't want to be too negative. A nuclear Iran would have been a serious problem, and it always seemed reasonable to take steps to stop it from nuclearizing. Uh, and blowing up a mountain where they had their nuclear program is was justified, in my opinion—not that people come to me for those decisions, I'm an economist. Uh, but something broader like regime change, etc., that stuff is always harder than the planners think it is. Uh, so we might have some elevated energy prices. We they went up a lot before. We got a very low growth um quarter in the second quarter. Um, and but nevertheless, look how high markets are. So how does that make sense? Well, it makes sense because the higher the energy prices, the more the central bank concludes that we're going to have an inflation problem. Um, so there's like the dynamics of what's going on with the central bank, um, and inflation, um, and what happened is last week inflation was a little lower than we expected, um, um, and sorry, that was this week, a little lower than we expected, and markets responded to that by saying, "Oh, well, the Fed is not going to hike rates in September." Right. Uh, and since one of the things that's been keeping market valuations really high, uh, especially the tech sector, especially the AI sector, uh, is easy money. And if we're not going to tighten money in September, then maybe this can keep running. So it's one of these areas we've talked about before where the market news is not just directly about how the economy's doing, it's really about how the central bank will respond to how the economy's doing. So we have really strong highs this week, even though we had a weak jobs report last week, um, and and that's because the Fed's probably not going to raise rates if we have weak jobs. Oh, and inflation's a little higher, so they probably don't have to raise rates to fight inflation. So some of the bubble valuations we have in the tech sector are allowed to continue and even expanded this week, which is why we have a Dow that, you know, flirted with 54,000. Rob West: Yeah. Uh and we're on top of all of that continuing to see, I don't know if it's record, but certainly strong earnings coming out from businesses, right? Jerry Bowyer: We are, from finance and from energy—I mean energy because energy prices are high—but also from the tech sector. And I think one of the things that's going on, I just referred to AI as a bubble and I think to some degree it is, but there's the bubble like in 1999 where you had companies that had never made any revenues whatsoever with stratospheric valuations, as opposed to now where these AI-related companies actually have extremely high revenue growth. The question is, does Palantir have high enough revenue growth to justify a 400 PE? Right. Um, so it can be overvalued, but not be like completely a fake bubble. So a lot of what was going on in dot-com in the late '90s, Pets.com was not a viable model, it was never going to be a viable model. But Amazon was there too, and Amazon did have a viable model, it just wasn't making money yet then. So I think at this point, that's kind of where markets are, and the easy money has had those valuations, you know, kind of uh been able to expand. So, but I think that analysts are beginning to understand that the AI sector now is stronger in terms of business fundamentals than the internet was in 1999. Rob West: Mm, yeah. Very good. Uh Jerry, let's pivot here for a moment. I know your team is is gearing up, or perhaps in the middle of, uh, you know, the next round of corporate engagement. Tell us what you're working on. Jerry Bowyer: Well, this week we had a meeting with UPS, um, that was uh, I think, very important. Um, and it was about selling the um abortion or distributing the abortion drug mifepristone. Um, and um, I, you know, we think it's very risky. Um, I mean, obviously, we have moral objections to mifepristone, but we generally are not coming in with moral objections. We're coming in representing shareholders who have risk assessment. Now, often the moral code and risk assessment overlap, and this would be one of those cases. Um, their initial reaction was, "Well, we we don't know what's going in all the boxes, and you know, we can't really control everything. And we're in the business of shipping things, we're not in the business of not shipping things." Except there's a lot of things they don't ship. Um, they make it very difficult to ship firearms, for example, or even parts for firearms, going way beyond any legal restrictions. Um, they don't ship human embryos for some reason. Um, but they do ship the chemical that kills human embryos. Uh, and, you know, they can't really say, "Well, you know, we we're going to ship everything that's legal," because they don't. Firearm, not only are firearms legal, but they're explicitly protected in the Second Amendment. Um, they have very strong environmental commitments that they said. Well, the problem is these abortion drugs, they get out into the water supply. There's articles and journal articles, peer-reviewed journal articles, that indicate that they're doing damage to the environment, they're endocrine disruptors. Um, and uh, by the way, it's illegal. The Comstock Act makes it illegal to ship abortion drugs across state lines. Now, the Biden administration did not enforce the Comstock Act, but it's still the law. And the Trump administration may well, and Todd Blanche was just um confirmed as Attorney General, and he said he's committed to enforcing the Comstock Act. So you've got a law on the books that says do not ship abortion pills across state lines, we've got a new Attorney General who says, "I'm going to enforce that law," we've got a company that has a history of blocking shipping of things that it doesn't need to, and we're just saying, "You know, you really need to look at the risk of of shipping this stuff." Um, and it was a good conversation. We don't know where it's going to come down, but I'd say that's the engagement that um that that the most recent engagement that we've had that I think would be, you know, of interest to the listeners. By the way, I think we're probably going to come down in a good place. Will they completely uh block it? I don't know. Maybe they'll examine the risk, maybe they'll put some controls in place, or maybe they'll do the right thing and say, "Wow, this is incredibly risky. Why are we selling this stuff?" I mean, how much of UPS's revenues are from abortion drugs? Probably very little. Considering the legal risk associated with it and the risk and it's just a straight revenue risk tradeoff, this seems pretty hard to justify. Rob West: Well, the big idea here, Jerry, is that you're having the conversation, and that's incredible. And uh, wow, what a great update. Thanks for sharing that. Jerry Bowyer: My pleasure. Rob West: All right, that's Jerry Bowyer. His team at Bowyer Research is doing incredible work engaging with companies like UPS, the biggest in the world, and talking about representing shareholders and biblical values and treating everybody equally, and staying focused on their primary business, and it's making a real headway. Thanks, Jerry. Well, we'll be back next week to do this all over again. Big thanks to Patty, Devin, Taylor, and everybody here at Faith Fi. Have a great weekend. Announcer: The views and opinions expressed in this broadcast may not necessarily reflect those of the American Family Association or American Family Radio. These days, too many of us are physically, emotionally, mentally, and financially overloaded. In fact, with such demanding lifestyles, we might be tempted to feel like rest is a bad thing. But what does God say about rest? On this Faith & Finance on AFR, Rob West looks at rest from a biblical perspective. Then, it’s on to calls. (00:00) Rob West examines the difference in laziness and the need for rest (10:31) In the News: US data breaches ahead of last years pace (15:38) Caller Brent: How to protect retirement accounts from lausuits (20:45) Rob West continues the conversation with Brent on protection for retirement accounts from lawsuits (23:47) Caller Lynn: How to minimize taxes on sales of businesses (32:20) Rob West continues the conversation with Lynn on the sale of businesses (36:07) Caller John: Considering a HELOC to pay for home improvements (39:13) Caller Rob: Is using fingerprint security adequate for phone (42:25) Rob West continues the conversation on password security (45:12) Jerry Bowyer joins Rob West discussing the policy of economic isolation of Iran (47:41) Jerry Bowyer gives the reasons the markets are remaining high (49:15) Jerry Bowyer reports on continued positive corporate revenue growth (50:39) Jerry Bowyer gives a corporate engagement update on UPS Did you know American Family Radio is listener-supported? 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