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Hi, and welcome to the Longview. I'm Christine Ben's Director of Personal Finance and Retirement Planning for Morningstar.

And I'm Jeff Battack, Chief Ratings Officer for Morning Star Research Services.

Our guest on the podcast today is consumer advocate and personal finance expert Clark Howard.

Clark has been hosting the nationally syndicated radio show and podcast, The Clark Howard Show, since 1989. He's also the author of

10 books, three of which have been New York Times bestsellers. He also sponsors the Community

Action Center, which is a free resource for advice on money and consumer issues. He received his

BA and Urban Government from American University and his MBA from Central Michigan

University. Clark, welcome to the Longview. Thank you. Well, thanks for being here. It seems like

when it comes to personal finance matters, the discussion often moves immediately to investing and

away from some of the day-to-day financial decision-making that you

focus on so much in your work. Why do you think that is? Well, because if you think about the

investment community, which is where most of the energy is in anything involving personal

finance, it's really skewed towards higher income earners.

And they're looking what to do with additional potentially disposable income,

where the typical American is just trying to make ends meet, paycheck to paycheck, month to month.

And my role has been to serve people who for the most part

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