Final Broadcast - Two

Talking Real Money - Investing Talk

Don McDonald

Education, Business, Investing, How To

4.5 • 811 Ratings

🗓️ 1 April 2026

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In the final hour of the radio show, Don and Tom blend nostalgia with a blunt reality check—highlighting the looming Social Security shortfall that could force 20–25% benefit cuts within a decade. They explore politically painful solutions (tax increases, benefit reductions, later retirement ages), while reinforcing their core investing philosophy: ignore fear-driven moves like chasing gold, stay diversified, and avoid market timing. Listener calls drive discussions on fiduciary advice, ethical investing dilemmas, and planning for less financially engaged spouses. The show closes with gratitude, humor, and a transition to a podcast-only future—same mission, fewer commercials, and more freedom. 0:05 Aging perspective and how quickly decades pass 2:28 Social Security crisis and projected 20–25% benefit cuts 4:46 Proposed fixes: higher taxes, later retirement, reduced COLA 7:11 Caller considers switching from index funds to gold 8:17 Why gold is a poor long-term investment 11:10 Market timing is impossible to do consistently 15:07 Fiduciary vs. non-fiduciary advisors (Fidelity discussion) 17:16 “Best interest” standard vs. true fiduciary duty 21:26 Listener reminder: stay the course during market fear 24:03 Ethical investing and whether profits justify harm 27:32 ESG limitations and the difficulty of “pure” investing 28:52 “Pay yourself first” as foundational financial advice 31:23 Listener gratitude and behavioral investing success 32:55 Planning for a less-engaged spouse and advisor relationships 34:48 Longtime listener appreciation and show legacy 37:23 Transition from radio to podcast and what changes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Reality Radio for a really great future.
0:08.0	We're talking real money.
0:10.0	I want to ask you a really important question.
0:12.7	Now, think about this for a second.
0:14.7	We know our audience skews a little older, 40s, 50s plus, but let's, for the older ones, the ones who are already
0:22.6	collecting Social Security, I want to talk to you, or you're near collecting Social Security.
0:26.6	You're in your 60s or your 70s. I want you to think back, think back to when you were in
0:32.9	your 50s. How long ago does that feel? Does it feel? You know how many years it was? You can count.
0:40.4	But how long ago does it feel? Doesn't it feel like maybe not a decade or more?
0:46.2	No. It feels very recent. Yeah, it feels really, really recent. I want you to remember that feeling because I have an interesting number that we want to share with you and then some not so comfortable ideas about a source of income in retirement.
1:04.0	But before I do that, I want to announce that this is now officially the last hour of our broadcast radio show talking Talking Real Money, it already is a podcast.
1:14.5	It's been a podcast for since 2014, but it's going to be just a podcast. Five podcasts, though,
1:23.1	every single week on your favorite podcast service. And you can still call and ask questions and go to
1:29.4	Talking Real Money.com and type questions and get information on all kinds of money things and
1:35.1	still get educated and hopefully entertained or annoyed if you're a Bitcoin person. That's our job
1:41.3	to annoy crypto fiends. We love it. We take it very seriously.
1:45.6	And you can call us at 855-935 talk right now during this final hour of the radio show.
1:52.7	855-935-8255.
1:55.4	And then this will become a podcast next week, and you can listen again.
1:58.4	I think we should take a vote before we go on to the topic, too.
2:01.8	There's two songs.
2:02.9	I got the band back here working on.
	...

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