First Friday: Tariffs Grab Headlines, But These Financial Changes Nobody Is Talking About Will Impact You Too

Afford Anything

Paula Pant | Cumulus Podcast Network

Entrepreneurship, Business, Investing

4.6 • 3.4K Ratings

🗓️ 4 April 2025

⏱️ 60 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

#596: Yesterday, the White House rolled out the biggest tariffs in a century, sending markets into their worst decline since the pandemic. While headlines focus on supply chains and inflation, there are important economic stories you're not hearing about. During the first half of this month's First Friday episode, we dig into what nobody's talking about. And in the second half, we grapple with the headlines. Student loan rules just changed again. The government added new limits to Public Service Loan Forgiveness. Right now, 9.2 million people — one in five borrowers — can't keep up with payments. Many folks don't even know payments started again after that four-and-a-half-year break. S&P just dropped a new report that backs what smart money already knows: index funds crush actively managed funds 90 percent of the time. Even with all those tech stocks dominating the market, you still come out ahead with simple indexing. You know who's gobbling up the mortgage market? Rocket Companies. They just bought both Redfin and Mr. Cooper. They'll handle one of every six mortgages in America. They've positioned themselves at every step of the homebuying journey — from when you search for homes on Redfin to financing and monthly payments for the next 30 years. The White House just made a surprising move with Bitcoin. They're setting up a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve to hold coins long-term. They're also creating a separate stockpile for crypto they seize in legal cases. Pretty clear signal that Bitcoin stands apart from other cryptocurrencies. In the second half, we dive into those significant new tariffs making headlines. The S&P 500 dropped 4.8 percent on Thursday — we haven't seen a drop like that since the pandemic. The new rules put at least a 10 percent tariff on everything coming into the country. Then come the "reciprocal" rates: 20 percent for European goods, 27 percent for items from India, and a combined 65 percent for Chinese imports. We bring in Bob Elliott to make sense of this situation. His credentials are impressive — he spent 13 years at Bridgewater Associates (the world's largest hedge fund), served as head of Ray Dalio's investment team, and graduated magna cum laude from Harvard. During the 2008 crisis, he directly advised the Treasury, Federal Reserve, and White House. Bob offers a reality check about bringing back manufacturing jobs: you can't build factories overnight. These investments take years, and companies hesitate to make 30-year commitments when policies change every few months. Bob breaks down four economic forces all hitting at once: tariffs jacking up prices, government cutting spending, tax policies on hold, and the Fed moving like molasses. Put them together? Yikes. He doesn't sugarcoat it — the short-term outlook looks "pretty negative." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	On Wednesday, the White House rolled out the most significant tariffs we've seen in over a century.
0:04.9	On Thursday, markets around the world reacted with what can only be described as a panic.
0:10.2	The S&P 500 just experienced its worst single-day drop in five years.
0:16.2	Everyone is talking about it.
0:17.9	Headlines are screaming about supply chain disruptions, economic slowdowns,
0:22.6	and the potential return of both inflation and a recession. So yikes. And also, yes, we are going to
0:30.8	deep dive into all of that. But here's the thing. In the shadow of these massive headlines,
0:39.5	several critical economic and financial stories are getting completely overlooked. These are stories that directly impact
0:44.8	your student loans, your mortgage, your investments, even how the government is treating
0:50.9	Bitcoin. So here's what we're going to do today. First, we'll explore
0:55.2	the important economic stories that aren't making headlines, but that deserve your attention.
1:01.6	We're going to talk about the changes to student loan forgiveness that might catch millions of people
1:06.0	off guard. We're going to talk about new evidence, new research around index fund investing that confirms what afforders, people in the Afford Anything community, have known for years.
1:17.7	We're going to talk about major consolidation in the mortgage market that might affect your next home purchase.
1:23.0	And we're going to talk about a surprising government move to establish a strategic Bitcoin
1:28.9	Reserve. And then, in the second half of our episode, we'll tackle what's on everyone's
1:36.2	mind, these massive new tariffs, their potential impact on the economy, and what it means
1:42.6	for your financial future. And to help us make sense of
1:45.5	it all, I've brought in someone with extraordinary credentials. Bob Elliott spent 13 years at Bridgewater
1:52.7	Associates, which is the world's largest hedge fund, where he spent 11 years as the head of Ray
1:59.1	Dahlio's investment team. During the 2008 financial crisis, he directly
2:04.1	advised the Treasury, the Federal Reserve, and the White House. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard.
	...

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