Around the Horn – Housing Prices, Vatican Investments, Retail Investing Boom

Around the Horn – CMM 5-2021
[00:00:00]Andy Flattery: [00:00:00] Great. Welcome back to the Catholic money mastermind Pat podcast. This is the show where we explore the intersection of our faith and finances. You can learn more about our organization and find show notes for this episode at catholicfinancialplanners.com. Please note that nothing in this episode should be construed as investment tax or legal advice.
I’m here today with Tyler Hackenberg and Michael Acosta. My name is Andy flattery. How are you guys doing?
Tyler Hackenberg: [00:00:27] I’m doing great
Michael Acosta: [00:00:29] I’m doing great as well. Thank you.
Andy Flattery: [00:00:30] Good to be here with you guys. And we’re going to do another around the horn episode. , Michael , for starters, what is your topic for today?
Michael Acosta: [00:00:38] So the topic that I want to discuss and have you guys chime in on is really around home purchase for, for really new home buyers, millennials Henry’s, whatever. Whatever title you want to give them is now the right time as the market is the housing market too hot. Does it make sense to, to use liquidity, to purchase a home [00:01:00] right now when you know, prices are at their peak or percent peak versus holding out and continuing to rent?
Andy Flattery: [00:01:06] Cool. And that sounds great, Michael, and then Tyler, what do you have on the agenda?
Tyler Hackenberg: [00:01:10] A article about the Vatican investing in a morning after pill producer. So it really touches with. Where does our investments meet with the Catholic faith and what we can do about it.
Andy Flattery: [00:01:26] I love it. I love it. I thought I would bring to the table just this news out of Schwab that There was 3.2 million retail accounts opened in Q1, which was over 50% higher than all of last year. So I thought we could maybe talk about just the retail investment. Boom. Cool. Well, that sounds like a great agenda, Michael.
I liked,  where you’re going with homeowner ownership. Why don’t you kick it off and kind of tell us your thoughts about that topic.
Michael Acosta: [00:01:53] Yeah, no, of course. And one thing I want to point out is that going be between the three of us, we make up different areas of the U S so I think it’ll be [00:02:00] great to share some of the data that we might have accessible or that you guys might be able to provide. So, you know, I’m located on Charlotte, North Carolina in the Southeast of the U S and when I go back and just look at the housing market in general.
So since 2015, I’ve been blessed to have the opportunity to buy and sell. Three different properties. As far as from when I was single to getting married, to starting a family and, you know, purchased my first property in 2015, which was, you know, I feel like right in the middle of the housing market in the Southeast, starting to climb up the mountain and starting to accelerate, we then sold in 2018, which, which my wife and I thought was, you know, the peak of the housing market.
So we were able to take advantage of the sellers market. Selling our home in like less than 24 hours of being on the market turnaround and investing in a new build at a reasonable price. And then now fast forward two and a half, three years. [00:03:00] And we’re seeing a new peak in the housing market, at least in the Southeast where there’s less than 30 days worth of inventory.
And in speaking with some of my strategic partners who are in the real estate market, Or, or, you know, more of your specialists. It’s, it’s what they’re seeing is something that hasn’t really occurred, at least in their, their time in the you know, within the real estate industry as a whole to where, you know, it’s a sellers market, people are getting multiple offers over asking price.
Less than 30 days inventory on the market, plus factoring in the pandemic with limited supplies or imports or material for new construction, which is causing new construction developments to reduce the number of spec homes or inventory based homes that they have from a new build standpoint and lots, no longer being first come first serve.
And many of these newer developments and moving towards a lottery based style setup. So it’s like the housing market [00:04:00] around here has completely shifted and it’s the most aggressive that are seen. And so when working with a lot of my younger clients who want to purchase homes, who were tired of renting, not building any equity and the main focus in our engagements has been, you know, how do I help you become a world-class saver?
How do I help you be efficient with saving and building liquidity for when you’re ready to make your first home purchase or, or other take advantage of other life events or milestones? Well, we’re at a time where it’s like, okay, well, does it make sense to buy now? We’re we’re at all time highs or does it make sense to sit on your liquidity, allow things to slow down and then take advantage of maybe a pullback in the housing market?
The thing that we don’t know is the timing behind you, right? It’s just like the stock market. I don’t, I mean, I personally don’t feel like anyone could ever really time the market perfectly. And so it’s just, where do we fall in, in the housing cycle? And how do we be most efficient with it?
Andy Flattery: [00:04:53] Yeah, I think it’s a great point. And I, one of the things that I think about is maybe, you know, this is kind of a [00:05:00] cheat, but you could just take a financial planning perspective. So if you think about. You know, like a very long-term goal of home ownership and you know, especially if it’s like, you’re the type of person that is like implanted in a community and like has a pretty good understanding as to what you know, your future might look like to me, it’s still probably a no brainer to, to buy and own a home with a, with a nice down payment.
And you have you have some nice equity in it with the understanding of. The idea that if you have a 15 year mortgage or a 30 year mortgage, well guess what, if you think you’re going to, you’re going to be in, like, let’s say it’s like, you’re a community that you’re a pillar of for decades. You pay down the loan and you own the house free and clear, and that’s a pretty good deal, regardless of what happens to the value of your property.
Now, the problem that I see is that a lot of my kind of people in my world, my network, younger families, I mean, they’re moving every three to five [00:06:00] years, just like you pointed out Michael. And and they’re, it’s kind of a gamble. It’s easy to think that this could keep running for another couple of years and maybe it will.
But but it truly is a gamble if you’re kind of banking on that happen. If you’re the type of younger family, which a lot of us are that move around a lot. Yeah.
Michael Acosta: [00:06:15] Right. You know, rightfully so. And when it’s a hotter market, There are two things that are, in my opinion, working in their favor, one interest rates are at all time low. So they’re able to get it larger loan and maybe buy into you know, a area of town that they otherwise wouldn’t have been able to.
Right. But at the same time, it’s somewhat offset because homes are insulated you know, over the course of the last two years, at least in the Charlotte area, you know, they’ve grown by about 38% since 2018. As far as the average cost of the average home going from about 235 235,000 to about 335, roughly give or take in that range from what I’ve been seeing in some of the [00:07:00] research I’ve been doing.
So you have these homes that are overpriced. You have very low interest rates, which allows you to leverage yourself more. And then statistically, like you mentioned, families live in probably, you know, 10 plus different homes over the course of their lifetime. And especially in the early years, we’re moving every two to five years based on families growing, starting out with a starter home that maybe doesn’t have nearly as much square footage of the yard that we want.
And then in a matter of two to three years, moving into something bigger with more space, maybe the yard that we dreamed of. So. With, with that being the case. It’s how do we balance all of that without one over leveraging ourselves and becoming home for, and at the surface level, I find it difficult to balance that.
But from your perspective of, you know, if we take a comprehensive planning approach and we’re doing all the right things, it’s a no-brainer, especially if you’re planning on living in the property for at least three, three plus years, right. That’s kind of that [00:08:00] breakeven point is being at that at three years, minimum versus renting and continuing to sock away and build liquidity and maybe buying something once the market pulls back.
Andy Flattery: [00:08:09] Well
Tyler Hackenberg: [00:08:09] I’ll actually jump in. So I live in the Northeast. Just North of Philadelphia in the suburbs and the housing market here is just crazy. And actually we actually, my wife and I bought a house just recently. We close on the 23rd and we’re selling our house. We did one week or one weekend of showings and had seven offers.
So. Thank you. Yeah. And the house that we bought was a private purchase. So we didn’t have to go through like the bidding Wars and stuff like that. So really one of the things to consider is how long do you want to potentially lose out on houses and be emotionally prepared for that? That’s definitely something that goes along with this conversation.
It’s a financial [00:09:00] yes, but there’s also some emotional stuff as well. So to be prepared for that as well.
Andy Flattery: [00:09:08] It kind of goes back to like the idea of thinking about your house as an investment or thinking about it as a consumption item. I know this is like a kind of a gray area in, in financial planning where, you know, it’s a little bit of both and some people that really understand the taxes, you know, that they’ll move every two out of every five years to kind of trade off and take advantage of that tax tax exclusion.
But then a lot of people just, you know, they, they kind of. I think their house is more of a consumption item and it’s a place you live and it’s nice to own the, you know, the, the, the home with the yard, like you said. So I dunno, it’s, I I’m, we’re seeing the same thing here in Kansas city. Th the house I bought five years ago has, has now doubled in value according to Zillow.
I’ve had a couple of clients and kind of savvy friends that are, what they’re doing is they’re selling and they’re using.
Using the time to like maybe you [00:10:00] rent for a year or maybe you take an extended vacation and travel for a little bit trying to figure out what the next, the next move is. Or maybe you move from one market to the next. I just had a friend move from Kansas city to rural Iowa. And so that might be a way, a way to think about how you can, how you can deal with the craziness out there right now.
Michael Acosta: [00:10:19] Yeah, no, those are all valid points and things to consider. And I think at the end of the day, from a planning perspective, you have to do your due diligence and ask yourself if you’re an individual who’s looking to purchase a home. How long am I planning on living there? Right. Because there is an opportunity cost and there is an upfront expense you may or may not get your return on investment in a short period of time.
If you’re living in the home or owning the property for less than three years compared to being able to rent and save the difference. So it’s, it’s just understanding that and also trying to map out past the first three years. Right. Do you, you know, are you planning on growing your family? Is that I’m going to give you enough space to grow into is it.
[00:11:00] Is it something where you can continue to build on or invest in the property itself? Because if you can’t really answer this questions and maybe not following the trend or following the herd would be the best scenario, just continuing to sit on your cash, continuing to sit on your liquidity, potentially invest in other areas.
So it’s not a one size fits all as, as usual. Yeah. Unfortunately when sitting down with these clients, it’s, you know, it’s really having to pull back that feedback and get them the answer to some of the hard questions that they may or may not have considered up to that point.
Andy Flattery: [00:11:36] good thoughts, Michael. And this is something that I think every, every young family is thinking about right now, too. Well good. What Tyler let’s let’s get to yours. Tell us what you’re thinking about with regards to the Vatican.
Tyler Hackenberg: [00:11:47] On the April 27th, the pillar catholic.com posted an article about an Italian newspaper found out that the Vatican.
was investing about 22 [00:12:00] million euros and two Swiss pharmaceutical companies that produces and distributes so-called emergency contents, contraceptive pharmaceuticals which With the, what they do is they prevent the Umbro from adhering to the mother genome wall, which is That’s the purpose of the board of, for season which is definitely with our Catholic faith, a moral, evil and for the Vatican to be investing in that it is kind of definitely a scandalous. So and really, if you look at it from. And this did happen. But also with just us investing that this is with us, it’s less, I don’t know about you guys, but a lot of index funds, you may have the remote possibility that that is invested in as well.
So when it comes to investment, where do we. the line in that is an investment or is it, Hey, we, we need to actually take a [00:13:00] stand and not invest in this company and divest of the shares.
Andy Flattery: [00:13:04] Does the article have any color on how much of their business is in this sinful? Kind of sinful immoral product and, and if it was a direct investment or if it was through some sort of fund structure,
Tyler Hackenberg: [00:13:17] So it wasn’t through a fund structure,
It looks like they were Directly held. But actually it does, the report did not indicate whether Vatican employees are outside investment managers had initially made the investment or who was responsible for the oversight, so it could have been oversight as well.
And so There was actually found out when the shares were actually sold in 2016. And the one hopeful thing is there was just not necessarily an update to it, but Pope Francis actually Added to allow basically make sure that this doesn’t happen again with a edict that, and Hey investments do have to be adhere to the social doctrine of the church.
So there is [00:14:00] definitely hopeful news app with this, but it is definitely we’re investing in the Vatican was investing in things that were. Against the social doctrine of the church, which doesn’t, it doesn’t look good. So.
Michael Acosta: [00:14:14] Well, it’s a great point. I would even say this isn’t even probably the, I mean, this isn’t the first time it’s happened. So, you know, back in I guess in the making of rocket man, which is a film, I guess it’s a, bioptic a biopic Elton John. The Pope took about a million out of Peter Peter’s Pence, which is essentially financial support offered by the faithful to the Pope.
And it’s the purpose of the funds based on what I’m seeing and what I’ve, what I’ve read and what I’ve listened to is as destined to church needs to humanitarian initiatives and social promotion projects, as well as to support of the Holy sea. And. I don’t know if anyone’s ever seen that movie or know the history of this Elton John in [00:15:00] general.
I wouldn’t say that his lifestyle aligns with the teachings of the Catholic church or the doctrine. And from what I understand, I haven’t seen the movie, but there are scenes in the movie that definitely don’t align with the doctrine of Catholic church. So the fact that this isn’t the first time is something that I feel is somewhat concerning and we also live in a time where there is some gray area within.
The Catholic church in general, there is some divide on social beliefs or social justice or humanitarianism. So I’m interested to see how this plays out. And I think it also warrants just greater due diligence when working with clients who want to invest based on their Catholic faith to dive deeper into.
Okay, well, how are these funds actually being invested, especially if it’s in some sort of mutual fund or basket of stocks. it’s a lot easier to invest morally when you’re owning individual equities, [00:16:00] versus if it’s just a basket of holdings, like a mutual fund.
Andy Flattery: [00:16:04] yeah. I’ve I did see the the rocket man film, Elton John. And I, so I think I can speak to this it’s you know, I was like, okay, good, great music. I love those types of movies. You know, I love the, kind of like these Oh, like boomer rock and roll biopics. Like the Johnny Cash film that came out with Joaquin Phoenix. But the problem was, yeah, the whole film, the tone of the film and kind of the conclusion, it was like a celebration of Elton John’s kind of lifestyle choices. So it’s like exactly the opposite thing of what you’d want you know, for the Vatican bank or whoever, whatever you want to call this, the Vatican finances to be directly investing in.
So yeah, I, I. I don’t know how you can squirm around that. I mean, even as financial advisors, like w w like, we’re talking about this right now, like how, what, what kind of companies do we want to directly invest in? You know, with a pharmaceutical manufacturer, maybe it’s a little bit [00:17:00] more vague because maybe, you know, 98% of their business is like IBM profaned tablets or something like that.
Right. But still, I mean, it’s very, very simply they could have their investment advisor. Figure out if that company is producing abortifacients or not, and you just go buy another one or even better, you know, bought by a, by a pharmaceutical manufacturer that’s you know, owned by a Catholic family or something like that.
I don’t know if there’s any of those out there, but
Michael Acosta: [00:17:26] And I’m curious to learn Tyler. If, if, if the article that you read States, you know, how long has this pharmaceutical company been investing in developing those types of pharmaceuticals? Like considering if at the time when the funds were invested by the Vatican into that, into that company, if maybe that wasn’t a division within their offering and then later on, so that is a profitable margin or profit profitable sector of pharmaceuticals and added that division.
And then it was just never reviewed from [00:18:00] a due diligence standpoint.
Andy Flattery: [00:18:02] Hopefully what happened is when they did the due diligence, they found out what it was and they, and they sold it. So it sounds like they still own the position, which is so maybe the right thing happened there.
Michael Acosta: [00:18:12] Yup. Yup.
Tyler Hackenberg: [00:18:14] Yeah, that’s definitely a good. point. And yeah, companies do. make changes. So maybe initial due diligence was fine. And then it changed and realized that, and then it never was followed up on and it caused the issue. So
Andy Flattery: [00:18:32] good. Well, good stuff guys. Yeah, that was a good job. Tyler bringing up the kind of controversial topic here.
Tyler Hackenberg: [00:18:39] that that’s my job. So.
Andy Flattery: [00:18:42] well, I’ll, I’ll I guess I’ll bring up something a little bit more tame. But it’s fun too. So the, the article that I just read was CNBC had an article about how Schwab Charles Schwab, the the brokerage platform opened over 3 million new accounts in [00:19:00] Q1 of 2021. And that compares to 2 million that were opened in all of 2020.
So. They had a over 50% new accounts over all of last year, just in the first three months of this year. And you know, to me, it’s just like, I know, like we kind of live in the financial world, so we see it all the time. But like, I’m kind of noticing like the financialization of everything right now to the point where it’s like, you know, kind of everyone is getting in on.
You know, finance and investing. And a couple of observations that I was thinking about is, you know, the first one that you could take away from this is like, I think in retrospect, we can look back at 2020 and say, well, you know, maybe not everyone was destitute during the coronavirus. Right, right.
Especially if, if, if folks are able to. You know, do things like trade stocks and, you know, not every dollar that you have is, is spent for like basic expenses, like rent or student loan payments for that matter. so that’s the first piece. I think we’ll probably look [00:20:00] back on this. It’s just kind of a weird time where,  there were maybe a lot of losers, but also like a lot of winners, people that kind of made out fairly well.
As a financial planner, I think, I think it’s , Seductive to want to schools , the retail investor. Right? . But I think the third thing I was thinking about is like, I don’t know if I really blame people for doing this. You know, people are just looking for. They’re looking for solutions. I don’t think everyone is a gambler. Obviously there’s some of that going on, especially with young men, but I think a lot of people, they just want to find a place to park their money where over time, you know, it will retain its value and then they can grow it  to basically build a firm foundation for their family.
Honestly, I think that’s what people are doing. Even, even some people that are like screwing around with the meme stocks. Like I think they’re trying to learn. I think they’re trying to. You know, figure out how to manage their wealth and for better, for worse we’re in a world where people either explicitly know it or kind of just implicitly understand that if you put money in the bank [00:21:00] over, over the years, you know, it’s going to lose two to 3% a year of, of purchasing power.
Maybe even more than that. And so that’s kind of how I, how I look at it. It’s like on the one hand, I do fear that people are going to maybe learn some of the wrong lessons with this. And eventually certain people will get burned if they haven’t already. But on the other hand, like, I don’t know if I really blame them.
I, you know, people are looking for answers of what they should be doing right now. And unfortunately the kind of old school advice of you should just save your money is it, it’s tough to do that in a world. Like, like the one that we’re in today.
Tyler Hackenberg: [00:21:32] Yeah. Especially considering that with bonds being as low yield as they are well, where do you save that money? That’s the question that comes up and that’s really the hard thing. And if you see the stock going up. Doubling like almost every day, it’s hard to not get swept up on it. Like even sir, Isaac Newton got caught up in the South seas trade.
So it’s even smart. [00:22:00] Individuals can get caught up in crazes, such as GameStop or other meme stocks.
Michael Acosta: [00:22:06] I would even add to that and say that a lot of it is probably psychological in that one. There’s FOMO, right? The fear of missing out too. Because of the pandemic because of people working from home and state-wide mandates and restrictions in regulation, people are working from home and in some cases have more free time.
So they’re like, okay, well, my living expenses have gone down. Maybe I’m one of the blessed that have been able to continue to work from home. So my, my financial situation hasn’t changed and maybe I even qualify for some of the stimulus that’s been handed out. So now I have. You know, not unexpected discretionary cashflow, where can I invest this?
And, you know, if they’re spending more time on social media or, you know, getting more notifications just from, you know, different mainstream media [00:23:00] outlets it’s well, how can I take advantage of some of this upswing in the market? There’s the fear of inflation getting out of control with a lot of the spending that’s taken place in our country.
And you’re right. They’re just trying to outpace inflation and have their money go to work for them. Especially if they have additional discretionary cash flow or savings on hand, you know, doing it themselves or not knowing where to go, which I feel like is a fault of our industry. A lot of the times I feel like there’s too many barriers to entry to work with an advisor, or it’s not.
Articulated very well, what it entails to work with a financial planner or a financial advisor. And there’s so many different titles within our industry, that it could be misguided or misleading into what type of experience the client’s going to be getting into or be receiving. So I feel like there’s so many dimensions to this in general, that if we just had to generalize it, I think it, for me personally, it’s people have more time on their hands.
With a little bit of [00:24:00] extra cash laying around. And so it’s okay. Well, how can I make it big or how can I take advantage of this upswing on Dogecoin? Or should I be a distinct dusting, a Bitcoin, or just put it in the S and P 500, whatever it may be. That’s just kinda my feelings around it.
Andy Flattery: [00:24:14] are you guys surprised that there’s not, not as much talk about like, Hey, just open a Vanguard account. It seems like it wasn’t that long ago where like, that was just kind of like the status quo. Most people that, that’s just what you do, you know, you open up a Vanguard account and you put it in the S and P 500.
It seems like there’s less, maybe less of that going on, which I didn’t, I didn’t think we’d get to that point. I just thought that that trend was going to continue.
Tyler Hackenberg: [00:24:36] I don’t know. I, I S so I actually came from Vanguard prior to becoming a financial advisor. So I’m kind of biased. And I was in, worked with retail clients, so I definitely have a unique experience within so a lot of the times it was, Hey, I’m just wanting to put. 10,000, a thousand and something where I [00:25:00] can just park it using target date funds for investments and having a fully diversified portfolio.
And there’s other ones that Hey, I want to get in the, to the most risky fund and. Of hope it grows quite a bit. So it is interesting where the idea of the investing in individual stocks like that, but also with Schwab TD and everyone dropping their commissions to zero in Robin hood. I mean, you really can kind of understand where it came from.
Hey, there’s no longer trade. You don’t have to worry about having a high commission. So. Hey, I’ll try this. Not really a fan. I’ll try that and so on. So it’s really not that surprising, especially with commission fees dropping to zero.
Andy Flattery: [00:25:50] Yeah, Vanguard’s doing fine. So is BlackRock rock? They’re doing okay.
Michael Acosta: [00:25:56] I would be interested to see what the median age was for the [00:26:00] influx of these accounts. Like, is it more so pre-retirees or people who are knocking on the doorstep of retirement or is it going to be your millennials or Henry’s, you know, younger families who, who were like, okay, we’ve got extra cash laying around.
Let’s play the market without, you know, working with a specialist such-and-such at work, you know, put five grand in Bitcoin and made, you know, X amount. Cause I’ve had conversations with clients and you know, the beginning of the pant that I guess last June, who, in my opinion, weren’t ready to start investing just because they hadn’t laid the foundation for setting up an emergency fund and having a good systematic savings plan in place.
But we’re already wanting to go ahead and jump into buying individual individual equities. And I just told them upfront, you know, it sounds like you have a whole lot of FOMO because of what you’re hearing in the office or from your coworkers and what they’re able to do. And understanding that the financial game you’re playing is not the same as the financial game that your colleague or your [00:27:00] family or your friends are playing, you know, focus on your board game and you’ll do just fine as opposed to getting distracted.
Andy Flattery: [00:27:07] I think the last thing that I’ll say is like, I, you know, I, I don’t love the idea that people just put their money and things they don’t understand because they have no other option. But I do think there could be value if you want to learn. If you want to learn how to invest for example and you want to do it with having a little bit of skin in the game, you know, ma maybe, you know, to Tyler’s point, you open a Vanguard account, you invest in some of their funds and then while you’re doing it, you’re, you know, you read Jack Bogle is a little book of common sense investing or something like that.
And you’re using. That, that investment, that the way to get started as like a way to educate yourself and because you have some skin in the game, you’ll be motivated to do that. That’s where I see this being could be a, you know, a really good thing. If you’re using it as like a way to learn and a way to kind of build up your knowledge so that, you know, decades down the road, when you have some wealth you you’re, you’ve got a better foundation in place.
And so I th [00:28:00] I think I like maybe that, that angle.
Tyler Hackenberg: [00:28:02] Yeah, start with start small and be, be diversified. And as you grow assets, yeah. You can change things and go a little bit. Hey, I’m gonna, I know bonds do this and my portfolio stocks do this and I can add some sectors to try to take advantage of it. So as you get more advanced start simple, and you can get a little bit more complicated as you go along.
When you understand it.
Michael Acosta: [00:28:30] I agree. I think you have to treat it like a college curriculum. You got your one, 100 level, 200 level, 300 level, 400 level, and you don’t. Most cases, you don’t have a student that comes in and starts his journey off his freshman year with a 400 level course. So, you know, it’s, it’s lay the foundation and don’t, don’t get FOMO, stay focused on your game and just be committed to the plan that either you’ve set up for yourself or that you’ve designed with [00:29:00] someone that you trust and work with.
Andy Flattery: [00:29:01] Stuff guys. Well, let’s move on to our recommendations. So the way we did this last time is let’s kind of go around and maybe just give, like, what’s the best thing that you’re reading right now or watching right now, listening to what, what recommendations do you have for us? Let’s start with you, Michael.
Michael Acosta: [00:29:18] So a book I’m reading right now is the laws of wealth, psychology, and secret to investing by Dr. Daniel Crosby. He’s got a PhD in behavioral finance. I’ve been on a kick recently of just reading more behavioral finance books, just trying to understand psychology and money in general and how our personal experience more than define how we utilize money or view it in general.
I had the privilege of meeting with, with a soon to be husband and wives who came from completely different backgrounds. One who. You know, they, their family was, was well off, managed money really well. And you know, their child that I was speaking with inherited a lot of those attributes and traits and [00:30:00] characteristics of how they manage their money.
And on the other side, the other individual grew up in a family where, you know, multiple bankruptcies. Not knowing if they’re going to have funds or cash flow month to month to pay bills. So, you know, all of that. So being able to just talk to them about their finances and really try to understand how they view it and what motivates them and what triggers them and what gives them anxiety around it, I feel like helps me to better guide them.
So for me, it’s trying to understand the psychology behind how we view money as individuals. And I highly recommend the laws of wealth. But after Daniel Crosby?
Andy Flattery: [00:30:39] Yeah, I see, I see his books kind of always listed as like a, you know, the must reads and I don’t think I’ve read any, is that the one with the bowl on the cover?
Michael Acosta: [00:30:50] No. That’s the, what was it? The something investor.
Andy Flattery: [00:30:57] the behavior. Yeah, the behavioral investor. Okay, cool. [00:31:00] Yeah, I’ll have to check that out. Tyler, what about you?
Tyler Hackenberg: [00:31:03] Yeah.
So a lot of the news articles that I read, especially from my Catholic perspective is the pillar Catholic JD Flynn and ed Ganden. They do excellent long-form work. And one of their big things they really like to lean on Is the Vatican financial situation, and really look doing deep dives into that.
So it’s. Definitely interesting. And they’re from a definitely a perspective that if something’s wrong, we’re gonna say we’re not gonna sugar coat it, but also in a very reasonable way. So definitely highly recommend the B pillar. There’s a free, a free version and you can subscribe for like $5 a month.
Definitely worth the price of admission. So,
Andy Flattery: [00:31:54] Is that, is that the former the guy that was formerly at the NCR, the national Catholic register, he just started this [00:32:00] recently,
Tyler Hackenberg: [00:32:00] So they did just started actually this year. It was JD Flynn was actually with the Catholic
Andy Flattery: [00:32:05] Catholic
Tyler Hackenberg: [00:32:05] in a, yes.
Andy Flattery: [00:32:07] Cool.
Tyler Hackenberg: [00:32:08] Yep. They both actually worked at CNA and then broke off so they could do more long form interviews and research and journalism, journalism. So.
Andy Flattery: [00:32:18] Yeah, I saw that. I didn’t, I didn’t know if they were just doing a competitor to CNA or if it was like something like this. So that’s interesting. I’ll have to make sure I check that out.
I guess I’ll share mine. I’ve been, I’ve been, I’m kind of halfway through this book called the ethics of money production by Gita wholesome. And have you guys seen this yet? Pretty fascinating. It’s a little nerdy if you’re not interested in like money and economics. But, but yeah, Gita wholesome and he’s an Austrian economist.
He, and he’s a serious Catholic and he’s written this book on the ethics of money production, which is basically exactly what it is. It looks at the idea of, you know, producing money. And,  how it’s done both morally and immorally across history. And so the, the [00:33:00] source that he uses for like a lot, a lot of the book is there’s, there’s a 13th century French Bishop named Nicholas or rain.
Oh, O O R E S M E who wrote about the ethics of money production, you know, like 900 years ago, I guess. So he there’s these like anecdotes of like, you know, back in the day, there’d be a, a crown Prince who would confiscate all of the gold coins in the kingdom. He would take them, melt them down and then recreate them using basis.
So basically debasing the currency and  he saw this obviously is like a, kind of a moral, evil. And so he uses these kinds of examples throughout history to kind of relate to what’s happening today with, with, with central bankers in our society who are basically the producers of money.
And so it’s super fascinating to kind of get this serious Catholic Austrian economists. Look at the idea of money creation.
Michael Acosta: [00:33:54] that’s very interesting because one of the books that I’ve been [00:34:00] reading is around. Bitcoin. And just trying to understand cryptocurrency in general. And the first couple chapters of the book are focused in on you know, just the production of currency in general, the history of currency, and some of the chapters that I’ve been writing about, we’re talking about the currencies used in Africa or on certain islands, like seashells and.
Glass blown glass and how locally the production of it was so hard to either collect the shells, the nice big conch shells or blow the glass because the technology wasn’t there yet in their local areas. So the worth of the currency was so high, but when explorers came about, they understood what the currency was and had the technology and tools for mass production or mass collection.
Which drove the worth of the local currency [00:35:00] down and pretty much eliminated it because there’s a fine balance between store value and replication or production of said currency. So that’s interesting because I’ve never thought about it as being able to affect the currency in that manner, holding some sort of intrinsic evil as a direct correlation.
Andy Flattery: [00:35:19] That’s. Yeah, you’re talking about safety in a moose, right? Michael.
Michael Acosta: [00:35:23] Yes.
Andy Flattery: [00:35:24] Yeah, no, I know, I know exactly. You’re talking what you’re getting at and yeah, it’s, it’s super fascinating because you can take the kind of hard money perspective that, you know, people have been writing about for thousands of years in the case of this 13th century.
French Bissap and relate it to what, like Bitcoiners we’re talking about where the idea that, you know, there’s a kind of a finite amount of this digital currency and we can argue about what that means exactly. But they’re there, they’re talking about the same stuff that people have been talking about for centuries now.
Okay.
Michael Acosta: [00:35:55] Absolutely.
Tyler Hackenberg: [00:35:57] Well, as the Bible says, there’s nothing new under the sun [00:36:00] Ecclesiastes, so,
Andy Flattery: [00:36:02] There’s nothing new under the sun and even money printing it’s been around for.
Tyler Hackenberg: [00:36:07] yep.
Andy Flattery: [00:36:08] Okay. Well, good guys. So those are some good recommendations. I think this was a good episode and and we’ll, we’ll chat with everyone next time on the Catholic money mastermind podcast.