The StoneZONE - Roger Stone - Barry Habib | 03-14-25
Aired: 2025-03-15
Duration: 24:15


=== Rural Hospitals: Lifelines 24/7 (02:07) ===

[00:00:00]  Rural Americans deserve access to the best our nation has to offer, especially when it comes to health care.
[00:00:06]  Across every state and every community, America's rural hospitals are the first line of defense, protecting our families, neighbors, and loved ones.
[00:00:14]  No matter where you live, hospital care doesn't clock out.
[00:00:16]  They're there 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.
[00:00:21]  Each year, America's over 5,000 hospitals care for millions of patients, providing 24-7 emergency care, delivering babies, cancer treatments, and other life-saving care that patients rely on.
[00:00:33]  Behind every one of those patients are doctors, nurses, and caregivers working tirelessly to keep people healthy and safe.
[00:00:40]  Hospitals are our community's lifelines.
[00:00:43]  They employ our neighbors and keep our families health.
[00:00:46]  But now, some in Congress are threatening access to care.
[00:00:49]  Tell Congress: protect patient care to keep America strong.
[00:00:53]  Don't cut rural health care.
[00:00:55]  THE Stone
[00:01:27]  ZONE with Roger Stone.
[00:01:38]  I'm not your stepping stone.
[00:01:40]  I'm not your stepping stone.
[00:01:53]  Bitch.
[00:01:53]  This is the stone zone.
[00:01:55]  Now, get in the zone.
[00:01:57]  It's the stone zone.
[00:01:59]  Here's Roger Stone.
[00:02:05]  And we're back in the Stone Zone.

=== Housing Market Overheating (14:56) ===

[00:02:08]  Joining me now, Barry Habib.
[00:02:10]  He is the chief executive officer of MBS Highway.
[00:02:14]  He's an entrepreneur, but more specifically, he's widely recognized as one of the country's foremost experts on the housing market and mortgages.
[00:02:25]  He founded and created the Certified Mortgage Advisory Certification, which is widely accepted as a standard within the mortgage industry.
[00:02:34]  He's also a number one Amazon best-selling author for his book, Money in the Streets.
[00:02:41]  And he is an outspoken critic of the Federal Reserve.
[00:02:45]  When I want to know what's really going on in the economy, I turn to Barry Habib.
[00:02:51]  Barry, welcome to the Stone Zone.
[00:02:56]  Hey, Roger, it's great to be here with you.
[00:02:58]  So, Barry, the president's critics have been flipping out about the stock market as if the stock market is the best indicator of how the economy is doing and how the president's use of tariffs to try to get fairer, more equitable trade agreements with our trading partners is working.
[00:03:22]  I'm not sure the stock market is the best indicator.
[00:03:25]  In fact, I saw Americans got much relief from inflation.
[00:03:30]  The consumer price index declined to 2.8 last month after reaching a high of 3 point in January.
[00:03:39]  That follows five consecutive monthly spikes.
[00:03:42]  Egg prices are down, going from $8 per dozen to $5.50 a dozen.
[00:03:48]  Energy prices down.
[00:03:50]  Gasoline down 5%.
[00:03:52]  Oil, home heating oil down 3%.
[00:03:57]  Tell us how the economy is doing from your point of view.
[00:04:00]  And then I wanted to get into the inflation rate and how it's being calculated.
[00:04:06]  So, Roger, great points on everything.
[00:04:08]  And when I hear people talk about the stock market and this and that, let's remember the stock market was at extraordinarily expensive levels, very, very high multiples.
[00:04:19]  In fact, it was overpriced, and it's healthy to have a correction.
[00:04:22]  You know, a bunch of crybabies looking at it, the stock market never goes in a straight line.
[00:04:27]  A 10% correction happens almost every year.
[00:04:30]  You know, where were all these critics where under Joe Biden, we had a 10% correction at the end of 2023?
[00:04:35]  Was anybody saying, oh my gosh, this is the president's fault?
[00:04:38]  This happens with stock market corrections.
[00:04:40]  They occur when the market gets ahead of itself.
[00:04:42]  It's part of a healthy process.
[00:04:44]  You know, project analogy is if you start working out, if you're completely out of shape, you're going to have some soreness.
[00:04:51]  You know, it's going to be very difficult initially, but the idea is to get healthier.
[00:04:55]  And that's what President Trump is trying to do.
[00:04:57]  Every single move that President Trump is trying to do is to make the economy healthier, to make these trade deals more equitable.
[00:05:04]  And as you said, in the long term, these all work out really well.
[00:05:08]  The president inherited a very faulty economy.
[00:05:11]  Treasury Secretary Besson said, listen, it'll be our economy in six to 12 months.
[00:05:15]  But right now, we're just trying to clean up the mess.
[00:05:18]  And the term that he used was we're trying to detox.
[00:05:21]  Those are his words.
[00:05:22]  And I think they're appropriate because it was quite toxic and we're just trying to detox it, which means some short-term pain.
[00:05:29]  When things are better eight months from now, six months from now, are they going to say thank you?
[00:05:34]  You were right.
[00:05:34]  I'm sure they won't.
[00:05:36]  Point well taken.
[00:05:37]  We've talked a lot on this show about the jobs numbers and how they have been habitually manipulated to appear when Biden was president far better than they really were.
[00:05:49]  You've been very articulate on this point.
[00:05:51]  I want to come back to inflation, though, and how the rate of inflation is calculated by the Fed.
[00:05:57]  You wrote a very thoughtful letter to the president, which you shared with me and I shared with him, in which you raised this point regarding the Fed.
[00:06:07]  They believe inflation is too high because their favorite measure of inflation, the core PCE, the personal consumption expenditure, sits at 2.6%, much higher than their 2% target.
[00:06:20]  Explain to us what you mean here.
[00:06:21]  So that is precisely right, Roger.
[00:06:23]  The Fed has a favorite way of gauging inflation.
[00:06:26]  It is akin to the CPI, the Consumer Price Index, but this is called personal consumption expenditures, as you've outlined.
[00:06:34]  And you are 100% precise.
[00:06:36]  The most recent data shows it's at 2.6%, but the most recent data is for January.
[00:06:40]  Here we are, Roger, mid-March.
[00:06:42]  So we're a couple of months behind, but that's the nature of the reporting.
[00:06:45]  There's a lag.
[00:06:45]  Now, the Fed does want it to get to 2%, which, by the way, that's a whole different discussion we could have.
[00:06:50]  It's kind of a made-up number anyway.
[00:06:52]  But the problem that we're looking at here is that we may very well be at 2% if we were using more real-time data.
[00:06:59]  The problem is that the Fed is using numbers from the BLS or the BEA, and the way they aggregate the data is arcane.
[00:07:07]  It's based on 40, 50 years ago, and they haven't changed the methodology.
[00:07:11]  So what they do is, number one, think about the largest portion of the personal consumption expenditures, as well as the CPI, is something called shelter.
[00:07:21]  That's the roof over your head.
[00:07:22]  Now, most people think maybe that's a mortgage, maybe that's the home value.
[00:07:25]  None of that.
[00:07:26]  It is considered a service.
[00:07:27]  So they take housing and they convert it into a service.
[00:07:30]  So rents is easy.
[00:07:31]  What are you paying rent?
[00:07:32]  But if you own a home, what they do is they ask you, if you would rent it, how much we'd rent it for.
[00:07:37]  So obviously that has some potential biases because everybody thinks their home might be worth more than it is or might be rented for more than it's worth.
[00:07:44]  But that aside, the problem that we have is when they're surveyed, it could be reflective of a lease that was signed six, eight, 12 months earlier.
[00:07:53]  So what if the market's changed in the last six, eight, twelve months?
[00:07:56]  That's not captured.
[00:07:57]  And the final portion of this delay is that you have a Herculean effort of measuring the whole country.
[00:08:05]  The BLS is and the BA is incapable currently of doing that.
[00:08:10]  So they take the country and they divide it into six bite-sized pieces.
[00:08:13]  But that means they only look at one portion of the country every six months.
[00:08:17]  So think about it.
[00:08:18]  If you're looking at a portion in January, that means you're not going to look at it again until July.
[00:08:22]  A lot could have changed in those six months.
[00:08:24]  Now, we used AI for this, and we said, okay, let's take a lot of historical data between what the government is reporting on shelter and real-time.
[00:08:32]  How long is the delay?
[00:08:33]  17.3 months.
[00:08:34]  What this tells us, Roger, is if we were to use real-time data, which we have at our fingertips, realtor.com, Zillow, CoreLogic, apartment list, rented, we have it.
[00:08:44]  It's showing that there's an enormous difference.
[00:08:46]  And that currently, that 2.6%, if you were using real-time data, it should be 2.1%.
[00:08:52]  Listen, Roger, the analogy is like football got a lot better when we started using instant replay, and all sports did as well.
[00:08:59]  Once we started using more accurate real-time information, which became available, things got better.
[00:09:05]  But the government is still not doing that.
[00:09:08]  If we make this change, Roger, think about what happens.
[00:09:10]  Number one, we wind up getting the right information.
[00:09:13]  The Fed's friendlier.
[00:09:14]  Interest rates come down.
[00:09:15]  Homeownership's better.
[00:09:16]  Everything's better.
[00:09:17]  And also, think about how much money the government saves because they spend so much in Social Security based upon cost of living adjustments that are tied to these flawed indices.
[00:09:28]  Excellent point.
[00:09:30]  During the most recent presidential campaign, I gave Robert F. Kennedy Jr. credit for identifying a huge issue in the country, which is the lack of affordable housing.
[00:09:41]  Whether it is buying a home or whether it is renting a roof over your head, it is just out of reach for many Americans.
[00:09:49]  So, what, in your opinion, is what's the solution to the affordable housing problem?
[00:09:56]  Well, here's what it is in a nutshell: when you take a look at our demographics, and there's a saying, Roger, that you're probably familiar with called demographics is destiny, and it truly is.
[00:10:05]  We are forming 1.9 million households per year in the United States, but at the same time, we're only constructing that's the supply side of the equation, 1.4 million households per year.
[00:10:19]  So, if you need 1.9 and you're constructing 1.4, you have a shortfall.
[00:10:23]  So, what happens?
[00:10:24]  It is the natural law of supply and demand.
[00:10:26]  It drives prices up.
[00:10:28]  And because we have that problem, some people have said, Hey, let's attack this.
[00:10:33]  Like the Biden administration wanted to do something extraordinarily foolish.
[00:10:36]  So, did Kamala Harris when they said, Let's give people $25,000 free money to buy a home to help them.
[00:10:42]  That exacerbates the problem because that even creates greater demand.
[00:10:46]  That was tried by the Obama administration with unbelievable failure as it fell on its face in 2010.
[00:10:53]  Now, that's not the problem.
[00:10:55]  It's not the demand.
[00:10:56]  It is supply.
[00:10:58]  The solution to the housing problem would be: let's get rates lower, which Scott Besson is keenly aware of and trying to do.
[00:11:05]  And secondarily, it is builders build more homes for that to ease the supply crunch.
[00:11:12]  And that's what we need to do.
[00:11:14]  Unfortunately, that has not yet been the focus.
[00:11:16]  But Scott Besson, at least, is trying to bring rates down.
[00:11:19]  And you know what, Roger?
[00:11:20]  He could do it.
[00:11:20]  There's ways he could do it that are very interesting and that I believe he could be successful at.
[00:11:26]  We've got a little bit of time.
[00:11:28]  Give me a couple of examples.
[00:11:30]  So, one is the Treasury General account.
[00:11:32]  That's like the government's checking account.
[00:11:34]  Before the pandemic, they kept it at $300 billion.
[00:11:36]  Now it's $600 billion.
[00:11:37]  They could use some of that money to pay some of the bills instead of borrowing it by issuing treasuries.
[00:11:42]  Less treasuries, they go at a premium, higher price, lower yield.
[00:11:46]  Secondarily, Scott Besson also, when he issues treasuries, can issue less 10 years, making them more scarce.
[00:11:54]  They go for a premium, it brings rates down.
[00:11:56]  Scott Besson can also take advantage of the efficacy of Doge.
[00:12:00]  If Doge eliminates some of the spend and some of the waste, that's less treasuries, lower rates.
[00:12:06]  And finally, the most important, I think, which we may hear from perhaps as early as next Wednesday, is if the Fed says, we're not going to cut rates yet, but if we stop the runoff of the balance sheet, Roger, this is the one linchpin here.
[00:12:19]  If the Fed says, hey, we're allowing runoff of our balance sheet right now, $45 billion a month, they told us and promised us by mid-year they would stop that.
[00:12:28]  If they tell us they stop it sooner, what happens is that now the Fed would have to repurchase $45 billion of treasuries in conjunction with Scott Besson.
[00:12:37]  Scott Besson can use that money to buy more 10-year treasuries, 10-year yields come down, mortgage rates come down, housing becomes more affordable, and you've got this whole thing working beautifully.
[00:12:47]  What we've learned, Roger, is one thing.
[00:12:48]  We don't need 4% mortgage rates.
[00:12:50]  Back in August and September, we got to 6% and the housing market was vibrant.
[00:12:55]  If we get just to 6%, and we're at about 6 and 3 quarters, we just get about 3 quarters of percent.
[00:13:00]  You have a very functional, fluid, vibrant housing market.
[00:13:03]  Yeah, I'm thinking back to the Reagan days.
[00:13:06]  I remember the panic in the early days of his presidency within the first year when he cut taxes.
[00:13:13]  I saw Robert Reich, who actually went to high school with the other day, claiming falsely on X that deficits are massive deficit and inflation were caused by tax cuts.
[00:13:26]  But in fact, every president who has cut taxes, whether it is JFK, whether it is Ronald Reagan, whether it is Donald Trump, the countries have experienced a sharp increase in revenues, when in fact it was spending and borrowing, but spending that caused our inflation problems.
[00:13:47]  Once again, I think Robert Reich is wrong.
[00:13:50]  Got it by a minute and a half.
[00:13:51]  Barry, what say you?
[00:13:53]  Well, I completely agree.
[00:13:54]  Robert Reich has made a fool of himself so many times they stopped putting him on CNBC.
[00:13:59]  I remember during the Bush administration, he would scream, literally scream, where's the jobs?
[00:14:05]  Where's the jobs?
[00:14:06]  Well, guess what?
[00:14:06]  Two months later, after he's screaming, if the jobs came in, he failed to understand that there are lags in these policies.
[00:14:12]  You're precisely correct that typically tax cuts lead to more investment.
[00:14:16]  It leads to the private sector using money more efficiently than the public sector.
[00:14:21]  Doge is proving that.
[00:14:23]  So yes, it is much better in the long term.
[00:14:26]  And yes, during the Reagan administration, we had higher inflation.
[00:14:29]  We had some pain initially, but just like we said, you go on that diet, you feel some sort of exercise, you feel some soreness, you feel some discomfort, but longer term it works.
[00:14:38]  This is like a bunch of spoiled brats that have been giving candy, candy, candy to shut them up, which makes them sick and worse, instead of an adult saying, hey, you're going to have to eat your vegetables, do the right thing, and then you will be long-living, healthy human beings.
[00:14:52]  That's what the government is trying to do right now under an adult president in Donald Trump.
[00:14:57]  All right.
[00:14:57]  We're talking to Barry Habib right here in the Stone Zone.
[00:15:00]  He is an economic guru.
[00:15:02]  That's what I like to call him.
[00:15:04]  One of the country's foremost experts on both the housing and the mortgage market.
[00:15:07]  And we'll be right back with more, Barry Habib, in just a minute.
[00:15:11]  So whatever you do, don't touch that dial.
[00:15:13]  Rural Americans deserve access to the best of what our nation has to offer, especially health care.
[00:15:19]  Across every state and every community, America's rural hospitals are the first line of defense, protecting our families, neighbors, and loved ones.
[00:15:28]  No matter where you live, hospital care doesn't clock out.
[00:15:31]  They're there 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.
[00:15:36]  Each year, America's over 5,000 hospitals care for millions of patients, providing 24-7 emergency care, delivering babies, cancer treatments, and other life-saving care that patients rely on.
[00:15:49]  Every one of those patients are doctors, nurses, and caregivers working tirelessly to keep people healthy and safe.
[00:15:57]  Hospitals are our community's lifelines.
[00:16:00]  They employ our neighbors and keep our families healthy.
[00:16:02]  But now, some in Congress are threatening access to care.
[00:16:06]  Tell Congress, protect patient care to keep America strong.
[00:16:10]  Don't cut rule health care.
[00:16:14]  This is the Stone Zone with Roger Stone.
[00:16:17]  Roger Steppin' Stone.
[00:16:38]  This is the stone zone with Roger Stone.
[00:16:42]  They went after a guy named Roger Stone, who's sitting in the office.
[00:16:45]  And I'll say this to Trevor Roger.
[00:16:47]  He's no baby.
[00:16:48]  And right now, he's cleaner than anybody in this place.
[00:16:52]  Now, as they treated him very unfairly.
[00:16:54]  Now, get in the zone.
[00:16:56]  It's the stone zone.
[00:16:58]  Here's Roger Stone.
[00:17:01]  Welcome back.
[00:17:02]  You're in the Stone Zone.

=== VAT Tax and Gold Boom (06:05) ===

[00:17:04]  We're talking to Barry Habib, the chief executive officer of MBS Highway, probably the country's foremost expert on the housing market and mortgages, but also a keen economic analyst in his own right.
[00:17:19]  And we're talking about those lemmings who are running off the edge of the cliff watching the stock market as if that is the correct indicator of how the economy is doing.
[00:17:30]  It was tickled me to see AOC in an interview this morning, I think it was on MSNBC, talking about how strongly she opposes the coming cuts in Social Security and Medicare, which, of course, President Trump has said repeatedly he has no intention or plan to do.
[00:17:49]  These people put up straw dogs and then try to knock them down.
[00:17:54]  We try to knock them down.
[00:17:55]  But watching her was almost comical.
[00:17:58]  She memorizes these talking points exceedingly well.
[00:18:01]  Barry, I'm kind of interested in the fact that gold is at an all-time high.
[00:18:08]  And I was also interested to see that Elon Musk and his Doge, the government efficiency panel that he heads, is demanding to inspect our gold reserve, not only at Fort Knox in Kentucky, but also at the New York Federal Reserve.
[00:18:27]  Incredibly, no one has inspected our gold reserve since 1974.
[00:18:34]  Now, this has led some to speculate that, well, maybe the gold is not there or maybe it's been dissipated in some way.
[00:18:42]  Perhaps this is going to turn out to be like Geraldo Rivera and Al Capone's safe.
[00:18:47]  Lots of hype, but then they popped it open and there was nothing there.
[00:18:51]  On the other hand, since our dollar is no longer backed by gold, since we essentially have a fiat currency in which your paper dollar, the money in your wallet, is backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government, I'm not sure how it would impact the economy.
[00:19:09]  So I guess two-part questions.
[00:19:10]  Barry, do you have any theory as to whether our gold is intact?
[00:19:14]  And if it wasn't, how would it affect the economy?
[00:19:18]  So, first of all, there's a lot to untack there.
[00:19:20]  You said so many good and important points, Roger, as always.
[00:19:23]  So, first of all, with regards to AOC, completely agree.
[00:19:27]  You got these people, these lemmings.
[00:19:28]  Another one this morning that I saw was Jeffrey Sonnenfeld.
[00:19:31]  Very childish, very unfair in his approach.
[00:19:34]  Kernan tried to put him in his place.
[00:19:36]  But this is what you have, and people hear this stuff.
[00:19:40]  With regards to gold, you know, Roger, you and I have talked about this.
[00:19:44]  As you know, I was very, very bullish on gold back in about 2,500 and telling you that in previous shows that I thought that would do well.
[00:19:51]  I think it's got a long way to go because especially now as we head into the season in India where they are huge consumers during the month of May of gold, it probably will reach even further heights, maybe 31, 3,200 on gold.
[00:20:08]  So I think it has room to go, even in the short term.
[00:20:12]  You bring up an interesting question.
[00:20:14]  I don't know if there's a shortfall there, but I think Elon Musk brings up a very good point.
[00:20:19]  Do we have that gold reserve?
[00:20:21]  You remember, Roger, you and I talked about the value of gold.
[00:20:25]  The storage of gold that the U.S. has is valued at, get ready for this, $29 an ounce, okay, which is what it was, you know, way, way, way, way back.
[00:20:37]  However, we know it's now over $3,000 an ounce.
[00:20:40]  If it were to be properly marketed, since we have over 800 metric tons supposedly of gold, that's the amount that's supposed to be there in our reserve, this would amount to about $900 billion that we would have of gold.
[00:20:55]  If we don't have it, what happens to the economy?
[00:20:58]  I don't know that anything really happens to the economy.
[00:21:02]  What does it do for the U.S.?
[00:21:04]  Well, I think that they at that point in time would have to properly evaluate it.
[00:21:07]  If they would have evaluated at $3,000 an ounce, it could be a world of crap that we'd be in.
[00:21:14]  But since it's valued currently at $29 an ounce, if you only had half of what was there, let's say half the gold in Fort Knox is gone, okay?
[00:21:23]  And at the New York Times, it's gone.
[00:21:26]  You still could say we have $450 billion more than we thought we did because it's valued only at $29 an ounce.
[00:21:33]  That's the one thing that very few people know and understand about the gold market, which even if this were to happen, I think that Elon Musk is right in wanting to investigate it.
[00:21:43]  All right, we have about two minutes left.
[00:21:45]  Here is my favorite question.
[00:21:48]  President Trump has talked about the possibility of doing away with the federal income tax.
[00:21:52]  As you know, until 1913, the country was completely financed by revenue from tariffs.
[00:22:00]  Is this a realistic possibility, particularly if we had deep spending cuts caused by the Doge investigations?
[00:22:07]  Best thing we could do would be go to a VAT tax.
[00:22:10]  I am a huge fan of a VAT tax.
[00:22:13]  This would solve so many problems with taxation, with tax cheats, because you can't cheat a VAT tax.
[00:22:20]  This is an area that we need to move towards because this would be something that would generate so much revenue.
[00:22:27]  You can give people on the lower end, like a middle class, would say, you know, we are fine with this because they can have virtually, I don't know, tens of thousands of dollars more to spend with.
[00:22:42]  It would make buying a home so much easier, so much better.
[00:22:46]  Think about the percentage of your income that is confiscated through income tax.
[00:22:51]  Think about what could happen with that additional money as far as investment goes.
[00:22:55]  This would be a fair consumption tax.
[00:22:58]  It is exactly what we need.
[00:22:59]  Let's get rid of the income tax.
[00:23:01]  Let's go to a VAT tax system.
[00:23:03]  That's something that should be on President Trump's radar.
[00:23:05]  All right, there you have it.
[00:23:06]  Barry Habib, right here in the Stone Zone.

=== VAT Tax System Needed (01:05) ===

[00:23:09]  Until tomorrow, God bless you and Godspeed.
[00:23:21]  Rural Americans deserve access to the best our nation has to offer, especially when it comes to health care.
[00:23:28]  Across every state and every community, America's rural hospitals are the first line of defense, protecting our families, neighbors, and loved ones.
[00:23:36]  No matter where you live, hospital care doesn't clock out.
[00:23:38]  They're there 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.
[00:23:43]  Each year, America's over 5,000 hospitals care for millions of patients, providing 24-7 emergency care, delivering babies, cancer treatments, and other life-saving care that patients rely on.
[00:23:55]  Behind every one of those patients are doctors, nurses, and caregivers working tirelessly to keep people healthy and safe.
[00:24:02]  Hospitals are our community's lifelines.
[00:24:04]  They employ our neighbors and keep our families health.
[00:24:08]  But now, some in Congress are threatening access to care.
[00:24:11]  Tell Congress: protect patient care to keep America strong.