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Join the professionals at Metro Brokers DTC Marina Square office suites and let them help you start your own small company so that you can earn more this year.
Call them at 303-796-7000 or stop by the office at 8101 East Belleview, right next to the Great Northern Tavern restaurant in the Tech Center and let them give you a tour!
Interviewer: Welcome to Metro Brokers TV, I'm here today with Joe Bingham president of Metro Brokers office suites at DTC Marina Square, welcome Joe.
Joe Bingham: Hi Kari how are you doing?
Interviewer: I'm doing well thank you.
Joe Bingham: Great.
Interviewer: So tell me where are your offices located?
Joe Bingham: We're in the heart of the Denver Tech Center at 8101 East Belleview Avenue about a mile east of I 25. Our offices are located in Class A retail space, so they are really fun, you can pull right up to the front door and also being in the heart of the Denver Tech Center, it allows you to sell real estate anywhere in the metro area and have a Denver Tech Center address.
Interviewer: Wonderful, so what kind of brokers have chosen your office?
Joe Bingham: Our office is made up mostly of successful residential real estate brokers who are entrepreneurial in spirit, some do commercial and a lot own other businesses.
Interviewer: What kind of other businesses?
Joe Bingham: Well since our model allows you to own your own real estate company, it allows you to own affiliated real estate businesses, so our brokers, a lot of them have property management companies, a lot of them have appraisal companies, contracting businesses- the professional fix-and-flippers. All businesses that help your real estate career, but you are not allowed to run out of a lot of the big offices.
Interviewer: Alright so why would a broker leave the comfort of a big company to have their own small business?
Joe Bingham: Well the big companies are great for what they do. The main three things they do are they teach you how to sell real estate and do a deal. They also hold your hand if you are struggling in the deal and they also occasionally give you a lead every couple of years. Well, once you get to the point in your career where you know how to do a transaction and you don't need your hand held during the transaction, and you are generating your own business, it's time to look at having your own company.
Interviewer: Great so tell us why a broker should choose your office?
Joe Bingham: Well our office is unique; we have close to a 100 brokers, 25 private office suites, and 2 conference rooms. We're in the heart of the Denver Tech Center so we have a lot of wonderful experiences for a broker in our office. However, the three main things that we offer is a tremendous value for the cost of our office; we offer tremendous amount of fun and energy and third, we have the best people in the business. Our brokers are very experienced; they are leaders in the industry. They are the brokers you want to work around.
Interviewer: Now if someone's interested what would you say is the next step?
Joe Bingham: Just give us a call at 303-796-7000 or stop by our office at 8101 East Belleview, right next to the Great Northern Tavern restaurant in the Tech Center and we will give you a tour. Our staff is set up to not only answer all your questions, but to show you all the cost savings that you can have over another company and all the paperwork savings. But we can also set up your small company in a relatively short period of time and make it easy for you.
Interviewer: Thanks Joe for joining me today, it was great learning more about your office.
Joe Bingham: Thank you Kari for having me.
Interviewer: For more real estate related videos please join us at MetroBrokersTV.com.
Metro Broker Matt Bryant has the experience to help you invest in real estate to save money for college or retirement. You can reach him at720-934-0455 or online at BryantandCompany.com.
Interviewer: Today in our studio we have Matt Bryant with Bryant and Company, welcome Matt.
Matt Bryant: Kari thank you very much for having me.
Interviewer: So tell me a little bit about your background?
Matt Bryant: I began my real estate career in 2002 with Coldwell Banker it was a great company to learn the ropes of selling and buying real estate. Then in the summer of 2007, I decided to start my own brokerage, Bryant and Company. My purpose for doing that is I wanted to branch out into other areas of expertise.
Interviewer: Great so what would you say is your area of expertise?
Matt Bryant: Over the last couple of years, actually over the last 7 years, I've begun analyzing and buying small rental properties to rent out to grow my own real estate portfolio, I've met a lot of clients looking to do the same thing and I've been able in after closing to help these clients actually find renters for those properties. So I guess that is my expertise, I'm able to really find good strong tenants for these properties.
Interviewer: So how is the market right now for investors?
Matt Bryant: The market is incredible. I mean the interest rates are very low. There are a lot of good properties out there. Good clean properties and the prices are relatively low.
Interviewer: So what do you see as the future for investments?
Matt Bryant: I think investing in real estate is always going to be a strong way to save for your kid's college education, retirement and stuff like that. I do believe that holding investment properties for 30 years is a great avenue to achieve those goals, so to answer the question, it's going to be a very good market in Denver, and people want to move to Denver.
Me, personally, I manage and control 12 rental properties and my strength has become is having the ability to really be attentive to these tenants and that has turned into a network of tenants and I'm able to find good, responsible tenants. The X factor has always been, yeah, owning these properties is going to be great, but will I be able to find somebody that's going to pay the rent, I'm able to really kind of not guarantee it but I can find very good tenants and my network actually helps me find other tenants. Recently I just had a very good tenant whose sister is moving here from Seattle. They called me and I was able to find a property for them that I actually happened to have control of. So we didn't have to worry about whether I have one tenant move out because I have another tenant moving in. That's how it grows..
Interviewer: That's great. Now what do you do in your spare time?
Matt Bryant: The thing that I really truly enjoy doing is I volunteer with kids. I was fortunate long time ago to play baseball professionally. When I finished my career there, I came back and I was actually able to teach kids how to play baseball and I volunteer in little league and the high school ranks. It actually has really helped my business quite a bit because the kids' parents have actually become mentors for me. They began investing in real estate and they were able to teach me. They kind of showed me the ropes on how to do that.
Interviewer: Wonderful, so how can clients reach you?
Matt Bryant: You can reach me on my cell phone; I always have my cell phone with me its 720-934-0455 or my website BryantandCompany.com.
Interviewer: Great Matt thank you so much for joining us today.
Matt Bryant: Thank you I really appreciate it.
Interviewer: For more real estate related videos join us at MetroBrokersTV.com.
Jacquie Taylor has the experience to help seniors decide what the next step will be. Call Jacquie Taylor at 303-909-2590 or visit her online at Jacquie Taylor.
Interviewer: Welcome to Metro Brokers TV, I'm here with Jacquie Taylor, with Taylor & Associates, so Jacquie tell us a little bit about your areas of expertise?
Jacquie Taylor: My specific areas of expertise include dealing with seniors, and those seniors who are active, seniors who want to move on to their next milestone in their life.
Interviewer: Do you feel that you have a certain area of expertise within the home buying or home selling that you focus on?
Jacquie Taylor: I focus on basically the seniors who are thinking about downsizing, and those seniors that are basically trying to either stay in place, or moving into other facilities. Things that are going to help them and will be easier for them to handle. That also includes all the different things that they need, such as, medical and physical needs, transportation needs, things like that. Just areas that they can actually start to really enjoy in a much more experienced way; of which they all seem to have had a great deal of experience in.
Interviewer: Wonderful. So, what things do you think impact seniors most these days?
Jacquie Taylor: Okay I would say, seniors are greatly impacted by medical and financial needs, and also their family needs, and those things really encompass quite a bit of need to, involve a family in a lot of their expertise, since the seniors are really very interested in making sure that their families are part of the program.
Interviewer: Tell me a little bit about what is happening in the market right now?
Jacquie Taylor: Okay the market right now, is really going through some very interesting changes, and has been over the last few years. The Shiller Index has been the one that's indicated that since, about a year ago, that would be about December of 2011, that it's only going up about 1.2 %, however in Denver which is the area that I work the most in, basically we are noticing since December of 2011, that basically that they've gone up 16.8 % in a one year period of time.
Interviewer: Great.
Jacquie Taylor: So it's really exciting for the market place.
Interviewer: Now you mentioned that you work a lot in Denver, are there other areas that you also focus on?
Jacquie Taylor: Oh, yes, yeah I focus on the areas that are Arapahoe County, Centennial, Parker and basically Littleton and those types of areas in the South Metro part of Denver.
Interviewer: And how can customers go about reaching you?
Jacquie Taylor: Okay, and if they would like to reach me, it's the easiest, it's my cell phone, and that phone number is 303-909-2590, I also have a website, and I do try to keep it updated quite often, and that website is www.JacquieTaylor.com, and also sometimes it's even best to just use an email address, and my email address is JacquieTaylor1@comcast.net.
Interviewer: Great and we will put those up on the screen as well.
Jacquie Taylor: Okay great.
Interviewer: Jacquie thank you so much for joining us today.
Jacquie Taylor: Absolutely and thank you Kari for having me.
Interviewer: And for more real estate related videos, please join us online at Metro Brokers TV.
Planning ahead for retirement or looking to invest in the real estate market? Talk to a Certified Real Estate Wealth Agent and see how they can help you invest wisely and get more profit from real estate.
If you would like to be able to retire sooner and not worry if you have enough money, learn more at HowToRetireHappy.com.
Interviewer: Thank you for joining us at BrokerIPTV. I am here today with Mark Eibner and Jeff Sibel, CFP- a Certified Financial Planner. So, tell me a little bit about what makes your real estate financial planning practice so different?
Jeff Sibel: Well, I'm a real estate based financial planner, so I show people how to retire early with less money invested and essentially no financial planner out there does that. So that's what makes me special.
Mark Eibner: Yeah, I am a real estate broker, I've been practicing for 27 years and I have always been intrigued by the financial service or financial planning part of real estate and how it can be; it can really bring an integral part in peoples' lives, you can be a big part of their lives.
Interviewer: Oh, so tell me what is a Certified Real Estate Wealth Agent?
Jeff Sibel: A Certified Real Estate Wealth Agent is a real estate agent that basically helps their clients accomplish their goals by using a financial planner, in every step of their lives. So it could be buying or selling their first home, buying and selling investment property or buying and selling real estate inside their IRA or 401K.
Interviewer: So Mark, how does this apply to real estate brokers and what makes them so successful?
Mark Eibner: Well I think that being a certified real estate wealth agent can bring a lot to the table for a real estate broker. First of all, it is going to allow the broker to be involved in, let's just say a multi-transactional lifestyle over the course of the consumer. Most agents today are just used to really kind of sell them a house, sell a condo, and you wait five to seven more years before you do anything else.
A lot of our agents are actually working with certified financial planners such as Jeff and helping people look at the fact that their IRAs or 401Ks or Roth's- any of these products out there can actually hold real estate inside them as far as the financial tool. Real estate has a lot of very good potential; some of the best potential out there has been used by kings and queens for thousands of years as far as real retirement.
Interviewer: Now Jeff I heard Mark say earlier that only about 2% of all Americans over the age of 65 actually retire financially independent, can you tell me about that?
Jeff Sibel: Yeah, it's tragic, most people they don't even know they are investing the wrong way, they don't have clearly defined investment goals and essentially, they just think they will be able to retire someday.
So the first problem is, they can never save their way to retirement. The second problem is they live off their assets from the assets that they have saved up to be able to retire and unfortunately most cases they live too long and outlive their money.
So real estate is different, when you buy real estate you buy enough real estate that will provide the income you need and then you live off that income. Whereas, traditional investors unfortunately live off the principal of their investments and that's the tragedy.
Interviewer: So Mark, what can wealth agents do that really has an impact on people's lives?
Mark Eibner: Well kind of playing off those numbers that you mentioned there with Jeff.
We've got a trademark model that we are working with 75, 65, 23, 2. So if you look at those numbers 75% of the people today over the age of 65 in America today right now basically are dependent on government charity, family or church to survive until death. Another 23% are going to have to be greeters at Wal-Mart. So 23% of the richest nation on the earth would have to work from now from 65 till death or disability.
Only 2% if you don't count any type of government assistance are actually financially viable, financially free- they actually wake up with a mailbox check. And sadly that minimum number to even get in that window is about $45,000 a year. So a lot of people have got to ask themselves, based on what you are making right now for an income of $45,000 that's sort of the bottom threshold of that wealthy 2%.
So when we are working with agents out there, I think the biggest thing is for somebody to just retire with that number, $50,000 a year, let's say in income; it amounts at least in Denver, Colorado to about $700,000 worth of real estate. So $700,000 worth of real estate in a family's retirement portfolio is somewhere around $20,000 to $25,000 in commissions.
Interviewer: So, what allows Certified Real Estate Wealth Agents to earn so much more than the national average?
Jeff Sibel: Well, I think what we have done is incorporated some of the tactics and techniques that financial planners have used throughout the years. As far as really looking at the whole holistic part of the consumer; helping people save, helping people invest, and really taking a look at what's available to them on the outside world. Most people, another statistic is the average American spends less than two hours in their life time on their financial plan. Two hours.
Interviewer: Wow!
Mark Eibner: Yeah most people just go to work to get a 401K, some guy comes in, gives him an employee thing- here take this, buy some mutual funds- that's the extent of their financial planning, pretty sad.
Interviewer: It is...
Jeff Sibel: It's tragic.
Interviewer: So Jeff, I understand you're published author, tell me a little about that?
Jeff Sibel: Yes, well thank you, I have basically three publications that can be found on my website. It's the 15 Minute Retirement Planning Guide, The 21 Worst Retirement Planning Mistakes and Mark and I go over that with people everyday just avoiding one of those mistakes can change peoples' lives. And then I also have The Real Estate Retirement IRA Planning Guide and that's for people to understand how to buy real estate inside their IRAs, 401Ks and pension plans. It's pretty good stuff.
Interviewer: Definitely.
Mark Eibner: Yeah and I love The 15 Minute Retirement Plan, it's a great piece. We do drop-bys with clients all the time and that's the main piece we use to have people look at. "Wow, what can we do with real estate?" "What am I doing now with my existing financial products?" etcetera. So really, in a half hour appointment, it opens up the door to many other financial options for that real estate broker and the family.
Jeff Sibel: See and what I do is with that 15 Minute Retirement Plan, what Mark is saying is, they dial in on the fact that they will not be able to retire; they will be poorer than 98%- if they don't change what they need to do. So if they change what they do that's when things change for their lives, and for their children's lives and they can leave a legacy.
Interviewer: Great, Jeff I heard off camera that you are speaking at the 2012 Colorado Association of Realtors?
Jeff Sibel: Yeah I am very proud of that. I'm going to be able to pay it forward to thousands of realtors to be able to understand how to retire happy and how to show their clients how to retire happy. So it's pretty exciting, very exciting.
Interviewer: Definitely, so Jeff where do we get on to get more information on this?
Jeff Sibel: Yes, all you have to do to go is go to HowToRetireHappy.com- that's HowToRetireHappy.com- and essentially they can get the three books and then sign up for more information.
Interviewer: Wonderful, thank you for joining us on BrokerIPTV. For more real estate related videos, please feel free to go online to Broker IPTV.
Metro Broker Dorothy Jones believes in the American Dream of home ownership. Let Dorothy make that dream happen for you. Call her at Metroplex Realtors - 303-726-0731 or visit her website at Metro Brokers online.
Interviewer: Hi, I'm Kathy Soltero, with Metro Brokers TV, and today in the studio we have with us, Dorothy Jones; and she is with Metroplex Realtors. Dorothy thank you so much for coming in and talking with us today.
Dorothy Jones: It's my pleasure, thank you for having me.
Interviewer: Absolutely, tell me a little bit about yourself in real estate.
Dorothy Jones: Well I've been in the real estate business for twenty years, there's about 41 years of experience within my office.
Interviewer: And you're a Denver native too, so you know a lot about the area, tell me what areas you work in primarily.
Dorothy Jones: I primarily work in the Aurora and Denver Metro area, but I've worked as far as Greeley and Boulder I've worked for thirty years for IBM, so I know the Boulder area and I know the Metropolitan area.
Interviewer: Absolutely, so what type of real estate is your specialty?
Dorothy Jones: I specialize in residential but I do also some commercial.
Interviewer: Oh, really. That's quite involved isn't it?
Dorothy Jones: Oh yes, mostly churches, apartment buildings.
Interviewer: And what types of clients do you primarily work with, do you like to work with first time home buyers.
Dorothy Jones: Oh, yes.
Interviewer: They are kind of fun aren't they?
Dorothy Jones: I'd run the gambit young, old, and poor, rich.
Interviewer: Oh no, do you work with sellers or buyers mostly, do you do both or.
Dorothy Jones: Both buyers and sellers, yes.
Interviewer: It's a pretty tough market out there still, I mean we are starting to see it rebound a little bit, but the process can be very confusing don't you think?
Dorothy Jones: Yes I think so, but I helped to navigate the waters that we have to tread in order to get through the process and with less stress for my buyers or sellers.
Interviewer: What sort of things do you think you have to focus on then?
DorothJones: Well mainly financing, for those who don't have cash, which is most of the population. Financing... and then just to inform them of what they all will be going through, so that they don't have the stress of wondering what is going to happen. Tell them in advance, they will know.
Interviewer: You feel like you are a kind of a counselor sometimes, don't you.
Dorothy Jones: Yeah more a facilitator.
Interviewer: You kind of really help them through the process, you know it really is great, helping clients, pursue their dreams, don't you think in real estate, that's something that you get an opportunity to do.
Dorothy Jones: Yes, that's the part, one of the parts that I really love is just helping them realize their dreams. Some people had never thought that they'd be home owners, especially first time home buyers, and then, some people think, "I'm too old to buy a house", you know, "I'm disabled and I can't buy a house"... there are different situations, and anybody can be a home owner. And you are going to pay somebody's mortgage.
Interviewer: So give me a quick synopsis, what you feel like the market is doing, where do you think it's headed?
Dorothy Jones: Well I think it's leveled off as far as pricing, and the prices will eventually creep up. I think it was more of a buyer's market, I think now it's more of a sellers market, it's turning, the tide is turning, and the properties that are under a certain price range, so 250,000 or less are going really quick.....
Interviewer: They certainly are.
Dorothy Jones: And so if the buyer isn't qualified, isn't pre-approved, then they will probably lose out on that deal.
Interviewer: Absolutely, so Dorothy where can customers reach you if they want to buy or sell a home.
Dorothy Jones: Well my direct number is 303-726-0731.
Interviewer: Okay and do you have a website then, as well, or.
Dorothy Jones: Yes. You can see my website at Metro Brokers online.
Interviewer: And where is Metroplex Realtors located.
Dorothy Jones: We are located just a block east of Havana; between Dartmouth and Yale.
Interviewer: Okay, well Dorothy Jones, thank you so much for coming in, and talking with us today, it's been a pleasure.
Dorothy Jones: Yeah I appreciate for having me here thank you.
Interviewer: And for real estate related videos like this one, be sure to tune in to MetroBrokersTV.com
Veteran and Metro Broker, Brian Wess, invites you to join him at the 4th Annual Defenders of Freedom Veterans Recognition Ride on Sunday May 22nd to benefit the Wounded Warriors Project.
Interviewer: Hi, I am Kathy Soltero with metrobrokerstv.com, and today we have in our studio Brian Wess with Infinite Horizons Realty in Colorado Springs. And Brian instead of talking about real estate today you have a very important event that's coming up that you want to talk to us about?
Brian Wess: Yes I do, the 4th Annual Defenders of Freedom Veterans Recognition Ride to benefit the Wounded Warrior Project.
Interviewer: And you have been doing this how long?
Brian Wess: Since 2008, started organizing the event.
Interviewer: How did it get started?
Brian Wess: I'm a veteran myself and I wanted to do something for our disabled veterans coming back from the global war on terror in Afghanistan and Iraq. One night I just happened to be watching Bill O'Reilly and he and Tony Snow mentioned the Wounded Warrior Project, so I did a little bit of research on it, found out it was a great organization, that almost all of the funds that are donated go directly to helping the wounded warriors, so their administrative costs are very thin.
Interviewer: Well tell me about it, I mean what's a day like for this event?
Brian Wess: Well it starts off in the morning, one of our sponsors Lockheed Martin, a great, great group of people there, they jumped in right away the first year to help us and, and lent us their parking lot to stage for the event. So we start by getting people signed up and, and they pay their registration donation and we give them a pin for having ridden in the event, and then we line the bikes up and about 10:30, we have a ceremony where we have a presentation of colors by one of the local military installations, at 11 o'clock we ride out behind police escort, it's a 40 mile ride...
Brian Wess: ...yeah, the longest one in Colorado.
Interviewer: Oh that's awesome, how many people would you say have participated in it?
Brian Wess: Well over the years, our first year we had about 215, second year we were up over 400, last year we were up over 500.
Interviewer: Oh that's fabulous, so what do you expect this year?
Brian Wess: I'm expecting again between 500 and 600 riders; one of the things that I'm most proud of is, in the three years that we've had it so far, we've collected just under $14,000...
Interviewer: Oh that's fabulous.
Brian Wess...and all that, every dollar goes directly to the Wounded Warrior Project, thanks to our sponsors.
Interviewer: Is that money that stays locally or does it go nationally or is it...
Brian Wess: It actually...
Interviewer: ...goes into a big national pool?
Brian Wess: Yeah it goes, it goes to the National Wounded Warrior Project and they handle it but because Colorado Springs has five military bases and we actually have at Fort Carson: a Wounded Warrior Recovery Center, a lot of that money does end up coming back to the folks in Colorado Springs.
Interviewer: Well give us the particulars, the when, where, how you can get involved in it?
Brian Wess: Well this year it's going to be armed forces weekend again like we do it every year, Sunday May 22nd. We start registrations about 9:00 a.m. in the morning out at Lockheed Martin there on Highway 83 and you know right off of Northgate in that area, and I have a website, I'm also on Facebook this year too, it was kind of something kind of new we started, but on my website on brianwess.com we have a "Veterans Ride" page where they can go right to it and that gives them the details about not only who our sponsors are, but details about the ride, where the route is and all that good stuff. You come the day of, we only register on site, we sign you up, you pay your $15.00 if you are a single rider, $20.00 if you are a couple on the same bike and we give you your pin, you get lined up, there is some music usually you know sometimes there are some refreshments that are donated and things like that.
Interviewer: Wonderful and then at the end of the ride what happens, people just...?
Brian Wess: There is an after party.
Interviewer: Okay, okay well we had to let everybody know there is something to go along with it.
Brian Wess: Absolutely we, we actually end up out at Frankie's Too! and Poblano's in Falcon and you know, we stop and there is food and drinks specials and we hang out and socialize and you know it's just been, it's been a great day.
Interviewer: Well Brian thank you very much for telling us all about that. I think hopefully this year it will be as great a success as always.
Brian Wess: I hope so too, thank you.
Interviewer: You bet. And for more real estate related videos tune into metrobrokerstv.com.
[AUTHENTICITY CERTIFIED: Text version below transcribed directly from audio (2)]
Program Announcer: Ladies and gentlemen, we take pride in presenting a thoughtful address by Ronald Reagan. Mr. Reagan:
Reagan: Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you and good evening. The sponsor has been identified, but unlike most television programs, the performer hasn't been provided with a script. As a matter of fact, I have been permitted to choose my own words and discuss my own ideas regarding the choice that we face in the next few weeks.
I have spent most of my life as a Democrat. I recently have seen fit to follow another course. I believe that the issues confronting us cross party lines. Now, one side in this campaign has been telling us that the issues of this election are the maintenance of peace and prosperity. The line has been used, "We've never had it so good."
But I have an uncomfortable feeling that this prosperity isn't something on which we can base our hopes for the future. No nation in history has ever survived a tax burden that reached a third of its national income. Today, 37 cents out of every dollar earned in this country is the tax collector's share, and yet our government continues to spend 17 million dollars a day more than the government takes in. We haven't balanced our budget 28 out of the last 34 years. We've raised our debt limit three times in the last twelve months, and now our national debt is one and a half times bigger than all the combined debts of all the nations of the world. We have 15 billion dollars in gold in our treasury; we don't own an ounce. Foreign dollar claims are 27.3 billion dollars. And we've just had announced that the dollar of 1939 will now purchase 45 cents in its total value.
As for the peace that we would preserve, I wonder who among us would like to approach the wife or mother whose husband or son has died in South Vietnam and ask them if they think this is a peace that should be maintained indefinitely. Do they mean peace, or do they mean we just want to be left in peace? There can be no real peace while one American is dying some place in the world for the rest of us. We're at war with the most dangerous enemy that has ever faced mankind in his long climb from the swamp to the stars, and it's been said if we lose that war, and in so doing lose this way of freedom of ours, history will record with the greatest astonishment that those who had the most to lose did the least to prevent its happening. Well I think it's time we ask ourselves if we still know the freedoms that were intended for us by the Founding Fathers.
Not too long ago, two friends of mine were talking to a Cuban refugee, a businessman who had escaped from Castro, and in the midst of his story one of my friends turned to the other and said, "We don't know how lucky we are." And the Cuban stopped and said, "How lucky you are? I had someplace to escape to." And in that sentence he told us the entire story. If we lose freedom here, there's no place to escape to. This is the last stand on earth.
And this idea that government is beholden to the people, that it has no other source of power except the sovereign people, is still the newest and the most unique idea in all the long history of man's relation to man.
This is the issue of this election: whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capitol can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.
You and I are told increasingly we have to choose between a left or right. Well I'd like to suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There's only an up or down: [up] man's old -- old-aged dream, the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order, or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. And regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would trade our freedom for security have embarked on this downward course.
In this vote-harvesting time, they use terms like the "Great Society," or as we were told a few days ago by the President, we must accept a greater government activity in the affairs of the people. But they've been a little more explicit in the past and among themselves; and all of the things I now will quote have appeared in print. These are not Republican accusations. For example, they have voices that say, "The cold war will end through our acceptance of a not undemocratic socialism." Another voice says, "The profit motive has become outmoded. It must be replaced by the incentives of the welfare state." Or, "Our traditional system of individual freedom is incapable of solving the complex problems of the 20th century." Senator Fulbright has said at Stanford University that the Constitution is outmoded. He referred to the President as "our moral teacher and our leader," and he says he is "hobbled in his task by the restrictions of power imposed on him by this antiquated document." He must "be freed," so that he "can do for us" what he knows "is best." And Senator Clark of Pennsylvania, another articulate spokesman, defines liberalism as "meeting the material needs of the masses through the full power of centralized government."
Well, I, for one, resent it when a representative of the people refers to you and me, the free men and women of this country, as "the masses." This is a term we haven't applied to ourselves in America. But beyond that, "the full power of centralized government" -- this was the very thing the Founding Fathers sought to minimize. They knew that governments don't control things. A government can't control the economy without controlling people. And they know when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose. They also knew, those Founding Fathers, that outside of its legitimate functions, government does nothing as well or as economically as the private sector of the economy.
Now, we have no better example of this than government's involvement in the farm economy over the last 30 years. Since 1955, the cost of this program has nearly doubled. One-fourth of farming in America is responsible for 85% of the farm surplus. Three-fourths of farming is out on the free market and has known a 21% increase in the per capita consumption of all its produce. You see, that one-fourth of farming -- that's regulated and controlled by the federal government. In the last three years we've spent 43 dollars in the feed grain program for every dollar bushel of corn we don't grow.
Senator Humphrey last week charged that Barry Goldwater, as President, would seek to eliminate farmers. He should do his homework a little better, because he'll find out that we've had a decline of 5 million in the farm population under these government programs. He'll also find that the Democratic administration has sought to get from Congress [an] extension of the farm program to include that three-fourths that is now free. He'll find that they've also asked for the right to imprison farmers who wouldn't keep books as prescribed by the federal government. The Secretary of Agriculture asked for the right to seize farms through condemnation and resell them to other individuals. And contained in that same program was a provision that would have allowed the federal government to remove 2 million farmers from the soil.
At the same time, there's been an increase in the Department of Agriculture employees. There's now one for every 30 farms in the United States, and still they can't tell us how 66 shiploads of grain headed for Austria disappeared without a trace and Billie Sol Estes never left shore.
Every responsible farmer and farm organization has repeatedly asked the government to free the farm economy, but how -- who are farmers to know what's best for them? The wheat farmers voted against a wheat program. The government passed it anyway. Now the price of bread goes up; the price of wheat to the farmer goes down.
Meanwhile, back in the city, under urban renewal the assault on freedom carries on. Private property rights [are] so diluted that public interest is almost anything a few government planners decide it should be. In a program that takes from the needy and gives to the greedy, we see such spectacles as in Cleveland, Ohio, a million-and-a-half-dollar building completed only three years ago must be destroyed to make way for what government officials call a "more compatible use of the land." The President tells us he's now going to start building public housing units in the thousands, where heretofore we've only built them in the hundreds. But FHA [Federal Housing Authority] and the Veterans Administration tell us they have 120,000 housing units they've taken back through mortgage foreclosure. For three decades, we've sought to solve the problems of unemployment through government planning, and the more the plans fail, the more the planners plan. The latest is the Area Redevelopment Agency.
They've just declared Rice County, Kansas, a depressed area. Rice County, Kansas, has two hundred oil wells, and the 14,000 people there have over 30 million dollars on deposit in personal savings in their banks. And when the government tells you you're depressed, lie down and be depressed.
We have so many people who can't see a fat man standing beside a thin one without coming to the conclusion the fat man got that way by taking advantage of the thin one. So they're going to solve all the problems of human misery through government and government planning. Well, now, if government planning and welfare had the answer -- and they've had almost 30 years of it -- shouldn't we expect government to read the score to us once in a while? Shouldn't they be telling us about the decline each year in the number of people needing help? The reduction in the need for public housing?
But the reverse is true. Each year the need grows greater; the program grows greater. We were told four years ago that 17 million people went to bed hungry each night. Well that was probably true. They were all on a diet. But now we're told that 9.3 million families in this country are poverty-stricken on the basis of earning less than 3,000 dollars a year. Welfare spending [is] 10 times greater than in the dark depths of the Depression. We're spending 45 billion dollars on welfare. Now do a little arithmetic, and you'll find that if we divided the 45 billion dollars up equally among those 9 million poor families, we'd be able to give each family 4,600 dollars a year. And this added to their present income should eliminate poverty. Direct aid to the poor, however, is only running only about 600 dollars per family. It would seem that someplace there must be some overhead.
Now -- so now we declare "war on poverty," or "You, too, can be a Bobby Baker." Now do they honestly expect us to believe that if we add 1 billion dollars to the 45 billion we're spending, one more program to the 30-odd we have -- and remember, this new program doesn't replace any, it just duplicates existing programs -- do they believe that poverty is suddenly going to disappear by magic? Well, in all fairness I should explain there is one part of the new program that isn't duplicated. This is the youth feature. We're now going to solve the dropout problem, juvenile delinquency, by reinstituting something like the old CCC camps [Civilian Conservation Corps], and we're going to put our young people in these camps. But again we do some arithmetic, and we find that we're going to spend each year just on room and board for each young person we help 4,700 dollars a year. We can send them to Harvard for 2,700! Course, don't get me wrong. I'm not suggesting Harvard is the answer to juvenile delinquency.
But seriously, what are we doing to those we seek to help? Not too long ago, a judge called me here in Los Angeles. He told me of a young woman who'd come before him for a divorce. She had six children, was pregnant with her seventh. Under his questioning, she revealed her husband was a laborer earning 250 dollars a month. She wanted a divorce to get an 80 dollar raise. She's eligible for 330 dollars a month in the Aid to Dependent Children Program. She got the idea from two women in her neighborhood who'd already done that very thing.
Yet anytime you and I question the schemes of the do-gooders, we're denounced as being against their humanitarian goals. They say we're always "against" things -- we're never "for" anything.
Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so.
Now -- we're for a provision that destitution should not follow unemployment by reason of old age, and to that end we've accepted Social Security as a step toward meeting the problem.
But we're against those entrusted with this program when they practice deception regarding its fiscal shortcomings, when they charge that any criticism of the program means that we want to end payments to those people who depend on them for a livelihood. They've called it "insurance" to us in a hundred million pieces of literature. But then they appeared before the Supreme Court and they testified it was a welfare program. They only use the term "insurance" to sell it to the people. And they said Social Security dues are a tax for the general use of the government, and the government has used that tax. There is no fund, because Robert Byers, the actuarial head, appeared before a congressional committee and admitted that Social Security as of this moment is 298 billion dollars in the hole. But he said there should be no cause for worry because as long as they have the power to tax, they could always take away from the people whatever they needed to bail them out of trouble. And they're doing just that.
A young man, 21 years of age, working at an average salary -- his Social Security contribution would, in the open market, buy him an insurance policy that would guarantee 220 dollars a month at age 65. The government promises 127. He could live it up until he's 31 and then take out a policy that would pay more than Social Security. Now are we so lacking in business sense that we can't put this program on a sound basis, so that people who do require those payments will find they can get them when they're due -- that the cupboard isn't bare?
Barry Goldwater thinks we can.
At the same time, can't we introduce voluntary features that would permit a citizen who can do better on his own to be excused upon presentation of evidence that he had made provision for the non-earning years? Should we not allow a widow with children to work, and not lose the benefits supposedly paid for by her deceased husband? Shouldn't you and I be allowed to declare who our beneficiaries will be under this program, which we cannot do? I think we're for telling our senior citizens that no one in this country should be denied medical care because of a lack of funds. But I think we're against forcing all citizens, regardless of need, into a compulsory government program, especially when we have such examples, as was announced last week, when France admitted that their Medicare program is now bankrupt. They've come to the end of the road.
In addition, was Barry Goldwater so irresponsible when he suggested that our government give up its program of deliberate, planned inflation, so that when you do get your Social Security pension, a dollar will buy a dollar's worth, and not 45 cents worth?
I think we're for an international organization, where the nations of the world can seek peace. But I think we're against subordinating American interests to an organization that has become so structurally unsound that today you can muster a two-thirds vote on the floor of the General Assembly among nations that represent less than 10 percent of the world's population. I think we're against the hypocrisy of assailing our allies because here and there they cling to a colony, while we engage in a conspiracy of silence and never open our mouths about the millions of people enslaved in the Soviet colonies in the satellite nations.
I think we're for aiding our allies by sharing of our material blessings with those nations which share in our fundamental beliefs, but we're against doling out money government to government, creating bureaucracy, if not socialism, all over the world. We set out to help 19 countries. We're helping 107. We've spent 146 billion dollars. With that money, we bought a 2 million dollar yacht for Haile Selassie. We bought dress suits for Greek undertakers, extra wives for Kenya[n] government officials. We bought a thousand TV sets for a place where they have no electricity. In the last six years, 52 nations have bought 7 billion dollars worth of our gold, and all 52 are receiving foreign aid from this country.
No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. So, governments' programs, once launched, never disappear.
Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth.
Federal employees -- federal employees number two and a half million; and federal, state, and local, one out of six of the nation's work force employed by government. These proliferating bureaus with their thousands of regulations have cost us many of our constitutional safeguards. How many of us realize that today federal agents can invade a man's property without a warrant? They can impose a fine without a formal hearing, let alone a trial by jury? And they can seize and sell his property at auction to enforce the payment of that fine. In Chico County, Arkansas, James Wier over-planted his rice allotment. The government obtained a 17,000 dollar judgment. And a U.S. marshal sold his 960-acre farm at auction. The government said it was necessary as a warning to others to make the system work.
Last February 19th at the University of Minnesota, Norman Thomas, six-times candidate for President on the Socialist Party ticket, said, "If Barry Goldwater became President, he would stop the advance of socialism in the United States." I think that's exactly what he will do.
But as a former Democrat, I can tell you Norman Thomas isn't the only man who has drawn this parallel to socialism with the present administration, because back in 1936, Mr. Democrat himself, Al Smith, the great American, came before the American people and charged that the leadership of his Party was taking the Party of Jefferson, Jackson, and Cleveland down the road under the banners of Marx, Lenin, and Stalin. And he walked away from his Party, and he never returned til the day he died -- because to this day, the leadership of that Party has been taking that Party, that honorable Party, down the road in the image of the labor Socialist Party of England.
Now it doesn't require expropriation or confiscation of private property or business to impose socialism on a people. What does it mean whether you hold the deed to the -- or the title to your business or property if the government holds the power of life and death over that business or property? And such machinery already exists. The government can find some charge to bring against any concern it chooses to prosecute. Every businessman has his own tale of harassment. Somewhere a perversion has taken place. Our natural, unalienable rights are now considered to be a dispensation of government, and freedom has never been so fragile, so close to slipping from our grasp as it is at this moment.
Our Democratic opponents seem unwilling to debate these issues. They want to make you and I believe that this is a contest between two men -- that we're to choose just between two personalities.
Well what of this man that they would destroy -- and in destroying, they would destroy that which he represents, the ideas that you and I hold dear? Is he the brash and shallow and trigger-happy man they say he is? Well I've been privileged to know him "when." I knew him long before he ever dreamed of trying for high office, and I can tell you personally I've never known a man in my life I believed so incapable of doing a dishonest or dishonorable thing.
This is a man who, in his own business before he entered politics, instituted a profit-sharing plan before unions had ever thought of it. He put in health and medical insurance for all his employees. He took 50 percent of the profits before taxes and set up a retirement program, a pension plan for all his employees. He sent monthly checks for life to an employee who was ill and couldn't work. He provides nursing care for the children of mothers who work in the stores. When Mexico was ravaged by the floods in the Rio Grande, he climbed in his airplane and flew medicine and supplies down there.
An ex-GI told me how he met him. It was the week before Christmas during the Korean War, and he was at the Los Angeles airport trying to get a ride home to Arizona for Christmas. And he said that [there were] a lot of servicemen there and no seats available on the planes. And then a voice came over the loudspeaker and said, "Any men in uniform wanting a ride to Arizona, go to runway such-and-such," and they went down there, and there was a fellow named Barry Goldwater sitting in his plane. Every day in those weeks before Christmas, all day long, he'd load up the plane, fly it to Arizona, fly them to their homes, fly back over to get another load.
During the hectic split-second timing of a campaign, this is a man who took time out to sit beside an old friend who was dying of cancer. His campaign managers were understandably impatient, but he said, "There aren't many left who care what happens to her. I'd like her to know I care." This is a man who said to his 19-year-old son, "There is no foundation like the rock of honesty and fairness, and when you begin to build your life on that rock, with the cement of the faith in God that you have, then you have a real start." This is not a man who could carelessly send other people's sons to war. And that is the issue of this campaign that makes all the other problems I've discussed academic, unless we realize we're in a war that must be won.
Those who would trade our freedom for the soup kitchen of the welfare state have told us they have a utopian solution of peace without victory. They call their policy "accommodation." And they say if we'll only avoid any direct confrontation with the enemy, he'll forget his evil ways and learn to love us. All who oppose them are indicted as warmongers. They say we offer simple answers to complex problems. Well, perhaps there is a simple answer -- not an easy answer -- but simple: If you and I have the courage to tell our elected officials that we want our national policy based on what we know in our hearts is morally right.
We cannot buy our security, our freedom from the threat of the bomb by committing an immorality so great as saying to a billion human beings now enslaved behind the Iron Curtain, "Give up your dreams of freedom because to save our own skins, we're willing to make a deal with your slave masters." Alexander Hamilton said, "A nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master, and deserves one." Now let's set the record straight. There's no argument over the choice between peace and war, but there's only one guaranteed way you can have peace -- and you can have it in the next second -- surrender.
Admittedly, there's a risk in any course we follow other than this, but every lesson of history tells us that the greater risk lies in appeasement, and this is the specter our well-meaning liberal friends refuse to face -- that their policy of accommodation is appeasement, and it gives no choice between peace and war, only between fight or surrender. If we continue to accommodate, continue to back and retreat, eventually we have to face the final demand -- the ultimatum. And what then -- when Nikita Khrushchev has told his people he knows what our answer will be? He has told them that we're retreating under the pressure of the Cold War, and someday when the time comes to deliver the final ultimatum, our surrender will be voluntary, because by that time we will have been weakened from within spiritually, morally, and economically. He believes this because from our side he's heard voices pleading for "peace at any price" or "better Red than dead," or as one commentator put it, he'd rather "live on his knees than die on his feet." And therein lies the road to war, because those voices don't speak for the rest of us.
You and I know and do not believe that life is so dear and peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery. If nothing in life is worth dying for, when did this begin -- just in the face of this enemy? Or should Moses have told the children of Israel to live in slavery under the pharaohs? Should Christ have refused the cross? Should the patriots at Concord Bridge have thrown down their guns and refused to fire the shot heard 'round the world? The martyrs of history were not fools, and our honored dead who gave their lives to stop the advance of the Nazis didn't die in vain. Where, then, is the road to peace? Well it's a simple answer after all.
You and I have the courage to say to our enemies, "There is a price we will not pay." "There is a point beyond which they must not advance." And this -- this is the meaning in the phrase of Barry Goldwater's "peace through strength." Winston Churchill said, "The destiny of man is not measured by material computations. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we're spirits -- not animals." And he said, "There's something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty."
You and I have a rendezvous with destiny.
We'll preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we'll sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness.
We will keep in mind and remember that Barry Goldwater has faith in us. He has faith that you and I have the ability and the dignity and the right to make our own decisions and determine our own destiny.
Thank you very much.
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