April 18, 2025 • 27 mins
94.3 WSC's Adam Curran spills tea of his past, how to invest in the present and talks of everyone's future amidst all the dooms day market hysteria headlines re: Trump's Trade War - powered by Disaster Plus
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
My mother put clown makeup on for my family to
get ahead.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
This is the Kelly Golden Show podcast powered by Disaster
Plus on a Big Fail Friday, The American Dream.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Is alive and well you could still get your taste
in this country. Take it from me. I run a
billion dollar investment company. My mother was a clown.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
Last time you and I were talking here on air
in the morning, Adam Curran, was when y'all launched the
God Bless America ETF. Literally you can go on the
Near Stock Exchange and look up y'all. Adam, how's it going.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
I'm doing good, Kelly, and yeah, it's been a wild
ride and an awfully profitable one too, with the performance
of our fund. I launched it really just to give
conservatives an investment instrument they could tap into that ensured
that they wouldn't be supporting woke businesses with their with
their investments. And now that it's been launched, coming up
(00:56):
on three years, we're outperforming the S and P five
hundred by like thirty percent. So I'm starting to drink
my own kool Aida. It turns out investing in businesses
that are not participating in activism and investing in businesses
that are focused on delighting customers and creating wonderful products
and services and separating people from their money actually turns
(01:17):
out to be a wise way to invest your money.
Can you believe that?
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Yeah? On facts, not feelings and money talks. And I
love that you, Adam Kurrn. You make no bones about
your politics, quite literally with a ticker on the stock exchange.
I know I find it refreshing. Clearly your clients do too.
But do you have any clients that maybe don't like
the politics but they do like the money.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
We've lost a few clients upon launching the fund, but
you know, and not that I don't wish those individuals
a wonderful financial future, and I hope they have a
retirement full of abundance, but you know, they kind of
needed losing. You're sitting down with myself and our team
of advisors for hours on end hacking some of the
(02:01):
most private information and thoughts and emotions and feelings that
you have as it relates to your life savings and
family dynamics. And I'm of the thought that the individuals
that you get advice from surrounding your life savings ought
to have a similar world view. And I'm also of
the thought if you're a financial person, an accountant, and a
(02:23):
state planning attorney, a financial advisor, and you've had the
opportunity to sit down with thousands of Americans and you
don't reach the conclusion that you ought to have a
conservative worldview, you are doing one of two things. One
you're just not listening to people and reading the tea leaves,
or two you just don't have a proper grip of
(02:46):
basic economics. The number of people that I've got to
bear witness to Kelly who came to this country with
nothing and then a generation later are leaving millions of
dollars to their errors. The number of people who took
that old booking job with the four to oh one pay,
put ten percent of their pay paid off deck, got
their little egoists out of the nest, and are now
(03:07):
worth millions of dollars. When you hear these stories day
in in day out, you have to reach the conclusion
that the American dream is still alive and well, and
the government ain't helping these people reach these wonderful dreams
that they have in their life. So I'm of the
thought that if people should get their advice from people
(03:29):
who share the similar worldview. And if you're a financial
person and you don't share my worldview, you are not
listening to the people on the other side of the
table as you.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
So let's talk about family and then I want to
get into the American dream and how that's being reshaped
under this current presidency. Frankly, because as a profession, we
invite new people every day to the kitchen table, Adam Kurrn,
it's retire y'all radio Weekend's here on ninety four to
three WSC. We have heart conversations, we'd talk about money,
we talk about politics as are never off limits. But
(04:01):
to set the table here for people who are new
to Adam Kurrn to ninety four to three WSC. Maybe
even the iHeartRadio app where you know, we all have
podcasts there and it's great on demand tool for y'all
to catch up. They don't know your background. I'm just curious,
Connecticut kid. I thought it was interesting your dad was
a self taught mechanic work for a big government contractor.
(04:22):
I absolutely adore your picture at Current Financial Partners on
your website where mom the professional clown YouTube or photographed together.
But What I found interesting about your story was how you,
like me and a lot of other people, grew up
gen X. We cut lawns, we babysat, we did all
these things. We saved up our money. Your first investment
was at eleven years old, chalk full of nuts.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Stock. Had I had a couple of chalk full of nuts,
I wouldn't invest it in the company. But I'm a living, breathing, walking,
talking example of the American dream. You know, my dad
never made more than sixty thousand dollars a year. My
mother was a professional clown. People don't start professional clown
business is because they're like living on the fritz. You know.
We needed that extra income in my house, and because
(05:07):
of financial scarcity under my roof, I think money was
always the topic of conversation at the kitchen table. So
as soon as I was able, started bringing in money
of my own, you know, fishing golf balls out of
the municipal golf courses pond and selling them on the
putting green, and mowing lawns and shoveling snow, doing whatever
the heck I can. And then I amasked a little
(05:29):
bit of money, and my dad took me under his
wing and said, let me show you what the rich
people do with their money. They invest in the stock market.
And sure enough, that was before the days of the internet.
So I went to a stockbroker's office and he convinced
me to put all my money into Chock full of Nuts.
The stock dropped fifty percent in a month, and I said,
right then and there, I'm never making an investment decision
unless I do the research myself. And as crazy as
(05:52):
it sounds, even though I lost money on that first trade,
I was hooked. I just loved the market. I loved money.
And you know, fast forward till today, we managed if
you pull everything together, about a billion dollars. I've got
a team of thirty people, offices in Myrtle Beach, Charleston,
Hilton Head, and my American dream became a reality. And
(06:14):
I'll never ever ever forget. You know where I came
from and what made that a reality, the people of
South Carolina. I'm a carpet bagging Yankee. I married a
Southern bell But when I first came to Charleston, I
thought the only people who were going to hire me
were gonna be fellow, fast talking Yankees, because they wanted
to work with someone who who had northern aggression. And
(06:36):
the truth is, my first year in business, Kelly, I
was hired by nothing but native South Carolinians and Charlestonians.
So anytime people from the north go into a rift
about how people from the South are unenlightened and they
speak bubba and eat pair of salads, I immediately come
to their defense because this state, this city has been
(06:58):
tremendously good to me and it's enabled me to live
my American dream.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
Well, you've been eating humble sandwiches for quite some time,
and I think for those who are listening right now
on their way to Hilton Head and the RBC heritage,
they have to and on the heels and the masters.
You definitely gain some props with fishing the golf balls
from gator ponds and reselling them to golfers as one
of your first entrepreneurial endeavors there. Did you ever have
(07:24):
any gator? I'm just curious, do you ever have any gators?
Speaker 1 (07:28):
We don't have alligators up there. No risk.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
Oh you got lucky, all right, So maybe we don't
suggest this for those young budding entrepreneurs out there.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
Nothing would make my heart smile more than if I
saw my kids doing that though, Gator or not. Maybe
not their mom's heart, but my heart.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
Adam Kurr And you could hear him weekends here on
ninety four to three WSC. And if you have a
download of the iHeartRadio app, it's free. You are missing
out the on demand content that you could be streaming
right now on your drive down to Hilton Head, whether
it's RBC Heritage or wherever you're going to be this
weekend or Easter weekend, Adam, you can catch up with them.
It's retire Yell Radio. So let's talk tariff trauma right now.
(08:07):
I mean we're moving on from family in the trauma
of losing in your first investment there with chalk full
of nuts at eleven years old. You know, people are
being panicked. I call them every day, the propaganda press.
You know, the markets have always been panicky, a panicky place.
You know this as a professional, Adam Current, I'm just
curious your perspective from you know, dealing with all of
(08:28):
those trauma and your clients.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
Well, we've seen this all before, right, If you remember
the last quarter of twenty eighteen, the market dropped, peaked,
the trough twenty percent. That's exactly where we are right now,
and it dropped twenty percent in a response to the
threat of a trade war with China, and that trade
war wasn't nearly as hot as the one we're in
(08:50):
the midst of right now. Now. If you remember what
happened after that twenty percent sell off twenty nineteen into
twenty twenty, it turned out to be one of the
strongest periods in the market's history. Now, what makes what
we're in a little bit different is one, it's not
just with China anymore, you know, it's with just about
every other country on the face of the earth. We
(09:11):
also couple that with RFK, who's going after big food,
big pharma. That's gonna hurt their balance sheets and their
income statements. Couple that with Elon Musk and Doge, who's
gutting the government. They're trying to get rid of one
trillion dollars of expenditure. And as much as that makes
my conservative heart smile, that's austerity. That's an austerity measure.
(09:34):
That's a trillion dollars that was getting pumped into the
economy that will no longer get pumped into the economy.
If those is successful. Now, let me unpack the tariffing
because you said something. This is propaganda. This is the
media exacerbating a real situation. And I know numbers don't
really play well over the radio, but I'm gonna try
my darnness, because this is an important concept that people
(09:56):
need to understand. We have empirical data on how US
consumers spend their money. We've got decades upon decades of data,
data that hasn't been manipulated by the subtle reserve. So
for every one hundred dollars you and I spend from
our wallets and pocketbooks, seventy percent of it or seventy
(10:17):
dollars goes towards services. See got one hundred bucks. Seventy
of it's going towards services. Only thirty or thirty percent
is going towards goods, meaning food, plastic, crap, raw materials.
Only thirty percent of our dollars go towards goods. Now,
(10:38):
on top of that thirty dollars, say so and I
have thirty dollars that might get in fact impacted by
by a tariff because it's a it's a good. Of
that thirty dollars, seventy percent of the goods that we
consume you and I and all these listeners. Seventy percent
of those goods are produced right here in America. That's
(11:02):
a shocking number because most people think we import everything.
So you got thirty dollars, twenty of it is not
going to be impacted by Trump's tariff plan because it's
goods that are produced right here in America. We're down
to ten bucks. Now, ten dollars are goods that are imported.
Of that ten dollars, seventy percent will not be impacted
(11:28):
by Trump's tariff plan because of USMCA or the new NaSTA.
So only three of your expended dollars are going to
be impacted by a tariff. And then even then, the
media is telling us that he's going to steal three
dollars from US. No, those three dollars that you're spending
(11:49):
unimported goods might be affected by a ten to twenty
percent tariff. So if you go down the rabbit hole
of the mathematics of tariff, you'll realize that, oh my gosh,
this is like a nothing burger. This isn't going to
impact anything at all, but that three dollars and the
tariffs that we're talking about are going to result in
hundreds of billions of dollars of potential revenue that we
(12:12):
can use to pay off the debt, which is what
Trump and Lutnig Investment, all of his cabinets are talking about,
is one of the main objectives of the Trump administration.
Stimulate the economy, deregulate got the government, pay off the deficits,
all things that once we see start materializing, It's not
going to happen in a week or a month, It's
going to happen over time. I think it's a shot
(12:33):
in the arm to guys like me, small business owners.
That's going to make me feel really really good about
making investments in human capital and real estate and marketing campaigns.
Whereas had Kamala got elected, I'm a total I'm a
turtle going in my shell and you're going, I don't
think I want to hire those extra two people. I
(12:54):
don't want to build an office in Colombia. I don't
want to spend money on marketing and endeavors because I
we don't want to work hard for a government that
hates me. So I think what you're bearing witness to
right now is no different than what we saw in
twenty eighteen, but there's some additional things that are making
it even more choppy. We're telling our clients that we
(13:16):
think the market might go a little lower. Depending on
when you're listening to this, we might see this market
drop twenty five maybe even as much as thirty percent.
As crazy as it sounds, that would honestly be a
good thing for the federal government because it would cause
interest rates to have to drop. We've got nine trillion
dollars of federal debt that needs to be turned over,
(13:38):
and I'd like to see that debt turned over in
the three to four percent region rather than the four
to five percent region where we're at right now. So
if the market keeps dropping, interest rates will drop. If
interest rates drop, the debt will be able to be
turned over at a lower rate. Right now, the cost
of the interest on our debt is more than our
national defense budget. So that's actually a good thing for everyone.
(14:00):
Bizarre as it sounds, market drops is a good thing
for the country. The lion's share of civilization, especially young people.
The people who actually elected Trump don't have dobs of
money in four oh one ks and IRA. So even
though I'm in the business of c number go up
into the right long term, I'm a bull. Long term,
I think that Trump is going to be a really
(14:20):
good thing for the stock market and my client. But
short term, hang onto your seats. I think it's going
to be a bumpy ride.
Speaker 3 (14:26):
A lot of people saying, well, twenty five could be
potentially brutal in the markets, but twenty six will sore
I mean quite literally, turning all of this trauma that's
being peddled out here to true, real payoff and triumph.
So Adam Currn here retire y'all Radio Herd weekends on
ninety four to three WSC. Search them on the iHeart app.
I want to get into the quick, nitty gritty of
this because sixty five plus crowd right now they're being
(14:48):
hit financially the hardest. And what is your advice?
Speaker 1 (14:52):
These are the individuals that I help most often. If
you're sixty seventy years old, I'm of the thought you
should have boring investments so you can live in exciting life,
not exciting investments, so you can live a boring life.
And one good thing that's come out of the economy
over the last couple of years is you can now
get principal protected rates of return over five percent. Like
(15:15):
I've spent my entire career, which is twenty years now,
in an artificially manipulated zero interest rate environment. Interest rates
have been zero for the last twenty years. In the
last eighteen months we've seen them spike up because of inflation.
So you're sixty and you're seventy years old. You ought
to have a chunk of your money and really boring
stuff that's going to kick the can down the road.
(15:37):
The tortoise and the hair. Every time I read that book,
the tortoise wins, and finally, the first time in a
long time, you're actually getting rewarded to be cautious and
have a chunk of your money and things that are
going to be stable and secure. You're going to make
over five percent. So right now might be a great
(15:57):
time to allocate a chunk of your portfolio into that
type of stuff because you're to date, the market's only
down eight percent. That's not a cataclysmic draw down or pullback.
A lot of people, Kelly, were seduced by a bull market.
They saw the market ripping and then next thing you know,
you've got too high a percentage of your portfolio in
(16:20):
exciting investments, and look, those exciting investments rewarded you handsomely,
but now might be a good time to play a
little defense, be cautious. So that's the message I would
give to the individuals in their sixties to seventy.
Speaker 3 (16:31):
Let's go to the opposite end of that, Adam Kern,
and talk to the twenty and thirty year olds who
are frankly less experienced investors, and sally are susceptible to
falling prey unnecessary panic headlines out there with tariff and
spreading the trauma. So what would you say to the
twenty and thirty year.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
Olds, As crazy as it may sound, your your first
investment losses are always your least expensive, but they're always
the most impactful. No different than me with chuck full
of nuts, right, Like, you know, I lost a thousand bucks,
which I thought was you know, you know, a mint
of money back then. But I learned some hard lessons
in that that you don't just take someone's work for it.
(17:07):
You got to do a little research yourself. You got
to invest in things you understand. So my advice to
individuals who are twenty thirty years old, like get your
hands thirty, get one of these little micro investing apps
Robinhood or Mint or there's a whole drove of them,
and start putting some money aside and buying stuff that
you know you like. And here's the advantage those individuals have.
(17:30):
I hate to break it tough, Kelly, but we're not
cool anymore. We don't have the ability to spot trends.
We aren't on the front lines of hips. So people
in their twenties and thirties, if they just look around
at their friend network, they look around at the stuff
that they engage with, they are on the front lines
(17:52):
of the next trend, right. So you just look at
the things that you engage with on a day by
day basis, the clothes you wear, the electronics that you
play with, the different social networks that you're engaged with.
Those are the front lines. That's a tip of the
spear of the next companies that are going to disrupt
because what happens is twenty and thirty year olds engage
(18:15):
with it. Next thing, you know, the forty and fifty
year olds start tinkering with it and they think they're cool,
and then finally the forty and fifty year old parents
ultimately want to follow their kids, so then they engage
with it. See Facebook. The problem now is Mark Zuckerberg's
in his forties. He's not cool anymore. So if you're
twenty or thirty years old, get your hands thirty, buy
(18:35):
a couple businesses that you're passionate about, lose some money,
learn a lesson, and stay in the game. Continue to
put money in low cost index funds. Engage with your
company's four to oh one K get the company match.
I hate to admit that I'm telling twenty and thirty
year olds to lose money in the stock market, but
that's the type of stuff that's going to get their
(18:56):
their minds engaged with the markets. And another piece of
advice I tell pe people is no one cares more
about your money than you. There isn't some stockbroker out
there walking around who cares more about your money than you,
myself included. Now, if you come work with our company,
I think you'll find our people have big hearts and
hearts and teachers, and we're going to educate you about
(19:16):
what's out there. But at the end of the day,
no one cares more about your money than you. So
get your hands dirty. Understand how these different products and
instruments work, and that could be the very best What's
Benjamin Franklin, The very best investment you can make is
at education. And I'm of the thought the only way
you can be educated is if your boots on the
ground actually experiencing this stuff.
Speaker 3 (19:36):
We're going to jump inside your boots, Adam Curran, retell
you our radio here weekends on ninety four to three WSC.
We're going to walk your talk. I want to know
what your personal money plan is right now because for
those of you who are new to Adam, he's in
his mid forties, so he's at mid range. We hit
the sixty five plus crowd on advice, the twenty and
thirty year old. But here you are, you're about mid forties.
(19:57):
Data four littles. You know, Mary to your beautiful Southern bride,
bless her, Thank goodness, she brought you home, Adam, welcome homes.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
Working on me. She's working on me.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
But you're smack dab in the middle of all the
hardcore adulting and the responsibilities and the pressure to have
the best plan for your financial future. So what does
that look like?
Speaker 1 (20:17):
We discussed sixty year old sixty year olds and seventy
year olds have lots of money but not a lot
of income. Twenty and thirty year olds have no money
and no income. Forty and fifty year olds have a
little bit of money and a really good income. Right,
So what I would tell people who are in their
forties and fifties who have decent income, this could be
(20:37):
a generational buying opportunity. Most people will only bear witness
to in their entire investment life five to six wonderful
buying opportunities. Now, Unfortunately, during most of those five to
six wonderful buying opportunities, they don't have any money to
(20:59):
buy it, right. Like I even look back at myself
during the dot com bubble, Right I was in my twenties.
I don't have any money. I couldn't profit teer off
the dot com bubble. Or if you're in your sixties
and seventies, you don't have any additional dry powder to
profiteer off this. But if you're in your forties and fifties,
my guess is you're making some dough. So my advice
(21:21):
to you would be fit on the sidelines with your
finger on the trigger any and all dry powder that
you have as this market drops dollar cost average into it,
try to catch a falling knife, which obviously you can
get poked when you're doing that. But I think doocs
are now twenty percent cheaper than they were two months ago.
(21:44):
Imagine if they get thirty forty percent cheaper, that's when
you want to push all of your chips in the
middle of the table, especially as it relates to things
like iras and four oh one case. So you want
to shift your money out of things like bond bond,
shift your money out of things that are going to
be a little bit more cautious and put them in
things that are going to be a little bit more
high flying, especially if they drop and value thirty forty percent.
(22:06):
So this could be a generational buying opportunity for individuals
in their forties and fifties, if they have dry powder,
if they have income. You know, don't buy plastic crap
right about now. Buy income producing assets and those are stocks.
Those can also be rental properties. I don't know about
rental properties right now. Charleston's a real estate crazy market,
(22:28):
which is hard to find a deal. There's so many
people in the real estate game around here. But you know,
we're going to see stocks drop thirty forty percent. Potentially,
that's your opportunity knocking. If you've got some extra money
that you could deploy every week.
Speaker 3 (22:42):
You got Adam Kurr in here retire Yall Radio on
ninety four to three WS, literally turning this tear of
trauma into triumph. We just hit pretty much every level
there within the stock market age wise, and where they're sitting.
How about your message to the nearly half of Americans
who don't have the opportunity to invest in stocks or
other financials, who actually see a president finally standing up
(23:05):
there in the White House for them for a brighter future,
who aren't feeling the stock market pains right now.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
It's a changing economy for these individuals, and unfortunately, like
the top one percent and the really wealthy people are
not going to benefit from it as much like myself included.
When you start talking about the amount of reshoring that's
happening right now, it's gonna be a press on labor costs,
right And I got little thirty employees, my little tiny company,
(23:33):
But those people are all gonna be able to get
more money in other places, so I would have to
pay them more When you look back at America in
its glory days the sixties, the fifties, GDP was driven
mainly by the middle class. You fast forward to today,
the lion's sure of GDP is driven by the top
ten percent of earners. That's not a healthy economy. It's
(23:56):
not like the have and the have a little bit
and then the have not. It's the have and the
have not. When you talk about forty percent of people
that have nothing saved. Now, I'm not going to sing
you a victim song and say, oh, let's just start
you the have nots or can't get ahead. My mother
put clown makeup on for my family to get ahead.
(24:16):
The American dream is alive and well, you could still
get your taste in this country. Take it for me.
I run a billion dollar investment company. My mother was
a clown. So never has there ever been a greater
opportunity for you to get your taste and realize your
dreams in this country. Because a large segment of this
country is crying victim. They think Elon Musk is the
(24:37):
reason they can't get ahead. They think because someone else
has a billion dollars they can't get their tast. That's
not true. So as all these other individuals cry victim,
you need to put your nose to the grindstone, pedal
to the metal, focus on increasing your income. Focusing on
all this stuff. Dave Ramsey tells us, stay out of debt,
(24:58):
clip coupons, drive still, the wheels fall off, and watch
how quickly the eighth wonder of the world, the law
of compounding interest, turns you into a millionaire. So I
think Trump's economy as a whole is fighting for this
group of people. Kelly. Trump wants these people to thrive.
(25:18):
But you can't just sit back and wait for Trump
to put food on your table. You can't just sit
back and wait for Trump to bless your four oh
one k and print money out of thin air. And
you still got a hustle, You still got a grind.
The good news there is there's never been a more
opportunistic time for these types of people. You look at
the gig economy. You can just download an app and
(25:40):
make a little extra scratch delivering food to people or
shuttling people from the airport. Like, the entrepreneurial energy in
this country has never been and you're not hearing that
from the media. The media likes to shine a light
hot on how we're all victims because of the you know,
the color of our skin, or our socioeconomic background, or
(26:00):
the people that we choose to love, like oh, because
you're gay, you can't get ahead in this country. That
is not reality. That's not what I see at my
planning table. I am on the front line of people
and money and wealth, and I'm here to tell you
that people can still yet become multi millionaires in one generation,
(26:23):
change their family tree. I see it every single day.
And the other thing I see as a small business owner,
as an entrepreneur, there's never been a more prosperous time
to go out there and get your taste, innovate the
light customers, create products and services that people want back money.
God bless America.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
And I challenge anyone out there listening right now to
find anyone else who can make money talk which is
usually boring. Frankly, Adam, and you know it is interesting
as you do honestly, and you mentioned openly gay. How
about Charleston's own Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessett in the cabinet
right now under the Trump administration. He has made so
many of the important points that you have. He's really
(27:05):
got the A team President Trump around him.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
He's the highest ranking openly gay Democrat ever to hold
public office. But you know, you don't hear that from
many people because he's buddied up with the wrong guy.
I guess, but right, it.
Speaker 3 (27:17):
Doesn't check the right boxes the propaganda press and all
their peddling. Adam will listen to you coming up this weekend.
Happy Easter to you and your crew.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
Happy Easter, he has risen.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
This Big Fail Friday edition of That Kelly Golden Show
podcast is powered by Disaster Plus Buzz.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
Don't pus when you have bus call seven Queen Bowl
of Seven, Cleen of seven, Disaster Plus
My mother put clown makeup on for my family to
get ahead.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
This is the Kelly Golden Show podcast powered by Disaster
Plus on a Big Fail Friday, The American Dream.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Is alive and well you could still get your taste
in this country. Take it from me. I run a
billion dollar investment company. My mother was a clown.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
Last time you and I were talking here on air
in the morning, Adam Curran, was when y'all launched the
God Bless America ETF. Literally you can go on the
Near Stock Exchange and look up y'all. Adam, how's it going.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
I'm doing good, Kelly, and yeah, it's been a wild
ride and an awfully profitable one too, with the performance
of our fund. I launched it really just to give
conservatives an investment instrument they could tap into that ensured
that they wouldn't be supporting woke businesses with their with
their investments. And now that it's been launched, coming up
(00:56):
on three years, we're outperforming the S and P five
hundred by like thirty percent. So I'm starting to drink
my own kool Aida. It turns out investing in businesses
that are not participating in activism and investing in businesses
that are focused on delighting customers and creating wonderful products
and services and separating people from their money actually turns
(01:17):
out to be a wise way to invest your money.
Can you believe that?
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Yeah? On facts, not feelings and money talks. And I
love that you, Adam Kurrn. You make no bones about
your politics, quite literally with a ticker on the stock exchange.
I know I find it refreshing. Clearly your clients do too.
But do you have any clients that maybe don't like
the politics but they do like the money.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
We've lost a few clients upon launching the fund, but
you know, and not that I don't wish those individuals
a wonderful financial future, and I hope they have a
retirement full of abundance, but you know, they kind of
needed losing. You're sitting down with myself and our team
of advisors for hours on end hacking some of the
(02:01):
most private information and thoughts and emotions and feelings that
you have as it relates to your life savings and
family dynamics. And I'm of the thought that the individuals
that you get advice from surrounding your life savings ought
to have a similar world view. And I'm also of
the thought if you're a financial person, an accountant, and a
(02:23):
state planning attorney, a financial advisor, and you've had the
opportunity to sit down with thousands of Americans and you
don't reach the conclusion that you ought to have a
conservative worldview, you are doing one of two things. One
you're just not listening to people and reading the tea leaves,
or two you just don't have a proper grip of
(02:46):
basic economics. The number of people that I've got to
bear witness to Kelly who came to this country with
nothing and then a generation later are leaving millions of
dollars to their errors. The number of people who took
that old booking job with the four to oh one pay,
put ten percent of their pay paid off deck, got
their little egoists out of the nest, and are now
(03:07):
worth millions of dollars. When you hear these stories day
in in day out, you have to reach the conclusion
that the American dream is still alive and well, and
the government ain't helping these people reach these wonderful dreams
that they have in their life. So I'm of the
thought that if people should get their advice from people
(03:29):
who share the similar worldview. And if you're a financial
person and you don't share my worldview, you are not
listening to the people on the other side of the
table as you.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
So let's talk about family and then I want to
get into the American dream and how that's being reshaped
under this current presidency. Frankly, because as a profession, we
invite new people every day to the kitchen table, Adam Kurrn,
it's retire y'all radio Weekend's here on ninety four to
three WSC. We have heart conversations, we'd talk about money,
we talk about politics as are never off limits. But
(04:01):
to set the table here for people who are new
to Adam Kurrn to ninety four to three WSC. Maybe
even the iHeartRadio app where you know, we all have
podcasts there and it's great on demand tool for y'all
to catch up. They don't know your background. I'm just curious,
Connecticut kid. I thought it was interesting your dad was
a self taught mechanic work for a big government contractor.
(04:22):
I absolutely adore your picture at Current Financial Partners on
your website where mom the professional clown YouTube or photographed together.
But What I found interesting about your story was how you,
like me and a lot of other people, grew up
gen X. We cut lawns, we babysat, we did all
these things. We saved up our money. Your first investment
was at eleven years old, chalk full of nuts.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Stock. Had I had a couple of chalk full of nuts,
I wouldn't invest it in the company. But I'm a living, breathing, walking,
talking example of the American dream. You know, my dad
never made more than sixty thousand dollars a year. My
mother was a professional clown. People don't start professional clown
business is because they're like living on the fritz. You know.
We needed that extra income in my house, and because
(05:07):
of financial scarcity under my roof, I think money was
always the topic of conversation at the kitchen table. So
as soon as I was able, started bringing in money
of my own, you know, fishing golf balls out of
the municipal golf courses pond and selling them on the
putting green, and mowing lawns and shoveling snow, doing whatever
the heck I can. And then I amasked a little
(05:29):
bit of money, and my dad took me under his
wing and said, let me show you what the rich
people do with their money. They invest in the stock market.
And sure enough, that was before the days of the internet.
So I went to a stockbroker's office and he convinced
me to put all my money into Chock full of Nuts.
The stock dropped fifty percent in a month, and I said,
right then and there, I'm never making an investment decision
unless I do the research myself. And as crazy as
(05:52):
it sounds, even though I lost money on that first trade,
I was hooked. I just loved the market. I loved money.
And you know, fast forward till today, we managed if
you pull everything together, about a billion dollars. I've got
a team of thirty people, offices in Myrtle Beach, Charleston,
Hilton Head, and my American dream became a reality. And
(06:14):
I'll never ever ever forget. You know where I came
from and what made that a reality, the people of
South Carolina. I'm a carpet bagging Yankee. I married a
Southern bell But when I first came to Charleston, I
thought the only people who were going to hire me
were gonna be fellow, fast talking Yankees, because they wanted
to work with someone who who had northern aggression. And
(06:36):
the truth is, my first year in business, Kelly, I
was hired by nothing but native South Carolinians and Charlestonians.
So anytime people from the north go into a rift
about how people from the South are unenlightened and they
speak bubba and eat pair of salads, I immediately come
to their defense because this state, this city has been
(06:58):
tremendously good to me and it's enabled me to live
my American dream.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
Well, you've been eating humble sandwiches for quite some time,
and I think for those who are listening right now
on their way to Hilton Head and the RBC heritage,
they have to and on the heels and the masters.
You definitely gain some props with fishing the golf balls
from gator ponds and reselling them to golfers as one
of your first entrepreneurial endeavors there. Did you ever have
(07:24):
any gator? I'm just curious, do you ever have any gators?
Speaker 1 (07:28):
We don't have alligators up there. No risk.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
Oh you got lucky, all right, So maybe we don't
suggest this for those young budding entrepreneurs out there.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
Nothing would make my heart smile more than if I
saw my kids doing that though, Gator or not. Maybe
not their mom's heart, but my heart.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
Adam Kurr And you could hear him weekends here on
ninety four to three WSC. And if you have a
download of the iHeartRadio app, it's free. You are missing
out the on demand content that you could be streaming
right now on your drive down to Hilton Head, whether
it's RBC Heritage or wherever you're going to be this
weekend or Easter weekend, Adam, you can catch up with them.
It's retire Yell Radio. So let's talk tariff trauma right now.
(08:07):
I mean we're moving on from family in the trauma
of losing in your first investment there with chalk full
of nuts at eleven years old. You know, people are
being panicked. I call them every day, the propaganda press.
You know, the markets have always been panicky, a panicky place.
You know this as a professional, Adam Current, I'm just
curious your perspective from you know, dealing with all of
(08:28):
those trauma and your clients.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
Well, we've seen this all before, right, If you remember
the last quarter of twenty eighteen, the market dropped, peaked,
the trough twenty percent. That's exactly where we are right now,
and it dropped twenty percent in a response to the
threat of a trade war with China, and that trade
war wasn't nearly as hot as the one we're in
(08:50):
the midst of right now. Now. If you remember what
happened after that twenty percent sell off twenty nineteen into
twenty twenty, it turned out to be one of the
strongest periods in the market's history. Now, what makes what
we're in a little bit different is one, it's not
just with China anymore, you know, it's with just about
every other country on the face of the earth. We
(09:11):
also couple that with RFK, who's going after big food,
big pharma. That's gonna hurt their balance sheets and their
income statements. Couple that with Elon Musk and Doge, who's
gutting the government. They're trying to get rid of one
trillion dollars of expenditure. And as much as that makes
my conservative heart smile, that's austerity. That's an austerity measure.
(09:34):
That's a trillion dollars that was getting pumped into the
economy that will no longer get pumped into the economy.
If those is successful. Now, let me unpack the tariffing
because you said something. This is propaganda. This is the
media exacerbating a real situation. And I know numbers don't
really play well over the radio, but I'm gonna try
my darnness, because this is an important concept that people
(09:56):
need to understand. We have empirical data on how US
consumers spend their money. We've got decades upon decades of data,
data that hasn't been manipulated by the subtle reserve. So
for every one hundred dollars you and I spend from
our wallets and pocketbooks, seventy percent of it or seventy
(10:17):
dollars goes towards services. See got one hundred bucks. Seventy
of it's going towards services. Only thirty or thirty percent
is going towards goods, meaning food, plastic, crap, raw materials.
Only thirty percent of our dollars go towards goods. Now,
(10:38):
on top of that thirty dollars, say so and I
have thirty dollars that might get in fact impacted by
by a tariff because it's a it's a good. Of
that thirty dollars, seventy percent of the goods that we
consume you and I and all these listeners. Seventy percent
of those goods are produced right here in America. That's
(11:02):
a shocking number because most people think we import everything.
So you got thirty dollars, twenty of it is not
going to be impacted by Trump's tariff plan because it's
goods that are produced right here in America. We're down
to ten bucks. Now, ten dollars are goods that are imported.
Of that ten dollars, seventy percent will not be impacted
(11:28):
by Trump's tariff plan because of USMCA or the new NaSTA.
So only three of your expended dollars are going to
be impacted by a tariff. And then even then, the
media is telling us that he's going to steal three
dollars from US. No, those three dollars that you're spending
(11:49):
unimported goods might be affected by a ten to twenty
percent tariff. So if you go down the rabbit hole
of the mathematics of tariff, you'll realize that, oh my gosh,
this is like a nothing burger. This isn't going to
impact anything at all, but that three dollars and the
tariffs that we're talking about are going to result in
hundreds of billions of dollars of potential revenue that we
(12:12):
can use to pay off the debt, which is what
Trump and Lutnig Investment, all of his cabinets are talking about,
is one of the main objectives of the Trump administration.
Stimulate the economy, deregulate got the government, pay off the deficits,
all things that once we see start materializing, It's not
going to happen in a week or a month, It's
going to happen over time. I think it's a shot
(12:33):
in the arm to guys like me, small business owners.
That's going to make me feel really really good about
making investments in human capital and real estate and marketing campaigns.
Whereas had Kamala got elected, I'm a total I'm a
turtle going in my shell and you're going, I don't
think I want to hire those extra two people. I
(12:54):
don't want to build an office in Colombia. I don't
want to spend money on marketing and endeavors because I
we don't want to work hard for a government that
hates me. So I think what you're bearing witness to
right now is no different than what we saw in
twenty eighteen, but there's some additional things that are making
it even more choppy. We're telling our clients that we
(13:16):
think the market might go a little lower. Depending on
when you're listening to this, we might see this market
drop twenty five maybe even as much as thirty percent.
As crazy as it sounds, that would honestly be a
good thing for the federal government because it would cause
interest rates to have to drop. We've got nine trillion
dollars of federal debt that needs to be turned over,
(13:38):
and I'd like to see that debt turned over in
the three to four percent region rather than the four
to five percent region where we're at right now. So
if the market keeps dropping, interest rates will drop. If
interest rates drop, the debt will be able to be
turned over at a lower rate. Right now, the cost
of the interest on our debt is more than our
national defense budget. So that's actually a good thing for everyone.
(14:00):
Bizarre as it sounds, market drops is a good thing
for the country. The lion's share of civilization, especially young people.
The people who actually elected Trump don't have dobs of
money in four oh one ks and IRA. So even
though I'm in the business of c number go up
into the right long term, I'm a bull. Long term,
I think that Trump is going to be a really
(14:20):
good thing for the stock market and my client. But
short term, hang onto your seats. I think it's going
to be a bumpy ride.
Speaker 3 (14:26):
A lot of people saying, well, twenty five could be
potentially brutal in the markets, but twenty six will sore
I mean quite literally, turning all of this trauma that's
being peddled out here to true, real payoff and triumph.
So Adam Currn here retire y'all Radio Herd weekends on
ninety four to three WSC. Search them on the iHeart app.
I want to get into the quick, nitty gritty of
this because sixty five plus crowd right now they're being
(14:48):
hit financially the hardest. And what is your advice?
Speaker 1 (14:52):
These are the individuals that I help most often. If
you're sixty seventy years old, I'm of the thought you
should have boring investments so you can live in exciting life,
not exciting investments, so you can live a boring life.
And one good thing that's come out of the economy
over the last couple of years is you can now
get principal protected rates of return over five percent. Like
(15:15):
I've spent my entire career, which is twenty years now,
in an artificially manipulated zero interest rate environment. Interest rates
have been zero for the last twenty years. In the
last eighteen months we've seen them spike up because of inflation.
So you're sixty and you're seventy years old. You ought
to have a chunk of your money and really boring
stuff that's going to kick the can down the road.
(15:37):
The tortoise and the hair. Every time I read that book,
the tortoise wins, and finally, the first time in a
long time, you're actually getting rewarded to be cautious and
have a chunk of your money and things that are
going to be stable and secure. You're going to make
over five percent. So right now might be a great
(15:57):
time to allocate a chunk of your portfolio into that
type of stuff because you're to date, the market's only
down eight percent. That's not a cataclysmic draw down or pullback.
A lot of people, Kelly, were seduced by a bull market.
They saw the market ripping and then next thing you know,
you've got too high a percentage of your portfolio in
(16:20):
exciting investments, and look, those exciting investments rewarded you handsomely,
but now might be a good time to play a
little defense, be cautious. So that's the message I would
give to the individuals in their sixties to seventy.
Speaker 3 (16:31):
Let's go to the opposite end of that, Adam Kern,
and talk to the twenty and thirty year olds who
are frankly less experienced investors, and sally are susceptible to
falling prey unnecessary panic headlines out there with tariff and
spreading the trauma. So what would you say to the
twenty and thirty year.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
Olds, As crazy as it may sound, your your first
investment losses are always your least expensive, but they're always
the most impactful. No different than me with chuck full
of nuts, right, Like, you know, I lost a thousand bucks,
which I thought was you know, you know, a mint
of money back then. But I learned some hard lessons
in that that you don't just take someone's work for it.
(17:07):
You got to do a little research yourself. You got
to invest in things you understand. So my advice to
individuals who are twenty thirty years old, like get your
hands thirty, get one of these little micro investing apps
Robinhood or Mint or there's a whole drove of them,
and start putting some money aside and buying stuff that
you know you like. And here's the advantage those individuals have.
(17:30):
I hate to break it tough, Kelly, but we're not
cool anymore. We don't have the ability to spot trends.
We aren't on the front lines of hips. So people
in their twenties and thirties, if they just look around
at their friend network, they look around at the stuff
that they engage with, they are on the front lines
(17:52):
of the next trend, right. So you just look at
the things that you engage with on a day by
day basis, the clothes you wear, the electronics that you
play with, the different social networks that you're engaged with.
Those are the front lines. That's a tip of the
spear of the next companies that are going to disrupt
because what happens is twenty and thirty year olds engage
(18:15):
with it. Next thing, you know, the forty and fifty
year olds start tinkering with it and they think they're cool,
and then finally the forty and fifty year old parents
ultimately want to follow their kids, so then they engage
with it. See Facebook. The problem now is Mark Zuckerberg's
in his forties. He's not cool anymore. So if you're
twenty or thirty years old, get your hands thirty, buy
(18:35):
a couple businesses that you're passionate about, lose some money,
learn a lesson, and stay in the game. Continue to
put money in low cost index funds. Engage with your
company's four to oh one K get the company match.
I hate to admit that I'm telling twenty and thirty
year olds to lose money in the stock market, but
that's the type of stuff that's going to get their
(18:56):
their minds engaged with the markets. And another piece of
advice I tell pe people is no one cares more
about your money than you. There isn't some stockbroker out
there walking around who cares more about your money than you,
myself included. Now, if you come work with our company,
I think you'll find our people have big hearts and
hearts and teachers, and we're going to educate you about
(19:16):
what's out there. But at the end of the day,
no one cares more about your money than you. So
get your hands dirty. Understand how these different products and
instruments work, and that could be the very best What's
Benjamin Franklin, The very best investment you can make is
at education. And I'm of the thought the only way
you can be educated is if your boots on the
ground actually experiencing this stuff.
Speaker 3 (19:36):
We're going to jump inside your boots, Adam Curran, retell
you our radio here weekends on ninety four to three WSC.
We're going to walk your talk. I want to know
what your personal money plan is right now because for
those of you who are new to Adam, he's in
his mid forties, so he's at mid range. We hit
the sixty five plus crowd on advice, the twenty and
thirty year old. But here you are, you're about mid forties.
(19:57):
Data four littles. You know, Mary to your beautiful Southern bride,
bless her, Thank goodness, she brought you home, Adam, welcome homes.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
Working on me. She's working on me.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
But you're smack dab in the middle of all the
hardcore adulting and the responsibilities and the pressure to have
the best plan for your financial future. So what does
that look like?
Speaker 1 (20:17):
We discussed sixty year old sixty year olds and seventy
year olds have lots of money but not a lot
of income. Twenty and thirty year olds have no money
and no income. Forty and fifty year olds have a
little bit of money and a really good income. Right,
So what I would tell people who are in their
forties and fifties who have decent income, this could be
(20:37):
a generational buying opportunity. Most people will only bear witness
to in their entire investment life five to six wonderful
buying opportunities. Now, Unfortunately, during most of those five to
six wonderful buying opportunities, they don't have any money to
(20:59):
buy it, right. Like I even look back at myself
during the dot com bubble, Right I was in my twenties.
I don't have any money. I couldn't profit teer off
the dot com bubble. Or if you're in your sixties
and seventies, you don't have any additional dry powder to
profiteer off this. But if you're in your forties and fifties,
my guess is you're making some dough. So my advice
(21:21):
to you would be fit on the sidelines with your
finger on the trigger any and all dry powder that
you have as this market drops dollar cost average into it,
try to catch a falling knife, which obviously you can
get poked when you're doing that. But I think doocs
are now twenty percent cheaper than they were two months ago.
(21:44):
Imagine if they get thirty forty percent cheaper, that's when
you want to push all of your chips in the
middle of the table, especially as it relates to things
like iras and four oh one case. So you want
to shift your money out of things like bond bond,
shift your money out of things that are going to
be a little bit more cautious and put them in
things that are going to be a little bit more
high flying, especially if they drop and value thirty forty percent.
(22:06):
So this could be a generational buying opportunity for individuals
in their forties and fifties, if they have dry powder,
if they have income. You know, don't buy plastic crap
right about now. Buy income producing assets and those are stocks.
Those can also be rental properties. I don't know about
rental properties right now. Charleston's a real estate crazy market,
(22:28):
which is hard to find a deal. There's so many
people in the real estate game around here. But you know,
we're going to see stocks drop thirty forty percent. Potentially,
that's your opportunity knocking. If you've got some extra money
that you could deploy every week.
Speaker 3 (22:42):
You got Adam Kurr in here retire Yall Radio on
ninety four to three WS, literally turning this tear of
trauma into triumph. We just hit pretty much every level
there within the stock market age wise, and where they're sitting.
How about your message to the nearly half of Americans
who don't have the opportunity to invest in stocks or
other financials, who actually see a president finally standing up
(23:05):
there in the White House for them for a brighter future,
who aren't feeling the stock market pains right now.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
It's a changing economy for these individuals, and unfortunately, like
the top one percent and the really wealthy people are
not going to benefit from it as much like myself included.
When you start talking about the amount of reshoring that's
happening right now, it's gonna be a press on labor costs,
right And I got little thirty employees, my little tiny company,
(23:33):
But those people are all gonna be able to get
more money in other places, so I would have to
pay them more When you look back at America in
its glory days the sixties, the fifties, GDP was driven
mainly by the middle class. You fast forward to today,
the lion's sure of GDP is driven by the top
ten percent of earners. That's not a healthy economy. It's
(23:56):
not like the have and the have a little bit
and then the have not. It's the have and the
have not. When you talk about forty percent of people
that have nothing saved. Now, I'm not going to sing
you a victim song and say, oh, let's just start
you the have nots or can't get ahead. My mother
put clown makeup on for my family to get ahead.
(24:16):
The American dream is alive and well, you could still
get your taste in this country. Take it for me.
I run a billion dollar investment company. My mother was
a clown. So never has there ever been a greater
opportunity for you to get your taste and realize your
dreams in this country. Because a large segment of this
country is crying victim. They think Elon Musk is the
(24:37):
reason they can't get ahead. They think because someone else
has a billion dollars they can't get their tast. That's
not true. So as all these other individuals cry victim,
you need to put your nose to the grindstone, pedal
to the metal, focus on increasing your income. Focusing on
all this stuff. Dave Ramsey tells us, stay out of debt,
(24:58):
clip coupons, drive still, the wheels fall off, and watch
how quickly the eighth wonder of the world, the law
of compounding interest, turns you into a millionaire. So I
think Trump's economy as a whole is fighting for this
group of people. Kelly. Trump wants these people to thrive.
(25:18):
But you can't just sit back and wait for Trump
to put food on your table. You can't just sit
back and wait for Trump to bless your four oh
one k and print money out of thin air. And
you still got a hustle, You still got a grind.
The good news there is there's never been a more
opportunistic time for these types of people. You look at
the gig economy. You can just download an app and
(25:40):
make a little extra scratch delivering food to people or
shuttling people from the airport. Like, the entrepreneurial energy in
this country has never been and you're not hearing that
from the media. The media likes to shine a light
hot on how we're all victims because of the you know,
the color of our skin, or our socioeconomic background, or
(26:00):
the people that we choose to love, like oh, because
you're gay, you can't get ahead in this country. That
is not reality. That's not what I see at my
planning table. I am on the front line of people
and money and wealth, and I'm here to tell you
that people can still yet become multi millionaires in one generation,
(26:23):
change their family tree. I see it every single day.
And the other thing I see as a small business owner,
as an entrepreneur, there's never been a more prosperous time
to go out there and get your taste, innovate the
light customers, create products and services that people want back money.
God bless America.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
And I challenge anyone out there listening right now to
find anyone else who can make money talk which is
usually boring. Frankly, Adam, and you know it is interesting
as you do honestly, and you mentioned openly gay. How
about Charleston's own Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessett in the cabinet
right now under the Trump administration. He has made so
many of the important points that you have. He's really
(27:05):
got the A team President Trump around him.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
He's the highest ranking openly gay Democrat ever to hold
public office. But you know, you don't hear that from
many people because he's buddied up with the wrong guy.
I guess, but right, it.
Speaker 3 (27:17):
Doesn't check the right boxes the propaganda press and all
their peddling. Adam will listen to you coming up this weekend.
Happy Easter to you and your crew.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
Happy Easter, he has risen.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
This Big Fail Friday edition of That Kelly Golden Show
podcast is powered by Disaster Plus Buzz.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
Don't pus when you have bus call seven Queen Bowl
of Seven, Cleen of seven, Disaster Plus
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Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.