AI Layoffs, Student Loans, and Social Security

**Steve Rhode:** I’m Steve Rhode, the old Get Out of Debt Guy. With me as always is Damon Day, the new Get Out of Debt Guy. Say hello, Damon.

**Damon Day:** How’s everybody doing? You can always reach Damon at DamonDay.com. And if you have any questions, concerns, want to talk about an issue — hey, you can call and talk to him for free. So that’s what you should do.

**Steve Rhode:** Damon, I was all worried yesterday because I had all these Amazon bags arriving at my house, and the delivery guy’s name was the same as yours. Damon delivered the stuff.

**Damon Day:** Hey, I’ll say! Damon Day — oh! I was like, wait, what?

**Steve Rhode:** Yeah, my son and I are heading out to North Carolina on Saturday. My son’s got a baseball tournament out there. So while I’m out there, I’m gonna visit the old Steve-O.

**Damon Day:** That’s right. We’ll probably do a podcast together while you’re here.

**Steve Rhode:** Yeah, we’ll have to record it early because I’m only going to be there Saturday through Wednesday and I don’t know the game schedule, but one of the days there — we’ll do the pod. And I’ll get in your office and we’ll do it in the same room for the first time in a long time.

**Damon Day:** Yeah, or you know what, we could take it on the road and I could record it on the iPhone sitting in the stands at your son’s baseball game.

**Steve Rhode:** We could do that. You know, the weather’s actually supposed to be in the 70s. So if you’ve got some spare time, you might actually be able to catch a game this time.

**Damon Day:** Yeah, because last time we were — what, like the high 90s and like a thousand percent humidity last time we were out there?

**Steve Rhode:** Yeah. No clouds. Yeah, you’re like, I love to go watch Hunter play, but no thanks.

**Damon Day:** Unless he’s playing at midnight, I’m out. Do they have indoor stadiums for these 17-year-olds?

**Steve Rhode:** Hmm, do they have indoor baseball stadiums at all? Well, they do, but not for the high school kids.

**Damon Day:** No, they don’t turn enough revenue to justify that.

**Steve Rhode:** Yeah. Surprise! Anyway, let’s get talking about debt because there’s so much to cover these days. Damon, what caught your eye first?

**Damon Day:** Well, so many good articles, Steve. And what we do — if you’re new here — we like to go through the GetOutOfDebt.org site, which is the site that Steve has written. I don’t know, a million, two million articles? You know, give or take a few million. He writes a lot of good information up there. And we realized he’s doing so much work over there that it just made it easy to do the show — to simply go through the latest articles for the week and talk about what he’s already researched and figured out.

So I went through, and actually the challenge I had this week was just on the first page of articles — there were more articles I wanted to talk about than I knew we would have time for.

**Steve Rhode:** You’re right, I’ve got like seven articles listed here that we’re not going to get to. So I’ve tried to prioritize them, but the first one that caught my eye — and this, Steve, is something that I know I’ve been saying for at least 15 years. And you’re probably about the same.

**Damon Day:** But yeah, see this title of this article. And if you’re interested in any of these things that we’re talking about, just go to GetOutOfDebt.org. Go to the top right, there’s a little magnifying glass — you could search, type in any of these keywords that we’re talking about, and the articles will come up. Or just go right to the green bar at the top and just click on Latest Posts.

**Steve Rhode:** Now when did you add that?

**Damon Day:** Uh, when I redid the site.

**Steve Rhode:** Shows how astute I am. I always go to the very bottom and click Browse Articles.

**Damon Day:** Yeah, I’m on the site all the time and I just noticed that when you said something. So I’m like, oh, there it is — Latest Posts. I’m looking right at it.

**Steve Rhode:** All right, well, my focus these days is writing articles about what reality is today and how it impacts your finances and your debt. So all of the articles that you’ll find on the site all relate to everyone, every day. And this one — 69% say college isn’t worth it. Oh, it’s so spot on, isn’t it?

**Damon Day:** It’s — you know, I’m fortunate. I see the aftermath of college all too often when clients come to me. And it’s like, okay, I got this degree, but I owe $200,000 and I’m making $70,000 a year or whatever it is. And you know, I’m glad mainstream is finally coming around to the point — like they’re at least starting to ask the question, right? Like, okay, should everybody go to college? Is this actually a good investment? How much are we actually spending? Rather than just start with the default of, “Well, of course you have to go to college. You graduated high school, you got to go to college.” And now the decision is, how do we fund it? Rather than, should we go or not? Like they skipped the, should my son go? Should my daughter go?

**Steve Rhode:** Yeah, and this article — you know, 69% of people that have graduated or gone to college have said it wasn’t worth it. You know, in hindsight, now that I’m looking at my life and I look back — if I could have made a different decision, would I have made the same one? And I wanted to bring this up because so many people, obviously, year after year, your kids graduate or you’re graduating. It’s an important question that so many people just assume they’re going to college. And you really need to sit there and look at college as, is this a good investment? What is it that I want to do — well, that my kid wants to do? Answer that question, and only then can you decide, is it worth it to take this loan?

**Damon Day:** Yeah, there have been so many decades where somebody’s told me they’re headed to college and I always say, “Wow.”

**Steve Rhode:** But the big problem behind college — you know, we can talk about the easy access to money through federal student loans, we can talk about all that. But the big problem that I’ve seen over the last 10-15 years is people went to college, they took out loans because they wanted to improve their economic chances, earn more, etc. And they had federal student loans. But the damn government keeps changing the programs and changing the terms and changing everything else. There’s no continuity there. The loan that you took out 10 years ago — the program that you relied on to repay it, whether it’s public service loan forgiveness or whatever — those programs have either changed or all gone away. And there’s no way for you to plan.

**Damon Day:** But that right there tells you the math is broken. And college isn’t worth it if you’re going into college getting these loans with the idea of, “What’s the program on the back end that’s going to help me pay off this loan?” Because my degree and the job I’m going to get with this degree is not probably going to pay this loan off. Full stop. That’s all you need to know.

Right, that already answered your question. It’s not a good investment. You’re hoping some government bailout is going to get you out of this obligation. And if that’s the case, you should not be doing it regardless of whether the government comes through or doesn’t. Hint hint — they usually don’t.

**Steve Rhode:** Yeah, they change the rules and leave people stranded. The whole idea of Public Service Loan Forgiveness for federal student loans — you work in a nonprofit or a low-income area, or you’re a teacher, a firefighter, or a police officer. You’re providing public benefits to everybody. The entire idea was, after 10 years of service where you’re being underpaid, the remainder of your federal student loans would be forgiven.

**Damon Day:** Yeah. And the rules have changed so much that now they’re going, “Now that doesn’t count. No, your employer doesn’t count. No.” And so now you’re left with massive debt in lower-paying jobs.

**Steve Rhode:** Yeah, and — see, are you trying to say that easy access to cheap money doesn’t drive up prices? Can you find any examples of easy access to cheap money not driving up prices?

**Damon Day:** Well, the answer to that is no. But you know, you can even see it coming. Yeah, you look back in my lifetime and universities 30 years ago were all hot and heavy about expanding campus, expanding infrastructure, making their programs bigger and better. And then along the way came online education that doesn’t need buildings and doesn’t need all that expansion. And yet they’re paying for all that stuff. And you know, where does that money come from? Comes from tuition. And so everything keeps going up.

**Steve Rhode:** The biggest scam I think is out there is the for-profit schools. Simply because they were playing the money with the easy access to government student loans without really focusing on any sort of public benefit. They were charging more and giving less. And because of all their marketing, people signed up for them in droves.

**Damon Day:** Yeah, and there was nobody watching what was going on. Because normally the bank kind of plays that role, right? When you go in and you want to buy a car and you’re like, “I really want to buy this $80,000 car.” Well, the bank would say, “I’m sorry, sir, you only make $40,000 a year and you’ve got this mortgage and this and this. You can’t afford it.” “But I really want it.” “Yeah, I know you really want it, but you can’t afford this.”

So the bank was the gatekeeper. They were the ones with the button — they were taking that risk of, should I give this guy $80,000? Well, when the government steps in and says, “Oh, we’re going to guarantee all these loans. You get some money, you get some money, you get some money.” All of a sudden, now the government is the gatekeeper. And you know how well they do anything.

And now nobody’s paying attention. An $80,000 car? No, you get the $150,000 car — we’ll give you that money, no problem. And that’s what happens. Now you have all this money that anybody can get, nobody’s the adult in the room anymore because the government gets involved. And now the colleges are like, “Well, hell, we can raise tuition because demand is through the roof — everybody’s got money.”

**Steve Rhode:** Right, that’s the scam. There it is. It’s done. I think what’s interesting about this conversation is that you and I are on opposite sides of the center of the political spectrum. So this is not a political issue. This is a financial issue.

And when I hear things like — now private student loan, private colleges were supposed to be beholden to their performance or they wouldn’t have access to federal student loans. And then so that seems like a perfectly logical thing to do. But then along the way, politics got involved and said, “That’s anti-business, we can’t do that.” So we’re going to remove those restrictions and people are back to being stuck in bad financial places all by themselves.

And nobody’s looking out for you except that dog.

**Damon Day:** Yeah, my little freaking Maltese, dude. My office is next to my front door and Amazon is like — Amazon comes every other hour, basically.

**Steve Rhode:** It is what it is. It’s just part of the charm of this show. High production value.

**Damon Day:** You got them all teased, yapping away, letting everybody know. But — I did take care — but circling back to how does this pertain to you: the government did this, the government did that, whatever politicians are doing this. This pertains to you because the cost of college has skyrocketed and the value has actually, in my opinion, gone down. A college degree today is not as valuable as a college degree 30 years ago in the marketplace. It’s just not, right?

Case in point: I had a gentleman call me last week. We were having this conversation about a situation and he made good income — half a million dollars a year. So I guess I just say great income. People be like, “Good income, what are you talking about?” Yeah, that’s pretty damn good. He’s got a great income, right?

And through our conversation, there were some things that just led me to believe he was a doctor — mainly because one of the loans he had was a loan that is common for healthcare professionals. And so I just said at one point, “Well, what kind of doctor are you?” Like I had already just assumed he was a doctor and I was just, “What kind of doctor are you?” And he goes, “Doctor?” He goes, “I’m a lineman.”

And of course in my head I’m like, in the NFL? Like, he’s making half a million dollars a year. And then I clicked in my head — no, he’s talking about power lines. Like, he works on power lines. And he’s making half a million a year working on power lines.

Now, let me caveat that with — being a lineman is a dangerous profession. In fact, I looked it up and linemen are 400% more likely to have a fatality on the job than across all jobs basically. So there is that caveat.

But the point is that trade-type jobs these days are out-earning, out-performing college degree-type jobs for the most part. And you don’t need a college degree for any of these things. Half a million dollars a year without a college degree. So going to college should not be the automatic default.

**Steve Rhode:** Figure out what you or your kids want to do before signing those student loans. They may not need to go to college and they could start their careers years sooner. You have to account for that also.

Here’s the thing about one of the biggest expenses that people will have in their lives besides a mortgage — the student loans. Everyone is sleepwalking into this. And what I mean by that is you have the expectation Johnny’s gonna go to college when he graduates high school. You have the student counselor in high school pushing people to go to college. You’ve got the peers pushing people to go to college. You have the parents saying we need to send them to college. And then you have the 18-year-old — you’re asking them to define what they’re gonna do for the rest of their lives and take out all these loans.

Nobody asks the one question that I’ve always asked and had people stare at me like I have four heads, which is: why?

**Damon Day:** Yeah. Why? Why not do two things? As I talk about in this post — 77% of Americans now say trade jobs are more secure than office positions.

But if Johnny does need to go to college, he wants to jump-start college — go to your damn local community college first for a couple years. Let him figure it out. Do not get a student loan if your child doesn’t know what they want to do. Now, is it possible they change their mind? Yeah. But if they’re just like, “I’m not sure, I’m gonna go to college and figure it out” — no. Fine, go to community college and figure it out.

My son’s going to community college. He’s not sure what he wants to do with the whole AI thing and everything, and things are kind of up in the air. So hey, no problem. Go to the community college. Cost a couple hundred bucks a month. No student loans involved. No problem, I’ll pay a couple hundred bucks a month. You get your associate’s degree — that’s two years. If you do decide during that time you want to go get your bachelor’s degree, okay, we can figure it out at that time. And hopefully by then, now you’ll be 20, going on 21. Brain’s gonna be a little bit more developed. Might really know what you want to do.

And then we can run those numbers — is this a good idea? But in the meantime, he’s getting those same two years’ worth of schooling, for the most part as far as the degree goes, for a couple hundred dollars a month — not $30,000 a year.

**Steve Rhode:** So I graduated high school in Maryland, and I’ve said it before on the podcast, but this is a real-life event that happened. I’m standing in a line in high school right towards the end of the senior year. And the person in front of me is talking to somebody else and they say, “Hey, what college are you gonna go to?” And he goes, “University of Central Florida.” And the other guy goes, “That’s an out-of-state school. I mean, that’s out-of-state tuition. That’s pretty expensive. Why are you going there?” And he goes, “Dude, they got the best parties.”

**Damon Day:** Well, okay. Good research!

**Steve Rhode:** Yeah. Well, and this segues into the next article because something you just mentioned about trade jobs versus office jobs. So Steve, this article on the site — Oracle just laid off 30,000 people to fund AI.

**Damon Day:** Right. Yeah, they all probably have college degrees. All 30,000 of them probably have college degrees. This is a difficult subject because — so in two of my businesses that I run, I’m heavily involved in AI. And I think what you hear out there about AI is both sides of the spectrum. What I mean is, you hear a lot of stuff out there — “AI can’t replace jobs, this is all lies, companies that are laying off employees to replace things with AI, that’s garbage, it’s never gonna last.” And then other side of the coin, you’ve got all the things that AI is actually doing.

And like Oracle laying off 30,000 people because they can write code better with artificial intelligence now. So the reality is — here’s the truth about artificial intelligence: some of the stuff that you hear about it being problematic or not great or creating issues — in the earliest days, that stuff was true. It wasn’t perfect. It only gets better. Every day, today is the best day that it’s ever been. Tomorrow will be better.

But an underlying factor is: 44% of people who say they work in offices where AI is being implemented also say that they secretly sabotage it.

**Steve Rhode:** So it might not look effective. But I am telling you, I have done such incredible things with writing AI code — and you know this. In the last 30 days, I’ve replaced almost a thousand dollars of monthly fees on software that I used with AI code that I’ve written myself.

So it’s coming. It’s coming. And if you don’t think that your job can’t be replaced with AI or robotics — it can be. So, you know, we’re saying that if you go and study a trade, it’s less likely that you’ll be influenced by artificial intelligence hitting your career. The caveat there is “for now.” Because as this gets more advanced, there will be things that robotics will be able to do. But for right now — Oracle laying off 30,000.

I’ve got a post that’s coming out today — if you haven’t subscribed to the free newsletter at GetOutOfDebt.org, I send out a daily update about what’s happening. One of the posts today is that a company called Freshworks just cut 500 jobs because half their software code is written by AI.

**Damon Day:** Yeah, so it’s the same sort of thing that Oracle just considered.

Now, Damon’s got the best advice. So let’s say that you say to yourself, your spouse, your friend, “You know, I heard what Steve said. I don’t think that he’s being hyperbolic. I don’t think that he’s trying to scare me. I think he’s telling me the truth.”

The truth you need to hear about your finances when it comes to this is — Damon?

**Steve Rhode:** Well, you put me on the spot. We got the best advice and I’m starting to go back. I’m like, wait, which advice is this?

**Damon Day:** So I think — yeah, I’ll say — I think where you’re going with this is: all right, so, you know, we’re not trying to be Chicken Little. And I mentioned this to Steve before the podcast — this podcast, this one is gonna feel very Chicken Little-ish, if you will. And then I posed the question: is it Chicken Little if it’s true though, right? Like — so yeah, but here’s the thing. Okay, it’s Chicken Little if you’re just trying to scare people. But it’s not Chicken Little if it’s real.

Yeah, so my advice goes back to the same advice we’ve been spouting on every podcast we do, which is: prepare now. Get the debt — the debt is the weight around your neck. Any debt that you’re carrying right now, you know — don’t wait until you get the announcement from your job that you lost your job. And you may never lose your job, and that’s great, right?

But what I can tell you is it’s a lot easier to breathe and to navigate a quote-unquote crisis if you don’t have debt around your neck when it happens. So if you’re gainfully employed now, you’ve got good income now, and you’re just carrying debt — $50,000, $80,000, $100,000 — get the hell out of debt now.

And if this never happens to you — if you were never affected by the economy or any of this stuff — so what? Great, right? If the worst-case scenario is you have extra cash every month because you got out of debt and you can invest in your future, that’s the downside of getting out of debt right now.

You’re never going to say, “I wish I wouldn’t have listened to that jackass on the podcast. I got out of debt and I have all this cash and I never lost my job.” So I never needed the extra money — like, you’re never going to say that. There’s no downside to just getting out of debt, especially if you’re gainfully employed now, because right now you have the resources to do it.

Don’t wait until your hours are getting cut or your position gets let go or whatever, and now you’re staring at $100,000 and now you’re just racking up credit cards just trying to survive until you get another job.

Get out of the debt now because the economy over the next five years is going to be going through some radical changes. Like, you know, Steve mentioned — don’t just think AI is clunky and it can never replace this job. Like Steve said, it gets better every day. And it’s getting better at an accelerating rate.

Here’s a good example: Steve and I both drive Tesla Model Ys. My Tesla is a 2020. Steve, yours is what — a ’24, right?

**Steve Rhode:** ’24 and ’26.

**Damon Day:** Oh, you have a ’26 too? I forgot you got that Juniper. So I got to test drive that sucker when I get there.

**Steve Rhode:** Oh, you’ll love it.

**Damon Day:** So here’s the thing. My 2020, it’s got older hardware, and it’s got Full Self-Driving — it’s fine. Right, it’s just — it’s fine. It kind of works. But I wouldn’t stick my daughter in that car and be like, “Hey, Tesla, take her over here.” It’s still kind of clunky. It kind of swerves. It’s just not great. It’s okay, right? It’s like maybe taking a ride with a taxi in Bangladesh or something like that. I mean, it’s a little bit chaotic, right?

Now, last year when I was at Steve’s house — and this wasn’t even his ’26, this was, I think, your ’24 — but the ’24 has newer hardware, so it’s got better software, better self-driving that my car can’t have. The hardware’s too old. And I got into that car — same Model Y, just a few years newer — and it was like butter. I mean, I was sitting there going, this is the most amazing experience in this car because I was comparing it to mine, right?

Mine is not quite ready for prime time. It’s adequate. It’s good. But Steve’s is better than a human. Right? So that’s what AI does. It just gets better and better and better, and eventually it gets to the point where a human is way worse at this than the AI is.

**Steve Rhode:** Yeah, well, here — this is something you cannot say is incorrect. When you’re driving, you’re looking out — hopefully you’re looking out the windshield and you’re controlling the steering wheel and you’re controlling the speed. The Tesla is looking every angle around the car. It knows stuff that’s coming that’s going to influence you that you would never see. I can’t get blindsided.

**Damon Day:** Yeah.

**Steve Rhode:** Yeah. But the point is, guys, it’s coming and you need to prepare. Regardless — as I said, whether you potentially can lose your job or you don’t think you can. But that ties into — again, if you’ve got kids getting ready to go to school, make sure they know what they want to do and make sure it makes sense for the future economy. Don’t go to school for today’s economy if you’re going to go to school. Make sure you’re learning for the future economy. Don’t get into debt that’s going to end up with a worthless degree 10 years from now.

**Damon Day:** Yeah, and you know, get up to speed instead of just listening to what everybody else says. I have a friend of mine, Wayne, and we go to breakfast every Sunday. And last Sunday, I was telling him about the things I had read last week about new AI advancements, and he’d never heard of any of those things. And I said — I sent him some links and he goes, “Damn.”

**Steve Rhode:** Yeah, it’s common. So if you want to know more, there’s a podcast I really like. It’s on YouTube and it’s called Moonshots. And those guys are at the forefront of this stuff, and they’re worth listening to. Moonshots.

Here’s something, Damon. I want to hear your take on it. Historically, we have heard people resistant to dealing with their debt because they say, “I took out the debt. I have a moral obligation to repay it.” So, Damon — how do you deal with that when AI is taking your job? Where is your moral obligation then?

**Damon Day:** Well, you know, every situation is different, but I always kind of boil it down to: you always want to try to do the right thing, of course. But you didn’t take the debt with the intention of just bailing on it or filing bankruptcy or settling the debt or whatever. But when you’re put in a situation where you’re essentially forced to choose between your quote-unquote moral obligation to Chase Bank or your moral obligation to keeping a roof over your family’s head or keeping food on the table — which one are you going to choose?

Yeah, I mean, I know which one I’m choosing. Sorry. You know, that’s why they’re charging me 28% interest on the credit — because they know not everybody’s going to be able to pay it back. And sometimes you’re in a situation where it’s like, do I choose the ability to survive and retirement, or do I just keep paying payments to Chase Bank until I actually retire and then I definitely don’t have any money to keep making the payments and then I default anyway?

Like, sometimes — Spirit — go ahead.

**Steve Rhode:** Spirit Airlines just went belly up, right?

**Damon Day:** Yeah. And they abandoned all of their pilots, all their employees, all of their passengers. Because fuel prices have gone up by 50%, they could no longer operate.

**Steve Rhode:** Where is their moral obligation? Yeah, I mean, they had people at the airport waiting to get on a plane. Sorry, no more planes.

**Damon Day:** Yeah, you know, that says, “Hey, it’s a business decision, right?” It’s a business decision for them. Right?

So — and again, every situation is different. So I’m not saying just stop paying all your debt. But no matter what you do — Steve made a comment a little bit earlier about, you know, “You can’t tell me I’m wrong” — or I don’t know how you phrased it, but like, you know, this is the statement you made and you’re like, “You can’t argue against it.”

Okay, well, you can’t argue against this: there’s no benefit to carrying consumer debt. Stop carrying consumer debt. I don’t care how you have to get out of it. You need to get out of it. That should be your number one priority right now, especially going into this faster economy. You need to get out of this debt — whether we’re filing bankruptcy, whether we’re settling the debt, whether you want to Dave Ramsey your freaking way out of it — I don’t care how you’re gonna do it now. I might have some issues with your strategy and I’ll voice my opinion, but doesn’t mean you have to listen to my opinion.

But you have to get out of debt. Just because you can afford to make the monthly payment doesn’t mean you should, because tomorrow you might not be able to. Right? So don’t wait until you’re out of money and out of resources before you decide to do something.

**Steve Rhode:** I got another post coming out tomorrow. Commercial bankruptcy has jumped 42% in April. And that’s important because when businesses file Chapter 11 bankruptcy, then about 60 to 90 days later, the layoffs start to happen.

So you might not know if your company — your big company that you work for — has filed bankruptcy or not. You could google your employer’s name and “bankruptcy” or “layoffs” or something like that. You could look and keep an eye on what your industry that you work in is doing. Like, the banking industry is ripe for automation. And I think a lot of people are gonna get laid off there. Well, I mean, look at Oracle. Those are all skilled professionals. Skilled computing professionals.

So, listen to what Damon’s saying. Just — the biggest focus right now has to be reducing your debt. And I’m not talking about a plan that’ll reduce it in five years. I’m talking about — the sky is on fire.

We are not fibbing or lying or pulling your leg. I don’t know how many more warnings you need to have. If you’re not focused on what AI is able to do and what it is doing, you need to start paying attention. Like, even watch that Moonshots YouTube podcast. Just start informing yourself. And once you do, you will understand that what Damon is telling you — it’s so true.

If you’re not listening, you’re gonna be crying about it later. Because this leads right into the next article that you had about Social Security.

**Damon Day:** But did you have anything more you wanted to say about — well, yeah, before we jump into Social Security. I was going to say, I was watching a clip of the Joe Rogan podcast a couple days ago. He’s interviewing Elon Musk, right? And he was asking him about AI and what are all these people gonna do when they lose their jobs.

And Elon — you know, he thinks about his responses and is very calculated — he said, “Well, you know, this has been going on since basically the beginning of human history. Technology will come out and replace jobs.” And he gave the example of computers. He said, “You know, the word ‘computer’ essentially comes from back before computers. We had people that had jobs — they were computers. They would sit at a desk all day and they would do math. Like for banks and things like that, whenever there was any kind of a transaction, you would need a computer — which was a person — that would do the math for you. And here’s the answer, right?”

You know, you add this, add this, pay your property tax, whatever it is — and you had somebody that would just sit there and do math. And then the computer came along and completely replaced that entire industry. There are no manual computers. For the most part, there’s no person sitting there doing the math. You have computers.

So he goes, “This has been going on since the beginning of time, basically, and those people will have to go do something else. That’s what they did — they just went and did something else. Their profession was gone.”

And then Joe said, “Well, what jobs should people be looking at?” And Elon didn’t have an answer for that. So then they started talking about the universal basic income idea — like, you’re gonna be out of a job. And Elon came back with, “Well, I don’t think it needs to be basic income. I think it needs to be universal high income.”

**Steve Rhode:** So yeah, who the hell knows where everything’s going. But what I can tell you — the transition will be easier if you don’t have any debt. I promise. I promise.

**Damon Day:** Yeah.

**Steve Rhode:** Well, the funny thing about that is Elon is right, because if it’s only universal basic income and everybody is just able to get by, the problem is we live in a consumer society that if people don’t consume, the economy will collapse. So it has to be universal high income so that people can buy things and keep things moving.

**Damon Day:** Why am I getting images of the Weimar Republic flashing in my head? Just keep printing that money, baby. Just keep printing that money!

**Steve Rhode:** I mean, Alan Greenspan once said, “I don’t know why we have to worry about that. We print the money.” You get a check, you get a check, you get a check.

**Damon Day:** Well, speaking of worrying about printing the money — this next article: Social Security is getting squeezed from two directions right now. And I thought it was pretty interesting because I don’t think there’s anybody alive in the United States that has any confidence in Social Security — whether it’s gonna be there, not be there, or it’s gonna be reduced.

But if you’re sitting on a ton of debt right now and you’ve got 10, 20, 25, 30 years left of working, and you’re thinking Social Security is going to be the base of my retirement — you are on very, very thin ice. I think you need to treat Social Security almost these days as — that’s a nice bonus if I get it. That should kind of be —

**Steve Rhode:** This is why — this is why on Substack I have a newsletter, Your Money Actually. And one of the posts that I wrote last week was all about why I took Social Security at 62 before it was gone. Well, kind of.

**Damon Day:** Kind of. Because, you know, it’s your money now.

**Steve Rhode:** Well, I went through the math and the math makes just total sense. I was told — you’re like, “There would be no math.”

**Damon Day:** Yeah, well, a lot of stuff you hear about “wait till 67 or 70” just doesn’t add up. That’s the Social Security actuaries going, “Hey, wait. Wait. Don’t take your money yet. We need time to fix it.”

**Steve Rhode:** The last two human computers out there. Exactly. They got an actuary in the back room going, “I don’t think this is going to work, Bob.”

In high school, they tried to teach us how to calculate using a slide rule, and I remember being in high school going, “Nope.”

**Damon Day:** Well, when I was in high school and we had to take a test without a calculator, I would always say, “But in real life, I’ll have a calculator. So why can’t I use it now? I’m not going to graduate from high school and then be like, ‘Oh, I don’t want to use a calculator because I learned how to do it without it.’”

**Steve Rhode:** Well, so this article on Social Security talks about an important thing that Congress has to do in about six years. And how much confidence do you have — on either side of the aisle — that Congress is going to get stuff done?

**Damon Day:** Oh, they never make mistakes. They get it. They solve all kinds of problems.

**Steve Rhode:** Congress has about —

**Damon Day:** Hey, I needed you to laugh, otherwise people might think I was serious.

**Steve Rhode:** Oh, no, I’m sorry. I was silently cringing.

**Damon Day:** Congress never solves anything, man. It’s like that Spaceballs scene — “You find anything yet?” “Man, we ain’t found shit!”

**Steve Rhode:** Yeah, they’re coming. Yeah, exactly. This is Congress, man — “We ain’t found shit. We ain’t solved shit.”

**Damon Day:** Yeah. And if you’re in Congress and you stand up and say, “Whoa, I got a good idea” — no. You know, that doesn’t fly in this day and age.

**Steve Rhode:** Congress has about six years to fix Social Security before — here’s the key phrase — automatic benefit cuts kick in.

**Damon Day:** Well, and keep in mind, they’re trying to solve a problem that they created in the first place. Which is pretty much all the problems Congress tries to solve are problems that they often created. So that’s the body that is going to solve the problem — the same body that created the problem in the first place.

**Steve Rhode:** Yeah. I have high confidence that’s going to happen.

**Damon Day:** Yeah. So AI’s cutting jobs and Congress is cutting Social Security. And, Damon, I am always surprised by the number of people that come to me through the website or contact you that say Social Security is their retirement plan.

You have to take matters into your own hands. Social Security is a bonus at best. Take matters into your own hands. And you know what is robbing your future — robbing your retirement — is the $1,000 a month, the $2,000 a month, the $3,000 a month that you’re sending right now to Chase and Bank of America and Discover and Amex.

That is your retirement. Depending on how old you are, that could be a couple of million dollars when you retire that you’re giving away now — because you’re scared, you don’t know what to do, and you technically have the cash flow to make the payment. Or you barely have the ability to make the payment.

You need to get a plan and you need to get off that damn treadmill. And you need to start sending that money to your future self as soon as possible. Screw Amex.

**Steve Rhode:** Yeah, I want you to pull over if you’re driving, and I want you to think about this question seriously: do you have more of a moral responsibility to repay your past self’s debts, or to your future self’s living?

**Damon Day:** Unless you want to be a burden to your kids, right? I mean, if you’re a parent — you want to be a burden to your kids? And now they’re already going to be — well, they’re already living at your house anyway.

**Steve Rhode:** Well, hey — parents can’t be dependent on the kids if the kids are also dependent on the parents.

**Damon Day:** Right? If you guys are dependent on each other, there’s gonna be no house.

**Steve Rhode:** Right. So you got to protect what’s important, and that starts when — making those decisions when you technically don’t feel like you have to make those decisions. Things are still going okay. The sooner you can decide to do better moving forward, the better off you’ll be. I can promise you that.

**Damon Day:** Well, if you’re 10 years from retirement, you have time to adjust savings. I don’t think there’s any other clear answer other than you need to eliminate your consumer debt now and start putting that money in your future self’s retirement account while you still can. Pay off the debt, get rid of the debt.

Now, you might want to think about delaying Social Security to 70 to get a higher benefit. But as I said, Your Money Actually — my newsletter over there — lays out the math.

**Steve Rhode:** I don’t think it makes any sense. I have clients right now that are already past the traditional retirement age. They’re still working. They have zero retirement and they have a ton of debt.

**Damon Day:** Yeah. So if you want to be in that position, keep doing what you’re doing. If you want to change that situation so when you get past retirement age — if you are still working, that money is at least going towards your future.

Imagine being past retirement age right now — cannot retire — and have no retirement and still have debt. Because you delayed the decision to do the right thing and make the hard choices — or what seems to you like the hard choices. And I promise you, they’re not. Because they’re easier choices than what Steve’s fond of saying — “What kind of cat food do you want to eat when you retire?” That’s a hard choice. That’s a tough choice, right?

You need to realize that hyperbolic discounting — as we’re fond of saying here — is real. And I know it seems like it’s easier not to rock the boat right now and push the decision off — “I’ll make more money later and I’ll get this paid off later.” All that’s doing is allowing you to make what seems to be the easy decision, not the hard, stressful decision.

But if you make those hard decisions now, I promise you, when you’re 70 years old, you will think back and you will thank your 50-year-old self for making those hard choices. So you’re not 70, eating cat food. And that happens.

**Steve Rhode:** All the people who say Social Security is my only retirement plan — how does it feel when everything only goes up? Food, the cost of everything.

**Damon Day:** But you know what? It isn’t the gourmet cat food, though. Because that might not be — yeah.

**Steve Rhode:** Little Caesars, right? I mean, you know what — yeah, it’s that gourmet.

**Damon Day:** Yeah, gourmet. I like that. Gourmet. The dollar store has great gourmet cat food. Yeah, and it’s just right there on the shelf. You just pick it up.

**Steve Rhode:** So — segue. I know we’re running out of time here. Another article: gas prices just hit $4.39. As if we’re not throwing enough crap at you for reasons to get the hell out of debt. How are you doing with those gas prices? Guess what? They’re probably going on your credit card.

**Damon Day:** Right. Yeah, because they’re just — it’s not in the budget. Okay, again, like Steve said, prices are not going down across the board. So if you’re already at a point where you’re putting gas on credit cards, we know we have a problem.

And now, sometimes timing plays a big role. Doesn’t always make sense to get rid of your credit cards. Oftentimes, if you still have available credit and prices are so high that you can’t get by month to month if you didn’t have access to credit — again, that’s why you’re going to need a plan. The plan doesn’t always mean “stop paying all your credit cards.” The plan means get a plan for your overall life. And at some point, we gotta focus on getting rid of this debt. But in the short term, we might need to utilize some of that credit just so you can survive and have some time to get things situated.

Right — again, give me a call. Oh, I don’t think we ever mentioned my website yet. So for those three people that are still on the line — DamonDay.com. You can reach me, do a free call. We’ll go over your situation and I’ll probably tell you some things that you already know but just needed permission to be able to execute on.

**Steve Rhode:** So this falls right into what you just said. Last 30 seconds — foreclosures just hit a six-year high. And it’s not because of the mortgage that people are losing their homes. It’s because the cost of everything else — including gas, including insurance, including taxes. Everything is going up, which makes the mortgage that you thought you could afford 10 years ago now suddenly unaffordable.

**Damon Day:** Yeah. And on that note —

**Steve Rhode:** All right, Damon. I’ve got a consult right now.

**Damon Day:** Okay. Until next time. I will see you. Peace.