France Rebels: Millions Stop Macron’s Pension Plan Cold

To start, France freezes its pension reform after mass protest, a political retreat that could haunt Emmanuel Macron for years. Millions march in no Kings rallies across America yesterday demanding limits on Trump's expanding power. Inside the split screen economy, the rich are still spending while while working families sink deeper into debt. Dave Ramsey, the financial guru, says the difference between rich and poor comes down to two simple questions, and most of us are asking the wrong one. And at 99 years old, sir David Attenborough breaks another record, becoming the oldest Emmy winner in history. All that and more today on Filtered. Welcome to Filtered with TJ Walker Foreign we have lots to come today. Thanks so much for joining me. It's a fun show. It's Sunday. Eddie is October 19, 2025. I'll be not only giving you analysis of the news, but reporting live and showing you where I was at the, at the no Kings Day yesterday. No Kings protest yesterday. I was there and participating and I'll share with you that as well. But first, let's go to the other side of the pond and check in on what's going on in France. By the way, no market update today. Markets closed yesterday in the United States because of the Saturday break. Let's dive right in France. Pension protest In France, retirement isn't just a benefit, it's a birthright. According to the Times, President Emmanuel Macron has now agreed to pause his plan to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64. Now, if you're an American, you may be thinking, did I hear that right? Did TJ Make a mistake? That's right. They're raising the retirement age from 62 to 64. Or at least they were trying to. But now, bowing to massive public pressure and months of protest, it's going to go back to 62. Macron argued that without change, France's pay as you go pension system would collapse. In that system, current workers fund current retirees, and there are fewer workers every year. With people living longer and birth rates falling, the math is bleak. France pension fund is expected to run a 13 billion euro annual deficit by 2030, rising to about 30 billion by 2045. But Macron's real problem isn't just demographics. It's the euro. Unlike the United States, which issues its own currency and can finance large deficits through the Federal Reserve, France shares its currency with 19 other eurozone nations. It can't print euros or borrow freely without Brussels approval. If France overspends, it risks violating EU debt limits and triggering market backlash. So while Americans can retire later by choice, the French may have to retire later by necessity because they can't spend their way out of the problem. Okay, what's the real message here? France and a lot of other democracies are going to have to come to grips with political battles that are about old people asking for more and more subsidies from younger people. Politicians listen to old voters because they vote, but sooner or later, it's a house of cards and things will fall. Okay, let's dig a little deeper here. I don't want to make it sound like I'm always in favor of cutting government spending. That's not my position at all. But when it comes to government pensions and Social Security programs, things like that, something does have to give. Now, it doesn't necessarily have to be raising the age limit. It could be higher taxes. I'm agnostic on that. But France is in a position that's a little bit different from the United States because they are a part of the euro. They can't just deflate their currency. They don't really have their own currency. They're a part of the euro. Let's look at a few more facts here. So I mentioned to you It's a 13 billion euro shortfall by 2030, expected to go up to 30 billion. France's overall deficit is about 5.8% of its gross domestic product, nearly double the EU limit when it comes to what they're supposed to spend on retirement. The European Central bank controls monetary policy, so it's not as simple as a French politician saying, hey, let's go print money. It doesn't work that way. Now, here in the United States, there's a lot of misconceptions about France. There's this sense that it's a socialistic country and nobody works. And everybody sits around eating cheese and frog legs and drinking wine all day long and complaining about socialistic principles. That's not what France is like. Having spent some time there and had the good fortune to live there for a month a few summers ago, what's fascinating to me is there is a higher proportion of people in the 22 to 55 year old, 55 years of age bracket working in France in the workforce than there is in the United States. So this idea that nobody works in France is complete myth. Now, they do take their retirement very seriously. And for those of us in the United States, hearing that you can get full pension, full Social Security at age 62 sounds like a fantasy. Raising it to 64 still sounds like a fantasy, because here in the United States, it's now gone up to 67 if you want full retirement benefits and maybe going up more. So a lot of people in the United States hear this. Think what are they complaining about in France? France, well, it is a part of their culture and another part of their culture is taking to the streets to protest because what they have found is politicians will listen if they see angry mobs out there. And that is exactly what happened in this case. You had the president of France essentially saying, I can't deal with this politically any longer. I can't keep together a ruling coalition. So many voters are outraged. So many people are refusing to simply carry on. It's not tenable. So what they did is they kicked the can down the road. They said, okay, we're going to go back to where we were and then we'll deal with this issue after the next election. Okay? Now, I'm not an expert on France. Those of you watching today, whether you're on TikTok or Instagram or Facebook or X or YouTube or any other platforms we're simulcasting on, if you know more, post your comments right now. What I can tell you, in democracies around the world, there is a distribution problem. And it's not just the rich getting more and the poor getting less. It's not just rising inequality. It's not just racism. Quite often it is old versus young. Older people have more resources, more time to mobilize, to make demands among politicians, to form lobby groups. Here in the United States, it's the aarp, the association for the Advancement of Retirement people. They have a lot of clout. They're very good at saying, we get increases every year no matter what. And you can cut anything else in government, but you can't cut us. And in any individual year or case that makes sense. And you go back in The United States 67 years ago, it was a tragedy what happened to older people. They were the poorest demographic. Quite often to be poor in America and a lot of countries was just to be poor, to be beggars. Thankfully, we don't have that anymore. But there is increasingly extreme generational inequality in the United States and in other countries. Now. France has a much stronger social safety net. So the comparisons are not entirely apt. But at some point this could implode. In France, they don't have the ability to print money. They don't have the ability to, to have unlimited deficits if they want to stay a part of the euro. And leaving is extremely painful and dangerous to an economy. There are no easy solutions. One thing that is going to have to happen in France and the United States and democracies around the world is young people are going to have to start voting their interests because senior citizens are very good at saying, I will destroy you politically if you cut back on my medical, health care, my pensions. Yet younger people typically don't punish politicians for not making health care affordable to them. It's going to have to change, otherwise we are going to see increasingly a higher and higher percentage of every democracy's social safety net going to people in their last 10, 15, 20 years of life. And young people, children get the short end of the stick because last time I checked, whether it's France, whether it's Scandinavia or the United States, kids don't get to vote, therefore they don't have clout. Therefore, if it's a choice between letting someone get a full pension when they're maybe 35 years of productive life left versus funding a kid's school, the school can just shut down. Now, again, in fairness to people in France and Europe and most Western nations, they're not shutting down schools. But it does make me wonder in the United States as our battles over things like Social Security and who's going to pay for it if we don't actually shut down schools before we shut down benefits. And I say that not as someone who wants to in a knee jerk way, cut back on Social Security, but I do think we have to come up with funding mechanisms. To me, the most logical one is having a flat rate for everyone rather than a flat rate up to just $170,000 a year. Dina Johnson writes, and globally, in many communities, generational living used to be common practice and expectations. Yeah, that is the case. And even in France today, you often see multi generations living together in apartments. And there's not this emphasis of, oh, everyone has to go live in the suburb, have a giant house and have an acre of land and live two hours away from every other family member. That's not the culture there. And you know what the result is? They tend to be happier people and live a lot longer. People in France live about seven years longer on average than people in America. So who am I to be telling the French what they've got to do? I'm not telling you what your retirement age should be, but at some point you are going to have to fund it. That I think we can agree on. There's lots more to come today and I'll be giving my special eyewitness report on what happened here in the United States on the no Kings Day protest from yesterday. More in a moment. Filtered is brought to you by the following Want to advertise here? You better be legit. No crypto, no junk food, no supplements. Go to tjwalker.com advertise want to become a better speaker, leader or communicator? Start with the TJ Walker Success Library. It's five of my most practical books, covering everything from public speaking to media interviews and persuasive messaging, all for only $9.95. I've trained presidents and Fortune 500 CEOs, and now you can get the same wisdom in a fast, affordable format. Go to tjwalker.com books and download your copies. Instant welcome back to Filtered. This is the show where we look at the top stories of the day, top business news, technology news, culture news from around the world, and then filter it through the lens of communication skills and personal development skills. Here's my promise to you. Spend a little time with me each day and you'll learn more about the most important stories going on, and you'll learn more about yourself, how you can improve your own communication and personal development skills to be more successful in your professional life as well as your personal life. Issue 2 the no Kings Protest across the United States this weekend, hundreds of thousands of people no, make that millions of people marched under a simple slogan, no Kings. From Times Square to Portland, from Atlanta to Boise, demonstrators filled city streets to denounce what they see as President Trump's slide toward authoritarianism, according to the Associated Press. Rallies were held in more than 2,600 locations nationwide and even outside the United States and embassies abroad. The protests were loud but peaceful, more street festival than riot, with marching bands, inflatable costumes and families signing a giant replica of the Constitution, one protester told the Times. We're not just angry, we're defending democracy. Republican leaders dismissed the events as hate America rallies, the White House response a terse who cares? And when asked about the king label, Trump told Fox News, I'm not a king. But history shows that tyrants rarely fall because they're unpopular only when citizens organize, persist and make a country ungovernable. And while mass resistance is rising, Trump's approval remains between 40 and 43%, a stubborn base strong enough with gerrymandered districts, the Senate imbalance and the Electoral College to keep him and his party in power for years to come. If an estimated 5 million people march, and it's hard to get the exact numbers for these protests, but let's assume 5 million people march, that's roughly 2% of eligible U.S. voters, still short of the 3.5% threshold that history shows is needed for non violent movements to prevail. More on that in a moment. Okay, so what's the real message from. There's no kings today. There are millions and millions of Americans who, who are fed up with Donald Trump. Not anyone policy, but the idea that he wants to act like a king, a dictator. And they're saying, we have had enough and we're going to speak out loudly. Let's dig a little bit deeper here. Now, I was fortunate enough to attend one of these rallies and I was not there as a journalist. I'm an, I'm a communications and personal development expert. I don't, I don't hold myself out as a journalist here. I was there simply as an American. Now, those of you who've seen this show before know anything about me? I consider myself a sane, sensible centrist. I'm not somebody, I don't know if I've ever even been to a political protest in my life. I'm, I'm not a young man, but I'm too young for the Vietnam War protest. So that's just not my shtick. But I just felt that I really couldn't sit back as I see our country destroyed by this wannabe dictator, the great orange one. When we see the US Military attacking our own citizens on US soil, when we see various courts ignored by a dictator who says legal rulings don't apply to me, when we see the separation of powers disregarded on a daily basis, when we see the Department of Justice turned into a mobster's enforcement racket, it's just too much. I want to share with you a few scenes from yesterday. This was, this was one of the things I saw. Let me see if I can make that full screen here for you, okay? I was struck by how funny so many of the signs were. Could someone explain which crimes get you deported and which ones get you elected president? It's so confusing. That was a good one. Trump is the worst president since Trump. That was funny. And here I am at the rally, a little more casually dressed than you normally see me, and I was struck by just how many. I was about a dozen miles away from Mar a Lago, which is ground zero for MAGA world here in South Florida. So here I am. I'll just go give you some crowd shots, some flavor here. I'm just walking down the sidewalk. Everyone mild mannered, quite pleasant, jovial. There were people of every, every race, every ethnicity. Now here's some it's going to sound odd for me to say this for a moment, but bear with me and I'll tell you why. I was frankly struck by how many affluent looking, wealthy looking, older white people were there. Now, if you listen to the White House and the Trump administration, they will essentially tell you the only people against them are dark skinned criminals from third world countries. That's essentially the message of the White House. And no, here I am in one of the most affluent counties in the country, one of the most affluent places in the world, where I happen to be in Palm Beach County, Florida, and there were dozens of rallies like these in the county. So for those of you not familiar with South Florida, it's a little bit different. You think of Miami and maybe Palm Beach. Well, there are 150 little towns in all of South Florida. None of them are really that big. None of them have more than a few hundred thousand. So you've got all these towns. Each county of the three counties has about 50, 50 towns. A huge percentage of them had rallies. I'm in one of these smaller towns right next to Palm Beach Island. And still, I have to GUESS There were 10,000 people on the streets just in my little community here in South Florida. And this is a wealthy community. These were not communists. These were people who are the big winners in our modern economy. So they're not complaining against capitalism. They're not saying, we want to be like Venezuela. No, these are people who are successful capitalists, people who are winners in our system. And that's what I found gratifying, frankly. Let's put this in some historical perspective. There have been a lot of studies by academics who have shown that what you really need to topple a tyrannical government is 3.5% of the voting population to really be out protesting in the streets. I think even the most ambitious, positive no Kings advocates are not contending that many people were out there. It was perhaps 2%, but it was much bigger than the no Kings Day in June. I think a lot of individuals believe that they simply have no choice. I'll be honest with you. I thought about going to the one last June and it was right down the street of where I was living at the time in Delray Beach, Florida. And I didn't go in part because the day before the governor of Florida basically said, if you run over a protester, we're not going to find you guilty of any crime. I'm paraphrasing, but that is essentially the message. The governor of Florida, who is trying to be Sort of a mini Trump and out demagogue. Other Republicans hoping for that day when there is no Trump and he can take over, thought he'd be a really tough guy and basically gave a green light and saying, if you want to run over a protester, we're not going to come after you. So for that very reason, I said to myself, you know, look, I've got a young child, a family. I'm not going to risk it because there are a lot of deranged Trump supporters everywhere, but certainly in the state I live in. But this past weekend, I thought, you know what, I just can't stay quiet any longer. And I think a lot of people felt like that. That's why you saw the crowds surging. Dinah writes that in Idaho, of all places, they had a rally. You think of Idaho as a very Republican district, but a lot of, a lot of Republicans are saying, look, I might like some tax cuts, but I'm not really in favor of completely eviscerating the Constitution the way this guy's doing it on a daily basis. Dinah also writes in with some other comments. Let me share those. Majority was the lower class in the area. Okay, so you had some, some poor people there. There is a real mix. There's no doubt about it. And that is what it's going to take. Here's where these protests are going to be incredibly useful, is if the elections are stolen next year. If we have 2020 congressional elections and the Trump administration decides to send ICE or the National Guard or the Navy to certain key swing states in just enough precincts, and they're all of a sudden scaring people and throwing people to the ground, saying, hey, you look like an immigrant. Let me throw you to the ground. Voters are going to go home. They're going to say, look, I care about our country, but I don't want to get my skull cracked. So they're going to stay at home. So it's going to be relatively easy just with what Trump is doing already, using military, using ice, using National Guard to intimidate people in key districts, swing districts to sway the 2026 election. And if he does, in fact keep the House and the Senate, and he should keep the Senate regardless, that means he can further consolidate his power. So then there's going to be a real decision to be made by the Democratic Party, by centrists everywhere, by never Trump Republicans, if they genuinely believe that the election was unfairly held and that a strong majority of voters who cast their vote for congressional races in 2026, that their votes did not count that in a fair election, the Democrats would have taken back in the House, but it was denied. At that point, you're going to really need to see the protest surge. They're going to need to be roughly twice as big as they were yesterday. But that's not that big of a jump. So we'll see. To those of you new to this show, this is not a political commentary show. I'm here as a business person. I've been helping business people my entire career. Business billionaire fund managers, CEOs of publicly traded companies, startup founders on how to communicate more effectively in the private sector, Publicly traded companies, government officials, owners of professional baseball teams, beauty pageants. That's my experience. Plus prime ministers and Nobel Peace Prize winners. But these days you can't really talk about business news and economic news and technology news and culture news without talking about what's happening in D.C. because that's the downside. That's why democracies don't really like authoritarian governments. The authoritarian government tries to control every aspect of business and technology and culture. So my hand is kind of forced. I hope I can get back to the day where I can do an entire show about top business stories and never even have to mention the great orange one. More in just a moment. Back after these words Filtered is brought to you by the following get the deeper takes. I don't post anywhere else. Subscribe now@substack.com jwalkersuccess and stay in the loop. For years people have asked how they could get one on one coaching from me inexpensively. Well, now you can. Anytime, anywhere with the TJ Walker AI clone. It's like having me in your pocket ready to help you prep for a speech, polish a pitch, or calm your nerves before a big meeting. You talk to it. It responds like I would based on my real world coaching of thousands of leaders and communicators. Check it out at tjwalker AI it's not just smart, it's personal. Want to support the show? Skip the ads and buy me a coffee. That's buymeacoffee.com tjwalker. We are back. Thanks so much for joining me today. And we're going to dive right in to issue three today. This is involving our economy. Let me just get my screen right here. We're having one minor technical difficulty. Those of you listening on the audio podcast, thank you so much for doing so. You don't have to see that. There we go. The split screen economy in Chicago. The line outside the Pilsen food Pantry wraps around the block. A few miles away, the city's luxury boutiques and cocktail bars are packed. According to the Times, that contrast captures today's US Economy, one that looks strong on paper, but feels fragile. For millions, the top 10% of Americans now account for nearly half of all consumer spending, the highest share in decades. Their wealth, boosted by record stock market, keeps the economy humming. But for lower and middle income families, inflation, layoffs and slower wage growth are eroding security. Wages for the lowest paid workers are now rising the slowest, reversing pandemic era gains. Families are relying more on credit cards just to stay afloat. And late payments on car loans are climbing. Even McDonald's CEO warns that visits by low income customers are down sharply. Trump era policies, from deep workforce cuts to new tariffs and immigration crackdowns, are amplifying the dividend. The data show a resilient economy. But as one Chicago physician told the Times, how's the economy? Depends on who you're looking at. Okay, so what's the real message here? We have a very split economy. It's basically the really wealthy who are doing well and spending lots and lots of money, propping up the overall economy. But the bottom 90% are not doing very well, and it only looks worse for them in the near future. Let's dig a little bit deeper here. I mentioned the top 10%, but so much of our economy really propped up by the top 1% because they're doing very well. Extremely, extremely well. And the other part that's propping up this economy is all the spending on artificial intelligence. If you look at the massive, massive amounts of capital being expended on artificial intelligence and took that away from our economy, we'd be in a recession right now. Trump would not be able to get away with the things he's doing because people would be screaming bloody murder that he had destroyed the economy. And in fairness, right now the economy is not destroyed if you look at things overall. So I'm not saying he did, but most economists agree. Without this massive expenditure of dollars, capex spending on artificial intelligence poured into publicly traded companies and private companies like ChatGPT, our economy would have no growth whatsoever. We really would be profoundly stagnant. Unemployment would be much higher. And the top 10%, the top 1% would be surly and unhappy because they would not see the gains they've seen in the market. And I can tell you, you know, my own stock portfolio has done extremely well. And it's not because I'm a genius. I invest in index funds and if you invest in any index funds that's broadly market based, you've made a fortune this year. You have. The problem is some 60% of Americans don't own any stock. So they don't benefit from that at all. It's increasingly a two tiered economy. It's not an economy that's being driven by a middle class. You really have that top sliver and everyone else, and everyone else is just hanging by. Here's the real problem. It's an increasingly fragile economy. It can't take a punch to anyone's sector because so much is riding on really just 10 companies. There are 10 big tech companies that are responsible for something like 40% of our entire stock market and certainly the growth of our stock market. If there is any kind of a shakedown with AI, if things sort of just pause for a minute, you could see this massive deflation of a bubble. If all of a sudden rich people say, oh, I didn't see my net worth go up 10% last month. Let me tighten my belt, that is going to filter its way all the way through the economy because the people in the top 10%, certainly the top 1%, they're going to be fine. Believe me, we're going to be fine. They can tighten their belt and life is still going to be great. But that belt tightening is really going to have profound implications for the bottom 90% because there's no cushion there, there's no margin. We're seeing millions of Americans who can't even pay their automobile loans. And if all of a sudden they get one fewer shift at any store, any business they're in, that could make the difference of them becoming homeless or not. Let's look at some more facts here. Top 10% of US households now drive 50% of consumer spending. The inflation and slower wage growth squeezing low and middle income families. Credit card and auto. I mentioned the auto loans. Credit card delinquencies are rising. And increasingly economists are warning that the US economy is stable, seemingly on the surface, but very brittle. I think that's the key word. It's brittle. What we haven't seen, and many economists predicted this, that we would go right into a recession with Trump's big tariffs. They haven't done that yet. The question is, is it because all those economists were wrong or is it because of the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars being invested in artificial intelligence infrastructure? Did that sort of paper over all the other problems the tariffs have created? I'm not going to tell you I have all the answers for that, I can tell you that we may know sooner rather than later because if there is a dip in AI spending and then we do go into a massive recession, then I think a lot more people are going to buy into the idea that these tariffs were really nothing more but a tax on Americans, a tax on especially working Americans who by and large have to spend every penny they have every month just to keep a roof over their head. That could start to change the political equation we talked about in the previous segment. Right now, the people who liked Trump's economic policies and voted for him for that reason in the election last year, they're still with him. Very few of them are convinced. Even the soybean farmers who've lost their farms are about to because tariffs and ended all of their markets in China. I haven't even seen signs of them deciding to change their vote, their political support. But this could change and change quickly if a couple of pieces of our economic puzzle change. I'll be watching closely. Quick note, this show filtered with TJ Walker is not giving you financial advice. So don't go out and sell your entire portfolio. Well, TJ said we're headed to a major recession. I'm not making any predictions. When most experts who predict recessions are wrong most of the time. Those who get it right one time often are wrong the next 19 times because they got so much affirmation and attention for guessing one right, they're wrong the rest of their career. If you doubt me, look at someone like Robert Kiyosaki and Professor Nouriel Roubini of nyu. The two of them have been incessantly wrong for about the last 18 years predicting recessions that didn't come. We're going to be monitoring the economy very closely here in this program. It does lead us to our next topic which is also economically related personal economic stories story as well. And Johnson writes in have a great rest of your day. Thank you so much for stopping by. I do appreciate it. If you are watching us live. Thank you. Let us know where you're from. We have people watching today and saying hello on Facebook, on YouTube, other platforms. We had so many of you joining us from the X platform live yesterday and today. So thank you for joining us our friends on TikTok with a separate feed. But we do appreciate you and thank you for sending those those hearts as you're doing right now. Thank you for doing that. If you are listening to this on any podcasting platform, thank you. Our own research shows that majority of you listening on podcast platforms have not actually subscribed to the show. It costs nothing. But please follow the show or subscribe to it whether you're listening to it on itunes, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Spotify, iHeartRadio. Follow us and subscribe to it and leave a review. It really does help. More in a moment as we go into more personal economics in issue for today. We'll be right back after this break. Want to advertise here? You better be legit. No crypto, no junk food, no supplements. Go to tjwalker.com advertise Most people can't afford a full time coach. And even if you could, good luck finding one who's available when you need them. That's why I created the TJ Walker AI clone. It's built on my 40 plus years of real world coaching and training. You get my exact advice, style and frameworks instantly. Ask it how to handle a tough question. Get feedback on your elevator pitch. Rehearse your next big talk. This is the next generation of communication coaching. It's smarter than an app, more personal than a course, and always ready. Start using it today at tjwalker AI. You'll wonder how you ever did without it. Welcome back to filtered. I'm TJ Walker. Issue 4 Dave Ramsey's two questions now in the previous story, we saw how America's economy has split in two. The wealthy keep spending while millions struggle just to stay afloat. Financial advisor Dave Ramsey says that divide doesn't start with income. It starts with mindset. According to Ramsey Solutions, wealthy people ask one question before a purchase. How much does it cost those living paycheck to paycheck tend to ask a different question. That question is how much is the down payment? That single difference, Ramsey argues, shapes entire financial destinies. The first group thinks in terms of ownership and long term value. The second group thinks in monthly payments and short term relief, a trap that keeps debt alive. And that debt trap is now a national crisis. The Federal Reserve bank of New York says the average American carries get this $104,000 in total debt. Now. That's including mortgages, student loans and credit cards. Credit card balances alone have topped $1 trillion, with one in three Americans maxed out. That seems bizarre to me. That's amazingly high. One in three Americans maxed out a credit card debt. Ramsey's warning is clear. If your financial plan starts with can I afford the payment? Instead of Can I afford the purchase? The system already owns you. Okay, what's the real message here? Dave Ramsey gives a lot of mixed advice from time to time. But he is absolutely on target when he says you should ask yourself not what's the down payment for this thing I want to buy, but what's the total cost if you can't pay for the whole thing other than a college education in a house, don't pay, buy it. Let's dig a little deeper here. Now I mentioned that Dave Ramsey is a well known financial guru. He is extraordinarily successful and is worth tens and tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars, has a huge media empire doling out advice and I think most of his advice is pretty good. He tends to go so far in the extreme, saying cut up all your credit cards, don't even take a mortgage on a house is quite often his advice. I think that's going too far. But he is, he's. His focus is on, I believe, low income people, low to moderate and middle income people, and certainly people with middle income assets. And he sees time and time again that debt is what keeps people trapped. And if anything, he's perhaps in an overreaction where he's really stressing to people, do anything you can to stay out of debt. There's some truth to that debt. I mean, I've had problems with debt early in my career and even as a not so young man, my own problem was constantly taking gambles on my own career, starting TV shows and websites and shutting off my income rather than buying fancy cars. But I know what it's like not to be able to pay a credit card and what it's like to just pay a bare minimum. I've been there. It's depressing. I know what it's like to have irs yet fortunately, it's been a quarter of a century for me for things like that. But it's never too soon to start new practices. I cannot promise you how to get rich quick, just can't. Anyone who tells you they can hide your wallet, they're trying to sell you something for $2,500 that's not going to make you richer. But I can tell you Dave Ramsey is onto something again. I don't agree with him on everything but this idea that just because you can pay the down payment on a new car, you deserve that new car is idiocy. I had a colleague of mine, started off as an intern, was a refugee, someone I'd been mentoring and had just gotten a job in a new country starting his life over and went out and bought a new car. And I said to him, let's call him Sanjay that's not his name. I said, Sanjay, what are you doing? Why are you buying a new car and getting car payments? Go find a car that's really reliable, has low mileage, is maybe five years old, and where you don't have to pay a single penny of interest rates to anyone because you can pay for it with cash. And fortunately, he was able to turn back his new car in, not lose any money. He'd signed for his new car, he hadn't taken possession, and he went and bought a used car. And now all the money that he would be spending on car payments, he can actually save it, invest it, get a return on his investment. So I do think that really looking at things from this perspective of the right question, you don't have to be rich to ask a right question. You simply have to frame questions differently. Now, in defense of people who do buy things on credit, and I've been there and are asking how much the down payment is. Sometimes if you absolutely have to have something, that's the only way to get it. It's fine to say, well, easy for you, Dave. You're a multimillionaire. You're worth $50 million. You can obviously just pay anything you want. It's not fair to hold me to that same standard. True, but. And here's the but. If you are buying something that is a luxury, a vacation, clothes, cars, these are things you just don't have to have. Now, I happen to go on a lot of nice vacations with my family now, but there were decades when I didn't go on any vacation other than, you know, driving somewhere an hour and a half away or a cheap plane ride home to stay with family and friends. So this idea that everything should be on credit, and there's all these new credit services now that let you buy anything with no money down if you can just make some minimal payment, it is a trap. Anytime someone says, oh, you can afford that, what they really mean is they can make money off of you. And if you live in massive, massive debt, the rest of your life, never amass any net worth, never amass financial security. They don't care. And this is everyone who's selling you something if they're telling you to use credit. And perhaps the worst of all is the home industry, the home building industry. Hey, guess what? You qualify for this $2 million house. Yeah. If you take every single penny you have and you get family and friends and others to give you loan you money, you can scrape just enough money for that down payment. And now you have massive debt, your house constrained, and you can never save any other money. Am I telling you, never buy a house? No. For some people, the forced savings makes sense, but it does not make sense to buy the biggest, most expensive house that you can get credit for. That does not make sense at all. But for luxury items, clothes, cars, bobbles, there's no return on investment in those things. There just isn't. You can say, well, if I'm dressed really nicely, I'll get a promotion. Okay, have one good suit. But don't waste your money on clothes, entertainment, drinks, bottle service. I gotta tell you, if I were a billionaire, and I'm not a billionaire, I still don't think I would want to go to a nightclub and spend $2,000 on bottle service. And yet many young people who have no savings do that. Oh, I can put it on my credit card. Absolutely crazy nonsense. Let's look at some more facts here on this issue. National debt is raising by $1 trillion every quarter. And these services, these debt services, I think Killearn is one of them. There's another one popping up every day to make it easier and easier to give you credit. And these days you can be, you could be in college and be inundated with credit cards being mailed to you every day. And if you're not careful, hey, it's free money. It's not free. It comes with a set of handcuffs that can get you for life. So I want you to be successful. I want you to have wealth. And you know, I'm not selling you anything. One of my problems with Dave Ramsey is he tells you, oh, hire my service, my financial advisory services and pay us monthly fees and we'll get you into the right mutual funds. Well, you don't need mutual funds beyond a low cost index fund. So that's my other big quibble with Dave Ramsey. He leverages his expertise, his fame, still trying to get that financial management fee. And if he shut that business down the last few months since I checked, I apologize. But I know that was his revenue model for a long, long time. So please, I beg you, ask yourself the question. Ask another question. Do I really need this thing I'm about to buy? Now, I like clothes. This particular suit I'm wearing is handmade by a Savile Row tailor in London. And yeah, it was expensive. And I apologize if that seems like I'm bragging, but you won't think I'm bragging when I tell you the next thing. This suit was made in 2008. The amount of money I've spent on suits in the last five years. Essentially zero. So it's okay to have nice things. Don't buy them on credit. Buy them because you can afford them and then use them and stick with them. Nobody really cares if you wear the same outfit to the club tonight that you did two weeks ago. Nobody cares. But I'll tell you something that one person cares about. Whether you're rich or poor. That's you. So yes, ask. Ask the two questions. Do I really need this thing? And what's the total cost? Not can I afford the bare minimum down payment? More in a moment, our final big story of the day. Sort of a positive, uplifting story. You don't want to miss it. Filtered is brought to you by the following you don't need a new degree. You don't need another expensive coach. You need the right communication habits. And I'll teach them to you in just a few minutes a day. @mediatrainingworldwide.com I've created the most comprehensive library of online communication and personal development courses anywhere. You'll learn public speaking, media training, persuasion, executive presence, and more. These are the same methods I've taught to world leaders, but now they're affordable and accessible to everyone. You can start for free and upgrade anytime. Go now to mediatrainingworldwide.com confidence isn't a personality trait, it's a skill. And it's trainable. Most people can't afford a full time coach, and even if you could, good luck finding one who's available when you need them. That's why I created the TJ Walker AI clone. It's built on my 40 plus years of real world coaching and training. You get my exact advice, style and frameworks instantly. Ask it how to handle a tough question. Get feedback on your elevator pitch. Rehearse your next big talk. This is the next generation of communication coaching. It's smarter than an app, more personal than a course, and always ready. Start using it today at tjwalker AI. You'll wonder how you ever did without it. Welcome back to Filtered. David Attenborough Makes History Sir David Attenborough has set yet another record, this time not for exploring nature, but for rewriting television history. According to the Times, the beloved British naturalist and documentarian became the oldest person ever to win a Daytime Emmy, taking home the award at age 99 for his work on Secret Lives of Orangutans. The Netflix series follows a family of orangutans and Sumatra, blending Attenborough's signature warmth and scientific precision. The documentary also Won for directing and music composition. Well, Attenborough beat out Martha Stewart and Anthony Mackie for the individual honor. His latest Emmy adds to a lifetime of achievements, more than seven decades in broadcasting, three Primetime Emmys and a knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II in 1985. His iconic works, Life on Earth, the Living Planet and Our Planet have redefined how the world sees wildlife and conservation. As Attenborough approaches 100, he says he'll keep working as long as people still want to listen. Judging by the latest milestone, the world clearly does. Okay, what's the real message here? David Attenborough shows, when you live your life following your passion, your expertise, you work hard, you don't ever want to retire or need to retire. Let's dig a little bit deeper here. I do find this motivational because so often people feel like, oh, I can't, I can't start this business. I can't, I'm too old. Or, oh, I can't even start a TV show or a YouTube channel or a podcast. I'm not 25 year old. Young, sexy person. He's a few months shy of a hundred. I'm a spring chicken compared to David attenborough. He's almost 40 years older than I am. So I see this, I get very inspired. I hope you do, too. Which is one reason why on this Sunday morning when we're recording this, I hope you get some inspiration and realize nobody cares if your hair is perfect and dark and thick and luxurious. You can still be a TV star. Actually, as he is getting an emmy at age 99. Now, he started way back in the 1950s in the BBC. Now he's on the Netflix. So he's, he does his thing. TV networks, mediums can change. He shares his expertise, he shares his passion with the world. He hones and protects his voice and he keeps at it. Now his films have won the baftas. That's the equivalent of Oscars in Great Britain. He's won Emmys, he's won Peabody awards. As I mentioned, he was knighted by the Queen back in 85. He's known for his global advocacy on climate change, diversity and ocean conservation. Here's the thing that I find inspirational. Here's what he shared after the win. I have the greatest job in the world. People show me the wonders of the plan planet and I just describe them. Now, I can't tell you that the reason he's 100 and has his marbles about him and seems healthy is because he works almost every day making TV shows. Can't tell you that or prove that to you, but it certainly does seem to be a contributing factor. A lot of research on longevity shows that people who get up with a purpose in their life take tend to live longer than those who just get up and check the news, scroll social media and complain while screaming at cable TV news. They just last longer, there's no doubt about it. So my message to you is, if you're a young person early in your career, you may have to do all kinds of things just to establish yourself, just to pay the rent, and that's okay. But this is another reason related to our previous story. I want you to save money, invest money, because when you get a nest egg, you could start to be more selective about the jobs you take. You can invest some of your money, perhaps in training yourself for a whole new career where you do have more passion. Now, I'm not one of these who says, just follow your passion, follow your passion. Will all work out. Your dreams will come true. Because a lot of people follow their passion. And they want to be movie stars, they want to be fashion models, they want to be professional athletes, they want to be singing stars. And in those four fields, the competition is so tough that 99.99% of people fail. Never make a penny. So it's not as simple as just saying follow your passion. It really goes much deeper into than that. And you need to develop your passions. You need to develop a lot of passions, get good at things, then double down on things that you do have a passion for and you're good at. And when you're get where you're getting some response in the marketplace. David Attenborough had some early successes. He was a young man when he was successful, and he kept on doubling down and doubling down. And it took me a lot longer. You know, I was in my 50s before I started really selling, you know, more than 10 million online course enrollments in my online courses. It doesn't matter how long it takes, as long as you find something you're good at and you have some success, and then you can go deeper and deeper and you don't have to retire. It doesn't mean you have to work 20 hours a day and not have time for family or friends or travel. It means those two can go together. David Attenborough isn't going to retire. Paul McCartney not going to retire. Jerry Seinfeld not going to retire. None of these people are working because they need the money. They work because they have a passion for something, they're good at something, and the market rewards them at some point. It's not about the money. It could be the applause. It could be people saying, you entertained me, you moved me, you educated me. This, I believe, is what really does keep people alive a lot longer than this guy Brian Johnson and his 147 potions, pills and oils. He takes a day and the snake oil, olive oil he consumes. Now, he may give you some tips, but if you had to follow a real lifestyle guru, sometimes it's better to not look at what people say or the products they're selling, but look at what they're doing. Look at what someone like a David Attenborough does. He's out, he is about, he's using his expertise, he is creating. He's a part of other people's projects and that is keeping him vital. David Attenborough, hope you continue to win awards into your second century and congratulations. Okay, that concludes our main section of the course of the show today and what we do now. We typically cover five stories every day on this show. Then we go to the grab bag section. These are stories that didn't quite merit the full treatment, but I just felt had to be discussed. So the first issue. Visa revoked over post About Charlie Kirk. A South African music executive says the US Revoked his visa after he criticized supporters of murdered conservative activist Charlie Kirk. According to the Times of London, 35 year old Nyamulu Baliu posted on X that Kirk's followers were quote, I'm not saying this, but he said they are white nationalist trailer trash. Days later, the State department canceled his 10 year visa citing new information. Officials confirmed they revoked six visas linked to to post wishing death on Americans. I'll come back to that in just a moment. Bellw insisted he did not mock Kirk's killing, called the ban frivolous and a violation of free speech. A conservative Christian himself, he said he merely opposed Kirk's anti black rhetoric. He plans to appeal the decision with legal counsel. Okay, so here's what's really going on here in this issue of banning certain people. The United States government is claiming that what this gentleman did was calling for violence against Americans and. Excuse me one second. I'm just getting my TikTok folks ready. My camera is shutting off. That's why my podcast friends can't see that. But I just had to lean forward there. Sorry. So here's the linguistic sleight of hand that's going on. You can certainly criticize this gentleman from South Africa, I believe is where he's from. And you can criticize him for being insensitive it's not polite to say that the supporters of Kirk are trailer trash. Okay, I'll grant you that's not polite to call somebody trailer trash. But that's not the same thing as calling for violence. All sorts of things that are said that are impolite all the time. And conservatives and people like Donald Trump routinely mock, ridicule and say nasty things about Democrats. Centrists, liberals, progressives, rhino Republicans, traditional Republicans, conservative Republicans who don't support them. They say all sorts of nasty things. And trailer trash would be the least of it. Yet now we see the official policy, the United States to keep people like this out of the country. And it's un American, it's not legal, but it is happening, unfortunately. And it's an absurdity. It shows specifically that the people, people running our government today have no appreciation for the rule of law, for the right of assembly. I mean, we're seeing it countless times in the last 24 hours just with the reaction to this, no Kings Day. I've seen Republican and commentator and even people commenting on my own shows who don't say, okay, well, you have the right to assemble. Good for you. You are peaceful. No, nobody's saying that. They're saying this is just about hate. You hate America. That's why you're protesting. And even the White House's press secretary, the president's press secretary has said essentially anyone who criticizes this president and anyone who's a Democrat is really just someone who is supported by terrorists, horrible people, extremists. There's no recognition that in America you could have an honest difference of opinion anymore. You're either 100% with us or you're an enemy of the state. That's very dangerous territory to be in, and we're seeing it again and again. And it works the other way, too. Which leads us to the next topic on our final segment today on the show, George Santos walks free after Trump commutes sentence. We talked about this yesterday. Still in the news, disgraced former Congressman George Santos is free after President Trump commuted his seven year sentence for wire fraud and identity theft. According to the New York Times, Santos served just 84 days before Trump ordered his release, saying, good luck, George. Have a great life. The move came amid a new wave of clemency for Trump allies. Santos has pleaded guilty to stealing donor money, falsifying campaign finances and pocketing unemployment benefits. His convictions remain, but his $370,000 in restitution was wiped clean. Critics call it another example of Trump rewarding loyalty over law Santos message to supporters after his release. I've been given a true second chance at life. Well, good for you, George Santos, if that's even your real name. So here's why these two stories relate. The first is about a gentleman trying to come visit the United States who just merely said something critical, made a political statement not advocating violence, not celebrating death, not urging anyone to be harmed, but simply criticizing the political followers of an extremist political figure. For that, he was forbidden from entering the United States. On the other hand, you have George Santos, who was found in a court of law to be a criminal, a fraudster, someone who lies about everything, but not in a typical politician way. He did it to steal money. The courts ordered him to pay $370,000 in restitution for his crime. They sentenced him to seven years in prison. But this administration said, hey, George, you're on our team. You said nice things about Trump. The people who don't like you are also people who don't like me. Therefore, I'm going to stick it to the libs. I'm going to stick it to the Dems. I'm going to own the libs. I'm going to get them angry. I'm going to get them so angry, they're going to forget to talk about the Epstein files and all the times I mentioned in the Epstein files. So I Donald Trump, I'm going to give you clemency and you can go out and enjoy your life. It's really a thugocracy. I mean, this is what Putin does. This is what dictators do. If you're a criminal, a mobster, but you're on my team, you get away with any crime. If you're not on my team, the slightest criticism now makes you a criminal. And that is the current world we live in. And I realize that's old news. The Santos thing happened Friday here. I am still talking about it Sunday. It's on the front page of a lot of major news media organizations today. And people are going to be talking about this for a while because Trump has done a lot of wildly disgraceful things with his power, his clemency powers. But this is even more egregious than most of them. I'm TJ Walker. I want to thank you for spending time with me today. This is a relatively new show. We're only a couple months old, less than that on our podcast version. So if you heard anything you like today, please let me know. Post comments, those questions, suggestions, criticisms, fact check me if you can tell me anything you want. I do read all comments. I share many of them on the air, and I try to be responsive to you. This is a conversation. I'm trying to have a daily conversation with you about what's really important in the world and then analyze it through communication skills, personal development skills, all with the goal of making you more successful in your life. Thanks so much for joining me. I'll see you tomorrow.