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Black America Web
9 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Black America Web
In Case You Forgot: Revisiting Kendrick Lamar & ‘The Pop Out' Concert One Year Later
Source: Timothy Norris / Getty One year ago today, (June 19th) the world watched as Kendrick Lamar performed for the first time since his public feud with Drake. Continue reading to refresh your memory and see how everyone reacted to the epic night! Unless you live under a rock, you know that last year the hip hop community was enthralled with the beef between rap giants Kendrick Lamar and Drake. The two Grammy Award-winners traded scathing shots back and forth for almost a month and left fans on both sides defending their goats. After much debate, public opinion crowned Kendrick the winner, especially after the release of the track 'Not Like Us.' The DJ Mustard produced song hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 upon its release and spent the better part of the last year occupying the chart. Once the beef died down a bit, fans began to wonder what would be next. A video? A remix? Both? Instead, Kendrick, who just had celebrated his 37th birthday two days prior, blessed his fans with something much better, a one-off concert entitled The Pop Out – Ken and Friends in Los Angeles on Juneteenth. Unsurprisingly, almost as soon as tickets for The Pop Out released, they sold out. Naturally, the demand for tickets was so high that everyone wasn't able to purchase them. For all of those who weren't lucky enough to snatch up tickets to attend in person, the concert also live-streamed on Prime Video and the Amazon Music channel on Twitch. Even before fans stepped into The Forum, the atmosphere at The Pop Out , which was presented by pgLang and Free Lunch, was electric. It was a party outside as fans waited for doors to open. While people waited around, there were several merchandise stands, food and beverage stations and photo ops for them to hit up. On top of that, courtesy of HeadCount, there was a voter registration station, encouraging attendees to vote in November. As entertained as fans might've been outside, it was nothing compared to the show they were blessed with once they stepped inside The Forum. The highly anticipated concert began with a set from Real 92.3 FM's DJ Hed. He brought out a multitude of established and up and coming West Coast artists including Remble, Westside Boogie, BlueBucksClan, CUZZOS, Bino Rideaux and many more. Legendary Compton, California dancer Tommy the Clown even stepped out to take fans down memory lane with a special performance alongside his TSquad dancers. Hed's set was a great introduction to some of the rising talent in California and a perfect warmup for what went on to be an absolute epic night. The concert was titled The Pop Out, which was a play on one of the lyrics in 'Not Like Us.' What better way to continue the night than by having the producer of the smash hit grace the stage? That's right. DJ Mustard was next to electrify the crowd with an impeccable set. In addition to playing some of his own biggest hits, the Los Angeles native used his star power to bring out some of the superstar artists he's worked with throughout his illustrious career. Before Mustard exited the stage, West Coast staples Ty Dolla $ign, Dom Kennedy, YG and Roddy Ricch and more performed some of their massive slaps in front of a packed house. The roof of the building almost blew off when Tyler, The Creator surprised everyone and blazed the stage. In one of the most heartwarming moments of the night, Mustard paid tribute to the late legendary rapper Nipsey Hussle. He had fans in attendance raise their phones and turn their camera lights on while he played three of Nip's songs. Even if the show ended after Mustard's set, it would've been considered classic. Luckily, the main event was still on deck. After a brief intermission, the man of the hour popped out from the bottom of the stage and started his show in a way that only he could. The first song in Kendrick's set was his six minute 24 second Drake diss track, 'Euphoria.' The crowd rapped the whole song word for word as Kendrick set the tone for what the rest of his performance would be like. After the exhilarating introduction, Cornrow Kenny performed a plethora of his classics including, 'DNA,' 'Element,' 'Alright,' 'Swimming Pools' and more. Nostalgia hit an all-time high when Kendrick brought out Jay Rock, Ab-Soul and Schoolboy Q to perform some of their biggest tracks together. The reunion was truly a special moment as it marked the first time Black Hippy had been seen together since Kendrick left TDE (Top Dawg Entertainment) in 2022. After Kendrick dipped into his catalog to perform some more of his timeless bangers and his controversial 'Like That' verse, he brought out one of his mentors and one of the West's most legendary musicians, Dr. Dre. To the delight of the crowd, Dre performed the undeniable classic tracks 'Still D.R.E' and 'California Love' with assistance from Kendrick. As Dre was about to exit the stage, Kendrick questioned if he was going to say anything else before they continued the party. This prompted Dre to walk back, quiet the crowd and whisper 'I see dead people' into the mic. Every single person in the crowd and watching at home knew exactly what that meant. For the first time ever, Kendrick began performing the song of the summer. The crowd completely exploded as they screamed the lyrics to the song at the top of their lungs. The song's impact become more and more apparent as Kendrick performed it four more times. Each time the track restarted, it seemed as if the crowd got louder and louder. The most impactful thing that took place during the whole night happened before the fifth performance of the chart-topping diss track. Kendrick brought up all of the artists who had performed throughout the night (regardless of their gang affiliations) and got them to take a picture together on stage. 'Let them see this. We put this together with peace.' Kendrick said to the crowd. After the picture, it seemed as if the whole West Coast music scene was on the stage performing 'Not Like Us' in one of the most beautiful and important moments in recent hip hop history. The Pop Out – Ken and Friends was a deserved victory lap for Kendrick and a much needed uniter for the West Coast and the city of Los Angeles in specific. Throughout the show and after, fans couldn't help but to chime in and give their opinions of the night, Kendrick, Drake and everything in between. One year later, check out some of the reactions to the biggest concert of last year! In Case You Forgot: Revisiting Kendrick Lamar & 'The Pop Out' Concert One Year Later was originally published on
Yahoo
a day ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Here's How Much You Need To Shop on Amazon To Make a Prime Membership Worth the Money
If you signed up for Amazon Prime ages ago but never really took the time to question whether it's actually saving you money, it's time to reevaluate your spending. Learn More: Check Out: Here's how much you'll have to shop on Amazon to make your Prime membership worth the money. Amazon Prime is a paid subscription service by Amazon that is available in many countries and gives you access to perks like free two-day delivery. As of June 2025, Prime membership costs $139 per year or $14.99 if you pay monthly. Besides free shipping on eligible items, Prime also includes things like Prime Video, Amazon Music Prime, Prime Reading, exclusive deals and access to Prime Day. If you didn't have Prime, Amazon would usually charge about $6.50 for standard shipping per order. So to make up for the $139 membership fee, you'd need to place around 21 or 22 orders a year. That works out to about two Amazon orders per month. If you regularly shop on Amazon and order a minimum of two times each month, then Prime most likely pays for itself just through the shipping savings. That said, Amazon now offers free shipping on many items, even if you're not a Prime member, as long as your order totals $35 or more. That means if your average order value is typically higher than $35, you should be able to get free shipping without needing Prime at all. In other words, unless you're signing up for Amazon Prime to enjoy other perks like Prime Video and Amazon Music Prime, the membership may not be saving you much. As mentioned earlier, Amazon Prime's free two-day shipping is just one of the many benefits that come with the membership. Another valuable extra is Prime Video. If you love watching shows and movies on there, it could easily replace a Netflix or Hulu subscription (which typically costs $15 to $20 a month). In that case, the streaming alone could make your Prime membership worth it. Amazon Music Prime, Prime Reading and exclusive deals also add value, especially if you'd otherwise be paying for music or ebooks separately. But if you've never touched any of those features, you're basically paying for a bunch of stuff you don't use. The best way to figure out whether Prime makes financial sense is to look at your actual usage. Pull up your Amazon order history from the last 12 months and count how many times you placed an order that wouldn't have qualified for free shipping. Multiply that number by $6.50 to estimate what you saved on shipping. Also, consider whether you'll actually take advantage of the other perks that come with Prime. If the total value of those savings and perks adds up to more than $139, then you're getting your money's worth. If not, you're better off saving that money or spending it elsewhere. Prime probably isn't worth it if you only place a handful of orders per year, rarely stream with Prime Video, and don't care about fast shipping. In that case, you could save money by shopping less often or just bundling your orders to qualify for free shipping without a membership. If you're currently on the annual plan, you could also consider switching to a monthly Prime plan. That way, you can activate it during months when you expect to do a lot of shopping (like around the holidays or Prime Day) and cancel it during slower months. All in all, Amazon Prime can absolutely be worth the money. But it depends on how often you shop, how much you value fast shipping, and whether you actually use the extra features. If Prime is helping you save time and money every month, great. But if you're only using it occasionally, it might be time to reassess. More From GOBankingRates 3 Luxury SUVs That Will Have Massive Price Drops in Summer 2025 These Cars May Seem Expensive, but They Rarely Need Repairs 6 Big Shakeups Coming to Social Security in 2025 This article originally appeared on Here's How Much You Need To Shop on Amazon To Make a Prime Membership Worth the Money
Indianapolis Star
3 days ago
- Business
- Indianapolis Star
Amazon Prime for Young Adults is back! Do you qualify for the discount? Find out here
Qualifying government assistance recipients can get Prime Access for $3.50 per month for the first three months, then $6.99 monthly. Discounted Prime memberships are available for young adults (18 to 24), government assistance recipients, and EBT and Medicaid recipients. A full Prime membership includes benefits like free and fast shipping, Prime Video, early access to deals and more. The annual Amazon Prime Day sale is arguably the biggest shopping event of the summer. The USA TODAY Shopping team has been keeping a close eye out for when the 2025 Prime Day dates drop and the deets were officially revealed! Ahead of Tuesday, July 8, there are plenty of ways to prep for Prime day savings, including by signing up for an Amazon Prime membership. Prime members can get early access to the deals and special perks during Amazon's sales event, including Amazon's Big Spring Sale, Prime Day in October and most notably, the member-exclusive Prime Day sale in July. Plus, it is hard to beat the discounts and fast, free shipping all year long. If you haven't joined yet, we've got the inside scoop on how you can take advantage of discounted Amazon Prime memberships and save on the annual fee itself. To coincide with the release of the Prime Day 2025 dates, Amazon has just brought back Prime for Young Adults to help people between the ages of 18 and 24 save! Whether you're a young adult or government assistance recipient, a discounted Amazon Prime membership offers the same access to exclusive deals, special sales, free delivery and more, just at a lower cost. Keep reading to find out if you're eligible to sign up for a discounted Prime membership today Learn more about discounted Amazon Prime memberships: Does Amazon offer a student discount on Prime memberships? Amazon Prime for Young Adults Get six months of Amazon Prime at zero cost, then pay only $7.49 per month with this discounted rate for young adults. Join Prime for Young Adults Amazon Prime for Young Adults (previously Prime for Students) is a new membership that is focused on perks for young adults between the ages of 18 and 24. The following perks are included with a Prime for Young Adults membership: Prime Delivery Prime Video Early access to deals Amazon Music Prime Fuel savings Prime Reading Amazon Warehouse Prime exclusives Amazon Photos Prime Gaming NEW: Get 5% cash back on beauty, apparel, electronics and personal care How much does Amazon Prime for Young Adults cost? Eligible young adults can get a six-month Amazon Prime membership at zero cost and pay a discounted fee of $7.49 per month or $69 annually after that. This is a 50% discount compared to the full price of Amazon Prime. You no longer need to verify that you're a student for this discount, as long as your age falls between 18 and 24, you qualify for Prime for Young Adults. In order to verify your age, you will need to provide a copy of your driver's license, passport or other official documentation. What is Prime Access? If you receive SNAP, EBT, Medicaid or other qualifying government aid, you can save with a discounted Prime Access membership. How much does Prime Access for government assistance recipients cost? Prime Access costs $3.50 per month for the first three months for qualifying EBT and Medicaid recipients, and $6.99 per month after that. How do you prove you qualify for an Amazon Prime membership discount with government assistance? Upload a photo of your EBT card or eligibility letter to prove you qualify for an Amazon Prime membership discount with government assistance. From there, enter a payment method to use after your free 30-day trial ends. You will be billed on a month-to-month basis after the trial. You must verify your status every 12 months. The discount can be received for up to four years from the initial sign-up date. Amazon will send an email whenever it is time to verify your credentials to ensure you continue to qualify for the discount. What government assistance programs qualify for the Prime Access discount? There are a number of programs that may qualify you for a Prime Access discounted membership. Here's a full list of documentation that may be provided: Supplemental Security Income (this is different from Social Security and SSDI) SNAP Medicaid Direct Express Debit Card (DE) Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) National School Lunch Program (NSLP) Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) Women, Infants, and Children program (WIC) Tribal assistance eligibility letter (TTANF), Puerto Rico's Nutrition Assistance Program (NAP) Does Amazon Prime offer a military discount? No. Unfortunately, Amazon does not offer a general military or veteran discount program for Prime membership. In the past, Amazon has occasionally offered one around Veteran's Day, but it has not been consistent. If one does go live this year, we will update it on USA Today Shopping. How do you sign up for Amazon Prime? Go to the main Amazon Prime page and click on "Try Prime," then follow the instructions. Note that you need an Amazon account before you can sign up for Prime, but if you don't yet have one, it's easy to set up.
Int'l Business Times
3 days ago
- Business
- Int'l Business Times
Amazon Prime Day 2025 Rumors Are True—4-Day Mega Sale Set for July 8 to 11 And It's the Longest Ever
Amazon officially announced that Prime Day 2025 will take place from July 8 to 11, the longest Prime Day ever in the company's history. This four-day mega event is not what the shoppers expected to see since the usual only lasts for 48 hours. The Seattle firm might have done this in honor of the 10th anniversary of Prime Day, but it could also mean that it's an effort to combat shifting consumer behavior. Get Ready For Four-Day Amazon Prime Day 2025 Sale Amazon Prime Day 2025 Rumors Are True—4-Day Mega Sale Set According to the company's blog post, Prime Day 2025 gets underway Tuesday, July 8 at 12:01 a.m. PDT, just after the Fourth of July holiday weekend. It will take place through Friday, July 11, just before the weekend kicks off. If past practice holds, the top deals will start rolling out as soon as the opening bell rings, so set your calendars and make your wish lists early. Do You Need a Prime Membership to Shop the Deals? Yes, you need Prime membership on the best deals. Although some bargains will be accessible to every consumer, most Prime Day promotions are reserved for Amazon Prime members. In addition to savings, Prime membership also features: Free two-day shipping Free returns Prime Video, Amazon Music, and Prime Reading access Exclusive food ordering benefits through Grubhub+ If you're not already a member, you can join for a free 30-day trial and cancel after Prime Day is over, ideal for short-term Amazon shoppers. Why Is Amazon Stretching Prime Day to Four Days? Although Amazon hasn't released official explanations for the expansion, analysts propose a combination of anniversary celebrations and sales tactics. During a tough retail environment, stretching Prime Day provides Amazon more time for inventory clearing and an opportunity to capture several shopper groups. Extending it to four days will also be an avenue to pilot weeklong mega sales structures such as rival events by Walmart and Target. It also implies shoppers can spend more time grabbing lightning deals and temporary discounts without the frenzy of a two-day buying window. What Kind of Deals Can Buyers Anticipate? While specific discounts have not been announced yet, looking back at past Prime Days, you can anticipate deep discounts on the following, according to USA Today: Amazon Devices (Echo, Kindle, Fire TV) Laptops, tablets, and tech gadgets Smart home appliances and devices Beauty and wellness products Fashion, shoes, and accessories Back-to-school supplies Amazon may include deals with free trials or membership, particularly with services like Audible, Amazon Music, and Kindle Unlimited. How to Maximize Prime Day 2025 Savings These tips will help you maximize your savings while shopping on Amazon. Of course, you have to be a Prime member to make the most out of it. Make a wish list ahead of time to monitor price drops. Get the Amazon app for on-the-go alerts. Use Alexa to get early access to exclusive deals. Check Lightning Deals frequently because they sell out fast. Originally published on Tech Times
Yahoo
13-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
What a trillion-dollar defense budget really means for veterans
You can catch Warrior Money on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. Is America's trillion-dollar defense budget making us safer or putting our future at risk? On this episode of Warrior Money, hosts Patrick Murphy and Dan Kunze break down President Trump's historic spending plan, unpacking the real winners, the potential fallout, and what it all means for veterans, the economy, and national security. From AI and space tech to the true cost of debt, this episode pulls back the curtain on Washington's biggest budget fight. Hosted by former Congressman Patrick Murphy and veteran investor Dan Kunze, Yahoo Finance's Warrior Money is a weekly vodcast dedicated to uplifting military veterans transitioning into civilian life. Through insights from fellow veterans and high-ranking officials, Murphy and Kunze are helping set vets up for success through financial education and inspiration. This post was written by Langston Sessoms. Welcome to Warrior Money. The show devoted to supporting our brother and sister veterans. I'm Patrick Murphy and I'm Dan Coons. No guests this week, so it's just us two digging in to something big. President Trump's $1 trillion defense budget. We're gonna break it down what it means, where all the money goes, and how it could impact our brother and sister veterans, service members, and the country as a whole. So let's get after right, Dan. Top of the line, first ever $1 trillion DOD budget. Thoughts. Uh, it's a big number. It's a big number. There's a significantly, um, a psychological barrier hurdle that you go over when you go from the B's to the Ts, and that's what we're doing here. Um, I think what's also really interesting about it when you start to dig into the details of it is it appropriates new dollars for a program like Golden shifts uh focus and priority from Europe and the Middle East to into paycom and it starts to reorient the way that we're um managing some of our former existing platforms and legacy systems into new systems and new autonomous systems comes from the work that we did, we learned in UCO and Ukraine over the past couple of years. So pretty fascinating numbers are thrown. Yeah, and especially when you pass and they pass the House, the Senate's gonna mark it up, send it back, but you know, as we're going through this, you know, as a former appropriator, we're gonna go through cuts domestic spending, uh, about 10% at least, uh, but it increases obviously defense spending at 10%. And so when you look at the overall picture though, roughly $7 billion in spending, we only have about 5, I'm sorry, 5 $7 trillion in spending, $5 trillion of revenues coming in. Still some deficits there. Does that give you pause? The, uh,the, the way that we're organizing this generally uh concerns me from the perspective of like what do I think the greatest national security threat is? I think it's actually our national debt and it's our political infrastructure at home. Like that's, that's the issue that I'm most concerned about, which is also the issue that the markets are very concerned about, kind of those things. Um, as a person and also believes in strong defense and very strong I'm I'm I'm happy to see that we're reorienting the money that we are and we're OK with it. So I think the devil or the goodness is in the details like they say, but I'm I'm most concerned about our disproportionate amount of spend versus versus save. It's just we have to deal with. You know, Admiral Mullen, the former chairman of the staff in the Obama years, the greatest threat and national security threat is actually our national debt. And at that point the debt was about $13 trillion. It's now 3 times as much. It's, it's now $36 trillion. Uh, the bill that passed at least the House we'll see adds another $4.5 trillion. Uh, and when you look at that, we looked at, we're spending $900 billion a year just on the interest rate of our national debt. It is concerning, but you and I are both veterans. We understand national security is critically but at the same time you're passing, you know, a $1 trillion defense budget and the tax breaks, most of which goes to the wealthiest among us, definitely gives you heartburn as a fiscal conservative. Yeah, itgives you some heartburn too. But I think the really interesting, the interesting conversation you and I have, and I think we're having with our audiences, um,When you invest money in the defense industrial base or the national security apparatus, you're not just investing money, and I view kind of the $1 trillion spending bill as an investment in national security, but also as an investment in the underlying technologies. You're also creating a new environment for companies to to to leverage the opportunity to be commercial both in DOD but also have a commercial applicability. So like I think about supply chain technologies, I think about the advent of GPS.I think about next generation GPS. I think about all the different things that are going to come about because you've invested this money here, they're they're going to reap the benefits. So I don't, I don't view it necessarily just as a spending bill. I view it as an opportunity to make wise investments, and that's how I view the difference, I think that's one thing I got about the recalibration when you talk about autonomous vehicles, you talk about AI. So let's expand on that. I do think that they areFocusing efforts on that, uh, and not the fights from the, basically the past, the fights of the future. And, you know, we learned this after World War II, you know, we had the greatest generation. We stepped up, we helped win World War 2 with our allies, but then we had the Korean War, it was test for Smith where we were woefully unprepared for the, the fight against North Korea, uh, and, and again, China at the time too, because they were supporting them, butYou know, when you look at the next fight, do you think this budget does do some recalibration that is much needed? Yeah, I think it's really interesting. I think about this thing. I think about these things through the lens of like, um, every generation or every great generation has its own differentiating capability, right? So the Civil War was won by the rifle and a bunch of other logistics capabilities. Uh, you go to World War II, it's our ability to increase mass production and be able to facilitate through our capital markets and our financing, right?And now we're starting to get to this other age where it's like artificial intelligence and space are going to be two differentiating technologies and domains that we're going to have to deal with, right? Right? We aren't going to have the quantity of people that's sufficient to support our work into Oaycom and becoming the newest, the new hot most contested domain, right? So between AI and space, you've got to make investments to stay at the forefront of that domain capability and that domain area, and I think that that's what this is doing. So I'm, I'm very encouraged to see that. Yeah, yeah. Andthen when you're talking about those domains, it's like, obviously it's clearly from know, obviously land and then air, sea, uh, but when we talk about space and cyber, critically important. One of those major components of the defense budget that at least was passed in the house, uh, is the Golden Dome. Walk us through what that is from your point of view. You know, I, I, uh, I think dome is like this all-encompassing concept that's going to be defined over time, right? There's 3 sections of it. There's a space-oriented section of it. There's a ground-based oriented section of it. There's also like this this software layer integration that's a part of it as well. So space sensors, ground sensors, and then there's like all encompassing capability, right? And so we've we've heard a lot in the news about tariffs, we've heard a lot in the news about other countries, but the interesting thing about this is it's a North American defense system, or at least we're gonna have to rely on our neighbors in the North in Canada to be able to support some of the sensor network as well. SoUm, what I think is really interesting though is that it's a, um, and I love we talked about enterprise software and enterprise capability on our last call, like, it's one of those things that you have the opportunity to leapfrog capabilities in, which is a really interesting concept, right? You can take 20 or 30 disparate systems and bubble that up to 11 large system. The failure, the, the, the point of failure, the concern point is, if you have one too big to fail, too big to what happens if it either goes over budget or over time or is different concepts? That's that's something they're going to have to navigate through from a real strong program and project management perspective. Yeah, and when you look at the sheer numbers, the $25 billion over 20 years, the CBO scored about $500.50 dollars, which is a lot of money, butYou know, a lot of folks, this is what I don't like about politics, people, because it's a Republican idea. Some Democrats are automatically against it. Yeah, this was like right, this was, yeah, 1983. We had Star Wars or what they called Star Wars on this. But now we have the technology four decades later to talk about what you're saying when you talk about land-based sensors, space-based sensors, which is where they remain contested right now. And then the software underpinnings that connect them all together because right now, you know, if you have, you know, missiles from China and, you know, coming in China, Russia, and they come in, we are really only protected on California and Alaska, which is why we need partners like Canada and others to protect maybe our East Coast, etc. It turns into a really bad day really fast because the umLike you, you and I know from the and everybody, all our audience knows from the defense side, right? Like, like defense and defense in depth and then the proximity with where you're at, like standoffs are a really important thing, right? If, if I can't see something that's happening or I don't know where it's coming from, how do you think about defending against that? And then, more importantly, how do you protect your supply chain, your logistics lines? How do you protect your people? How do you protect your installation?How do you do all those things if you can't see it in the first place? That's where I think the advance of like uh quantum computing, artificial intelligence and sensors is really going to come together and consolidate that, which I think for our audience is super important because when we're thinking about where we're going to invest for the next 10 years, or the next 20 years, or how we're going to invest in our service members, it has to be oriented to where theand not where it's been. Yeah, yeah, thegreat Wayne Gretzky cos we're both hockey players talk about hockey players dropping a little hockey on us. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the quote is someone asked Wake Gretzky wants, you know, how'd you score so many goals, get so many assists? He said, I don't pass the puck where people are gonna be. I'm gonna pass the puck where they're gonna be when you look at things like the kill chain, etc. what we need to do to make sure that our warfighters do not have everything they need. They have the technical and tactical advantage overenemies. Memorial Day was recently, and it's like one of those concepts. My grand, my grandpa used to get in my ear about this. He is like was like one of the things broke his heart about Vietnam is that they went to the war with some of the equipment from the past war. Like it was not the right equipment at the right time. We saw the same thing in Iraq. We went to the, we went to war with not necessarily the right things, and then we rekidded ourselves over time. You give American industry the ability to learn from it, they're going to do it. Uh, one of the questions I have for you though, I think our audience would be interested in as well, uh, what is a markup?Like what is, what is, what, what does it mean to go through an appropriations process and mark up a budget and like how does, what does, what does that mean? Yeah, so there's over a dozen committees in Congress and then have the committees that are most of them are authorizing committees. Like I was in armed services. I was also in intelligence. They are authorized committees, but then if I got a little seniority, I was in the appropriations, you know, they actually have to appropriate so when you bring it back on markup, it is the markup of what's gonna make it to the budget or not make it up, uh, make it in there. And that's important. And a lot of times these markups are 12 hour longs. They're, they're 34 o'clock in the morning, uh, and it's, it's basically like a clerical road march, but it important because as you mentioned, it's not, we're not talking about millions of dollars that a lot of you said you're talking about billions, tens of billions, and even trillions of dollars that we're spending to make sure our war fighters do not have a fair fight, that they have a technical advantage over our enemies. Your your good friend, I think your roommate, somewhere in the army was Secretary he was pretty famous for having night court, I think is what he called it, where they went through the budget and they figured out where in the army they could reprogram dollars to make those sorts of influences. Is that what we're talking about? Are we talking about something a littlebit different? Yeah, yeah, it's a little different. Markup is really in the Congress, but Night Court, and again, I applaud former Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy. We were Mark Bates of Fort Bragg in the 90s. He's a great graduate of VMI. I know he's a fan and, uh, you know, he did great work because what he was saying is, I'm going to focus like a a bone and making sure we're getting a return investment on the billions of dollars we're spending. You got to remember the Army budget, yes, we have 1.3 million people in the army, a million soldiers, 300,000 civilians, but it's like $180 billion dollar bills, budgets that you have to deploy on behalf of our nation, and you got to be spending it the right way. He made sure we were getting after it. We're re-establishing it now, and I think it's a, it's a very good thing. Awesome. I'll hold that thought. We'll be right back after the right, welcome back to Warrior Money. Let's pick up where we left off. Uh, we were just talking about Secretary Ryan McCarthy, who was Undersecretary, um, secretary of the Army, um, under the first Trump administration, and we were talking about how he held held Night Corps, right?He also um instituted some of these policies that created the infrastructure for artificial intelligence in the army. He has created this organization called the Army Cloud Management Organism Office, which then became ECMA, which is a dear friend of ours, Paul Puckett, ran as well. But my, my question for you is, when we think in presidential terms and we think about one budget and yearly budgets, right, that was, that was nearly 8 years ago that he did that. Help our audience understand like does it take so long to make those changes within the organizations that we're talkingabout? Well, it's like, you know, listen, our army, you know, as the even the army song is the army goes marching along. We are, we are a bureaucracy, we're big, but we have to be agile. We have to be cutting edge. And what I think they've done and what a lot of folks have tried to do is, is keep that focus where it needs to be and not justMoney at problems, making sure that we're getting a return investment. And that's why when you had night court, you know, I used to be at the, we call the cap, you know, the Cape office every 6:30 a.m. every Thursday morning, you know, we'd be there, I'd be there with the controller, the other undersecretaries, the chief management officers of the services, and we get there and we go line by line on, OK, what's going on? What do we need to do? Where's the Congress at? What are they andYou have to recalibrate to make sure we're spending the money in the appropriate way. And a lot of folks just want to spend it. They don't want to look at, they just wanna just get out the door. And that's not being having fidelity to the American people, the American taxpayer. Yeah, sometimes I refer to that as the, you got to dig the whole concept, right? Sometimes you've got to dig a new hole to create a new foundation. Like we, we've had the privilege of working with Justin Finelli from the CTO from the Navy. We worked with Paul, we worked with, um, Uh, yeah, and these things, these things that are good ideas take persistent time to make work, right? So the be here, but the, the work and the policies have to continue to exist below that. Yeah, and that's why I think like when you see like, I know I got in there like, uh, when I was the acting secretary of the army, uh, which is amazing by the way, have my bunkmate, you know, kind of small and he's just he's a great American and you know we're two different political parties, but that doesn't matter. We're, we're we're, you know, we are part of the warrior class like we all are, butI think what we, like I and I, I, I did this audit of Army marketing, right, because, you know, I left Congress, you know, worked for NBC, understood some budgets because my protocol campaigns, etc. spending $15 million in the Philin market. And I was like, hey, we, why, if we're recruiting 120,000 millennials, I'm sorry, Gen Xers and now, now Gen Z is a aren't we doing more in the digital spin? And I was asking a tough probing questions. I, I said that, we got to audit this because I'm not getting the right answers from folks. Um, and then we hit recruitment goals and part of that is because you got to meet people where they are. And, you know, when you have, you know, a Fortune 2 size entity like the US Army,And, and we had not hit recruitment goals. We hit it those two years, you know, they were struggling and, you know, I think we're seeing a new refocus on that. It's getting these great young Americans at a time when only 24% of young Americans can even join our military, you know, because you have less high school graduates because of the obesity and know, crisis in America where 70% of us, NewYork Times or Wall Street Journal article specifically also said that like 78 or 79% of the people that serve come from the same communities. So it's the same communities and it's a small amount of people and it's really hard to, it's really hard to walk that fine balance if you're to where they are, if you're not talking to them early enough, which is also the transition problem, but that's for, it's for a different conversation, but it's like that's this whole issue about what I thought was a very compelling article or ad from the Secretary Hagset and President Trump most recently. It was a pretty compelling ad about like a military is here to fight win battles, and if we're going to take people out of their we should make it worth our while, make it worth their time to do. Yeah, yeah, and I think that's the great thing about money, and what we try to tell, you know, the Patriots that listen to the show is the fact that like we give credit where credit's due. So when you have President Trump and PXSN there and, and, and I wrote down some notes on it, you know, peace through strength. like her best is a reluctant warrior. America at her best is Athens and Sparta, and that those of us who have seen combat, we don't want our sons and daughters to fight wars. And he also said one other thing, and it was Secretary of Defense PX to, you know, as you know, I worked with a fox who said this great line in that commercial you mentioned. He said,You know, we fight not because we have hate in our hearts of the folks who are in front of us. It's because of the love we have the folks that are behind us. Those 340 million Americans, you know, that, that understand that in our country that is so diverse, that, that even our forefathers who saidConstitution of preamble, you know, in order to form a more perfect union. We, we weren't perfect then, we're not perfect now, but if we could just focus on coming together sometimes on certain things and especially around our war fighters, that's what people want tosee. Yeah, and you asked me a lot earlier in this conversation about how I feel about spending the money.I, I, I have a really hard time looking at the cost of Afghanistan and Iraq and not thinking that if somehow we can prevent that, that expense, it's a better overall expense than not having to start start in the first place, right? Or being so overwhelmingly powerful that you don't get, you don't have all the issues that you're going to have elsewhere. So I, I think in my heart it's hard to sometimes blend like the, the, the $1 trillion expense plus the the, the opportunity costs I guess is the right way to say if you're thinking about business terms, but the opportunity $1 trillion versus deterrence, right? How do you quantify deterrence? How do you how do you do that? Is sometimes it's difficult to do, but I, I, I very strongly believe that. Yeah and I think the beauty of it, it's like, you know, we just had Memorial Day.A little bit ago and it's like I, I wrote something like it was called, it's time to take a, a sacred pause and budget seasons are a time because budgets are moral documents. The budgets that Congress passed because they have the power of the purse. They work in conjunction with the president and executive branch, but it goes through a pause. Are, you know, are we investing the American taxpayer dollars the right way? Um, and yes, I think we have to have and continue to have the number one military in the world because there are folks that do want to do harm to our family. There are folks that want to do harm because authoritarians are, are they, they deserveit. So we gotta keep that and yes, we gotta keep, you know, cut some domestic spending and make sure we're getting our bang for a buck there. But you have to do it in an ethical way and in a responsible you can't be doing it by, you know, adding to our debt year after year and say, oh, well, our kids will pay for it. Like that's immoral. I mean, it's immoral that, you know, Maggie Murphy, Jack Murphy and your three kids are gonna have to spend and pay off the debt that we're racking up now and just on the interest of the debt we're racking up now. And I'm not, frankly,That it goes to the wealthies among us. I mean, we don't, you and I can say whatever we want about our opinion about that, but the, the most recent yield is also telling a pretty treasury yield is telling a pretty significant story about how it feels about that over time. And that's, that's really pretty compelling conversation. Yeah, and yeah, we talk about Moody's downgrading us and, and, and the yield, and I would say also, you 1st 3 months, you know, was a net loss. If you have another net loss the next 3 months, that means we're officially in a recession. And nobody wants that. Like we cheer for America. We love our country more than political parties, but we have to do it the right way. We have to get these tariffs right. We got to get the economy moving. Our business leaders want certainty and the beauty of our our country is that we have the number one military in the world and the number one economy in the world, but that's not our God-given right. We got to earn it every single day. You and I have, so I think we have an agreement about this pretty philosophy pretty strongly. Like I want certainty with my business community, but I also don't think that we should have offshored jobs and industry the same way that we did over the past 50 years, right? LikeSo I, I understand, I understand from a business perspective why that's great, right? But I really want to see semiconductor industry come back to the United States. In fact, in a couple weeks I'm going with business executives for National Security Benz to semi semiconductor plant in Albany, and I want to see more of these things. So when, when Nvidia commits to reshoring dollars and back here, that's a net benefit win for all of us, whether it's national security or commercial or the financial markets like that's a good thing for us. Um, I, I really think though that if the tariffs were used as a forcing function to reshore jobs back again and there was a small term pain on that, uh, that, that makes a bit of sense to I think though that we need to be consistent in the way we're applying our, our principles and our ideas there. And that's, that's what I think is left to be seen from your point on certainty. Yeah, yeah, and that's my thing is, you know, let's do it where like we learn in the military we call it ready in fire, not fire, and you don't have to tell us you're doing it. Like I don't, I don't need to get up the surprise part of it, but it's like over time the pattern recognition is like I just, I just need to see what the pattern is so that we can make good investments as it relates to how we business or where we're operating our business from. Like that's, that's really what we're trying to do is like return our capital, make sure we're making those good decisions. I didn't really want to be holding the bag with the factory I just put together in China, if you're saying that we now have to restore everything else, that's that's anissue, right? And especially when we had the crisis years ago with infrastructure during COVID, yeah, on the semiconductors, you mentioned that because the majority of them are made in Taiwan. Well, what happens if China bes Taiwan? That's why we got to this stuff on these manufacturing jobs, making that high end technology here that we could obviously, you know, Taiwan will still be our partner and our friend, but we got to make sure we're doing it the right way. Yeah, one ofthe great articles you had written also was about energy is a one size or no, it's an all size all the above, I'm all about nuclear reacts, we need to reshore that stuff like we need to have, so if we're going to win an artificial intelligence in space, so we're to win artificial intelligence space and cyber, we need energy sources here. Artificial intelligence takes a tremendous amount because of the data center requirements. Our energy grid needs it as well, and that's a cyber, that's a cyber threat. So it's totally about bringing, bringing our field, our playing field to a higher level and winning forward. Yeah, yeah. Whoare some of the leaders that you see in Washington on either party that you see are maybe stepping up, you know, trying to move our country forward in a positive, proactive way. It's sometimes really difficult to differentiate between the headline and the news and what you, what you get to see when you're actually the show the show horses versus the horse andthe horses these days are so loud, they're so loud showing, right? Um, but I think that if I, I'm I I I like him personally, so this is an issue, but like Congressman Pat Ryan, uh, West Point graduate from Utica, New York, I, I think he's doing an exceptionally good congressman Winter as well from Southern Virginia, they're both on the defense modernization caucus, and I think they're just doing a really, really good interesting thing about the Trump administration, which is what I dealt with the first time, is really empower, or at least I've seen them empower, uh, staff and director at offices as well. So what, what they're doing with some of the civil agencies is pretty interesting and I'm looking forward to seeing how um your friend, I'm drawing a blank, the secretary of the Doug Collins, Collins. I'm, I'm really interested to see how that like that work with our friend Darryl Owens there is going to start to like reconsolidate dollars into veteran services, right? I'm really interested to see how the defense side is going to go as well. And I like what they're doing. It's just sometimes it's so distracting from some of theother things. Yeah, you mentioned Wild West 0.1 of my big fans is I love Senator Jack Obviously on chair of, you know, the chair of Senate Armed Services Committee and also in the appropriation side. So, well, listen, we could chat here, we can get pumped about this. So listen, thanks for joining us today. That's our show. Listen, subscribe, and review where money on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcast or find us at Yahoo Finance. I'm Patrick Murphy and I'm Dan Kons. We'll see you again next week. This content was not intended to be financial advice and should not be used as a substitute for professional financial services. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
