Freedom and Liberty – Episode 013

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[00:01] Welcome to the Prosperity Podcast, fresh alternative personal finance talk for independent thinkers who prosper outside of Wall Street. Here’s your host, bestselling author, Kim D.H. Butler, and No BS Money Guy, Todd Strobel. Hey everybody, welcome to another edition of the Prosperity Podcast. This is No BS Money Guy, Todd Strobel. Once again, we have my co-host and bestselling financial author, Kim Butler, in the house with us. Welcome, Kim. Hi, Todd. Looking forward to our conversation today. Awesome. Well, today we’re going to be talking about a little book. And when I say little book, I mean little. This book is maybe five inches by three inches and maybe a quarter inch thick. It’s not very, not that hard to read.

[00:45] You could probably read it in an afternoon, but my gosh, I’ve read this thing about five times and it is just absolutely full of great information. And the name of the book is Are We Good Enough for Liberty? It’s written by a man by the name of Lawrence W. Reed, and he is part of an organization called FEE, F-E-E, and they can be found at www.fee.org. We’re also going to be putting a link to this book on the blog as well. Kim, why don’t you begin just by giving us an understanding of what FEE is and how you became associated with that. Absolutely. So we were at a financial event, the type where there were lots of prosperity economic advisors, and the head of FEE, Larry Reed, and that’s a similar name, but not the same

[01:35] person, was talking about all kinds of different things. He had about an hour and a half presentation. He was a fabulous storyteller and just had a message that really, really struck home to myself and Todd Langford, who was with me at the time. My husband, and we really enjoyed not only the style of the information, but the way that he told it and the information that was just spewing out of his mouth. I mean, it was just story after facts after story after facts, and he was a fabulous speaker. So we tracked him down, we tracked his organization down, FEE.org. I hadn’t ever heard of them before. This has been, I don’t know, three or four years now. We just have stayed in touch with them. So on FEE.org, they have all kinds of neat things available, a lot of stuff for students.

[02:30] I’ve even tried to organize Larry to go speak at my kid’s high school. It hasn’t worked out yet, but we’re still working on some dates. So just a great connection. We’ve had him speak at the Prosperity Economic Summit for advisors. We’ve had him do some blog guest writing. We’ve had him speak at another little event that we were having in Houston. And so whatever we can do to get the FEE.org message out there, I think, is a helpful thing. And this particular part of their message is one that is really riveting and completely applicable to absolutely anybody. I think one of the most powerful things I found in the book was it was just kind of a statement towards the end of the book of what they’re trying to do.

[03:12] And I’ll just kind of paraphrase and jump in and it says they’re not trying to tell people what to do or how to conduct themselves. They simply want to try to enhance each individual’s understanding of themselves and the systems that they live in. What a mission. Yeah, that systems that they live in, isn’t that the truth? And how many times we feel like, oh, my gosh, there’s just so many things I can’t control this politics or the market or business or whatever. But what you said about how we conduct ourselves, that we can control. And as we’ve talked about so much at Partners for Prosperity, our very first principle of prosperity is thinking and the thinking our own thinking is the very first thing that we can control.

[04:00] And of course, if we’re controlling our thinking, then we’re controlling our actions, which is what this FEE.org environment is talking about. Super. And then not too far down from that statement, it talks about the three that there’s three requirements in order to have an effective and productive society. And it says that the basic idea is that human human freedom requires private property, free competition and severely limited government. Just kind of give me your thoughts on that and then we’ll move into the other part of the book. But absolutely. I remember quite some time ago, I read another book called Mystery of Capital that talked about private property and how America’s laws, because of the way that private property is handled in them, are so supportive

[04:51] of us as individuals making progress. And this is not a political statement at all. This is not a Republican Democrat thing. This is not a left, right thing. This is not a are we in it for ourselves or are we in it for everybody else thing? This is just how can we make progress as human beings and have the most good out there by giving the most good also. So it’s a win win environment. One of the things that my husband and I like to talk about all the time is the concept of and versus or and private property enables an and environment. It’s a have your cake and eat it, too. It’s a own the property. And because you own the property, whether it’s a car or a piece of real estate or anything else, you take better care of it.

[05:41] You share it with others. You make it available. You improve it. And this is all part of private property ownership. And it could be intellectual property. Again, it could be real estate, a car, you name it. And there are a lot of other countries that don’t have private property as a fundamental aspect of their laws. And consequently, there’s a lot more corruption there. Got it. So private property. Encourage private ownership, which encourages pride of ownership, which certainly nothing wrong along with that. And then the second part of this was free competition. What does that term free competition mean? Well, I think that’s an interesting thing as well. Again, just reiterating, this is not a political statement.

[06:28] But when there is competition and it’s free to operate, the rising tide lifts all boats and competition is a good thing. Now, I will personally admit that sometimes it’s a little bit scary if there is a competitor and it’s in my business space, as an example, or in my husband’s business space, and I pay attention to them. But when competition occurs, it benefits everybody. Now, there may be a temporary scenario where it appears like one is winning and one is losing, but primarily the clients or the customers of competition are the ones that benefit. And competition is an integral part of, again, us as human beings, because it’s a lot of the juice and the energy and the gumption that flows in ourselves comes because of competition.

[07:18] And so whether there’s competition for resources or free competition for space, mental space, physical space, or a particular thing that somebody wants, if there’s competition for that, we’ll strive harder, we’ll work harder, we’ll come up with more good ideas, we’ll implement those ideas more fully, more freely and more thoroughly and maybe even quicker because of the competition. And so whenever we’re feeling like, ah, my gosh, there’s competition. I think we have to step back and actually be grateful for that. It’s something that makes human beings better. Absolutely. Couldn’t agree more. One of the things that’s being talked about a lot these days is wage competition. And I think there’s a huge difference between, I believe right now,

[08:07] minimum wage is somewhere in the $7 range, but there’s this big push in Congress right now to move the minimum wage to $10. And to me, there’s a tremendous difference between someone finding an area that needs help or improving their skills to go from a $7 an hour job to a $10 an hour job versus having a mandatory lifting of everyone’s wages from $7 to $10. What’s your opinion on that? Well, I don’t want to get too sidetracked on it. We’ll stay on our financial realm, but I will make the point that it affects people’s personal finances, which is, I’m sure, why you brought it up. And it is something that is so misunderstood because when wages are raised like that, it artificially gives people more money

[08:56] for a very short period of time until everything else gets raised also. So the cost of every good out there is going to be raised because the minimum wage gets increased. So it’s a little bit of a never-ending prophecy where it just goes in a circle. Wages get higher, cost of goods get higher. So wages get higher, so cost of goods get higher. And I think as consumers, as people in the marketplace that are earning an income and then trying to save money, trying to invest money and trying to live. And I break those three categories up very specifically. And I guess, of course, we could have a fourth category, which is taxes. But never mind that for now, when we’re trying to save and invest money, we want to, and this goes back to the competition idea,

[09:43] we want to make ourselves better. And that means maybe a little more educated. And I don’t necessarily mean formal school all the time, although that may be the case. But if we make ourselves better and then we have the opportunity to earn more money rather than to just be given more money. Got it. Makes complete and total sense. I guess the biggest illustration I’ve seen of that is I’ve actually seen an example where somebody said, you know, if you added a zero to everybody’s income or bank account across the board, what effect would that have on the economy? And the answer would basically be nothing because everything would just be increased by that one zero. And even though it felt like you were getting ahead, it would make really

[10:26] no impact on your ability to buy. Do you agree with that? Yeah. And that’s a really good analogy and a storyline for people to remember when they hear things that sound appealing, like, oh, let’s increase the minimum wage or, oh, let’s, um, you know, even the idea of raising the FDIC insurance from a hundred thousand to 250,000, that was a stroke of a pen that there’s no insurance behind that. And that’s something that now everybody can say they feel better about, but all it is is the same taxpayers agreeing to pay some bill in the future. And that isn’t, it’s a false sense of security, just like a raised minimum wage or extra zeros in your account is super. Well, the third leg on the stool before we moved on is a severely

[11:11] limited government. And that’s really going to kind of lead into what the book talks about and that’s the ability of government to do things versus the ability of a free market with competition to do the same thing. I think I was under the opinion for a long time that there were some things that only the government can do, but I’m more moving to opinion that the market can produce better performance through profit and loss than the government can through social programs. What do you think? Well, I’ll give you another good example of that. And regardless of whether or not you like this particular gentleman, there is a story of New York City and I don’t remember where there’s a city or the county or the state trying to do, I believe it was a

[12:00] major overhaul on the ice skating rink in New York Central Park. And they tried for years, I think like 20 some years to give it its overhaul. Millions of dollars were wasted in planning and architectural drawings, et cetera, never came to fruition. Donald Trump stepped in and had it done under budget, under time, a couple of years, and it’s now a real jewel of the city again. And so that’s an example of in the free marketplace, things can get done better, cheaper and often faster than when the government tries to do them. Now, there’s definitely certain things the government should do. It should protect our borders. It should handle our interstate highways, et cetera. But there are so many things that

[12:48] can be done better at the government level. And again, I want to turn our discussion to so how does that affect my personal finances? And it’s any time the government puts forth a plan or a strategy or an account or a structure, think IRAs, 401k plans, 529, the various other educational programs that are out their education accounts, I should say, any time the government puts forth those types of plans or structures, we need to be really careful around them. Because when you step back and look at it, it is most often, really the government enforcing a little bit more tax on us now, it may appear that that tax isn’t going to happen today, like the 401k, you defer tax till tomorrow. But in actuality,

[13:39] that’s potentially a higher tax. It’s also the government enforcing a little bit more control over us. And a little bit more of them being not only aware of what we’re doing, but really impacting what we’re doing, because now they control those dollars 100%. And if they decide to change the age from 59 and a half, when you can get your money without a penalty to 62 or 65 or whatever, we have no say in that. So again, free market, the ability to have your own investments that are not under some government structure, are often the better place where there is more efficiencies. Super. And again, for those of you who are just tuned in, we’re talking about the book, are we good enough for liberty? We’re discussing the website at

[14:27] www.fee.org. Kim, is there a couple other websites you might want to just give people as a reference? Nothing comes to mind. I just am really grateful that we’re having a chance to talk about this book and www.fee.org and the people there and their message. And I know that it’s helpful to me. And I hope that it’s been helpful to other people as well. Super. Well, Kim’s website, Kim Butler’s company is Partners for Prosperity. They could be reached at partners, the number four, Prosperity.com. We certainly want to mention that. That’s another great resource for you to use. And I think the thing I want to point out most of all is that, you know, if you kind of picture a pyramid and if you look at the base of

[15:10] the pyramid, there has to be a philosophy and a mindset first. One step up on that pyramid would be strategies. And then the peak of that pyramid is really the tools or the products that you purchase when you’re building your financial future, when you’re building your financial house, however you want to term it. So today we’ve kind of dropped down to the base of the pyramid, which is not something that we spend a lot of time on. But you really can’t go up to that tip of that pyramid and start selecting products until you’ve taken the time to build the base. Kim, opinion on that? Well, it’s one of the things that I like so much about the various offerings that we put out there. And that is how much focus we put on

[15:55] families having cash and liquidity and capability with their money that is not invested. And most advisors spend little to no time on the importance of cash. And of course, we use the whole life product to store that cash so that people are getting better rates of returns than they are at a bank or a brokerage house. But it’s an important aspect. It is the foundation. If you think about somebody’s financial pyramid, the cash position, the liquidity and the control and the capability and the desire for use and opportunity of cash is not focused on typically enough in typical financial planning. Super. Well, we’re going to keep talking about the book just a little bit more. We’re just now getting into the

[16:42] beginning of it. And in the very opening statement of the book, it says no people who lost their character ever kept their liberties. What does that mean to you? Well, it’s definitely some big words that one has to dig into a little bit. And I think the idea of character is so valuable and something that I know back to my kids high school, they are working on it all the time. A full character education is something that they are talking about developing character. And I think so many times we feel like we can get away with things and then we lose our freedoms. And that’s what losing liberty means to me is losing freedom. Super. Gosh, there’s just so many good quotes in here about something and just just the different

[17:30] people. This is a quote from Warren Buffett. It says in looking for someone to hire, you look for three qualities integrity, intelligence and energy. But most important is integrity, which is a synonym for character. Because if they don’t have that the other two qualities, intelligence and energy are going to kill you. Wow, that’s great. I’d forgotten about that. Yeah, leave it to Warren Buffett to say it succinctly. That is right on. And it’s interesting because you know, character is not just the things that people see. But a lot of times it’s the things that you only know about yourself, isn’t it? Absolutely. I always like to think, okay, nobody else may be watching me. But for me, the word that I use is

[18:15] God is watching me or a higher power is watching me or you could say the universe is watching me or what have you. And when you think that way, I was talking with somebody that was retired the other day and they were getting up in the morning and just sort of floundering around and not really having much going on in their day. And I just said, well, just think about God’s like right there watching you all the time. What would you do if that were the case? Well, I’d probably get up. I’d probably get cleaned up. I’d probably eat breakfast. I might do a workout. I might have some spiritual study. Well, okay, use that to think about to make your day better. And of course, looking at, I guess examples of character, but it says a

[18:54] deficit of character shows up every time somebody who knows the right thing to do, neither defends it nor does it because doing so might mean a little discomfort or inconvenience. Discomfort. Yep. Sometimes we get good progress when we are not comfortable or we’re in a state of discomfort or inconvenience. Great additional word there. So let’s remember that next time. And it, you know, again, you can apply it to the physical aspects of your life or the spiritual or inspirational, whichever word works for you. And sometimes when we push things a little bit, we can get better results. And sometimes when we push things a little bit, we need to pay attention to the messages we’re hearing and adjust

[19:43] accordingly. Well, I just, this next one really kind of got me too. And it’s not only doing something that’s illegal or immoral or something like that, but it also applies to pressuring the government to give them something at the expense of others, something which they know in their very gut should come instead from their own efforts and merit. Yep. Some good messages in there. They talk about, I don’t know if you’ve ever seen the movie Cinderella Man, but it’s about a, it’s about a boxer who got very, very, he was down living basically homeless. And in order to feed his family, he actually went on welfare for a short period of time. And then as soon as he got a job, he’s one of very few people that actually went

[20:32] down to the welfare office and paid the money back. And they didn’t even know how to handle that. I have seen that movie. The look on those ladies faces when he was giving them a wad of cash. That is a fabulous one. Cinderella Man, maybe we can grab a link on the blog to have that as well. Cause that is a fabulous movie and it really shows a very good display of character. And another word that I would use is honor. And it is a fabulous example of that. So the book then goes on to say, okay, um, regardless of what you would consider your personal level of character at right now, if you want to improve it, what are some things that you can do? And the number one suggestion is talking about the importance of

[21:21] gratitude. Is that anything you know anything about there, Kim? Well, I love that the book has some, here’s what you can do lines in it, because that’s always a helpful thing. And I have always believed that gratitude’s got to come first. You have to be grateful for things first. And that’s hard. It’s hard for me. There’s times when I’m wanting something and it doesn’t necessarily mean material. It could be a business thing or a relationship thing or anything that is important to me in my life and being grateful for it, acting as if I already have it, and then expressing that gratitude and being very proactive with that gratitude. In other words, being grateful, not because I got something, but because I’m proactively

[22:09] being grateful, being grateful first. My mom always used to say, give a good time, not have a good time. And she meant the message to me, go out there and give and give first was my college baccalaureate’s speech title. I could probably rattle off that speech today. I had that thing so well memorized 25 years ago, the idea of giving first. So yeah, I love that. Tell us a couple other of those suggestions of what you can do. Just kind of skimming through here. Yeah, I just on that gratitude thing. I mean, it’s amazing if we look at our society today, how many things that we take for granted. I mean, the streets and all of the kind of stuff, the highways that we drive on and all that kind of stuff is

[22:56] just absolutely amazing that everything today we take for granted happens because of so many people putting forth so much effort. And, you know, I think when we look at the government policies and things like that, so much of it is about what we get and not so much about what we give. And I think, you know, if you have that attitude of gratitude, it’s definitely creates opportunities to give, which creates a better person inside yourself and allows you to get, wouldn’t you think? Absolutely. And it’s that giving first attitude of gratitude. The other saying that I really like is your attitude determines your altitude. And I think Joel Weldon needs the credit for that. And he may have hijacked from somebody else,

[23:47] but how high you want to go is determined by your attitude. And it’s just proven over and over and over. Super. Well, we would encourage everybody to try to pick up a copy of this book. Are we good enough for Liberty? If you go back to the blog post there, you should be able to have a link on there. We’ll try to keep that updated. But it’s a great book just to kind of expand your mind. Again, nobody’s trying to tell you what to do. We just want you to better understand the system that you live in. And any other comments you’d like to add there, Kim? No, I’m really glad we got a chance to talk about the book, highlightfee.org. And of course, anybody’s welcome to reach out to us on partnersforprosperity.com

[24:24] if they have questions or even I’ve had some clients say, well, how does after reading the book, my money fit in with this particular strategy and, you know, take something like the qualified plan as an example, how does it fit in with this idea of freedom and liberty? And we can have some fun discussions around that. So we welcome your comments. Please tell us what else you’d like to have on the blog. Please reach out to us if with any questions at partnersforprosperity.com. Super. Well, this is No BS Money Guy Todd Strobel. Again, special thanks to our co-host and bestselling financial author, Kim Butler. Take care, everybody. Thank you for listening to the Prosperity Podcast to take control of your

[25:06] money and have it work for you. Visit us at partnersforprosperity.com If you liked this episode, make sure you subscribe and leave a review.