Risk Parity Radio

Episode 449: A Transition, Personal Finance Is Still Finance, And Fun With Mary And Coaching Stuff

• Frank Vasquez • Season 6 • Episode 449

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In this episode we answer emails from Nick, No Name, and Nathan.  We discuss transitioning at 70% to FI, the inherent problems with a lot of psychology-based and convenience-based finance media and personal finance that fails to do the finance part first, Mary's amusement with Frank's ego (don't encourage him), and financial coaching.

And we get to hear from Abby at the Father McKenna Center.

Links:

Father McKenna Center Donation Page:  Donate - Father McKenna Center

Shannon's Demon Article:  Unexpected Returns: Shannon's Demon & the Rebalancing Bonus – Portfolio Charts

Video Interview of Abby:  The Church's View on Homelessness Amid Trump’s Removal Plan in D.C. | EWTN News Nightly

If you have comments or questions, please send them to frank@riskparityradio.com or visit www.riskparityradio.com.

Breathless Unedited AI-Bot Summary:

When should you transition from a high-equity portfolio to a risk parity approach? This question, posed by a listener at 70% of their FIRE number, launches us into an exploration of timing one of the most critical shifts in an investor's journey.

The ideal transition point typically comes at 80% of your target number and about five years from your goal. The logic is straightforward: you want to secure your gains while your portfolio sits near all-time highs, shifting from aggressive growth to stability as you approach financial independence. Your decision should weigh how much you'll continue contributing and your personal risk tolerance.

This episode also pulls back the curtain on the troubling state of financial media. Too many "experts" repeat outdated concepts like the "100 minus your age" rule—a relic from the 1990s with no empirical backing. We explore how financial advice has become psychologically driven rather than financially optimized, with advisors choosing strategies that are easy to explain rather than those that deliver optimal results.

As Upton Sinclair observed, "It's difficult to get a person to understand something when their salary depends on them not understanding it." This explains why many advisors promote bucket strategies and time segmentation plans despite their inefficiency—they're selling what clients can understand, not what best serves their financial futures.

The DIY investor's advantage is clear: we can focus on data first and psychology second. Your financial behaviors should align with your goals—if you want to spend more in retirement, you need a portfolio designed for that purpose, not just psychological tricks to feel comfortable underspending.

Want to make better financial decisions? Stop trying to predict the future. Adopt a decade-long perspective instead of obsessing over current conditions. Remember that rebalancing works over time due to Shannon's Demon—the mathematical reality that regularly rebalanced diverse assets outperform in the long run.

Support the show

Voices:

A foolish consistency, is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.

Mostly Mary:

A different drummer and now, coming to you from dead center on your dial, welcome to Risk Parity Radio, where we explore alternatives and asset allocations for the do-it-yourself investor, Broadcasting to you now from the comfort of his easy chair. Here is your host, Frank Vasquez.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

Thank you, mary, and welcome to Risk Parity Radio. If you have just stumbled in here, you will find that this podcast is kind of like a dive bar of personal finance and do-it-yourself investing. Expect the unexpected. It's a relatively small place. It's just me and Mary in here and we only have a few mismatched bar stools and some easy chairs. We have no sponsors, we have no guests and we have no expansion plans.

Voices:

I don't think I'd like another job.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

What we do have is a little free library of updated and unconflicted information for do-it-yourself investors.

Voices:

Now, who's up for a trip to the library tomorrow?

Mostly Uncle Frank:

So please enjoy our mostly cold beer served in cans and our coffee served in old, chipped and cracked mugs, along with what our little free library has to offer.

Voices:

Welcome to offer.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

But now onward, episode 449. Today, on Arrested Parody Radio, we're just going to do what we do best here, which is attend to your emails.

Mostly Mary:

You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

But before we get to that, we have a little announcement Our new website is up and running and no, there are still a few kinks that we're working out, including updating it to the most recent information, but all that should be done by the end of this week. I would think we have top men working on it right now.

Voices:

Who top?

Mostly Uncle Frank:

men, I want to thank you all who sent in comments. We did try to incorporate most of them, at least the ones that weren't conflicting or otherwise too difficult to deal with.

Voices:

Not going to do it Wouldn't be prudent at this juncture.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

But of course my biggest thanks goes to Luke, our listener in Quebec Parce que vive le Québec, puis je me souviens who has really done yeoman's work in improving this thing and hopefully it will be very good and more useful going forward.

Voices:

Just come up.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

Luke's also working on uploading the remainder of the transcripts, because we didn't have transcripts that were automatically generated until about episode 300 or something, and I had uploaded some of the earlier ones, but not all of them it's not that I'm lazy, it's that I just don't care, but hopefully they will all be uploaded because that will also be searchable on the website, in addition to the names of the podcasts and the show notes. I do invite more comments, but not right away, just clap.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

If you would wait at least about a week until we take care of all the obvious things that are wrong that we have spotted.

Voices:

Wrong, wrong.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

Then we'll take comments and you won't waste your time commenting on things that are already fixed by the time you send in your comment.

Voices:

Just clap.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

And please send those comments to frankatriskparodyradarcom. The email is frankatriskparodyradarcom. I prefer you not send the comments through the chat thing on the website, because it's too complicated to pull them out of there, at least for the purpose of this.

Voices:

But now, without further ado, here I go once again with the email.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

And First off. First off, we have an email from Nick. Meet Nicky.

Voices:

Hello friend, it's his first day in New York City.

Mostly Mary:

You're crazy. And Nick writes Hi, Frank, I'm a longtime listener of Risk Parity Radio and I wanted to start by saying I was happy to make a donation to the Father McKenna Center.

Voices:

Yeah, baby.

Voices:

Yeah.

Mostly Mary:

I'm glad to support a cause you've highlighted on the show. I also wanted to send a proper thank you for the podcast. Your clear, evidence-based approach has been an incredible resource and has fundamentally changed the way I think about building a portfolio. In a world full of financial entertainers, it's refreshing to hear someone who simply sticks to the data.

Voices:

From you Data. You are fully functional, aren't you, Of course? But how fully? In every way, of course. I am programmed in multiple techniques.

Mostly Mary:

We're in our mid-30s and are about 70% of the way to our FIRE number, largely thanks to a high savings rate where we've been able to max out all of our retirement accounts Two Roth IRAs, two 403Bs and two 457s Smokin'. My wife plans to leave her job in the next few months, which means our savings rate will drop significantly.

Mostly Mary:

And it's gone Poof, we'll likely only be able to max out our two Roth IRAs and my 457 going forward. We are currently in a traditional high equity accumulation portfolio. Our goal is to retire in the next five to seven years, so we will be relying more on portfolio growth than new contributions to get there. My question is about the timing of a transition. From a theoretical standpoint, does it make more sense to switch to a risk parity style portfolio now as we enter this new phase of lower savings, or is it better to stick with the higher growth potential of an equity heavy portfolio until we are much closer to our final number? I'm trying to wrap my head around balancing the need for growth against the increasing importance of capital preservation as our portfolio becomes a larger part of our net worth. Thanks again for everything you do. Best regards, nick.

Voices:

Never doubt my skills, Little Nicky. Oh yes, I mean woof, woof.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

Well, first off, thank you for being a donor to the Father McKenna Center. As most of you know, we do not have any sponsors on this program. We do have a charity we support. It's called the Father McKenna Center and it supports hungry and homeless people in Washington DC. Full disclosure I am on the board of the charity and am the current treasurer, but if you give to the Father McKenna Center, you get to go to the front of the email line.

Voices:

Excellent.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

There are two ways to do that. First, you can go directly to the Father McKenna Center donation page and give on the website there. Or you can go to our support page at wwwriskpartyradiocom and become one of our patrons on Patreon and give monthly that way. Either way, you get to go to the front of the email line, but make sure you mention that in your email because otherwise I may have difficulty flagging it.

Voices:

I just stare at my desk, but it looks like I'm working.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

Just a couple more notes. In the Father McKenna Center we did in fact get to the top of the t-shirt in our top of the t-shirt campaign and I just got a little mock-up of the T-shirt that we're going to be using for the walk, at least the back of it. I will see if I can post that to the support page at wwwriskprioritycom so you can check that out. But if you did give to that campaign and you would like to get a T-shirt, please either register for the walk, go there at the Father McKenna website, or just send me an email and we'll figure it out, because I know most of you are not local and will not be able to attend the walk or anything else in DC. One of the strengths and positive attributes of the Father McKenna Center is that it involves a lot of younger people, both high school, college and shortly thereafter, and one of our young staffers, abby, was interviewed recently about what's going on in DC and the Father McKenna Center and I will put that little clip of her talking about it at the end of this podcast so you can check that out. It appeared on EWTN last week but she's a good representation of the types of people that we find volunteering and working there and she gives a good short description of what we do.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

Now, getting to your email and your questions in particular, you do have an interesting situation here because you're not quite where I would usually say somebody would want to make their transition. Usually I would say when they get to 80% and a few years out. And you're at 70% and more than a couple of years out, so you're very close to where you would want to make a transition. But the other question is actually how much are you going to be contributing to this pot of money out of your future resources? Because you want to kind of add that in, and if you knew that you were going to get up to 80% with those additional contributions, then you're probably right for transitioning. I just couldn't tell, since you said that you were going to be reducing your contributions, because reducing your contributions suggests that you should wait a little bit longer. On the other hand, this may be kind of an academic discussion because chances are you're going to get there either way you go, and if you were more comfortable starting the transition now, you certainly could do that. It just might take you a little bit extra time, but on the other hand, you're more guaranteed to get there within, say, a seven-year time frame by making the transition now. You'd be more likely to get there in four or five years if you don't make the transition, and that's the tradeoff, depending upon how your assets are organized.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

It might make sense to do a partial transition at this point At least, to reduce the amount of equities. If you're like at 100% equities, you go down to 80 or 90% and that might be a compromise between the two positions. But 80% and five years or less are usually the kind of the metrics I'm thinking about looking at for this, because the other important factor is you want to do this when your current portfolio is at a nearer, an all-time high. So you are essentially selling high out of the more aggressive portfolio, knowing that the portfolio you're moving towards will not grow as much but will be a lot more stable. So hopefully that answers your question, or at least as good as I can answer it without seeing some actual numbers and things.

Voices:

You need somebody watching your back at all times.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

The other thing that caught my attention in your email was your reference to financial entertainers and the world of financial entertainers.

Voices:

You know, whenever I see an opportunity now, I charge it like a bull, ned the Bull, that's me now.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

And you say it's refreshing to have somebody who simply sticks to the data ah, good data.

Voices:

At least you're functioning fully, captain data intoxication is a human condition.

Mostly Mary:

Your brain is different.

Voices:

It's not the same as we are more alike than, unlike my dear captain, no-transcript. What do you want to buy? Hey everybody, suzy O here.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

Including people who are ostensibly doing personal finance related topics, because they seem to eventually gravitate towards their sponsors and some pat answers that they repeat and they do not seem to be very interested in updating their knowledge base with respect to finances base with respect to finances.

Voices:

I'm a grumpy old man. I don't like everything the way it is now compared to the way it used to be.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

So you get a lot of financial media personalities who are promoting robo-thingies or various financial advisor networks.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

If you followed all the instructional material, you just said it and forget it, the new rage is promoting all kinds of calculators, I think, but what always tips me off is that they're more interested in media than they are in finances is when they say things that are obviously out of date. A popular one is this bad penny that keeps showing up, where people say, well, you should hold your stock bond allocation based on your age, or 100 minus your age, or some nonsense formula like that.

Voices:

Are you stupid or something? Stupid is what stupid does sir.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

That's an idea straight out of the 1990s that never really had any credence, and so if you're repeating something like that today as a financial media personality, you might as well drop the finance and just call yourself a media personality, because that's what you're doing.

Voices:

Can I afford? It has been gamified, which means you're going to get to listen to the caller. You're going to say show me the money to yourself anyway, and then you're going to get to On the other side I found much of personal finance is fixated more on the personal than the finance.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

And when I say personal here it's generally fixated on psychology, basically what's going to go down easy.

Voices:

A guy, don't walk on the lot lest he wants to buy.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

And you see this in two different places in the traditional personal finance realm and all these books written by famous bogleheads 20 years ago and things that follow along with that. There's this obsession with simplicity Set it and forget it, set it and forget it, set it and forget it, as if human beings are too stupid to do anything. That's not the most simple thing you can possibly do I'm not a smart man and it's also obsessed with accumulation, and so there's an accumulation plan using low-cost funds, but that never ends, because the solution for retirement is twofold One, keep working for money and making as much money as you can as long as possible, and two, continue to underspend your resources by great amounts so that there's no chance that they'll ever go down essentially, and you'll die with the most money possible.

Voices:

Am I right, or am I right or am?

Voices:

I right Right, right right.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

So there's kind of this psychology of fear to be overcome with simplicity and hoarding as the two solutions for that.

Voices:

It's such a terrible thing for a man to struggle to be something better than he is.

Voices:

Another idol has replaced me in your heart.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

A golden idol.

Voices:

It's singular the world that can be so brutally cruel to the poor professes to condemn the pursuit of wealth. In the same breath, you fear the world too much, with reason.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

And then when you go to the popular financial advisor world these days, it's all obsessed with time segmentation plans.

Voices:

Because only one thing counts in this life Get them to sign on the line which is dotted.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

Bucket strategies, ladders, flower pots, all of this stuff that is recognized to be very psychologically attractive to the most numbers of people, because people who are not involved in finances understand time segmentation and these bucket things better than they understand portfolio construction or other things like that. Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son. So it makes sense, if you're selling services to a wide variety of the public, that you would adopt those kinds of strategies A, b, c.

Voices:

A always B, b, c closing.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

Not because they're the most efficient or the most effective, but simply because they're the easiest ones to sell and the easiest ones to explain.

Voices:

Always be closing, always be closing, always be closing.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

And it also has the added advantage of adding a level of unnecessary complexity to a plan If you not only have a portfolio, but then you have all of these extraneous buckets of things that need to be managed, because obviously you need to pay somebody to manage that, right Bing. So now the popular thing to do has become to give your clients some kind of battery of psychological tests so you can put them in one of these boxes and then hopefully sell them. A complex plan involving buckets, ladders and flower pots, even though the data shows you that rearranging the lollipops on the good ship lollipop does not make them taste any better.

Voices:

Good Ship. Lollipop is a sweet trip to the candy shop where fun runs great.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

What's interesting to me is that this kind of pervades financial advisory services up to the very highest levels. There was an interesting interview of Bob Elliott on the Compound which is Ben Carlson and Michael Batnick and Josh Brown from Ritholtz Wealth Management, and they were having a discussion about using gold as a diversifier in a retirement portfolio and Bob Elliott was explaining to them yes, it works just as well as bonds, but it probably makes sense to have both gold and bonds in a portfolio. And their response to him was very interesting because they did not dispute anything he had to say, because there was no disputing it. It was based on good data that he's collected and a nice presentation that he's made.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

But their problem had everything to do with their practice management in that they said we can't explain that to our clients. It's too hard for us to explain that to our clients. They have an expectation that we're going to be doing this stock and bond and time segmentation management type stuff and if we veer from that expectation or essentially what we've been telling them all these years, they might leave. You can leave. And so that was their justification for not expanding their diversification of their client portfolios, not because it wasn't the right thing to do. They knew it was the right thing to do and they couldn't dispute it. But it was easier for them in terms of managing their practice making money, retaining clients not to do something.

Voices:

Bing again.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

There's an interesting quote from Upton Sinclair. It's difficult to get a person to understand something when their salary depends on them not understanding it.

Voices:

That is the straight stuff. Oh funk master.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

And I think that that applies a lot to what financial advisors do these days, at least what's popular in that area.

Voices:

My straw reaches across the room and starts to drink your milkshake. I drink your milkshake, I drink it up.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

Fortunately, as do-it-yourself investors, we can focus on the data.

Voices:

My chemical nutrients are like your blood if you break me do I not leak?

Mostly Uncle Frank:

and not worry about the psychology as much, or only deal with the psychology after we've done the finance. And that's what I like to say. When anybody says personal finance is personalized, no, it's finance first. Finance is the noun. So you better get all that straightened out and then you can modify it and dress it up with buckets, ladders and flower pots or whatever else you want to do to make yourself happy or just not spend money, if that's your personal fear coming through.

Voices:

Help. Okay, get back here. What's with you? Anyway, I can't help it. I'm a greedy slob. It's my hobby Save me.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

But ultimately, your financial behaviors should match your financial goals. So if you do want to spend more money in retirement, you need to construct a portfolio that lets you do that. That's the fact, jack. That's the fact, jack. Now, I'm pretty sure I'm in the minority of people when I say things like that, but that's why we have little places like this, isn't it?

Voices:

You want to go where everybody knows your name. That's why we have little places like this, isn't it?

Mostly Uncle Frank:

Anyway, thank you for stopping by our little dive bar. Thank you for your donation.

Voices:

And thank you for your email. Behold your new Satan.

Voices:

What's that? What's with the?

Voices:

ball. Ozzy, holy shit. No, no, no, no, no, no. You can do it. Ozzy, bite his freaking head off. No, hey, nicky, cover Winkler in bees. You can do it, sorry.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

Henry, second off, second off. We have an email from. I have no name.

Voices:

I have no name. Well, that right there may be the reason you've had difficulty finding gainful employment.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

And I have no name rights.

Mostly Mary:

Recent new listener Listening to your new stuff and going back to the old stuff too, had to stop myself from sending you any more questions, because you're answering them all. Most impressive in the style of the emperor is how well your comments from five years ago have aged your greatness in this. I can't even read this. Your greatness, your greatness, do these people know I still have to live with you. Your greatness in this endeavor will echo for a very long time into the unknowable future. Thank you, future, thank you. Your greatness in this endeavor will echo for a very long time.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

Mary. Mary, I need your huggin' Well. Thank you for your compliments.

Mostly Mary:

You do not need people fawning over. You like that.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

Maybe I am using the dark side around here.

Voices:

Huh, what do you mean? They blew up the Death Star. Who's they? What the hell is an aluminum falcon?

Mostly Uncle Frank:

I really only have two things going in my favor with respect to that, however. One is just the recognition that history doesn't repeat, but it rhymes, which means that you get cycles of macroeconomic environments, and sometimes they trend towards more growth and more inflation, and sometimes they trend towards less growth and less inflation. But we've seen these things in the past, we know what kinds of assets perform in each kind of environment and we have past data and base rates to go by for that, so we have a good general idea as to what all the possibilities are. We just don't know what's going to happen. Next and that's my other secret is the crystal ball I use always says the same thing.

Voices:

We don't know. What do we know? You don't know, I don't know, nobody knows.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

And I find if you can resist the temptation to try to predict things too much whether those things be stock markets or interest rates or any other economic phenomenon or any other political phenomenon that might affect economic realities you're probably going to be better off. That way, at least, you're going to be less wrong, and that's what we're really trying to do here is just be less wrong, because if you can be less wrong, you'll be successful. I see too many amateurs just asking the wrong questions, and the wrong questions always have the words like right now or current conditions attached to what should I invest in, or is this good or this bad in this time frame? And if you're asking questions like that, you are essentially asking somebody to make a prediction.

Mostly Mary:

My name's Sonia. I'm going to be showing you the crystal ball and how to use it, or how I use it.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

Or, in more cases than not, confirm a prediction that you've already made yourself. Either way, it's not a good approach to finances long term.

Voices:

Forget about it.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

And if you can just tell yourself that's your base time frame to be thinking about or looking at as a decade, and not a day, a month, a year or even a couple of years, you're going to be a lot better off in terms of how you approach finances, because you're not going to be jumping in and out of this or that, and you're also going to recognize that, over time, rebalancing actually works, due to the phenomenon known as Shannon's Demon, which I will link to again in the show notes. Anyway, I'm glad you're enjoying the show, I'm glad it's useful to you and thank you for your email.

Voices:

Well, ain't this place a geographical oddity? Two weeks from everywhere. Last off.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

Last off, we have an email from Nathan.

Voices:

Hot dogs, hot dogs. Here Get your hot dogs. Hot dogs, hot dogs.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

And Nathan writes Hi Frank.

Mostly Mary:

First off, happy Father's Day. Long time listener here and fellow numberphile, so firstly, thank you so much for the invaluable content you provide to the DIY investor community. Second off, my wife and I are on the fire bandwagon, on track to reach our target within the next couple of years. Earlier this year we decided to start a blog and Instagram page documenting what we've learned, hopefully inspiring others to live a more financially responsible life and opening their eyes to the possibilities that exist within the various flavors of FI.

Mostly Mary:

Last off, someone recently reached out to us asking about financial advice. As neither of us have any certifications both engineers I believe that at most we would be able to provide financial advice. As neither of us have any certifications both engineers I believe that at most we would be able to provide financial coaching. We've told the inquiring individual that we'd have to talk to a lawyer first. Considering your law background and current financial coaching offer, would you be willing to send us a copy of the contract that you use for your own coaching sessions? I'm sure it would be very helpful to have as a reference for when we speak to our own lawyer. Thanks again for sharing all your knowledge. Best, nathan.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

Well, happy Father's Day to you too. You can see we're only about two months behind here. As I was reading your email, I thought to myself yeah, I resemble that remark, especially when you start talking about Numberphile. For those of you who don't know what that is, it's a YouTube channel run by some English mathematicians where they frequently write out complex equations on butcher paper and talk about some very esoteric things. But if you like the maths, you'll like that channel.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

Now, this coaching stuff. I'm afraid I'm going to have to turn you down in terms of sending you a copy of my retention letter, mostly because I don't want it to look like I am providing you with legal advice, but I will tell you how to do this. I'd rather teach you to fish than give you a fish. The way I approached this was to simply go online.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

There are plenty of financial coaching sites with various templates for these kinds of retention letters, with all the good language in them explaining what you are and what you are not, and that you are not going to be handling anybody's money. You are not and that you are not going to be handling anybody's money. So what I did is I took some of those and then added some more language about confidentiality and things that I thought was appropriate. But if you do that and then take it to a lawyer to have a look-see, I think that will probably be sufficient for your purposes. And for those of you who are wondering yeah, I do do some financial coaching by popular demand, mainly because people goaded me into it on this program. I don't advertise it because I don't want another job.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

Looks like you've been missing a lot of work lately. I wouldn't say I've been missing it, bob, so I only mention it. On this program when somebody brings it up, to make sure I have very few takers, as in, one a month is kind of my goal. For this I do charge a substantial amount of money, meaning $300 an hour for a two-hour minimum, which mostly ends up at the Father McKenna Center anyway, as you can imagine. But if you're interested in that you need to send an email to frankatriskparadrivercom and we'll go from there and hopefully there won't be anybody or more than one person who's interested in that at the moment.

Voices:

So are you going to get another job?

Voices:

I don't think I'd like another job.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

My other advice to you is do not start blogs or Instagram pages or any other kind of media unless you get some kind of joy out of creating. Whatever you're creating, as I do when I'm editing these podcasts- you are talking about the nonsensical ravings of a lunatic mind. Because after you're financially independent, if you're not enjoying what you're doing, you shouldn't be doing it, and if you're only doing it for money and not for the enjoyment, you probably shouldn't be doing it. But I do hope you enjoy your further creative endeavors, whatever they are.

Voices:

Yes.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

And thank you for being a fellow traveler and thank you for your email, but now I see our signal is beginning to fade.

Voices:

I have officially amounted to Jack U Squat.

Mostly Uncle Frank:

If you have comments or questions for me, please send them to frank at risk party radiocom. That email is frank at risk party radiocom, or you can go to the website, wwwriskpartyradiocom. Put your message into the contact form and I'll get it that way. If you haven't had a chance to do it, please go to your favorite podcast provider and like subscribe. Give me some stars, a follow, a review. That would be great. Okay, thank you once again for tuning in. This is Frank Vasquez, with Risk Party Radio signing off. And now a few words from Abby.

Voices:

And for more. We are joined by Abby Hutzel. She is the media spokesperson for the Father McKenna Center. It is a nonprofit organization in the Ignatian Catholic tradition which helps men struggling with homelessness and families facing food insecurity in Washington DC. And families facing food insecurity in Washington DC. First, what is your?

Voices:

reaction to President Trump's plan to get homeless people out of Washington DC. Yeah, thank you for having me. First, I just want to say that this is not the first time that we've seen the criminalization of homelessness within the Capitol, but it is the most robust plan that we've seen recently. I just want to start off by saying that homeless people are not criminals. They just cannot afford housing. Low-income housing is very hard to find within the capital, especially even just paying electricity bills that can be hard to come by nowadays. So it's unprecedented, it's unlawful and it doesn't treat them as human beings within our society.

Voices:

In your opinion, does moving them out resolve the crisis in any way, or are you concerned that it's just going to mask the problem?

Voices:

I mean, I do think that it is masking the problem. I don't think that we've seen any very concrete plans of where the homeless individuals are going to go. If they are going anywhere, they're going into more rural areas where there's less resources accessible to them by public transport, which then furthers the problem and increases just the mental. You know sorry, yeah, it just increases the problem overall as far as your operations go.

Voices:

do you think you're going to need to expand with this latest executive order? What happens for you now?

Voices:

Yeah, we've already seen a vast expansion within our breakfast and lunch programs. We've had to expand our breakfast program to an unlimited amount of individuals and had to expand our lunch program by 25 people, especially within the food insecurity, because people are not able to pay for housing within the capital, they're not able to pay for their groceries. So we've tried to partner with other organizations, with other community members, but it just seems right now that it's hard to do so in such financial restrictions and tough times.

Voices:

So when he visited DC in 2015, Pope Francis did meet with the city's homeless. Do you know what kind of impact the visit might have had on Catholics?

Voices:

Yeah, I mean it's just showing the humanity within it all. It's showing that we're all people, that we all have a common sense of good and want to do well for our community and for our country. And so it's just those simple interactions of actually listening to a person, of giving a handshake or a high five, those are the interactions that make us people at the end of the day and that support the community around us and Pope Francis coming to DC and showing that just outright. It enlightens people, it makes them go out and show an impact within, wherever they are, within the city and tell us more about the McKenna Center.

Voices:

What does the organization do and how does it serve people?

Voices:

Yeah, so we serve breakfast and lunch to unhoused men within our community. Again, unlimited amount of breakfast and 75 men for lunch. And then we also provide services that enhance the dignity of individuals, such as, you know, laundry services, showers, giving out clothing to the clothing closet that's been a huge spike, you know, in this hot weather and then we also give out food, such as fresh produce, eggs, meat, those things, and we let those individuals pick it up themselves to enhance their own confidence and dignity when going through tough situations. So those are some of the services that we provide and also help those individuals receive birth certificates and identification things and documents that we take for granted.

Voices:

All right. Abby Hutzel, thank you for joining us today. We appreciate you.

Mostly Mary:

Thank you, have a great day, bye. The Risk Parity Radio Show is hosted by Frank Vasquez. The content provided is for entertainment and informational purposes only and does not constitute financial investment tax or legal advice. Please consult with your own advisors before taking any actions based on any information you have heard here, making sure to take into account your own personal circumstances.

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