The Zach Foust Show

The Zach Foust Show

By Zachary Foust

We break down housing, growing wealth gaps, and the economy in a simple, meaningful way.


Clear, honest, and structured for real people.


... more
Download on the App Store

Best of The Zach Foust Show

The most played episodes among Podcast App listeners.

  1. Number 1: 5 Ways to THRIVE in a TOUGH 2027 economy | ZFS 100

    Send us Fan Mail Episode 100. Thank you for being here for every single one. Sean is out sick so Joe is on the boards, and today I am giving you five things you can actually do to not just survive but thrive in what I believe is going to be a very tough 2027 economy. First I walk you through the setup. We just passed 40 trillion in national debt, and the interest on that debt is now over 1.1 trillion a year, more than our entire military budget. That has never happened until seven months ago. Scott Bessent says we will grow our way out of it. Nobody is buying our bonds, so the Treasury is doubling its own buybacks. The Fed is trapped between two mandates it cannot both satisfy, and Kevin Warsh, the same man who was there in 2008, is back for round two. The math is the math. They are going to print money. It is the only lever left. Then I give you the five moves. One, grow your own food, because the UN and JP Morgan are both warning of a global fertilizer and food supply crisis heading into 2027. Two, lock in job and career security, because when the printing comes the job market gets tighter first. Three, hold gold and silver as your insurance policy against a weakening dollar. Four, hold your index funds and retirement accounts with diamond hands because they will print and it will come back. Five, hold real assets, dirt, housing, and the things that go up when the dollar goes down. But this one is not just about money. I close on whole wealth. Your time, your mind, your body. Read the book, hit the gym, take the cold shower, put down the vape, drop the doom scroll. Your net worth is not your personal worth. And if you are a young man who wants more, I am starting a 90 day journey on September 1st called the 90 Day Life Max. DM me if you want in. Here is to the next hundred. Support the show

    1h 51min
    Listen Later
  2. Number 2: Gas & diesel prices just SOARED, what happens now??? | ZFS 104

    Send us Fan Mail Gas is at $4.44 nationally, up nearly 50% since this war started in February. Diesel just hit a record $6.40, up 77 cents in the first two weeks of September alone. In California diesel is already at $8 a gallon. Sean, Joe and I break down exactly why this is happening and why I do not think it comes back down anytime soon. Here is what most coverage misses. Crude oil is not the story. Diesel is. Diesel is the single most universal tangible input in the American economy, it moves your groceries, your packages, your construction materials, everything. And the reason diesel and gasoline are climbing faster than crude is that refined fuel is explosive, so almost nobody is lining up to haul it through the Strait of Hormuz right now. Freight captain crews have gone up eight times in cost because of the risk. Ukraine keeps hitting Russian refineries. Exxon just shut down its Joliet plant entirely after a power outage. Refining capacity is disappearing while demand keeps going. Then there is the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. We peaked at 726 million barrels in 2009. We were at 415 million as recently as March. We are now around 285 million, the lowest level since 1983. Under the Energy Policy and Conservation Act there is a hard legal floor at 252.4 million barrels, below which the president cannot do routine drawdowns without declaring a national energy emergency. We are getting very close to that number. And we close on China. Their crude imports collapsed when this war began, which quietly kept global prices from spiking even harder. Now those imports are ticking back up. Whether that is pure economics or something more strategic, the result is the same. Supply comes off an already tight market. If you have not filled your heating oil tank for winter, I would do it now. Support the show

    1h 21min
    Listen Later
  3. Number 3: They Are Buying Their Own Debt Now | ZFS 101

    Send us Fan Mail Episode 101. Sean is back on the boards, healthy and happy, and we are digging into the trickery happening over at the Treasury and the impossible position the Federal Reserve has put itself in. Here is the setup. The July Treasury statement shows $334 billion came in and $766 billion went out. That is more than double. A $432 billion deficit in a single month. Scott Bessent's answer is that we will grow our way out of it, mostly through tariff revenue. So we ran the math. Our GDP grew 2.9% in 2023 while our debt grew 7.2%. In 2024 it was 2.8% growth against 6.9% debt. In 2025, 2.1% against 6.1%. Our debt is growing two to three times faster than our economy. Monkey no believe that. Then it gets worse. Nobody wants our long term debt, so the Treasury announced it is doubling its own bond buybacks and may tap nearly a trillion dollars from the Treasury General Account to do it. That is manufactured demand. We are buying our own debt to suppress our own yields. One analyst called it the world's largest interest only adjustable rate mortgage, and the adjustment dates come every 28 days. Meanwhile Kevin Warsh is sitting at the Fed with two mandates and no way to hit both. Raise rates and you kill the job market that already has 5.6% unemployment for college grads under 30. Cut rates and inflation, already at 3.7% on PCE, runs away from you. If they hike they lose the long end. If they cut they lose the long end. That is the whole game. I close with Trump saying out loud that the ultimate intervention is our military, Smotrich openly laying out the expansion plan, and the Las Vegas bio lab charges quietly getting dropped. Own an asset or get left behind. Support the show

    1h 16min
    Listen Later
  4. Number 4: This State has a HUGE problem w/ Michael Smith | ZFS 105

    Send us Fan Mail Delaware has a problem and it comes down to three things. Housing, jobs, and retirement. Today I break all three down and then sit with Michael Smith, Democrat candidate for Delaware State Treasurer, to ask him what he actually plans to do about it. Here is where we are. Bloomberg just named Delaware the rising number one retirement state in the country and nobody told the people who already live here. Sussex County population is up 17% since 2020, growing five times faster than the US average. The median homebuyer in southern Delaware is now 54.5 years old. Since 2019 the median household income in Kent County went up about 19.6% while the median home price went up 96%. That math does not work for anybody trying to start a life here. On jobs, Delaware sits at 4.8% unemployment while the national number is 4.1%. Before Covid we were around 3.7%, better than the country. Now we are worse. And a huge share of the jobs Delawareans hold are not even sourced in Delaware, they are remote positions based in Philly, DC, Baltimore, or Jersey. The money comes in, but the economic value is not being built here. Then there is education. We are ninth in the nation in per pupil spending at about $22,000 per student, and 45th in educational outcomes. Top 20% in spend, bottom 10% in results. That is money flowing out with nothing coming back. Retirees are moving in because Delaware is cheap compared to Jersey and New York, our property taxes are among the lowest five in the nation, and the beaches are right there. Meanwhile the traffic has doubled since 1999, the primary care shortage is real, and nobody is building the infrastructure to keep up. Michael Smith is an economist. If he is going to be in charge of our money, I want to know what he is actually going to do with it. Stick around for the full interview. Support the show

    1h 36min
    Listen Later
  5. Number 5: The Buyers are GONE...What Happens Next? | ZFS 103

    Send us Fan Mail The buyers are gone. Not just in housing, not just in cars, everywhere, across every major purchase in this country and honestly across the globe. Sean, Joe and I dig into why, and it all comes back to the same place. We start with the August jobs report. 162,000 jobs created, way above expectations, with June and July both revised upward by a combined 55,000 jobs. Sounds great, right? Except the stock market fell and bond yields went up the second the number dropped. That tells you the market does not believe it. We walk through Kevin Walsh's Jackson Hole speech, his strange opening story, and why he used the word hike four times in his first minute and a half. We also break down the actual composition of those new jobs, mostly food service, bartending, and teaching, not exactly the export driven growth that builds a stronger economy. And we ask the obvious question nobody wants to say out loud. What if these numbers are being managed right before the midterms? Then we get into why buying and borrowing have both gotten more expensive at the same time. The 30 year Treasury is sitting at 5.24%, up from 4.63% before the war. The ten year is at 4.79%, up from 3.96% pre war. That is what is actually driving your mortgage rate and your car payment, not just inflation on the sticker price. We close with an update on Iran, who has rejected the latest peace proposal and is still demanding the exact same terms they started with, $300 billion, an end to sanctions, and peace for their allies. They are playing the long game, and the Fed is walking straight into a catch 22 it cannot solve. Something cracks, then we print, then it inflates. Again. I am not a financial advisor, I am a real estate agent, but here is what I personally hold. 25% crypto, mostly Bitcoin. 50% gold and silver as my insurance policy against the dollar. 25% in the S&P 500. Hold an asset or get left behind. Support the show

    1h 16min
    Listen Later

The Zach Foust Show episodes:

FAQs about The Zach Foust Show:

How many episodes does The Zach Foust Show have?

The podcast currently has 118 episodes available.