Moneybeat: The builder's creed

Editor's note: The following text is a transcript of a podcast story. To listen to the story, click on the arrow beneath the headline above.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: The Monday Moneybeat.

NICK EICHER, HOST: It’s time now to talk business, markets, and the economy with financial analyst and advisor David Bahnsen. David heads up the wealth management firm the Bahnsen Group, and he is here now. 

Good morning, David. 

DAVID BAHNSEN: Well, good morning, Nick. Good to be with you.

EICHER: Well, David, the jobs report came in: employers in the month of May adding 172,000 jobs, a lot more than expected. Unemployment holding at that 4.3% number.

But then also the previous two months—and we had talked about this last month in April—that the jobs numbers seemed a bit high and might need to be revised down. They were revised up in this latest report.

So now March, April, and now May: three pretty decent months. What do you say is the story of the report, David?

BAHNSEN: Well, that is the story, that it was three pretty decent months, and I think that we want to be very careful. They weren’t great, but they were better than expected, and that is a good thing. And the direction is all positive.

You know, the negatives are that the wages are not growing, and that the labor participation rate is at 61.8%. It remains very, very low. But of course, that’s a longer-term story that we’ve talked about a lot here at Moneybeat.

But the encouraging sign is that the low amount of hirings of 2025 has not turned into elevated firings in 2026.

EICHER: Well David, last week you said you wanted a Federal Reserve that is independent not only of political pressure, but also of bad economic assumptions.

And after Friday’s jobs report, I did notice a lot of the commentary and a lot of the reporting seemed to assume that stronger hiring means more inflation risk and therefore fewer rate cuts coming from the Fed.

Is that necessarily the case, or do you think investors are confusing stronger growth with higher inflation?

BAHNSEN: Yeah, but let’s be clear that what’s going on: the short-term rate did not go higher on the good news of better jobs Friday, and that’s the only rate the Fed can control.

What went higher is the longer-term rate, the 10-year bond yield.

But I just have to remind people, cause I don’t think there’s anything more important to understand in financial markets than this: the 10-year bond yield is a measurement of expectations of nominal growth, nominal GDP.

I don’t care about the 10-year bond yield going higher if it is for non-inflationary reasons—real growth.

That’s where Kevin Warsh, I think, is going to help us at the Fed, because he does not believe this Phillips Curve nonsense that growth is inherently inflationary.

Having a slightly higher long-term bond yield because real growth expectations are higher, but not because inflationary expectations are higher, would be a good thing.

Now, I’m not saying that’s what is going to end up happening. There is a long way to go to figure out where a lot of these things are going to play out.

So I think what you saw Friday was not a big surprise, and it was not across the whole stock market. It was a rotation out of the very excessively priced areas of the market into more defensive and stable parts of the market.

EICHER: Well David, you wrote something unusual this week for Dividend Cafe: a commencement address. But more than that, I think a pretty direct challenge for this graduating class.

You take on one of the most common assumptions in our culture for young people: that young people are inheriting a future that has fewer opportunities and an economy that’s stacked against them.

We hear politicians use those very words, from housing costs, to student debt, to AI.

Why do you think that negative message has become so dominant? And while I know you don’t believe that it’s true, why is it not true?

BAHNSEN: The reason it’s become dominant is because it is just simply a symptomatic element of the entire narrative of today’s culture, which is some element of victimhood, some element of leading with alleged disadvantages. That we celebrate this whole idea of being a victim somewhere, somehow, and it is at the heart of so much of cultural theory these days.

The reality, Nick, is that you can argue there are certain elements that are harder today, and many other elements that are better than they’ve ever been. But I also think that you have to look at the total picture.

And I am critical of our student loan system and our college funding model. But I also would argue that many people would have given anything to be born into, to enter young adult life with 4% unemployment and a $30 trillion-size economy.

So there’s a give and take to all of this.

But those are macro things that have nothing to do with Billy, Debbie, Tommy, Katie—individual people.

What individual people have to do is completely different than the way we measure the aggregates. What individual people have to do is say, "Well, there’s some headwinds out there and there’s some tailwinds out there, and what am I gonna do with those things?"

I think the problem with these doom-and-gloom narratives is that they take people away from what they need to do: individual agency, and give people a preemptive excuse for why things are just too difficult—that house prices are too high, or that student debt is too high, or whatnot.

I do believe house prices are too high. I do believe that a lot of people’s college education was a rip-off. There are various things out there folks could focus on.

I do not think any of those things, though, have anything to do with the real conversation, which is what an individual does when they get out of bed in the morning. 

What that person does has to be individual to their own agency and their calling for them to go live out a life of meaning and purpose.

EICHER: Well, you know, David, it wouldn’t be a proper commencement address these days if you didn’t mention AI. A lot of young people hear that artificial intelligence is going to transform the economy in ways that we can barely imagine.

But what is the difference between acknowledging a disruption to come and assuming that that disruption means fewer opportunities for human flourishing?

BAHNSEN: The macro here is that we have to understand that anything AI is doing to meet needs is opening up a new need to be met. That there is this perpetual process of human needs being met, and then it might close one door and open up another.

And it’s very hard for a person in their given situation to see that, because when they’re the one with the door closing, that’s all they’re feeling and seeing, and they’re not seeing the other door that is opening.

AI is going to eliminate some jobs, it’s going to create other jobs; that is not only the testimony of history, it’s what we’re seeing play out right now. There’s a huge increase in opportunities for software engineers right now. Everyone predicted the opposite. 

But that’s going to play out, and I believe that people need to be informed by history, but also by anthropology.

What I mean by that is what we know as Christians about how the human person works. If you understand that human needs are infinite, therefore the work that can be done for humans is infinite, you should carry with you a greater hope and optimism for where AI is going to take things as far as it pertains to your opportunity.

EICHER: You closed your remarks by saying that throughout your life you have encountered two kinds of people: builders and destroyers.

Now, to be fair, there are things in this world that deserve to be criticized, if not ripped down. Journalism is built on criticism. Markets need critics. Institutions sometimes need reformers.

So what is the difference between healthy criticism and the kind of tearing-down mentality that you’re warning against here? What habits or attitudes tend to separate the people who build from those who spend most of their time dismantling?

BAHNSEN: Well, I do stand very much behind it.

I wish that there was sort of this third camp of people that were just sort of spectators, but that’s not been my experience.

I think that ultimately, with varying degrees of effectiveness, most people are either builders or destroyers, and I feel very strongly that God called us to be builders. Another word we can use in Christian vocabulary is God called us to be creators.

And what are the habits that separate the two? 

The number one thing that when I see someone who’s a destroyer is that they are driven by negativity. They’re driven by covetousness, by bitterness, by the various things that are associated with poor character.

Builders are driven by the elements of good character—wanting to do things that meet the needs of humanity, wanting to create new goods and services, institutions, organizations.

I think when you talk about healthy criticism, one can be critical of an institution, and we all know that there are many institutions worthy of being criticized. But to leave it there, or to leave it with, 'therefore, let’s destroy all institutions,' is one of the most unhealthy marks of this age.

Builders want to create new institutions, or builders want to go reform institutions that are needing reform. 

Builders, in other words, have a creative and a productive mandate and driver, where destroyers are basically, I think, primarily driven by bitterness and envy. 

And people have to sort through those things in their own lives. But what I would say to the builders and those who want to be builders is it’s very difficult to be a builder if you allow an awful lot of destroyers in your vicinity.

And builders beget builders, and we all need to build together. It’s part of what a healthy Christian community needs to look like.

EICHER: Well, David, I always enjoy reading and listening to commencement addresses. There are good ones, there are bad ones, and David, I thought yours this year was exceptional.

It is available online at YouTube and at DividendCafe.com. We will place links (YT | DC) in today’s transcript to make it easier for you to find it. 

David Bahnsen, founder, managing partner, and chief investment officer of The Bahnsen Group. David writes at DividendCafe.com and at WORLD Opinions.

And thanks so much. We’ll see you next week.

BAHNSEN: Thank you very much, Nick. Really appreciate it.

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.