In this Episode of the Secure Your Retirement Podcast, Radon and Murs discuss the current state of the 2025 economy with returning guest and economist Tom Siomades. Together, they examine the volatility of the first half of the year and the macroeconomic shifts influencing retirement portfolios. From policy shifts to global uncertainty, this episode offers a comprehensive mid-year economic update designed to help listeners plan for retirement amid ongoing changes. 

Listen in to learn about the Market Outlook 2025, including how tariffs, interest rates, and the “Big Beautiful Bill” are shaping economic trends. Tom shares insight on how the Federal Reserve may act, what to expect from financial market volatility, and the overall impact of global policies. Whether you’re watching the Federal Reserve update or simply seeking stability in your portfolio, this discussion will help you make informed decisions as you secure your retirement. 

In this episode, find out: 

• What’s driving the volatility in the US economy 2025. 
• Why the “Big Beautiful Bill” matters and how its passage (or failure) could reshape policy. 
• The likely direction of interest rates and how it could impact retirees. 
• How tariffs are affecting the markets and the economy globally. 
• Strategies to stay calm and focused through financial market volatility. 

Tweetable Quotes: 

“Volatility won’t vanish—it’s how you respond that determines your financial peace of mind.” – Radon Stancil 

“Don’t let the day-to-day headlines derail your plan. Secure your retirement starts with clarity, not chaos.” – Murs Tariq 

Resources: 

If you are in or nearing retirement and you want to gain clarity on what questions you should be asking, learn what the biggest retirement myths are, and identify what you can do to achieve peace of mind for your retirement, get started today by requesting our complimentary video course, Four Steps to Secure Your Retirement! 

To access the course, simply visit POMWealth.net/podcast. 

Here’s the full trancript:

Welcome everyone to Secure Your Retirement podcast. Today is a great day.

We’re always excited when we get to have a guest to come on and talk to us about

the economy. And today we’ve got a returning guest, Tom Siomades. So let me just say

this Tom, before I set this up, thank you very much for coming and spending some

time with us today. – Oh, hey, thanks for having me back, guys. I really love

talking to you and, you know, hopefully we have something meaningful to talk about.

I think we do. – Yeah, so, you know, what we, here’s our goal with this episode.

Our goal is, is to get a perspective that’s not just about the stock market. It’s

about the bigger picture of the economy. And honestly, not even just the big picture

of the US, but also worldwide and what’s going on in the world and how that might

affect what’s going on here. And obviously, you know, with what we do, it does kind

of come down to how is the, all of this going to affect our clients or those that

might be listening to the show that are worried about these things because they’re

getting ready for retirement or they’re in retirement and all those kinds of things.

So, I think just to get us started, Tom, if you don’t mind, here we set mid of

the year and it’s been one of those years. It started off not too pretty.

It’s come back from not being that bad right now. So could you kind of give us

your perspective of what’s happened this year sitting here mid  year of 2025? – Yeah,

I think it’s interesting in a lot of ways because we’ve almost managed to cram an

entire year into just this past quarter, right? So, you had the beginning of the

year, there was a lot of optimism in markets about a new administration coming in,

and it kind of changed the direction. Okay, that always seems to kind of that after

glow, always seems to come after an election. You know, markets are relatively strong

in January, right? And that’s usually bodes well for the rest of the year.

If you have a strong January, I think you have like a 75 a chance of having an

up year, right? But then this administration kind of took hold from an economic

standpoint, they started pushing a lot of the stuff that they had talked about in

the campaign. I mean, it was no surprise that Trump likes tariffs, and he was going to

look to redo deals. I mean, he claims he’s a deal maker and as a result of being

a deal maker, he’s going to make deals, right? But it of hit people like when

when he finally came out and it was like right at the beginning of last quarter

when he finally came out the market was sort of beginning to kind of you know turn

a little bit as a result of um you know the rumblings but on April 2nd like he

came out and he you know whipped out that big you know sandwich board that said

here’s all the people and here’s what they’re going to pay and I think that sent a

huge shock through the markets because the realization was there, like, oh, wow, he’s

just not talking about it. He’s actually potentially doing it, right? And what’s

interesting about that from my standpoint was that, like, so I’m a military guy,

right? So, kind of, you know, I believe in sort of like, you know, things that work

and have worked over history, right? And one of the things that, you know, you’re

taught and was shown to us by people like Julius Caesar and Alexander the Alexander

the Great and Napoleon is you divide and conquer. You don’t always have to have

more people than the other guy, but you just have to have more people at the right

place, right, to defeat one guy and then turn on the other. Well, Trump’s approach

is kind of like, I’m going to take on the whole world all at once, which is

completely contrary to the way I think of it. I would have picked the part Mexico

or Canada or got those guys in the camp and turned my attention to someone

else or the EU or something. So that was kind of a shock, that approach, right?

And then obviously we saw what happened, markets collapsed, you saw the Treasury

market was really alarming, right? And I think that was probably what reeled them in

was at that point is like we were on the verge of something really bad. So then

you get all of these pauses and things that went into place and then the market

had literally, you know, cratered in a week or so. And then when the pauses were

announced, the market was like, oh, okay, well, maybe, maybe things aren’t as bad as

they are, et cetera, et cetera. And it started making a comeback. And we’ve had a

pretty remarkable comeback as we’re speaking here. I think we’re back to all time

records, which is bizarre. But yet, you know, in reality, the underlying stuff, I

know you talked about the bigger stuff. I don’t know if the economy is any better

place than it was at the end of the year. I mean, we got a jobs number this

morning from ADP that shows negative job growth. So, the economy, if anything, appears

to be slowing. But I think all the turmoil and all the huff and all the stuff

that’s been going on has had people reacting. And what I think is more concerning

to me going forward is I think we’re becoming numb to the outrageous stuff.

I saw an article the other day that they were talking about how the market is

really complacent. It’s like, are we reacting to any kind of potential bad news? And

are we risking ourselves putting ourselves in a place where something genuinely bad

happens and we’re not prepared to react? So, no harm done,

I guess, if you look at the quarter, we kind of started out where we ended up,

right? Or where we ended up when we started out. But I think there’s just nothing’s

actually, been solved at this point. The economy’s not doing great. The market kind

of like lost it and came back. We don’t have a ton of trade deals. We’re still

working through this big beautiful bill. So, there’s still the potential for a lot of

uncertainty in my opinion as we enter the second half of the year I don’t think

it’s just you know, we kind of you know Took it, you know got smacked upside the

head in the first half and now all of a sudden things are going to be smooth

sailing for the rest of the year. So, I don’t know if that Encapsulates kind of

where we are where we got to If there’s anything specifically that we wanted to

address but it just seems like it’s been an up and down and all around and we’re

kind of right back where we were Right. Yeah. Yeah, optimism with the Administration

change and then we all knew that this was going to there’s going to be Agendas being

pushed but now they’re being pushed which caused reactions and the degree at which

they’re being pushed in the tariff side caused heavy reactions in the market and we

had the pause which you know Created some Optimism and some buying opportunities in

the market brought us back up. And so now  my question to you Tom is you know

We’re approaching the end of this 90 -day pause. So, let’s stick with tariffs for a

second the end of this 90 -day pause very soon here what happens next and where

where we add on some of those, I guess trade deals some you’ll hear about that seem

favorable in the market reacts to that and then I know there’s still a Lot that

are under the work. So, what happens after this 90 day hold from a tariff

perspective, but also the market and then also maybe what the Fed is thinking and

reaction to it. – Yeah, so I think what’s going to be interesting is one of the

lessons learned from 90 days ago is that you can’t be out in front and bold and

kind of bull rush this thing. I think there’ll be nuances where  we’ll be told

that things are progressing and because people are talking,

we don’t want to jeopardize talks, and we don’t want to, it’ll be kind of like that,

that things are kind of simmering in the background. I don’t think you’re going to

have, again, you never know, but I don’t think you’re going to have a situation where

the 90 -day period You know the language board comes back out and so that

everybody’s back on the old plan I think I think a lesson was learned and what in

the way though, you know the way the markets and global markets in general reacted

to something like that. So, I think you know, you’ll probably have

Overtures of where we’re getting close on this guy and we’re getting you know, we’re

talking to these people and crumbs will be You know put out there,

but I think you know I Don’t the question is I need to see like we had the

UK deal, right? I need to see more deals Right if we start seeing deals, then it’s

easier to go along with the we’ll just you know, we’ll let these things play out I

mean there had there has been talk I think I saw Trump talking the other day that

he was saying he just wants to send letters out to everybody about what they’re

going to pay in tariffs, which, I don’t know, that’s a nice quaint talking point.

I don’t know if that’ll work in actuality. You know, I think a lot of times we

fail as a country to consider the fact that the other side has,

they have a seat at the table, and they have a vote, right? Other people have other

ideas and they’re not always the ones that we want to push, right? So, I think it’s

going to be hard to get the Europeans or the Chinese or the Indians or, you know,

anybody else, you know, or the EU to make deals that they find are not,

right now, things are skewed in their favor, right? So why would you want to give

away an advantage? So, I think that’s what we’re more apt to see. We’re not apt to

see like a wholesale slamming of, you know, the brakes again and the tariffs are

back because we know how that worked out. And I don’t think Trump is very happy

seeing markets, you know, decline precipitously like that. I think he likes talking

about a good strong stock market. But I think we’re going to get more, more sort

of, you know, a nuanced approach, micro deals, you know, regional deals,

we’re working with these guys, we’re close with that guy. You know, it’s and I

think it’s, it’s not going to be as quick as, as, you know, it was initially

advertised, that we’re just going to say, this is what we want to do, and

everyone’s just going to collapse and fall in line. Although if you look at Canada,

I mean, Friday, they were told that we’re going to talk to them and because of

that digital tax, and then lo and behold, boom, on Monday, they pulled it. So, you

know, a lot of it just depends on how interdependent some of these countries like

Canada and Mexico are in the U.S. If you look at GDP, we’re a significant portion

of Canada and Mexico’s GDP. So, I think we have a lot more leverage there. So those

are the deals that probably need to get done sooner than say someone like China who

sells a lot to us, but we don’t really impact their internal domestic economy. And

so sorry, a quick follow up to that. So, with the Fed then, do they just stay kind

of in a wait and see type of pattern? Or do you think we get any cuts this year?

We’re supposed to have a couple, but there’s talks around, you know, does that go

away? – Yeah, I think right now,

as we speak, we got a pretty soft print, a negative print actually on the ADP this

morning, right? We have jobs numbers coming out. If you see a deterioration in jobs,

I think that paves the way for them to actually start talking about possibly

cutting. The problem with how it stands right now is he’s sitting around and saying

I want to wait and see if tariffs are going to be inflationary. That may sound

plausible to people that maybe don’t follow this stuff,

but there’s a couple of things wrong with that assessment. First off, companies and

markets are anticipatory. If you’re running a company and you know tariffs are

coming, you’re going to structure your business model in a way to try to mitigate

that, right? You’re just not going to sit there and wait till it happens and then

say, oh shoot, I better raise my prices 30 % because now there’s a tariff. You’re

trying to secure supplies and you’re trying to structure stuff.

Where can I cut? What can I do to keep myself competitive? That’s other part of it

is, you know, in order for you to have inflation, you have to have more money to

spend on stuff. So, if you have, let’s say $100 and the thing that you used to buy

for 20 goes up to 30 because of tariffs, now you don’t have 80 to spend on other

stuff. You only have 70. So, you’re, you know, so the, the logic is that,

you know, you’re going to have less to spend. So, So I don’t know where the

inflation is going to come from, because it would only be inflationaries if you

spend $10 more on something before. And then somebody gave you an extra $10,

so, you still had 80 to spend on other stuff. So, there’s that aspect of it. So, I

think Powell, in a lot of ways, you know, there’s a personality issue with him,

with Trump, they don’t like each other. Trump’s made no bones about it. I think

he’s just being stubborn in some respects. But I think that, you know, if jobs

soften, we may actually see the Fed being forced to move. And,

you know, Trump’s made no overtures about wanting to get rid of Powell. And the

problem with that is, is, you know, how does the Fed maintain its independence?

Because if Powell caves and lowers rates, they’re going to say he caved to Trump

rather than to the economic data. If he stays pat, you have people like me that

are arguing saying tariffs are not going to cause the kind of inflation you think

it’s going to cause and you’re just being obstinate. So, he’s kind of forced himself

into a very bad place, which is unfortunate because he’s kind of like trying to be

independent, but he’s just, you know, he’s, he’s surrounded by circumstances that,

that you know are not good for him. Well let’s talk just a minute about this tax

bill that we have the name of the big beautiful bill. I think that’s kind of an

interesting name too by the way because it even makes those that oppose it if

you’re going to call it by its name you have to still say big beautiful bill and

that that hurts a lot of people they can’t some of them can’t really call it the

big beautiful bill they drop the beautiful part but either way what everybody knows

according to the media is being called the big beautiful bill. As we sit here

today, we are just at very slim, slim margins, but yet it looks like at least

there’s a chance that this does get passed. So, I guess let’s just have a

conversation and if you’re listening to this and it’s already happened and you kind

of have a different viewpoint of whatever occurred, but let’s Assume that it does

narrowly pass and it goes into place. How do you see that playing out? And I

guess, and then conversely, if it doesn’t, what kind of problems do you see with

that? Just, I guess in some kind of balance of either direction. – Yeah, I think

from my standpoint, and again, you’re talking about a massive bill, right? And

there’s going to be components in that bill that people like and people don’t like and

people agree or disagree with. And it’s not my, I’m not articulate nor literate

enough in what they’re putting out. It’s a huge, those are like 900 pages, right?

So, but what I will say is this, right? One of the things about this is it’s been

a central piece of the current administration’s agenda. And in order for it to move

on to do other things and to devote its attention to other matters that it,

you know, wants to do, you have to kind of get this settled, right? And if this

doesn’t get settled, that’s going to take away from all the other sort of

initiatives that the administration wants to pursue. Now, from a market standpoint,

what that does is the markets hate uncertainty. We all can agree on that. And you

know, good, bad, or indifferent, or where you sit on this bill. Once it’s passed,

that’s a no. There’s nothing that can be snuck in there, taken out,

or done. You know that taxes will not go up at the beginning of next year.

So once the market is committed to the fact that this is the way this bill is

going to be, and it’s a done deal. Again, how you feel about it is a personal

thing, and you may agree, you may not agree with what’s in it or all the

components, but from the market standpoint, it’s settled. It’s done. It’s something

that we could put behind us. It’s like the lines have been drawn on the field, and

we’re just going to play with where the lines are. Okay. Then what that does is

then it allows the market to focus on, okay, based on what all is in this bill,

this is what we can expect so companies can do whatever they need to do and, you

know, earnings will be what they will and so forth and so on. But if it doesn’t,

all that means is that, okay, all of these congresspeople, all of these

administration people are going to spend their wheels, spin their wheels trying to

get a new version of this bill passed. And that’s going to take their eye off the

ball on other things that they may be wanting to do and whether that’s terror for

domestic stuff or whatever, at the end of the day, you’re going to focus on this

because this needs to pass. You need to make sure that the debt ceiling is

increased and those taxes go away because if they don’t, those two things right

there will be probably one of the worst self -inflicted political economic wounds that

you can have. So that’s the biggest challenge, again, without trying to get,

you know, myopic about what all is in the bill, like I said, people love stuff in

there, people don’t, there’s going to be opinions, but you know, anytime you put 900

pages together, there’s always going to be something that someone likes or dislikes

and all that, and that’s just the way of things, I guess. Right, with the

And then, but then cuts to certain programs like Medicaid and then increased spending

on the government side, increased spending on the military side. You know, there’s

been projections made as to what this bill is going to cost us in the long run

and the number keeps coming around, you know, three, three trillion plus being added

to the deficit. And that’s a big concern for already where we stand in the deficit.

So, what are your thoughts on that by adding another $3 trillion over time and how

does the economy handle that? Yeah. So, from my standpoint, the way I look at it is

we’re $36 trillion in the whole right now from the national debt.

It’s still longer

abundantly clear that you can just cut your way to fiscal health.

I mean, we’ve seen like, look at the fact that the fact of the matter is even

this bill, supposedly there’s deficit hawks in here and people that want to cut

spending and the Rand Paul’s of the world and people like that. So, the challenge is

we’re still spending more than we were pre -COVID. And we can’t even get spending

down to pre -COVID levels. And my question is, what exactly are we getting?

We’re spending 30%, 40%, 50 % more on the federal side. Are our lives 30 % to 40%,

50 % better because of that? Did our population grow by 30 % to 40 % or 50 % in

the past five years? No, but the government just keeps getting bigger and bigger and

bigger, and there’s this huge challenge to try to reign them in. But if you do

that, everyone screams, right? Because everyone’s got a pet project or everyone’s got,

you know, a constituency that they want to be happy in. Don’t cut this. You know,

I count on that. So, you know, I mean, you guys, you guys just lost a senator,

right? He just threw in the towel because he didn’t want to go along with, you

know, some of the provisions. I I don’t know, but at the end of the day, what’s

challenging is that you can no longer just count on Washington to behave and get

budgets and control stuff. So, they’re going to spend. So now the question is, do

you hope or have enough hope that this bill as Trump promotes will create the kind

of growth where we could raise revenue because more people are working,

the economy’s getting better. I don’t know, that’s a huge risk, right? But the

other, the downside is that in order for you to not have that 3 .3 trillion dollar

increase, you’d have to get those tax, they’re basing that increase based on the

fact that the taxes would revert back to where they were and that would make the

three trillion go away. And I don’t think anybody on the all, regardless of where

you are in the political spectrum, wants their taxes to go up that dramatically. So

that’s the challenge, right? So, we’re kind of, we’re in our own sort of conundrum,

right? We can’t count on Washington to rein in spending. So, we have to figure out

a way that we could grow our way out of it. And now we’re having to take what

Trump you know, on its merits and say, well, can you grow us out of it?

Because I think in the last tax cut package in 2017 that taxes came down, but a

lot, I guess I’ve heard from many sources that tax revenues actually went up even

with lower taxes. So, if we can get those revenues up and growth and people

participating in the economy, then we could probably, the way I look at it, the

simplest way for folks is thought about like when you bought your first house, right?

And you had a mortgage on it. Those first few months or first few years were

really hard because that mortgage was like, my God, you know, like that’s a big

chunk. But as you got promoted at work and got made a little bit more money, it

made handling that mortgage a little bit easier. That’s kind of how I would look at

it. But we’ve got to get Washington to stop adding to that $36 trillion at some

point. So, if you could lock down that $36 trillion mortgage and then grow the

economy so that servicing that debt and we could slowly but surely chip away at it.

But you know, I mean, like maybe I’m pie in the sky. I don’t know how many people

would actually like, you know, you give Washington a dollar, they spend $1 .10. And

it’s like, if I’m afraid, if we just raise more tax revenues, there’ll be many more

good ideas that the politicians want to spend it on. So that’s a challenge.

Yeah. So, let’s do this as we sum up this conversation for this, where we sit.

So, we hear, we sit here again, midway of the year. We’ve got some unknowns,

probably a lot of unknowns. You know, the bill is going to get past or it’s not,

we’re going to get tariffs or we’re not. That’s going to either be, you know, we

got all these little things that that could happen though, there’s going to be a war

or not a war. So, you know, we got all these things that are kind of like

teetering right now as we sit here mid 2025. If you could just kind of, and I

know this is not fair, I’ll disclose everyone, I’m asking you just to give us your

idea, not that you know, but if you had to kind of say, how do you think 2025 is

going to end from here? You know, how do you see it playing out? – So I don’t see

volatility going away. I see us being continuously tested through the rest of the

year, but I think, again, there’s a lot of caveats here, right? If you get the tax

bill passed, right? If, again, are you an optimist,

right? I generally think of myself more optimistically than pessimistically. I’m

willing the administration the current administration a chance to prove me,

you know, right on the growth that we just talked about, right? Let’s hopefully they

you know energy prices come down You know, there’s an enthusiasm people get

back to work the lower taxes go You know engage in more big business activity and

hiring. Okay. I don’t know that that may not take That may it’s not going to

happen like the day after it’s passed, right? It takes a little bit of time to

ramp up. But as that momentum sort of builds, then I’m optimistic that in the

second half of the year, we could probably take on another 10%. But it’s going to

be challenging because every time somebody says something, I mean, look at Friday,

for example, right? Just this past Friday, you had a really good market that was,

that was like, you know, adding to a record and then in the afternoon, we just

stopped talking to Canada. And then, you know, we still ended up the day with a

record, but it was only a record by like three points instead of by like 30 points

on the S &P, right? So that’s the kind of stuff that you just have to like run,

let run off your back. I think the most important thing is, is how do you feel

during these periods? And I think this is where it’s important for you guys to, you

to engage with your clients and for your clients to understand that they need to

engage with you. This investing and how your portfolio is performing should not be a

source of stress for you. And I think if you get caught up in the day -to -day

news cycle or the ups and the downs, it could be very stressful at a time when

you don’t really need it. So, to me, it’s like, look, we’re at record highs right

now. I think we’re still I don’t know the 10 % on the US markets the rest of the

year, but I also think it’s a good time for you to look at where you are. And if

you are at a kilter, you need to rebalance, right? You need to get to a place

where you’re comfortable, because these things should not drive your everyday

consciousness, right? You should be enjoying your retirement or whatever else you want

to do. And these events are going to keep coming at you fast and furious. I

mean, look it, last week we bombed Iran and no one’s talking about it this week.

Like, you know, what’s next we’re going to bring, right? So that’s, so if you’re

wrapped up in that stuff, you need to make sure that from an investment standpoint,

that’s real stress, right? Because at that point, if you’re actually like making bad

investment decisions and losing money, you know, it’s one thing to just be ticked

off at the TV and turn it off and walk away. But to actually make a decision

based on what you’re seeing in your emotional state, that’s a frustrating thing. So

I think interest rates, back to your earlier question, without my PSA,

I think interest rates are going to go down two to three times. I think Powell is

going to be pressured just by events. The economy is slowing. I know we had that

negative GDP print in the first quarter, but a lot of that was shenanigans, right?

A lot of that was just people pre -buying stuff to try to front -run tariffs. And

based on the way they calculate GDP, more imports adds negatively because it’s not

made here, right? So, at the end of the day, I think rates probably go down more

akin to like three times. So, like 75 basis points. So, I think if you’re in a

situation where you could lock in a little bit higher interest rate product now

before rates go down, do it. The other thing is, is I think the markets, the

earnings were really, really severely like surprised really well and they were

severely projections were depressed. So, I think people are going to surprise on the

earnings side. I think by the second half of the year, if these things are done,

right? The bill and the tariff stuff start to come in. I think we have a pretty

solid close to the year, but it’s going to be chunky, right? It’s not going to be

for the faint of heart. So that’s sort of my base case.

All right. Well, we appreciate it very much, Tom. It’s always nice to have you on

and kind of talk these things through. It’s things that are on our listeners’ minds.

it’s on all of our minds. So, it’s good to talk it through and we’ll see how it

is. And we will have you back here at the end of the third quarter and we’ll see

how we are. Yeah, too bad these things are tape, right? Because people can watch

them back-to-back and it’s like, hey, you said what you said. Thank you again, Tom. Thank you very much.