10-24-25 - 8am - RTD Should Sell

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to the Situation with Michael Brown on six
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(00:23):
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go here dot com. Again, that's Michael says, go here
dot com. So check it out. Over to you, Mike,

(00:43):
Good morning, gentlemen.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
Jesse, you're doing a great job filling in for the
Dragon Redbeard. I will say those are big shoes to
fill Today. It is taxpayer Relief Shots Friday. For those
of us playing the TPRs bingo at home, you must
make sure to call out the double clicks by Michael
so we can accrue our points accurately. Otherwise doing great,

(01:08):
have a great Friday, enjoy the weekend.

Speaker 3 (01:14):
If we weren't using Adobe Audition Version one point zero.
I'm not I might not have a problem or a
mouse that is so old that whatever is on the
on the bottom.

Speaker 4 (01:26):
I haven't seen one of those since the nineties.

Speaker 3 (01:29):
That's awesome, thank you, thank you, because the dragon would
have lied about it and said, what's wrong with that mouse?
And to your point, you haven't seen one of these
since nineteen ninety two.

Speaker 4 (01:39):
Correct?

Speaker 3 (01:39):
Yeah, good, agree here, let's do some good energy news
rights Fridday, So let's let's have some good energy news.
Ge Vernova has swung to profits as their orders are
beginning to soar, and was probably the least surprising headline

(02:02):
of the week. News comes at this company is now
making big profits. But the writers of the Wall Street
Journal article that told us about this story carefully bury
the story's lead. As you will hear in just a minute, say,
guess who do you think is the largest maker of

(02:24):
natural gas turbines on the face of the earth? Yep,
It's a company called ge ver Nova. So which companies
are building the most gas turbine capacity gere ge ver Nova,
Siemens Energy, Mitsubushi Power, Dongfang Electric Corporation, and Sauda ENERGYA

(02:44):
ge Saudi Advanced Turbines, map In Corporation, Harbin Electric Power Machines,
Shangha excuse me, Shanghai Electric, Duson Interability Company, A Triple
C A Double C gas Turbine, and ros Tech United
Engine Corporation. Ge Vernova surpasses almost all of those except
Semens by orders of magnitude. They're up to like fifty

(03:08):
gigawatts or so. Now I had to go search for
that chart to see who that list, because the Wall
Street Journal they ain't gonna prim it amazingly, the climate
alarm narrative, the congregants in the church of the climate activists,
the pushers who some of the members, and the reporters.

(03:32):
I've told you before. The Wall Street Journal is a
great newspaper on the editorial page and the financial page
is pretty good too, But the newspages, well, it's just
another member of the cabal. They managed to write an
entire article without bothering to mention the key fact that
ge Vernova's orders for natural gas turbines has skyrocketed in

(03:54):
the past year because of the demand from big tech
companies who view natural gas as the best fit for
purpose power generation. It's going to what fill the huge
needs of their data centers. Kind of funny how that
works out, isn't it. Now I want you to check
out how the Wall Street Journal avoids that topic in

(04:19):
these tortured paragraphs from the Wall Street Journal. Now, I
didn't want to bury the leagueuse I want you to know.
I want you to be able to compare and contrast
what I've just told you with what I read in
the Wall Street Journal. So we now know that GeV
veror Nova they've swung to the profit side. They're now
the largest builder of natural gas turbines on the face

(04:42):
of the planet. So here's here's the Wall Street Journal article.
Orders were up fifty five percent on an organic basis
at fourteen point six billion dollars, led by robust equipment
growth as its power and and electrification divisions, said GeV

(05:03):
or Tive. The power unit alone saw a fifty percent
jump in orders to seven point eight billion dollars and
a fifteen percent gain in revenue. The Cambridge, Massachusetts Companies
said it's wind segment saw orders rise four percent to
one point eight billion, while orders in the electrification business

(05:25):
about double to five point one billion, driven by strong
demand for grid equipment in the Middle East, North America
and Europe, robust equipment growth. What equipment in the company's
electrification business, electrification of what The answers never come because

(05:49):
those answers are inconvenient to the narrative or to the
gospel of the church of the climate activists. So tiresome
behaves the Wall Street Journal, after all, So what else
would you expect? So I thought that was a pretty
good story. I was kind of glad to hear that.
In other news India, India is poised to sharply cut

(06:11):
Russian oil imports after Trump imposed the sanctions. Now this
weird Reuter's story strives to ignore the fact that one
of the main sources of this information from Wednesday just
happened to be some unknown guy by the name of
Donald J. Trump. I had no idea why they didn't

(06:32):
want to, Like, I guess they didn't want to give
his name because it was like nobody. So if they
just said that, you know sources, they don't have to
mention Donald Trump's name. Interesting how so subliminally somebody like
Reuter's wants to make sure you think that maybe somebody

(06:54):
else is the reason for this not Donald Trump, and
of course we should throw in Treasury Secretary of Scott
Descent too, both of whom had weighed in before the
piece went live on the Reuter's website. But unlike the
writers in the Wall Street Journal story, the Reuter's piece
does get to the important lead here by pointing out

(07:17):
that at least that at least some of India's biggest
privately held refiners do plan to follow the government's lead
in addition to the state owned refiners. Now that's really
a huge step, and it's a big difference from President
Trump's statements about the matter in the Oval Office last week.
As a result of the private commitments, the price of

(07:39):
WTI that crude shot up by more than three dollars
a barrel overnight. Here's the article, Privately owned Reliance Industries
opens new tab the top Indian buyer. Russian Crewed plans
to reduce or halt completely it's import of Russian oil.
According to two sources, every time I read this, I laughed.

(08:02):
According to two sources familiar with the matter, yes, Donald J. Trump,
Scott Descent, but we can't name them yet because well,
that might be giving the president a little bit of
credit and Lord knows we don't want to do that. Recalibration,
the Reuter's story continues. Recalibration of Russian oil imports is ongoing,

(08:25):
and Reliance will be fully aligned to Government of India guidelines,
a Reliance spokesman said in a response to a query
on whether the company plans to cut its crude imports
from Russia now. So far in the first two paragraphs
of at least from this excerpt from the story, you
wouldn't have any idea that this is in response that

(08:49):
the Indian government is responding affirmatively to Trump imposing some
really serious sanctions in Russia. I don't want to get
off too far off base here, but Trump's finally reached
his boiling point. He's finally reached his frustration level has
kind of gotten to one hundred and five degrees temperature.

(09:09):
He needs he needs some ibuprofen or something because he's
really pissed off. But Broder just doesn't want you to
know that. Story continues. Indian state refiners, including Indian Oil Corp,
Barought Petroleum Corporation and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation, are also reviewing
their Russian oil trade documents to ensure no supply will

(09:30):
be coming directly from Rosnet and Luke Oil after the
US sanction. After the US sanction the oil companies, a
source with direct knowledge of the matter said on Thursday,
So now we've gotten to the third paragraph of the
story and now still don't mention Trump or Bessent, just

(09:50):
two sources with direct knowledge, but they do finally admit
that it is in response to the US sanction of
oil companies. Good story continues. India's oil ministry and the
state refiners did not immediate respond to requests for comment. Quote,
there will be a massive cut. We don't anticipate it

(10:13):
will go to zero immediately, as there will be some
barrels coming into the market via intermediaries, a refinery source said,
declining to be named as they were not authorized to
speak with the media. If you ever wondered that I
kind of exaggerate about how the cabal tries to propagandize,
tries to mislead, and sometimes it's very direct and sometimes

(10:37):
it's very subtle. In this case, it's very subtle because
you've got to read and read and read before you
find out, oh, this is in direct response to Trump
imposing sanctions on Russian oil, and in the case of ge,
you really have to dig and dig and dig, and
you finally find out, oh, they're doing natural gar. We

(11:00):
asked turbines because anytime you hear turbinds or electrification, you
think what wind and solar? No follow the money, follow
the market. What are the markets doing? The markets are
I think, I think this is fantastic news, the markets
that are looking into the future and saying, yeah, this

(11:20):
whole bullcrap about green energy renewables, that's not going to
allow us to electrify. Remember the little ready killawak guy.
We all want to you know, electric kitchens. You'll sity
in County of Denver, gotta electrify everything. We don't have
the power that we do not have the baseline power
to do that. And Excel Energy knows it. So there's

(11:45):
going to continue to lie about it, as is the
state of Colorado. But also the cabal is lying about it.
Wall Street Journals lying about it, Reuter's is lying about it.
Until you get to the realization that, oh, these are
natural gas turbines. Then CNBC. I'm ambivalent about CNBC, but

(12:09):
their headline is on their daily open Tesla's increased costs
outweighted's revenue. It's revenue growth, Tesla's increased cost outweighed its
revenue growth. Here's the story. Well, I don't give you
a story yet, but I think this is kind of expected.

(12:30):
Elon Musk was able to boast about record high third
quarter orders on his earnings call because buyers were rushing
to secure EV's. But why are buyers rushing to secure
EV's If you've always wanted to have an electric vehicle,
which you know, as I've said before, that's fine, Just
don't tell me you're saving the planet and don't expect

(12:52):
me to help pay for it. Oh maybe that's exactly
why they're rushing to buy evs right now. Because the
big inflation Reduction Acts subsidies expired on September thirtieth.

Speaker 5 (13:06):
HM.

Speaker 3 (13:08):
But investors have responded negatively because the company's costs rose
dramatically and their profits failed by about thirty seven percent
as a result. And that interesting how that works. You
subsidize something and then costs go up. Yeah, so costs

(13:29):
rose because subsidies don't exist anymore. Profits fail by thirty
seven percent. Here's the key excerpt from the CNBC story,
Revenue at Elon Musk's Electric Vehic Electric Vehic Vehicle company
rose twelve percent year on year, the first increase in
three quarters. Despite that net income plunged thirty seven percent

(13:55):
from a year earlier. The culprits lower vehicles, presumably in
a bid to compete with Chinese manufacturers that are vacuuming
up market share, as well as a fifty percent increase
in operating expenses, partly due to artificial intelligence and other

(14:16):
R and D projects, all according to Tesla. Investors didn't
appear too pleased by Tesla's after the Bell report, sending
it shares three point eight percent lower in extended training
after hours trading. The company's earnings report followed disappointing ones
from Netflix and Texas Instruments the day prior, which caused

(14:37):
their shares to sink ten and five point six percent,
respectively during regular trading Wednesday. State side, you get rid
of evs now. Demand is sword because the EV rebates
and incentives are going away. So the people that really

(14:57):
did want one are just rushing to buy them now
because well, I'm helping to pay for it. You're helping
to pay for it. All taxpayers are helping to pay
for it, but that's going away, So of course they're
going to run by it now because that's free money
to them. Not free money, but it's free money to them.
What they don't realize is they're actually helping to pay

(15:19):
for it too. This shows how stupid p people are
about money and taxes and subsidies. Then there's another story.
The United States and Cutter are now warning the European
Union that a new regulation that they're imposing could disrupt
liquid natural guess exports Chris Wright. We praised Chris Wright's

(15:44):
efforts earlier this week. Join Katari Energy Minister Sad Shari
A Khaibi whatever the hell it is, in an open
letter to EU President Ursula von dur Lovelle, warning that
it's new CS three D law, explain that in a
second could result in a loss of access to American

(16:06):
and Cutter liquid natural gas. Now, that would be a
huge hit to EU countries which have become extremely reliant
on liquid natural gas imports for two reasons, to displace
Russian natural gas imports, and also because many of these

(16:26):
EU countries went full in on green renewables and then
suddenly as demand rose, they realized, oh they can't meet
that demand. What is this stupid law? I may? I
had to go look it up, the CS three D.
It's the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directed. That's an EU law,

(16:49):
don't I do not understand why these these member countries
stay a part of the EU establishing binding obligations on
large companies to monitor, prevent and mitigate environmental and human
rights abuses throughout their global operations and supply chains. It's

(17:12):
trying to ensure that companies take proactive responsibility for sustainability.
A bunch of bull craft and ethical conduct. I have
no problem with the ethical conduct. So an EU company
that has more than one thousand employees and an annual
global turnover above four hundred and fifty four hundred and
fifty million euros, non EU companies generating more than four

(17:36):
hundred and fifty million euros in EU turnover, and certain
franchise and licensing groups exceeding another certain amounts. So they
have to do these things. They got to conduct human
rights and environmental due diligence across all operations. They have
to establish climate transition plans consistent with the Paris Accords,

(17:57):
the Paris Climate Agreement then they have to identify, mitigate,
and prevent adverse impacts such as child labor Okay, that's fine,
pollution and biodiversity loss. You cut down a tree, you're
going to have to report it. You paved over some grassland,
you're going to report it, and then you're going to

(18:18):
account for it too. Then, on top of all of that,
they have to integrate due diligence responsibilities into their corporate
policies risk management systems. I'm all for that, and of
course account for all their business relationships. Really, what business
is that of the EU? Your business relationships? Anyway, The

(18:39):
whole point of all of that is simply this. The
United States Encounter has warned the United Nations the European
Union that you know, this may cost you the ability
to access American and Katari liquid fied natural gas. You
might have a cold winter again, Jesse.

Speaker 5 (19:00):
As a reminder, you're going to need to tell Michael
to double click multiple times in the taxpayer Relief shot hour.

Speaker 6 (19:09):
I didn't know this was such a problem. Epidemic sounds
like Michael.

Speaker 3 (19:15):
It's epidemic. Although I have to say that last Friday
I got through the entire hour without one screw up.

Speaker 4 (19:23):
Confidence is high on this end. I think you're going
to do great today.

Speaker 3 (19:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (19:26):
Well, I do appreciate the goobers telling me though to
watch out. I appreciate it well.

Speaker 3 (19:30):
And what they don't tell you what they what they
leave you know, they lie to you by omission by
not telling you one this. First of all, you know
we have we have the computer that you used in
high school. Yeah, that's those that's the computer system we have.
Then at home, I've got Adobe Audition, like I don't

(19:51):
know version and sixty seven. This is Adobe Audition version
one point zero. And we're operating on a Windows system.
That's Bill says over here. You need to activate Windows
to be able to use it.

Speaker 4 (20:05):
But other than that, they're giving us every opportunity to succeed.

Speaker 3 (20:08):
Absolutely, they are here to make us successful. And then,
as I pointed out, I have the lovely wired mouse
here that is just like really nasty. I don't know
the last this. I think this is the only place
in my entire universe of ordinary life outside this building.

(20:31):
This is the only place I see a wired mouse,
Like I said, a wired mouse that are little cubicles. No,
but in here where we actually produce the product No,
we have a wired mouse and it's older than dirt.
And so when I'm clicking on the like all double click.
Now I've got a taxpayer relief shop lined up to play.

(20:54):
I would hip play. But if I then go to
move the mouse, I know this is like me too defensive, right, No,
you know I'm lying. So then when I go to
move the mouse to get ready for the next one
to double click, yet it takes the blue highlight off
the one that's playing. So then when I play the

(21:14):
next one, it repeats and plays the old one.

Speaker 6 (21:17):
Well, we're not going to run into that today. Confidence
is high, Michael. Confidence is high.

Speaker 3 (21:23):
You're the guy that cheated off tests with Chauncey Billups.

Speaker 4 (21:26):
That's correct, and you.

Speaker 3 (21:31):
I think you can assume me for that for defamation
right there. I think the only problem is I have
no assets.

Speaker 6 (21:36):
So you know, they just showed a picture of Yeah,
they just showed a picture of him walking out of
the jail in Portland.

Speaker 4 (21:43):
It's crazy.

Speaker 3 (21:45):
Yeah, oh my, so he turned him into.

Speaker 6 (21:47):
Yeah, they booked him for a little bit, I think,
and then they purp walked him out of there with
his wife.

Speaker 3 (21:51):
It's crazy. Oh my god, have they shown the the photo.

Speaker 4 (21:55):
Yet No, well there's not any stills. I just saw
a video of it.

Speaker 3 (22:00):
No, none, none of them.

Speaker 6 (22:02):
No no, no, no, no, no no, not like the small down
crime family or whatever.

Speaker 3 (22:07):
Oh my uh in something just this crazy. The former
Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, in a joint statement
with another California congressman, Kevin Mullen, is suggesting that law
enforcement authorities in California should arrest federal agents who violate
California law while enforcing federal immigration law. She says, oh,

(22:34):
they wrote reports of a planned mass immigration rate in
the Bay Area are an appalling abuse of law enforcement power. Now,
before I go on, can someone explain to me how
that is. You're you're going to do a mass raid
and you're going to target Now when you do a

(22:55):
mass raid, I mean, come on. We go back to
the movies again. So they raid the saloon because they
think there's some illegal gambling going on. Do they arrest everybody?
They might detain everybody, but then they start checking you know, Oh,
you were just sitting at the bar drinking, We're gonna

(23:17):
let you go, or oh, you were actually in the bathroom,
so you know, we may let you go, or you
just walked in, you weren't doing We may let you go,
but everybody gets detained. So when you do a mass
immigration raid and you detain everybody, yeah, some American citizens
might get caught up in that. It's kind of like

(23:39):
when they do these stupid dui stops, which I still believe.
I know the course of health them to be constitutional,
but I believe that they are unconstitutional. You have no
probable cause to stop me, you have no reasonable suspicion.
All I'm doing is just driving along the highway. Well, anyway,
they want to do these broad sweeps. This is what
they say, broad sweeps the target family and terrorized law

(24:01):
abiding presidents, betray our nation's values, and waste resources that
should focus on real threats to public safety. I might
agree with that, like Nancy Pelosi and this congressman, they're
a real threat to public safety. They continue. It is
important to note that California law protects communities and prevents

(24:22):
federal agents from taking certain actions here that we have
witnessed in other states. While the President may enjoy absolute
immunity courtesy of his rogue Supreme Court, those who operate
under his orders are not our state and local authorities
may arrest federal agents if they break California law, and

(24:42):
if they are convicted, the president cannot pardon them. So
the DA in San Francisco, Brooke Jenkins devise this idea
of arresting federal ICE agents on charges like excessive use
of force. She said, as quote, I had lead time
to think about what authority I have and what I

(25:04):
can do. This is something I felt very strongly about,
and I had my office research it. She must not
have them very good research, because I take exactly the
opposite point of view. Now, some legal experts, including of
all places, Berkeley School of Law dean Erwin Schermensky, noted

(25:25):
the lack of precedent for such actions, and he commented,
as long as the ICE agents are acting legally, the
state cannot prosecute them and hold them liable, even if
it dislikes what they're doing. Now, even a federal judge
has threatened. Now, I don't know what authority the federal

(25:46):
judge has to arrest somebody. He's a judge, he's not
a law enforcement officer. But he has threatened to arrest
BAR agents from court rooms in or near the Cook
County Courthouse and Downtown Chicago under what authority, Because, as
I recall from law school, I think it would be

(26:10):
unlawful for California or state and local law enforcement anywhere
to arrest federal law enforcement officers who are lawfully enforcing
federal immigration law in any state. It's Article six clause too.
It's called the supremacy clause that makes federal law and
those carrying it out supreme over any conflicting state actions.

(26:34):
And under the supremacy clause, federal agents like ICBP or
DHS are generally immune from state prosecution and even arrest
when they are acting within the scope of their official
duties as authorized by federal law, and courts have consistently
held that state authorities cannot interfere with federal officers in

(26:55):
the execution of their lawful doing. In fact, doing so
constitutes federal obstruction law of federal obstruction of law operations
and violates federal law. So the Department of Justice Warren California,
the Deputy US Attorney Todd Blanche has Warren California officials

(27:17):
that any attempt to arrest or impede federal immigration agents
will trigger federal prosecution, stating that any interference by state
or local officials is both illegal and futile. Now there
is I would note a very narrow exception. If a

(27:37):
federal officer commits an act that is wholly completely outside
his official duties, like he steals something from a detainee
or personal misconduct unrelated to enforcing the law, then state
prosecution might be possible, might be possible. It's going to

(28:00):
be hard to prove, and quite frankly, the courts would
first determine whether the conduct was within the federal agencies
or the agent's federal authority, and if it was, the
constitutional immunity applies. If not, the state might be able
to proceed. So as long as they're enforcing and executing
lawful federal immigration duties, California, you can't do this, and

(28:24):
I would encourage you to try to do it. I
really do that kind of passive aggressive personality trait that
I tend to have really does want them to follow.
I really do want the DA in San Francisco to
tell the DA to tell the San Francisco Police Department, Hey,

(28:47):
if you see somebody, if you see an ICE agent that,
in your opinion, appears to be excessive force arrest them.
I want to see that.

Speaker 5 (29:00):
I saw a story this week about how EV chargers
are being targeted by homeless and criminals so they can
take the copper parts out of it, which of course
renders the EV charger useless. So wonder how they're going
to get around to ensuring that doesn't happen. It really

(29:22):
sucks for you to plan on using an EV charger
thirty miles down the road and no EV chargers available,
or or.

Speaker 3 (29:30):
You pull up to the EV charger and you're like, okay,
I'm down to like four minutes or how are they
measure it? And then you realize do you have an
ev jesse? No, okay, do you know how? I'm not
even been in one? So do they measure it by
miles left? Minutes left? Or what?

Speaker 4 (29:48):
I think it's miles left? I've been in a few.

Speaker 6 (29:53):
I can't tell you for sure, though, But no, I
don't plan on getting one and I don't have one.

Speaker 4 (29:57):
I am a team Carburetion.

Speaker 3 (30:01):
Team I've not heard that Team Carburetion. We should, you know,
we should start a little group, a little group chat
team Team Carbureration. That's right, yeah, Team Fossil Fuels, Team
Idrocarbons team internal combustion engines. Well, I wonder if those
if that story you heard was from Do Better Denver,
because I think I've seen some pictures of some some

(30:23):
of that somewhere speaking to Do Better Denver. The common
There was a story in the Denver Post about RTD
and RTD is looking to for a record one point
three billion dollar budget. So that caused me to do
a little bit of digging because I was curious. One
point three billion dollars, that's a lot of money. The

(30:45):
Common Sense Institute did a study which is now I
think maybe about a year and a half old. They
found that RTD's fares that's our regional, that's our busting
light rail system here in Colorado, in along the Front Range,
that fares only pay four point four percent of the

(31:05):
entire operating budget. Something's screwed up. Then, the Denver Post
reported this week that the ridership numbers continue to decline
by almost four percent to a record record forty million
fewer riders this year than last year. So what's the

(31:26):
one point three billion dollars for? It seems that what
they're trying to do is they have a system that
does not work. They have a system that you know
is unreliable, is slow, is not, doesn't take you to
the last mile, and yet they want one point three
billion dollars so they can grow. In the course of

(31:49):
looking through this, the light rail system that was supposed
to go from Longmont, I think down to Union Station
or somewhere. Do you know how old that project is.
That project is more than twenty years old. How much
have they built? Zero? We have our own California rail
system right here in Colorado, and they want one point

(32:11):
three billion dollars. Now, if if your fares only pay
four point four percent of the entire operating budget, here's
my suggestion for RTD. Sell the system. Could I'm not
saying get rid of it. I'm saying sell it now.
You might have to sell it for pennies on the
dollar for its value. But then again, I'm not sure
what the value is. But you can't grow your way

(32:34):
out of this. If if fares only pay four point
four percent of your operating budget, you're never going to
make yourself whole unless you increase the fares by one
thousand percent. And then guess what, people aren't going to
ride it. So I would say sell it for I'll
tell you what I'll buy it for. I'm not even sure.
I'm not even sure I would buy it. I just

(32:55):
say i'd buy it for one hundred bucks, and then
I'll set the fares accordingly. All cut back and just
do the just do certain, you know, cut down the
routes and everything else, and make it a profitable enterprise,
you guys. And I'm sorry to say this, Kathleen, because
I know you're on there, but what a screwed up

(33:16):
message is