BHS - 7A – The “State of Palestine” | Retiring Abroad

The state of Palestine is recognized by 146 countries. What exactly would that look like? Hollywood crews are unemployed. The fear of Los Angeles’s declining production Retiring abroad is becoming more popular but it’s not that easy. Retiring abroad is becoming more popular but it’s not that easy.

Episode Transcript

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You're listening to KFI AM six fortythe Bill Handle Show on demand on the
iHeartRadio f You are listening to theBill Handle Show and it is a Wednesday
morning, May twenty ninth. BillHandle here with the Morning Crew. So

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much to cover today. One ofthe stories that we did yesterday we talked
about was three more countries are nowsaying that they are going to recognize the
country of Palestine, and that wasIreland, Spain in Norway, which heretofore
did not recognize the country of Palestine. So most of the world does recognize

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Palestine. The ones that don't arewell in the United States, the primary
force and European countries that are tiedin with the United States, because as
you know, you United States isthe biggest closest ally to Israel that exists
anywhere in the world. So there'svery little Israel can do that is wrong
as far as the United States isconcerned. Case in point, that horrific

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attack yesterday in which I believe itwas an air attack on a building in
the refugee part of Rafa ignited thebuilding and forty five people died, and
you had two hundred wounded, andBiden administration said that did not cross the
line that we established of a massiveintrusion into Rafa. So that's the United

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States. So now, because ofwhat's happening around the world, you've got
more and more countries saying, nowwe're going to recognize Palestine. It used
to be that Palestine there was noissue. Palestine was going to be recognized
if it was a two state solution. Where a lot of Israelis say,
yeah, we're ready for a twostate solution. Now this government in Israel

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says absolutely not. This is themost warlike government in the history of Israel.
I mean, you've got people inthe cabinet, in the far reaches
of the defense the higher reaches ofthe defense world in Israel that are basically
dead set against anything the Palestinians want. It's never been that bad, never
been this bad. Okay, Sowhat do you do with recognizing Palestine.

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Well, here's the big question.Where is Palestine? Before you can recognize
the country, you have to haveborders. You know, the country of
Palestine is an ephemeral concept. Ifthere are no borders, where are the
borders. Well, we haven't quitegotten to them yet. Now a lot

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are saying the West Bank. Ifyou look at the west Bank, that
could be the country. And alot of people say, that's the two
states solution, west Bank and therest of Israel. And so what ends
up happened there? What ends upwith Gaza? Because now you have the
West Bank to the east of Israel, Gaza to the far west of Israel,

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and between that is the state ofIsrael. Really two state solution.
Explain that one to me. Andthen you have a little tiny issue as
to the capital of the Palestinian stateand Israel. Jerusalem capital of Israel.
By the way, Israel has claimedJerusalem is capital for I don't know,

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thirty five hundred years, give ortake. So there's a little history there.
Palestinians have claimed there is that Jerusalemis the capital since nineteen sixty seven,
close nineteen sixty seven, Moses walkinginto the Holy Land. You guys,
figure it out. The point I'mmaking is what do you do when

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you have two Let's say you agreethat Palestine is a country and both are
claiming the one city as its capital. And let me give you a little
bit of geography here. Imagine you'vegot Brownsville, Texas right at the very
edge of the Mexican US border.Both countries are claiming that it's their capital.

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Right. The northern part of thecity, separated from the southern part
of the city by a street nowa wall, is the United States capital.
On the other side of that streetinto Mexico is the capital of Mexico.
Well it's a little problematic, don'tyou think. I don't know of

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any country in the world where acity is the capital of both countries.
I mean, that gets real problematic. The other issue is Palestine has been
given observer status in the UN.And that's sort of like being on the
set of a porno film. Youcan watch, but you can't really participate.

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You can look at it, butyou have no say. You can't
vote as to where the camera isgonna go. Do you know this personally?
Well, yeah, yeah, Ikind of guess I've had I've had
observer status, h yes, acouple of times, in a couple of
times in my life set and duringan execution. I've had observer status several

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different ways in this world. You'reright, execution. I've had observer status
when my kids were born. Ihad observer status on film sets of many
kinds. I've had observer status.Wow, so this becomes a huge,
insurmountable issue until you can figure out, or we the world can figure out.
And here's the other problem is youhave many Palestinians, and you've heard

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the phrase from the river to thesea, Palestine will be free, Jordan
river being the river, the Mediterraneanbeing the sea. And wow, if
you look at that entire area,okay, that's Palestine. Well, just
one little problem. Israel's in themiddle of that. So do you not

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even recognize Israel? Does Israel noteven exist? Yeah? To many folks,
well, a few folks, afew countries, certainly Palestine, although
it has to if you're talking aboutthe Palestinian authority. They've recognized Israel,
and Jordan and Egypt have, whichyou have the other countries that haven't.

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Sa Audio, Arabia hasn't, TheEmirates haven't, even though they're actually allies,
because the politics of the Mid Eastis if your Arab Israel doesn't exist,
and if you're Israel, those areenemies, even though in reality,
de facto they're all allies. Becauseeverybody's afraid of Iran. It runs a

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big threat. So you tell me, at any point, you just tell
me where Palestine is and then theUN can vote it in as a country.
I have no problem with Palestine beinga country. I'm a firm believer
in the two state system, soI don't have an issue with that.
My problem is what the hell doyou do with Gaza? And then the
other issue, what do you dowith the settlements? Because you have half

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a million people now living in theWest Bank Israeli's and the crazy nationalists Israeli
nationalists, the settlers are on thatside, so it's a little bit more
complicated. Palestine will be free fromthe river to the sea. Yeah,
okay, a couple of things.I do these local stories all the time

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because especially in the show biz world, because showbiz we're a company town,
especially Los Angeles, movies, TVs, even radio. We happen to be
the most successful radio market in thecountry here in Los Angeles, so across
the board, and there's a bitof history to it, and that is

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what ended up. Originally in thetelevision era, Hollywood was Hollywood, and
there was the movies grew up inHollywood. And you know why the movies
grew up in Hollywood for two reasons. Reason Number one is the weather it
used to be New Jersey. Itused to be New York. When movies
first started, the Edison Company wasout of New York, and Edison had
the patent on the movie cameras andthe projectors. And if anybody used those

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projectors and didn't pay the Edison patent, I mean they Edison had thugs going
around and beating people to a pulp. So you had a couple of filmmakers
that didn't want to pay that kindof money and just moved. The moved
west and the weather was better NewJersey, New York. During the winter,
it's kind of tough to film movies, especially since the early movies were

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all open air. It was alldone in buildings that didn't have roofs.
All right, they were silent,so they would have people watch stand and
watch the films, right, Ohyeah, they would. People would pay.
There were bleachers and cheer and hooand do all of it. And
it got during the silent days.Man, that was a good gig to

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be a silent film star because youdidn't have to know any lines. You
could party all night, get drunk, screw your brains out with anybody you've
ever met, and sleep half anhour and show up the next morning and
you're fine. When sound came in, that became a little bit more problematic.
Why is that, Bill, Idon't know. Because you had to

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rehearse your lines, you had toknow where you're going, You had to
have some idea of what you weregoing to say. So we'll move into
the sound era. And because ofthe weather, because of the the patent
that Edison had on the film cameras, they move west. And the first
I think the first one was aLemley Washington on it is It don Kowanga.

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It was one of the first studios. Universal Carl Lemley started Universal Studios
and and Ed Warner Brothers. Imean, all the major studios came in
here. They started in Hollywood forthose reasons, and from day one of
the earliest movie productions, it wasHollywood. And then when Hollywood became television,

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originally, when television came into thenational conscious, when all of a
sudden, everybody got a television set. When televisions first started, there were
a few thousand people, and thenit just got bigger and bigger, and
if you look at the number ofpeople who bought television sets, the numbers
increased year to year by hundreds ofa percent. So where was television It

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was on the East Coast. Whyis that Well, because you couldn't have
three thousand extras on a TV set. The original TV sets were the lights
were incredibly bright, you'd be fitzinglike crazy, very controlled. There was
not a lot of movement. Thecameras were static, and so it had

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to be on the sound stages,these TV sound stations, which were in
buildings. They weren't even independent soundstations. They had to rent buildings and put
floors in. And so it waswhere do they get the actors? Where
do they get the writers? Outof Broadway? Where was Broadway? It
was New York. So the earlydays of television was all New York.

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And then who discovers television production andgoing whoop, there's a lot of money
in here to be made Hollywood becausethere's certainly more television shows made than movies
made in Hollywood, and so everythingbecame Hollywood. And Hollywood, both for
television and for movies, is avery insular town. The you've got the

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craft period people. You have thebelow the line people, the cameraman,
the sound people, the grips,the lighting people. They all lived here
because the only time anybody shot outsideof Hollywood was for location. If you
wanted to shoot in Death Valley,you went to Death Valley. Otherwise you're
on a sound stage. I don'tknow if you've seen television shows just coming

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to mind, Bonanza, if youremember that, it was the first Western.
It was first I think TV seriesin color. And if you look
at the sets, they're out inthe bushes, they're out in the trees
or in the forest. I meanso fake. You could see it is
a set. You have the faketrees and then the backdrop right behind that

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with hand painted trees, and they'reso ridiculous. And that's because everything was
Hollywood. It all came here,so the people who you know, it
was not easy to break in obviously, you know, breaking into showbiz TV
movies is not an easy deal.But everybody lived here. This was production.

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This was the world. I mean, Hollywood and Vine probably the most
well known corner on the planet,which, by the way, had nothing
to do. There's no studios there. There's nothing there. I've never gotten
Hollywood and Vine. Just studios arewhat in Burbank? We've got how many
over here? Half a dozen inBurbank. I mean, this really is
the entertainment center of the world whenit comes to movie and television studios.

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And then there's Sony now which isin West LA and think Hollywood and Vine
was probably Radio era. I don'teven I don't even know. I don't
know, but I know over inthat area, yeah, I don't know.
Well, CBS television cities on Fairfaxand Beverly, you've got a CBS

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studios in Studio City, You've gota big sound stage studio, and I
think it's on Radcliffe. The pointis, it's all southern California. So
what do other states do? They'regoing, wait a minute, there's a
lot of money here. I meanpeople that work in movies and they were
all Union, very few independent movies. They got paid buckets of money.

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And if they came to us,there's hotels, there are restaurants, there's
people that spend money, a lotof money being spent, local services being
used as well as folks spending aton of money here. Why don't we
make it easy for people to comehere? And how do you make it
easy? You offer up bucks,you go here, we go. How

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about we'll pay thirty percent of yourproduction costs if you come here, for
example, to North Carolina. Nowthe issue becomes now it becomes a little
bit more difficult to make sure thatproductions stay here because a little more a
lot more competitive. I'm going totell you what's happening now. That was

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sort of a historical prelude to what'sgoing on right now. So we had
a couple of major strikes. Well, first of all, let's go back
a little bit in history. Whyare productions going out of state? Used
to be all here. I meanthis was it. This is where the
sound stages were, This is wherethe studios were, I mean this was
everything. The technology was here becauseyou needed big sound stages. Well,

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with the technology today, with thecameras that are as big as your fingertip,
with iPhone cameras being virtually broadcast quality, you can take you can film
anywhere. I mean location shooting isnot really location shooting anymore. You're just
filming wherever it is. Now,do you still need large sound stages,

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Yeah, to some degree, butit's astounding how many films can be done
without even walking into a sound stage. So you got technology that allows filmmakers,
television maker, commercials makers to goout of southern California, to go
out of stage, to go outof country if they want, and the
price of course drops dramatically. Doyou know where a lot of filming has

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done Crowah, they have very highlyskilled technicians, they have sound stages,
and they're saying, look, you'renot paying very much. You're not paying
fifty eight or sixty five dollars anhour for this quality of technician. You're
paying eighteen dollars an hour, twentydollars an hour, and we loved having

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you here. Now the other stage, you have South Carolina, You've got
Georgia, which has become a hugefilm center. You've got I think North
Carolina. Why because those are notUnion states for the most part, and
you get technicians there, you getcrew that know what they're doing, and
all of a sudden you've cut thefilming. Canada has become a huge place.

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Canada is massive, and they useCanada for New York, Canada for
La Yeah. Yeah, and theydo it. You know why because first
of all, they don't make asmuch money in Canada, and we have
the currency issue where our dollar isworth far more than the Canadian dollars.
So if someone is making twenty bucksan hour, even the same amount of

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money is here. And if wehave a fifteen percent currency issue, where
our dollars were fifteen percent more,you've just got a fifteen percent discount.
Do you remember when we were inMorocco that we drove past their big stew
They had ten studios out there,Yes, and they were you know,
Hollywood quality studio, massive set right, And it used to be you only

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saw like Lawrence of Arabia or thosehuge desert extravaganzas. Felt Now studios are
over there. So you got thatgoing on, which has taken a lot
of production away from a Hollywood andthe trades people. And then you have
the two strikes which nailed southern California, the writers strike, the SAG after

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a strike, I mean just killedSouthern California. And so that became a
huge issue, and then another issuegot really big, is just the way
movies and TVs are filmed. Moviesstill film, but the cost of movies
are so astronomical today eighty million dollarsis considered that a medium budget film,

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ten million or twenty million dollars isconsidered a budget film today. If you're
talking about a tent pole picture.If you're talking about a major picture one
hundred and fifty one hundred and eightymillion dollars, it's gone crazy. So
then you have the streaming services andoriginal programming from the streaming services, which

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are ten times more than any moviecompany all the movie companies put together,
and the streaming services don't pay asmuch. The actors don't get as much
at all, even though with greatproduction values. And the other issue is
a season used to be twenty twoepisodes, you know, in the days

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of Lucy in the fifties, Ilove you see of thirty nine episodes for
a season. Today a full seasonis twenty twenty two. And I'm talking
about just as big as it gets. And then how many television series do
you see on Netflix or Hulu orPeacock that are made by those streaming services

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that are six episodes eight episodes?Well, that means people who get paid
per episode, because that's the wayit works in movies and TV now have
eight episodes of income instead of twentytwo episodes of income. Put all of
those reasons together, and if youwere my kid, I would say,

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maybe you don't want to do that, you know, maybe this is not
a field for you. You know. An interesting twist on that, a
buddy of mine who works in thespecial effects industry hitting me up during the
topic. He's a listener, andhe's saying that even digitally, even if
they physically have to make a modelfor something, that if they need twenty

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of them in the movie, theycan just make one and digitize it and
then multiply it. So there,even the technology is slowly taking away jobs.
And by the way, thank youfor that the green screen, which
has made it so much cheaper.You don't have to build sets anymore.
Well, now they have something calledthe Volume, which is a big digital

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screen that they can control. Theyuse like on The Mandalorian and shows like
that where you can have a sunsetfor the whole day because they can control
it on a screen and it doesn'tlook like Star Trek. When you know
when those sets you were talking aboutwere built inside and you could tell that

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it was a fake tree and afake sky and stuff like that. It's
insane. Yeah, put all thattogether, it's it's gonna be a tougher
and tougher business to number one getin. There'll be fewer jobs, and
there'll be fewer opportunities because the technologyhas taken over AI, and you're one
of the fears of the writers inAI. AI could write the scripts.

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What do you do about that?All right, we're done with that.
Retiring abroad and not, as Neilsaid, not retiring with abroad, which
is sort of a given, butretiring abroad overseas. And the reason I'm
jumping into this is because this issomething that I have been thinking about and
talking about four years. And Neilwill confirm that. How many times have

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I talked about retiring in Italy?Oh my god, Yeah, that's been
a dream of yours for a longtime. You got to mute there,
Neil. Sorry, And I knowit's been a dream of ours for you
to retire in Italy for a longtime. And I'm not alone either.
It's amazing how many people are thinkingof that. And for some reason,
ninety percent I want to retire inItaly and I don't know. I don't

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know anybody who wants to retire inthe Sudan or Yemen. I have it
to hear anybody. Certainly my friendssay that, Well, of course it's
beautiful and has great food and allof that, but why not somewhere here
in the States. There's beautiful placeswith great there are. And so now
let's talking about why you would retirein insert name of country here, ostensibly

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a first world country or even asecond World country. And now let's go
through the reasons. Okay, thosecountries have no guns are almost done.
There is not a gun culture,and I know a lot of people live
with gun culture in are real SecondAmendment fans. There are a lot of
us who don't want anything to dowith them. And now you get run

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over, Certainly, you get there'scertainly burglary, but very few people get
shot. And that's a fear thata lot of us have. So that's
one for me. That's important.Number two. Quality of life. It's
easier, it's slower unless you're goingto major cities like Rome or well even

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London is slower. But it's justa different quality of life. If you're
used to living in a major UScity LA. New York, Philadelphia,
Miami, Chicago, America, bigcity that run at a certain speed,
they don't run that way overseas.The big one probably the biggest cost retiring

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without it costing you a fortune.There's a story that came out of CNN
dot Com in which this couple wereinterviewed about where they were going to live.
They're going to Portugal, by theway, that's where they're moving Portuguese.
Portugal is at a big place wherepeople retire, a big place where
Americans go to. And they havea financial advisor that said, for the

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same quality of life in the US, it's going to cost seven thousand dollars
a month. In Portugal, it'sthirty five hundred dollars a month, a
bigger place, much better healthcare ifyou talk about the cost now, American

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health care is amongst the best inthe world, there's no question about it.
And when those advocates of the systemthat we have, and I don't
know how many that are left,we have the best healthcare that exists.
Yeah, if you have good insuranceand you're at a major medical center,

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I mean you go. Let's sayyou have no insurance and you're living out
in Appalachia someplace squirrel Hollow and thenearest clinic is twenty three miles away,
and the doctor gets paid with sidesof beef and bacon. You know,
maybe you're not going to get thesame healthcare as you are at a major

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Kaiser Center or UCI Medical Center orCity of Hope or a Cedar Sini.
The cost is prohibitive here in theUnited States. Oh, let's not forget
the pharmaceuticals too. Same medication overseas, same medication that here costs three thousand
dollars a month, is four hundreddollars a month, or something that costs

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what dozens of dollars per pill?Fifty dollars per pill, is five dollars
per pill over there. And oh, by the way, the government subsidizes
it. That's right, single payer. Virtually every country in the world have
socialized medicine. Or we can't touchthat. Oh God forbid that we have
socialized medicine, which means the governmentpays. Unless you're on Medicare, then
the government does pay. And Iwant to talk to those people who hate

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socialized medicine and are over sixty five. Do never never accept your Medicare because
it's socialized medicine to hypocritical bastards.Never allow Medicare to be paid. Ooh,
of my honor. Roll. Thisis KFI AM six forty live everywhere
on the iHeartRadio app. You've beenlistening to the Bill Handle Show, Catch
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