June 6, 2024 • 24 mins
Host of ‘How to Money’ on KFI Joel Larsgaard joins the program to talk about US News singing the praises of brick-and-mortar banks, whether you should pay off a low-interest rate mortgage, and HALF of Americans don’t even know what a 529 account is. Host of ‘Later with Mo Kelly’ closes the Bill Handel Show talking about the most downloaded news app in the U.S may have published dozens of fake, AI written stories.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:01):
You're listening to Bill Handle on demandfrom kf I AM six forty flow.
Come on, you are listening tothe bill Handle show. Funny Yeah,
Funny Jack, Funny Kay about FunnyJack, Funny Day, Oh funny Dad,
Come of Funny KFI AM six fortyBill Handle. On a Thursday morning,
(00:25):
June sixth, D Day, eightyyears ago. Today this morning,
uh seven o'clock and seven to twenty. I did two segments on my experience,
not my experience in D Day oryou know, attacking the Germans or
going on the Normandy beach head,but visiting the Sarah the American Cemetery right
above that one of the most movingexperiences I've ever had in my life.
(00:49):
And so I talked about that anda little bit of the history of D
Day. There's so much to it. Okay. Now, Joe Larsgard,
who is with us today and heis every Sunday from twelve to two pm,
the host of How to Money.Good Morning, Joel, Morning Bill.
All right, here's what's going on. I want to ask you a
(01:10):
question about it. US News issaying the brick and mortar banks are great
news. I don't know if they'recoming back or not, but I must
tell you I'm a fan of brickand mortar banks a couple of reasons.
I get out cash regularly. I'ma drug dealer. They don't take checks,
Okay, that's for sure. I'veheard this. I have the illegal
(01:33):
alien housekeeper. You got to payunder the table, so that's okay.
I just use cash a lot.And one of the things that I find
the most fascinating, the most entertainingabout brick and mortars when there is a
bank robbery, at least you getsome entertainment. You don't when there's a
hacker taking money. I mean,so what, But you know, dressing
(01:55):
up, you know the you've gotthe various guys in costoms and disguises,
and occasionally you get you know,the cops showing up. I mean,
it's good stuff. It's better forthe movies. I'm sorry, it's definitely
better for the movies. No,it's not, because when there's a reality,
you know, you want reality.And that's why I like documentaries so
much more than I like dramas.Anyway, you're not a big fan of
(02:20):
brick and mortars, so explain whyI'm not. And I'm okay going head
to head on this the biggest banksright that they've got locations on every corner,
and so it sounds really nice,like, oh yeah, it feels
like this comfort blanket to have arelationship with a bank that's really close by.
But I think it's like most peoplethink about the last time you actually
needed to go into a bank branch, and I think there are solutions.
(02:43):
This US News and World report outlinesa few reasons why you should consider keeping
that relationship with your brick and mortarbank, but I think there are so
many reasons to leave your big bankand to go with an online bank instead,
And everything they point out I feellike is easily refutable. You mentioned
I need to get cash, Well, most of the great online banks that
pay one much higher rates of interest. The big banks are paying zero point
(03:06):
zero one percent, and my favoritebanks are paying four and a half to
five percent, which is a massivedifference if you've got a decent chunk of
savings in the savings account. Well, the other thing is like, okay,
you want to get cash out,do you actually walk in the bank
and do you go talk to ateller and then get cash out of your
account? That just feels so antiquated. It feels so old school, and
(03:27):
I think most people these online bankshave networks of ATMs or you can withdraw
money fee free, and so youcan pop into a drugstore or a Target
or something like that and you cantake money out that way. So I
just think the big banks they're notreally doing anything to compete for your dollars,
for your for your for your service, and they're taking advantage by charging
(03:49):
extra fees, by not giving youany sort of interest and return on your
money that you have stashed away insavings. So I don't see any reason
to keep them around, all right, So quickly, first of all,
you're five five and a half.The big banks offer that too. The
small money. The point zero onepercent is only for checking. I mean,
they're going to give you money forsavings and uh and by the way,
(04:11):
the big banks who give you fivefive and a half percent, now
this is all FDIC stuff. Ohyeah, of course, exactly, yeah
yeah yeah. So and some ofthese banks that I'm talking about are are
neo banks and they're not actual banks, but most of the ones that I
recommend are banks in and of themselves. So we're talking about discover cit ally
there these are banks that instead ofhaving like ridiculous numbers of locations across the
(04:34):
country, they're able to pass onbetter products, better customer service on to
you because they're not paying for allthat overhead. But yes, they are
actual banks, and they have theFDIC insurance covered all right, so if
you're let's say, getting the samemoney. And by the way, electronic
banking is exactly the same with thebig banks. I mean I go from
account to account and I just doit on the computer. As I said,
(04:56):
the only time I go in iswhen I go in and ash for
cash. And by the way,what you can get on an ATM machine
doesn't come close to what I haveto pay my drug dealer, all right,
so you're limited to Also, Ipay my illegal housekeeper a chunk of
money, So it's not there isa big reason, and it's nice to
have a private banker, and they'llassign private bankers for anybody that has more
(05:20):
than I don't know, ten fortythousand dollars the bank. And this is
retirement money on top of everything else. Because five and a half percent isn't
a bad return today that is coveredby the FDIIC. That's a big deal.
So you know, to me,I think the benefits outweigh the negatives
(05:40):
on this. Now it's your turnto respond and tell me I'm wrong.
See, he's got nothing to say. The fact that we also the fact
that we lost him, has alot to do with the two. I
have no problem being a surrogate tellingyou you're wrong. Okay. By the
(06:01):
way, this reminds me of thedays when talk when we did talk radio,
and we'd have callers and I would, you know, start screaming saying,
well, what do you think ofthis? And then I put them
on hold and say, see,they have nothing to say. There's no
response. All right, Joel Larsguardis back. And Joel, I got
(06:23):
you on that one, the brickand murder. Okay, Yeah you didn't.
You didn't, okay, But let'smove on. You and I are
okay, but we disagree on thatone. That that's easy. You don't
like brick and mortar. You gaveall the reasons. I like them for
all my reasons. And you,guys, you the people out in radio
land. You know, I've gotwhat do I call people out in radio
(06:45):
land? Listeners? Yeah, fans? Well, I mean they might be
grudgingly listen to you who knows andyou can call them former listeners. Well,
then they wouldn't be listening, wouldthey. All? Right, low
interest mortgage rates, there are plentyof people out there, which is one
of the reasons why there are veryfew houses out there, because no one
(07:09):
letting go of their low interest mortgagerates. Does it make any sense to
pay off a low interest mortgage rate? And number two, zero down mortgages
are coming back. I don't knowhow the banks allow that to happen anymore.
Yeah, So the paying down alow interest rate mortgage is a question
(07:31):
I feel like I'm encountering so oftenright now. And Michelle Singletary writes in
the Washington Post she's awesome, givesgreat money advice, but she was just
writing this week about how she's thrilledthat she paid down her two point seventy
five percent mortgage and it helps hersleep at night. And so I get
maybe, if you're incredibly debt averse, why you might want to get rid
(07:51):
of a mortgage, even if youhave a low interest rate attached to it.
But I also think that just likewe were talking about, like with
what you can uner on savings,these days, it shouldn't be any some
sort of like I've got to getthis done, a laser focus to pay
down your mortgage if you have alow interest rate. The exception is I
think, like, let's say you'rethe kind of person who says, instead
of paying down the debt, I'mprobably gonna like spend that money and do
(08:15):
some frivolous stuff with it, andI'm actually not going to actually achieve other
financial goals. I'm not going toshove more into my investments or start saving
up for other things. In afive percent interest rate bearing account, then
in that case, you'd be betteroff. You'd be better served by paying
off that mortgage more quickly. Butit's just not one of those things.
I'm seeing more and more people talkabout paying down that mortgage, and I
(08:37):
just think it makes very little financialsense as long as you have the discipline
to do smarter things with that money. Yeah, a couple of things I
want to respond. First of all, I'm one of those people. I
don't have a mortgage. I paidit down ten years after I got into
it, and by the way,that was a hassle. I mean,
that was you know, that wasno fun. That was a lot of
money, but I like waking upand owning my home. Yeah, it's
(08:58):
just one of those things. Itmakes no financial sense. It's a lot
like staying married for more than tenyears. It makes no financial sense whatsoever
to pay down a mortgage. Especiallylet's say your mortgage is three percent.
You were able to grab a threepercent mortgage and you can make five and
a half percent on that money,why wouldn't you refinance the house and put
(09:20):
the money into an account. That'sone And you're right, this discipline part
is very, very difficult. Andby the way, refinancing A quick word
about refinancing. People refinancing and itgoes back to thirty years. What you
want to do is refinance to thesame level that you owe the money now
and how many years are left inyour mortgage. And people don't think about
(09:41):
that. The other thing is howdo the lenders get away with letting I
mean the zero down what happened duringthe Great Recession and the bubble burst?
Do they have no memory? Iknow? Yeah, So there's a United
Wholesale mortgage just announced like, hey, we're bringing back zero down more and
this like this scares me because you'reright, like what happened in eight,
(10:05):
two thousand and seven, two thousandand eight, like the lead up and
then the eventual collapse of the housingmarket. A lot of that was because
of these riskier loan products. Andfor anybody out there, I get that
home prices have gone up quite abit and interest rates, and so you're
like, oh my gosh, itfeels impossible to save up the down payment,
to save up ten percent to putdown on a house, or twenty
(10:26):
percent, god forbid, Like thatseems impossible, and a zero down product
sounds like the perfect solution. Butwhen you do that, you're taking on
a lot of added risk into yourlife. And let's say we do experience
a housing market correction, or weexperience a recession or something, and you
lose your job, or you're underpaidfor a while and you can't make the
(10:46):
mortgage payments because hey, guess whatyou financed the whole thing. That puts
you in a really scary position.So I don't like the idea of people
having zero equity in their house whenthey buy it, of not having any
money to put down, even thoughyeah, this is something I thought we
would I've learned from I thought thesethings would go away completely. Yeah,
it's crazy. By the way,you're not gonna get if you're putting no
money down, You're not gonna geta six percent loan, are you No,
(11:07):
you're gonna pay. You're gonna payexactly. There's gonna be more more
fees, including the loan. There'sgonna be higher interest rates. I mean,
you typically get the best terms themore money you're able to put down.
So if you're putting down ten percent, you're gonna get you're gonna get
one offer from the mortgage company.If you're able to put twenty percent down,
you're gonna get just better terms overall. And so I think, yeah,
the more you can save up,the better off you're gonna be,
(11:30):
and the less like you might beliving on the financial precipice and you put
yourself at just like this incredible riskif you don't have any money to put
down to buy the home. Now, as far as qualifying, at least
the lenders are making it more difficultto qualify, there is some reality.
(11:50):
I mean it used to be statedincome. Yeah, whatever you put down,
right, you make twenty two dollarsan hour put down, you make
three hundred thousand dollars a year.Okay, no one bothered even to I
mean today it's a very different animal, so it's less risky. But as
you said, you know, zerodown and you've got nothing to lose.
By the way, if you walkaway, you've got no skin in the
(12:11):
game, right, yeah, exactly, And you're right, like if you've
tried to buy a house any timein recent history, you've had to show,
can you all the documents you've hada mass to send to your lender.
It's insane, it feels very onerous, but it's way better than You're
right, kind of the do youhave a pulse check of what was happening
(12:31):
back in two thousand and seven?And yeah, but if you hear this
being advertised, if you see someonesaying, hey, listen, you don't
have to bring any money to thetable. You can buy a house,
no problem. Just red flag shouldbe going off. It might be possible.
That doesn't mean that it makes sensefor you or that it's a wise
move. All right, Joel,great stuff, Thank you. How the
money is this Sunday twelve to twopm. We do this every Sunday here
(12:56):
on KFI and his social address ishow to Money Joel, Joel, you
have a good one. We'll catchyou do weekend. Thanks Bill. Now
the earthquake. I don't know ifyou've been in earthquakes before. I've been
here my entire life here in southernCalifornia, so I've been through all the
major earthquakes. I've always wanted franklyenough, Amy, I don't know if
(13:20):
this is also for you. Forsome reason, I've always wanted to have
sex in the middle of an earthquake, so I could say, did the
Earth move for you? It wouldjust be perfect. It's never happened,
unfortunately, But living through earthquakes wooo, that is especially big ones. The
(13:41):
north Ridge quake quake, Oh mygod. And we didn't have an early
warning system. Here was the warningthat earth started shaking like crazy. My
parents, who lived in Northridge ontop of the epicenter. Their house was
almost completely destroyed. Every window blewout, cracks in the foundation, I
(14:03):
mean, and across the street theywere on Parthenia, across the street,
the houses were all destroyed. Theyhad to be raised. It's a mess.
And so we developed an early warningsystem here, which is kind of
neat, except it really doesn't giveus warning. Quickly enough, and it
(14:24):
doesn't really differentiate between let's say aseven point two and an eight point two
earthquake. It's good for the smallstuff, smaller stuff, not for the
big stuff. And so California hasnow developed that early warning system. Are
well, it's the same early warningsystem, but it gets a major upgrade,
(14:45):
and it's faster because there are moresizic sense sensors, and it gives
a much better idea of how bigit is. You'll know immediately, which
I don't know how that changes anything. Because when the early warning system goes
off and it's on your phone,you can do it for free. It's
you know, I'm trying to rememberwhat it is. Just what is that
(15:09):
app on a shake and bake orwhat is it? I don't know.
I'll give you the app I hadit here because I have it and I
didn't pay attention, frankly, andit's important for you to do it.
It is. It is absolutely free, and here's what it does. It
gives you enough warning and in somecases eight ten seconds. Now that may
(15:31):
not seem like a lot, buteight ten seconds you can dive under a
table, which is what you're supposedto do. The old myth of you
go under a doorway and pretend you'rea Jehovah's witness. You can move outside,
(15:52):
although I don't know how good anidea that is unless you run outside
and there's no power lines or anythingover your head. That makes sense?
And what did I do? Whatdid we do during the earthquake, the
northridg quake, the Wittier quake asit came down, just held on to
stuff and I was thrown across theroom. I mean it was it was
(16:21):
pretty serious stuff. And so thisnew early warning system or the improvement of
the early warning system, and oneof the big deals is not only the
timeline, but the underestimations of howbig the quakes were, because that becomes
really important. You have to know, expect a big one, expect a
(16:42):
bigger one than you think is coming, and do whatever you can do.
Gives you a chance to go andgrab the kids, gives you a chance
to find someplace. And you've seenall we've had them on the show.
Before the earthquake experts you dive undera table, that's the safest place to
be, and as the bookcase comescrashing down through the table, you're still
(17:06):
dead. But you get to goaway. The Wittier quake, I think
there was one death, if I'mnot mistaken, and it was a toddler
who was next to a bookcase andthe bookcase came down. And there's just
smart things to do, and that'sattach any furniture that can tip over to
the wall. You just get earthquakekits. Signit them at lows and I
(17:29):
mean they're very inexpensive and just drillinto the walls and you look around and
then they talk about the go bags. You know, if there's a quake,
you have all these days of waterand food, you should have several
days worth, Neil, Do youhave several days worth of food? Yes,
in anticipation of an earthquake. Yes, you're a Mormon. No,
(17:52):
actually, but the food that Ipurchase is made by Mormons. Of course.
It is the best, of coursefood that I've ever ever ever had.
Have you ever been to a Walmartin Utah? I mean the section
of food because they're into end times, so it's a little bit different.
(18:18):
Is the name of the Eden ValleyFarms? Eden? Yeah, No,
I get it, Eaten Valley Farms. But they don't pay me to say
this or anything. But their foodis absolutely fantastic. It is ridiculous how
good it is. And yeah,I have plenty of it, and it's
all dehydrated, yes it's it's butthe way that it is packaged in the
(18:42):
packaging really puts it up there.In the twenty five years or more,
where's a lot of a lot ofpackaged food like that that says it will
last have oils and things like thatthat'll go rancid. They really couldn't last
that long. This is the realstuff and the only stuff that I buy.
(19:03):
All I know is that I don'thave a long chef life with frozen
burritos from Costco. But you certainlya lot of them the first day.
Oh yeah, you'll probably eat themall the first day just because you have
them. Yeah, and if there'sfreezer problems and things like that, you're
screwed. Yeah, this is allboiled water stuff. Okay, but yes,
(19:26):
of course, in case here's anearthquake or any other need that we
have. Okay, it's time formo Kelly. He's the host of Later
with mo Kelly Monday through Friday,seven to ten pm, and this segment
is called Earlier with mo Kelly becauseit's not quite nine o'clock am MO.
Good morning, Good morning Bill.All right, Now, I was gonna
(19:48):
do a story and I ran outof time because I was doing I did
more on D Day. But fakeAI written stories, that's something we've covered,
and I want to ask you aboutthe most downloaded news app in the
US involved with fake AI AI writtenstories. So as you get into that,
(20:11):
sure, news Break is a newsaggregator. You can download it from
the Google play Store the Apple AppStore, and it has a wide variety
of sources that you can use tocall news. In fact, it's on
my phone. You have the legitimatenews sources of the national news like a
Newsweek or a Time or or aNew York Times, Washington Post. But
(20:34):
it also has local news promoted asa local website, so you can find
news wherever you are. But theproblem is a Reuter's report found that news
Break used AI at least forty timessince twenty twenty one to publish inaccurate stories,
post stories from other sources under fakebylines, and take content from competitors.
(20:56):
Yeah, forty times. It doesn'tseem like a lot, because I'm
guessing that now AI is kicking inalmost nothing can be believed. Well,
think of it this way. It'sforty times that Reuter's was able to find
over a certain amount of period acertain amount of time since twenty twenty one.
But we don't know before that,and we don't know what else has
(21:18):
fallen through the cracks that we don'tknow. And I would say, in
a larger discussion of AI, thinkof it like riding a bike downhill.
In the beginning, you see it'sa good idea, I don't have to
pedal this hard, and all ofa sudden you realize, wait a minute,
the momentum gets away from you andyou lose control and it puts you
to place of danger. YEA,that makes sense. Let's going into showbiz
because that's your wheelhouse. One ofthe big issues is those people that write
(21:44):
screenplays, how do you tell thatAI was at all involved? If you
just move some of the words aroundand effectively plagiarize, but doing to the
point where you're not quote plagiarizing.That is the problem that at this point
you can still tell because AI doesn'thave the creativity of actual writers, because
(22:04):
it has to take from existing examplesof created work. So right now it's
a bit easier to decipher the code. But to your point, if it
is not exactly like it, itevades the plagiarism and copyright guidelines, and
you allow Hollywood to create arts ofwork that are not attributable to actual people,
(22:26):
and they don't have to pay people. Plenty of bad screenwriters out there,
by the way, where AI woulddo an infinitely better job. Probably,
Yeah right, Mo, All righttonight and every night during the week
later with Mo Kelly seven to tenpm. Catch you a night, MO,
see you Bill, all right darkcoming up. I am off the
air taking phone calls for handle onthe Law, which I do Tuesdays and
(22:51):
Thursdays. And if you have alegal question, I will answer it.
And we don't have any breaks orwhatever, so I just zip right through
them. And you know I havepatience, and so we're gonna zip right
through them. And the number iseight seven seven five two zero eleven fifty
eight seven seven five two zero elevenfifty marginal legal advice. We do this
(23:14):
again tomorrow five am with wake upcall, and that's Amy and the rest
of us, that's Neil and Icome aboard, and well An's here forever,
and Cono's here forever. So Neil, I'm just talking about the two
of us, so that makes senseto me. Yeah yeah? And Amy,
Yeah, Amy, let me explainhow this works. We sleep later
(23:37):
than you do, you know that? Really? Yeah yeah, it's a
food chain issue, all right.Catching tomorrow at five am. This is
KFI AM six forty Live everywhere onthe iHeartRadio app. You've been listening to
the Bill Handle Show. Catch myshow Monday through Friday six am to nine
am, and anytime on demand onthe iHeartRadio app.
You're listening to Bill Handle on demandfrom kf I AM six forty flow.
Come on, you are listening tothe bill Handle show. Funny Yeah,
Funny Jack, Funny Kay about FunnyJack, Funny Day, Oh funny Dad,
Come of Funny KFI AM six fortyBill Handle. On a Thursday morning,
(00:25):
June sixth, D Day, eightyyears ago. Today this morning,
uh seven o'clock and seven to twenty. I did two segments on my experience,
not my experience in D Day oryou know, attacking the Germans or
going on the Normandy beach head,but visiting the Sarah the American Cemetery right
above that one of the most movingexperiences I've ever had in my life.
(00:49):
And so I talked about that anda little bit of the history of D
Day. There's so much to it. Okay. Now, Joe Larsgard,
who is with us today and heis every Sunday from twelve to two pm,
the host of How to Money.Good Morning, Joel, Morning Bill.
All right, here's what's going on. I want to ask you a
(01:10):
question about it. US News issaying the brick and mortar banks are great
news. I don't know if they'recoming back or not, but I must
tell you I'm a fan of brickand mortar banks a couple of reasons.
I get out cash regularly. I'ma drug dealer. They don't take checks,
Okay, that's for sure. I'veheard this. I have the illegal
(01:33):
alien housekeeper. You got to payunder the table, so that's okay.
I just use cash a lot.And one of the things that I find
the most fascinating, the most entertainingabout brick and mortars when there is a
bank robbery, at least you getsome entertainment. You don't when there's a
hacker taking money. I mean,so what, But you know, dressing
(01:55):
up, you know the you've gotthe various guys in costoms and disguises,
and occasionally you get you know,the cops showing up. I mean,
it's good stuff. It's better forthe movies. I'm sorry, it's definitely
better for the movies. No,it's not, because when there's a reality,
you know, you want reality.And that's why I like documentaries so
much more than I like dramas.Anyway, you're not a big fan of
(02:20):
brick and mortars, so explain whyI'm not. And I'm okay going head
to head on this the biggest banksright that they've got locations on every corner,
and so it sounds really nice,like, oh yeah, it feels
like this comfort blanket to have arelationship with a bank that's really close by.
But I think it's like most peoplethink about the last time you actually
needed to go into a bank branch, and I think there are solutions.
(02:43):
This US News and World report outlinesa few reasons why you should consider keeping
that relationship with your brick and mortarbank, but I think there are so
many reasons to leave your big bankand to go with an online bank instead,
And everything they point out I feellike is easily refutable. You mentioned
I need to get cash, Well, most of the great online banks that
pay one much higher rates of interest. The big banks are paying zero point
(03:06):
zero one percent, and my favoritebanks are paying four and a half to
five percent, which is a massivedifference if you've got a decent chunk of
savings in the savings account. Well, the other thing is like, okay,
you want to get cash out,do you actually walk in the bank
and do you go talk to ateller and then get cash out of your
account? That just feels so antiquated. It feels so old school, and
(03:27):
I think most people these online bankshave networks of ATMs or you can withdraw
money fee free, and so youcan pop into a drugstore or a Target
or something like that and you cantake money out that way. So I
just think the big banks they're notreally doing anything to compete for your dollars,
for your for your for your service, and they're taking advantage by charging
(03:49):
extra fees, by not giving youany sort of interest and return on your
money that you have stashed away insavings. So I don't see any reason
to keep them around, all right, So quickly, first of all,
you're five five and a half.The big banks offer that too. The
small money. The point zero onepercent is only for checking. I mean,
they're going to give you money forsavings and uh and by the way,
(04:11):
the big banks who give you fivefive and a half percent, now
this is all FDIC stuff. Ohyeah, of course, exactly, yeah
yeah yeah. So and some ofthese banks that I'm talking about are are
neo banks and they're not actual banks, but most of the ones that I
recommend are banks in and of themselves. So we're talking about discover cit ally
there these are banks that instead ofhaving like ridiculous numbers of locations across the
(04:34):
country, they're able to pass onbetter products, better customer service on to
you because they're not paying for allthat overhead. But yes, they are
actual banks, and they have theFDIC insurance covered all right, so if
you're let's say, getting the samemoney. And by the way, electronic
banking is exactly the same with thebig banks. I mean I go from
account to account and I just doit on the computer. As I said,
(04:56):
the only time I go in iswhen I go in and ash for
cash. And by the way,what you can get on an ATM machine
doesn't come close to what I haveto pay my drug dealer, all right,
so you're limited to Also, Ipay my illegal housekeeper a chunk of
money, So it's not there isa big reason, and it's nice to
have a private banker, and they'llassign private bankers for anybody that has more
(05:20):
than I don't know, ten fortythousand dollars the bank. And this is
retirement money on top of everything else. Because five and a half percent isn't
a bad return today that is coveredby the FDIIC. That's a big deal.
So you know, to me,I think the benefits outweigh the negatives
(05:40):
on this. Now it's your turnto respond and tell me I'm wrong.
See, he's got nothing to say. The fact that we also the fact
that we lost him, has alot to do with the two. I
have no problem being a surrogate tellingyou you're wrong. Okay. By the
(06:01):
way, this reminds me of thedays when talk when we did talk radio,
and we'd have callers and I would, you know, start screaming saying,
well, what do you think ofthis? And then I put them
on hold and say, see,they have nothing to say. There's no
response. All right, Joel Larsguardis back. And Joel, I got
(06:23):
you on that one, the brickand murder. Okay, Yeah you didn't.
You didn't, okay, But let'smove on. You and I are
okay, but we disagree on thatone. That that's easy. You don't
like brick and mortar. You gaveall the reasons. I like them for
all my reasons. And you,guys, you the people out in radio
land. You know, I've gotwhat do I call people out in radio
(06:45):
land? Listeners? Yeah, fans? Well, I mean they might be
grudgingly listen to you who knows andyou can call them former listeners. Well,
then they wouldn't be listening, wouldthey. All? Right, low
interest mortgage rates, there are plentyof people out there, which is one
of the reasons why there are veryfew houses out there, because no one
(07:09):
letting go of their low interest mortgagerates. Does it make any sense to
pay off a low interest mortgage rate? And number two, zero down mortgages
are coming back. I don't knowhow the banks allow that to happen anymore.
Yeah, So the paying down alow interest rate mortgage is a question
(07:31):
I feel like I'm encountering so oftenright now. And Michelle Singletary writes in
the Washington Post she's awesome, givesgreat money advice, but she was just
writing this week about how she's thrilledthat she paid down her two point seventy
five percent mortgage and it helps hersleep at night. And so I get
maybe, if you're incredibly debt averse, why you might want to get rid
(07:51):
of a mortgage, even if youhave a low interest rate attached to it.
But I also think that just likewe were talking about, like with
what you can uner on savings,these days, it shouldn't be any some
sort of like I've got to getthis done, a laser focus to pay
down your mortgage if you have alow interest rate. The exception is I
think, like, let's say you'rethe kind of person who says, instead
of paying down the debt, I'mprobably gonna like spend that money and do
(08:15):
some frivolous stuff with it, andI'm actually not going to actually achieve other
financial goals. I'm not going toshove more into my investments or start saving
up for other things. In afive percent interest rate bearing account, then
in that case, you'd be betteroff. You'd be better served by paying
off that mortgage more quickly. Butit's just not one of those things.
I'm seeing more and more people talkabout paying down that mortgage, and I
(08:37):
just think it makes very little financialsense as long as you have the discipline
to do smarter things with that money. Yeah, a couple of things I
want to respond. First of all, I'm one of those people. I
don't have a mortgage. I paidit down ten years after I got into
it, and by the way,that was a hassle. I mean,
that was you know, that wasno fun. That was a lot of
money, but I like waking upand owning my home. Yeah, it's
(08:58):
just one of those things. Itmakes no financial sense. It's a lot
like staying married for more than tenyears. It makes no financial sense whatsoever
to pay down a mortgage. Especiallylet's say your mortgage is three percent.
You were able to grab a threepercent mortgage and you can make five and
a half percent on that money,why wouldn't you refinance the house and put
(09:20):
the money into an account. That'sone And you're right, this discipline part
is very, very difficult. Andby the way, refinancing A quick word
about refinancing. People refinancing and itgoes back to thirty years. What you
want to do is refinance to thesame level that you owe the money now
and how many years are left inyour mortgage. And people don't think about
(09:41):
that. The other thing is howdo the lenders get away with letting I
mean the zero down what happened duringthe Great Recession and the bubble burst?
Do they have no memory? Iknow? Yeah, So there's a United
Wholesale mortgage just announced like, hey, we're bringing back zero down more and
this like this scares me because you'reright, like what happened in eight,
(10:05):
two thousand and seven, two thousandand eight, like the lead up and
then the eventual collapse of the housingmarket. A lot of that was because
of these riskier loan products. Andfor anybody out there, I get that
home prices have gone up quite abit and interest rates, and so you're
like, oh my gosh, itfeels impossible to save up the down payment,
to save up ten percent to putdown on a house, or twenty
(10:26):
percent, god forbid, Like thatseems impossible, and a zero down product
sounds like the perfect solution. Butwhen you do that, you're taking on
a lot of added risk into yourlife. And let's say we do experience
a housing market correction, or weexperience a recession or something, and you
lose your job, or you're underpaidfor a while and you can't make the
(10:46):
mortgage payments because hey, guess whatyou financed the whole thing. That puts
you in a really scary position.So I don't like the idea of people
having zero equity in their house whenthey buy it, of not having any
money to put down, even thoughyeah, this is something I thought we
would I've learned from I thought thesethings would go away completely. Yeah,
it's crazy. By the way,you're not gonna get if you're putting no
money down, You're not gonna geta six percent loan, are you No,
(11:07):
you're gonna pay. You're gonna payexactly. There's gonna be more more
fees, including the loan. There'sgonna be higher interest rates. I mean,
you typically get the best terms themore money you're able to put down.
So if you're putting down ten percent, you're gonna get you're gonna get
one offer from the mortgage company.If you're able to put twenty percent down,
you're gonna get just better terms overall. And so I think, yeah,
the more you can save up,the better off you're gonna be,
(11:30):
and the less like you might beliving on the financial precipice and you put
yourself at just like this incredible riskif you don't have any money to put
down to buy the home. Now, as far as qualifying, at least
the lenders are making it more difficultto qualify, there is some reality.
(11:50):
I mean it used to be statedincome. Yeah, whatever you put down,
right, you make twenty two dollarsan hour put down, you make
three hundred thousand dollars a year.Okay, no one bothered even to I
mean today it's a very different animal, so it's less risky. But as
you said, you know, zerodown and you've got nothing to lose.
By the way, if you walkaway, you've got no skin in the
(12:11):
game, right, yeah, exactly, And you're right, like if you've
tried to buy a house any timein recent history, you've had to show,
can you all the documents you've hada mass to send to your lender.
It's insane, it feels very onerous, but it's way better than You're
right, kind of the do youhave a pulse check of what was happening
(12:31):
back in two thousand and seven?And yeah, but if you hear this
being advertised, if you see someonesaying, hey, listen, you don't
have to bring any money to thetable. You can buy a house,
no problem. Just red flag shouldbe going off. It might be possible.
That doesn't mean that it makes sensefor you or that it's a wise
move. All right, Joel,great stuff, Thank you. How the
money is this Sunday twelve to twopm. We do this every Sunday here
(12:56):
on KFI and his social address ishow to Money Joel, Joel, you
have a good one. We'll catchyou do weekend. Thanks Bill. Now
the earthquake. I don't know ifyou've been in earthquakes before. I've been
here my entire life here in southernCalifornia, so I've been through all the
major earthquakes. I've always wanted franklyenough, Amy, I don't know if
(13:20):
this is also for you. Forsome reason, I've always wanted to have
sex in the middle of an earthquake, so I could say, did the
Earth move for you? It wouldjust be perfect. It's never happened,
unfortunately, But living through earthquakes wooo, that is especially big ones. The
(13:41):
north Ridge quake quake, Oh mygod. And we didn't have an early
warning system. Here was the warningthat earth started shaking like crazy. My
parents, who lived in Northridge ontop of the epicenter. Their house was
almost completely destroyed. Every window blewout, cracks in the foundation, I
(14:03):
mean, and across the street theywere on Parthenia, across the street,
the houses were all destroyed. Theyhad to be raised. It's a mess.
And so we developed an early warningsystem here, which is kind of
neat, except it really doesn't giveus warning. Quickly enough, and it
(14:24):
doesn't really differentiate between let's say aseven point two and an eight point two
earthquake. It's good for the smallstuff, smaller stuff, not for the
big stuff. And so California hasnow developed that early warning system. Are
well, it's the same early warningsystem, but it gets a major upgrade,
(14:45):
and it's faster because there are moresizic sense sensors, and it gives
a much better idea of how bigit is. You'll know immediately, which
I don't know how that changes anything. Because when the early warning system goes
off and it's on your phone,you can do it for free. It's
you know, I'm trying to rememberwhat it is. Just what is that
(15:09):
app on a shake and bake orwhat is it? I don't know.
I'll give you the app I hadit here because I have it and I
didn't pay attention, frankly, andit's important for you to do it.
It is. It is absolutely free, and here's what it does. It
gives you enough warning and in somecases eight ten seconds. Now that may
(15:31):
not seem like a lot, buteight ten seconds you can dive under a
table, which is what you're supposedto do. The old myth of you
go under a doorway and pretend you'rea Jehovah's witness. You can move outside,
(15:52):
although I don't know how good anidea that is unless you run outside
and there's no power lines or anythingover your head. That makes sense?
And what did I do? Whatdid we do during the earthquake, the
northridg quake, the Wittier quake asit came down, just held on to
stuff and I was thrown across theroom. I mean it was it was
(16:21):
pretty serious stuff. And so thisnew early warning system or the improvement of
the early warning system, and oneof the big deals is not only the
timeline, but the underestimations of howbig the quakes were, because that becomes
really important. You have to know, expect a big one, expect a
(16:42):
bigger one than you think is coming, and do whatever you can do.
Gives you a chance to go andgrab the kids, gives you a chance
to find someplace. And you've seenall we've had them on the show.
Before the earthquake experts you dive undera table, that's the safest place to
be, and as the bookcase comescrashing down through the table, you're still
(17:06):
dead. But you get to goaway. The Wittier quake, I think
there was one death, if I'mnot mistaken, and it was a toddler
who was next to a bookcase andthe bookcase came down. And there's just
smart things to do, and that'sattach any furniture that can tip over to
the wall. You just get earthquakekits. Signit them at lows and I
(17:29):
mean they're very inexpensive and just drillinto the walls and you look around and
then they talk about the go bags. You know, if there's a quake,
you have all these days of waterand food, you should have several
days worth, Neil, Do youhave several days worth of food? Yes,
in anticipation of an earthquake. Yes, you're a Mormon. No,
(17:52):
actually, but the food that Ipurchase is made by Mormons. Of course.
It is the best, of coursefood that I've ever ever ever had.
Have you ever been to a Walmartin Utah? I mean the section
of food because they're into end times, so it's a little bit different.
(18:18):
Is the name of the Eden ValleyFarms? Eden? Yeah, No,
I get it, Eaten Valley Farms. But they don't pay me to say
this or anything. But their foodis absolutely fantastic. It is ridiculous how
good it is. And yeah,I have plenty of it, and it's
all dehydrated, yes it's it's butthe way that it is packaged in the
(18:42):
packaging really puts it up there.In the twenty five years or more,
where's a lot of a lot ofpackaged food like that that says it will
last have oils and things like thatthat'll go rancid. They really couldn't last
that long. This is the realstuff and the only stuff that I buy.
(19:03):
All I know is that I don'thave a long chef life with frozen
burritos from Costco. But you certainlya lot of them the first day.
Oh yeah, you'll probably eat themall the first day just because you have
them. Yeah, and if there'sfreezer problems and things like that, you're
screwed. Yeah, this is allboiled water stuff. Okay, but yes,
(19:26):
of course, in case here's anearthquake or any other need that we
have. Okay, it's time formo Kelly. He's the host of Later
with mo Kelly Monday through Friday,seven to ten pm, and this segment
is called Earlier with mo Kelly becauseit's not quite nine o'clock am MO.
Good morning, Good morning Bill.All right, Now, I was gonna
(19:48):
do a story and I ran outof time because I was doing I did
more on D Day. But fakeAI written stories, that's something we've covered,
and I want to ask you aboutthe most downloaded news app in the
US involved with fake AI AI writtenstories. So as you get into that,
(20:11):
sure, news Break is a newsaggregator. You can download it from
the Google play Store the Apple AppStore, and it has a wide variety
of sources that you can use tocall news. In fact, it's on
my phone. You have the legitimatenews sources of the national news like a
Newsweek or a Time or or aNew York Times, Washington Post. But
(20:34):
it also has local news promoted asa local website, so you can find
news wherever you are. But theproblem is a Reuter's report found that news
Break used AI at least forty timessince twenty twenty one to publish inaccurate stories,
post stories from other sources under fakebylines, and take content from competitors.
(20:56):
Yeah, forty times. It doesn'tseem like a lot, because I'm
guessing that now AI is kicking inalmost nothing can be believed. Well,
think of it this way. It'sforty times that Reuter's was able to find
over a certain amount of period acertain amount of time since twenty twenty one.
But we don't know before that,and we don't know what else has
(21:18):
fallen through the cracks that we don'tknow. And I would say, in
a larger discussion of AI, thinkof it like riding a bike downhill.
In the beginning, you see it'sa good idea, I don't have to
pedal this hard, and all ofa sudden you realize, wait a minute,
the momentum gets away from you andyou lose control and it puts you
to place of danger. YEA,that makes sense. Let's going into showbiz
because that's your wheelhouse. One ofthe big issues is those people that write
(21:44):
screenplays, how do you tell thatAI was at all involved? If you
just move some of the words aroundand effectively plagiarize, but doing to the
point where you're not quote plagiarizing.That is the problem that at this point
you can still tell because AI doesn'thave the creativity of actual writers, because
(22:04):
it has to take from existing examplesof created work. So right now it's
a bit easier to decipher the code. But to your point, if it
is not exactly like it, itevades the plagiarism and copyright guidelines, and
you allow Hollywood to create arts ofwork that are not attributable to actual people,
(22:26):
and they don't have to pay people. Plenty of bad screenwriters out there,
by the way, where AI woulddo an infinitely better job. Probably,
Yeah right, Mo, All righttonight and every night during the week
later with Mo Kelly seven to tenpm. Catch you a night, MO,
see you Bill, all right darkcoming up. I am off the
air taking phone calls for handle onthe Law, which I do Tuesdays and
(22:51):
Thursdays. And if you have alegal question, I will answer it.
And we don't have any breaks orwhatever, so I just zip right through
them. And you know I havepatience, and so we're gonna zip right
through them. And the number iseight seven seven five two zero eleven fifty
eight seven seven five two zero elevenfifty marginal legal advice. We do this
(23:14):
again tomorrow five am with wake upcall, and that's Amy and the rest
of us, that's Neil and Icome aboard, and well An's here forever,
and Cono's here forever. So Neil, I'm just talking about the two
of us, so that makes senseto me. Yeah yeah? And Amy,
Yeah, Amy, let me explainhow this works. We sleep later
(23:37):
than you do, you know that? Really? Yeah yeah, it's a
food chain issue, all right.Catching tomorrow at five am. This is
KFI AM six forty Live everywhere onthe iHeartRadio app. You've been listening to
the Bill Handle Show. Catch myshow Monday through Friday six am to nine
am, and anytime on demand onthe iHeartRadio app.
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