BHS - 7A – SoCal is Disaster-Prone | Animal Rights Comes to “America’s Provence”

Southern California is the most disaster-prone region in the U.S. California school bond should fund green spaces on campuses. His ex is getting $1MIL retirement account. They broke up in 1989! Should she give it to the family? Animal rights comes to “America’s Provence” and framers are worried.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
You're listening to KFI AM six fortythe Bill Handle Show on demand on the
iHeartRadio app. You are listening tothe Bill Handle Show Disaster. And this
is KFI AM six forty Bill Handlehere on a Tuesday morning, June eleventh,

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Hunter Biden. This is day twoof deliberations in his trial. And
Marjorie Taylor Green. I find herso incredibly entertaining. She has no surprise.
I only thin it's the first timecompared Donald Trump to Jesus, because
Donald Trump is our savior, wellmore of He's a felon, and Jesus

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was also a felon, even thoughshe doesn't know what she's talking about.
Okay, now I want to talkabout disaster areas. Okay, we have
disaster areas all over the country.Whenever there is a natal disaster of any
kind and floods or hurricanes or wildfires, the governor of the state can declare

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a national disaster and then that opensup federal money. But let me tell
you a little bit about some statsreal quickly. A study that was just
done ranked thirty two hundred plus UScounties in terms of dangers from natural disaster.

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Guess which county came in absolutely numberone. La County, Riverside came
in number three, San Berdnito,number four, Orange, number eight out
of thirty two hundred, in Ventura, San Diego, in Ventura Company Counties
eleven and nineteen. And why isthat? Well, yesterday I did a

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story, or actually I'm doing Idid a podcast recorded one about why the
movie industry came out to southern Californiato turned the last century because of the
weather, the sunshine, access tothe beaches, the mountains, the deserts,
all within an hour of almost anyplace in southern California. Incredible.

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Well, also, let's look atsome of the disasters we have here.
It's not only fires. We knowthat wildfires. It's also floods. We've
had floods that's happened recently, droughts, rising seas, surf that can be

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deadly, heat waves, cold snaps. This is all stuff that just happened.
Hurricanes, we even got a sortof kind of a hurricane for the
first time in eighty years or onehundred years. All of those hit this
year, Beatles that devour trees,and so we're in trouble. So the

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same reason that everybody loves living here, disasters love living here. And whenever
a national disaster, a natural disasteris declared, all of a sudden,
okay, x number of dollars thefederal government is giving. You know what
that is? That's over the courseof months or years, and the area
of the county, the city nowhas to cobble together money to deal with

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it. No one does well withthese national disasters, natural disasters. And
when I talk about doing well iscome up with close the amount of money
to fix the problem. There's alwaysa shortfall always, and of course the
study and here's a shocker. Themost dangerous thing that can happen when you
put all of that together. Whatis the number one natural disaster that happens

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here in southern California and neil Whatwould that be? Fires? No,
no, no, not fires,earth. It is earthquakes. How because
when the big one hits, theyhave estimated the cost. If we have
like the one in Alaska, likethe earthquake in Fukushima, for example,

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if that hits, the government hasfigured out or they have designated or put
aside one hundred million billion quaisillion dollarsis what it's going to cost. That's
just based on they think it's goingto happen sooner than later. Well,

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it's going to happen. I meanwe're due. We're due for the big
one. That's what they've been sayingsince I was two. Yeah, that's
true, and we're due for thebig one. I mean you can't.
I mean, there's absolutely no wayyou can predict them exactly. But we
know we're due. If you lookat the history of southern California, if
you look at the history of disasterprone areas, earthquake prone areas, they're

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there every five hundred years, everyeight hundred years, every hundred years.
The last big one was nineteen ohthree. What in San Francisco. We
also have some pretty good ones,we just haven't had the one that's they're
saying is to be the biggest naturaldisaster. But insurance companies aren't leaving California

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because of earthquakes. They're leaving Californiabecause of fires, also earthquakes. Earthquake
Well, actually you're right, earthquakeinsurance has actually dropped. That's the one
area where earthquake insurance has dropped.It. Earthquake insurance was prohibitively expensive where
I just couldn't do it it wasI can't even tell you what the premiums

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or per year, and it wasa fifteen percent deductible. So let's say
you have today, it's not unusual, a million dollar house, and let's
say it's destroyed by an earthquake.Well, you get to pay the first
one hundred and fifty thousand dollars torepair the house. What earthquake insurance is
basically catastrophic. If the house isstill standing, you're it's probably not worth

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it based on the deductible. Althoughit's gotten a whole lot cheaper than it
was. I'm now down to afive percent deductible. The policy has not
exploded, much like my auto insurance, much like my homeowner's insurance. I
mean, all of those figures havejust gone beyond belief. They've increased so
dramatically, not so much earthquake insurance. So even though it's gonna be the

(06:21):
biggest disaster, you're right about theinsurance premiums on that. So maybe the
insurance companies are thinking the way youdo. Now here's the good news.
If the real big big one hits, maybe the insurance comes don't have to
worry about it because they're going togo bankrupt anyway, There'll never be enough
money to pay off the claims.So what difference does it make? Okay,

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do you have Earthqua insurance in yourhouse? By the way, No,
it's one hundred and twelve year oldhouse. I figured if it hasn't
been taken out yet, we shouldbe fine. And it's been retrofitted,
so it's better off now than it'sever been and it's still standing. And
it's an old wood house. Yeah, in wood houses are there's a lot
of give, which is why wedon't do block houses in southern California.

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Well, that's not why, it'sjust we're lucky to be able to use
wood all right. Now, thereis a school bond going to be up
on a vote in November, andit has to do with well green spaces
at schools. In schools, Californialawmakers are negotiating a fourteen billion dollar bond

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for November, and about a billionof it, according to teachers and administers
and environmentalists and community groups, abillion of it, about seven percent,
should be set aside for school greeningprojects to remove asphalt and replace it with
green space. So school's going toget a lot more than just building improvements

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and repairs. They would get shadetrees and shrubs and play areas with grass
and boulders and logs and permeable surfacesincluding malch and decomposed granite, let's water
in. Basically, the schools becomea park, a nicely done, sophisticated
park. And why is that,Well, because schools ain't. They just

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don't do that in most places.Now private schools do. But then private
schools charge buckets of money for tuition, which means and this therein lies the
problem is people have money send theirkids to schools that are nice to go
to, and people in the innercity, poor people, people of color,
lower so socioeconomic scale, don't havethe same benefits. When I came

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to the United States, I wasliving in Los Angeles. My family came
and we have that typical story.We came living in a garage, shared
of bathroom, I mean, typicalimmigrant stuff. And I went to Alexandria
Avenue School. I'll never forget thatour playground was asphalt. That's it.

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There was no grain, it wasasphalt. And you'd have baseball with the
yellow lines painted on the asphalt forthe bases, and during the summer it
was hot as hell. This iswhat I thought, and this is what
kids grew up doing. Well,it's gotten a lot tougher because it's gotten

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warmer. Do you know that asphalton a day that's like ninety degrees can
be one hundred and forty degrees.You can't go barefoot because it's so hot.
So we've got this bond coming upnow, you would think, and
usually it's the case that for thekids, we want to help the kids,

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and this obviously is the case becausethis is a legitimate let's help the
kids. That should fly because Californiansare in favor of helping the kids.
Last time out, it was voteddown handily because we're kind of tired,
kind of tired of being taxed,and this one is going to be.

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It's not a tax. What isthe state borrows the money and then taxes
have to be raised too strangely enoughpay back the money. I mean,
the state is like any of this. You go out and you borrow money,
you've got to pay for the money. Whoever lends the money is going
to want interest rates, and soit just gets very expensive. And now

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it's a fourteen billion if you lookat the amount of money that's been borrowed,
for example, the debt, andI don't know what the state debt
is, it's certainly in the hundredsof billions of dollars. But if you
look at the debt for example ofthe United States, it's north the thirty
trillion dollars. Governments just borrow money. That's all there is to it.

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And so this is the government borrowingmoney. But it's to have kids have
a, if not decent, atleast a better way of going to school.
Sending me a kid out on recesswhere it's only asphalt is tough,
But how expensive you think it istearing up asphalt, planting green maybe showers,

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maybe beach cabanas, maybe bringing outvirgin my ties because kids can't drink,
you know. I mean, wecan really take this too levels.
But you know, am I goingto be voting for it? Yeah?
Probably probably because at some point,even though I'm not thrilled with our taxes,
particularly here in California, I remembergoing to school on asphalt. Uh,

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school was not air conditioned, butthose were way way back when when
schools weren't or few were. Andit's just it's tough going to school these
days, it really is. It'smuch much harder than when I did it.
You know, La Unified. Youknow, they actually gave us crayons
and a ruler and pencils. Today, if you're going to school, they

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give them to you on consignment soyou can go on the street corner and
sell them and make a small percentage. Was it hard to concentrate with the
velociraptors and everything going. I don'tget that. He's saying, you're really
old, very old. Oh I'mnot that old. Come on, I

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mean, I was just mocking you. It's kind of like, I know
you were clever, comeback and Ijust can't do it. Oh, well,
we take a break and then youyeah, well you know, I'm
totally I am totally engaged with termitesfor some reason this morning. That's all
I can think of. Have aglass of orange oiled all right, thanks,

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that's funny. All right. Now, I want to tell you a
story, and this actually is apiece of advice. All right, I
want to tell you about this couple, Jeffrey Rolis In Margaret Sogstead, some
kind of a Swedish name. Theywere dating in the nineteen eighties. Forty
years after they broke up. Lookslike she's going to get one million dollar

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retirement account. Now she can't getany assets because he has an estate and
they broke up forty years ago.She got remarried and all in odd.
But here's what happened. He worksfor PG and E and the beneficiary that
he put down when he started workingat PG and E basically moving diaper boxes

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around on the floor of the warehouse. So he signs up and he lists
her name as the beneficiary and thenforgets about it. Right, Well,
here's the way it works at PGand E and other companies. The last
person you put on the beneficiary statementgets the money unless you've changed it,

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and unless you've gone through the paperwork. By the way, PG and E.
The paperwork is a three x fivecard that you sign that hasn't even
been digitized. And all of asudden, and by the way, his
brothers are going out of their minds. They have filed claims. I mean,

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this is one point one five milliondollars. PG and E is one
of those few companies that actually giveyou a pension. Now. I know
for most of you, pensions areno longer really part of life, but
there are plenty of people out therethat have him. And I think this
is a lesson in if you haveor have started a pension many years ago,

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man, you want to look atit really carefully. As I'm looking
looking forward or looking towards retirement,and I don't know when that's going to
happen, but let's see it's acouple few years down the road. Because
I like sitting here. I likeyelling at you, I like abusing you,
I like screaming at you, andI like getting paid for it.

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So it says, my daughter says, Dad, you really do get paid
for being an a hole, don'tyou? And I said, yeah,
pretty much. He goes, wheredo I get that kind of a job?
So I like this job. Now. You know what I'm spending most
of my time doing is figuring outthe pension as much as anything else.

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What do I do with this pension? How do I handle it? I
am super careful about it, becausewell, I happen to be. I'm
conservative with my money. You know, I don't get any wild investments or
anything like that. But I sureas hell look at anything that can go

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south where it's not going to gowhere I intend it to. Go.
For example, my trust, whichthe kids are the beneficiary of, I
change every week. Every week Ichange my trust. One of my daughter's
acts out or does not treat meappropriately, I show them the trust,
the document, and I say,you're out of it. Your sister gets

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everything. The following week, it'susually reversed. Your sister gets everything.
The point of this lesson is payattention, and people don't. And you've
got to be really careful as towho gets it. Ben you put down
beneficiaries. I get this on handleon the law all the time. Well,

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my ex put down as someone hisex girlfriend like in this case,
is a beneficiary the account, andshe took it all out. Guess what
you bet? You you want tobe super careful about that sort of stuff.
So anyway, it looks like thatthe brothers are going to go no
place, no place because Jeffrey Rolinsonsigned up on this single piece of paper

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and I'm looking at it because thisis part of the lawsuit and puts her
name down as the beneficiary of anaccount that started nineteen eighty seven. Wow,
gee, isn't it worth it forone point one five million dollars?
Yeah? And they're going to courtyou bet you they're going to court.
They're going to court big time.Okay, there is going to be something

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on the ballot up in Petaluma,California. It's actually it's going to make
the county the first county in thecountry that is going to outlaw factory farms
egg production facilities because of human rightsor animal rights violation. This actually came

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out of activist movement six years agoon a guy Mike Weber's chicken ranch,
and they talked about the whoors eggproduction and how animals are treated, and
it goes on and on because that'sthe fight between the major producers of food

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in this country versus animal rights advocates. Are I think that's insurmountable that line,
because food for us is amazingly cheapwhen you look at the percentage of
money that we earn to buy foodrelative to other parts of the world.
And why is that Well, becauseof factory farming, because of credible efficiencies.

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You think of farmers going into thehenhouse and pulling out eggs underneath chickens
asses. How many you think wouldactually you would it cost you per egg
if that was the way eggs wereproduced. So the eggs are produced by
millions of hens and they're done inwhat is described as these factory farms.

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And what the activists want to dois simply make them illegal. You can't
have them outlaw them. Actually,I mean one straight outlaw outlaw them in
Sonoma County. And that's no joke. Because this goes up on ballot in
November. They have enough signatures.Now does that mean that any place anywhere

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in the country, Well, ofcourse, so is everything going to move
down to to the southern States?Yeah? Probably because of what happens here.
This is another one of those Weare the most liberally insane population that
exists, insane county cities. Rememberwhen Berkeley, and this was a bunch

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of years called itself a declared itselfa nuclear free zone. No nuclear weapons
are allowed in the city of Berkeley. We will not allow them, okay,
And they way ahead and passed thatlaw. And of course the government

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officials who are in charge of thestorage and the transportation of nuclear weapons were
quaking at that. That's great.By the way, the same thing back
to Berkeley. Okay, in thefall, there will be rush placed in

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front of the Berkeley voters, andthat is there will be no commercial farms
allowed in the town of Berkeley,in the city of Berkeley. Okay,
now are there any there? Ofcourse not. Does anybody ever intend to
put up a commercial egg farm inBerkeley? Of course not. The point

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is is that this is a politicalstatement. And Neil, let me bring
you in on this one. Okay, how do you feed America without industrialization
both beef production, chicken production,egg production, pork production. How do
you do that without it being things? Eggs are five dollars each, Yeah,

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just going to be expensive, reallyexpensive. Yeah, But we need
to find some happy medium because we'vegotten way over to the other side where
we are. We're having to fillthese hands animals with all kinds of antibiotics
and the like, because although that'sgoing away, that's going away. Well,
that's part of the change. AndI think that there's going to be

(22:07):
a happy medium there because that thewhole industrialized farming thing, it's not so
pretty either. No, And you'reright, but there are ways of making
it more humane. You can get, for example, free range. There's
difference between cage free and free rangechickens. Cage freemans are just cram free
range. They actually run around andwe're actually I think we're moving in terms

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certainly of the eight production. We'removing over and you said happy medium,
So we're going to have over mediumin terms of eggs of eggs of egg
production. Yeah, I had togo there, you know, I mean,
that's a softball question. Sure.And then with beef you said they're
going to be moving toward other changeanyway. This is by the way,

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Weber's farm is in Pedaluma in Sonomawhere they're going to make this illegal.
And it used to be known asthe egg basket of the US, or
even the egg basket of the world, is the way of course they described
themselves. I gotta tell you it'sgoing to change. You know, California
is not going to be a greatplace to do much of anything when it

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comes to animal rights. Oh here'sa story I want to share with you.
I think you were around Nell whenI had the head of Pizza Southern
California, head of Piza that's notpiza, not the bread, but the
pizza folks, right, Yeah,for tasty animals. Yeah, yes,
exactly. And so I was interviewinghim and I brought a bag full of

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whoppers. It was in studio.I literally went to Burger King and I
think I got four of them orfive of them. The entire interview interview,
I was eating, My mouth wasfull, I was spitting out bits
of burger and he just kept ongoing. As a matter of fact,

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he thought it was funny. Youknow why it was a win for him
because he still got his hour.At those days he's doing an hour interview.
He still got his full hour.And he made his point. One
thing about the pizza folks, theyare brilliant in their pr that you have
to give them their marketing and everything. You know. I interviewed Gosh on
the Tim and Neil show. Timand I interviewed someone from Pete. This

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woman was trying to tell me thatthat lobster's scream when you put them into
boiling water, And I said,lobsters do not have vocal chords. That
is air escaping their shells. Well, they hiss at your performance, is
what they do. They don't hisss. They don't have any ability. The
air escaping sounds like a hiss,doesn't it. Well, it doesn't sound

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like it. Oh that's hot,Yeah, no, you don't hear escaping
from you sounds like a hiss,We're done, guys. KFI AM six
forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. Listening to the Bill Handle Show.
Catch My Show Monday through Friday,six am to nine am, and anytime
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