April 14, 2025 • 25 mins
(April 14, 2025)
President Donald Trump signed an executive order commanding wide-ranging changes to how U.S. elections are conducted. Amazon wants to keep prices low. One sellers tariff woes show why it’s hard. Grandparents are reaching their limit. Hollywood is cranking out original movies but audiences aren’t showing up.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order commanding wide-ranging changes to how U.S. elections are conducted. Amazon wants to keep prices low. One sellers tariff woes show why it’s hard. Grandparents are reaching their limit. Hollywood is cranking out original movies but audiences aren’t showing up.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from KFI AM
six forty KFI Handle.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Here it is a Monday morning, April fourteenth, coming up
at eight thirty.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
We're gonna have a great time.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
And that is grandparents. Grandparents are reaching their limit. No,
I'll change talk to you about a little bit of
a change here, and if you are a grandparent or
soon to be one, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
To say the least.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Now, there is an issue once again about how the
president administration is changing things up, just upending how.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
We do business in the United States.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
So this has to do with the next election, all right. Now,
the final and most powerful check on a president has
always been the ballot box, and President Trump knows this.
And what he's done is he turned a lot of
his attention to the election system. So there was a
(01:02):
recent executive order on election quote integrity, And what this
really does is an attempt to rework the constitution and
the rules that structure the American election system. The American
election system is kind of weird. Certainly federal elections, of
which there is only one that goes across the entire country,
(01:27):
and that's president and Vice president and it is an
anomaly because while we all vote in a presidential election,
how we vote when, well, not when we vote.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
When is the same across the country.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
But how we vote, where the polling places are, how
votes are collected, when they're counted.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
And open voting and registration. It's all the states. The
states control all of it.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
The constitution well, it makes it difficult, if not impossible,
for a single actor, read the President, to subvert because
the Constitution gives the states most of the authority, but
it does have a couple of major guard rails. Congress
has supplemental authority to set broad federal standards for federal
(02:22):
election which can override the states.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
And this is in the Constitution.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
It's the authority the Congress has used to mandate certain
changes to state practices, and for example, the Civil Rights
Act of nineteen sixty four and the twenty second ele
i think twenty sixth amendment poll tax, where some of
the southern states were charging people to vote and an.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
Amendment was passed. You can't do that.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
One person has no authority over federal elections. Happens to
be the president. Executive order was signed that says that
the executive can in fact govern the mechanics of federal election,
never before claimed by a president. And here is the
(03:14):
legal theory. The president's authority to enforce federal law enables
him to control state elections in direct violation of the Constitution.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
That is tough.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
The types of identification required to register when balance may
be count ballots may be counted. Now, if you think
about this, if this is upheld and the integrity of
an election as determined by one person is at risk,
then the president's power is completely unbridled, completely unbridled. It
(03:57):
is very tough. For example, the order that he signed
directs the Election Committee, which is a federal agency, to
recertify all the election equipment, vote counting, ballot marketing machines
that have already been certified by the states, and he says, nope,
We're going to have the Feds recount re examine everything,
(04:21):
like the dominion machines.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
It's kind of crazy, it really is.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
And this has to do with the Stop the Seal,
Stop the Steel movement, part of which says that those
machines were tampered with and votes that President Trump should
have received went to Joe Biden. It is just one
of many executive actions that are being taken by this administration.
(04:49):
I talked this morning about the border Patrol, how it
was picking up people at the home depot because they
looked brown or they were brown and they looked like
Mexicans South Americans, and therefore they were picked up. Oh no, no,
the government said no. By the way, that was pursuing
to an executive order policy. So if any of this
(05:14):
is upheld, by the way, that one's going to court.
If any of this is upheld, and the court, and
it's a very conservative court, This court likes presidential power.
The Senate loves presidential power. The Republicans, both the Senate
and the House, truly believe the president has virtually unbridaled power.
(05:37):
I have often said, and I don't know how much
kidding this is, I really don't that if President Trump
were to ask Congress to dissolve itself, I think there
would be congress people and Senators that would say Donald
Trump's presidency is so important that yes we will, and
(05:59):
we already have have a movement within Congress to extend
Trump's possibility of a third term. And the way the
bill is written, it is only Donald Trump that can
have a third term. He is the only one under
this new law that is being proposed that would be
a third term president.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
Crazy, crazy, crazy.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Okay, as we continue with the program, coming up at
eight thirty next segment, I'm gonna have fun with this one,
and that is grandparents, how they're reaching their limit, and
I'm looking forward to being a grandparent not And I'll
explain how things have changed in the meantime, how things
have changed. As you know, the tariffs are going up
(06:46):
and down and sideways, and the President is all.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
Over the place with tariffs. The trade war with.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
China is going balls to the wall, full blast, except
for Friday, not quite the one hundred and forty five
percent tariff. The President turned around and said, okay, we'll
have some exemptions. Instead of everything that China produces, we
have some exemptions. And we're talking big ticket items like iPhones,
high tech stuff, highphones, tablets, chips of which America is
(07:17):
so reliant on that we just can't do business. And
all of a sudden, we were told that if China
does the same tarret retaliatory tariff, reciprocal tariff right back,
our iPhone's gonna triple. We're already paying one thousand dollars.
Are you gonna pay three thousand dollars for an iPhone?
So Trump walked that one back and said, Okay, that
(07:41):
tariff we're exempting, but it's really not exempting the tariff.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
We're putting it into a different bucket. Okay, Yeah, I
don't know what that means.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
That which means that it's on hold temporary while it's
temporary tariffs while permanent tariffs.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
Are going on. So let me tell you it is
getting nailed. I am. Oh, and let me explain why.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
As I have told you, I have a business with
my partner, Savile, who I've known for twenty years, and
our business is the importing of cookware, stainless steel, cookware
from China, two of the big big teariff products.
Speaker 3 (08:20):
Stainless steel, and anything.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Other than those high traffic or those high tech items
that I was telling you about. And so let me
tell you what Savile did. A few days ago. I
think it was a Friday.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
How about that a.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
Memo went out to our employees said we are going
to cut back your employment to three days Monday through Wednesday,
a forty percent pay cut across the board, and we're
stopping all importing of our product until we figure out
(08:57):
what's going on.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
And we're a small business. And let me tell you
who gets nailed.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
There's a story in the Wall Street Journal about a
group of people, one guy in particular, Ramon Gonzalez, and
his card games, that sort of thing, all from China,
and he's a seller. We seller on Amazon, and we
have those we sell to we sell on Amazon, but
to people who we sell, and the margins are low,
(09:27):
but it's a business that works, and there are hundreds
of thousands of people who engage in that business and
they're going to be out of business because the margins
are low enough that a tariff of one hundred percent
or eighty percent wiped out and if we have to pay,
(09:51):
and Savo was with us a few days ago, and
we are looking at a tariff of one hundred and
eighty four percent, which means that we buy a product.
Let's say we buy a set of cookwear for one
hundred dollars, we will be paying two hundred and eighty
four dollars for that cookware that we used to buy
(10:13):
for one hundred dollars. Effectively, that puts us out out
of business.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
Or it can put us out of business.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
And other than the big players who are now exempt,
whether it's because of the influence that Apple has and
the chip makers have, Amazon has. With the influence of
those players who bring in the high tech stuff, everybody
(10:44):
else gets nailed and all of a sudden, a business
that savile has run for forty years, which has supported
a family, supports families around for decades with us, it's
at risk because of these terriffs. And there is a
(11:07):
war of brewing. And the guess is is China going
to back down?
Speaker 3 (11:13):
Don't know?
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Now. To President Trump's credit, he says, it's not a
level playing field, and we're going to make it a level.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
Playing field in one day. That's the problem.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
We're going to institute tariffs because we want to bring
back factories, we want to bring back employ employment to
this country.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
Fair enough, here's the problem.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
The President can order a tariff starting four o'clock in
the afternoon that kicks in at midnight. Build a car
factory in two hours or six hours.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
That is the problem. So we'll follow that along.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
And obviously I'm looking at it very carefully because I
won't even be able to get free cookwar anymore.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
Because it's going to cost me too much.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
No, you can't get any No, no, Neil, No, not
gonna happen.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
I already have it.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
Oh yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
I forgot tons of it. Yeah you do. Yeah, I
use it to click to oil at theoume of my car.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
Yeah. It's good.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
It's really good stuff. It is very it's very high
quality stuff. Okay, we're done now, very quickly. Oh not
so quickly, because this is a fun story. And this
has to do with becoming a grandparent and how different
grandparent is today than it used to be. My daughter
Barbara is talking about having a child, a grandchild, and
(12:41):
I am pretty excited about it because we are now
negotiating how much I am paying her to not have
a child, and we're at twenty five thousand dollars and
she knows how desperate I am not to be a grandparent,
and she knows she's going to get some pretty serious money.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
Now. I'm trying to do the best I can.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
For example, we go out to dinner and I sneak
in birth control into her food as often as I can,
and I keep on telling her maybe now's not the time.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
She's all Dad, this pack of Zelman's you gave me
the pills look different.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
Yeah, they do, don't They have it?
Speaker 1 (13:22):
Take three and you'll be fine.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
Now, still at this point in time, they're not trying
because well, you know, Jewish women generally don't get pregnant.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
Did you know that on purpose?
Speaker 2 (13:36):
Because you know what Jewish foreplay is, by the way,
it's reading instructions on boxes, and it's they're pretty careful
about it. When I was in the syracusey business, as
you know, and I had friends who are in the
adoption business, which I am not wanting to adopt a
Jewish kid. Uh ah, no chance. Same thing with Asian kids,
(13:58):
uh ah, no chance. But I digress. The point is
grandparenting is so different now. Grandparents have a reputation. They're
all rich, retired, they're living in villages in Florida, playing
ten rounds of golf a day, cocktails at four thirty, laughing,
while their millennial children are suffering.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
Yeah, that's the case certainly with.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
Me and there it is very, very different today. It's
tough as hell in many cases. Last year, when JD.
Vance was running for vice president and would ask how
would you address the problem of staggering childcare costs? He
suggested that grandparents or other relatives could help out a.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
Little bit more. Well, you know, life is not that
easy America.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
Is that the age of grandparenting, particularly grandmothering. There was
a twenty twenty two survey nearly sixty percent of grandmothers
provided a childcare provided childcare for a grandm kid, and
more than forty percent saw grandchild in person at least
once a week. There was a Harris poll in twenty
twenty three. More than forty percent of working parents relied
(15:11):
on their kid's grandma for childcare. Nearly seventy percent of
those parents said, you know what, they might have lost
their job without grandmother's help, because it's just childcare is
beyond beyond expensive. It used to be that you could
send a kid to a childcare center and it was affordable.
(15:34):
Today it is impossible now. It used to be back
in the day most grandparents were living with their grandkids,
providing care all the time. The reality has always been
more complicated. My mother and father brought my grandmother over
from Brazil, and she spent eleven years with us until
(15:54):
she died. I don't know if I shared that story
with you now. Was she involved as a grandparent. The
only thing she would ever do is play baseball with us,
and she would be second base, I mean be the base.
And why is that because she did not take care
of us.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
She was a lump, so I didn't.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Have the benefit of grandparents taking care of me and
my parents both working.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
But here's the difference.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
Okay, when I was a kid, and i'd oh, I
walk four miles, But it just goes to show you
how things have changed in the last fifty years. I
would walk to school every day, I would walk back home.
I was a latchkey kid and I would spend hours
playing with my friends, hanging out after school, and then
(16:47):
come home and we never locked the front door. It
was a different time. Didn't really need grandparents to take
care of kids. Today do parents let their seven year
olds walk to school? I was ten years old, eight
years old, I walked to school and it was three blocks.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
I live pretty close.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
To school, but still, you know, I went back to
the school. I don't know how many years ago, and
when I was a kid, I thought that was a
mile and a half walk and it was three blocks.
But today, can you imagine allowing your child to do that?
There wasn't a day in elementary school, middle school, or
(17:37):
high school that my kids were not taken to school
in a car, either by me or by Marjorie.
Speaker 3 (17:45):
Not one day.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
As a matter of fact, that's one of the reasons
that my daughters could not listen to my show in
the morning. Why because they were being driven by my
ex and in the car. There I was every morning
I was on the radio. And one day Barbara, when
(18:09):
she was maybe eight years old, said, Mommy, what does
stuff mean?
Speaker 3 (18:16):
And click?
Speaker 2 (18:18):
Radio done for the next five eight years. Can't wait
for me to become a grandparent, right, all right? Doing
the story of grandparents and how grandparenting has changed.
Speaker 3 (18:36):
It's an article out of the Wall of the Atlantic actually,
which I read.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
You know, they keep up on the trends, what's happening,
and a story about grandparenting and how it has changed
so much and older people are being asked to help
kids with well, homework, extracular activities. Very different grandparents used
to be. You just play with your kids. My dad
(19:02):
used to love playing with my children. He'd come out
and wrestle with them and take them out.
Speaker 3 (19:10):
For ice cream. And I didn't do much than that.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
Was he a caregiver. No, was my mother a caregiver. No,
they would come over and just enjoy their grandkids. And
if you have people, if you have friends, family member,
you The best part of grandparenting is you get all
the benefit without any of the negative. That's the high
end best part. Well, today it's very different. Grandparenting is
(19:35):
in testifying because parenting is intensifying. Children seen by their
parents are ever more vulnerable. They need protection, they need cultivation,
less and less independence. There was a study of British
grandmothers and researchers there found that many of the participants
(19:59):
in a study were taken aback by the expectation.
Speaker 3 (20:03):
That children needed constant supervision.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
That's the other thing is you don't leave kids alone.
Speaker 3 (20:12):
I was a latch key kid. I cooked for myself.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
I'd come home at five o'clock or three o'clock after school,
and I was ten years old. How many of you
experience that today?
Speaker 1 (20:31):
No, I mean't let Max walk to school by himself.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
Well, that's because he'd because your neighborhood. He'd get shot.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
But he's packing too, so it's a fair fight.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
Now that works out.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
But today I don't know anybody who would let their
kid walk to school without supervision or without some kind
of protection supervision basically, so it used to be the
grandparenting traditionally.
Speaker 3 (20:57):
It depends on the culture too.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
If you look at Asian cultures, if you look at
East European cultures, it was multi generational.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
In the house.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
You'd have parents, you'd have kids, you'd have grandparents living
at home. And I remember as a kid, my dad
would slap me around, which I really enjoyed, by the way,
a lot of corporal punishment in my life. And as
he was slapping me around, I remember once asking him,
(21:30):
did your father hit you? And he said, not only
did my father hit me. If he were alive today,
he'd still be hitting me if he disagreed with what
I am doing.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
By the way, my dad was in his forties when
I asked that question to him. That is the culture.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
You go to Asian cultures and grandparents are there at home.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
Not anymore, We just Americans just don't do that.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
The other thing that we do as Americans is eighteen
years old, you're out on your own.
Speaker 3 (22:07):
How is that possible? Coming from my culture?
Speaker 2 (22:12):
That is impossible to comprehend that when a kid is
eighteen out, they go, they're on their own.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
Lindsey, on the other hand, was gone when she was eighteen.
I stayed with my parents through my twenties.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
I went to school in Canada for a couple of years,
but came back and lived with my parents. A matter
of fact, I was living with a girlfriend and.
Speaker 3 (22:39):
I was in my thirties.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
And I was practicing law, and the girlfriend and I
broke up.
Speaker 3 (22:46):
We had a place together. I was sort of up
in the area. You know what I did.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
I moved back with my mother and father, and I
was a successful attorney because of the culture at last,
of my culture of where I grew up. By the way,
I used to be introduced to people because I was
single at the time and I was in my thirties,
and I'd be introduced, you know.
Speaker 3 (23:13):
This is Bill.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
Bill is a successful attorney, and you know for many people.
Speaker 3 (23:19):
Well, I was a catch.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
Now granted, not for anybody excited and could actually hear.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
I understand I wasn't.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
But I got a catch if you were on the
end of a hook, that's true.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
But the point is I would be introduced and I'd go, Hi,
I'm Bill, and I practice this third party reproductive law,
and I would explain myself and then I would say, hey,
I was asked where do you live, and I go,
I live with my mom and dad. I was with
them for a year. Let me tell you, in terms
of sex, it was pretty dry that year. People just
(23:52):
didn't want to hang out with someone who lived with
mom and dad.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
In their thirties.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
But that was considered simply it was natural to me.
My kids lived at home right through their twenties.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
Matter of fact, they're late twenties. It's just the way
it goes.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
That is the old culture, and Americans don't do that.
The other thing grandparenting they're raising kids or being heavily.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
Involved, is grandparents are just.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
Living a whole lot older. Again, my grandmother came to us.
She couldn't grandparent us.
Speaker 3 (24:30):
She could barely walk.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
She was diabetic, she was deaf, she was half blind. God,
she was a mess now that I think about it.
H In any case, it was, it was then and
this is now. And as I said, am I looking
forward to being a grandparent? Not a chance. Don't know
(24:57):
where you sit on that, and you know when I do,
I will share. Okay, coming up, it's Gary and Shannon.
Coachella is the topic at ten o'clock tomorrow. We start
all over again at five o'clock with Amy and Will,
and then Neil and I come aboard from six to
nine o'clock right about now, and of course and and
Kono make this show happen maybe once in a while,
(25:21):
and we'll catch you later. This is KFI Am six.
You've been listening to the Bill Handle Show. Catch My
Show Monday through Friday, six am to nine am, and
anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from KFI AM
six forty KFI Handle.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Here it is a Monday morning, April fourteenth, coming up
at eight thirty.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
We're gonna have a great time.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
And that is grandparents. Grandparents are reaching their limit. No,
I'll change talk to you about a little bit of
a change here, and if you are a grandparent or
soon to be one, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
To say the least.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Now, there is an issue once again about how the
president administration is changing things up, just upending how.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
We do business in the United States.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
So this has to do with the next election, all right. Now,
the final and most powerful check on a president has
always been the ballot box, and President Trump knows this.
And what he's done is he turned a lot of
his attention to the election system. So there was a
(01:02):
recent executive order on election quote integrity, And what this
really does is an attempt to rework the constitution and
the rules that structure the American election system. The American
election system is kind of weird. Certainly federal elections, of
which there is only one that goes across the entire country,
(01:27):
and that's president and Vice president and it is an
anomaly because while we all vote in a presidential election,
how we vote when, well, not when we vote.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
When is the same across the country.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
But how we vote, where the polling places are, how
votes are collected, when they're counted.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
And open voting and registration. It's all the states. The
states control all of it.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
The constitution well, it makes it difficult, if not impossible,
for a single actor, read the President, to subvert because
the Constitution gives the states most of the authority, but
it does have a couple of major guard rails. Congress
has supplemental authority to set broad federal standards for federal
(02:22):
election which can override the states.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
And this is in the Constitution.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
It's the authority the Congress has used to mandate certain
changes to state practices, and for example, the Civil Rights
Act of nineteen sixty four and the twenty second ele
i think twenty sixth amendment poll tax, where some of
the southern states were charging people to vote and an.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
Amendment was passed. You can't do that.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
One person has no authority over federal elections. Happens to
be the president. Executive order was signed that says that
the executive can in fact govern the mechanics of federal election,
never before claimed by a president. And here is the
(03:14):
legal theory. The president's authority to enforce federal law enables
him to control state elections in direct violation of the Constitution.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
That is tough.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
The types of identification required to register when balance may
be count ballots may be counted. Now, if you think
about this, if this is upheld and the integrity of
an election as determined by one person is at risk,
then the president's power is completely unbridled, completely unbridled. It
(03:57):
is very tough. For example, the order that he signed
directs the Election Committee, which is a federal agency, to
recertify all the election equipment, vote counting, ballot marketing machines
that have already been certified by the states, and he says, nope,
We're going to have the Feds recount re examine everything,
(04:21):
like the dominion machines.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
It's kind of crazy, it really is.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
And this has to do with the Stop the Seal,
Stop the Steel movement, part of which says that those
machines were tampered with and votes that President Trump should
have received went to Joe Biden. It is just one
of many executive actions that are being taken by this administration.
(04:49):
I talked this morning about the border Patrol, how it
was picking up people at the home depot because they
looked brown or they were brown and they looked like
Mexicans South Americans, and therefore they were picked up. Oh no, no,
the government said no. By the way, that was pursuing
to an executive order policy. So if any of this
(05:14):
is upheld, by the way, that one's going to court.
If any of this is upheld, and the court, and
it's a very conservative court, This court likes presidential power.
The Senate loves presidential power. The Republicans, both the Senate
and the House, truly believe the president has virtually unbridaled power.
(05:37):
I have often said, and I don't know how much
kidding this is, I really don't that if President Trump
were to ask Congress to dissolve itself, I think there
would be congress people and Senators that would say Donald
Trump's presidency is so important that yes we will, and
(05:59):
we already have have a movement within Congress to extend
Trump's possibility of a third term. And the way the
bill is written, it is only Donald Trump that can
have a third term. He is the only one under
this new law that is being proposed that would be
a third term president.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
Crazy, crazy, crazy.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Okay, as we continue with the program, coming up at
eight thirty next segment, I'm gonna have fun with this one,
and that is grandparents, how they're reaching their limit, and
I'm looking forward to being a grandparent not And I'll
explain how things have changed in the meantime, how things
have changed. As you know, the tariffs are going up
(06:46):
and down and sideways, and the President is all.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
Over the place with tariffs. The trade war with.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
China is going balls to the wall, full blast, except
for Friday, not quite the one hundred and forty five
percent tariff. The President turned around and said, okay, we'll
have some exemptions. Instead of everything that China produces, we
have some exemptions. And we're talking big ticket items like iPhones,
high tech stuff, highphones, tablets, chips of which America is
(07:17):
so reliant on that we just can't do business. And
all of a sudden, we were told that if China
does the same tarret retaliatory tariff, reciprocal tariff right back,
our iPhone's gonna triple. We're already paying one thousand dollars.
Are you gonna pay three thousand dollars for an iPhone?
So Trump walked that one back and said, Okay, that
(07:41):
tariff we're exempting, but it's really not exempting the tariff.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
We're putting it into a different bucket. Okay, Yeah, I
don't know what that means.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
That which means that it's on hold temporary while it's
temporary tariffs while permanent tariffs.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
Are going on. So let me tell you it is
getting nailed. I am. Oh, and let me explain why.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
As I have told you, I have a business with
my partner, Savile, who I've known for twenty years, and
our business is the importing of cookware, stainless steel, cookware
from China, two of the big big teariff products.
Speaker 3 (08:20):
Stainless steel, and anything.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Other than those high traffic or those high tech items
that I was telling you about. And so let me
tell you what Savile did. A few days ago. I
think it was a Friday.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
How about that a.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
Memo went out to our employees said we are going
to cut back your employment to three days Monday through Wednesday,
a forty percent pay cut across the board, and we're
stopping all importing of our product until we figure out
(08:57):
what's going on.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
And we're a small business. And let me tell you
who gets nailed.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
There's a story in the Wall Street Journal about a
group of people, one guy in particular, Ramon Gonzalez, and
his card games, that sort of thing, all from China,
and he's a seller. We seller on Amazon, and we
have those we sell to we sell on Amazon, but
to people who we sell, and the margins are low,
(09:27):
but it's a business that works, and there are hundreds
of thousands of people who engage in that business and
they're going to be out of business because the margins
are low enough that a tariff of one hundred percent
or eighty percent wiped out and if we have to pay,
(09:51):
and Savo was with us a few days ago, and
we are looking at a tariff of one hundred and
eighty four percent, which means that we buy a product.
Let's say we buy a set of cookwear for one
hundred dollars, we will be paying two hundred and eighty
four dollars for that cookware that we used to buy
(10:13):
for one hundred dollars. Effectively, that puts us out out
of business.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
Or it can put us out of business.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
And other than the big players who are now exempt,
whether it's because of the influence that Apple has and
the chip makers have, Amazon has. With the influence of
those players who bring in the high tech stuff, everybody
(10:44):
else gets nailed and all of a sudden, a business
that savile has run for forty years, which has supported
a family, supports families around for decades with us, it's
at risk because of these terriffs. And there is a
(11:07):
war of brewing. And the guess is is China going
to back down?
Speaker 3 (11:13):
Don't know?
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Now. To President Trump's credit, he says, it's not a
level playing field, and we're going to make it a level.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
Playing field in one day. That's the problem.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
We're going to institute tariffs because we want to bring
back factories, we want to bring back employ employment to
this country.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
Fair enough, here's the problem.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
The President can order a tariff starting four o'clock in
the afternoon that kicks in at midnight. Build a car
factory in two hours or six hours.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
That is the problem. So we'll follow that along.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
And obviously I'm looking at it very carefully because I
won't even be able to get free cookwar anymore.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
Because it's going to cost me too much.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
No, you can't get any No, no, Neil, No, not
gonna happen.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
I already have it.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
Oh yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
I forgot tons of it. Yeah you do. Yeah, I
use it to click to oil at theoume of my car.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
Yeah. It's good.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
It's really good stuff. It is very it's very high
quality stuff. Okay, we're done now, very quickly. Oh not
so quickly, because this is a fun story. And this
has to do with becoming a grandparent and how different
grandparent is today than it used to be. My daughter
Barbara is talking about having a child, a grandchild, and
(12:41):
I am pretty excited about it because we are now
negotiating how much I am paying her to not have
a child, and we're at twenty five thousand dollars and
she knows how desperate I am not to be a grandparent,
and she knows she's going to get some pretty serious money.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
Now. I'm trying to do the best I can.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
For example, we go out to dinner and I sneak
in birth control into her food as often as I can,
and I keep on telling her maybe now's not the time.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
She's all Dad, this pack of Zelman's you gave me
the pills look different.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
Yeah, they do, don't They have it?
Speaker 1 (13:22):
Take three and you'll be fine.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
Now, still at this point in time, they're not trying
because well, you know, Jewish women generally don't get pregnant.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
Did you know that on purpose?
Speaker 2 (13:36):
Because you know what Jewish foreplay is, by the way,
it's reading instructions on boxes, and it's they're pretty careful
about it. When I was in the syracusey business, as
you know, and I had friends who are in the
adoption business, which I am not wanting to adopt a
Jewish kid. Uh ah, no chance. Same thing with Asian kids,
(13:58):
uh ah, no chance. But I digress. The point is
grandparenting is so different now. Grandparents have a reputation. They're
all rich, retired, they're living in villages in Florida, playing
ten rounds of golf a day, cocktails at four thirty, laughing,
while their millennial children are suffering.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
Yeah, that's the case certainly with.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
Me and there it is very, very different today. It's
tough as hell in many cases. Last year, when JD.
Vance was running for vice president and would ask how
would you address the problem of staggering childcare costs? He
suggested that grandparents or other relatives could help out a.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
Little bit more. Well, you know, life is not that
easy America.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
Is that the age of grandparenting, particularly grandmothering. There was
a twenty twenty two survey nearly sixty percent of grandmothers
provided a childcare provided childcare for a grandm kid, and
more than forty percent saw grandchild in person at least
once a week. There was a Harris poll in twenty
twenty three. More than forty percent of working parents relied
(15:11):
on their kid's grandma for childcare. Nearly seventy percent of
those parents said, you know what, they might have lost
their job without grandmother's help, because it's just childcare is
beyond beyond expensive. It used to be that you could
send a kid to a childcare center and it was affordable.
(15:34):
Today it is impossible now. It used to be back
in the day most grandparents were living with their grandkids,
providing care all the time. The reality has always been
more complicated. My mother and father brought my grandmother over
from Brazil, and she spent eleven years with us until
(15:54):
she died. I don't know if I shared that story
with you now. Was she involved as a grandparent. The
only thing she would ever do is play baseball with us,
and she would be second base, I mean be the base.
And why is that because she did not take care
of us.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
She was a lump, so I didn't.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Have the benefit of grandparents taking care of me and
my parents both working.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
But here's the difference.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
Okay, when I was a kid, and i'd oh, I
walk four miles, But it just goes to show you
how things have changed in the last fifty years. I
would walk to school every day, I would walk back home.
I was a latchkey kid and I would spend hours
playing with my friends, hanging out after school, and then
(16:47):
come home and we never locked the front door. It
was a different time. Didn't really need grandparents to take
care of kids. Today do parents let their seven year
olds walk to school? I was ten years old, eight
years old, I walked to school and it was three blocks.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
I live pretty close.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
To school, but still, you know, I went back to
the school. I don't know how many years ago, and
when I was a kid, I thought that was a
mile and a half walk and it was three blocks.
But today, can you imagine allowing your child to do that?
There wasn't a day in elementary school, middle school, or
(17:37):
high school that my kids were not taken to school
in a car, either by me or by Marjorie.
Speaker 3 (17:45):
Not one day.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
As a matter of fact, that's one of the reasons
that my daughters could not listen to my show in
the morning. Why because they were being driven by my
ex and in the car. There I was every morning
I was on the radio. And one day Barbara, when
(18:09):
she was maybe eight years old, said, Mommy, what does
stuff mean?
Speaker 3 (18:16):
And click?
Speaker 2 (18:18):
Radio done for the next five eight years. Can't wait
for me to become a grandparent, right, all right? Doing
the story of grandparents and how grandparenting has changed.
Speaker 3 (18:36):
It's an article out of the Wall of the Atlantic actually,
which I read.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
You know, they keep up on the trends, what's happening,
and a story about grandparenting and how it has changed
so much and older people are being asked to help
kids with well, homework, extracular activities. Very different grandparents used
to be. You just play with your kids. My dad
(19:02):
used to love playing with my children. He'd come out
and wrestle with them and take them out.
Speaker 3 (19:10):
For ice cream. And I didn't do much than that.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
Was he a caregiver. No, was my mother a caregiver. No,
they would come over and just enjoy their grandkids. And
if you have people, if you have friends, family member,
you The best part of grandparenting is you get all
the benefit without any of the negative. That's the high
end best part. Well, today it's very different. Grandparenting is
(19:35):
in testifying because parenting is intensifying. Children seen by their
parents are ever more vulnerable. They need protection, they need cultivation,
less and less independence. There was a study of British
grandmothers and researchers there found that many of the participants
(19:59):
in a study were taken aback by the expectation.
Speaker 3 (20:03):
That children needed constant supervision.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
That's the other thing is you don't leave kids alone.
Speaker 3 (20:12):
I was a latch key kid. I cooked for myself.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
I'd come home at five o'clock or three o'clock after school,
and I was ten years old. How many of you
experience that today?
Speaker 1 (20:31):
No, I mean't let Max walk to school by himself.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
Well, that's because he'd because your neighborhood. He'd get shot.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
But he's packing too, so it's a fair fight.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
Now that works out.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
But today I don't know anybody who would let their
kid walk to school without supervision or without some kind
of protection supervision basically, so it used to be the
grandparenting traditionally.
Speaker 3 (20:57):
It depends on the culture too.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
If you look at Asian cultures, if you look at
East European cultures, it was multi generational.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
In the house.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
You'd have parents, you'd have kids, you'd have grandparents living
at home. And I remember as a kid, my dad
would slap me around, which I really enjoyed, by the way,
a lot of corporal punishment in my life. And as
he was slapping me around, I remember once asking him,
(21:30):
did your father hit you? And he said, not only
did my father hit me. If he were alive today,
he'd still be hitting me if he disagreed with what
I am doing.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
By the way, my dad was in his forties when
I asked that question to him. That is the culture.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
You go to Asian cultures and grandparents are there at home.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
Not anymore, We just Americans just don't do that.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
The other thing that we do as Americans is eighteen
years old, you're out on your own.
Speaker 3 (22:07):
How is that possible? Coming from my culture?
Speaker 2 (22:12):
That is impossible to comprehend that when a kid is
eighteen out, they go, they're on their own.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
Lindsey, on the other hand, was gone when she was eighteen.
I stayed with my parents through my twenties.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
I went to school in Canada for a couple of years,
but came back and lived with my parents. A matter
of fact, I was living with a girlfriend and.
Speaker 3 (22:39):
I was in my thirties.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
And I was practicing law, and the girlfriend and I
broke up.
Speaker 3 (22:46):
We had a place together. I was sort of up
in the area. You know what I did.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
I moved back with my mother and father, and I
was a successful attorney because of the culture at last,
of my culture of where I grew up. By the way,
I used to be introduced to people because I was
single at the time and I was in my thirties,
and I'd be introduced, you know.
Speaker 3 (23:13):
This is Bill.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
Bill is a successful attorney, and you know for many people.
Speaker 3 (23:19):
Well, I was a catch.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
Now granted, not for anybody excited and could actually hear.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
I understand I wasn't.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
But I got a catch if you were on the
end of a hook, that's true.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
But the point is I would be introduced and I'd go, Hi,
I'm Bill, and I practice this third party reproductive law,
and I would explain myself and then I would say, hey,
I was asked where do you live, and I go,
I live with my mom and dad. I was with
them for a year. Let me tell you, in terms
of sex, it was pretty dry that year. People just
(23:52):
didn't want to hang out with someone who lived with
mom and dad.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
In their thirties.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
But that was considered simply it was natural to me.
My kids lived at home right through their twenties.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
Matter of fact, they're late twenties. It's just the way
it goes.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
That is the old culture, and Americans don't do that.
The other thing grandparenting they're raising kids or being heavily.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
Involved, is grandparents are just.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
Living a whole lot older. Again, my grandmother came to us.
She couldn't grandparent us.
Speaker 3 (24:30):
She could barely walk.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
She was diabetic, she was deaf, she was half blind. God,
she was a mess now that I think about it.
H In any case, it was, it was then and
this is now. And as I said, am I looking
forward to being a grandparent? Not a chance. Don't know
(24:57):
where you sit on that, and you know when I do,
I will share. Okay, coming up, it's Gary and Shannon.
Coachella is the topic at ten o'clock tomorrow. We start
all over again at five o'clock with Amy and Will,
and then Neil and I come aboard from six to
nine o'clock right about now, and of course and and
Kono make this show happen maybe once in a while,
(25:21):
and we'll catch you later. This is KFI Am six.
You've been listening to the Bill Handle Show. Catch My
Show Monday through Friday, six am to nine am, and
anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
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