May 8, 2025 • 20 mins
(May 08, 2025)
Neil Saavedra fills in for Bill on this Thursday Morning. The host of ‘How to Money’ Joel Larsgaard joins the show to talk about Americans claiming social security early out of fear, buying a new car before tariff prices hit is causing another problem, and taking a more minimalist approach in life. Dr. Jim Keany, Chief Medical Officer at Dignity Health St. Mary Medical Center in Long Beach, joins The Bill Handel Show for 'Medical News'! Dr. Keany talks with Bill about what you are doing at your doctor’s visits that is a leading cause of cancer. Neil about a hepatitis A outbreak declared in L.A. County and the next superbug threat is HERE and will be harder to overcome.
Neil Saavedra fills in for Bill on this Thursday Morning. The host of ‘How to Money’ Joel Larsgaard joins the show to talk about Americans claiming social security early out of fear, buying a new car before tariff prices hit is causing another problem, and taking a more minimalist approach in life. Dr. Jim Keany, Chief Medical Officer at Dignity Health St. Mary Medical Center in Long Beach, joins The Bill Handel Show for 'Medical News'! Dr. Keany talks with Bill about what you are doing at your doctor’s visits that is a leading cause of cancer. Neil about a hepatitis A outbreak declared in L.A. County and the next superbug threat is HERE and will be harder to overcome.
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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 kf I
am six forty.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Bill Handle Show. Neil Savadri here with the Morning show Gang.
Happy Thursday to you. You know what that means. You
hear that soundtrack? That means Joelar's guard is swaggering in
Are you swaggering?
Speaker 3 (00:18):
Sir?
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Always bring the swagger every time.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
I have a host of Out of Money Sundays noon
to two pm. Great show if you haven't heard it,
and of course you can find him at How to Money? Joel.
How are you, sir?
Speaker 1 (00:32):
I'm phenomenal, Neil. It's good to be talking with you.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Nice talk to you. Still seven feet tall with a dozen.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Kids trying to be Yeah, not a dozen yet, but
working towards it.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
We'll get There was your family like.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Vikings, Well from the realm of the Vikings, that's for sure.
There's probably Vikings in our history. There's probably a bloody,
gory past I don't know about.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
You're like a tall guy and you are making minions.
I love it, which is why.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
You're not swinging an axe.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Yeah, which is why you've got to protect your money
so social security. You have been talking on your show
about people freaking out because of tariffs and the like,
and doing this kind of preemptive buying. Right, You're talking
about them going out and buying cars or doing things
because they go, oh, the price is gonna go. Well.
(01:25):
Now there's another concern, and that's people claiming social security
early out of fear. What's going on?
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Yeah, yeah, I mean when you think about it, Neil,
a lot of us do things out of fear instead
of really taking the time to assess the situation and
say what's in my rational best interest. There's a whole
lot of uh. And I think part of this is
news media. It's headlines. It's the twenty four hour news cycle,
and so you see stuff about, oh man cuts at
(01:52):
the Social Security Administration. Oh man, I can't I can't
get anybody on the phone there. And then on top
of that, you see the perpetual headlines that are just saying, hey,
social Security is moving towards insolvency, and so people are like,
wait a second, like is that money going to be
there for me? And so people who are retiring now
(02:14):
they're in their sixties, they're saying, I'm going to get
the money while it's there, because I don't know if
it's going to be there in the future. And so
what this is leading to is people doing the thing
that's actually not in their ultimate best interest because of
worry and fear. And so they're taking the Social Security
bird in the hand at age like sixty two instead
(02:34):
of waiting more years because they're just like thinking, I
don't know is the money going to be there if
I wait?
Speaker 2 (02:41):
You know, out of all the things, you know, I
like coupling, I love being married, I love it. I
love having a partner in life. But out of all
the things that my wife and I talk about, we
talk about that fear factor with money. How people lead
with fear? What is it about money that makes like
everything is is fear based with money, which is a
(03:02):
weird I never want to be that guy. I just
never want to be that person. You can make more money,
but you know, I don't want to make myself crazy.
So how can we lead with fear so well?
Speaker 1 (03:12):
One of my favorite quotes from a financial writer named
Morgan Housel is that you should invest like an optimist
and save like a pessimist because there is some room
for pessimism right in money, because we all know unexpected
things can happen and so it's you don't want to
have this like rose colored glasses Pollyanna view of the
world and just say, like, what will be will be,
and I don't have to worry about tomorrow. I want
(03:34):
you to plan and think about those things. But yeah,
but if you can invest like an optimist and say
our better days are ahead, but also save in such
a way where you're like, I am planning and I
am prepared for things to come down the pike. I
talked about this with Amy on Tuesday for a quick minute.
Vanguard basically found, Hey, if you have at least two
thousand dollars in the bank, you're going to reduce your
(03:56):
financial stress significantly. You're going to be more prepared for
an emergency. Just two thousand bucks, like the stakes aren't
even that high, But obviously I want people to have
even more than that in savings. But it's amazing how
just a little bit of money in savings can really
reduce a lot of that fear. So I think that's
part of it is you have to and you also
have to just like look at the data. When you
look at the data around something like social Security, the
(04:17):
benefit is like seventy five percent higher if you wait
to claim social Security until age seventy instead of taking
it at age sixty two. And to break even point
for a person who takes sociality party, you have to
take a lot of other circumstances into account, including are
you married and how's your health? That kind of stuff.
But a lot of people are claiming at age sixty
(04:38):
two and their fit as a fiddle, and they're expecting
to live hopefully till they're ninety, and they would have
been better off waiting, at least from a financial perspective,
And this makes something like a six figure difference for
a lot of retirees over the course of that extra Decade's.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
So funny you mentioned that because I heard you listening
to Wake Up Call with Amy, and I immediately told my
wife when we you know, debriefed for the day at
the end of the day, about that, and I'm like,
you know, okay, where are we healthy, where do we
feel we're healthy? And do we have enough in the
bank and those types of things. You know, in California,
(05:15):
two thousand bucks in savings is gas money, sure, but
you know, but we looked at we used that to
jump off and to look at everything and to where
we are. And you know it's funny you were talking
about how you don't take things for granted and you
have to be a little pessimistic when it comes to money.
A really wonderful word of wisdom from my father in
(05:37):
law one time. You know, this was years ago and
things were shaky. I know they're always shaky in radio,
and I said, I don't worry because I would do
anything to feed my family. I would, you know, manual labor,
whatever it is. And he put his hand on my
shoulder and he goes, I know you believe that, and
I know in your heart of hearts you would, but
(06:00):
there'll be a day when your body can't back that up.
And it's like he said, and it hit me, Yeah,
there's physically you know, I would dig ditches, I'd do
whatever it takes. But he said, yeah, but your body
won't be able to do that. So you have there's
just there is some forethinking and all of this to
make sure that when your body does not work at
(06:21):
its prime anymore, that you have that you have this
to fall back on any any prognostication as to what's
going on with social security and when there might be
a breakdown.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
Well, so all the predictions are basically saying that the
Social Security Trust Fund is going to run out in
basically a decade, and so what happens though when that's
the case, Well, there are still a whole lot of
people like you and me who are working and we're
paying into the Social Security system with every paycheck that
we get. And so because of that, it's not that
(06:58):
social Security goes away from completely. And this is something
that people should be planning for, especially younger people. If
you're in your thirties and forties, is like, well, if
you long into the back end of Social Security's website,
they'll project what you're likely to get when you reach
retirement age, and that benefits likely to be cut by
twenty five percent when we reach that date if nothing
(07:19):
is done in the meantime. And the tough thing is
Congress and politicians. They've they've had very little stomach to
address the issue of Social Security. So it's not that, hey,
everything's rosy and the Social Security the way social Security
is constructed is totally flawless and everything's going to be okay.
That's not what I'm saying either. I just I think,
(07:40):
specifically for people in their sixties waiting extra years makes
sense from an extra benefit perspective for younger folks. You
do have to be aware and we have to hold
our politicians feet to the fire and say, hey, what
are you going to do about this to make sure
social security is actually going to be around? And there's
a number of things that likely need to be done
in concert to ensure that so security stays around for
(08:01):
for centuries to come.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
I feel, you know, I don't know why, Joel, but
I feel like I've been hearing that ten year date
or over and over. It's like the uh in the seventies.
Excuse me, when they started the Earth Day and they
said they we had a decade before all hell was
going to break loose and the world was going to implode.
And here we are still saying in ten years the
(08:25):
world's going to implode. But you really feel like if
something's not done in ten years, is the top of
that heap?
Speaker 1 (08:34):
I do, And again, I don't think it's an implosion, right,
So I don't want to make it sound like that, but.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
There is there is a fear monger, Joel large guard
fear monger.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
No implosion will take place, but it will be a
cut in benefits that is effective immediately once we get
to that point, and so people it's it's and I
believe that that that would be from what I've seen,
that that it ation of Social Security with like a
reduced payout would be totally fine until like the year
(09:05):
twenty eighty five or twenty ninety. So it's again, it's
not some sort of implosion or doomsday cliff. But it
is important for younger folks who are investing for their
future to be more cognizant of the fact that Social
Security might not be there in the same way that
it is now but for retirees or for people who
are in their sixties. I wouldn't rush to claim at
(09:27):
sixty two or sixty three just because I'm worried about
that future social security spiral, but I would so. And
by the way, there is this cool software. It costs
like forty five bucks. I want to say to check
out maximize mysocial security dot com and it could be
well worth you looking into that. If you're trying to
figure out when is the best date for you to claim,
(09:49):
they'll ask you a bunch of questions. You can kind
of calculate when your highest benefit is going to be
and I think it's worth it, because you're talking about
so much in potential money that you could be missing
out on if you don't.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Okay, so we moved from social Security onto cars. Tariffs
at all, rising prices is going to cause a whole
other problem with our finances. Tell us about that.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
I mean, nobody's tired of hearing or talking about tariffs,
are they They're just it's really fun every time to
keep talking about. Although fortunately there's been a little bit
less in the headlines about tariffs and I don't know, man,
where do things go from here is a big question,
but it's interesting. One of the things that we talked
we have talked about is kind of the pre buying
(10:37):
phenomena that people are saying, well, if the tariff riding
is on the wall, maybe I should go ahead and
buy stuff that I was like otherwise going to hold off,
maybe buy a few months from now, or I don't know,
maybe it wasn't even on my radar, But tariff's kind
of going back to the fear thing that we discussed Neil.
It's well, if they're coming down the pike, I'm getting
(10:58):
a little scared. Maybe I should buy something now now
and it'll save me money. And this is kind of
the Black Friday mentality that's kind of been beaten into
all of us as American consumers, is like, well, buy
it when it's a deal or before it gets more expensive.
And there was this article in Bloomberg basically saying, hey,
that sort of mentality is leaving people with a debt problem,
(11:21):
because yeah, maybe it's not the worst idea in the
world if you have the cash, if you were going
to make that purchase anyway, and you're like, hey, a
few months from now.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
It is going to get more expensive.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
But for a lot of people, they don't have the cash,
and they weren't necessarily prepared to make a big purchase,
especially on something like an automobile. And so yeah, if
it comes with a nine percent interest rate attached to
it and you bought more than you could actually afford,
and you signed up for a seven year car loan, well,
beating the tariffs wasn't really a win. And I think
(11:51):
there are a lot of people kind of taking that
sort of mentality, let me go ahead and beat the tariffs,
and ultimately what they're doing is like self immolation.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
Wow, maybe too extreme, I don't know. No, I love it.
I love it that. Yeah, I think that's a good
way of financial self emolation. Yes, I got it. I
was hoping it wasn't that. I'm like, are you holding
the axe right now? But yeah, it's It's an interesting
(12:22):
thing to watch because I have a lot of hobbies
in like manufacturing and creating and building at home, so
you know a lot of three D printers and the
like they're coming out of China and watching this whole
thing unfold. I went to buy some parts the other
day and I looked from like Timu or something, and
(12:45):
I looked and I'm like, that price is not right.
And I looked on Amazon and the exact same product
was half the cost on Amazon because they must have
had you know local you know local warehouse is that
have the stock or inventory in them or something, but
half the price. And I was like, wow.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
And what you're getting to is the fact that, hey,
these tariffs have been implemented, and yes, some of them
have been rolled back a little bit, but there's still
widespread tariffs on most of the countries in the world.
And you're right, like some of these businesses pre bought
a lot of stuff they have stocked up on some
(13:27):
of the items that are most important to their business,
and they haven't yet had to raise prices, but slowly
but surely those prices are going to go up. And
this gets to kind of the comment that President Trump
made about how many dolls eleven year old girl should
own and and so the thing that he's been kind
of unwilling to admit, but in a moment of candor
(13:48):
actually kind of came out of his mouth was like, well, yeah,
maybe everyone should be okay with owning less stuff. And
from a minimalist perspective, I totally get that. I think
if it's a personal choice to say, I know I'm
gonna I'm going to make an informed decision to buy less,
to consume less and save money and save the planet.
I think that's a wonderful thing. It's something we talk
(14:10):
about on the show often. I think it's I think
it also that sort of ingrained frugal mindset can help
you save and invest more, gives you more optionality for
your future. But if it's this sort of forced imposition
that tariffs are going to put on us of like
you won't be able to buy some of the things
that you wanted to buy, I think that's going to
be pretty untenable, and I'm curious to see how this
(14:30):
shakes out. But but you're right, like we're starting to
see that trickle trickling in of higher prices and how
high they go and how widespread those higher prices get,
and how it's going to impact how consumers feel about
the policies.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
You know. On that note, I'm a big fan of
repair and refurbish and I wish we'd get back to
some of those skills that we had, yeah, you know
in the day's past. I really do. Some things are
made very we've gotten very disposable, especially with electron next and.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
You're you're spot on, and there's this you're right, and
that is one of the things I think that some
of the cheaper goods that come out of China, it's
like we think of them as throwaway devices, like the
toaster that you get or whatever. And and there's I
love the idea there's kind of the buy for life
thing that happens, whether it's like darn Tov socks or
(15:23):
or whether it's like speed Queen washers and dryers. I
don't know if you know about that, but yeah, they
have they have like an epic warranty, and they're built differently,
and so yeah, they cost more upfront, but I'm all
about people paying a little bit more upfront for something
that's hopefully going to last a heckup a lot longer.
And and yeah, I hate the kind of planned obsolescence.
Yes that a lot of our electronics come.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
Oh my gosh, just just google that term and the
light bulb and you will go down a rabbit hole.
But all right, my friend. Always good to talk to you, Joel,
and I really do enjoy the show and all the
wisdom you guys throw out in a fun way. You
and Matt so a host of How to Money Day
Noon to two. How To Money Joel is where you
(16:03):
can find him on the socials there. Thanks buddy, I
appreciate you.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
Appreciate you too, Neil.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
Thanks, we'll talk again soon, kay Iam six forty Bill
Handle showed Neil Savedra and the Morning crew. Here Bill
is getting his toes broken and then unbroken and fixed.
Apparently two of his toes were doing the Wakanda salute
and they needed to change that. Right now, we're going
to talk about medical stuff, yeah, with doctor Jim Keeney,
(16:28):
Chief medical officer for Dignity Saint Mary Medical Center in
Long Beach. How are you, doc, Come on, Cono, really there?
Speaker 3 (16:42):
He is there? We go okay, yeah, so good, Hold
on a second, I'll.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
Take care of this. Hey, Cono, no spit the gum
out when you're working, buddy, you can't do both. He'll
be fine. He'll be fine. It's just it's he'll be good.
Good kid, good kid. So Doc, very exciting because because
hepatitis A is back. The scary thing is you've got
(17:07):
this outbreak of hepatitis A, but it's not the usual suspects.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
Well, yeah, by the usual suspects, you mean that the
last year we had an outbreak and that was concerning.
We saw a big uptick in heptitis A. But it
was in unhoused population or people with ide, drug abuse
or other risk factors that would put them at a
very high risk for contracting heptitis A. So you know,
(17:34):
that's expected. We still address that from a public health standpoint.
It's not that it's not important, it's just it's more
concerning when people with no risk factors or people that
don't you know, that are able to have normal hygiene
and everything else are contracting it, it means that it's
much more widespread. So we are currently in an outbreak
(17:56):
and it's probably more widespread than we are aware of
because that you know you can have this, You can
be exposed up to fifty days prior, so seven weeks
prior and not have symptoms for that length of time.
And so I think that we're just starting to see
the tip of this.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Yeah, I think that you look for those normal, you
know boxes to check off, like you said, people that
don't have access to good hygien you know, running water,
all those things, or intravenious drugs or travel, and now
seeing it in people that don't click any of those boxes,
including travel, which would be a big one is concerning
(18:36):
what are the symptoms? How would you know if you
had this?
Speaker 3 (18:40):
So, I mean it starts off like any other virus.
You can get a fever, fatigue, that type of thing.
You might get nauseous, abdominal pain. Really the key is
when you start seeing yellowness in your eyes or your
skin or dark urine because that that's a chemical called
billy ruben. It turns your skin and your eyes yellow.
It also tends to turn your ear in a very
(19:00):
dark color, and when you see that, you really need
to seek medical attention. It's more than just you know,
a regular common virus and you need to get some
You need to be aware of it because it can
lead to other problems. You know, there's even been deaths
from the from hepatitis A. That's unusual, but it can happen,
and it can lead to even rarely things like liver failure.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
So how's it passed around? What do we have to
make sure we're not doing besides having feces on our hands.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
Right, that's a key question. And on the bottom line
is my infectioussease professor told me, we're all covered in
a very thin layer of feces and it's just a
matter of you know, how thick your layer is depending
on your hygiene. Yeah, you guys, we tried not to
be but yeah, he uh yeah, so really we are.
(19:50):
We all have some level of those bacteria on our
skin at all times, as gross as that sounds, and
that's the amazing thing that our skin does to protect us. So,
if you don't watch your hands before eating, or if
the person who prepared your food has hepatitis A and
doesn't wash their hands before eating, you can ingest this
virus and then so we call that a fecal oral ingestion.
(20:11):
So people who use the restroom don't wash their hands,
and then either you know, are exposed to that, expose
other people by maybe shaking hands or something else, or
preparing food. And now you eat and you put it
in your mouth. And that's how we get it. And
you've been listening to the Bill Handle Show.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
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 kf I
am six forty.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Bill Handle Show. Neil Savadri here with the Morning show Gang.
Happy Thursday to you. You know what that means. You
hear that soundtrack? That means Joelar's guard is swaggering in
Are you swaggering?
Speaker 3 (00:18):
Sir?
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Always bring the swagger every time.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
I have a host of Out of Money Sundays noon
to two pm. Great show if you haven't heard it,
and of course you can find him at How to Money? Joel.
How are you, sir?
Speaker 1 (00:32):
I'm phenomenal, Neil. It's good to be talking with you.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Nice talk to you. Still seven feet tall with a dozen.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Kids trying to be Yeah, not a dozen yet, but
working towards it.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
We'll get There was your family like.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Vikings, Well from the realm of the Vikings, that's for sure.
There's probably Vikings in our history. There's probably a bloody,
gory past I don't know about.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
You're like a tall guy and you are making minions.
I love it, which is why.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
You're not swinging an axe.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Yeah, which is why you've got to protect your money
so social security. You have been talking on your show
about people freaking out because of tariffs and the like,
and doing this kind of preemptive buying. Right, You're talking
about them going out and buying cars or doing things
because they go, oh, the price is gonna go. Well.
(01:25):
Now there's another concern, and that's people claiming social security
early out of fear. What's going on?
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Yeah, yeah, I mean when you think about it, Neil,
a lot of us do things out of fear instead
of really taking the time to assess the situation and
say what's in my rational best interest. There's a whole
lot of uh. And I think part of this is
news media. It's headlines. It's the twenty four hour news cycle,
and so you see stuff about, oh man cuts at
(01:52):
the Social Security Administration. Oh man, I can't I can't
get anybody on the phone there. And then on top
of that, you see the perpetual headlines that are just saying, hey,
social Security is moving towards insolvency, and so people are like,
wait a second, like is that money going to be
there for me? And so people who are retiring now
(02:14):
they're in their sixties, they're saying, I'm going to get
the money while it's there, because I don't know if
it's going to be there in the future. And so
what this is leading to is people doing the thing
that's actually not in their ultimate best interest because of
worry and fear. And so they're taking the Social Security
bird in the hand at age like sixty two instead
(02:34):
of waiting more years because they're just like thinking, I
don't know is the money going to be there if
I wait?
Speaker 2 (02:41):
You know, out of all the things, you know, I
like coupling, I love being married, I love it. I
love having a partner in life. But out of all
the things that my wife and I talk about, we
talk about that fear factor with money. How people lead
with fear? What is it about money that makes like
everything is is fear based with money, which is a
(03:02):
weird I never want to be that guy. I just
never want to be that person. You can make more money,
but you know, I don't want to make myself crazy.
So how can we lead with fear so well?
Speaker 1 (03:12):
One of my favorite quotes from a financial writer named
Morgan Housel is that you should invest like an optimist
and save like a pessimist because there is some room
for pessimism right in money, because we all know unexpected
things can happen and so it's you don't want to
have this like rose colored glasses Pollyanna view of the
world and just say, like, what will be will be,
and I don't have to worry about tomorrow. I want
(03:34):
you to plan and think about those things. But yeah,
but if you can invest like an optimist and say
our better days are ahead, but also save in such
a way where you're like, I am planning and I
am prepared for things to come down the pike. I
talked about this with Amy on Tuesday for a quick minute.
Vanguard basically found, Hey, if you have at least two
thousand dollars in the bank, you're going to reduce your
(03:56):
financial stress significantly. You're going to be more prepared for
an emergency. Just two thousand bucks, like the stakes aren't
even that high, But obviously I want people to have
even more than that in savings. But it's amazing how
just a little bit of money in savings can really
reduce a lot of that fear. So I think that's
part of it is you have to and you also
have to just like look at the data. When you
look at the data around something like social Security, the
(04:17):
benefit is like seventy five percent higher if you wait
to claim social Security until age seventy instead of taking
it at age sixty two. And to break even point
for a person who takes sociality party, you have to
take a lot of other circumstances into account, including are
you married and how's your health? That kind of stuff.
But a lot of people are claiming at age sixty
(04:38):
two and their fit as a fiddle, and they're expecting
to live hopefully till they're ninety, and they would have
been better off waiting, at least from a financial perspective,
And this makes something like a six figure difference for
a lot of retirees over the course of that extra Decade's.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
So funny you mentioned that because I heard you listening
to Wake Up Call with Amy, and I immediately told my
wife when we you know, debriefed for the day at
the end of the day, about that, and I'm like,
you know, okay, where are we healthy, where do we
feel we're healthy? And do we have enough in the
bank and those types of things. You know, in California,
(05:15):
two thousand bucks in savings is gas money, sure, but
you know, but we looked at we used that to
jump off and to look at everything and to where
we are. And you know it's funny you were talking
about how you don't take things for granted and you
have to be a little pessimistic when it comes to money.
A really wonderful word of wisdom from my father in
(05:37):
law one time. You know, this was years ago and
things were shaky. I know they're always shaky in radio,
and I said, I don't worry because I would do
anything to feed my family. I would, you know, manual labor,
whatever it is. And he put his hand on my
shoulder and he goes, I know you believe that, and
I know in your heart of hearts you would, but
(06:00):
there'll be a day when your body can't back that up.
And it's like he said, and it hit me, Yeah,
there's physically you know, I would dig ditches, I'd do
whatever it takes. But he said, yeah, but your body
won't be able to do that. So you have there's
just there is some forethinking and all of this to
make sure that when your body does not work at
(06:21):
its prime anymore, that you have that you have this
to fall back on any any prognostication as to what's
going on with social security and when there might be
a breakdown.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
Well, so all the predictions are basically saying that the
Social Security Trust Fund is going to run out in
basically a decade, and so what happens though when that's
the case, Well, there are still a whole lot of
people like you and me who are working and we're
paying into the Social Security system with every paycheck that
we get. And so because of that, it's not that
(06:58):
social Security goes away from completely. And this is something
that people should be planning for, especially younger people. If
you're in your thirties and forties, is like, well, if
you long into the back end of Social Security's website,
they'll project what you're likely to get when you reach
retirement age, and that benefits likely to be cut by
twenty five percent when we reach that date if nothing
(07:19):
is done in the meantime. And the tough thing is
Congress and politicians. They've they've had very little stomach to
address the issue of Social Security. So it's not that, hey,
everything's rosy and the Social Security the way social Security
is constructed is totally flawless and everything's going to be okay.
That's not what I'm saying either. I just I think,
(07:40):
specifically for people in their sixties waiting extra years makes
sense from an extra benefit perspective for younger folks. You
do have to be aware and we have to hold
our politicians feet to the fire and say, hey, what
are you going to do about this to make sure
social security is actually going to be around? And there's
a number of things that likely need to be done
in concert to ensure that so security stays around for
(08:01):
for centuries to come.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
I feel, you know, I don't know why, Joel, but
I feel like I've been hearing that ten year date
or over and over. It's like the uh in the seventies.
Excuse me, when they started the Earth Day and they
said they we had a decade before all hell was
going to break loose and the world was going to implode.
And here we are still saying in ten years the
(08:25):
world's going to implode. But you really feel like if
something's not done in ten years, is the top of
that heap?
Speaker 1 (08:34):
I do, And again, I don't think it's an implosion, right,
So I don't want to make it sound like that, but.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
There is there is a fear monger, Joel large guard
fear monger.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
No implosion will take place, but it will be a
cut in benefits that is effective immediately once we get
to that point, and so people it's it's and I
believe that that that would be from what I've seen,
that that it ation of Social Security with like a
reduced payout would be totally fine until like the year
(09:05):
twenty eighty five or twenty ninety. So it's again, it's
not some sort of implosion or doomsday cliff. But it
is important for younger folks who are investing for their
future to be more cognizant of the fact that Social
Security might not be there in the same way that
it is now but for retirees or for people who
are in their sixties. I wouldn't rush to claim at
(09:27):
sixty two or sixty three just because I'm worried about
that future social security spiral, but I would so. And
by the way, there is this cool software. It costs
like forty five bucks. I want to say to check
out maximize mysocial security dot com and it could be
well worth you looking into that. If you're trying to
figure out when is the best date for you to claim,
(09:49):
they'll ask you a bunch of questions. You can kind
of calculate when your highest benefit is going to be
and I think it's worth it, because you're talking about
so much in potential money that you could be missing
out on if you don't.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Okay, so we moved from social Security onto cars. Tariffs
at all, rising prices is going to cause a whole
other problem with our finances. Tell us about that.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
I mean, nobody's tired of hearing or talking about tariffs,
are they They're just it's really fun every time to
keep talking about. Although fortunately there's been a little bit
less in the headlines about tariffs and I don't know, man,
where do things go from here is a big question,
but it's interesting. One of the things that we talked
we have talked about is kind of the pre buying
(10:37):
phenomena that people are saying, well, if the tariff riding
is on the wall, maybe I should go ahead and
buy stuff that I was like otherwise going to hold off,
maybe buy a few months from now, or I don't know,
maybe it wasn't even on my radar, But tariff's kind
of going back to the fear thing that we discussed Neil.
It's well, if they're coming down the pike, I'm getting
(10:58):
a little scared. Maybe I should buy something now now
and it'll save me money. And this is kind of
the Black Friday mentality that's kind of been beaten into
all of us as American consumers, is like, well, buy
it when it's a deal or before it gets more expensive.
And there was this article in Bloomberg basically saying, hey,
that sort of mentality is leaving people with a debt problem,
(11:21):
because yeah, maybe it's not the worst idea in the
world if you have the cash, if you were going
to make that purchase anyway, and you're like, hey, a
few months from now.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
It is going to get more expensive.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
But for a lot of people, they don't have the cash,
and they weren't necessarily prepared to make a big purchase,
especially on something like an automobile. And so yeah, if
it comes with a nine percent interest rate attached to
it and you bought more than you could actually afford,
and you signed up for a seven year car loan, well,
beating the tariffs wasn't really a win. And I think
(11:51):
there are a lot of people kind of taking that
sort of mentality, let me go ahead and beat the tariffs,
and ultimately what they're doing is like self immolation.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
Wow, maybe too extreme, I don't know. No, I love it.
I love it that. Yeah, I think that's a good
way of financial self emolation. Yes, I got it. I
was hoping it wasn't that. I'm like, are you holding
the axe right now? But yeah, it's It's an interesting
(12:22):
thing to watch because I have a lot of hobbies
in like manufacturing and creating and building at home, so
you know a lot of three D printers and the
like they're coming out of China and watching this whole
thing unfold. I went to buy some parts the other
day and I looked from like Timu or something, and
(12:45):
I looked and I'm like, that price is not right.
And I looked on Amazon and the exact same product
was half the cost on Amazon because they must have
had you know local you know local warehouse is that
have the stock or inventory in them or something, but
half the price. And I was like, wow.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
And what you're getting to is the fact that, hey,
these tariffs have been implemented, and yes, some of them
have been rolled back a little bit, but there's still
widespread tariffs on most of the countries in the world.
And you're right, like some of these businesses pre bought
a lot of stuff they have stocked up on some
(13:27):
of the items that are most important to their business,
and they haven't yet had to raise prices, but slowly
but surely those prices are going to go up. And
this gets to kind of the comment that President Trump
made about how many dolls eleven year old girl should
own and and so the thing that he's been kind
of unwilling to admit, but in a moment of candor
(13:48):
actually kind of came out of his mouth was like, well, yeah,
maybe everyone should be okay with owning less stuff. And
from a minimalist perspective, I totally get that. I think
if it's a personal choice to say, I know I'm
gonna I'm going to make an informed decision to buy less,
to consume less and save money and save the planet.
I think that's a wonderful thing. It's something we talk
(14:10):
about on the show often. I think it's I think
it also that sort of ingrained frugal mindset can help
you save and invest more, gives you more optionality for
your future. But if it's this sort of forced imposition
that tariffs are going to put on us of like
you won't be able to buy some of the things
that you wanted to buy, I think that's going to
be pretty untenable, and I'm curious to see how this
(14:30):
shakes out. But but you're right, like we're starting to
see that trickle trickling in of higher prices and how
high they go and how widespread those higher prices get,
and how it's going to impact how consumers feel about
the policies.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
You know. On that note, I'm a big fan of
repair and refurbish and I wish we'd get back to
some of those skills that we had, yeah, you know
in the day's past. I really do. Some things are
made very we've gotten very disposable, especially with electron next and.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
You're you're spot on, and there's this you're right, and
that is one of the things I think that some
of the cheaper goods that come out of China, it's
like we think of them as throwaway devices, like the
toaster that you get or whatever. And and there's I
love the idea there's kind of the buy for life
thing that happens, whether it's like darn Tov socks or
(15:23):
or whether it's like speed Queen washers and dryers. I
don't know if you know about that, but yeah, they
have they have like an epic warranty, and they're built differently,
and so yeah, they cost more upfront, but I'm all
about people paying a little bit more upfront for something
that's hopefully going to last a heckup a lot longer.
And and yeah, I hate the kind of planned obsolescence.
Yes that a lot of our electronics come.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
Oh my gosh, just just google that term and the
light bulb and you will go down a rabbit hole.
But all right, my friend. Always good to talk to you, Joel,
and I really do enjoy the show and all the
wisdom you guys throw out in a fun way. You
and Matt so a host of How to Money Day
Noon to two. How To Money Joel is where you
(16:03):
can find him on the socials there. Thanks buddy, I
appreciate you.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
Appreciate you too, Neil.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
Thanks, we'll talk again soon, kay Iam six forty Bill
Handle showed Neil Savedra and the Morning crew. Here Bill
is getting his toes broken and then unbroken and fixed.
Apparently two of his toes were doing the Wakanda salute
and they needed to change that. Right now, we're going
to talk about medical stuff, yeah, with doctor Jim Keeney,
(16:28):
Chief medical officer for Dignity Saint Mary Medical Center in
Long Beach. How are you, doc, Come on, Cono, really there?
Speaker 3 (16:42):
He is there? We go okay, yeah, so good, Hold
on a second, I'll.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
Take care of this. Hey, Cono, no spit the gum
out when you're working, buddy, you can't do both. He'll
be fine. He'll be fine. It's just it's he'll be good.
Good kid, good kid. So Doc, very exciting because because
hepatitis A is back. The scary thing is you've got
(17:07):
this outbreak of hepatitis A, but it's not the usual suspects.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
Well, yeah, by the usual suspects, you mean that the
last year we had an outbreak and that was concerning.
We saw a big uptick in heptitis A. But it
was in unhoused population or people with ide, drug abuse
or other risk factors that would put them at a
very high risk for contracting heptitis A. So you know,
(17:34):
that's expected. We still address that from a public health standpoint.
It's not that it's not important, it's just it's more
concerning when people with no risk factors or people that
don't you know, that are able to have normal hygiene
and everything else are contracting it, it means that it's
much more widespread. So we are currently in an outbreak
(17:56):
and it's probably more widespread than we are aware of
because that you know you can have this, You can
be exposed up to fifty days prior, so seven weeks
prior and not have symptoms for that length of time.
And so I think that we're just starting to see
the tip of this.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Yeah, I think that you look for those normal, you
know boxes to check off, like you said, people that
don't have access to good hygien you know, running water,
all those things, or intravenious drugs or travel, and now
seeing it in people that don't click any of those boxes,
including travel, which would be a big one is concerning
(18:36):
what are the symptoms? How would you know if you
had this?
Speaker 3 (18:40):
So, I mean it starts off like any other virus.
You can get a fever, fatigue, that type of thing.
You might get nauseous, abdominal pain. Really the key is
when you start seeing yellowness in your eyes or your
skin or dark urine because that that's a chemical called
billy ruben. It turns your skin and your eyes yellow.
It also tends to turn your ear in a very
(19:00):
dark color, and when you see that, you really need
to seek medical attention. It's more than just you know,
a regular common virus and you need to get some
You need to be aware of it because it can
lead to other problems. You know, there's even been deaths
from the from hepatitis A. That's unusual, but it can happen,
and it can lead to even rarely things like liver failure.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
So how's it passed around? What do we have to
make sure we're not doing besides having feces on our hands.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
Right, that's a key question. And on the bottom line
is my infectioussease professor told me, we're all covered in
a very thin layer of feces and it's just a
matter of you know, how thick your layer is depending
on your hygiene. Yeah, you guys, we tried not to
be but yeah, he uh yeah, so really we are.
(19:50):
We all have some level of those bacteria on our
skin at all times, as gross as that sounds, and
that's the amazing thing that our skin does to protect us. So,
if you don't watch your hands before eating, or if
the person who prepared your food has hepatitis A and
doesn't wash their hands before eating, you can ingest this
virus and then so we call that a fecal oral ingestion.
(20:11):
So people who use the restroom don't wash their hands,
and then either you know, are exposed to that, expose
other people by maybe shaking hands or something else, or
preparing food. And now you eat and you put it
in your mouth. And that's how we get it. And
you've been listening to the Bill Handle Show.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
Catch My Show Monday through Friday, six am to nine am,
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