May 22, 2025 • 25 mins
(May 22, 2025)
Host of ‘How to Money’ Joel Larsgaard joins the show to talk about people spending way too much money on news & newsletters, whether higher education s really valuable, and what Moody’s downgrade of the U.S. credit rating means for your money. Police secretly monitored New Orleans with facial recognition cameras. Host of ‘Later with Mo Kelly’ joins the program to talk about the latest in movies and entertainment.
Host of ‘How to Money’ Joel Larsgaard joins the show to talk about people spending way too much money on news & newsletters, whether higher education s really valuable, and what Moody’s downgrade of the U.S. credit rating means for your money. Police secretly monitored New Orleans with facial recognition cameras. Host of ‘Later with Mo Kelly’ joins the program to talk about the latest in movies and entertainment.
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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.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
KFI Handle Here Tuesday morning, April twenty nine or Thursday morning,
April twenty nine.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Why does it say tuesday? Oh, it does say tuesday.
Why does it say April? I am actually looking at
something that says April here? Wow? Okay, Thursday morning, May
twenty second. I don't know how that got into my stack.
Let me write that down.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
That was me?
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Was it all right? How'd you go back on that one?
Speaker 2 (00:34):
All right? This is Let me write it down because
I keep on referring to whenever I come back, and
it's May twenty two?
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Got it? Okay, there we go. Damn.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
This is why this show is an award winning show.
I mean, it is impossible to understand why it is
time for Joel Larsgar and How to Money.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Joel has heard Sunday's here twelve to two pm.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
If you want to reach him, his address is at
how to Money Joel.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Good morning, Joel.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
I think it's your award winning board op and your
award winning guests that really bring this show into award
winning territory. You know, it's wea that helped make your
show so great.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
You know, first of all, in terms of thanking everybody
else other than me, I'm surprised I can actually hear
you and understand you, because I thought you'd be talking
like this because your head is so far up someone's book.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
But not too much.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Thank you for all the credit, all right, Joel heard
every Sunday, as I said, twelve to two pm. And
so let's get into some topics here. One is that
you gave me. People are spending way too much money
on news newsletters. And when I think of newsletters, and
this goes back years, the only subscription I ever had
to a newsletter, of course, was a hard newsletter.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
They came in the mail.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
But how big a deal is a newsletter When you
can get everything and anything for free on the internet anyway,
how do people subscribe?
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Yeah, it's amazing because it's one of those things where
I don't know that I could have predicted this five
or six years ago, and it seemed like everything was
going towards free and social media and everything was going
to be ad supported because my goodness, no one was
willing to pay for news anymore. The Internet had broken
the ability to pay for stuff. It's almost kind of
like when when Napster made downloading music and movies free,
(02:32):
and it's like, how are you going to get this
genie back in the bottle? Well, when it comes to
a lot of high end writing, that the genie has
been put back in the bottle and people are paying
for subscriptions, whether it's to you know, a newspaper or
in particular a lot of different substack accounts. And what's
so fascinating about it is that people are paying fifty
(02:52):
to one hundred dollars a year to read the stuff
that their favorite authors are putting out there. I'm thinking
about like one of my favorite economists, for instance, has
a substack and he's prolific. He's writing all the time,
and a lot of the stuff that he writes is free,
but then some of it's behind a paywall, and if
I want to read everything that he writes, well then
I got to pay the man. And so substack has
(03:13):
like flourished, and it's really allowed a flourishing of creators
to write content and get paid for writing that content
that they otherwise just didn't have. Like substack has really
facilitated this new way of writers to interact with the
people who want to read their stuff.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Yeah, but I'm assuming it's pretty rarefy air unless you
are a huge fan of the writer. And usually I'm
guessing as financial or maybe entertainment. I don't know, but
usually financial. Certainly that was in my world.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
You just.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
You used to get it for free and you still do,
You're right, And then the substack behind it. But when
you talk about these enormously successful podcasters, for example, tens
of millions, hundreds of millions of listeners viewers on cable
for example, or on the internet, a lot of are
(04:07):
they moving towards subscription are they moving away from it?
Speaker 3 (04:12):
So you know, it depends on the podcast and some
podcasts are have really signed up for the ad supported model,
but others are following this substack model too, and they're saying, hey,
half of the podcasts that we release are free, and
it kind of wets the appetite. But once we've kind
of got you hooked, then if you want the rest
of the stuff that we're creating, you, yeah, we want
(04:33):
you to pay us the money to get those And
and for the consumer, they might say, we've seen this
too with streaming, where people are like, hey, yeah, well
I could pay less and watch a bunch of ads,
but I don't want to do that, And so I
think some consumers are more than happy to pay one
to support their favorite creators, but then on top of
that to be able to avoid ads completely and to
(04:53):
get that extra content. And so it's it's leading to
this thing where Gosh talk about subscription fatigue in our cult. Sure,
we're in this place where when more and more people
are writing great stuff or creating great content that you're
interested in, that we're signing up for for so many
newsletters or so many you know, substack accounts for podcasters
(05:14):
that we love, that we forget how much we're spending
on a recurring basis. And it turns out some people
are spending so much that they're forgetting like, well, yeah,
how much is it? What damage is this doing to
my budget? And by the way, it's hard for those
folks to actually read or consume all the content that
they've signed up for too.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
Hey, can they make enough money just on selling the
information for people that go on to the newsletter and
selling it to advertisers, data data mining, that sort of thing,
still keep it commercial free or subscription free, and they
can do okay, simply with a number of people that
log on.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
Are you? Are they? Are you asking?
Speaker 3 (05:54):
Can people make a living there?
Speaker 4 (05:55):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Do they? Is that part of Is that a model
too that works so far?
Speaker 2 (05:58):
We're talking about free, we're talking about with ads and
then monetizing with no ads whatsoever and not paying a
subscription and not selling subscriptions. Is there enough money to
be made simply by being there and having enough downloads
to where you've got the platform, be it Facebook or
(06:23):
Instagram where just the number of people themselves watching, there's
enough money to be made.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
Maybe not from the newsletter perspective, but yeah, I mean
there's a reason that some of the platforms have at
different times paid users to create on those platforms to
try to get people to stick around. And they're saying, hey, like,
if we have the great creators putting out awesome content,
whether it's on Facebook or it's on Twitter or something,
there have at times been been efforts by these tech
(06:50):
companies to pay those creators to stick around and create
specifically on that platform to make it stickier. So yeah,
I think that's part of it. But from a from
like an individual creator perspective, usually you have to find
out one of those models, right, that were're actually gonna
get paid.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
Yeah, And the.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Model that I'm really loving now is that you're paying
a monthly subscription to have commercials thrown at you on
the various platforms watching TV, Netflix, Paramount plus, Disney plus
crazy stuff.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
Joel.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
Higher education, and it's one of those things that it
was a given you went to.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
You went to college, or at least I went to college.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
I mean literally, I knew I was going to college
from the time I was five years old, six years old.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
There was no issue.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
And of course vocational training was all for the losers,
you know, the guys who weren't very smart. They would
do wood shop, they would do auto shop, and boy,
those days have changed dramatically.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
They turn out to be the smarter ones.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
So let's talk about the value of higher education, because
I've heard both ways. One it's not worth it, or
it is worth it the long run, notwithstanding the cost.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
You're coming Okay, So I think it's two things at once, right.
I think there's like a happy middle, and so much
depends on the individual as well, and so much depends
on what you're paying to go to college. So there
was this article in the Wall Street Journal and it
highlights something that's been just increasingly true over the past decade,
(08:20):
which it was basically talking about how high school juniors
are getting job offers of seventy thousand bucks from companies
because hey, they're good with their hands, they are good
at welding right, or they've got good shop experience. And
so because of this dearth of blue collar workers in
some of these important industries, we're starting to see like companies,
(08:44):
local companies come in and say, hey, you're pretty good
at chop class. Hey we're going to actually we're going
to offer you a job that you can start right
when you graduate high school, or hey, come and intern
with us this summer. It's amazing to think that kids
are of avoiding college, avoiding college, that starting off on
a path with pretty good pay, like above average American
(09:06):
pay from the get go, right after they graduate high school.
And it just shows just how much companies need kids
like that with those kind of skills. And it does
throw a little bit of cold water at least on
the idea that you have to go to college. I mean,
some of the stats still remain that the average person,
the average student who graduates from college is going to
(09:26):
make a million dollars more over their lifetime. But again
it's so nuanced, and how much bet are you taking
on and what are your other alternatives?
Speaker 1 (09:34):
Those are really important questions too.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
What I have, what I'm not hearing is the ceiling
that blue collar workers make. I mean, they make a
good living. So you walk into a job at seventy
seventy five thousand dollars, you're not going to make more
than one hundred and twenty five thousand or one hundred
and thirty thousand dollars because there is a limit to
(09:57):
physical labor doing a technical job, and we don't hear
much about that. And I guess in college there is
no limit unless you're a teacher, unless you're a social worker,
and that takes college. I don't know if we exempt
those people. But you know, what are your thoughts on
that one?
Speaker 3 (10:13):
Well, so I think you might be right in one way.
But then if you if you want to be a
business builder in some of those blue collar professions, there's
the sky's the limit. There was a there was another
article I read the other day basically talking about how
some of the richest people under the radar rich people
in this country have started you know, small to medium
(10:35):
sized businesses that are that are expanding to becoming like
a regional business in really boring industries, right like flooring
manufacturing or something like that. And so you could get
in the be in the blue collar field and yeah,
maybe those first few years you're making seventy eighty thousand dollars,
but you you know, your compatriots are over there in
(10:55):
college racking up forty thousand dollars in student loan debt,
and they might have a ceiling based on the profession
they choose. Point, and you might say, Hey, I'm gonna
build a business out of my skill instead of just
like working for a wage every single year. So I
think you're right in one sense, but in the other sense,
blue collar workers can build a pretty cool business and
employ other people and build something meaningful and long lasting too.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
You know, one of the things I really enjoy about
you being on the show and doing the How Too
Money segment is when I ask you a question and
you answer with.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
Bill, you may be right, but you also may be wrong.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
And Bill, you know you have a point, but then
you also don't have a point. That makes it makes
it for a really good, good segment.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
You know that job.
Speaker 3 (11:43):
I see the world in shades of gray Bill and
so it I mean, there's you always have to take
all of the the all the information into account. And
when I think when I tell people about what to
think about going to college, you have to think, well,
what are you gonna do with that degree? And how
much debt are you going to take on to get
the education? And you have to really have those are
big trade offs to make. And so for people who
(12:05):
go to one of the most expensive colleges in the
United States and they don't have much financial aid and
you're talking about graduating with one hundred and eighty thousand
dollars in student loan debt, well you better have a
really good idea of what you're going to do with
that degree, and then it's going to produce a significant
income for you. And then on the flip side, if
you're like, I don't know if I want to go
to college, but hey, I've got a lot of scholarships
and I can go for practically free, well then yeah,
(12:26):
why not throw it against the wall and see if
it sticks. You can always do blue collar work later on.
But for a lot of kids who are good with
their hands and that's kind of the direction they want
to go in. Anyway, there are paths, more clear paths
available to making money than there were fifteen twenty thirty
years ago.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
All right, we're changing the format here, Joel. Starting next week.
Here's what I want to do. I come up with
any kind of a statement of fact or opinion. You
come back with that's right, Bill, And then I come
back with another one and you answer with, you know, Bill,
you are absolutely right.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
I can do this. Good. But that means Joel is
actually going to be here next week. Joel.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
You have a good one this Sunday twelve to two.
How to Money always a good show. Catch over the weekend, Joel,
and of course next week too. Thanks. All right, Okay,
I want to spend the last second to last segment
talking about what was going on in New Orleans AI
and facial recognition programs and cameras.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Now, facial recognition.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Technology is kind of neat unless you're being tagged by
facial recognition and you're being arrested, then it's not so neat.
But what it does is takes a photo of someone,
matches it with this huge database of photos that exists,
whether driver's license, mug shots, and it has the ability
(13:53):
as you walk down the street, just walking, if the
cameras are there like they are in London, they just
match everybody's face and if that face matches some guy
who has a record or it shouldn't be there according
(14:13):
to the police. You know, kind of you look a
little sketchy, you're usually not in that neighborhood kind of thing.
It pings the cops immediately and the cops are told
in real time this is what's going on. That goes
beyond what police departments all over the world are doing.
Matter of fact, the only police is that I know
London has been doing this forever.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
That's just in this inner city of London.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
There is not one place you cannot you can take
a step that doesn't have a camera looking at you
and there's a huge monitor and they use facial recognition.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
The other one is China.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
China is one point three billion people, every single person
is it a database and it's facial recognition, although I
don't know how they tell the difference with the Chinese residents.
I mean one point three billion, you know, I can't
tell half a dozen. Then you have New Orleans, which
(15:11):
is doing the same thing, and it is really controversial.
The ACLU is going absolutely nuts because usually what facial
recognition is about is someone is arrested or they're looking
for someone and there's a picture or a description and
it goes boom right up against the database and now
(15:31):
you know who it is.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
Now you have a match.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
And then after the fact it's used as an investigative process.
This is used as a real time police activity, and
therein lies a real question of well, the argument is
big brother is out there looking at you every minute.
But here's the bottom line, and I get questions like
this on handle on the law all the time. There
(15:57):
is no expectation of private see legally that exists when
you step outside your door.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
G bell.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
Every time I take a walk, the guy who lives
across the street takes out his video camera and is
videoing me, and he's invading my privacy.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
No, he's not. You have no privacy outside. It doesn't exist.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
So the issue is not whether it is legal for
these real time facial recognition devices to occur or to
be in practice.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
I think that's going to be perfectly legal.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
The issue and the lawsuit that has been filed are
about to be filed by the civil libertarian groups ACOLU,
specifically in New Orleans, is that it is contrary to
the policy of the police department and what the City
of New Orleans did, the City Council saying until we
study this further, we have to look at this very carefully,
(16:54):
because it is I don't know if it's an invasion
of privacy, because again, there's no privacy and you're out there,
if you're walking down the street and they're in real time,
all the facial recognition programs are running from every camera,
and all of a sudden, it matches if you're a felon,
for example, there's an arrest warrant out, Hey, who's going
(17:15):
to argue with they got you right there? And the
police are told there you are street corner wise?
Speaker 1 (17:20):
Why not?
Speaker 2 (17:21):
But how about the possibility of a false arrest. How
about the possibility of why are the police looking at
us all the time, every minute we're walking down the street. Well,
there is the question, and it's a real question. I mean,
do we want to live that way? You know?
Speaker 1 (17:38):
Do we want that kind of police activity?
Speaker 2 (17:41):
And on the other side of it, it is doesn't
bother me because I don't break the law.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
So therefore, where do you go on that one? Do
you want the police looking at you?
Speaker 2 (17:53):
Do you want the police having that kind of power,
or at least that kind of investigative power. And I
don't know the answer. They're both both sides have a
great point, they really do. I'll tell you, when bad
guys are picked up there no one's going to complain
about that. But let's say someone has uh in the past,
(18:14):
has committed a crime and there you have a misdemeanor
on your record, and you're walking down.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
The street.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
And you're picked up, you know, two blocks away from
a burglary for example, report someone has just stolen has
broken into my into my shop, And there you are,
two blocks away, having nothing to do with it. A
camera has picked up your face in real time. It
pings the police, who then go and pick you up,
(18:44):
not necessarily arrest you, but question you.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
What are you doing questioning me?
Speaker 3 (18:50):
Right?
Speaker 2 (18:51):
I was tagged for a misdemeanor crime having nothing to
do with this ten years ago.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
Well, you know there is the question.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
It is time for Mo Kelly as we finish our
Thursday show.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
Good morning Mo, Good morning Bill.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
Mo. Heard Monday through Friday seven to ten pm here
on KFI with a cleverly titled Later with Mo Kelly.
And today it's not later because it's earlier. It's eight
fifty in the morning. Mo. Memorial Day weekend is the
big weekend for movies, and we are waiting for the
(19:28):
last mission predictable movie with Tom Cruise.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
Let's talk about that. What's expected?
Speaker 2 (19:37):
I know the pundits do anticipate what kind of money
it's going to make.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
What are you hearing?
Speaker 4 (19:43):
I think I'm hearing mostly positive reviews. But let me
talk to you about when you say mission predictable. Part
of the movie going experience is being able to predict
how you're going to feel about a movie. And I'm
rewatching all the Mission Impossibles from beginning to end, number
one through numbers, and if there's anything predictable about it
is you get a quality movie, almost like going to
(20:05):
your favorite restaurant where you may order the same dish,
but you know what you're going to get, and you
know what you're going to get out of this movie franchise.
It is imminently consistent, and I expect more of that consistency.
Yes Ethan Hunt, the character that Tom Cruise plays is
going to save the world one more time. How he
hasn't died or how he hasn't failed the previous seven times,
(20:26):
I don't know, but that's what we're looking.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
For now, Tom Cruise.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
Is he Yeah, obviously he's an A plus lister. Is
he still getting his twenty twenty five million.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
Dollars a film.
Speaker 4 (20:37):
No, it's more than that, if only because he'll get
money upfront as an actor, but he's an executive producer
on all these films, so he gets a percentage of
the back end. On average, he gets anywhere between seventy
and eighty million. When you combine his upfront salary with
what he gets as a percentage of the box office.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
I mean, that's just completely insane. Have any of the
Mission and Pop movies failed?
Speaker 4 (21:01):
Not failed, but they some of them have underperformed, And
I think it might be about the fatigue and attrition
of the series Enfranchise overall. Me personally, I think it
took a little bit of a dip starting with Mission Impossible,
for they were they started incorporating and it's now fresh
in my mind since I'm rewatching it. Then started incorporating
(21:24):
more humor because movies seem to necessitate humor all the time. Well,
Mission Impossible and Ethan Hunt. There's really nothing funny going on.
It's very serious for the most part. And then it
seems like there was a tonal shift in how they
were presenting the movies. And you can see from the
financials it dipped in four, five, and six.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
M and any other movies that I have some buzz.
Speaker 4 (21:49):
Lee Low and Stitch, the live action remake of that
Disney classic. Now the question is whether Disney can pull
off a live action remake and it becomes successful. The
buzz around this, the critics are so so on it,
but there's a lot of anticipation and this combined with
Mission Impossible, they expected to make a combined half a
billion dollars, which was really positive for movie theaters going
(22:13):
into the summer.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
The concept we're gonna finish up with this movie theaters.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
If we talked, and as we did talk a couple
three years ago, movie theaters were basically moribund. I mean
they were very close to death because of the way
we watch movies on TV now and how quickly they
come to cable and various platforms.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
Has that been reversed.
Speaker 4 (22:36):
No, they are still struggling, and the question is not
whether they'll survive, it's just how many of them will survive.
And it's not just movies in the summer. The summer
takes care of all movie theaters and people have time
to go to the movies again, the inclination to go
to movies. But during the spring and winter and fall
and the days from Tuesday to Thursday and Friday, people
(22:57):
are not going to the movies, and they are fewer
movies in theaters, and they're staying less amount of time
in theaters before they go to streeting. That's the real issue,
and that's something that they can't seem to reverse.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
And of course the money that's being made by movie
theaters is still the concessions right where you're paying eighteen
dollars for a small box of popcorn and you know,
thirteen dollars for an eight ounce die of coke.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
Absolutely, but they got to get you in the theater first,
that's true.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
And also, you know, here's a little secret, you know,
mo and that is you can, if you do it correctly.
For example, take a catheter bag and take the tube
and you fill it up with coke and you put
it down where people normally keep their you know, their bags,
and then the tube goes up and no one's gonna
see and you're not gonna pay eighteen dollars for the coke.
Speaker 4 (23:45):
Or you could just keep it under your jacket and
avoid all that.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
Probably, Yeah, that's too but it's not as much fun.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
Mo. We'll catch you tonight seven o'clock later with Mo Kelly.
All right, we are done, guys. Tomorrow morning it starts
all over again with Amy and Neil. Forgot the people's name, right, Well,
I'm taking place I know and and Cone because I'm
already into my the legal show, because I'm taking phone
(24:14):
calls now off the air, and so the number if
you want to ask me a legal question, and I'm
starting just at a moment eight seven seven five to
zero eleven fifty eight seven seven five two zero eleven
fifty off the air, starting in a few minutes marginal
legal advice, where I tell you have no case and
there are no timeouts either, no weather, no commercials, nada,
(24:38):
and no patience as I answer your call.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
So we go through them pretty quickly.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
Eight seven seven five two zero eleven fifty.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
This is why are you guys laughing?
Speaker 2 (24:48):
Because We're watching Gary Hoffman get ready for his show,
and he's flapping his wings.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
He looks like one of the eagles. Okay, got it,
got it.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
You know, I'm so paranoid because every time I see
you laughing, I'm always assuming you're laughing at me.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
But good, oh usually I am. I know you are
all right, Gary, all right?
Speaker 2 (25:04):
Gary and Shannon up next, flapping and all eight seven
seven five two zero eleven fifty.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
This is KFI AM six forty. You've been listening to
the Bill Handle Show.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
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.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
KFI Handle Here Tuesday morning, April twenty nine or Thursday morning,
April twenty nine.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Why does it say tuesday? Oh, it does say tuesday.
Why does it say April? I am actually looking at
something that says April here? Wow? Okay, Thursday morning, May
twenty second. I don't know how that got into my stack.
Let me write that down.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
That was me?
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Was it all right? How'd you go back on that one?
Speaker 2 (00:34):
All right? This is Let me write it down because
I keep on referring to whenever I come back, and
it's May twenty two?
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Got it? Okay, there we go. Damn.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
This is why this show is an award winning show.
I mean, it is impossible to understand why it is
time for Joel Larsgar and How to Money.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Joel has heard Sunday's here twelve to two pm.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
If you want to reach him, his address is at
how to Money Joel.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Good morning, Joel.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
I think it's your award winning board op and your
award winning guests that really bring this show into award
winning territory. You know, it's wea that helped make your
show so great.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
You know, first of all, in terms of thanking everybody
else other than me, I'm surprised I can actually hear
you and understand you, because I thought you'd be talking
like this because your head is so far up someone's book.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
But not too much.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Thank you for all the credit, all right, Joel heard
every Sunday, as I said, twelve to two pm. And
so let's get into some topics here. One is that
you gave me. People are spending way too much money
on news newsletters. And when I think of newsletters, and
this goes back years, the only subscription I ever had
to a newsletter, of course, was a hard newsletter.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
They came in the mail.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
But how big a deal is a newsletter When you
can get everything and anything for free on the internet anyway,
how do people subscribe?
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Yeah, it's amazing because it's one of those things where
I don't know that I could have predicted this five
or six years ago, and it seemed like everything was
going towards free and social media and everything was going
to be ad supported because my goodness, no one was
willing to pay for news anymore. The Internet had broken
the ability to pay for stuff. It's almost kind of
like when when Napster made downloading music and movies free,
(02:32):
and it's like, how are you going to get this
genie back in the bottle? Well, when it comes to
a lot of high end writing, that the genie has
been put back in the bottle and people are paying
for subscriptions, whether it's to you know, a newspaper or
in particular a lot of different substack accounts. And what's
so fascinating about it is that people are paying fifty
(02:52):
to one hundred dollars a year to read the stuff
that their favorite authors are putting out there. I'm thinking
about like one of my favorite economists, for instance, has
a substack and he's prolific. He's writing all the time,
and a lot of the stuff that he writes is free,
but then some of it's behind a paywall, and if
I want to read everything that he writes, well then
I got to pay the man. And so substack has
(03:13):
like flourished, and it's really allowed a flourishing of creators
to write content and get paid for writing that content
that they otherwise just didn't have. Like substack has really
facilitated this new way of writers to interact with the
people who want to read their stuff.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Yeah, but I'm assuming it's pretty rarefy air unless you
are a huge fan of the writer. And usually I'm
guessing as financial or maybe entertainment. I don't know, but
usually financial. Certainly that was in my world.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
You just.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
You used to get it for free and you still do,
You're right, And then the substack behind it. But when
you talk about these enormously successful podcasters, for example, tens
of millions, hundreds of millions of listeners viewers on cable
for example, or on the internet, a lot of are
(04:07):
they moving towards subscription are they moving away from it?
Speaker 3 (04:12):
So you know, it depends on the podcast and some
podcasts are have really signed up for the ad supported model,
but others are following this substack model too, and they're saying, hey,
half of the podcasts that we release are free, and
it kind of wets the appetite. But once we've kind
of got you hooked, then if you want the rest
of the stuff that we're creating, you, yeah, we want
(04:33):
you to pay us the money to get those And
and for the consumer, they might say, we've seen this
too with streaming, where people are like, hey, yeah, well
I could pay less and watch a bunch of ads,
but I don't want to do that, And so I
think some consumers are more than happy to pay one
to support their favorite creators, but then on top of
that to be able to avoid ads completely and to
(04:53):
get that extra content. And so it's it's leading to
this thing where Gosh talk about subscription fatigue in our cult. Sure,
we're in this place where when more and more people
are writing great stuff or creating great content that you're
interested in, that we're signing up for for so many
newsletters or so many you know, substack accounts for podcasters
(05:14):
that we love, that we forget how much we're spending
on a recurring basis. And it turns out some people
are spending so much that they're forgetting like, well, yeah,
how much is it? What damage is this doing to
my budget? And by the way, it's hard for those
folks to actually read or consume all the content that
they've signed up for too.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
Hey, can they make enough money just on selling the
information for people that go on to the newsletter and
selling it to advertisers, data data mining, that sort of thing,
still keep it commercial free or subscription free, and they
can do okay, simply with a number of people that
log on.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
Are you? Are they? Are you asking?
Speaker 3 (05:54):
Can people make a living there?
Speaker 4 (05:55):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Do they? Is that part of Is that a model
too that works so far?
Speaker 2 (05:58):
We're talking about free, we're talking about with ads and
then monetizing with no ads whatsoever and not paying a
subscription and not selling subscriptions. Is there enough money to
be made simply by being there and having enough downloads
to where you've got the platform, be it Facebook or
(06:23):
Instagram where just the number of people themselves watching, there's
enough money to be made.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
Maybe not from the newsletter perspective, but yeah, I mean
there's a reason that some of the platforms have at
different times paid users to create on those platforms to
try to get people to stick around. And they're saying, hey, like,
if we have the great creators putting out awesome content,
whether it's on Facebook or it's on Twitter or something,
there have at times been been efforts by these tech
(06:50):
companies to pay those creators to stick around and create
specifically on that platform to make it stickier. So yeah,
I think that's part of it. But from a from
like an individual creator perspective, usually you have to find
out one of those models, right, that were're actually gonna
get paid.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
Yeah, And the.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Model that I'm really loving now is that you're paying
a monthly subscription to have commercials thrown at you on
the various platforms watching TV, Netflix, Paramount plus, Disney plus
crazy stuff.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
Joel.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
Higher education, and it's one of those things that it
was a given you went to.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
You went to college, or at least I went to college.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
I mean literally, I knew I was going to college
from the time I was five years old, six years old.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
There was no issue.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
And of course vocational training was all for the losers,
you know, the guys who weren't very smart. They would
do wood shop, they would do auto shop, and boy,
those days have changed dramatically.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
They turn out to be the smarter ones.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
So let's talk about the value of higher education, because
I've heard both ways. One it's not worth it, or
it is worth it the long run, notwithstanding the cost.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
You're coming Okay, So I think it's two things at once, right.
I think there's like a happy middle, and so much
depends on the individual as well, and so much depends
on what you're paying to go to college. So there
was this article in the Wall Street Journal and it
highlights something that's been just increasingly true over the past decade,
(08:20):
which it was basically talking about how high school juniors
are getting job offers of seventy thousand bucks from companies
because hey, they're good with their hands, they are good
at welding right, or they've got good shop experience. And
so because of this dearth of blue collar workers in
some of these important industries, we're starting to see like companies,
(08:44):
local companies come in and say, hey, you're pretty good
at chop class. Hey we're going to actually we're going
to offer you a job that you can start right
when you graduate high school, or hey, come and intern
with us this summer. It's amazing to think that kids
are of avoiding college, avoiding college, that starting off on
a path with pretty good pay, like above average American
(09:06):
pay from the get go, right after they graduate high school.
And it just shows just how much companies need kids
like that with those kind of skills. And it does
throw a little bit of cold water at least on
the idea that you have to go to college. I mean,
some of the stats still remain that the average person,
the average student who graduates from college is going to
(09:26):
make a million dollars more over their lifetime. But again
it's so nuanced, and how much bet are you taking
on and what are your other alternatives?
Speaker 1 (09:34):
Those are really important questions too.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
What I have, what I'm not hearing is the ceiling
that blue collar workers make. I mean, they make a
good living. So you walk into a job at seventy
seventy five thousand dollars, you're not going to make more
than one hundred and twenty five thousand or one hundred
and thirty thousand dollars because there is a limit to
(09:57):
physical labor doing a technical job, and we don't hear
much about that. And I guess in college there is
no limit unless you're a teacher, unless you're a social worker,
and that takes college. I don't know if we exempt
those people. But you know, what are your thoughts on
that one?
Speaker 3 (10:13):
Well, so I think you might be right in one way.
But then if you if you want to be a
business builder in some of those blue collar professions, there's
the sky's the limit. There was a there was another
article I read the other day basically talking about how
some of the richest people under the radar rich people
in this country have started you know, small to medium
(10:35):
sized businesses that are that are expanding to becoming like
a regional business in really boring industries, right like flooring
manufacturing or something like that. And so you could get
in the be in the blue collar field and yeah,
maybe those first few years you're making seventy eighty thousand dollars,
but you you know, your compatriots are over there in
(10:55):
college racking up forty thousand dollars in student loan debt,
and they might have a ceiling based on the profession
they choose. Point, and you might say, Hey, I'm gonna
build a business out of my skill instead of just
like working for a wage every single year. So I
think you're right in one sense, but in the other sense,
blue collar workers can build a pretty cool business and
employ other people and build something meaningful and long lasting too.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
You know, one of the things I really enjoy about
you being on the show and doing the How Too
Money segment is when I ask you a question and
you answer with.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
Bill, you may be right, but you also may be wrong.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
And Bill, you know you have a point, but then
you also don't have a point. That makes it makes
it for a really good, good segment.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
You know that job.
Speaker 3 (11:43):
I see the world in shades of gray Bill and
so it I mean, there's you always have to take
all of the the all the information into account. And
when I think when I tell people about what to
think about going to college, you have to think, well,
what are you gonna do with that degree? And how
much debt are you going to take on to get
the education? And you have to really have those are
big trade offs to make. And so for people who
(12:05):
go to one of the most expensive colleges in the
United States and they don't have much financial aid and
you're talking about graduating with one hundred and eighty thousand
dollars in student loan debt, well you better have a
really good idea of what you're going to do with
that degree, and then it's going to produce a significant
income for you. And then on the flip side, if
you're like, I don't know if I want to go
to college, but hey, I've got a lot of scholarships
and I can go for practically free, well then yeah,
(12:26):
why not throw it against the wall and see if
it sticks. You can always do blue collar work later on.
But for a lot of kids who are good with
their hands and that's kind of the direction they want
to go in. Anyway, there are paths, more clear paths
available to making money than there were fifteen twenty thirty
years ago.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
All right, we're changing the format here, Joel. Starting next week.
Here's what I want to do. I come up with
any kind of a statement of fact or opinion. You
come back with that's right, Bill, And then I come
back with another one and you answer with, you know, Bill,
you are absolutely right.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
I can do this. Good. But that means Joel is
actually going to be here next week. Joel.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
You have a good one this Sunday twelve to two.
How to Money always a good show. Catch over the weekend, Joel,
and of course next week too. Thanks. All right, Okay,
I want to spend the last second to last segment
talking about what was going on in New Orleans AI
and facial recognition programs and cameras.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Now, facial recognition.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Technology is kind of neat unless you're being tagged by
facial recognition and you're being arrested, then it's not so neat.
But what it does is takes a photo of someone,
matches it with this huge database of photos that exists,
whether driver's license, mug shots, and it has the ability
(13:53):
as you walk down the street, just walking, if the
cameras are there like they are in London, they just
match everybody's face and if that face matches some guy
who has a record or it shouldn't be there according
(14:13):
to the police. You know, kind of you look a
little sketchy, you're usually not in that neighborhood kind of thing.
It pings the cops immediately and the cops are told
in real time this is what's going on. That goes
beyond what police departments all over the world are doing.
Matter of fact, the only police is that I know
London has been doing this forever.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
That's just in this inner city of London.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
There is not one place you cannot you can take
a step that doesn't have a camera looking at you
and there's a huge monitor and they use facial recognition.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
The other one is China.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
China is one point three billion people, every single person
is it a database and it's facial recognition, although I
don't know how they tell the difference with the Chinese residents.
I mean one point three billion, you know, I can't
tell half a dozen. Then you have New Orleans, which
(15:11):
is doing the same thing, and it is really controversial.
The ACLU is going absolutely nuts because usually what facial
recognition is about is someone is arrested or they're looking
for someone and there's a picture or a description and
it goes boom right up against the database and now
(15:31):
you know who it is.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
Now you have a match.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
And then after the fact it's used as an investigative process.
This is used as a real time police activity, and
therein lies a real question of well, the argument is
big brother is out there looking at you every minute.
But here's the bottom line, and I get questions like
this on handle on the law all the time. There
(15:57):
is no expectation of private see legally that exists when
you step outside your door.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
G bell.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
Every time I take a walk, the guy who lives
across the street takes out his video camera and is
videoing me, and he's invading my privacy.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
No, he's not. You have no privacy outside. It doesn't exist.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
So the issue is not whether it is legal for
these real time facial recognition devices to occur or to
be in practice.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
I think that's going to be perfectly legal.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
The issue and the lawsuit that has been filed are
about to be filed by the civil libertarian groups ACOLU,
specifically in New Orleans, is that it is contrary to
the policy of the police department and what the City
of New Orleans did, the City Council saying until we
study this further, we have to look at this very carefully,
(16:54):
because it is I don't know if it's an invasion
of privacy, because again, there's no privacy and you're out there,
if you're walking down the street and they're in real time,
all the facial recognition programs are running from every camera,
and all of a sudden, it matches if you're a felon,
for example, there's an arrest warrant out, Hey, who's going
(17:15):
to argue with they got you right there? And the
police are told there you are street corner wise?
Speaker 1 (17:20):
Why not?
Speaker 2 (17:21):
But how about the possibility of a false arrest. How
about the possibility of why are the police looking at
us all the time, every minute we're walking down the street. Well,
there is the question, and it's a real question. I mean,
do we want to live that way? You know?
Speaker 1 (17:38):
Do we want that kind of police activity?
Speaker 2 (17:41):
And on the other side of it, it is doesn't
bother me because I don't break the law.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
So therefore, where do you go on that one? Do
you want the police looking at you?
Speaker 2 (17:53):
Do you want the police having that kind of power,
or at least that kind of investigative power. And I
don't know the answer. They're both both sides have a
great point, they really do. I'll tell you, when bad
guys are picked up there no one's going to complain
about that. But let's say someone has uh in the past,
(18:14):
has committed a crime and there you have a misdemeanor
on your record, and you're walking down.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
The street.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
And you're picked up, you know, two blocks away from
a burglary for example, report someone has just stolen has
broken into my into my shop, And there you are,
two blocks away, having nothing to do with it. A
camera has picked up your face in real time. It
pings the police, who then go and pick you up,
(18:44):
not necessarily arrest you, but question you.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
What are you doing questioning me?
Speaker 3 (18:50):
Right?
Speaker 2 (18:51):
I was tagged for a misdemeanor crime having nothing to
do with this ten years ago.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
Well, you know there is the question.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
It is time for Mo Kelly as we finish our
Thursday show.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
Good morning Mo, Good morning Bill.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
Mo. Heard Monday through Friday seven to ten pm here
on KFI with a cleverly titled Later with Mo Kelly.
And today it's not later because it's earlier. It's eight
fifty in the morning. Mo. Memorial Day weekend is the
big weekend for movies, and we are waiting for the
(19:28):
last mission predictable movie with Tom Cruise.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
Let's talk about that. What's expected?
Speaker 2 (19:37):
I know the pundits do anticipate what kind of money
it's going to make.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
What are you hearing?
Speaker 4 (19:43):
I think I'm hearing mostly positive reviews. But let me
talk to you about when you say mission predictable. Part
of the movie going experience is being able to predict
how you're going to feel about a movie. And I'm
rewatching all the Mission Impossibles from beginning to end, number
one through numbers, and if there's anything predictable about it
is you get a quality movie, almost like going to
(20:05):
your favorite restaurant where you may order the same dish,
but you know what you're going to get, and you
know what you're going to get out of this movie franchise.
It is imminently consistent, and I expect more of that consistency.
Yes Ethan Hunt, the character that Tom Cruise plays is
going to save the world one more time. How he
hasn't died or how he hasn't failed the previous seven times,
(20:26):
I don't know, but that's what we're looking.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
For now, Tom Cruise.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
Is he Yeah, obviously he's an A plus lister. Is
he still getting his twenty twenty five million.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
Dollars a film.
Speaker 4 (20:37):
No, it's more than that, if only because he'll get
money upfront as an actor, but he's an executive producer
on all these films, so he gets a percentage of
the back end. On average, he gets anywhere between seventy
and eighty million. When you combine his upfront salary with
what he gets as a percentage of the box office.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
I mean, that's just completely insane. Have any of the
Mission and Pop movies failed?
Speaker 4 (21:01):
Not failed, but they some of them have underperformed, And
I think it might be about the fatigue and attrition
of the series Enfranchise overall. Me personally, I think it
took a little bit of a dip starting with Mission Impossible,
for they were they started incorporating and it's now fresh
in my mind since I'm rewatching it. Then started incorporating
(21:24):
more humor because movies seem to necessitate humor all the time. Well,
Mission Impossible and Ethan Hunt. There's really nothing funny going on.
It's very serious for the most part. And then it
seems like there was a tonal shift in how they
were presenting the movies. And you can see from the
financials it dipped in four, five, and six.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
M and any other movies that I have some buzz.
Speaker 4 (21:49):
Lee Low and Stitch, the live action remake of that
Disney classic. Now the question is whether Disney can pull
off a live action remake and it becomes successful. The
buzz around this, the critics are so so on it,
but there's a lot of anticipation and this combined with
Mission Impossible, they expected to make a combined half a
billion dollars, which was really positive for movie theaters going
(22:13):
into the summer.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
The concept we're gonna finish up with this movie theaters.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
If we talked, and as we did talk a couple
three years ago, movie theaters were basically moribund. I mean
they were very close to death because of the way
we watch movies on TV now and how quickly they
come to cable and various platforms.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
Has that been reversed.
Speaker 4 (22:36):
No, they are still struggling, and the question is not
whether they'll survive, it's just how many of them will survive.
And it's not just movies in the summer. The summer
takes care of all movie theaters and people have time
to go to the movies again, the inclination to go
to movies. But during the spring and winter and fall
and the days from Tuesday to Thursday and Friday, people
(22:57):
are not going to the movies, and they are fewer
movies in theaters, and they're staying less amount of time
in theaters before they go to streeting. That's the real issue,
and that's something that they can't seem to reverse.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
And of course the money that's being made by movie
theaters is still the concessions right where you're paying eighteen
dollars for a small box of popcorn and you know,
thirteen dollars for an eight ounce die of coke.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
Absolutely, but they got to get you in the theater first,
that's true.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
And also, you know, here's a little secret, you know,
mo and that is you can, if you do it correctly.
For example, take a catheter bag and take the tube
and you fill it up with coke and you put
it down where people normally keep their you know, their bags,
and then the tube goes up and no one's gonna
see and you're not gonna pay eighteen dollars for the coke.
Speaker 4 (23:45):
Or you could just keep it under your jacket and
avoid all that.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
Probably, Yeah, that's too but it's not as much fun.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
Mo. We'll catch you tonight seven o'clock later with Mo Kelly.
All right, we are done, guys. Tomorrow morning it starts
all over again with Amy and Neil. Forgot the people's name, right, Well,
I'm taking place I know and and Cone because I'm
already into my the legal show, because I'm taking phone
(24:14):
calls now off the air, and so the number if
you want to ask me a legal question, and I'm
starting just at a moment eight seven seven five to
zero eleven fifty eight seven seven five two zero eleven
fifty off the air, starting in a few minutes marginal
legal advice, where I tell you have no case and
there are no timeouts either, no weather, no commercials, nada,
(24:38):
and no patience as I answer your call.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
So we go through them pretty quickly.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
Eight seven seven five two zero eleven fifty.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
This is why are you guys laughing?
Speaker 2 (24:48):
Because We're watching Gary Hoffman get ready for his show,
and he's flapping his wings.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
He looks like one of the eagles. Okay, got it,
got it.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
You know, I'm so paranoid because every time I see
you laughing, I'm always assuming you're laughing at me.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
But good, oh usually I am. I know you are
all right, Gary, all right?
Speaker 2 (25:04):
Gary and Shannon up next, flapping and all eight seven
seven five two zero eleven fifty.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
This is KFI AM six forty. You've been listening to
the Bill Handle Show.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
Catch My Show Monday through Friday, six am to nine am,
and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
The Bill Handel Show News
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