May 29, 2025 • 24 mins
(May 29, 2025)
Host of ‘How to Money’ Joel Larsgaard joins the show to talk about credit card points being devalued at any time, loyalty to a specific airline can cost you more, and how tariffs are affecting the used car market. Supreme Court denies students right to wear ‘only two genders’ t-shirt to school. Host of ‘Later with Mo Kelly’ joins the show to talk about the new Karate Kid movie hitting theatres this Friday.
Host of ‘How to Money’ Joel Larsgaard joins the show to talk about credit card points being devalued at any time, loyalty to a specific airline can cost you more, and how tariffs are affecting the used car market. Supreme Court denies students right to wear ‘only two genders’ t-shirt to school. Host of ‘Later with Mo Kelly’ joins the show to talk about the new Karate Kid movie hitting theatres this Friday.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from KFI AM
six forty. Say I am six forty.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
It is a Thursday morning, May twenty nine, and I've
been talking about this for a little while, but I'm
really looking forward to this coming up on Saturday, June seventh.
I'm inviting you some of you to join me and
the Morning crew at the Anaheim White House. We're going
to have a dinner Saturday night where we've never done
(00:30):
it with all of the Morning crew and five people
are going to be invited, plus their guests, and it's
going to be one fun evening. And so here is
how you get an invite, is that you go to
the iHeart app during the course of the show and
(00:51):
you'll click onto the Bill Handle show and at the
right hand corner there's the upper right hand corner, there's
a microphone.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
You click on that and.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
You have fifteen twenty seconds to tell us why you
should be invited or why you want to be invited,
and if you think it's gonna work, Oh, I love
your show. I've been listening forever. That doesn't fly, Nobody
cares about that. And tomorrow we're gonna start playing some
of the good ones, and here's the way it works.
Will pick some of the better ones, throw them into
(01:22):
a hat and pull out five, and you'll get the invite.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
I guarantee you it's it's gonna be a fun night.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Not only are we gonna have fun, but the food
at the Anaheim white House is insane. It's it's well,
it's it's probably my favorite restaurant on the planet, not
just because of Katerina's Club and our involvement in it.
The food is that good. So you know, I'd love
to have you there, And well, I don't know how
much I'd love to have you there. But you'll meet everybody,
(01:49):
and you'll we'll be more than happy to bad mouth
everybody else. It's fun and you'll sort of get inside
baseball of how things work. You know, Will as ugly
as I say, well, you get to figure it out.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Oh, Will's not listening to it. He's new, so I
can do that to him.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Okay, it's time for Joel lars Guard and how to Money.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Joel.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Good Morning, every Sunday twelve to two pm right here
on K five Morning Morning. Bill. Okay, by the way,
very excited about coming to the Anaheim white House. There
is no chance you're going to be invited. I just
want to let you know that I figured, I figured,
oh yeah, please credit card points. Now, I happen to
be a big fan of credit card points. I like
(02:33):
points towards travel. And the problem is, if I, let's say,
have fifty thousand points tomorrow morning, I can wake up
and have forty thousand points.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
Can they do that?
Speaker 3 (02:44):
Yes they can, Yes they can, and they are doing that.
Speaker 4 (02:48):
This is this is a problem that's like escalating too.
So I too, am a fan of credit card points
for people who follow what I call the golden rules
of plastic, Like if you're using your credit card appropriately,
you're not buying more stuff than you otherwise would, and
you're paying your balance off on time and in full
every single month. Credit card points, cash back or travel
points can, like you know, can help make it a
(03:11):
worthwhile endeavor to use credit cards for the purchases you're
already making. But it's really important to know a couple things. One,
you got to use your credit card properly to make
credit card points worth it. If you don't, sorry, the
interest rate you're paying is far than far more exceeding
the value you're getting. And then on top of that,
pay attention to the points you have and use them
quickly after getting them. Because I hear some people bill
(03:33):
brag about I've got four hundred thousand points racked up
from this one credit card company. How awesome am I?
I can't wait to use these one day in the future. Well,
the problem is, yes, credit card issuers are devaluing those
points over time. City just announce Hey, in August, we're
going to be value our points by twenty five percent.
We're just gonna give a swift haircut to everybody who
has built up City points. And so yeah, the longer
(03:55):
you hold on to them, the less valuable they're going
to become.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Who I One of the things about credit cards point well,
first of all, if the people who own businesses are
very lucky because you can run virtually your entire business
on a credit card and all of a sudden, those
points start racking up very quickly, and.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
So that's what that's luck, or sort of.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
The other one is paying them off, so you get
all I pay mine off every month, I don't go
too crazy, which means I get the benefit and there's
no downside because effectively someone is subsidizing my points. The
other thing for me, and it doesn't make any sense financially,
is I use them for air travel, even though I
(04:40):
can do better with money cards cash back cards.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
If you look at the actual figures, you.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Know, money goes back into your account or in your pocket,
and you spend it and it sort of disappears. You know,
it's sort of gone because you have money coming in
all the time, because you know.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
We get paid with points for travel.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Man, and you book a flight and all of a
sudden it costs you half as much or nothing. Uh,
that to me is a real joy. I tend to Yeah,
I upgrade. I will buy coach and then I'll upgrade
into business or I'll buy a business plus and upgrade
into uh business class. Uh, and man, I love it
(05:21):
as uh. You know people, I'm first at the front
of the airplane and then people go past me and
I look at them and I go thumbs up as
they're going to the back of the plane.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
There's nothing I love you for that.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Oh yeah, absolutely, Or I'll say, oh the food is great.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Oh no, you're in coach.
Speaker 4 (05:40):
Well you mentioned you mentioned two things there that are
important to recognize, and yeah, if you if you own
a run a business, even if it's like this part
time side hustle, like oh, I have an Etsy store
that I occasionally sell stuff at. You you can qualify
for a business credit card. You don't have to have
like employees or anything like that to get a business
credit card. And some of those business credit cards offer
(06:02):
even better returns. They have better sign up bonuses. So
it's important to note that, yeah, you might qualify for
a business card, even if you maybe thought you didn't
because you're like, I don't know, my business feels like
it's just this kind of side hustle. That doesn't mean
that you can't qualify for one. And yeah, I think
the other thing too. Travel points have become really common.
People are excited about it, just like you. And it
(06:24):
started with like this guy, the points guy, who I've
actually talked to on the podcast before, and he started
running everything through his business and he was shocked at
the amount of miles that he was racking up, and
then he was like, how can I optimize these and
use them to their fullest extent? So in some cases,
if you're really smart about how you use those points,
they can far exceed the value of a straight up
(06:45):
two percent cash back card. You just have to play
the game right. And again, this is one of those
things where you like, you got to have your ducks
in a row. You can do really well with some
of these travel cards as long as you're a using them,
you know, more quickly than you otherwise would if you
had yours. If you're like I might hold on to
some of these. If you use some more quickly, they
don't get the valued as quickly, right, and you're able
to actually get the full value that you hoped for.
(07:07):
And then if you're optimizing in when you're booking and
you're flexible, you can you can get like much better
value actually than you would with just a traditional cash
back card. But you gotta be willing to kind of
gain the system and jump through the hoops. If not,
a cash back card's better for a lot of people.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
I'm assuming there has to be one or two websites
out there that help you do exactly that.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
Oh yeah, oh yeah, you know.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
How to game the credit card? You know, system dot
com or whatever the hell it is. Just do a
Google search and throw in those those words.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
All right, the.
Speaker 4 (07:38):
Points guy started it. But then there's many other apps
and stuff like that have launched and you plug in
some of your information and they'll try to help you
optimize the redemption of those rewards.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Yeah, always good stuff, all right.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Connecting tariffs, I mean tariffs, we don't even know how
far they're going to go, but already we're starting to
see the used car market based on what's going on tariff.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Why is explain that? Yes?
Speaker 4 (08:00):
So, I mean back during COVID, everybody remembers the supply
shock of new cars being built, which impacted the used
car market, and people were like, who are trying to
buy a car? We're like, wait a second, it's getting
far more expensive to buy the car I want. And
then people who owned a used car were like, wait
a second, this thing's going up in value. Those things
cars are typically depreciating assets, and so to see your
(08:23):
car actually go up in value when they're supposed to
go down, it's.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
Kind of shocking.
Speaker 4 (08:27):
And then we saw over the past few years things
start to level out and correct themselves and go back
to quote unquote normal. Well, normal is being upended again
by tariffs, and so because of tariff the impact of
tariffs on new cars, were seeing again a very similar
pattern of used cars starting to go up in value
(08:49):
and go up in price. So if you're in the
market for a used car, just know the supply is
dwindling and they're getting more expensive right now.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Yeah, and I'm assuming they're going to be far more
expensive to repair, because you say you have a Japanese car,
I have a German car, which means the parts of
the German car comes come in from Germany and it's
X dollars and it's going to be that more expensive
assuming that the well if the fifty percent European tariff
kicks in, oh Man, I'm going to be paying some
(09:19):
dollars for repairs.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (09:21):
Well, and that brings up the recent court ruling right
about the president's tariff policies, and so like there's there's
been obviously this just back and forth and like, hey,
no fifty percent tariffs here, one hundred and forty five
percent tariffs here, and then a pretty quick rollback on
many of those tariffs to much lower levels. Well, this
(09:42):
recent Federal Trade Court ruling basically said that hey, this
tariff policy is instituted by the president, it's it's not legal,
and so he's going to have to go back to
the drawing board when it comes to imposing tariffs if
he wants to do that or Congress is actually going.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
To have to step in and do that.
Speaker 4 (09:59):
But then there are there are some tariffs that will remain. Specifically,
it looks like on cars and which again.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Yeah, I'm sorry interrupt, but I did that topic at
seven am this morning, talking specifically about that, and so
if you want to listen to it on demand, and
Joel explained it much more succinctly and makes a lot
more sense about it than I do. And as far
as new terrorists are concerned, you know they change so often.
Let me see, it's eight thirty on a Thursday, Okay,
(10:30):
we'll see what happens by three o'clock this afternoon if
terrorift's going to change or not. Now, one quick one,
let's finish this up. And that is loyalty to a
specific airline can end up costing you, although it's easier
not to have loyalty to a specific airline today with
the alliances.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
A moment or two about that.
Speaker 4 (10:49):
Joel, Yeah, So, I mean what kicked off this topic
in my mind was just to see that this week yesterday,
Actually Southwest Man, they're much storied and loved policy of
free check bags win away, and on top of that,
Southwest is changing the way they do.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
Seating and fares.
Speaker 4 (11:10):
And then in addition, Southwest, just to punish their customers
even more, has said, actually flight credits are going to
expire within six months now instead of never expiring like
they used to. And so this just just makes me
think that that consumers out there. I get why consumers
might have been loyal to Southwest, and I get why
some business travels travelers are incredibly loyal to a particular
(11:32):
airline because the more loyal you are, if you're a
frequent traveler, you gain status and the perks can be significant.
But for most every day normal folks who travel, you
know a few times a year, loyalty is going to
hurt you because you're going to pay more. And so
what you should be doing, if you're just a regular
Joe who travels every once in a while is you
should be going to a site like Google Flights, and
(11:52):
you should be plugging in the itinerary, and then you
should be you should be shopping around with different airlines.
Maybe it's Southwest offering the best deal today, maybe it's
Delta tomorrow. Maybe it's United next week, and so I
just want people to be less loyal because the perks
aren't as good if you are loyal and you're just
the biggest thing you should be caring about is how
much you're paying for the fare that you're looking to buy.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Yeah, a quick prognostication, because this is your wheelhouse. Clearly,
Southwest made this decision about paying for baggage and boarding
and just charging for you know, the junk fies like
everybody else. Obviously they weigh the economics of it, do you,
And they're going to lose customers. I mean, there's no
question loyalty is going to disappear. Do you think their
(12:34):
decision is. Are they're going to be hurt more or
do you think they're going to win on this one.
Speaker 4 (12:39):
I think they're going to be hurt more. I think
it's what made them stand out. They had a lot
of loyalty. They were consistently rated one of the top airlines.
And I just think people are going to be less
enthusiastic about jumping on a Southwest flight because if they
don't stand out in any way, any meaningful way these.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
Days right now, that makes sense. It certainly makes to me.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
All right, Joel Sunday twelve to two pm right here
on KFI How to Money Joel and the How to
Money podcast three times a week.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
God, you work your ass off. Okay, we'll catch you
this weekend and next week. I have a good one.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
Thanks Bill.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
And some of the stories. Actually one huge story we're
looking at. Supreme Court has or Court Appeals has shut
down the majority of tariffs that President Trump invoked, saying
only Congress has the right to invoke those major tariffs.
There are some and it's pretty wonky, but for the
(13:38):
most part, the big tariffs, the appeals Court said, uh ah,
it's were overreaching to the president. You don't have that
kind of authority. And of course the appeal is going
to happen instantly, and they already have another. This is
Supreme Court case. And this came down on Tuesday and
a middle school student said that he had a free
(13:59):
speech right to wear a T shirt saying there are
only two genders. Now this gets interesting because right after
President Trump said there are only two genders at the
federal government is going to accept, he shows up in
school and has this T shirt says there are only
two genders, and the Supreme Court said, and the argument was,
(14:22):
this is First Amendment.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
It's religious freedom. It's actually First Amendment.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
And that's what the religious right wing fundamentalist group lawyers
have argued. It's basically religious freedom and for the most part,
free speech. They sort of mix the two up. And
of course what the court said, the appeals Court said,
you can't do that. You can't do that because what
(14:48):
it does the stigmatize students that are not one gender
or the other. And it got kind of interesting, by
the way, the only two justices who of course agreed
with the students was Alito and Clarence Thomas, because everything
for them is religious freedom.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
I mean, it doesn't matter what you do.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
If Salem, Massachusetts, were to try computative witches and hang
them or drown them under religious freedom, they go, that's fine,
because it's religious freedom.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
Now, this had to do with ostracizing.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
Students who were other than one or the other gender,
and the school said, we have the right to say
no because we have students or we have the possibility
of students specifically being stigmatized and being bullied.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
It's much like the same the school.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Saying you can't wear a T shirt that says fat
people are ugly, or something derogatory about fat people or
short people because it stigmatizes people, because it's.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
A form of bullying.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
And the argument that the court heard from this student
and the law firm represents student, Hey, I have a
First Amendment right.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
And Alito in his descent said, hey.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
The school can't say no just because they disagree with
the student's political viewpoint.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
And the court said, there's nothing done with political viewpoint.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
It has to do with singling out people who are
going to be bullied and are going to be ostracized.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
That's what it's about.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
And the court said, absolutely, the school has the ability
to do that if they believe, by the way, I
don't have to prove it.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
They just have to have a belief.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
Probably a reasonable belief, that someone is going to feel
ostracized and somehow singled out, which is the truth. You know,
wearing a T shirt. You know, you go to hell
if you don't believe in Jesus. You can't do that
because there are Muslim kids, there are kids that aren't there.
You cannot say that. And you can't argue, oh, I
(16:54):
have a religious freedom to say that. I have a
First Amendment right to say that you don't. And the
courts have been pretty fanatic about that. And so you
wear all the T shirts you want. Well, how about this.
I could wear gay Pride T shirts during Gay Pride Month.
But gay Pride T shirts don't ostracize. They don't say
(17:14):
there's something inherently wrong in what you do. And there's
the difference. And they brought that up over and over again.
For example, the first big one where the court actually
let political speech, where is kids that were wearing shirts
somehow depicting that the war in Vietnam is wrong, all right, and.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
The warrant Court said, you can do that.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
The difference is that saying that the war in Vietnam
is wrong doesn't ostracize anybody. It's not a question of
bullying people where the gender issue, where race issue is concerned,
that does.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
And there's the difference. And the court delineated that.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
And as far as Alito and of course Clarence Thomas,
all you have to do is say First Amendment religious right.
I can say whatever the hell I want and the
school doesn't have a right to stop me from doing that.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
Well, they do.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
You don't have the same rights in school as you
do outside. You wear a T shirt on on the street,
you can say whatever the hell you want. You can't
do that in school, and rightly so, by the way,
I completely agree with the court on that one. Okay,
now we're gonna finish it up with Moe Kelly. Memorial
Day weekend come and gone, and of course that's the
biggest weekend.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
We'll talk to him and Karate Kids Legends is coming out.
Oh it's just karate Kid. Oh thanks, you know, I
you know, what do I know from Karate Kid?
Speaker 2 (18:43):
You know? All I remember is watching a bunch of
Armenian women who had very heavy mustaches going wax on,
wax off.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
That's all I remember. Okay, didn't you do jiu jitsu?
Well that's offensive. That is offensive. I am offended by that.
It's hey, religious liberties bub uh not get uh.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
You know what, I'll make that decision on this show.
Armenian women find Jews, no fat people, No, this is
me and you and will off the table.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
The Memorial Day weekend is gone, done, and that's usually
the most important, certainly weekend of the year.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
A lot of anticipation. How did it go for movies?
Speaker 5 (19:36):
It was gangbusters between Leelo and Stitch and Mission Impossible
the Final Reckoning. It did more than a half a
billion dollars, which was a shot in the arm for
movie theaters coast to coast.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
It was that anticipated or that was just hope that
it was going to be that strong.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
It was both. It was anticipated and it was hoped.
Speaker 5 (19:59):
It was needed for the theaters, but those were strong
testing movies. There was a lot of buzz for both
of them, and they delivered, which means that they'll probably
be in theaters for at least the next five or
six weeks, which bodes well for the rest of the
summer season.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
Hey, since both are effectively dynasty you know, franchises, and
particularly Mission Impossible, you would think they'd be desperate to
do Mission Impossible nineteen, the sort of final, almost final reckoning.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
Is there any talk of that?
Speaker 5 (20:36):
Not really, if only because they've amped up the stunts
and the expectations in each movie coming to this one,
which was pretty much a culmination and a world saving
event for Tom Cruise's character Ethan Hunt. Anything they do
would probably seem ridiculous that they would have to go
to outer space, which is not impossible because Tom Cruise
has talked about wanting to film in outer space and
(20:57):
do stunts at outer space. But as far as the
story arc of the Mission Impossible franchise, if you saw
this most recent one and I did it, ties together
all previous seven movies, makes all of them matter and
relevant in the telling of the eighth story.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
All right, real quickly, Karate Kid Karate Kids comes out.
I had no idea that that was still around because
it was terrible the first time out, the second time out,
the third time out.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
I don't even know how many of those are out there.
Your thoughts on this one?
Speaker 5 (21:28):
Well, the new movie is Karate Kidd Legends, and what
it has going forward is Robert Mark Kahman, who's the
writer of the Karate Kid one, two, and three. He's
the writer of the twenty ten remake with Jackie Chan
and Jaden Smith, and he's also a writer of the
Cobra Kai Netflix series, which have all been well received.
In the Cobra Kai Netflix series is what brought this
rejuvenation of the franchise and led to this movie, Karate
(21:50):
Kid Legends. But unfortunately, even though they had Robert Mark
Kaman as the writer for this new movie which comes
out and It stars Ralph Machil, Jackie Chan, and relative
newcomer Ben Wang.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
I've seen the movie. It's god awful.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
Oh I'm glad to hear that. Does that matter?
Speaker 3 (22:07):
It does matter?
Speaker 5 (22:08):
If anything, it gave up all the positive momentum they
had from the Cobra Kai series. It as far as
reintroducing the franchise to a new generation.
Speaker 3 (22:18):
And I think it's going to kill the franchise.
Speaker 5 (22:21):
In other words, Cobra Kai the television series is over
and done with, and this was supposed to be the
vehicle to launch the next generation of Karate Kid movies.
And if what I saw is any indication, there's no
way in hell that they're going to make other movies
after this.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
Did you happen to see the Mission Impossible movie? By
an chance?
Speaker 3 (22:39):
Yes? I did?
Speaker 1 (22:40):
What'd you think?
Speaker 3 (22:42):
I thought it was great? Fam?
Speaker 1 (22:44):
All right, just.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
Wanted to ask your opinion. That's your wheelhouse and I
actually rely on that. Strangely enough, Moe, we'll catch you
tonight seven o'clock as we always do Monday through Friday.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
You have a good one.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
Talk to my friend.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
All right, all right, coming up, We're done, by the way,
with the show. Coming up, Gary and Shannon. And in
just a few minutes, I'm gonna start taking phone calls
off the air. Eight seven seven five to zero eleven
fifty is the number to call. Eight seven seven five
two zero eleven fifty. And as I tell you every week,
no commercials, no breaks, no weather, no traffic, and no patience.
(23:20):
And with that, I go through the phone calls pretty quickly,
and you can listen to KFI right there on the.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
Phone while you are waiting.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
All right back again tomorrow on a Friday wake up
call from five to six with Amy and Will, Neil
and I are here from six to just about now,
and of course Cono and never leave and they just
sleep at the studio.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
This is KFI.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
Oh and don't forget Gary and Shannon up next, KFI
AM six forty. You've been listening to the Bill Handle
Show Catch My Show Monday through Friday six am to
nine am, and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from KFI AM
six forty. Say I am six forty.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
It is a Thursday morning, May twenty nine, and I've
been talking about this for a little while, but I'm
really looking forward to this coming up on Saturday, June seventh.
I'm inviting you some of you to join me and
the Morning crew at the Anaheim White House. We're going
to have a dinner Saturday night where we've never done
(00:30):
it with all of the Morning crew and five people
are going to be invited, plus their guests, and it's
going to be one fun evening. And so here is
how you get an invite, is that you go to
the iHeart app during the course of the show and
(00:51):
you'll click onto the Bill Handle show and at the
right hand corner there's the upper right hand corner, there's
a microphone.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
You click on that and.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
You have fifteen twenty seconds to tell us why you
should be invited or why you want to be invited,
and if you think it's gonna work, Oh, I love
your show. I've been listening forever. That doesn't fly, Nobody
cares about that. And tomorrow we're gonna start playing some
of the good ones, and here's the way it works.
Will pick some of the better ones, throw them into
(01:22):
a hat and pull out five, and you'll get the invite.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
I guarantee you it's it's gonna be a fun night.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Not only are we gonna have fun, but the food
at the Anaheim white House is insane. It's it's well,
it's it's probably my favorite restaurant on the planet, not
just because of Katerina's Club and our involvement in it.
The food is that good. So you know, I'd love
to have you there, And well, I don't know how
much I'd love to have you there. But you'll meet everybody,
(01:49):
and you'll we'll be more than happy to bad mouth
everybody else. It's fun and you'll sort of get inside
baseball of how things work. You know, Will as ugly
as I say, well, you get to figure it out.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Oh, Will's not listening to it. He's new, so I
can do that to him.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Okay, it's time for Joel lars Guard and how to Money.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Joel.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Good Morning, every Sunday twelve to two pm right here
on K five Morning Morning. Bill. Okay, by the way,
very excited about coming to the Anaheim white House. There
is no chance you're going to be invited. I just
want to let you know that I figured, I figured,
oh yeah, please credit card points. Now, I happen to
be a big fan of credit card points. I like
(02:33):
points towards travel. And the problem is, if I, let's say,
have fifty thousand points tomorrow morning, I can wake up
and have forty thousand points.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
Can they do that?
Speaker 3 (02:44):
Yes they can, Yes they can, and they are doing that.
Speaker 4 (02:48):
This is this is a problem that's like escalating too.
So I too, am a fan of credit card points
for people who follow what I call the golden rules
of plastic, Like if you're using your credit card appropriately,
you're not buying more stuff than you otherwise would, and
you're paying your balance off on time and in full
every single month. Credit card points, cash back or travel
points can, like you know, can help make it a
(03:11):
worthwhile endeavor to use credit cards for the purchases you're
already making. But it's really important to know a couple things. One,
you got to use your credit card properly to make
credit card points worth it. If you don't, sorry, the
interest rate you're paying is far than far more exceeding
the value you're getting. And then on top of that,
pay attention to the points you have and use them
quickly after getting them. Because I hear some people bill
(03:33):
brag about I've got four hundred thousand points racked up
from this one credit card company. How awesome am I?
I can't wait to use these one day in the future. Well,
the problem is, yes, credit card issuers are devaluing those
points over time. City just announce Hey, in August, we're
going to be value our points by twenty five percent.
We're just gonna give a swift haircut to everybody who
has built up City points. And so yeah, the longer
(03:55):
you hold on to them, the less valuable they're going
to become.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Who I One of the things about credit cards point well,
first of all, if the people who own businesses are
very lucky because you can run virtually your entire business
on a credit card and all of a sudden, those
points start racking up very quickly, and.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
So that's what that's luck, or sort of.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
The other one is paying them off, so you get
all I pay mine off every month, I don't go
too crazy, which means I get the benefit and there's
no downside because effectively someone is subsidizing my points. The
other thing for me, and it doesn't make any sense financially,
is I use them for air travel, even though I
(04:40):
can do better with money cards cash back cards.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
If you look at the actual figures, you.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Know, money goes back into your account or in your pocket,
and you spend it and it sort of disappears. You know,
it's sort of gone because you have money coming in
all the time, because you know.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
We get paid with points for travel.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Man, and you book a flight and all of a
sudden it costs you half as much or nothing. Uh,
that to me is a real joy. I tend to Yeah,
I upgrade. I will buy coach and then I'll upgrade
into business or I'll buy a business plus and upgrade
into uh business class. Uh, and man, I love it
(05:21):
as uh. You know people, I'm first at the front
of the airplane and then people go past me and
I look at them and I go thumbs up as
they're going to the back of the plane.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
There's nothing I love you for that.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Oh yeah, absolutely, Or I'll say, oh the food is great.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Oh no, you're in coach.
Speaker 4 (05:40):
Well you mentioned you mentioned two things there that are
important to recognize, and yeah, if you if you own
a run a business, even if it's like this part
time side hustle, like oh, I have an Etsy store
that I occasionally sell stuff at. You you can qualify
for a business credit card. You don't have to have
like employees or anything like that to get a business
credit card. And some of those business credit cards offer
(06:02):
even better returns. They have better sign up bonuses. So
it's important to note that, yeah, you might qualify for
a business card, even if you maybe thought you didn't
because you're like, I don't know, my business feels like
it's just this kind of side hustle. That doesn't mean
that you can't qualify for one. And yeah, I think
the other thing too. Travel points have become really common.
People are excited about it, just like you. And it
(06:24):
started with like this guy, the points guy, who I've
actually talked to on the podcast before, and he started
running everything through his business and he was shocked at
the amount of miles that he was racking up, and
then he was like, how can I optimize these and
use them to their fullest extent? So in some cases,
if you're really smart about how you use those points,
they can far exceed the value of a straight up
(06:45):
two percent cash back card. You just have to play
the game right. And again, this is one of those
things where you like, you got to have your ducks
in a row. You can do really well with some
of these travel cards as long as you're a using them,
you know, more quickly than you otherwise would if you
had yours. If you're like I might hold on to
some of these. If you use some more quickly, they
don't get the valued as quickly, right, and you're able
to actually get the full value that you hoped for.
(07:07):
And then if you're optimizing in when you're booking and
you're flexible, you can you can get like much better
value actually than you would with just a traditional cash
back card. But you gotta be willing to kind of
gain the system and jump through the hoops. If not,
a cash back card's better for a lot of people.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
I'm assuming there has to be one or two websites
out there that help you do exactly that.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
Oh yeah, oh yeah, you know.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
How to game the credit card? You know, system dot
com or whatever the hell it is. Just do a
Google search and throw in those those words.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
All right, the.
Speaker 4 (07:38):
Points guy started it. But then there's many other apps
and stuff like that have launched and you plug in
some of your information and they'll try to help you
optimize the redemption of those rewards.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Yeah, always good stuff, all right.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Connecting tariffs, I mean tariffs, we don't even know how
far they're going to go, but already we're starting to
see the used car market based on what's going on tariff.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Why is explain that? Yes?
Speaker 4 (08:00):
So, I mean back during COVID, everybody remembers the supply
shock of new cars being built, which impacted the used
car market, and people were like, who are trying to
buy a car? We're like, wait a second, it's getting
far more expensive to buy the car I want. And
then people who owned a used car were like, wait
a second, this thing's going up in value. Those things
cars are typically depreciating assets, and so to see your
(08:23):
car actually go up in value when they're supposed to
go down, it's.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
Kind of shocking.
Speaker 4 (08:27):
And then we saw over the past few years things
start to level out and correct themselves and go back
to quote unquote normal. Well, normal is being upended again
by tariffs, and so because of tariff the impact of
tariffs on new cars, were seeing again a very similar
pattern of used cars starting to go up in value
(08:49):
and go up in price. So if you're in the
market for a used car, just know the supply is
dwindling and they're getting more expensive right now.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Yeah, and I'm assuming they're going to be far more
expensive to repair, because you say you have a Japanese car,
I have a German car, which means the parts of
the German car comes come in from Germany and it's
X dollars and it's going to be that more expensive
assuming that the well if the fifty percent European tariff
kicks in, oh Man, I'm going to be paying some
(09:19):
dollars for repairs.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (09:21):
Well, and that brings up the recent court ruling right
about the president's tariff policies, and so like there's there's
been obviously this just back and forth and like, hey,
no fifty percent tariffs here, one hundred and forty five
percent tariffs here, and then a pretty quick rollback on
many of those tariffs to much lower levels. Well, this
(09:42):
recent Federal Trade Court ruling basically said that hey, this
tariff policy is instituted by the president, it's it's not legal,
and so he's going to have to go back to
the drawing board when it comes to imposing tariffs if
he wants to do that or Congress is actually going.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
To have to step in and do that.
Speaker 4 (09:59):
But then there are there are some tariffs that will remain. Specifically,
it looks like on cars and which again.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Yeah, I'm sorry interrupt, but I did that topic at
seven am this morning, talking specifically about that, and so
if you want to listen to it on demand, and
Joel explained it much more succinctly and makes a lot
more sense about it than I do. And as far
as new terrorists are concerned, you know they change so often.
Let me see, it's eight thirty on a Thursday, Okay,
(10:30):
we'll see what happens by three o'clock this afternoon if
terrorift's going to change or not. Now, one quick one,
let's finish this up. And that is loyalty to a
specific airline can end up costing you, although it's easier
not to have loyalty to a specific airline today with
the alliances.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
A moment or two about that.
Speaker 4 (10:49):
Joel, Yeah, So, I mean what kicked off this topic
in my mind was just to see that this week yesterday,
Actually Southwest Man, they're much storied and loved policy of
free check bags win away, and on top of that,
Southwest is changing the way they do.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
Seating and fares.
Speaker 4 (11:10):
And then in addition, Southwest, just to punish their customers
even more, has said, actually flight credits are going to
expire within six months now instead of never expiring like
they used to. And so this just just makes me
think that that consumers out there. I get why consumers
might have been loyal to Southwest, and I get why
some business travels travelers are incredibly loyal to a particular
(11:32):
airline because the more loyal you are, if you're a
frequent traveler, you gain status and the perks can be significant.
But for most every day normal folks who travel, you
know a few times a year, loyalty is going to
hurt you because you're going to pay more. And so
what you should be doing, if you're just a regular
Joe who travels every once in a while is you
should be going to a site like Google Flights, and
(11:52):
you should be plugging in the itinerary, and then you
should be you should be shopping around with different airlines.
Maybe it's Southwest offering the best deal today, maybe it's
Delta tomorrow. Maybe it's United next week, and so I
just want people to be less loyal because the perks
aren't as good if you are loyal and you're just
the biggest thing you should be caring about is how
much you're paying for the fare that you're looking to buy.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Yeah, a quick prognostication, because this is your wheelhouse. Clearly,
Southwest made this decision about paying for baggage and boarding
and just charging for you know, the junk fies like
everybody else. Obviously they weigh the economics of it, do you,
And they're going to lose customers. I mean, there's no
question loyalty is going to disappear. Do you think their
(12:34):
decision is. Are they're going to be hurt more or
do you think they're going to win on this one.
Speaker 4 (12:39):
I think they're going to be hurt more. I think
it's what made them stand out. They had a lot
of loyalty. They were consistently rated one of the top airlines.
And I just think people are going to be less
enthusiastic about jumping on a Southwest flight because if they
don't stand out in any way, any meaningful way these.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
Days right now, that makes sense. It certainly makes to me.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
All right, Joel Sunday twelve to two pm right here
on KFI How to Money Joel and the How to
Money podcast three times a week.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
God, you work your ass off. Okay, we'll catch you
this weekend and next week. I have a good one.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
Thanks Bill.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
And some of the stories. Actually one huge story we're
looking at. Supreme Court has or Court Appeals has shut
down the majority of tariffs that President Trump invoked, saying
only Congress has the right to invoke those major tariffs.
There are some and it's pretty wonky, but for the
(13:38):
most part, the big tariffs, the appeals Court said, uh ah,
it's were overreaching to the president. You don't have that
kind of authority. And of course the appeal is going
to happen instantly, and they already have another. This is
Supreme Court case. And this came down on Tuesday and
a middle school student said that he had a free
(13:59):
speech right to wear a T shirt saying there are
only two genders. Now this gets interesting because right after
President Trump said there are only two genders at the
federal government is going to accept, he shows up in
school and has this T shirt says there are only
two genders, and the Supreme Court said, and the argument was,
(14:22):
this is First Amendment.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
It's religious freedom. It's actually First Amendment.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
And that's what the religious right wing fundamentalist group lawyers
have argued. It's basically religious freedom and for the most part,
free speech. They sort of mix the two up. And
of course what the court said, the appeals Court said,
you can't do that. You can't do that because what
(14:48):
it does the stigmatize students that are not one gender
or the other. And it got kind of interesting, by
the way, the only two justices who of course agreed
with the students was Alito and Clarence Thomas, because everything
for them is religious freedom.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
I mean, it doesn't matter what you do.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
If Salem, Massachusetts, were to try computative witches and hang
them or drown them under religious freedom, they go, that's fine,
because it's religious freedom.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
Now, this had to do with ostracizing.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
Students who were other than one or the other gender,
and the school said, we have the right to say
no because we have students or we have the possibility
of students specifically being stigmatized and being bullied.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
It's much like the same the school.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Saying you can't wear a T shirt that says fat
people are ugly, or something derogatory about fat people or
short people because it stigmatizes people, because it's.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
A form of bullying.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
And the argument that the court heard from this student
and the law firm represents student, Hey, I have a
First Amendment right.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
And Alito in his descent said, hey.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
The school can't say no just because they disagree with
the student's political viewpoint.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
And the court said, there's nothing done with political viewpoint.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
It has to do with singling out people who are
going to be bullied and are going to be ostracized.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
That's what it's about.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
And the court said, absolutely, the school has the ability
to do that if they believe, by the way, I
don't have to prove it.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
They just have to have a belief.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
Probably a reasonable belief, that someone is going to feel
ostracized and somehow singled out, which is the truth. You know,
wearing a T shirt. You know, you go to hell
if you don't believe in Jesus. You can't do that
because there are Muslim kids, there are kids that aren't there.
You cannot say that. And you can't argue, oh, I
(16:54):
have a religious freedom to say that. I have a
First Amendment right to say that you don't. And the
courts have been pretty fanatic about that. And so you
wear all the T shirts you want. Well, how about this.
I could wear gay Pride T shirts during Gay Pride Month.
But gay Pride T shirts don't ostracize. They don't say
(17:14):
there's something inherently wrong in what you do. And there's
the difference. And they brought that up over and over again.
For example, the first big one where the court actually
let political speech, where is kids that were wearing shirts
somehow depicting that the war in Vietnam is wrong, all right, and.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
The warrant Court said, you can do that.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
The difference is that saying that the war in Vietnam
is wrong doesn't ostracize anybody. It's not a question of
bullying people where the gender issue, where race issue is concerned,
that does.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
And there's the difference. And the court delineated that.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
And as far as Alito and of course Clarence Thomas,
all you have to do is say First Amendment religious right.
I can say whatever the hell I want and the
school doesn't have a right to stop me from doing that.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
Well, they do.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
You don't have the same rights in school as you
do outside. You wear a T shirt on on the street,
you can say whatever the hell you want. You can't
do that in school, and rightly so, by the way,
I completely agree with the court on that one. Okay,
now we're gonna finish it up with Moe Kelly. Memorial
Day weekend come and gone, and of course that's the
biggest weekend.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
We'll talk to him and Karate Kids Legends is coming out.
Oh it's just karate Kid. Oh thanks, you know, I
you know, what do I know from Karate Kid?
Speaker 2 (18:43):
You know? All I remember is watching a bunch of
Armenian women who had very heavy mustaches going wax on,
wax off.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
That's all I remember. Okay, didn't you do jiu jitsu?
Well that's offensive. That is offensive. I am offended by that.
It's hey, religious liberties bub uh not get uh.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
You know what, I'll make that decision on this show.
Armenian women find Jews, no fat people, No, this is
me and you and will off the table.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
The Memorial Day weekend is gone, done, and that's usually
the most important, certainly weekend of the year.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
A lot of anticipation. How did it go for movies?
Speaker 5 (19:36):
It was gangbusters between Leelo and Stitch and Mission Impossible
the Final Reckoning. It did more than a half a
billion dollars, which was a shot in the arm for
movie theaters coast to coast.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
It was that anticipated or that was just hope that
it was going to be that strong.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
It was both. It was anticipated and it was hoped.
Speaker 5 (19:59):
It was needed for the theaters, but those were strong
testing movies. There was a lot of buzz for both
of them, and they delivered, which means that they'll probably
be in theaters for at least the next five or
six weeks, which bodes well for the rest of the
summer season.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
Hey, since both are effectively dynasty you know, franchises, and
particularly Mission Impossible, you would think they'd be desperate to
do Mission Impossible nineteen, the sort of final, almost final reckoning.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
Is there any talk of that?
Speaker 5 (20:36):
Not really, if only because they've amped up the stunts
and the expectations in each movie coming to this one,
which was pretty much a culmination and a world saving
event for Tom Cruise's character Ethan Hunt. Anything they do
would probably seem ridiculous that they would have to go
to outer space, which is not impossible because Tom Cruise
has talked about wanting to film in outer space and
(20:57):
do stunts at outer space. But as far as the
story arc of the Mission Impossible franchise, if you saw
this most recent one and I did it, ties together
all previous seven movies, makes all of them matter and
relevant in the telling of the eighth story.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
All right, real quickly, Karate Kid Karate Kids comes out.
I had no idea that that was still around because
it was terrible the first time out, the second time out,
the third time out.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
I don't even know how many of those are out there.
Your thoughts on this one?
Speaker 5 (21:28):
Well, the new movie is Karate Kidd Legends, and what
it has going forward is Robert Mark Kahman, who's the
writer of the Karate Kid one, two, and three. He's
the writer of the twenty ten remake with Jackie Chan
and Jaden Smith, and he's also a writer of the
Cobra Kai Netflix series, which have all been well received.
In the Cobra Kai Netflix series is what brought this
rejuvenation of the franchise and led to this movie, Karate
(21:50):
Kid Legends. But unfortunately, even though they had Robert Mark
Kaman as the writer for this new movie which comes
out and It stars Ralph Machil, Jackie Chan, and relative
newcomer Ben Wang.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
I've seen the movie. It's god awful.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
Oh I'm glad to hear that. Does that matter?
Speaker 3 (22:07):
It does matter?
Speaker 5 (22:08):
If anything, it gave up all the positive momentum they
had from the Cobra Kai series. It as far as
reintroducing the franchise to a new generation.
Speaker 3 (22:18):
And I think it's going to kill the franchise.
Speaker 5 (22:21):
In other words, Cobra Kai the television series is over
and done with, and this was supposed to be the
vehicle to launch the next generation of Karate Kid movies.
And if what I saw is any indication, there's no
way in hell that they're going to make other movies
after this.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
Did you happen to see the Mission Impossible movie? By
an chance?
Speaker 3 (22:39):
Yes? I did?
Speaker 1 (22:40):
What'd you think?
Speaker 3 (22:42):
I thought it was great? Fam?
Speaker 1 (22:44):
All right, just.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
Wanted to ask your opinion. That's your wheelhouse and I
actually rely on that. Strangely enough, Moe, we'll catch you
tonight seven o'clock as we always do Monday through Friday.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
You have a good one.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
Talk to my friend.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
All right, all right, coming up, We're done, by the way,
with the show. Coming up, Gary and Shannon. And in
just a few minutes, I'm gonna start taking phone calls
off the air. Eight seven seven five to zero eleven
fifty is the number to call. Eight seven seven five
two zero eleven fifty. And as I tell you every week,
no commercials, no breaks, no weather, no traffic, and no patience.
(23:20):
And with that, I go through the phone calls pretty quickly,
and you can listen to KFI right there on the.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
Phone while you are waiting.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
All right back again tomorrow on a Friday wake up
call from five to six with Amy and Will, Neil
and I are here from six to just about now,
and of course Cono and never leave and they just
sleep at the studio.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
This is KFI.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
Oh and don't forget Gary and Shannon up next, KFI
AM six forty. You've been listening to the Bill Handle
Show Catch My Show Monday through Friday six am to
nine am, and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
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