Rounding Up and Rounding Down

Today on the Jimmy Barrett Show:

• Rounding up and rounding down
• Local elections

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
What we need is more common sense breaking down the
world's nonsense about how Americans common sense.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Will see us through With the common sense of Houston,
I'm just pro common sense for Houston from Houston. This
is the Jimmy Barrett Show, brought to you by viewind
dot Com.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
Now here's Jimmy Barrett.

Speaker 3 (00:32):
All right.

Speaker 4 (00:32):
The rounding up and the rounding down thing has started.
It had it started. McDonald's is doing it now. So
we're getting sporadic reports coming in of different places that
are rounding up in rounding down. You know what, I
haven't gotten into the habit of yet. I really haven't
gotten into the habit of taking a really close, good

(00:55):
look at my receipts. I need to start doing that
so I can see who else is rounding up and
rounding down. And I think Kroger was one of those
places where they said they were going to do it.
I've been to card I just keep forgetting to take
a look at my receipt and to see if that's
what's going on. I don't I haven't figured out whether

(01:16):
I'm against completely against rounding up and rounding down. I
think I mentioned this before. I'm sure I did that
the big problem I have with rounding up and rounding
down is is if I have exact change, I should
be able to use it to avoid rounding up rounding
down number one and number two. I also don't think

(01:37):
that if you put it on your debit card or
a credit card or some other electronic means, that you
should necessarily have to round up a round down. Now
retailers to say, well, that's not fair. It's not fair.
We should we need to treat people who pay cash
the same as we treat people who use a credit
card or a debit card. What are you talking about?
You don't do that now. A lot of this this

(02:00):
is will charge you more for using a debit card
or a credit card. I just had a painting company
didn't work at my house, and it was one price.
If I was paying cash, so to speak, or writing
a check, it was a different price, a higher price,
not a hugely higher price, but a higher price several
hundred dollars more if I was using a credit card,

(02:21):
because they're trying to cover the cost of me using
the credit card. So we don't already treat people differently
depending on whether they're using cash or whether they're using
credit I think, and I hate to say this, but
I think it's basic human nature to try to figure
out how you can use a system to your advantage.

(02:45):
So I'll be very interesting, very interesting to me to
see how many people get participate in the round up
rounddown thing, and how this whole thing works out, and
whether or not we have, you know, people who are
more inclined to round you up than they are to
round you down. So I'm going to be watching my
receipts carefully. Please do the same for me, and let
me know if you see anything unusual going on. But
I asked that question today on our morning show on KTRH.

(03:07):
How do you feel about this rounding up, rounding down thing?
Now that McDonald's has decided to join in, and more
and more are starting to pick this up and go
with this rounding up, rounding down thing.

Speaker 5 (03:17):
David and Oakridge rounding to the nearest Nickel is going
to do nothing to change that confused the look you
get when your bill is nine to twenty and you
give them a ten dollars bill and twenty cents.

Speaker 6 (03:29):
Dave on Lake Condo, I don't mind if they round
down on it, because I got.

Speaker 3 (03:33):
Enough penny to choke a horse man.

Speaker 7 (03:35):
I think most people would accept the third penny being
rounded up, but that's not.

Speaker 3 (03:41):
How it works.

Speaker 7 (03:42):
The third penny should have an even chance of being
rounded up or down. There are rules and science about rounding.

Speaker 4 (03:50):
Yeah, well that's because we're used. We're not used to
rounding to the nickel, which is what we're doing in
this case, right, we're rounding to the nickel. We're not
We're already we're rounding to an odd number. Instead of
rounding to an even number, like rounding up to the
nearest dollar or down to the nearest dollar, we're just

(04:11):
rounding to a nickel. So it involves involves less money
whether you're rounding up or rounding down. I mean most
quite honestly. I mean if you're rounding, if you're rounding
up and it's going to cost you two more cents,
is that going to stop you from buying something?

Speaker 3 (04:24):
Not?

Speaker 4 (04:24):
Probably not, But it will be interesting to see if
we can get the figures on it. How, if at all,
this kind of impacts a business and their revenue, Whether
or not they figure out a way to make more
revenue by doing it this way, my money is on
them probably doing that. They will figure out a way
to make more money by by this rounding method versus

(04:47):
you know, having it cost them money. Somehow, I have
the stinking suspicion as consumers, this will cost us more money.
I think that's probably how that's going to end up working.
What else did I want to report to you today?
Let's oh, foreclosures. Foreclosures are up, especially here in Texas.

(05:07):
Here is the report from MSN.

Speaker 8 (05:09):
Foreclosures jumped seventeen percent this year as American home owners
struggle with mounting financial pressure. More than one hundred one
thousand properties entered foreclosure during the third quarter of.

Speaker 1 (05:21):
Twenty twenty five.

Speaker 8 (05:23):
ATOM, a real estate data company, says seventy two thousand
homes started the foreclosure process last quarter alone, banks took
back thirty three percent more homes compared to last year.
The trend reflects broader money troubles as Americans deal with
years of rising prices and fewer job openings. Housing costs
remained painfully high, with mortgage rates above six percent and

(05:47):
typical home prices near four hundred eleven thousand dollars.

Speaker 4 (05:52):
All right, let's get more specific about that. Let's get
into Texas, because Texas is experience seeing a significant increase
in foreclosures. In fact, we are leading the entire country
in foreclosure starts. The surge driven by combination of economic factors,
we're told, including persistent inflation.

Speaker 3 (06:13):
I don't think.

Speaker 4 (06:14):
I don't think it's the inflation we're getting now. I
think it's the inflation that we've gotten during the Biden years.
Because inflation, it doesn't the prices don't go down just
because the inflation has stopped. They stay high. So we're
never going to get rid of that huge inflation we
had during the four years of the Biden administration. The
surge driven by combination of persistent inflation, higher interest rates.

(06:39):
Although home mortgages have gone down, there are people who
financed at higher rates, and the depletion of pandemic era
financial support like the four barance programs and savings. You know,
this is what artificial intelligence thinks. The problem is Houston
accounts for a large portion of this activity. It's in

(06:59):
both residential and commercial properties. Rising insurance costs, Yeah, that's
part of it. End of pandemic error support, like what
We're going to keep providing people with that additional support
so they can, you know, stay in their homes, you know,

(07:19):
if it was that vauld to begin with. To me,
the only thing that should have a real big impact
on foreclosures would be job loss, right if we were
having massive job losses, which we aren't. So either we
had a lot of people who bought more house than
they really could afford to buy, or.

Speaker 2 (07:40):
What.

Speaker 3 (07:41):
I'm not sure why, especially here in Texas.

Speaker 4 (07:44):
I mean, the Houston area continues to grow, you know,
real estate's not doing as well as it was doing.
Maybe there are people who can't sell their homes and
they're being foreclosed on because they haven't been able to
sell their homes. But I've kind of mystified is to
why there's such a big difference. All right, quick a
little break back with Morning Moment Jimmy Barrett show here
an AM nine to fifty kight PRC. But today is

(08:25):
election day, not that Yeah, not that there's anything really
exciting for the most part for most of us to
vote on. I think, other than the seventeen constitutional amendments,
the only thing that I had on my ballot I
did early voting.

Speaker 3 (08:41):
I did.

Speaker 4 (08:42):
When did I vote? We voted on Friday. Yeah, we
voted on Friday, and we had the seventeen constitutional amendments
to vote on, and I think there's a school board election.
I'll be honest, I did really. I don't have any
kids that go to Kline Oak to go to the
schools that we're in, and so I wasn't overly concerned about,

(09:07):
you know, the school board thing, although I honestly I
should have done more research on that to figure out
who to vote for. But there's like one school board
seat I think that was up, and then he had
the constitutional amendments. I had Mark Jones on our show
this morning on ktr H. Mark Jones is a professor
Rice University. I suspect that he's probably liberal like everybody

(09:30):
else said Bryce, but you know, he still manages to
play pretty much down in the middle. When we talked
to him, we talked him about some of the more
interesting constitutional amendments that are on the ballot. So, for
those of you who have not yet voted and are
still considering going out to vote today, because the polls
will be open for several more hours, let's go ahead

(09:52):
and run this for you so you at least you
have an idea of what of those constitutional amendments you
might deem to be important enough to actually show up
to vote. I don't know how important these constitutional amendments
are to your average textan, but there are some fairly
important things in here, aren't there.

Speaker 9 (10:10):
Definitely? I meant one that probably is the most interesting,
the homeowner is for those under the age of sixty five,
there's a homestead exemption increase from one hundred thousand two
one hundred and forty thousand. That's Proposition thirteen. There is
a host of other propositions out there. One would increase
money for water funding, another would increase funding for Texas

(10:33):
State Technical College, and then there's even one there for
a creation of the Dementia Research pre Prevention Research Institute.

Speaker 4 (10:41):
Yeah, and there's a couple there too that I think
are preemptive strikes to try to prevent taxes from ever
being able to tax you in other certain areas that
they aren't taxing you currently. But there's always that concern that,
depending on who's running the state government, somebody might come
and try to slip a new tax in there. So
they're been some things like banning taxes on realized or

(11:03):
unrealized capital gains of an individual, family, estate, or trust,
for example.

Speaker 3 (11:07):
That's Proposition too, right.

Speaker 9 (11:10):
And then there's also a proposition there that would ban
anhritage tax. Now nobody's talking about adopting one, but as
you mentioned, if this gets into the constitution, it becomes
very difficult in the future for anyone to adopt it
because that requires a two thirds vote in the House,
two thirds vote in the Senate, and then a popular
vote in November.

Speaker 4 (11:31):
Yeah, there's one that would prevent the state legislation from
imposing a death tax. So that's another preempt to strike.

Speaker 9 (11:38):
Yeah, that's the inheritance death tax.

Speaker 3 (11:41):
Okay, yeah, all right. Now.

Speaker 4 (11:43):
I think maybe the most important one though, is probably
the crime proposition, and that's one that has gotten sort
of mixed reviews here, denying bail under certain circumstances to
persons accused of certain offenses punishable as a felony. It
seems very loosely warded. Your thoughts on.

Speaker 9 (11:58):
That, well, that was put in there in part because
of concerns about what practices that have been going on
in Harris County where we've seen people who are violent criminals,
they're released on bail and then they go out and
commit other violent crimes while out on bail. This would
allow judges in some cases require judges to deny bail

(12:21):
if the prosecutor case of these people represent either a
threat to themselves or a threat to the broader community,
or represent a threat to jump bail.

Speaker 4 (12:31):
What do you think the voter turnout is likely to be.
It's not looking like this is going to be a
very well attended election.

Speaker 9 (12:38):
I think statewide will probably be somewhere in the low
double digits, so somewhere are like twelve, thirteen, fourteen percent.
There's some other elections statewide that are driving turnout at
a higher level. In places like Austin, there's an attempt
by the City of Austin to increase property taxes by
a pretty substantial margin, and that's getting some turnout. And

(12:58):
then down in San Antonio, the San Antonio Spurs have
a proposition on the ballot that would build a new
arena for them. Those are two ones that are really
driving turnout. And then even here in the Harris County
we have a Congressional District eighteen special election that's turnout
in a small part of the region. And then there's
a big Texas State Senate race up in Tarrant County

(13:21):
that's also driving turnout on.

Speaker 4 (13:22):
The Republican side, okay. And there's a few other things
that are just position statements. For example, Proposition sixteen voters
must be United States citizens, Proposition fifteen parents of the
primary decision makers for their children. They're just basically statements
of where the state is going to stand on these
particular issues.

Speaker 9 (13:41):
Right, those are just symbolic propositions. They don't really change
much in the way of the status quo. It's already
illegal for a non citizen to vote, and parents already
have primary responsibility for raising their children. It's more a
position statement that is pushed forward by Republican law makers
just to signal what their beliefs are. The parents should
have the primary responsibility for raising your children, and the

(14:04):
nonsense things should not be allowed to that.

Speaker 4 (14:06):
Can't remember if I mentioned this yesterday or not, but
I the early voting totals were something like seven percent.
Seven percent of eligible voters voted early, which is not surprising,
I think. As I recall there, Mark Jones was saying
he thought that the ultimate number is going to end
up around eleven, you know, low double digit numbers. As

(14:27):
far as the percentage of people actually turn on to vote.
Which is kind of sad when you think about it,
because it's such a quick process to do. There's just
nothing super sexy. And one thing that they have pretty
much found, especially for conservative voters, if Trump is on
the ballot, we show up, and we show up in
a big way. If Trump is not on the ballot,

(14:52):
or something that Trump is promoting is not on the ballot,
then we don't. So as important as some of these
constitutional amendments are even though you're voting. For example, if
you're a homeowner, you would want to make sure I
would think that Proposition thirteen that Mark Jones mentioned that
the amendment that raises well actually didn't mention this one specifically,

(15:12):
I should mention this one, the amendment that would raise
the school district property tax extentially on homesteads. Yes, he did,
from one hundred and forty thousand, reducing taxable home values
in offering tax release to homeowners. I mean, that's pretty
much a no brainer, right if you own a home
is you want that higher exception, although it honestly doesn't
really help all that much. There's another one in there

(15:35):
that I guess it depends on whether or not you
are personally affected by it. Our listeners are a little
bit on the older side, So I would think that
you would be interested in a resolution, a proposition that
would potentially lower your school taxes if you're elderly or disabled.

(15:59):
Now there's you know, some of these publications that make
recommendations on whether you vote yes or vote no on something.
Some of them have said that they don't think it's
fair that elderly people or disabled people should get a
tax break that other taxpayers don't get, And that's a
matter of point of view. I disagree with that. Of course,
the closer I get to elderly, the more inclined I

(16:21):
am to think that I deserve some tax relief. After all,
I haven't had a child, well, I've never had a
child in a Texas school, and I haven't had a
child in a K through twelve school for many, many years.
So I paid for a lot of years not only
to send my kids to school, but to send other
people's kids to school at some point in time. Because

(16:45):
property taxes is the government's way of holding I mean
they're holding you don't really own your home free and
clear if you owe property taxes, If you have to
pay taxes on your home, then you don't really own
your home because your home could foreclosed on by the
government if you don't pay those taxes. At some point
in time, we should be able to say to elderly people,

(17:07):
especially elderly disabled people, you've done your fair share. Enough
is enough, It's time for somebody else to fund this
stuff now. And if we don't have enough younger people
to fund it, then I guess we're going to have
to spend less money. If we don't have enough younger
people to fund it, then maybe we don't have as
many young people who are going to be using those services.

(17:29):
Well we all know that's not quite true, right, But
I mean there are several resolutions that you will find
that you may feel that way about, and even though
they are symbolic, I think it's important to send a
message that we are not going to allow some things
to be taxed. I mean, there's some things that we're
never going to tax here in Texas. Income I would

(17:50):
think would be one of those things. So to just
make that a part of the state constitution, some of
those things, so that it's very clear, no matter which
party is in power, where the state stands on a
particular show. I think that's a fairly important thing to do.
All right, quick little break back with more in just
a moment, Jimmy Bart Show here on an AM nine
to fifty KPRC.

Speaker 3 (18:28):
All Right, day thirty five today.

Speaker 4 (18:30):
If the government shut down, and assuming that they don't
reopen the government today, and I'm sure they won't because
there's an election going on today, there's some people who
seem to think that there's maybe a possibility that once
this election is over and done with, the Democrats will
go ahead and vote to reopen the government because there's
no nothing. For the beginning that they were hoping that

(18:51):
this government shut down would help secure a couple of
elections that are very very important to them, like the
governor's race in Virginia and the governor's racing New Jersey,
for example, a couple of those things, and that they'll
give up the ghost here once this election day is
over and done with, I don't know. We'll wait and see.
We'll have an interview with Troy Nails a little bit

(19:14):
later in this segment, and we'll see what Troy Nails
thinks about that possibility. But I did see Steve Scalise
on Fox yesterday talking about the government shutdown and saying, hey, listen,
if this continues, things are only going to get worse.
We saw what happened at Bush and Hobby over the weekend.
Better today, much better today and yesterday. Now that we've

(19:37):
got back into the work week, they've got some more
of those lines reopened again. And although we're hearing that
you could have up to an hour weight getting through
TSA at Bush, it's not nothing like the four to
four and a half hour weight we were seeing over
the weekend. But here is Steve Scalis yesterday talking about
how things with this government shutdown could certainly get worse.

Speaker 6 (19:57):
You know, if you go back before the Conciliation bill,
Republicans have been working on a number of really smart,
proven ideas, all focused on lowering healthcare premiums. Of course,
if you look at what the Democrats have done, Obamacare
is the law of the land, and it's all Democrat policy,
and it's been raising premiums. Eighty percent increase in premiums

(20:18):
for families under Obamacare, and that's even after they've masked
it with hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies to
insurance companies. So clearly that's failed. What we want to
do is do things that can actually lower premiums for families.
We had a provision called cost sharing reductions in the
Reconciliation Bill and passed the House.

Speaker 1 (20:38):
It was scored by the.

Speaker 6 (20:39):
CBO to lower premiums by eleven percent on families.

Speaker 1 (20:43):
You would get eleven percent.

Speaker 6 (20:45):
Lower premium in your renewal if you're a family under
our bill. Democrats are the ones who went and fought
it in the Senate. They had it removed in the Senate.
So Democrats have never cared about lowering premiums.

Speaker 1 (20:58):
But those good ideas are still out there.

Speaker 6 (21:00):
PBM reform is something we had passed last year. We
have other ideas too, you know, pulling together health savings accounts,
small businesses, pulling together to lower premiums. Again, every time
we've come together all of our committees of jurisdiction, we've
put ideas on the table that focus on lowering premiums,
and Democrats have never wanted to be a part of

(21:22):
that conversation.

Speaker 1 (21:23):
Unfortunately.

Speaker 10 (21:24):
Yeah, issue of snap payments has become front and center.
You get forty million Americans that are affected by this
that you've got thirteen thousand air traffic controllers that are
going unpaid. You've got major airlines in this country now
trying to figure out how to subsidize air traffic control tsa, workers,
et cetera, you know, putting them because they know that
they need the airports to operate, if you will. I mean,

(21:45):
doesn't this get to a breaking point this week?

Speaker 1 (21:47):
I think it does.

Speaker 6 (21:48):
And look this, this shut down by Democrats have caused
already dramatic pain to real families, and it's going to
get worse. You know, you see the snap benefits. SE's
forty two million people that are going to be going
without food because Democrats are just angry at the election
of Donald Trump. You know, Donald Trump is delivering on
all the things he said he would do. The far

(22:09):
left has gotten even more nutty. You look, they're about
to elect Mondami as the mayor of New York City
and a vowed socialist Marxist. That's where their party is going.
And that's who Chuck Schumer and Akeem Jeffries are trying
to appease.

Speaker 1 (22:23):
They don't care about the American people. They've said they.

Speaker 6 (22:26):
Know they're inflicting suffering on families. Democrats have said that openly,
and they said they don't care. They just want leverage.
They can't say what they want leverage for. That's really
the worst part of this. They're hurting families knowingly, and
Democrats still want to keep this going. I don't think
it's sustainable because the American people have figured it out.

Speaker 1 (22:46):
They're disgusted by it.

Speaker 6 (22:47):
The unions more and more every day, every union in
America is saying, Democrats, end this madness, end the shutdown.

Speaker 4 (22:55):
Yeah, but here's part of the problem. Forty percent of
Americans seem to somehow think it's the Republican's fault because
of the way it's been reported on CNN and MSNBC
in some cases, how it's been reported or not been reported.
So if you think it's Trump's fault or the Republican's fault,
then you know that takes a lot of pressure off

(23:17):
of Democrats. I had the Troy Nails on our morning
show today and Katrich to talk about where we're kind
of at with the whole government shutdown thing. By the
way he was supposed to do it, I guess an
interview on CNN that just didn't end up happening. So
here's that interview with Troy. What's this I hear that
CNN canceled in appearance with you because they didn't want
to find out the truth about the government shutdown.

Speaker 3 (23:38):
Jamie, thanks for having me. Yeah they did. They called.

Speaker 1 (23:40):
They said, who knows.

Speaker 3 (23:41):
About air traffic control?

Speaker 11 (23:42):
Who knows about our aviation industry better than the chairman
of the subcommittee, which is I, And so I said, sure,
I had no problem go talk to Wolf Blifzer a
little bit about ATC air traffic controllers, the shortages we
have and how this shutdown is affecting them.

Speaker 12 (23:58):
And really all the other federal emloyees. In hour before
the interview, they canceled.

Speaker 11 (24:03):
It because I believe they knew that I was going
to go in there and say, hey, listen.

Speaker 12 (24:08):
We've been working bipartisan with with our Democrats with this
ATC modernization, and everybody's coming together to make sure that
we can fly the friendlies guys and everybody can feel safe.

Speaker 3 (24:23):
So we're doing it on the House side.

Speaker 11 (24:24):
But the Democrats, specifically Chuck Schumer, he doesn't care about
air traffic control, he doesn't care about the safety of
our traveling public, and he certainly doesn't care about the
three to four to five hour wait times, right now
you're seeing at Bush and other airports across the country.
Because Chuck Schumer hates Trump so much, the American people
are suffering and he doesn't care.

Speaker 4 (24:45):
I saw the president of the Air Traffic Controllers Association
yesterday talking about the shortage that continues. That what really
exacerbates the problem here is not only that you have
people who are calling out sick because of the fact
that they're not getting paid right now, but you did,
but they are about four hundred air traffic controllers short
of where they were the last time we went through

(25:07):
something like this.

Speaker 11 (25:09):
Yeah, we're Jimmy, we're about twenty five hundred air traffic
controllers short. We're about twenty five hundred short, and we're
trying to address that issue in Congress. You've got one
training facility which is in Oklahoma City.

Speaker 7 (25:23):
But we're doing the best to try.

Speaker 11 (25:24):
To get more young people and others involved in in
that career path.

Speaker 3 (25:29):
But it's tough.

Speaker 11 (25:30):
Why would you want to do it? It's very stressful. Yeah,
we're going to pay you a little bit more. We're
giving them, you know, a bump in their salaries and stuff,
but it's about the quality of life issues.

Speaker 13 (25:40):
They're working six days a week, ten hour days. It's
it's a tough deal.

Speaker 11 (25:44):
But yes, that that that union wrote a letter on
the thirty first and said, hey, listen, we need to
get the government to vote and open up the government
with this clean cr But obviously Chuck Schumer is not listening.
He's not listening.

Speaker 3 (25:58):
Now we'll find out this more and I think the
Senate is going to vote again.

Speaker 11 (26:02):
Possibly the fifteenth time now where you could see the
Democrats voting to keep the government shut down, Republicans are
doing the opposite. We're voting to open up the government,
but the Democrats are shutting down. The most disturbing thing, Jimmy,
is you'll see these stupid polls out there, these polls
that we'll say forty percent of Americans believe the Republicans

(26:22):
are responsible for this shutdown. Where they getting their information
from these forty percent of the American people.

Speaker 4 (26:30):
Well, from the you know, from the left, from watching MSNBC,
from watching CNN, from watching you know, from watching these
news organizations that either will talk about it or are
just running the party line. That's that's where they get that.
They're from the echo chambers where they're getting it. Let
me let me ask you quickly too, before we let
you go here, a congressman, about what you think is

(26:52):
likely to happen with this government shut down. I've heard
a lot of people speculate that today being election day,
once we get past today, the Democrats are just trying
to leverage this for the best results they could get
on election day, and once the election is over and
done with, then they'll go ahead and reopen the government.
Your thoughts on that, well, some.

Speaker 13 (27:11):
Have said that I think it'll be interesting in the
mayoral race in New York City today, the obviously the
Virginia governor race, lieutenant governor, attorney general.

Speaker 1 (27:18):
So we'll see.

Speaker 11 (27:19):
But understand, those are some blue cities and some blue states.
I don't believe the Republicans are going to be are
going to be very dissatisfied with those results this evening,
because I think they'll they'll go to.

Speaker 12 (27:32):
The socialists up there in New York City and.

Speaker 1 (27:34):
Some other nut jobs.

Speaker 11 (27:35):
But I tell you, they just want to blame Donald
Trump for this.

Speaker 3 (27:38):
So what you're going to see is when the election
is lost.

Speaker 11 (27:41):
And the Democrats win, of course they're going to blame
Trump and his policies on this and they're going to
say the country is now sick and tired of Trump
and his policies, and they're going to try to say
that the country is now moving further to the left
and they want Democrats back at chart.

Speaker 1 (27:56):
I believe the.

Speaker 11 (27:56):
Only way the government reopens it's going to require two
or three or four more reasonable Democrats to buck chuck.
They're gonna have to buck chuck and open up the government.

Speaker 1 (28:07):
Congress, the House.

Speaker 3 (28:08):
We will go back up most likely.

Speaker 11 (28:10):
I believe it'll be the middle of the month, probably November,
the week of November seventeenth, because we're gonna have to
vote on another CR because it expires on November twenty first.
That's what we passed to November twenty first. So I
think we'll get back up during a couple of weeks. Unfortunately,
it'll be still two more weeks and we'll pass a
new r. How long that new one will continue, maybe

(28:31):
the end of the year, maybe.

Speaker 3 (28:32):
Going into the new year.

Speaker 11 (28:33):
But I don't believe we get back up there till
the middle of the month unfortunately.

Speaker 3 (28:39):
Wow.

Speaker 4 (28:40):
Okay, so he's not feeling optimistic about the government opening
up before the middle of the month. At the very earliest.
All right, quick little break back with more in a moment.
Jimmy Baird show here on AM nine to fifty KPRC. Right,

(29:10):
today's kind of an important day. The Supreme Court today
began hearing arguments on the Trump tariffs as whether or
not the Trump tariffs the way I understand, whether or
not they whether or not he had the power to
install these tariffs as part of an economic emergency. Can

(29:31):
a case be made that we're in an economic emergency
and that's why he had to put the tariffs in?
You know, as much as I agree with many of
the things, or most of the things that President Trump
is doing, I think that's gonna be a tough fight.
But let's get let's get an opinion here from somebody
who's actually an expert on this. His name is John
Yu who's a former Deputy Attorney General, but in addition

(29:53):
to that, he's also a constitutional law professor. John, you,
what do you make of what the the Supreme Court
is going to be considering here as relates to the
Trump tariffs?

Speaker 14 (30:04):
What happens to your economic plan if the Supreme Court
invalidates your tariffs?

Speaker 15 (30:09):
I think our country will be immeasurably hurt. I think
our economy will go to hell. I think it's the
most important subject discussed by the Supreme Court in one
hundred years.

Speaker 16 (30:21):
This is the first of what's going to be a
series of challenges to presidential power in the Supreme Court term.
I can see this going fifty to fifty. There's two
questions here, is the trade deficit so large and so
pressing that it's a national emergency? You called it, Larry,
it's the International Economic Emergency Powers Act?

Speaker 1 (30:40):
Is this an emergency?

Speaker 16 (30:42):
And then the second question is, if there is an emergency,
can the president use that law to impose what's essentially
attacks on imports. I have the strong suspicion the president
is going to lose on the first question.

Speaker 1 (30:54):
And win on the second question.

Speaker 16 (30:55):
I don't think the trade deficit, which has been with
us since, Hilario, since you've been in the White House
and before since you've been on Fox News. It's been
with us since the Nixon years, and it's the same
size as a percentage of GDP now as it was
twenty years ago. Goes up and down, but it's basically
been flat. Does that sound like an emergency?

Speaker 7 (31:15):
Now?

Speaker 16 (31:15):
The Supreme Course never told us what an emergency is
or is in It's never faced that question. That's why
this could be one of the most important questions in
the history of the Supreme Court. The next thing is,
I think that justices are going to be worried about
what happens if they do say it's an emergency. What
happens and in a progressive administration when they say climate change
is an emergency, and that justifies all kinds of federal

(31:37):
takeovers of the economy.

Speaker 4 (31:39):
And that's a great point. You know, when you think
about these things, it's not just what does it do
right now? What sort of a president does it set?
And yes, if the president can make a case that
we are in such an economic emergency because of the
national debt that he had to instill these tariffs, and

(32:00):
it wouldn't be that hard of an argument for the
left to make, even though we know it's not true
that the climate is in such an emergency state that
they have to institute all sorts of policies in order
to eradicate climate change. So you got to think about
that too. It'll be interesting to see how that works
itself out, all right, And last story for today, because

(32:23):
I have a sneaking suspicion on this one, myself and
any of us who have ever gone online looking for
airline tickets at cheaper prices, or going on to a
website for United Airlines, for example, to get a price
for a flight from Houston to Detroit or Houston to Orlando,

(32:46):
or whatever it is you're looking for, and then you've
looked for it for more than once, you've noticed right
how the price is shifted. There are those of us,
and I caught myself among them that suspect that the
use of cookies has something to do with this, That
the airlines have figured that you really must want to

(33:06):
go to this place because you keep looking at the
price for tickets to this place, and therefore it's going
to be higher in demand for you. Therefore we can
charge you more money for a plane ticket. Now, proving
that is pretty hard to do, other than the fact
that we've all shopped on things like online. I Google,
for example, right googled items that you're interested in buying,

(33:28):
and then you go on Facebook and all of a
sudden you start seeing ads for all these different things
from different companies. That happens all the time, so you
know they're capable of doing it, So why wouldn't they
If what they're doing is trying to maximize revenue, why
wouldn't they do it? Fox twenty six here in town
did a report on this yesterday. Here's that Reportick hey
on a second, Evidently I didn't have the right touch

(33:50):
on that one either. Here is the report from Fox
twenty six.

Speaker 14 (33:56):
When there are those people who swear this is true
and you cannot convince them otherwise, while others insist it's
just an urban myth, the reality probably somewhere in between.

Speaker 3 (34:06):
But here's the issue.

Speaker 14 (34:07):
You know, websites store cookies on our computers when we visit.
Typically we have to give permission first, but these little
packets of information help the site remember who we are
when we visit, so it loads more easily and we
can pick up where we left when we come back.
They can also be used to track browsing behaviors and
analytics and personalized advertising. That's the part that's important for

(34:29):
the suggestion that the more we search for a specific
airfare or a destination, the travel websites and airlines will
see the browsing history as an opportunity to raise prices
because we're invested in going there.

Speaker 1 (34:42):
Travel experts say there are a lot of.

Speaker 14 (34:44):
Factors in fluctuating prices, from problems at specific destinations, changing
fuel prices, big blocks of tickets being sold. It can
all push a ticket price up. But tech experts say
it's true. Yeah, but those cookies are pretty powerful tools too,
distracking you everywhere.

Speaker 17 (35:02):
And when that happens, people know what your interests are,
what are you looking for, what are your intentions to buy?
And if you're buying an airline ticket, the airline will
know this and will will apply dynamic market pricing.

Speaker 1 (35:21):
And it's just a fancy word of the more you
like it, the more I'll stick it to you.

Speaker 17 (35:27):
Okay, the more you like something, the more it's gonna
cost you.

Speaker 4 (35:31):
The more you like it, the more I stick it
to you. Oh you think do you think that is true?

Speaker 3 (35:37):
I think it is. I think it is.

Speaker 4 (35:41):
And you know, my evidence, like everybody else's, is just anecdotal.
Elizabeth was looking for airfare the other day and she
found it. She found it at a price which was
actually fairly reasonable. I said, well, you know, we don't
need to buy that for months, so you don't keep
an eye on it. Maybe we'll go down next time.
She looked at it. Two days later it had doubled,

(36:03):
and I'm thinking, huh, all right, they figured out that
she's interested in this particular flight to this particular city,
and they're trying to see if she's willing to pay
extra for it, thinking that, well, we'll jack it up
this much and if and if she buys it, great,
and if she doesn't buy it, then we can still
come back down and charge her more than what we

(36:23):
initially had up there. It's only I don't know that
for a fact that that's happening, but it feels like
it is. It feels like it is. You know that
with cookies, they can they can pretty much figure everything
that you're shopping for and steer you in whatever direction
they want to. All right, listen, you all have a
great day, you know, vote if you haven't already, please,

(36:44):
I know, nothing really exciting to get out there.

Speaker 3 (36:47):
Vote.

Speaker 4 (36:47):
We'll see tomorrow morning Burton early starting at five am
on news radio seven forty KTRH. We're back here at
four on AM nine fifty KPRC.

Speaker 5 (37:00):
But then would already that the banded by that would