07-17-25 - *FULL SHOW* Denver's struggles; Frozen Zoo; Sanctions fail; Real Estate

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I brought my own tea creamer in today, so I
got tea here and I didn't have to use anybody else's.
And my concern though, now a rod, is that I
bought this creamer that says it's made of like almond milk.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
And coconut milk or something.

Speaker 1 (00:15):
Because if you got dairy, it just simply won't last
very long once you open it. And I only have
a little so it takes me a long time. And
I was just looking at the package and it says
stays fresh seven to ten days after opening, which of
course won't do.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
It would probably take me three or four weeks to
go through this at least. So the question is.

Speaker 1 (00:34):
Like with almond milk or coconut milk, like does it
really go bad? I mean, when you know, when regular
milk goes bad, you know it's got chunks in it
and it's disgusting. But this other stuff, I don't know
what's a guy do. But with almond milk, does that work?

Speaker 2 (00:50):
I mean I think so. If not, then if I
just use it forever, right, yeah, until it smells Yeah,
until it smells bad or makes me vomit during the show.
That's the rule. Yeah, Yeah, all right, the sniff test,
the sniff test.

Speaker 1 (01:07):
So so, folks, you just heard I say, josh iyuess.

Speaker 2 (01:11):
It was a half an hour ago ish.

Speaker 1 (01:13):
You heard Governor Jared Polus on Colorado's Morning News with
Marty and Gina and a lot of topics of conversation.
They're One of the topics of conversation was the bridge
that Governor Polus wants and some places quoted as an
eighteen million dollar cost eighteen and change. Other places call

(01:33):
it twenty nine million. Gina did ask that question, and
the governor said that extra ten ten and a half million,
whatever that number is, is improvement over the subsequent five
years or so.

Speaker 2 (01:46):
Now it's gotten mostly negative press.

Speaker 1 (01:50):
Kyle Clark really seemed to hate it as well, for
what that's worth.

Speaker 2 (01:55):
And so Governor Polus.

Speaker 1 (01:57):
Knew that public opinion is not really going his way
on this, so he has decided, in almost an Elon
Musk kind of way, to ask the people. So he
has posted this thing. He has posted this thing a
survey at COO.

Speaker 2 (02:13):
What is it? What is it?

Speaker 1 (02:14):
A rod Coe one walkway dot com dot com. All right,
and I have posted this on my blog. If you
forget that, if you go to Roskiminsky dot com.

Speaker 2 (02:21):
It's right at the top, and.

Speaker 1 (02:23):
I've got a couple of links to some of the
press coverage. Historic denvers against it for a variety of reasons.
I'm against it just because it seems like, first of all,
it seems a little out of place there.

Speaker 2 (02:36):
It seems a little bit like a bit.

Speaker 1 (02:39):
Of a vanity project for for Jared and I mean,
know whatever, and with all the stuff we've going on
we've got going on in the state, with the with
the budgets and the lower tax revenue and all this stuff,
even though only about eight and a half million of
it is going to come from taxpayer money, and the risk,

(02:59):
at least the eighteen million part the rest would be
privately funded by donors.

Speaker 2 (03:04):
I just I don't know. I don't I don't see it.
I don't see it.

Speaker 1 (03:08):
So look what the governor said, has said. I don't
know if he said it to Marty and Gina, but
what he has definitely said is he would really be
bummed out if this poll came out real close. Can
you imagine if it comes out, you know, fifty and
a half to forty nine and a half or fifty
one forty nine even, and then he goes ahead and
does you know the fifty one whatever, the fifty one

(03:29):
one that's it's not good.

Speaker 2 (03:30):
It's not a good spot.

Speaker 1 (03:31):
For a politician to be. So why don't we help
him out. Let's help gear it out. After all, if
this thing is a go, he's gonna have to go
do a bunch of work to raise money. So why
don't we help the dude out? Go to Roskiminski dot com,
click on the link right near the top there where
you'll see COO one fifty walkway dot com slash feedback.

Speaker 2 (03:49):
But it's linked right there so you don't have to
remember all that, and you.

Speaker 1 (03:53):
Have to scroll through about five pages of probridge propaganda
and then you can go down to the bottom and.

Speaker 2 (03:59):
Answer some questions.

Speaker 1 (04:00):
And there are actually some interesting questions there about how
you would like to celebrate Colorado's one hundred and fiftieth birthday,
which is the same year as America's two hundred and
fiftieth birthday, because Colorado was founded in eighteen seventy six,
And so there are some questions there that I think
Jared would really like the answers to. Right, you want
to do you want to really prioritize America's birthday over
the state. Do you want to prioritize the state's birthday

(04:23):
over the countries? Do you want to celebrate them about equally?
For me, you know, if those are the only choices,
I'd probably say about equally, because it's fun to celebrate
your state, and one hundred and fifty is a big
number of the two. The country is more important, of course,
but I'd like to celebrate at all. But anyway, you
have the opportunity to.

Speaker 2 (04:42):
Go vote on this.

Speaker 1 (04:43):
To go to Rosscimisky dot com, click on the link
at the top, and let's help Jared avoid a very
close poll. I'm going to spend just three minutes on
this next thing. I may come back to it at
another point, but sticking with Colorado and sticking with the
state capital, I've seen a couple of articles now, one
of the Denver Posts, one of the Denver Gazette, and
I'll share the two headlines and then we'll talk about

(05:03):
it for a second. Denver Post headline is Coloraden's say
politics is state's top problem and they feel powerless to
do anything about it. The subtitle of that is politics
and Government lead Cost of living in inflation and housing
affordability in New Pole. And then the headline over at
Denver Gazette is government and politics are top concern for

(05:27):
Coloraden's according to annual survey. So basically same kind of thing.
And I think actually the headline does most of the
heavy lifting here, but I'll just give you a little
bit more about thirty two percent of people who responded
to the annual Pulse poll commissioned by the Colorado Health
Foundation said that government and politics were the biggest challenges

(05:50):
facing the state. Now that's thirty two percent. What's your
guess at how many people? How many people said cost
of living or inflation, which came in second. All right,
so thirty two percent of people said government.

Speaker 2 (06:08):
Politics are the biggest problem.

Speaker 1 (06:10):
What percent of people do you think said cost of
living or inflation? And again that came in second, So
what's your guests what percent? And by the way, what
came in third was housing affordability specifically, So this actually
surprises me a little bit because normally cost of living
inflation very high on people's minds, especially in the last

(06:30):
few years. But actually, as compared to the thirty two
percent who said government and politics are the biggest problem
in Colorado. Only thirteen percent one to three said cost
of living or inflation. That's pretty remarkable, and that is
a very damning indictment of the state of politics and

(06:51):
the state of government here in Colorado. And of course,
Democrats won absolutely everything in the state of Colorado, so
at least on the surface, you would think that this
poll is bad news for Democrats. And actually, if you
think back about a week and a half or two weeks,
I had the chairman of the Colorado Democratic Party in

(07:13):
my studio, Shad Marib is his name, and he was
talking about this new plan. He's got to revitalize the
party and focus on cost of living and do all
these things. And I thought it was rather interesting that
he's coming out with this aggressive plan to change the
direction of the party at least somewhat the focus of

(07:33):
the party, at least somewhat in a state where his
party is already winning so bigly. And maybe what's going
on there, maybe is that he has an inkling that
there is actually unrest among the among the public. And
when there is unrest among the public about politics, they
take it out on the incumbent party, as they should.
But here's my question, for you, And it's really a

(07:55):
rhetorical question. If Colorado's politics and government are perceived by
a plurality as the biggest problem in the state, does
that mean that Republicans are going to start winning swing districts.
It doesn't mean that Republicans can win even one statewide

(08:17):
election in Colorado. After all, there is not one office
holder in the state of Colorado who is elected statewide,
meaning every single person who votes in Colorado gets to
vote on that race, like governor or senator or attorney general.
There is not one statewide elected Republican.

Speaker 2 (08:40):
Got it? Not one?

Speaker 1 (08:43):
And my answer is, I think not not soon. I
think this is bad news for Democrats, but I think
right now Colorado is very blue because of the population
change we've had over the last decade or two, and
also an enormous percent.

Speaker 2 (08:59):
Of Colorado independents.

Speaker 1 (09:00):
Put aside, even Democrats really hate Donald Trump, and as
long as Donald Trump is in office, they won't vote
for any Republican, even for state and local office. So
I think even though you might think this would pose
an opening for Republicans, it's not going to be that easy.

Speaker 2 (09:17):
Let me just give you one story quickly.

Speaker 1 (09:20):
The Department of Justice just fired a prosecutor named Maureen Comy.

Speaker 2 (09:25):
Does that last name sound familiar.

Speaker 1 (09:27):
She is the daughter of former FBI director James Comy,
and obviously Maureen Comy is not I'm sorry, James Comy
is not in the good graces of the current president.

Speaker 2 (09:39):
They fired Maureen Comy. She actually worked on.

Speaker 1 (09:43):
The prosecution of Gallaine Maxwell in the Epstein case and
led the prosecution of p Diddy Sean Combs for sex
trafficking in a case that I think actually didn't go
very well for the prosecution. In any case, she has
been fired. All right, waiting for some noises. But I'll
keep going and the noises will show up in a second.
Whenever they do. Oh, I won't hear anything, all right?

(10:06):
Is it going right now? Does I mean I should
stop talking for a while?

Speaker 2 (10:09):
All right? Oh? Okay, all right, all right. So this actually, this.

Speaker 1 (10:16):
Little bit here is just going to be in the
podcast and not even on the air. How about that.
You don't get that very often podcast people. Right now,
as I speak with you, there's this emergency tone test,
you know, the tone that you would hear if there
were an emergency. And every once in a while these
tests happen, and it's just part of FCC regulations. You
do these things so that when you actually when the

(10:37):
government actually needs to send out the emergency signal, we
know we can do it and so on.

Speaker 2 (10:43):
So that's going on right now.

Speaker 1 (10:44):
And so people who are listening on the air actually
can't hear me right now, but podcast people can't. So
that's a pretty cool thing.

Speaker 2 (10:55):
All right. I'll tell you what. Let's do this. Let's
do this.

Speaker 1 (10:58):
I'm going to tell you a story here that maybe,
depending on when this test is done, maybe the people
who are listening on the air won't even hear it,
and only the podcast people will. And this is an
exceedingly odd story. We're back already.

Speaker 2 (11:13):
Oh my gosh.

Speaker 1 (11:13):
All right, hello on air people and the podcast people
have been with me the whole time.

Speaker 2 (11:18):
All right.

Speaker 1 (11:18):
So I saw this story on television yesterday and then
again this morning, and I think it's very strange, and so.

Speaker 2 (11:25):
I just like to share it with you.

Speaker 1 (11:28):
This is from the Hill dot Com, but I think
their source is KTLA at television station in Los Angeles.

Speaker 2 (11:36):
Listen to this.

Speaker 1 (11:37):
Surrogate moms from Texas to California thought they were carrying
a baby for a southern California couple struggling to have
a second child due to infertility. Then the women discovered
they were all surrogates for the same couple, some at
the same time, and the babies that they gave birth
to are now in foster care. How nuts is this story?

(12:02):
Twenty one children, ranging in age from two months to
thirteen years old, have been taken into protective custody. One
of the women who was a surrogate, a twenty seven
year old from Texas named Kayla, said, I love being pregnant,
but was done growing my own family, so I thought
what better way to experience pregnancy at the same time

(12:22):
as growth their family. So they were working through an
agency called Mark Surrogacy, which by the way, is apparently
going out of business now, and she was matched with
a couple in Arcadia, California, and they did an embryo
transfer via IVF. She gave birth to the baby in March.
Two months later, she learned that the baby wasn't actually
with who she thought the intended parents were. The child

(12:45):
had been placed in foster care, and then she found
out that the baby she had carried wasn't the only
one removed and placed in foster care. A whole bunch
of them had so what a nutty story. Public records
list and Arcadie Home as the address for the surrogacy

(13:06):
company and then.

Speaker 2 (13:08):
Also as the residence of a.

Speaker 1 (13:11):
Woman named Sylvia Jiang, and that is the woman that
the surrogates are saying they were carrying the babies for.
In May, the police in that town launched a child
abuse investigation responding to that same home after a two
month old baby was hospitalized by head trauma where apparently
a nanny there like shook the baby, which is unbelievably devastating.

(13:36):
The baby's legal parents are this lady Xiang who's thirty eight,
and a guy also Chinese guy, who's sixty five. And
it doesn't say in this piece, and I don't and
the woman is listed as the legal mom and all
these kids' birth certificates, but why and nowhere in this

(13:57):
article does it say why?

Speaker 2 (13:58):
And I can't figure out why.

Speaker 1 (13:59):
What would be the purpose behind this thirty eight year
old woman and sixty five year old man paying lots
of people to have surrogate babies? Were they were they
gonna and they know where the kids are?

Speaker 2 (14:13):
I guess so?

Speaker 1 (14:15):
Was there was it a financial scam. Are they not citizens?
Clearly they have Chinese names. Are they not citizens? And
were they trying to have children who would be legally
citizens where they could get some benefit of that somehow,
even if they were giving the children up for some
other things. I don't get it. I have no understanding
at all of the motive. It's an exceedingly strange story.

(14:37):
If you think you understand what motive might be, text
me at five sixty six nine zero and try to
tell me.

Speaker 2 (14:42):
When we come back, we'll be.

Speaker 1 (14:45):
Joined by Kelly Cawfield from the Common Sense Institute talking
about some very interesting trends and they're not all great
for Colorado broadly and Denver specifically. Kelly Cawfield, who is
the executive director of the Common sen Institute, where I
am proud to be the Mikey Loprino Free Enterprise Fellow

(15:05):
as well. You know, in my work there, I focus well,
they do most of the work, but in my work there,
I focus primarily on economic issues. But Common Sense Institute
puts out nonpartisan, deeply researched papers. They're not really political
arguments or you should do this or that.

Speaker 2 (15:27):
It's more analysis.

Speaker 1 (15:28):
And then here's some things you might think about, but
they do this an enormous range of issues, right crime, healthcare,
the economic stuff I'm involved with. What we're going to
talk with Kelly about today is two different studies that
have to do with the intersection of demographics and economics
in Denver and more broadly in Colorado. So, hey, Kelly,

(15:48):
welcome back. It's good to have you here.

Speaker 3 (15:51):
Thank you so much.

Speaker 2 (15:52):
Ross.

Speaker 4 (15:52):
I'm excited to dive into these reports.

Speaker 1 (15:55):
Let's start with the Colorado one, and this is from
Cole Anderson and doctor Kate and McKenny and the headline
Fewer movers, Bigger problems migration declines in Colorado and its
biggest cities. So this particular report is primarily a demographic report,
And why don't you tell me what you.

Speaker 2 (16:15):
Think the key takeaways are? And then I got some
questions for you.

Speaker 5 (16:20):
Great.

Speaker 4 (16:20):
Yes, I think fewer movers means bigger economic and workforce
problems for the state. So we were curious and what
are those net migration trends for our great state of
Colorado's We looked at the last ten years, Ross, and
we wanted to understand what are the in migration versus
out migration trends. That's what net migration is. So when

(16:42):
we look across ten years, we saw a decline of
about fifty three percent in terms of net migrations for Colorado,
and I want to be clear, that still means more
people are coming to the state than are leaving, but
the rate.

Speaker 3 (16:57):
Has really slowed.

Speaker 4 (17:00):
I wanted to dig into Denver metro region, so that's
you know, Denver, Aurora, Lakewood for this report, and for
excuse me, actually a little bit larger. That one is
showing a larger footprint of really the whole Front range
ron So that's showing even bolder Denver Aurora.

Speaker 3 (17:20):
For that story, it's even sharper.

Speaker 4 (17:22):
It's showing a closer to a seventy percent decrease in
net migration over the last ten years.

Speaker 1 (17:30):
One of the things that I noticed, Kelly, in both
of these graphs is for let's call it six years
starting in twenty fifteen for the state and for Denver
with there was a little blip up in twenty eighteen,
but generally the trend was significantly down down until you
get into COVID, and then nobody's really moving around much

(17:51):
in COVID, so the numbers are all real low and
then there's been a slow, steady climb since then. But
it looks to me like in terms of decline, most
of the damage or however you'd want to term it,
happened in the several years before COVID rather than in
the last few years. So you know, in my mind,

(18:12):
the first thing that comes to my mind, Kelly, is gosh,
Colorado has gotten so expensive and the traffic has gotten
so bad, and just things like that that maybe make
it a little bit more challenging to want to move here.

Speaker 3 (18:25):
That's right, you know, the net migration.

Speaker 4 (18:28):
When we talked to the State Demographer's office, you know,
they like to note that twenty fifteen was a real
boomyar for Colorado. So when you do this ten year
look back, it's pretty interesting and it's important to take
note of that. But as you can see in the
figures in the report, we still had, we're still looking
good in twenty sixteen and twenty seventeen, and you're right
somewhere around you know, twenty eighteen to twenty twenty, we

(18:51):
just started to see this trend which is really concerning
for economic and workforce reasons of not as many people
moving to college Colorado, and that got much more obvious
in the Denver metro region. You know, we also looked
at Colorado Springs, that's a real important city.

Speaker 3 (19:09):
For Colorado's economy.

Speaker 4 (19:11):
They also saw net migration decrease, but it's a smaller
rate that was closer to thirty percent over the last
ten years.

Speaker 1 (19:20):
So you know, Okay, I think what I want to
do is so keep that big picture in mind, and
then I want to move to the other study now,
the one by Thomas Young Denver Metro area in perspective jobs, retail, sales,
population growth. So this covers a whole bunch of things
as well, and a focus on Denver.

Speaker 2 (19:39):
As the title notes to me, this one.

Speaker 1 (19:43):
Because it includes some of these other things, is maybe
even a little more sobering.

Speaker 3 (19:50):
Yeah, this study was really interesting.

Speaker 4 (19:52):
We wanted to better understand how does the Denver metro
compare to other cities that we see as competitors. The
bottom line is Denver Metro. Again, this is not just Denver,
this is the Denver metro region. We're looking at Denver
Aurora Centennial and we used to be an a plus
student ronson.

Speaker 3 (20:13):
Now we're more middle of the pack.

Speaker 4 (20:15):
The Denver metro region has been well reported by a
variety of sources that you've had on your show. We're
really booming in the twenty tens and early twenty twenties,
but the economics and demographics are changing in a few ways.

Speaker 3 (20:29):
We just talked about net migration.

Speaker 4 (20:31):
I love to hit on two other points that we
have in Thomas's report. One is really first, job growth.
That's something that we're asked about all the time. What's
going on with job.

Speaker 3 (20:43):
Growth and the Denver metro region.

Speaker 4 (20:45):
And unfortunately we're a middle performer now, we're more of
that C student versus A plus. And we wanted to
compare ourselves to other cities that are attracting young workers,
good culture, they're attracting businesses for expansion and startup. So
we looked at Austin, Raleigh, Nashville, Miami, Tampa, Charlotte, even Phoenix,

(21:10):
and we aren't doing as good as those in terms
of job growth. They're all doing better. But I said,
we're in the middle of the pack. Denver is doing
better than some of our West Coast cities like San Francisco, Seattle,
and Portland.

Speaker 3 (21:24):
Since April of twenty twenty.

Speaker 4 (21:26):
That's really where we're starting to see the slowing of
job growth.

Speaker 3 (21:29):
It started in the.

Speaker 4 (21:30):
Twenty twenty twenty twenty one time frame, and our job
growth during that period was about twenty one percent.

Speaker 3 (21:37):
But that puts us in the middle of the pack.
It's not where we want to be.

Speaker 1 (21:41):
I also noticed a key finding in this report about
retail sales, and I'll.

Speaker 2 (21:48):
Just read from the report here.

Speaker 1 (21:49):
When comparing retail sales growth from the end of twenty
twenty four through the first quarter of twenty twenty five,
the Denver Aurora Centennial metro area had the third lowest
retail sales growth rate reported across three hundred and eighty
seven metro areas around the country. And actually they were
down one point two percent, which is only zero point

(22:11):
one percent better than the weakest metro area in the
whole country, which is two falls South Dakota. And this, Kelly,
plays into what we've heard from the mayor of Denver actually, who.

Speaker 2 (22:22):
Was on my show yesterday talking about how.

Speaker 1 (22:24):
They need to fill a two hundred and fifty million
dollars budget gap because retail sales are coming in or
sales taxes coming in so much less. Aurora is having
the same problem on a smaller scale, and so is
Colorado Springs.

Speaker 4 (22:38):
That's absolutely right, and I think that's one of the
more interesting findings here what is going on with retail sales.
I mean, to be one of the lowest of nearly
four hundred metro areas across the country has huge impacts
to these city budgets. You know, we were looking at
if Denver had stayed at the Denver Metro is not

(23:00):
just Denver, Denver Metro, Denver roorri Centennial, if that jurisdiction
had stayed on track for retail sales growth that we
had been seeing, you know, starting back in twenty twenty,
the city of Denver excuse me, the Denver region would
have had an additional one hundred and forty five million,
And that's certainly Denver's a big driver right of that.

(23:22):
Denver msa region that I'm talking about, So there would
have been at least you know, millions of dollars that
would have helped to address that two hundred and fifty
million budget shortfall over the next two years.

Speaker 2 (23:36):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (23:36):
So, I mean, I think what we gather from these
studies and for those just joining we're talking with Kelly Cawfield,
executive director of the Common Sense Institute. And what I
gather from these studies, Kelly, is that while I wouldn't
call things terrible in a state that is used to

(23:57):
being kind of, you know, full of boomtown, let's say
now we're just sort.

Speaker 2 (24:02):
Of kind of middle, in the middle of the pack
and a lot.

Speaker 1 (24:05):
Of things and seeing more like a normal city.

Speaker 4 (24:11):
That's right, you know, used to be a plus. Now
we're more of a C student. And that's not where
our employers want to be. It's not where you know,
I know our leaders want to be. You know, that
four hundred metro area ranking where we're at one of
the bottom levels for retail sales growth. And again that's
really just sort of the last six months, Russ. That's

(24:31):
a really interesting trend, and you know, I think a
part of that story. We don't know for sure why
we're at the very bottom there, but it could. I
think it's a part of the net migration story when
we look at just the first half, right, we don't
know for sure what twenty twenty five is going to
look like for net migration. We got to be basing

(24:51):
off of some projections that we're basing our work off of.

Speaker 3 (24:55):
For the State Demographer's office.

Speaker 4 (24:56):
But we're estimating thirty six thousand fewer are rivals this year.
So we think the migration challenges is a part of
the slowing retail sales growth we're seeing.

Speaker 1 (25:10):
And I will say this isn't so much an economic point,
but there are probably quite a lot of people listening
to us right now who when they hear all right,
you know there are Let me see if I can
find the number on the chart here for Colorado.

Speaker 2 (25:25):
Let's see the wait, those Colorado springs. Let me find
the whole chart.

Speaker 1 (25:28):
Okay, So like a little less than thirty three thousand
net migration, you know, versus sixty nine ten years ago,
you might have a lot of people saying, good, this
place too crowded, Housing prices are going up too much,
the traffic's too bad. We actually want it to grow less.
I'll give you the last word.

Speaker 4 (25:51):
I think it's easy to want to think that way,
but I think for the broader good of our state,
unreal concerned about inflation, and I'm concerned about housing and
public safety. And even with you know, this slowing down
of net migration, we should all care about the cost
of living. That's impacting all of us at all levels

(26:13):
of income are housing challenges. Colorado is ranked fiftieth by
Common Sense Institutes Home Buyer Misery Index, and we are
seeing challenges with crime. We used to be more middle
of the pack in terms of crime, and now we're
forty third. So while I would say it might be
nicer to feel less crowded, we should all care about
public safety, housing, cost of living, and that's I think

(26:36):
a big part of our slowdown.

Speaker 2 (26:38):
I think you're absolutely right.

Speaker 1 (26:39):
These things are all very, very interconnected, and they also
tend to you will tend to have market forces that
cause correction, putting aside even for a minute, the issues
about crime and you know, homeless industrates and all that,
which are legate issues. At some point, you know, a
place gets very popular, and Colorado shoot it acular.

Speaker 2 (27:00):
Place to live.

Speaker 1 (27:01):
A lot of people move here, prices go up, and
then at some point prices go up enough that people
say I can't afford to move there anymore, and it
slows down. Or some people say, my house is worth
so much now in Colorado, I'm going to sell it
and move and move to Arkansas. I can't tell you
how many listeners I've gotten that message from, so It
is also interesting, in addition to those quality of life issues,

(27:22):
how fundamental market forces can also impact some of these
data series.

Speaker 3 (27:30):
That's right.

Speaker 4 (27:31):
I mean, Denver Metro, we're just no longer that high
growth outlier that we used to be, and I think
a real dedicated focus on how we bring the jobs
back and address our declining retail sales should be a
huge priority for state and loqual leaders, folks.

Speaker 1 (27:46):
Common Sense Institute is a fantastic source of unbiased, nonpartisan
research on all kinds of issues that impact the state
of Colorado, the stuff you heard us talk about today
with demographics and retail sales and jobs, crime, health, all
kinds of things.

Speaker 2 (28:03):
The easiest website.

Speaker 1 (28:04):
CSI COO like Common Sense Institute Colorado CSI coo dot org.
Kelly Cawfield is executive director of the Common Sense Institute.

Speaker 2 (28:14):
Thanks for your time, Kelly, Thank you so.

Speaker 3 (28:17):
Much, Ross, and thanks for being one of our follows.

Speaker 1 (28:19):
Oh, it's my honor, it's my owner, all right. That's
that's Kelly Cawfield. And I realized some of that stuff
is very data driven, a little bit nerdy and so on,
but it really is important and the reports are written
in a very plain English kind of way, so you
can go read them in they're up on my website
as well.

Speaker 2 (28:34):
All right, I'm actually gonna stick with some economics stuff
kinda but not Colorado.

Speaker 1 (28:39):
I don't know how I found this story or this website,
but it's quite interesting and it's a product of some
foundation that I that I don't know, but it's called
Broken Marketplace dot org.

Speaker 2 (28:54):
And the reason this is.

Speaker 1 (28:55):
So interesting to me is that I have two kids
who are in their late teens, who are not far
from college and then not far from going out into
the job market and you know, finding a way to
put food on the family and Brokenmarketplace dot org just

(29:19):
a very interesting America's school to work crisis.

Speaker 2 (29:24):
Let me just share a little with you, and I
will just say as I.

Speaker 1 (29:26):
Go into this at the moment, at least as what
I'm seeing on this website is that it raises a
lot more questions than answers.

Speaker 2 (29:33):
It's raising the issue, at least so.

Speaker 1 (29:35):
Far on the website, I don't see solution to the issues.
But I do think that the issues they are raising
are really important. I think they're true, and I think
as parents and as other people too. And you'll understand
in a second when I when I share this with you,
But from my perspective as a parent, I think just
understanding that these issues are out there and maybe causing

(29:58):
yourself to change your approach, even if you're not sure
what a better approach would be, is probably a worthwhile thing.

Speaker 2 (30:04):
So let me share with.

Speaker 1 (30:05):
You what I'm talking about now and again, this is
brokenmarketplace dot org.

Speaker 2 (30:10):
I don't know how I stumbled across this site.

Speaker 1 (30:12):
America's youth strive for personal and professional success, but many
struggle along broken pathways from high school into the job
market because the people and institutions meant to support them
are fundamentally out of sync. So who are these people
and institutions who would be expected to help our young

(30:34):
people get either into college and then the job market,
or just out of high school and into the job market.
So first, parents, and as they say on this site,
parents want to help, but they rely on an outdated playbook.

Speaker 2 (30:50):
And I think that's right. And from time to.

Speaker 1 (30:52):
Time I'll say something to my kid about the job
market or some online thing or whatever, and and I
know this is going to sound.

Speaker 2 (30:59):
Tr right, and every generation says it this way.

Speaker 1 (31:02):
But Mike kit will say to me, Dad, you have
no idea what it's like now, and you know what
he's He might be right, He might be right. Look
that Ben Albright is wearing a millennium Falcon T shirt.
That's pretty impressive. That is a spectacular level of nerdiness
for my friend Ben. Okay, So after parents, navigators and educators,

(31:23):
so people who are supposed to be you know, like
college advisors, high school advisors, helping kids.

Speaker 2 (31:30):
Get into college or helping.

Speaker 1 (31:31):
People think about what they're going to do next if
not college.

Speaker 2 (31:34):
People like that.

Speaker 1 (31:35):
They see the problem, but lack innovative and effective solutions.
That's probably true too, working from an old playbook, kind
of like parents.

Speaker 2 (31:44):
And then this next one is very interesting.

Speaker 1 (31:47):
Employers often require experience to give someone a job, even
a job that would normally be a kind of job
that would be somebody's first job. But employers often don't
offer ways for young people to get the experience they
need to get their first real job. And as they
say on this website, the result is a broken marketplace

(32:11):
that is stalling the futures of tens of millions of
young Americans. And this study that they did is based
on detailed interviews with more than fifty seven hundred people.

Speaker 2 (32:23):
So it's a very big survey.

Speaker 1 (32:25):
And this includes the young adults who we're talking about here,
like eighteen year olds, let's say eighteen nineteen, the parents, navigators,
and educators as we talked about in.

Speaker 2 (32:35):
Employers as well.

Speaker 1 (32:36):
Now young adults, as this says, young adults feel.

Speaker 2 (32:42):
And let me get this going here, come on, come on,
thing all.

Speaker 1 (32:47):
Right, young adults express optimism despite feeling unsupported by the
system is meant to guide them.

Speaker 2 (32:54):
Educators and navigators, well, let me do. Parents.

Speaker 1 (32:57):
Parents are well intentioned, but overlook the limits of their
advice and the challenge is facing today's young people. I
think that's right. As a parent, I really think that's right.
That there is so much change. There's always change. There
was change from my parents to me. There was change
going the other direction from my parents to their parents.

(33:18):
But what's been happening over the course of my lifetime
and probably over the course of everybody's lifetime since maybe
the Renaissance, and I'm not trying to be overly dramatic here, right,
probably from around the time of the Renaissance, definitely from
the time of the Industrial Revolution, let's say early mid

(33:39):
eighteen hundred something like that. It's not just that there
is always change, it's that the rate of change is increasing,
So it's things are always changing, but as time has
passed for at least a couple hundred years, and maybe
for four hundred years or five hundred, things are changing

(34:03):
faster every decade or however you want to mention it
than before. And think how much the Internet changed things
for let's say my generation. I was kind of the
very beginning of the generation that got to adopt the
Internet while I was still relatively young.

Speaker 2 (34:20):
Right.

Speaker 1 (34:20):
The Internet came around in a reasonably important way when
I was in my early twenties roughly.

Speaker 2 (34:27):
But what's happening now with social media?

Speaker 1 (34:30):
It has been around for a while now, AI, the
change is occurring even faster than ever, and parents can't
keep up.

Speaker 2 (34:36):
I can't keep up. I don't even know what I
don't know?

Speaker 1 (34:39):
Right? The whole Donald rumsfelt thing? No knowns, unknown unknowns, right, don't.
I'm surrounded by unknown unknowns and the only way you
can get them as a parent is by talking to
your kid. And hopefully you've got a kid who's willing
to talk to you. Mine is meh, right, educators and
navigators understand the need for change, but remain tethered to
traditional tools.

Speaker 2 (35:00):
Stretched in and under resourced.

Speaker 1 (35:01):
Employers have high expectations, but don't provide a path for
young people to meet them.

Speaker 2 (35:08):
Now, there is a lot more to this. I think
it's interesting.

Speaker 1 (35:12):
I think it's important, and I also think it's important
to know that there are a lot of types of
jobs out there that don't have nearly enough people available
for them. A lot of these things are in the trades,
like welders, for example. There you know, as long as
we're rebuilding our military and things like that, there's going
to be a shortage of welders for a couple decades

(35:35):
to come, most likely.

Speaker 2 (35:36):
And that's a.

Speaker 1 (35:37):
Job you could go into and probably make a ton
of money without spending four years on college.

Speaker 2 (35:41):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (35:42):
Look, you got to decide what's best for you and
what's best for your kid. But the point of this study,
and the point that I'm trying to make to you
now is that I believe that I need to be
humble about this as a parent and say there is
an immense amount I don't know, and that I need
to be very very careful not to assume that what
would have been good advice for me when I was

(36:04):
my kid's age would be good advice for my kid now,
because there's a good chance it wouldn't be.

Speaker 2 (36:08):
Ross.

Speaker 1 (36:09):
I agree with about ninety percent of your analysis.

Speaker 2 (36:12):
On that study.

Speaker 1 (36:13):
And for those just joining, we were talking about something
called the broken or Broken Marketplace. Dot Org is the website,
and it's about how the current struct support structure for
today's old teens young adults trying to work them into
the workforce is not properly suited for today's needs, and

(36:33):
parents aren't really able to help as much as they
should be, and so on. You can go to my
blog and check out the report and see what I'm
talking about. In any case, this listener says, so, I
agree with you, but gen Z and jen Alpha severely
lack in communication skills and work ethic, which plays as
big a role in their career opportunities as the other

(36:54):
facted factors noted in the story. And that's probably about right.
I do think gen Z and Jen Alpha. I mean,
these are people who, many of them barely know how
to have a face to face conversation, don't even seem
that interested in it. They've spent so much of their
lives interacting with people by text messages and snapchat and

(37:16):
video this and video that and whatever it might be,
and they.

Speaker 2 (37:19):
Barely know how to have a conversation.

Speaker 1 (37:21):
They don't seem much interested, they don't really they barely
know to have how.

Speaker 2 (37:25):
To talk on the phone. Right. I heard it.

Speaker 1 (37:27):
This is a long time ago now, but it still applies.
I heard a comedian describe a telephone as a rarely
used app on somebody's phone, right, So, and I think
that's a great way to think of it.

Speaker 2 (37:41):
So I do agree that these.

Speaker 1 (37:44):
Young adults and old kids gen Z jen Alpha have
significant issues with communication skills and work ethic. I do
think that much of that is the fault of parents,
including me. But here's the other thing we need to
keep in mind. The rise of gen Z, which is
already very much rising, and then Gen Alpha into the

(38:10):
people who are the workforce, not just are part of
the workforce, but are almost all of the workforce.

Speaker 2 (38:18):
That's inevitable.

Speaker 1 (38:20):
And so we can sit back and complain about this
problem or that problem about them, but if you're an employer,
they are soon enough gonna be your only choices. So employers,
in addition to of course parents and schools and whoever
else who cares, need to find ways to teach these

(38:45):
people how to communicate better, how to have a better
work ethic.

Speaker 2 (38:50):
And that is not an easy thing to teach because.

Speaker 1 (38:54):
Their problems or their flaws or their faults.

Speaker 2 (38:58):
And I don't want to say that that's all they are.

Speaker 1 (39:01):
There's lots and lots of good about these people too,
including my own children. But at the moment, when we're
talking about difficulties, their flaws, their faults even separate from
the fact that they might be that their faults might
be our fault. Their faults are soon enough gonna be
our problem.

Speaker 2 (39:22):
And so while it's true that.

Speaker 1 (39:24):
Their career opportunities, their job opportunities might be limited right
now by communications skills problems and work ethic problems, we
got to figure.

Speaker 2 (39:33):
Out how to solve it right. And if some of
them may.

Speaker 1 (39:36):
Be self motivated enough, but they're gonna need help. They
they're gonna need help, so we need to we need
to help them with that. Yeah, Okay, I think that's
all I want to all I want to do on that.
I got a couple other things I want to go
over with you here in this segment.

Speaker 2 (39:53):
Okay, let's do this one.

Speaker 1 (39:54):
So last night, it took a very long time, but
last night the US Senate passed nine billion dollars and
federal spending cuts. These are things that President Trump wanted
to see cut, including I think a billion dollars being
cut out of public broadcasting and money being cut from
foreign aid and some stuff like that. And it was
only nine billion dollars. Now, nine billion dollars might be

(40:16):
a lot to you and me, right, that's even more
than I have nine billion dollars, But as a share
of the federal budget, it's.

Speaker 2 (40:25):
A fraction of a fraction of a fraction of.

Speaker 1 (40:27):
One percent of the federal of the federal budget, it's
much less than one percent of the federal budget. And
if you can't cut only nine billion dollars without having
an incredibly difficult time, I believe they actually had to
have jd.

Speaker 2 (40:45):
Vance break a tie. Again.

Speaker 1 (40:47):
It ended up fifty one forty eight, So maybe it
wasn't a tie, but you need fifty one, I guess.
So anyway, they lost three Republicans. They lost three Republicans
in an effort to cut this smallest amount you could
possibly imagine the federal government cutting if ever they were
going to cut anything, and PBS like why should they

(41:10):
get why should there be any media getting taxpayer money.
I've talked about this before, so I won't dwell on it.
I don't have anything against PBS. I don't even care
that they have the left wing bias that they have.
I just care that that is not a proper role
of government. So what they ended up doing, though, is
there are some public broadcasting stations in rural areas that

(41:34):
have outsize importance to those areas because they don't have
a lot of other radio stations around and ways to
get information and maybe about emergencies and so on. So
in order to get this deal, in order to get
this deal going, they had to put in some extra
money for like rural radio or something like that. And I'm,
you know whatever, As a libertarian, I don't love that stuff,

(41:56):
but it's separate from the question of.

Speaker 2 (42:00):
PBS more broadly.

Speaker 1 (42:01):
So anyway, my point is, you know, this took this
boat came at like two am DC time last night,
and they could barely do it. They could barely do it.
They lost three Republicans to cut just nine billion dollars
and it just doesn't give me a lot of hope

(42:24):
when we are talking about annual deficits in you know,
two to three trillion dollar range probably, and national debt
that's slowly inexorably climbing towards forty billion I'm sorry, forty
trillion now. And they have a hard time cutting even

(42:45):
nine billion dollars.

Speaker 2 (42:46):
So we'll see.

Speaker 1 (42:47):
I mean, I'm glad they did it. I'm glad any
anytime they cut government spending, I'm fine with it. You know, basically,
I can maybe there's something they would cut, and I say,
you shouldn't cut that, but it's not very likely. The
issue is it was so so difficult to do.

Speaker 2 (43:04):
And I sure wish it weren't when we come back.

Speaker 1 (43:08):
One of the saddest stories I've heard in a long time,
although it has a happy ending, whether to install a
big pedestrian walkway you might call it a bridge from
the state capital across the street or two to the park.
It's designed to look like a winding river or something.

Speaker 2 (43:25):
It looks like it's going to cost.

Speaker 1 (43:26):
Around eighteen million dollars at first, and then another ten
million dollars over several more years for upgrades and improvements.
Of the eighteen million, a little over eight would come
from taxpayers, around ten would come from private funding. The
other ten million with the upgrades and improvements. I don't
know where that money's going to come from. In any case,
there's been a lot of negative press about this bridge

(43:49):
and or walkway or whatever you want to call it,
and Governor Polis is asking for people's opinions. And one
of the things that he said was he hopes the
vote isn't close one way or another.

Speaker 2 (43:59):
He just hoped isn't close, because he doesn't want to
be put in.

Speaker 1 (44:01):
A situation where it's fifty one forty nine and then
he has to decide what to do where it's basically
a tie. And so let's help him not make it close.
If you go to Rosskiminsky dot com, click on the
Thursday blog cast, okay, just and right there at the
top in that on that web page, you'll see the
link you can click on to go vote.

Speaker 2 (44:20):
And I you know, i've I said I don't want it.
I said I don't whatever, you.

Speaker 1 (44:25):
Can go to make your eye and I put some
links there on the blog by the way to arguments
against the bridge, and then the page that has the
survey questions has arguments for the bridge, so you can
make your own decision. But you know, if I were gonna,
I urge you to do something. Since Polus said he
doesn't want it to be close, let's go help him
not make it close. So Rosskiminsky dot com click on

(44:46):
the Thursday blogcast and you will see the link right
near there near the top to go cast your cast
your vote. So let's see what do I want to
do here? KKTV Channel eleven.

Speaker 2 (45:01):
Dateline Peyton, Colorado.

Speaker 1 (45:03):
In what is being called one of the most heartbreaking
rescues in its organization's history, the National Mill Dog Rescue
has taken in one hundred and sixty five dogs involved
in a horrific animal cruelty case, one hundred and sixty
four Schnauzers and one pug and toward years of neglect

(45:25):
before finally being saved last month. Due to the ongoing
criminal case, NMDR was unable to share many details with
eleven News, only that the dogs were seized from somewhere
on Colorado's western slope. So actually they're not saying it's Peyton, Colorado,
so they're from the reporter. I guess is in Peyton, Colorado,
but the dogs were seized from somewhere on Colorado's western slope.

(45:46):
It is not known how the dog's plight first came
to the organization's attention. And now, quoting from the organization,
the dogs arrived in extremely poor condition. Most were covered
in painfully matted coats and required fired immediate shaving to
alleviate discomfort and prevent further health complications. Wow, they said

(46:08):
their team shaved a jaw dropping one hundred and sixty
eight pounds of filthy, painful, matted hair off of the
one hundred and ten most neglected Schnauzers. Imagine that dog
hair doesn't weigh very much. Imagine getting an average of

(46:29):
a pound and a half of hair off a dog,
and these are small dogs because of how disgusting and
dirty and matted the hair was.

Speaker 2 (46:38):
As they describe it, it.

Speaker 1 (46:39):
Is a suffocating weight that the dogs carried while living
in conditions where no one noticed their suffering. So they
are the Facebook posts about this from the organization National
Mill Dog Rescue. And you know, I said, it's a
terrible story but with a happy ending. And an mdr
said some of the dogs could be availab for adoption

(47:01):
in as soon as a few weeks. The road to
recovery may be longer for some others, but for all
of the dogs, the worst is over and NMDR is
hopeful all one hundred and sixty five have nothing but.

Speaker 2 (47:12):
Good days ahead.

Speaker 1 (47:14):
They said, this is just the beginning of their second chance.
Their recovery will be long, but we are committed to
giving each dog the life they've always deserved. And the
last line of this article, if you're interested in giving
one of these pups a loving, forever home, get it
forever home. Keep checking the National Mill Dog Rescue website.

(47:36):
It's NMDR dot org National Mill Dog Rescue NMDR dot org.
And once these dogs are ready for adoption, their information
will be posted on the website. So, and they don't
say anything about who did this. They don't say anything
about the perpetrators.

Speaker 2 (47:53):
They don't. There's nothing like that.

Speaker 1 (47:55):
And again I guess it's because it's an ongoing criminal investigation.
But I would just say, you know, whoever you is,
that you're going straight to hell. Yeah, it's that simple.
It's not really more complicated than that.

Speaker 2 (48:05):
I who who? By the way, Let me just sometimes
I feel like I care.

Speaker 1 (48:09):
More about animals than people because people can take care
of themselves.

Speaker 2 (48:13):
Maybe I don't.

Speaker 1 (48:13):
I don't think I really to care more about animals
than people, but you.

Speaker 2 (48:17):
Get my point.

Speaker 1 (48:17):
Like a person has some level of responsibility to take
care of himself, take care of herself, right unless you're
disabled or you got some some significant thing that really
keeps you from doing that. If you're having a hard
time because of your own choices. Eh, you know, my
level of sympathy for you is is moderate at best.

Speaker 2 (48:39):
But a little doggie or a cat or any other animal.

Speaker 1 (48:42):
There are that that you are supposed to take care of.
They are under your control, your ownership, your whatever, and
you let that happen to a defenseless little creature like
that I've got, I've got. Not only do I have
no sympathy for you, There's no reason I would have
some pathy for you. I have sympathy for the dog,

(49:03):
but I it's hard to imagine just what I think
the proper punishment is for you.

Speaker 2 (49:09):
Whatever it is, it wouldn't be very nice.

Speaker 1 (49:12):
We got another very different and extremely fascinating and actually
kind of nerdy animal story for you right after this.

Speaker 2 (49:21):
Actually it's both animals and plants. I think you'll dig it.

Speaker 1 (49:24):
I saw a thing on I think it was Axios
the other day and it was about something called the
Frozen Zoo, and it was just such a fascinating story because,
as you know, I am a big time science nerd.

Speaker 2 (49:38):
I am very, very proudly a nerd.

Speaker 1 (49:41):
And also this is a project that is at the
San Diego Zoo.

Speaker 2 (49:46):
And when I was a kid.

Speaker 1 (49:48):
I grew up spent much of my childhood in Oceanside
and Carlsbad and high school in La Joya, and my
parents worked on Camp Pendleton and then down in San
Diego at the Balboa Navy Hospital.

Speaker 2 (50:00):
So I've been to the San Diego Zoo.

Speaker 1 (50:03):
More times than I've been to any other zoo in
my in my whole life. And actually I'm going I'm
going to San Diego this weekend, believe it or not.
Not sure if I'll get to the zoo anyway, So
I read about this Frozen Zoo and I just find
it fascinating, so joining us.

Speaker 2 (50:17):
To talk about it.

Speaker 1 (50:18):
Katie Heineman is She's at the San Diego Zoo Wildlife's
Alliance Frozen Zoo, and she is also a program officer
with the i U. C. N Species Survival Commission Center,
which probably gives some clue as to at least part.

Speaker 2 (50:33):
Of the function of the Frozen Zoo.

Speaker 1 (50:35):
So, with that much too long introduction, Katie, welcome to KOA.

Speaker 5 (50:38):
Thanks for doing this, Hi, thanks for having us.

Speaker 1 (50:43):
Are you wearing like medical scrubs with mushrooms on them?

Speaker 6 (50:50):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (50:51):
No, I'm very much, very loud.

Speaker 2 (50:54):
Okay, all right.

Speaker 7 (50:57):
There and fungus and you know, foxes and sweaters.

Speaker 1 (51:01):
Yes, all right, it's a very very excellent piece of
attire for somebody who works at a zoo. I want
to spend almost almost all our time on the Frozen Zoo.

Speaker 2 (51:11):
But just very briefly, what is IUCN.

Speaker 7 (51:17):
I use it as the International Union for the Conservation
of Nature. It's an international body that really helps nations
and scientists collaborate around conserving biodiversity.

Speaker 1 (51:28):
Okay, so now we've got the Frozen Zoo and I
got a lot of aspects that I want to talk
with you about this. And I think in my I
think most people will think about preserving animals, but you
are doing stuff with plants as well. We'll get to both,
but just start with first of all, the mission.

Speaker 7 (51:48):
Yeah, so the mission of the frozen zoo. So the
frozen zoo is a living collection of cells reproductive material
for primarily vertebrates or animals like mammals, birds, reptiles, and phibia.
And so the idea is that it preserves this living
material so that it can be used to conserve nature
in the future. And there's lots of different ways that
these cells, sperm eggs can be used to fulfill that mission.

Speaker 1 (52:13):
And are they always stored in that form rather than
as some kind of fertilized egg.

Speaker 7 (52:19):
They can be stored as embryos. The predominant form of
material in the frozen who is actually skin cells. So
you take a biopsy of a skin, a piece of
skin from a mammal, and then you can grow it
on culture media and then you can save it. And
that's still something that can be alive, but it doesn't
need to necessarily have another animal fertilize it for it

(52:41):
to be a living material that can be cryopreserved.

Speaker 1 (52:44):
Is that process that you just described, is that cloning
or is that something like cloning?

Speaker 7 (52:51):
Well, that's just culturing cells, So it is something Those cells, though,
can be used for cloning, so you can take the
genetic material from those skin cells, and then you can
put it inside of an embryo and that creates a clone.

Speaker 1 (53:08):
Okay, gosh, here, there's there's so much to talk about here.
Is there something in particular about skin cells that makes
them preferable for this function versus you know, uh, some
other cell.

Speaker 7 (53:24):
Skin or fiberglass cells specifically are tend to readily grow
on culture media. So, and also, just skin is something
that can be can served at different points in an
animal's life. There are most other types of cells. The
animal might have to be dead or there might have
to be a surgery that goes on in order to
harvest that. But skin is something that could be harvested

(53:46):
pretty easily from just interacting with animals for routine veterinary
procedures too.

Speaker 1 (53:53):
What what would the purpose be of culturing culturing cells
in a way that doesn't create a clone or a
whole new animal, but just more cells.

Speaker 7 (54:05):
Well, there's a few reasons. So this kind of cell
line for different types of animals is really important for
medical research.

Speaker 3 (54:13):
It is also just a really.

Speaker 7 (54:15):
Purified form of genetic material that has been used to
generate over fifty reference genomes. It can also be used
The cells themselves can be used to test the physiology
of animals in different climate context. It can be exposed
to different stresses, so we can kind of model responses
of animals to biodiversity. So there's lots of ways that
these materials can be used that aren't cloning, but they

(54:37):
have been used also for conservation cloning.

Speaker 1 (54:40):
So if you're starting with a skin cell, can you
effectively grow some of whatever the skin is for that animal?

Speaker 7 (54:49):
You can growth things called organoids from different cell types.
That's not something that we really do or specialize in,
and honestly, it's something that we're more exploring for us.
There are types of material that we biobank, like ovarian
tissue is something that we're interested in creating organiteoids from.
But that is something that could be possible with certain

(55:11):
types of cell lines, but it's not really the focus
of our program.

Speaker 1 (55:14):
So I think a lot of people would jump to
the idea that at least a mission, if not the mission,
would be to be able to recover species that go
extinct or you know, a less dramatic version of Jurassic Park, Right, So.

Speaker 2 (55:32):
Is that a key mission?

Speaker 1 (55:34):
And then separate from that, what what are the other
big picture purposes? For the Frozen Zoo beyond being able
to preserve species.

Speaker 7 (55:46):
Well, so we think of biobanking and the Frozen Zoo
as a tool for species recovery. So we don't want
to be thinking of it as these species need to
go extinct before we use the cells in the Frozen Zoo.
We want the cells to be used to revive the
genetic diversity of species that are still on Earth. And
so an example is we've been able to clone individuals

(56:07):
of the blackfooted ferret, which is a critically endangered ferret
that is kind of in your neck of the woods.
It lives in South Dakota, and we've been able to
clone three female blackfooted ferrets from cell lines in the
Frozen Zoo and that has now created an additional founder
that has actually created new puffs in.

Speaker 5 (56:29):
That population of black footed ferrets.

Speaker 7 (56:32):
And so while we do have extinct animals in the
Frozen Zoo, our true mission is just to find ways
to integrate cloning, to integrate reproductive enhancement into living.

Speaker 3 (56:43):
Populations of species.

Speaker 7 (56:45):
And so yeah, in terms of the broader picture of
the Frozen Zoo, we really look forward to ways that
new technologies can help utilize these cells in ways that
were never dreamt of before. Things like Crisper could really
evolutionize the types of applications that the Frozen Zoo can
be used for.

Speaker 2 (57:04):
Yeah, I was going to ask you about that.

Speaker 1 (57:05):
And for those just joining, we're talking with Katie Heyeman
from the San Diego Zoo about their Frozen Zoo. So
for those who don't know, so, Crisper is gene editing technology.
So if you were going to use a relatively small
number of samples of a particular species to try to

(57:25):
do what, for example, what you just described with the
blackfooted ferrets, but where you might want to create a
reasonably large number of animals to repopulate, is there any
worry there about creating some animals whose genotypes are too
similar to each other? And then you've got some issues

(57:47):
with the breeding of animals that have very very similar
genotypes or the same same almost And if so, could
you use gene editing to make those animals genetically very
variant enough to alleviate that concern or is it a
dumb question.

Speaker 7 (58:07):
No, that's a central question to what we do in
terms of assessing the genetic diversity of the Frozen Zoo.
And so two things there, so are we concerned with
introducing animals that would produce in breeding and so typically
that's why we advocate for proactive biobanking. So we really

(58:28):
want other zoos and other wildlife facilities to be collecting
material of animals so that we have the most genetically
diverse selling collection we have, so we have a diverse
stock to repopulate animals from. And we would probably never
clone an animal from the Frozen Zoo that was not
increasing the genetic diversity of the wild population because it

(58:51):
would be a lot of effort to do if it's
not going to improve the breeding stock of the living population.
And then for the other point about crisper, that's a
really exciting potential avenue for some species. We have non
living DNA, so not cell lines, but maybe museum specimens
or DNA from animals that have already died that we

(59:14):
know there. We know their DNA, and we know the
genetic code that used to exist in a species that
maybe has gone through a bottleneck or has been reduced
when a population has declined, and so we could potentially
use gene editing on the cell lines we have in
the Frozen Zoo to recreate genetic diversity that existed in
the past.

Speaker 3 (59:35):
And that's not something we've.

Speaker 7 (59:36):
Done yet, but I think it's something that's on the
horizon with the new types of technology that are becoming
available through Crisper.

Speaker 1 (59:42):
And I wonder with some animals, as with humans, there
are diseases that are either caused by a genetic issue
or or someone is made susceptible to it by a
genetic issue. And and I wonder if there's any thought
with the Frozen Zoo, the intersection of Frozen Zoo and Crisper,

(01:00:05):
to say, all right, some particular species out there is
getting is susceptible to this disease because of a genetic thing.
Maybe we can find that tweak that gene turn that
A to a C or that whatever, and uh right,
and then you.

Speaker 2 (01:00:22):
Know the letters yeah, and then maybe save a species
that way.

Speaker 1 (01:00:29):
Is that to science fictionny or is that another thing
you're thinking about.

Speaker 7 (01:00:34):
I mean, I wouldn't say that that technology is like
going to happen next year. But an example of that
where we would love to be able to do something
like that is in Hawaiian birds, where malaria is killing
many of the Hawaiian forest birds. And so if it
were possible to edit the genome of Hawaiian forest birds
to confer malarial resistance. That would be a really exciting technology,

(01:00:59):
but it also requires us to know how to do
a lot of other things, like take the cell lines
into embryo stage and be able to rear birds from
cell lines, which we also don't currently know how to do.
But I don't think it's beyond the realm of possibility
of what could eventually be done with the frozen zoom.

Speaker 1 (01:01:16):
I'm curious whether there are any interesting, important, difficult ethical
questions around any of that, the way some people bring
up ethical questions about cloning of humans or even cloning
of sheep and stuff like that.

Speaker 2 (01:01:32):
Are there ethical questions with any of this.

Speaker 1 (01:01:35):
That you guys think are actually serious questions and not
just you know, troublemakers.

Speaker 7 (01:01:42):
No, I think, especially like maybe even the example I
just gave of the Hawaiian birds, definitely indigenous communities on
Hawaii consider Hawaiian birds to be ancestors, and so changing
the genetic material of Hawaiian birds should be something that's
only done in consultation with those communities, because maybe that
has a different implication if you consider Hawaiian birds to

(01:02:06):
be so culturally important that they're a member of the community.
So I think there are important questions to be worked out,
and there's potential consequences for changing genes that we need
to consider that could be second order effects. But I
think it's good to think through those cases and take
them case by case instead of saying that all of

(01:02:29):
that technology is inherently ethically problematic and bad without considering
the positive ramifications for biodiversity.

Speaker 2 (01:02:37):
That's a good answer. I'm right there with you.

Speaker 1 (01:02:39):
We're talking with doctor Katie Heinemann, PhD from the San
Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliances Frozen Zoo. You probably kind of
did this already, but a listener would like you to
explain again briefly, but in Layman's terms, the process of
culturing the skin cells.

Speaker 7 (01:03:00):
Okay, well, I'm going to just back up one second
to say I'm a plant lady. My background is in
seed banking, so I'm going I just want you to
know if there's any doctors listening, that this might not
be the perfect explanation, but my understanding is that they
essentially take a skin sample from an animal, and this

(01:03:22):
could be either when the animal is alive or soon
post mortem and they put it in. They basically preserve
that cell so that it can be put on nutritious
media that has the additives that the cell lines can
grow and expand. And then once they have millions of
cells growing in that culture mediu and this can take
This process can take about a month. They put cryoprotectants

(01:03:45):
on those cell lines and then they put them in
liquid nitrogen, which preserves them basically indefinitely.

Speaker 1 (01:03:51):
Oh okay, that's interesting, I learned something there. So the
the Frozen Zoo biobanking is after the culture, so you're
culturing lots and lots of the cells and not just
the very small number of cells that was originally taken
as the sample, but something that you've grown from that
before you put it in the in the biobank. So
that I'm glad I asked that I learned something there.

(01:04:13):
So let's talk about plants then, since your seed lady
and I did see a headline first plants introduced to
the Frozen Zoo, So tell us about that and maybe
include in your answer why Frozen Zoo for plants versus
seed bank? Right?

Speaker 5 (01:04:35):
I love that.

Speaker 2 (01:04:36):
I love that question.

Speaker 7 (01:04:38):
So most plants are amazing. They have the ability to
be biobanked by nature. So have you ever heard of
the soil seed bank? Most plants can or seeds are
adapted to essentially live in the soil for a period
of time to wait for the right conditions to Germany,
and so that makes seeds really able to be dried
down and frozen basically in just a normal chest freezer

(01:05:02):
at negative twenty degrees celsius.

Speaker 3 (01:05:04):
And so that's the way eighty percent of.

Speaker 7 (01:05:06):
Plant species are conserved, is you dry them down and
then you freeze them just in basically a normal freezer.
But for some plant species, and oaks are a really
primary example of this, they cannot be frozen down in
this way. And so oaks, you can imagine an acorn.
An acorn is a pretty big, fleshy fruit that cannot

(01:05:26):
be It can't be dried without killing the embryo of
the acorn. And so that's why researchers at our facility
are working to conserve oaks in cryogenic storage in the
frozen zoo. And so they basically grow the oaks in
these tiny baby food jars and it makes these tiny,
tiny little bonzie oak trees that then grow something called

(01:05:47):
a somatic embryo that can be cryopreserved in the Frozen Zoo,
which is really cool.

Speaker 2 (01:05:52):
Wow. All right, I have a story for you.

Speaker 1 (01:05:55):
We're we're doing a bunch of landscaping on an ugly
house that we bought, and my wife was, you know,
walking around working with the landscapers, and she sees this
tiny little shoot coming out of the ground and she says,
I look like a baby oak tree. That my wife
is very big time in the gardening, right. She starts
digging around and it was a shoot coming out of

(01:06:16):
an acorn. And so we got our own baby oak tree.
And she's going to put it in a pot and
grow it a little bit and then plant it somewhere
and we'll have our own oak tree. And you can't
have it even for your frozen zoo, because we're gonna
have it.

Speaker 7 (01:06:32):
Yeah, we'll send us, send us some shoot tips, and
we'll preserve that genetic diversity for centuries.

Speaker 2 (01:06:37):
That's good.

Speaker 1 (01:06:38):
Last question for you, as as you've been involved with
the Frozen Zoo project, is there anything that has what's
the thing that has surprised you the most.

Speaker 3 (01:06:49):
Oh, that's a good question.

Speaker 7 (01:06:53):
I think just the vastness of it, the fact that
there's over thirtain teen hundred species and over fifty years,
just interacting with the diversity of the collection of the
San Diego Zoo has really allowed this collection that supports
conservation in a way to grow. It just makes me

(01:07:16):
really excited about about this organization and about the way
that they essentially supported this collection for fifty years without
really grant support. The people of San Diego have essentially
just unknowing we've been supporting this amazing collection for fifty years.
I don't know the continuity of it and just the

(01:07:36):
uniqueness of it is something that really strikes me.

Speaker 1 (01:07:39):
Katie Heineman's PhD at the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance
is frozen Zoosh's program officer with IUCN as well.

Speaker 2 (01:07:46):
Thanks so much for your time.

Speaker 1 (01:07:47):
It's a fascinating project and I wish you a lots
of luck and hopefully maybe I'll get to the zoo
San Diego Zoo this weekend for the first time in
a while.

Speaker 7 (01:07:55):
Yeah, come with it, all right, Thanks.

Speaker 2 (01:07:57):
Bye bye?

Speaker 1 (01:07:59):
All right, that was very very cool, very cool. I
love that I went longer and I thought I would
because it was so cool. All right, let me just
switch gears completely, and I am reading your texts about
all that stuff, but I'm gonna switch gears completely here
for a second and just do two minutes on this thing.
Maybe not even two minutes. This is kind of a
crazy story down in Louisiana. The FBI has arrested three

(01:08:22):
current or former police chiefs in Louisiana and a couple
other people, and then a guy named Chanda Chandru Krunt
Patel who goes by the nickname Laala, apparently of Oakdale, Louisiana,
and these people were involved in a scheme where illegal

(01:08:45):
immigrants or maybe or yeah, illegal immigrants primarily I guess,
would pay this guy Lalla some amount of money.

Speaker 2 (01:08:55):
We don't know how much.

Speaker 1 (01:08:56):
Of it he kept, and then he would pass along No,
I take it back. We know the amount of money
the illegal immigrants would pay this guy five thousand dollars
per person, and then he would pass some amount of
that five thousand dollars onto these various police chiefs who
would then file fake reports of the immigrants having been

(01:09:19):
the victim of a violent crime, like usually armed robbery,
because if you are an illegal immigrant, you can as
the victim of a violent.

Speaker 2 (01:09:31):
Crime get something called a you visa.

Speaker 1 (01:09:35):
That lets crime victims stay in the United States. And
I think what happened here was that somebody in the
federal government noticed.

Speaker 2 (01:09:44):
A very unusual high.

Speaker 1 (01:09:48):
Number and concentration in a small area of reports of
armed robberies, and in particular armed robberies where the victim
apparently was not from Louisiana. And this was happening in
small communities, and in fact, there were actually no armed robberies.

(01:10:08):
It wasn't like they set up a fake armed robbery
and then reported it. There was no armed robbery. They
were just fake police reports. So now they've got a
whole bunch of people facing serious federal time for this
remarkable scam. All right, when we come back, one of
my very favorite guests, he's a green chicken known as Doomberg.

(01:10:29):
We'll be right back scurrying around the yard, pecking at corn,
being the source of green eggs for doctor Seuss and
writing the most insightful analysis of I would say, the
intersection of energy and policy that you're gonna find anywhere,
and that is Doomberg, who appears as a green chicken

(01:10:50):
whenever I talk with him. Slash them on on zoom
Doomberg dot com or Doomberg dot substack dot com. It
is an absolute must subscribe. So first of all, do
me thanks so much for coming back. I hope I
didn't interrupt your pecking around in the yard for corn.

Speaker 6 (01:11:09):
Now rass always great to be with you, and it's
always a good time.

Speaker 1 (01:11:12):
So I want to just spend maybe seven minutes with
you on a very very specific question, and that is sanctions.
You have said repeatedly and you said again recently in
a short note on Substack, that sanctions not only don't work,
but often, or maybe more than often, backfire, and some

(01:11:33):
of this, as in much of trade economics in particular,
as counterintuitive.

Speaker 2 (01:11:37):
So give us a lesson, can you bet?

Speaker 6 (01:11:42):
Thanks for the opportunity. So sanctions against strong countries never work.
Occasionally you can bully around a small country like Cuba
and it's effective. You can't really sanction countries like Iran,
Russia or China and expect that they're just not going
to punch back and that the nature of their response

(01:12:03):
doesn't end up rebounding onto you in ways that are
a unexpected and be almost always worse for you if
you just hadn't done it.

Speaker 5 (01:12:10):
And as evidence.

Speaker 6 (01:12:11):
The European Union is currently debating the eighteenth sanctions package
against Russia over the war in Ukraine. Somehow the first
seventeen weren't quite enough. And we're three and a half
years in and Russia has become a mostly self sufficient economy.
It has learned to insulate itself against whatever it needs
from the outside world.

Speaker 5 (01:12:32):
New trading routes have been developed.

Speaker 6 (01:12:33):
In the US dollar system has been substantially weakened sanctioning China.
While you know, I think China showed, as we predicted,
that it had escalation dominance in such a war. It
has a monopoly control over rare earth metals, and it
decided to pull that lever in response to the Liberation
Day sanctions that Trump imposed on all the countries. And

(01:12:55):
so a final example is the sanctions against the Chinese
semiconductor street. All of this done is convince them to
invest way more money, way more quickly than they otherwise
would have, and soon they will be totally self sufficient
in semi conductors as well. You can't sanction large countries,
and the more you try, the weaker the US collar
system becomes.

Speaker 1 (01:13:14):
I do very much like the term escalation dominance and
I think it's been around for a while, but I
think I might have actually heard it first from you.
And I think I was kind of channeling my inner
green Chicken and talking to listeners at some point a
while back when Trump was starting to ratchet up the
trade war against China, and I told listeners, and again
I could have gotten this from you, that what listeners

(01:13:36):
needed to understand is that, of course it's true that
we buy a lot more from China than they buy
from US. But the problem is that the vast majority,
at least a lot of what they buy from US,
they can buy other places. There are some things at
least that we buy from them that we must have

(01:13:57):
and we can't buy anywhere else. So is that the
kind of the frame for escalation dominance?

Speaker 6 (01:14:04):
Yeah, so, escalation dominance is one of the most important
things to nail down before you enter into a competitive negotiation.
Let's take this to the extreme and see who has
the blink And you've correctly articulated what we've been pointing out.
China buys LNG, you know, soybeans fertilizers from the US,
and China owns monopoly share over rare earth metals products

(01:14:29):
like magnesium, which you're critical for, you know, aluminum composits
in the auto sector, and they have done this purposely
over the decades. We wrote a piece two years ago
called Geopolitical Warfare, where we pointed out that China was
willing to degrade its local environment in ways that Western
countries were not willing to do in order to achieve
its geopolitical aims. When China is susceptible to a supply

(01:14:52):
chain or considers it in the country's strategic interest, it
finds the earliest phase in that supply chain and could dominate.
That can dominate using just brute force, brute financial force.
And in this case, no matter where you mine your
rare earth, you have to ship them to China for
processing into pure metal.

Speaker 5 (01:15:10):
That's the stage that they dominated.

Speaker 6 (01:15:12):
That also happens to be the most environmentally challenging stage.
And as we said in a recent piece, you can't
compete when your competitor's idea of a water treatment plant
is a pipeline to the river. At The New York
Times had a giant expose a of the nastiness surrounding
the Chinese local rare earth processing, and that's very predictable

(01:15:34):
for anybody who's been in the industry like we have.

Speaker 1 (01:15:36):
All right, I'm not done with the sanctions yet. We
only have about three minutes. I want you to give
me twenty nine seconds because I like prime numbers on
MP Materials.

Speaker 6 (01:15:49):
MP Materials is a miner of rare earth in the US.
That's primary customer was a Chinese company that then converts
their mind concentrated into pure metals. And this week the
pente on wisely made an equity investment in MP Materials
to help underwrite the processing plant and construction plant that
would be needed in order to serve you US military needs.

Speaker 1 (01:16:11):
Do you think MP Materials, by themselves it can be
a big enough player in rare earths to not liberate
US from China, but reduce our utter dependence and maybe
change the escalation dominance question.

Speaker 6 (01:16:29):
Yes, and well, it certainly can meet a lot of
the Pentagon's needs, which is the most important thing, and
the market fails at pricing national security risk more important
to us. And the reason why we're inspired to write
that piece is the framework and the change of direction
that it implies the US government.

Speaker 5 (01:16:45):
You know, Trump's administration is filled.

Speaker 6 (01:16:46):
With smart business people and they made a very intelligent
investment decision, not a grant, not a giveaway. They invested,
and not only will the US public have some national
security risk apated, it will also more than likely make
money as a result.

Speaker 2 (01:17:02):
We're talking with Doomberg.

Speaker 1 (01:17:04):
The most successful, arguably most interesting financial category substack there
is Doomberg dot substack dot com. It's a must subscribe.
All right, let's do just another ninety seconds on sanctions.
So I'm going to play devil's advocate for a second.

Speaker 2 (01:17:22):
Well, do me.

Speaker 1 (01:17:23):
I realize you think sanctions aren't great, but if we
want to try to get some of these other countries
to do what we want, we really have nothing else
that we can use as leverage against them. So do
you either A think I'm wrong that there we have
no other leverage, or B it's just a fact of life.
Sanctions don't work, so suck that up too. And you

(01:17:45):
just have no leverage, so figure out something else.

Speaker 5 (01:17:51):
It's mostly both.

Speaker 6 (01:17:52):
You have the leverage and actually the only way to
gain comparative advantage. I think it's a strong country is
to get better yourself. It's very difficult to sustainably weaken
a strong geopolitical opponent economically, especially in the case of Russia,
which produces commodities the world desperately needs. It is a
major producer of natural gas, a major producer of oil.

(01:18:13):
We've argued from the beginning the best way upon US
Russia was to flood the market with those commodities. The
US Navy should be escorting Russian tankers to make it
as easy as possible for as much oil as possible
to get to the market. Drive the price down below
their profitability levels, and then you've starved the Russian war
machine of the profits. You don't sanctioned volume in commodities.
You try to drive prices lower, which is what James

(01:18:35):
Baker did before the first Gulf War went around the
Middle East, made everybody pump more, and that's why that
campaign was successful.

Speaker 1 (01:18:42):
Okay, I'm out of time, but I need to ask
you one more question, because I think it's maybe the
most important one, and I haven't gotten to it. Trump
has spent a bunch of time talking about secondary sanctions,
so not just a sanction on Russia, but a sanction
on countries that do business with Russia. And I think
the biggest buyers of Russian oil are India and China.
With going back to the stuff you say at the very.

Speaker 2 (01:19:00):
Beginning of this.

Speaker 1 (01:19:01):
We either can't or won't for sanction them, probably, But
how should we think about sanctions on countries that are
the customers of the country we're actually mad at.

Speaker 6 (01:19:13):
Yeah, secondary sanctions is the US threatening to impose tariffs
on countries that by Russian oil, and you correctly identified
the two biggest and as briefly as I can say it,
it's a bluff and it's going to.

Speaker 1 (01:19:23):
Be called.

Speaker 2 (01:19:25):
Duomberg is the best.

Speaker 1 (01:19:28):
You know, It's hard for Doomy to find a lot
of time to write because picking up, you know, pecking
at colonels and corn takes a very long time. But
in the free time that he has, nobody does better writing.
It is an absolutely must subscription Doomberg dot substack dot com.
Doomy has always thank you, I always learned something. Always
enjoy our conversations. You bet talk soon, Okay, thank you,

(01:19:51):
we'll take you quick break. We'll be right back on KOA.
How much that struck you if you listen to it
as not just fascinating but really counterintuitive. I mean, think
about what he said. And Doomberg has been saying this
for a long time. If you really want to hurt
Russia financially, is what he said, instead of putting penalties
trying to keep people from buying Russian oil, because if

(01:20:13):
you make it more difficult for the market to supply
oil by putting penalties, in dissuading people from you know,
dissuading the people from from taking up a major source
of global supply, you can have the effect of reducing

(01:20:35):
global supply at least a little, raising prices at least
a little. And then here's the thing. That country will
always find a way to sell their oil. And it's true,
they might sell it at a discount, they might sell
it at a you know, a discount versus the global price.
And they definitely were, and maybe they still are Russia
selling a lot of oil to India and China. But

(01:20:57):
what you've really done is raised the world's price. So Russia,
if anything, is selling oil at a higher price than
they otherwise would without the sanctions. And what Doomberg said
is that he thinks that the better policy would be
for the United States Navy to escort Russian tankers to

(01:21:21):
wherever they want to go and get as much oil
on the market as fast as possible. And it doesn't
just have to be Russian oil, but Russia is a
huge supplier, but massively increased supply so that the price
of oil goes down and Russia loses a ton of
money that way, And it's very counterintuitive. Doomberg posted a

(01:21:44):
note on substack five days ago. Now, sanctions not only
never work, but they always backfire. It's odd that as
evidence in support of this statement rolls in unabated, it
is always viewed as proof of the need to do
more sanctions.

Speaker 2 (01:21:58):
So anyway, I thought I would share that.

Speaker 1 (01:21:59):
With you because it is so counterintuitive, and I absolutely
understand why many people would think that imposing sanctions on
Russia or threatening other places to you know, not buy
Russian stuff, that that somehow that would hurt Russia. But
in fact it hasn't. It has not, It has not

(01:22:20):
hurt Russia in any important way. And in fact, as
Duenberg said, what it's done by somewhat isolating Russia is
it caused them to retool their economy in a way
where now they are less dependent on trade with other countries,
and so they and certainly less dependent on trade with

(01:22:41):
the West because they can sell Russia Russian oil. They
to to China and India, and now if anything, they
become in their own way, they've actually become a little
bit stronger when And anyway, I just thought i'd share
that with you because it really is outside the box thinking, Uh,
don't forget that. Governor p Pullis wants your opinion on

(01:23:01):
this walkway slash bridge that he wants to do from
the Capitol to what is it Civic Center Park or
Citypark or one of those things in the center of Denver.
And it's not getting very good press so far. Historic
Denver is against it and so on, and Polus is
feeling the heat here and so he says, all right,
let me let me ask the people. So he's put

(01:23:21):
up a poll to ask, you know, do you want
to do this? And there's some other questions there, and
so I would like to encourage you. Easiest thing is
probably if you just go to Rosskominsky dot com and
click on today's Thursday blogcast.

Speaker 2 (01:23:34):
The link is right near the top, so you don't
have to remember if co one.

Speaker 1 (01:23:38):
Fifty walkway dot com slash feedback is where they But anyway,
just go to Rosskominsky dot com, go to the Thursday
blodcast is right there. And what Polus said in some interviews.
I'm not sure if he said it this morning on
Colorado's Morning News, but he was on with Martyngina. He said,
I really don't want this pole to be close, because
that would be really bad if it were fifty one

(01:23:58):
forty nine or something like that, cause it's basically a tie.
There's no important difference if it's not an election.

Speaker 2 (01:24:05):
There's no important.

Speaker 1 (01:24:06):
Difference between fifty to fifty and fifty one forty nine.
You don't want to be in a position where you're
going to go do something that essentially half the population
is Again, so he's hoping to get a very clear
message out of this poll, and so I would say,
let's help him with that goal of having it not
be close, and I encourage you to go vote against
the bridge.

Speaker 2 (01:24:22):
I don't hate it. I just think it's it's a little.

Speaker 1 (01:24:25):
Out of place with that neighborhood, and it seems a
bit like a vanity project. And I don't feel a
need to spend eight and a half million dollars of
taxpayer money on it. There would be another ten million
dollars of privately funded money on it.

Speaker 2 (01:24:38):
So I'm just It's not.

Speaker 1 (01:24:40):
The worst idea in the world, but I think it's unnecessary.

Speaker 2 (01:24:43):
So let's help Jared and give him a resounding no.

Speaker 1 (01:24:46):
Go to Roskiminski dot com, click on the Thursday blogcast
and you can find the link right there.

Speaker 2 (01:24:51):
Near the top of the Thursday blogcast.

Speaker 1 (01:24:53):
Now, earlier in the show, we had Katie, we had
Kelly Cawfield from Common Sense Institute on and we were
talking demographic changes in Colorado and how fewer people are
moving to Colorado than did you know, six or eight
or ten years ago, And a lot of this stuff
plays into what happens with real estate prices, and of
course another thing with real estate prices is construction because

(01:25:16):
it's supply and demand. Right what's going on in Denver
metro area. Real estate is fascinating, and we're going to
talk about.

Speaker 2 (01:25:23):
It with ed Pray. They're right after this. I thought
of my friend ed Pray there.

Speaker 1 (01:25:27):
The other day, my wife and I were driving through
rural Jefferson County to go for a hike, and we
actually drove by an ed Pray they're listing out there
near where we went hiking, near where I saw a
black bear across the road. So that would be a
bonus if you buy that house that it is selling.

(01:25:47):
Ed is just a fantastic real estate agent, a personal
friend of mine, valued morning show partner, and Ed and
I have a bet about real estate prices for calendar
year twenty twenty five. So Hi, Ed, welcome back. It's
been a little while since I talked to you. It's
good to see you.

Speaker 8 (01:26:08):
Ross is always a pleasure. It's it's great to be
on What.

Speaker 2 (01:26:12):
Don't you just tell people what our bed is?

Speaker 9 (01:26:16):
Okay, So we are looking at their in the counter
year twenty twenty five, are we going to see the
median closed price across the eleven counties that make up
the Denver metro area increase by three percent? And coincidentally,
what that really looks like based on the month of December,
is we that price would be above six hundred thousand,

(01:26:39):
almost like to the dollar. And you know, like you
and I have been talking about, it's a very i'll
use the word interesting market, especially with this latest data
to come out.

Speaker 1 (01:26:50):
Right, and I want to talk mostly about the data,
but I'll just talk.

Speaker 2 (01:26:54):
About one little artifact here.

Speaker 1 (01:26:56):
So far, the median closed price in Denver is a
Denver metro area is up a bit for the year,
which makes it seem like ED is winning. Well, ED
is winning because that's the series that we're measuring, even
though and I would still lose the bet. But I'm
going to explain this anyway. I think kind of conceptually,

(01:27:18):
I think I'm right. But what's happening is, since it's
not based on what's the average value of every home
that exists in the Denver metro area, it's about what
houses are actually selling. And so I'm going to throw
out a theory, Ed, and you tell me whether you
think this is possible, probable, or what. So, since the

(01:27:39):
median closing sale home price is up a little bit
from last year, but since I think real estate is
a little bit weak, what I suspect is going on
is that there has been a decline in the number
of transactions of lower priced homes that has been greater
than the decline of transactions, or there might not even

(01:28:01):
be a decline I don't know with higher priced homes.
And so therefore, of the homes that are actually selling,
the dollar value is up a little bit. And that
can happen even if actually all real estate prices were
down a little.

Speaker 8 (01:28:20):
Well. To that point.

Speaker 9 (01:28:22):
You know, we joke around a little bit ross that,
you know, in real estate, it feels like nothing can
just be black and white. So I would agree with that,
but I would also say that it's very subjective to area.
And what I mean by that is, if we're looking
at communities, you know, we're not talking zip codes, we
are talking about specific neighborhoods. There are certainly specific neighborhoods

(01:28:45):
across the metro area where lower priced homes are not
selling and higher price homes.

Speaker 8 (01:28:52):
Are, and vice versa.

Speaker 9 (01:28:55):
But I think you're right in you know, you and
I have talked a lot about especially lately, you know,
some of these really hot markets as it pertains to
the higher price homes, you know, areas like apple Wood
or Cherry Hills, you're still seeing properties move in a
matter of just a couple of days. And just like
you had pointed out, we're talking, you know, two and

(01:29:16):
three million dollars plus.

Speaker 1 (01:29:19):
So there have been a bunch of news articles lately,
and you get this data anyway.

Speaker 2 (01:29:23):
You don't really need the news articles.

Speaker 1 (01:29:25):
But headline from the Denver Gazette state wide housing report
shows swelling inventory but prices still hold. Headline from the
Colorado Springs Gazette local home listings hit eleven year high
sales increase despite price records. So that does show, you know,

(01:29:45):
a little difference here and there in Colorado Springs, not
in the Denver metro area, but in general, what what
can you tell us about two things? Inventory levels right
now and transaction volume right now?

Speaker 8 (01:30:00):
Well?

Speaker 9 (01:30:00):
Absolutely, and you know, right before our call, I had noted,
you know, when we hit ten thousand active units across
the metro area. You know, some alarm bells started going
off only because we hadn't seen that amount of inventory
in many, many years. You know, as of the end
of June, we're now above fourteen thousand active listings on

(01:30:24):
the market, which is very surprising when we contrast that
and I will get to the volume of sales, but
when we contrast.

Speaker 8 (01:30:32):
That to the media and close price, because it actually
went up to.

Speaker 9 (01:30:36):
Six hundred and two hundred dollars, representing a one point
seven percent increase between May and June, which.

Speaker 8 (01:30:42):
Is just it's hard to it's hard to believe.

Speaker 9 (01:30:46):
Really, and I think it shows resilience in this housing
market in sellers, even if they're not able to sell,
you know, they're they're taking their property off the market quickly.
As we see the median days on market at only
eighteen days. You're just seeing sellers not really willing at

(01:31:06):
least right now to make price major price reductions. And so,
you know, getting back to your point, you know, the
number of close homes decreased by almost ten percent between
May and June. And part of that is some seasonality
as we get into the summer season of travel, but
that is significant, and I think part of that is

(01:31:28):
sellers are seeing the news, they're seeing the swelling inventory,
and instead of testing the market, they're saying, maybe we
wait until you know, hey, potentially interest.

Speaker 8 (01:31:39):
Rates come down or we see absorption kick up.

Speaker 1 (01:31:42):
Yeah, and on the interest rate thing, people have been
waiting that for a long time now on the long
term rates, and it's not happening. There was this brief
downward spike I don't remember when it was, maybe a
year ago or something.

Speaker 2 (01:31:54):
Like that, where September.

Speaker 1 (01:31:57):
Yeah, yeah, okay, so and the mortgage rates went from
roughly seven to roughly six even maybe got into the
high fives if you caught a good tick one day.
But it didn't last very long, and now it's back
up close to seven again, and how big a factor
is that?

Speaker 8 (01:32:17):
It's big ross.

Speaker 9 (01:32:18):
You know, when we look at real estate, there's two
main drivers, and that is interest rates and then employment.
And you and I both know. You know, it appears
that the unemployment rate is ticking up a little bit,
but historically speaking, I believe four point two percent, if I'm.

Speaker 8 (01:32:34):
Not mistaken, that's not crazy.

Speaker 9 (01:32:36):
And it should also be noted that we hit eight
percent mortgage rates in October of twenty twenty three, So
I mean, yes, we're at higher interest rates than several
years ago.

Speaker 8 (01:32:47):
We all know that, but it's far from the peak.

Speaker 9 (01:32:49):
So I think that there's this third driver and it
would be hard to ignore it, and that is the
uncertainty in the economy. And it just is very difficult
for or for buyers to want to make big life
decisions when we don't know what's coming tomorrow.

Speaker 1 (01:33:06):
So all right, let's talk about the current situation. Then,
a lot of homes for sale not necessarily sitting around
for long, but as you said, if it seems like
a home is sitting around, then then with maybe a
higher than usual frequency, the sellers are taking their homes
off the market.

Speaker 2 (01:33:25):
Is it sustainable?

Speaker 1 (01:33:26):
To have high inventory and price is not going down,
or do you feel like it's inevitable that prices have
to go I mean, nothing's really inevitable, but just based
on your experience, what are the chances that prices don't
go down from here given that there are fourteen thousand
units on the market.

Speaker 9 (01:33:48):
It's a great question, and I will say every time
I try to read the crystal ball, I you know,
I put my foot in my mouth, but I think
it's unlikely that we can sustain you know, especially if
you I mean you might see prices stagnate, but I
would not be surprised even when we get our July

(01:34:08):
data to see them tick down a bit, you know,
because what we're seeing is you've got savvy buyers, opportunistic
buyers that are starting to come out of the woodwork
because there are I mean, there are good deals out
there right now. And that's not to say that you know,
folks aren't getting you know, hitting their goals on on
the seller side of things. But you've got to be

(01:34:30):
really careful bringing a property to market, making sure that
you can.

Speaker 8 (01:34:34):
Differentiate through finishes.

Speaker 9 (01:34:37):
You know that the lot orientation, that the pricing and
the marketing is right, because otherwise the last thing you
want to do is have to differentiate through pricing, because
as you can imagine, ross, if you've got three other
properties on your street and they're all about the same, well,
a buyer's probably going to jump on the one that
has the most attractive pricing. And so bottom line, I

(01:34:57):
would not be surprised at all to see the media
and closed price tick down.

Speaker 8 (01:35:02):
And then I think a big.

Speaker 9 (01:35:03):
Part of this is, of course, like we talked about,
uncertainty in the economy, and then the key factor here's
interest rates, and if there were significant movement or improvement
and rates, I mean you could see double or triple
the amount of showings one weekend to the next.

Speaker 1 (01:35:21):
Wow, we're talking with Edpra. They're excellent real estate agent.
Edpraytherer dot com at p R A t h e
R dot com.

Speaker 2 (01:35:30):
Now it's funny as you.

Speaker 1 (01:35:31):
Describe you know, all right, you need to differentiate your
home by having it basically by having it be a
little nicer than the next guys home.

Speaker 2 (01:35:37):
Because if it's not.

Speaker 1 (01:35:39):
The only thing you're going to be able to do
is cut the price, which is not what you want
to do. And all this stuff that you're describing actually
is a normal real estate market. It just feels odd
to us because we went these years, not just the
COVID years, but in Colorado even some years a little
bit before that, where it was just such a seller's

(01:35:59):
market all the time. You know, I use this bad
analogy ed when I was a kid. It's a true story.
When I was a kid, I went deep sea fishing
with my dad. We went a lot. One time, the
boat went through or near this massive school of I
was mackerel or bonito or something like that, and it
was just the biggest school of fish I've ever seen,

(01:36:21):
and they were so hungry that you could throw an
unbaited hook and they would bite it and you would
catch a fish without any bait.

Speaker 2 (01:36:29):
But that's not normally what it's like.

Speaker 1 (01:36:32):
That's what the real estate market was like if you
were a seller three years ago, you know, or for
whatever something like that. But that's not normal. So pick
up that analogy and describe kind of normal, you know,
is now normal compared to what's it like having been
a realtor around here for the last years.

Speaker 9 (01:36:53):
Well, I mean, that's a great analogy, and we joke,
actually ross like we are so far beyond the point
of throwing a sign in the yard and crossing our
fingers because I mean, frankly speaking, I hate to say it,
but three or four years ago, I mean, you put
a property on the market that was priced halfway decent,

(01:37:14):
I mean it's going to get not just an offer,
but multiple offers, and most likely above list price. So
now it's hard for me to say this as normal
because if we look at the fourteen thousand plus of
active listings on the market, we have to go all
the way back to pre twenty eleven to hit those
inventory levels.

Speaker 8 (01:37:34):
But you know, I.

Speaker 9 (01:37:36):
Also want to mention that historically speaking, we would say
that four to six months of inventory of active listings
based on the current absorption rate is a balanced market
and interesting enough, as of the end of June, we're
still only at three points six three months, so it's

(01:37:56):
very interesting. It can be difficult to some extent to
un understand the data because obviously you've got swelling inventory.
You've got to you know, it's never been a better
buyer's market in the in the entire time that I've
been an agent, you know, obviously, until you go back
to the two thousand and eight, two thousand and nine.
But you know you're still saying, but by historical standards

(01:38:20):
that we only know we have less than four months
of inventory, which is frankly quite surprising.

Speaker 1 (01:38:27):
Listener question, Uh, how large is the geographic area that
Ed Pratherer covers with his real estate services?

Speaker 8 (01:38:38):
That's a great question.

Speaker 9 (01:38:39):
You know, we operate as a team, and so we're
able to provide a lot of leverage to our agents
that allows us to operate from Fort Collins down to
Colorado Springs.

Speaker 8 (01:38:49):
We do a little bit of I seventy.

Speaker 9 (01:38:52):
Not a ton and and just I want to be
completely transparent, we don't do much of anything in Bolder.
But outside of that, you know, we take listenings and
help buyers almost across the entire metro area, and we're
able to do that with the team model that we incorporate.

Speaker 1 (01:39:10):
This listener is asking, and these are not places that
are near each other, but somewhat out slightly outlying areas.
A listener is asking about Bennett, Larkspur, Firestone.

Speaker 8 (01:39:19):
Absolutely, absolutely all of that.

Speaker 9 (01:39:21):
I believe that we have listenings and barks for and
Bennett right now, and I think we have something going
live in Firestone this weekend. You know, we take our
listenings live on Thursday, So those are areas that we
cover and your you know, it's interesting with those areas
because we're seeing a lot of developments, you know, as

(01:39:41):
we push out and people are wanting more.

Speaker 8 (01:39:45):
And more, you know, some space, you have, some breathing room.
And I think that that's been.

Speaker 9 (01:39:49):
Sort of the the theme, uh since COVID in seeing
people leave that high density. In fact, the CBD, the
Central Business District is having a very difficult time, you know,
because of that fact, people just wanting to get some
some space.

Speaker 4 (01:40:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:40:05):
And also, you know, land prices have gotten so expensive
that you need to go past the suburbs to the
exurbs for a lot of folks to get something you
can afford, especially maybe a first home for a young couple.

Speaker 2 (01:40:17):
Kristin and I were out.

Speaker 1 (01:40:18):
Near Elizabeth in Elbert County looking at trees. We were
looking at trees for the you know, we're real landscaping
the house that you've seen, and boy, the number of
developments out there, which is I mean if you live
in if you work in Denver or in DTC or something,
I mean like that's a heck of a drive, but

(01:40:39):
there are at least hundreds, maybe thousands of units being built.
So that leads to my next question for you, and
we just have a couple of minutes left here, it
seems like I feel like I'm seeing the biggest increase
in new construction supply maybe since I've been in Colorado.

Speaker 2 (01:40:59):
Do you are you seeing something like that?

Speaker 1 (01:41:02):
And when you tie it in with the fact that
Colorado's population growth rate has slowed dramatically, do you think
we may end up in a situation where there is
truly over supply of housing.

Speaker 2 (01:41:18):
Well, I do.

Speaker 9 (01:41:19):
And it's interesting because if we're talking about, you know,
areas that we just mentioned, you know, like you know, Bennett, Larksboro, Elizabeth,
You're absolutely right where you're seeing just an incredible amount
of development.

Speaker 8 (01:41:31):
And I think we.

Speaker 9 (01:41:33):
Are absolutely on the verge of that because the same
reason that Colorado was so attractive for so long, which
was the cost of living, has now become one of
the primary reasons that folks are taking off. And that's
not to say that you know, people don't want to
be here. I mean, I can't see us ever live leaving.

(01:41:53):
I mean, I'm a Colorado native, I love it, but
you get it. Yeah, you see it.

Speaker 8 (01:41:57):
It's tough.

Speaker 9 (01:41:59):
I think that an oversupply, especially of new housing in infill,
you know, so in higher density areas, is unlikely. But
you do see what's happening, you know, near and around
the airport in Green Valley Ranch, there is an incredible
amount of inventory. And what's interesting, Ross is the way
that the builders operate is they can incentivize differently. So

(01:42:22):
if you can imagine they are offering rates in the
fours for thirty or fixed, if you can believe.

Speaker 8 (01:42:28):
It, because that's what they're having to do.

Speaker 9 (01:42:31):
I am astounded though, by just the number of housing starts,
because I have the same feeling.

Speaker 8 (01:42:37):
At some point you just can't keep up with it.

Speaker 9 (01:42:40):
I mean, especially if you don't have interest rates come down,
whether you offer the incentives or not.

Speaker 1 (01:42:46):
Ed bray There's website is unsurprisingly Edprather dot com ed
p R A T H e r dot com. If
you're going to sell a home, and we don't even
talk about it that much, but Ed and his team
are happy to help you on the other side too,
if you're buying a home, happy to help you work
on any part of a real estate transaction, and as
we just discussed, he and his team cover are a
very wide geographic area around the Denver metro. Mandy, do

(01:43:10):
you want to say anything to Ed as long as
he's here other than can you a high?

Speaker 9 (01:43:14):
Ed?

Speaker 8 (01:43:15):
Hi? Mandy, I'm so happy to hear your voice.

Speaker 10 (01:43:18):
Well, we've got to get you on the show, but
I have to have some separation now that you are
on this clown, Ross, I'm gonna get that stink off
you for a couple of weeks. But obviously great information.
So basically, it's a great time to sell a house
and it's a great time to buy a house, but
you better have the right reeltor on both ends.

Speaker 8 (01:43:37):
Well.

Speaker 9 (01:43:37):
Absolutely, you know, I think we need to remind ourselves.
You know, house homes are selling every day, but we
just need to be very intentional. Throwing a sign in
the yard hoping for the best, Trusting a friend of
a friend who doesn't do any business at all is
not the way to do it. And on the buy
side of things, there are incredible deals. And to that point,
we're going to be watching this data very closely because

(01:43:58):
to your point, Ross, I think there's a good chance
that we see that media in close price slip.

Speaker 8 (01:44:03):
But right now you and I both know that I
am winning the best.

Speaker 2 (01:44:08):
And pray the dot com for all your help with
real estate. Thanks Ed, Thanks Ross. Its pleasure. All right,
we'll see you, Mandy. Let's do this.

Speaker 10 (01:44:15):
We're as good at betting as you are playing the
games you create for your own show.

Speaker 2 (01:44:19):
We'll see the year's not over.

Speaker 8 (01:44:20):
You're ready?

Speaker 2 (01:44:21):
Ah yeah, hit me.

Speaker 1 (01:44:22):
Four month old boy weighs twenty two and a half pounds.
Only crap sales of men's underwear can forecast a recession.
Company launches therapy vending machines. Dogs can smell Parkinson's disease.

Speaker 10 (01:44:35):
I hope it's number three, just for a wide variety
of reasons. We don't need mental health vending machines. Huh No,
tell me that's fake. And I totally see where men
would put off buying underwear if they were a little
bit worried about how things were going. I mean, I've
seen We're not my husband now. He always has very

(01:44:56):
tidy underwear a rod.

Speaker 1 (01:44:57):
If Mandy gets it right today, what does she win?
Ooh A doomberg plushy ome. Oh wow, I was going
to say, I was going to say nice merch. I
was gonna say you could win a twenty two and
a half pound four month old boy. The actual fake
headline Mandy Is Company launches therapy vending machines.

Speaker 2 (01:45:15):
You are fake news. There you go. What you got
coming up?

Speaker 5 (01:45:17):
Yes, I had some stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:45:22):
I got something.

Speaker 9 (01:45:22):
Oh.

Speaker 2 (01:45:22):
I got Richard Holtorf coming on.

Speaker 10 (01:45:24):
He wants to be the Colorado vice chair of the
Colorado GOP.

Speaker 2 (01:45:27):
We'll talk to him, uh huh.

Speaker 10 (01:45:29):
And then I have the best time yesterday trying to
make Grock make an image that was representative of Americans
based on demographics. It was absolutely hilarious. Spoiler alert. Grock
can't do it. And then I'll tell you why it's incredible.

Speaker 1 (01:45:47):
I can't wait to hear it. Everybody, stick around for
Mandy's show. I'll talk to you tomorrow.