The county of Los Angeles is looking into a plan that will include pricing, technology and revene for a 16-mile stretch through LA, threatening the wallets of those who commute through the city. Then, LA Mayor Karen Bass has had her "Inside Safe" plan stalled as many homeless are refusing to abide by the rules that would come with a roof over their heads. And Dean Sharp returns for a fresh edition of Handel & The House Whisperer! Dean is a beekeeper on his free time and shares with Bill some interesting facts about bees and ways they benefit both your yard and the ecosystem.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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You're listening to kf I AM sixforty. The bill handles show on demand
on the iHeartRadio f kf I AMsix forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
A couple of stories that we arefollowing. The big one is yesterday
the House Committee voted to move forwardthe debt ceiling bill, and today another
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vote COEs through and it's an importantone to say the least. Also,
I want to remind you before weget to our topic that tomorrow is the
first ever iHeartRadio Access Day, featuringdeals including a one year VIP access pass
to all the live shows at theiHeartRadio Theater in LA and recent performances include
mc lemore, Flow Ride, Who'sReally Florida? Who We Kidding? And
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Smashing Pumpkins. You can also getaccess to Dodgers, Kings and Clippers experiences.
It's one day only. More informationat iHeartRadio Access Day dot com.
There's something going on for you drivers, which basically means everybody. If you've
ever been to London and you've renteda car, you get to pay pretty
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big dollars to go into central London. London is really only a square mile,
and then you have other cities aroundthat and London per se costs money
to drive into the same thing.In Stockholm and Singapore, drivers pay to
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drive in the city centers. Andso the La County Metropolitan Transparent the La
County Metropolitan Transport Authority, is releasinga study this summer offering a blueprint for
a congestion pricing scheme similar to theones in other cities. Three locations.
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What a shocker, sixteen miles stretchof the ten Freeway between downtown in Santa
Monica, the streets and freeways arounddowntown and Canyon Streets that connect San Francio
Valley to the La Basin. Detailsstill being ironed out, and but we're
gonna find the findings. It's goingto be made public in the several months,
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and the vote by the board isgoing to happen early next year.
Now, how about poor people?Aren't they allowed? Do they have to
pay? Of course, they'll besubsidies, and they'll also be no charge
for carpoolers, etc. But ithas gotten so terrible. The big issue
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is do we charge basically toll roadsgoing into the city or driving through the
city. That's a little controversial becausewe're used to free cities, free city
driving. I mean, at firstglance you would think, oh my god,
how do we why would we payto drive, especially in the city.
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Well, toll road has happened allover the place. You drive to
Orange County, do the one thirtythree when it's the five or the four
or five is jammed. You paymoney and it's tiered money, which means
at times when there's particularly high congestion, you pay lots of money. And
people have accepted it. People haveaccepted this. I'll tell you. One
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of the things that I didn't getis for me, and I've talked about
this before with Rich DeMuro, isfor me, cable and streaming TV was
always free and then they started chargingfor it. I got. I went
crazy on that. I can't dothat. It's accepted, and you're gonna
find toll roads being accepted. Sowhy do they want to do this?
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Well, of course, relief congencongestion put people on public transport. And
the difference is you go to Londonis one of the best public transport systems
on the planet. You go toSingapore, you go to Stockholm, you're
crazy to drive because the subway system, the public transit is so good,
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LA. Come on, I mean, we're we have this huge problem of
homeless people camping in the transit,in the subway cars. So is it
going to happen? We're going tosee it, do you, mark my
words, It's going to happen here. It's going to happen early next year.
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A plan is coming out. Thisis so controversial, This is so
explosive in terms of LA drivers beingcharged to drive in on LA roads that
they're not even releasing preliminary findings.But mark my words, we're going to
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see it happen. Now, Iwant to move into a story of La
County and mainly in downtown LA.If you go to seventy eighth Street in
downtown LA, it's actually South LA, you'll see a seven member team passing
out They're passing out needles, cleanneedles, and sanitary wipes and fentyl test
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strips narcon. I'll tell you what'sreally controversial, which a lot of people
who are pro this program don't like, is they're also passing out pipes.
They're passing out drug pipes, andboy do people argue on that one.
Now, activists are saying it's thesame general aim to help people to help,
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particularly the homeless people across the city, because, as you know,
the number of drug addicts among thehomeless is astronomical. And so this is
called harm reduction. Its supplies tokeep drug users alive and safe. It's
all about safety from infection and transmissionof HIV, hypatitis C, etc.
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And what this is I'll tell youwhy it's controversial. One of them is
somehow people think that it's a gatewaythat if you hand out pikes, more
people are going to use pipes.It's like it was like marijuana, where
the legalization of marijuana, first amedical marijuana, then recreational marijuana, and
you had people going, you can'thave that because well, as I explained,
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my dad when I was sixteen,caught me smoking cannabis. I was
in the garage taking a puff,and he went berserk because he believed you
take a puff of the joint,it goes down, you pick up the
needle of heroin and injected directly intoyour eyeballs. And there are people to
believe that a pipe is going todo the same thing. People who are
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not heroin addicts, who are notmeth addicts. If you give if you
give them a pipe. They're gonnabe more liable, They're gonna be much
more excited, they're gonna be moreapt to use these drugs. Absolutely not
true. By the way, allthe evidence out there points that is just
a complete crock. But it doesn'tmatter because when it comes to this matter,
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this kind of thing, you havepeople that are against this just make
this stuff up, even though hey, I guess they have some kind of
logic. Okay, So with thatbeing said, the argument is that these
are harm reduction supplies, keeping usersalive and safe. All right, everybody
knows narcan keeps people alive. Imean, there are a couple of people
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out there. There's one sheriff Ithink in Texas who won't let narcon be
used in his county because he insistsif you have narcon, people are more
likely to use opioids. Therefore theremore deaths. And the guy's completely out
of his mind. But the argumentthat pipes being handed out is number one
is specious, where you were invitingpeople to become addicts who otherwise wouldn't.
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But there's a spin on this,and that is handing out pipes is helping
people to switch from injecting heroin intosmoking heroin. So let's say you are
an addict and you're a member,for example, of this team, and
you're part of the group that believesin needle exchanges and fentyl test strips and
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certainly narcon, and they're handing thisout now, handing out drug pipes,
with the argument that it is goingto help people. And here is the
theory. You're an addict. Weaccept the fact that you're an addict.
We're not going to change that.We're gonna help you try to be as
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safe as possible. Needle exchange,sanitary, fentnyl test strips, etc.
Certainly an arcad. But the argumentis accepting that you are an addict and
you switch from heroin to smoking isfar, far safer. And here is
the reason when people smoke, atleast according to LA County, according to
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this program that does this, Ifyou are an addict and you smoke,
you smoke through the day because thehigh is very short and you want to
keep the high going, so you'repuffing away and you need very little amounts
of it, and therefore you're probablynot going to dive an overdose. A
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heroin injection can be a hot shot. The heroine is too pure, it's
all done in one time, andpeople die. Also, if you're puffing
away on a pipe, the chancesof getting hepatitis C or HIV is far
less than using a needle that hasbeen used. And those are the two
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points that are used. And thiswas kind of interesting because there are people,
i mean within the community of handingout and needle exchange people and the
narcon people who are saying, waita minute, this is far it's a
it's a far different story handing outdrug pipes and helping people actually administer drugs
to themselves. See, there's needleexchanges, but there's handing out needles and
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syringes. Hey, here's needle andsyringes. Use these. You're not seeing
that very often. And fentnyl waspresent. Here's the scary part about about
fentyl, which is involved in weedand heroin and meth, was present more
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than half of the fifteen hundred fifteenhundred overdose deaths of homeless people in twenty
twenty one. That's they go backa couple of years to get the numbers,
and so this taps the nerve andyou've got skid row two or maybe
fifteen hundred homeless people live, andthe substance abuse disorder hits up to fifty
percent, and people are dying.And so these programs to either make it
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safer for people to get high.I don't care if you get high,
But let me tell you why whyI care that you get hepatitis C.
And it's forget about the morality ofit. Okay. I've always said,
if you want to be an addict, if you want to kill yourself,
if you are not careful enough,you know, knock your socks off.
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However, you get hepatitis C.Believe me, Homeless people, what do
they not have? They don't havemoney, do they? And when they
get seriously ill, when they getsick, when they're about to die,
when they get these infections, whenthey get livered disorders as a result of
all of their or not just disorders, liver disease, and they're gonna die,
where do they go? They goto the county hospital. Who pays
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for the county hospital. We doso on a bunch of different levels.
I think this makes all the sensein the world. You got to see
some controversy about this, though,because it's a jump from needle exchange to
handing out pipes. One of thethings that we noticed, one of the
aspects of the pandemic is evictions almostdisappeared the protections that tenants have now Here
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we're talking about La County. Andby the way, I know La County,
you know. Let me explain realquickly. When I first started practicing
law, I had a partner didn'tlast very long, and we had a
general partnership. I handled the surrogacystuff and I've told you about that a
million year, a million times,and he handled the other stuff. We
did some personal injury, did evictions, and I went down to eviction court,
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to the court the handles evictions.I was down there maybe a dozen
times filling in for him when somethingelse was going on. And this is
exactly what happened. So the evictionprotection for tenants who can't pay rent due
to COVID that expired two months ago. And as you can imagine, the
eviction proceedings, the filings are startingto pile up big time. Filings in
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March, higher than any other Marchsince twenty fifteen. And guess what's going
to happen, which has happened beforemany times. Courts are going to get
backlog, I mean big time.And you know who don't come You know
the people that don't come out ahead. And this happens across the board.
Whenever an eviction happens is the tenantsget screwed. And why do the tenants
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get screwed? The tenants get screwedbecause they don't have representation. They represent
themselves. Tenants who can't pay therent generally don't have a lot of money.
Landlords have money. And if youimmagine you're a tenant and you are
walking into court and it's crowded,it's noisy, you're hearing lawyers talk with
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each other. It's a collegial atmosphere. Yers all know each other because there
are specialists who do nothing but evictions. There are judges who hear nothing but
evictions. The lawyers know all thejudges. They banter with each other,
they tell each other jokes. Andof course the lawyers know the law.
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They know how to prosecute an evictioncase. And there are defenses to evictions,
but you sort of have to knowthem, and some of them are
very technical defenses, and tenants don'tknow about those. And there are judges
that are very tough. Some judgesbend over backwards for tenants. Other judges
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say, nope, you can't usethat argument. Nope, that is that's
not relevant. And then boom downcomes the eviction, the decision to evict,
and it happens more and more becausewhen you look at people who have
not paid the rent, it isvery, very tough to come back and
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when number one higher a lawyer andfigure out how you're going to defend,
and frankly, there's very little defensebecause the eviction proceedings, the eviction protections
are gone two months ago, andhow do you defend yourself somehow saying I
don't owe the rent without protections becausethe defense I can't afford the rent just
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doesn't fly. It just doesn't work. And therefore they're gonna lose. And
believe me, evictions are very toughbecause the marshals will come in and they
will throw people out, they'll changethe locks and literally put furniture on the
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sidewalk. So you're going to seemore and more of that. So at
the beginning of the pandemic, thetenants had all the breaks, and you
had landlords that were effectively going broke. They're saying how can I afford it
without the rent? I can't paythe mortgage because how many people who own
homes, who rent homes or apartmentshave zero mortgage almost nobody. So you're
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going to come back and hear storiesabout tenants who are being oppressed, tenants
who are being taken advantage of,and those stories, where absolutely true,
are true, and they're just goingto come back more and more. A
topic that I spent a lot oftime on that affect a lot of us,
especially if you're near one of these. And when am I talking about
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homeless encampments, homeless encampments, evenif you're not near one, it still
burns a little bit that so manypeople are homeless. And I'm not going
to get into the morality. I'mnot going to get into the cause of
homelessness. What I am going toget into is La City Mayor Karen ass
and her plan, the Inside SafeInitiative to take care of homelessness, to
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deal with a homeless problem. Oneof the things that I have said,
homelessness is almost impossible to deal with. It's going to take many years,
it's going to take insane amounts ofmoney, and we will get or it
will get better incrementally next year,or maybe if they spend enough money,
you'll see it a little bit better, and in the following year you're going
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to see it a little bit better. Ten years from now you may see
a really good dent in the problem. Although, as I've said, the
better job that is done with homelessnessin Los Angeles and whatever city, then
the more people are going to comehomeless people and take advantage of the better
conditions. So what is going onwith the homeless issue? And this is
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something that is really not talked about. So here is a story. There
were outreach workers went downtown last monthand delivered which is now an old sales
pitch. Give up your spot onthe sidewalk, give up your tent,
and we'll put you in a nearbyhotel room with heat, with gas,
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with a working toilet, I meanall of that. So there's one guy,
David Ruther, who has a tenton that street and he said,
not a chance, not a chance. And it's not because as some people
have a want to do, theyjust like living on the street. There
is a percentage of people that justenjoy living on the street. I mean,
they're clearly mentally ill because who intheir right mind is going to live
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on the street as opposed to aplace that's warm as a supposed to a
place that may have a bed,has heat, running water, toilets,
that sort of thing. His positionis not that he didn't want to go
there because the hotel which is beingused by the city for homeless housing.
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He said that the restrictions are sotight that I have no desire to be
there, for example, having bagsinspected every time they go in and out.
I told them I wasn't going togive up my constitutional rights and have
them search me every time I goto the store to buy a soda pop
or a pack of beer. AndKaren Bass not really paying attention to that.
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And you can't do much about that, because you have every right to
be homeless, and you have everyright to be mentally ill. You cannot
be punished for that. Now youdon't have a right to be living on
sidewalks. The law is pretty clearabout that. And there's a whole issue
in terms of those who advocate allowingpeople to live on the sidewalks, because
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you can't criminalize homeless people on thesidewalks, So therefore, someone wants to
live on a sidewalk under a bridge, and you're looking an entire Neighborhoo,
there's one near my house, abridge that is and it's clean. It
was wonderful. There were no homelesspeople. It is strewn with garbage.
And the tents are I won't saysophisticated, but they're large tents. Now,
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have you ever been to an RIIshowroom with have really neat tents.
That's almost what it looks like.And as I've said before, is there
if there's a porta potty put upthere by the city you've got a two
bedroom, one bath tent, whichis not bad. And so the inside
Safe initiative, and they're spending unbelievableamounts of money so far twelve hundred homeless
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people off the street from Venice,North, Hollywood, Delray, Beverly Grove,
and about a dozen other neighborhoods.It recently stalled in one part of
downtown LA and I don't know ifyou've ever been there, but I suggest
you go there. And that's all. There a street that is the heart
the beginning of Los Angeles, andit is surrounded by tent enclosures, by
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tent encampments, encampments and they tookaway, well, seventy eight people did
go to shelters, but as soonas seventy eight people went, at least
three dozen tents are still there andpeople are coming in. New arrivals have
taken the place of those who acceptedhotel rooms. And now we go back
to what I said. You movepeople out, you give them a warm
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place to stay, and assuming they'renot mentally ill and want to stay there,
which effectively they can legally, thenwhat happens is it's a vacuum and
it's instantly filled again. It's likestorage in your house. The more you
take out, the more it fillsup. You put in an extra closet
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that gets more jammed than the previousclosets that you had in the house.
And best acknowledge, we've got realissues going on. And with that two
hundred and fifty million dollars, remembershe pushed that one the Safe Inside Safe
program, two hundred and fifty milliondollars in next year's city budget. That
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doesn't count county money, that doesn'tcount state money, that doesn't count federal
money. And seventeen locations have beentargeted. And as as Karen vass has
admitted and as you no doubt thinkthat program is not going to be a
success until your community is free ofencampments. I mean, do you really
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care if the city next to youis free of encampments and your community?
For example, the bridge that Idrive under is filled with tents and garbage
literally just well, I'm gonna sayruining the street, but I am the
garbage is really strewn. And I'mtalking about the quire street from sidewalk to
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sidewalk. Think I'm gonna be talkingabout this again. Have you ever heard
the term house poor? One quarterof homeowners in the United States are house
poor, and in southern California isclose to one half. And what does
that mean. Well, that meansyou're spending more than thirty percent of your
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income, your entire income, onhousing costs. And people think that's okay,
mortgage or rent. Oh no,no, it goes way beyond that,
because when we're talking about housing costs, we're talking about taxes, utilities,
maintenance. That should be no morethan thirty percent of a mortgage.
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Now, Chamber of Commerce, that'sa company, it's a product research company
for real estate. The entire realestate industry grabbed numbers from the US Census
Bureau, so this is not justthey're making it up. To analyze the
monthly housing costs and median household incomein the US, and they grabbed one
hundred and seventy in the most popularto US cities. And if you look
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at it across the board, abouttwenty eight percent of all homeowners are cost
burden or cost poor or house poor, that is, they spend a lot
more than that thirty percent. Asyou would guess, Miami, La,
New York City have the highest number, more than four and ten homeowners in
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each city. We're close to fiveand ten were there in the fours and
with the exception of New York City, the two places. And that's no
surprise that the number of house poorpeople are at the highest California or Florida.
And a lot of them have todo with mortgage rates. If you've
bought a house, well, ifyou've bought a house and at the beginning
of the pandemic, your rates,I mean you were getting three percent money
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in some play cases two point sevenfive percent money. You are set.
You're not moving for a long time. If ever, well, in twenty
twenty two, it went past sevenpercent, now has come down a bit,
but we're still looking at it goingup. And therefore values are just
either below or or there or they'veflattened out. And it is very tough.
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And homeowners are saddled with higher mortgagerates if you've got your home loan
after at the beginning of the pandemic. Now add to that inflation, skyrocketing
inflation, stagnating wages. At thebeginning of the pandemic, Americans owed trillions
of dollars less than they do now. And what happens with higher housing costs,
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well, that leaves mess money foreverything else, saving, spending,
emergencies, retirement. And it's notjust homeowners. For those of you that
rent, look at the rents,they keep on going up and up,
and so you have all of thesepeople who are house poor. That thirty
percent rule is a very long timepiece of finance gospel that we're given,
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that have been followed by all lendersfor as far as I can remember it.
And so that thirty percent rule,as I've said, does not just
include the rent or your mortgage,which I always considered. It's everything,
and it's it's tough to get there, especially in southern California, where the
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prices are astronomical. I think LAthe median price is what eight hundred and
something Orange County, eight hundred andsomething thousand, Orange County. It's a
little bit higher than that, andLA New York mirror that. Here's an
interesting one. Miami went the otherway. It's the only city that went
the other way among the top onehundred and seventy population centers. So what
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is going on? What's next?Well, you've got the Federal Reserve fighting
this battle against inflation, sometimes right, sometimes wrong, has increase least interest
rates every month since March of twentytwenty two. Now, keep in mind
that it's not automatic that the FEDsets mortgage rates at all, has nothing
to do with mortgage rates, butthe home loans are connected to what the
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FED does and now the central bank, the FED is signaling that after nearly
a year of these rate increases,a break, a break could be on
the horizon for us, and boys, it so desperately needed to say the
least. Now, I'm going totell you a story or recovering a story,
and I'm sure you know about andthat's American cities, big American cities
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and people have moved away because ifyou worked for a major corporation, and
you worked for and you worked inthe office for the most part, right
when we talk about remote remote work, that was just starting to gain some
traction because it was just easier todeal with it. You had everybody had
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broadband internet, and it's just itwas happening. And then the pandemic just
turbo did, where the number ofpeople who are have and are doing work
from home has skyrocketed. It's comingback a little bit too. There are
a lot of corporations say oh,no, no, no, you're coming
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back this one. I heart thisbuilding where I work with radio stations.
It used to be obviously during thepandemic, no one came to work.
All the office staff stayed away.And now and I do. I work
with the sales department, so Igo down the hall all the time and
talk to them. Now it's threedays a week mandatory in the office.
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And so remote work is still accepted. So you would think because people moved
away from very expensive housing in thecity close to corporations, because very few
major corporations are out in the suburbsin the cities, so whole office towers
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are empty, and nearby businesses arestruggling to pay their bills. That's logical.
And the residential neighborhoods are really bustling, that's logical. The pandemic has
shifted the center of gravity, theurban center of gravity, moving away from
office districts to neighborhoods with apartments andbars and restaurants. And when you go
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outside the city, apartments are cheaper. Housing is cheaper, bars are cheaper,
restaurants are cheaper. So what's goingon, Well, what's really interesting?
And we're just getting this story andthis is of course, this is
science. These are surveys that aretaking is that it literally the pandemic and
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remote work has really done not alot to the overall appeal of major cities
New York, Chicago, LA.That's data, foot traffic, rent data.
Even though the pandemic has shifted thecenter of gravity, people are still
coming back. They want to bein the city. They're not necessarily coming
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into the office. They like doingremote work. I mean, there is
nothing like sitting in front of acomputer, a computer doing a zoom call
without your pants on. It's hardto go into the office command commando.
Just the lower half of course,and have I ever done that. I've
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had meetings where I was in justa really nice open necked shirt and I
have a sports code on and I'min my underwear. You can do that.
So, according to a specialist incity planning at the University of Toronto,
a guy named Richard, Florida,Florida, the which is probably Florida,
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we're now back to what cities wereare. They're not containers for working.
They're containers for people to live in. Where it used to be where
people would live and have access tobars and restaurants, etc. Well,
they're all coming back. Those barsand restaurants are coming back, while at
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the same time the office buildings aren'tdoing so well. At the height of
the pandemic, analysts, some ofthem, a lot of them, predicted
that the big cities would go rightinto a downward spiral as remote workers sought
more space, cheaper places to live. That happened to some degree, but
it didn't last. It's going theother way and remote working is still very
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high on the list of what peoplewant to do and are doing. And
the big metropolitan area has lost aton of population during the first year,
a lot of it had to dowith a drop in immigration too, and
all of those losses, those dropshave since slow or reversed. In terms
of where people live. Residential neighborhoodsbenefit from remote work. I mean that's
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a given. People are spending moretime at home, which means that they're
going to local shops, and they'regoing to gyms, and they're going to
restaurants and boosting the economy of thesuburbs. There's data from a company called
placer dot ai tracks people movements basedon cell phone Ushits usage shows a big
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divide between office and residential districts.For example, La Downtown, La foot
traffic is thirty percent below pre pandemiclevels. In Chicago, the downtown area,
that's almost thirty percent lower. Now, if you go to Glendale South
Glendale, for example, near thestudio Highland Park, which is right up
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near Pasadena on the way to Pasadena, foot traffic has been rising and it's
almost back to pre pandemic levels andit keeps on going up. And food
delivery, as you can imagine.This is according to grub hub. This
is information that grubcump came up within twenty nineteen ninety five of the corporate
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lunch orders came from the business districtand this year it's down to eighty five
percent, it's stro ten percent,and that is a lot. So now
we go to rent data, andthat attests to a strong demand for city
living. People want to come backand live in the city. They just
don't want to work in the city. They don't want to go to the
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offices. What they want to dois work at home, do what they've
been doing, hang around the house, look at the kids, take a
break whenever they want, take halfhour off, and they want to work
longer hours they can. And sothe trend is exactly what we thought.
Office buildings are empty, but theresidences around office buildings are getting fuller and
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fuller. Young professionals are moving backin. They left, everybody left because
it was cheaper, and now they'recoming back in. Sort of counterintuitive,
isn't it. It is now timefor handle in the house, Whisper,
House Whisper with Jean with Dean SharpMorning Dean, Good morning, Bill.
All right, Oh, we gota lot to talk about. Actually,
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we probably only have one topic totalk about, but there's a lot to
it, and that is attack ofthe killer bees. Now one that the
reason I already promoted that you happento have a lot of expertise in this
field that can talk not only onan academic level, but also on an
experiential level. Because you are theonly person I have ever met that is
(34:51):
a beekeeper. Well, you needto get out more. But yes,
I am a beekeeper. I'm sittinghere actually in our home studio, and
there's about to sixty thousand buzzing ladies, you know, about twenty thirty feet
away from me. Now, anybodywho would be looking at that, particularly
my daughter Barbara, who is scaredto death of bees, I mean gets
(35:14):
panicked, you're clearly not. Andso a little bit about the reality of
bees. They attack, they're dangerous, you move around the African eyes bees
that if you just blink, they'regoing to attack you. Yeah, not
exactly. That's what we're trying toseparate here, the fact from the fiction.
Because you know, there's been thisincident in Encino that's been in the
(35:37):
news, and I think last weekthere was an incident in Pasadena, and
so I've seen a lot of newsoutlets handling this very in my opinion,
kind of irresponsibly, not having allthe facts, not really referring to the
experts. Not that I'm an expert. I'm a novice, but I do
have a lot of understanding in thiseric because I've been doing it for quite
a while. But I actually,when these things started to happen, reach
(36:00):
out to the experts that I workwith all the time, people I've had
on the show as well, oneKeith Roberts, the former president of the
Los Angeles Beekeepers Association, and thenNicole Palladino, who runs the Bee Catcher.
She's a conservation biologist and she has, in my opinion, the best
bee removal and rehoming business in SouthernCalifornia. So the point is I reached
(36:24):
out to them. I'm like,hey, guys, is this what I
think it is or is it somethingelse? And they're like, yeah,
yeah, it's what you think itis. DNA. Basically, what this
is is there are Bill, Thereare Africanized bees in Southern California. There
have been Africanized bees in Southern Californiasince the men early nineties when genetically that
(36:44):
gene pool eventually made its way uphere from South America. So this is
nothing new. But we've had areally rainy winter, We've had a really
mild spring. We are experiencing,in terms of plant life, a super
bloom that we haven't seen in yearsand years and years. This is eight
and it's great for the bees.So we're seeing a lot of bee activity,
(37:07):
and along with that, they're goingto be, you know, a
couple of incidents with people on thewrong side of an Africanized colony or doing
the wrong things with them. Myconcern is that when it gets reported in
the news that a swarm of beeshas attacked this person, that's not true.
Swarms don't attack, And so thoseare the kinds of things that I'd
(37:30):
like to talk to you about.So we can just kind of, you
know, clear the air. Andhere's what I don't want to see.
I don't want to see all ofsouthern California go back on its heels onto
an anti bee posture again, becausewe need them so desperately and this is
such a fantastic banner year for beesunless we freak out and kill them all.
(37:52):
Let's start with the concept that swarmsdon't attack. Really really, no,
really, here's a thousand bees hittingyou at one time, Yes,
a swarm, Yeah, not thecase. Actually, here's the thing.
A swarm in bee parlance, inbee biology is not just quote unquote a
(38:14):
group of bees, okay. Aswarm is when a hive, an existing
colony, separates into two hives,and half of that colony leaves its home
behind to go search for another home. When they do that, they are
literally homeless. This is a massivegroup of bees, could be fifteen twenty
thousand bees or so. They arelooking for a new home with their old
(38:38):
queen. They are thinking about onething, finding a new home. They
are on reserves. All they haveis the food that's in their belly.
They are trying to conserve energy andscout for a new place to live.
When a swarm is flying through theair, you could, and I'm not
telling people to do this intentionally,but you could, and people have I
(39:00):
have before, stand in the centerof a swarm that is flying from one
place to the next. Bees mighteven be hitting your back or hitting your
arms, and you are not gettingstung. If you're not swatting at them.
You're not getting stunned because they don'tcare about you. The last thing
on their mind is being aggressive towardhuman beings. Number One, Bees only
get aggressive when they have a hometo defend, and guess what, they
(39:22):
have no home. So that iswhat an actual swarm is. Now,
a colony that has already taken upresidence somewhere, they will send out if
they feel like they're being threatened,they'll send out attack parties, okay.
And a European colony, the typicaldocile European honeybee, they may send out,
(39:45):
you know, half a dozen,maybe five or six bees to kind
of fend you off and get themaway, get you away from the hive.
An Africanized colony, and here's theproblem, they will send out you
know, fifty maybe even one hundred, okay, not thousands. Not a
swarm. This is actually an attackparty that is defending an upset hive somewhere.
(40:08):
I'm just making some distinctions here.Wow. That actually is fascinating.
Wow. Wow, I didn't knowhow you describe the difference between a colony
and a swarm. Very interesting stuff. And for those people that just missed
the last segment, play it back. We're on demand. Go to just
go to the iHeartRadio app and you'llsee how that works. The last half
(40:29):
hour of this show. It's reallyinteresting stuff. For some reason, you
really got me on that one,because being a lot of the time I'm
just you know, looking up andmy eyes are rolling, and that's fine
with you. But this nice,huh, but this time around, pardon
always move on, Just move on. I'm a huge fan. So I
(40:51):
had asked you, since you area beekeeper, a amateur beekeeper, what
is the difference in terms of whatthe bees do in terms of all nation,
Because do you just enjoy sixty thousandbees buzzing around your house for no
reason? No? No, Imean, oh, you mean what's the
difference for our home? Yeah?Not you're only not only your home.
(41:12):
But well, let me put itthis way. Tell me about professional beekeepers
and what they do and how theyoperate, because it's a thing you hire
beekeepers. Yeah, yeah, Now, most professional beekeepers are linked up to
the agricultural industry, commercial agriculture becauseyou know, like, for instance,
in California, we are the world'syou know, almonds suppliers, right,
(41:35):
Almond's almonds, almonds everywhere in centralCalifornia. There are zero almonds without honey
bees, zero almonds. So there'sa lot of agriculture tied directly to them.
Sometimes you'll see like semi trucks loadedwith bee hives that are being relocated,
rented out essentially during the spring duringpollination times to large commercial agriculture.
(41:58):
And you know, there are akeystone species that means without them, everything
collapses. About a third of theproduce sitting at the store right now at
the supermarket is bee dependent. Sothat's professional beekeeping in that sense, it's
tied to agriculture. Amateur beekeepers,novice beekeepers. We just love it.
And it's also benefiting everything, youknow, my entire town, because a
(42:22):
beehive has a foraging radius of aboutfour miles, so we're talking about a
you know, a diameter circle aroundmy home of about eight miles of wild
flowers and various other fruiting plants thatall my neighbors have in the yards that
my bees are responsible for pollinating.What if you didn't have the bees at
(42:45):
your place, would there be asubstantial decrease in the number of flowers and
the fruit trees, etc. Well, I think the reality is there are
a lot a lot of feral hives, feral columns being just they're on their
own, you know, all overthe place, all over the southern California
everywhere, and so when you seebees in your yard, they probably these
(43:07):
days, don't you know, aren'tnecessarily coming from an amateur beekeeper. They're
just out there out there in nature. But what amateur beekeeping does is number
One, it just makes everybody moreaware. Number Two, because I keep
the bees, in other words,I watch out for them, I watch
over our colony. I'm actually ableto watch this colony to make sure it
(43:30):
doesn't become Africanized, which can happen. Okay, So everybody who is amateur
beekeeping all throughout southern California is assistingthe entire region in the sense that these
are hives that are being watched over, safeguarded from becoming aggressive hives. And
(43:50):
that's one thing that you can't guaranteewith a Ferrell hive out there in nature,
because you know, most are notthe vast majority are not aggressive african
but there are some, and sometimesthere's no stopping it from happening. All
Right, Now, we've heard I'veread about this about that the bees have
been decimated by this bee disease.Have they come back or there's that still
(44:15):
a real problem. They are comingback. They are coming back. In
fact, we talked about this acouple of months ago on the show.
Conditions have been good just lately andand we are starting to figure out on
the agricultural side, it's not adisease, although there are mites that are
an issue for bees these days,but that's a whole other story. What
(44:37):
it essentially has been are certain chemicalsrelated to commercial agriculture that have messed up
their navigation systems, and so colonycollapse disorder is about bees that can't get
back and don't get back home,and when that happens, the colonies collapse.
(44:57):
Because bees. You know, I'mnot gonna bore you with this,
but when a honeybee goes foraging andleaves the hive, they are on a
specific assignment to go to a specificset of flowers, a specific distance and
bearing away from the hive. Theyonly have enough fuel for a one way
flight to get there, so ifanything goes wrong on that pathway, they're
(45:19):
not coming home. Fascinating stuff we'regonna talk about this weekend. I'm assuming
bees too. Actually, I'm goingto talk about bees on both shows just
because again I want our listeners tobe more informed since it's been in the
news recently. But this weekend we'redoing DIY should you? Could you?
In other words, looking at projectsaround the house and asking the big question,
(45:40):
is this really a DIY project thatyou should tackle? All Right?
This Saturday sixty eight am. Sundaynine am to twelve. We'll catch you
this weekend. Dean, Thank you, Thank you. Bill. All right,
Coming up, Gary and Shannon,Shannon, what's going on with you
this morning? Well, Al Pacino'shaving another baby at eighty three. He's
still got it. AI poses arisk of extinction on par with nukes,
(46:05):
so that's something to look forward to. Also, Elizabeth Holmes is going into
the Pokey and people are already liningup to be her friend. Yeah.
I saw her going in and youknow she was She didn't seem like she
was upset about it. A lotof smiling, very happy camper eleven years.
Yeah, I mean, nothing todo there. You know, she
(46:27):
doesn't have any profit loss statements tosubmit. Coming up, Gary and Shannon
from nine to one. I havea good show. Shannon, thank you,
sir. This is kf I AMsix forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio
app. You've been listening to theBill Handles Show. Catch my show Monday
through Friday six am to nine am, and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
You're listening to kf I AM sixforty. The bill handles show on demand
on the iHeartRadio f kf I AMsix forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
A couple of stories that we arefollowing. The big one is yesterday
the House Committee voted to move forwardthe debt ceiling bill, and today another
(00:25):
vote COEs through and it's an importantone to say the least. Also,
I want to remind you before weget to our topic that tomorrow is the
first ever iHeartRadio Access Day, featuringdeals including a one year VIP access pass
to all the live shows at theiHeartRadio Theater in LA and recent performances include
mc lemore, Flow Ride, Who'sReally Florida? Who We Kidding? And
(00:49):
Smashing Pumpkins. You can also getaccess to Dodgers, Kings and Clippers experiences.
It's one day only. More informationat iHeartRadio Access Day dot com.
There's something going on for you drivers, which basically means everybody. If you've
ever been to London and you've renteda car, you get to pay pretty
(01:12):
big dollars to go into central London. London is really only a square mile,
and then you have other cities aroundthat and London per se costs money
to drive into the same thing.In Stockholm and Singapore, drivers pay to
(01:33):
drive in the city centers. Andso the La County Metropolitan Transparent the La
County Metropolitan Transport Authority, is releasinga study this summer offering a blueprint for
a congestion pricing scheme similar to theones in other cities. Three locations.
(01:55):
What a shocker, sixteen miles stretchof the ten Freeway between downtown in Santa
Monica, the streets and freeways arounddowntown and Canyon Streets that connect San Francio
Valley to the La Basin. Detailsstill being ironed out, and but we're
gonna find the findings. It's goingto be made public in the several months,
(02:16):
and the vote by the board isgoing to happen early next year.
Now, how about poor people?Aren't they allowed? Do they have to
pay? Of course, they'll besubsidies, and they'll also be no charge
for carpoolers, etc. But ithas gotten so terrible. The big issue
(02:37):
is do we charge basically toll roadsgoing into the city or driving through the
city. That's a little controversial becausewe're used to free cities, free city
driving. I mean, at firstglance you would think, oh my god,
how do we why would we payto drive, especially in the city.
(02:59):
Well, toll road has happened allover the place. You drive to
Orange County, do the one thirtythree when it's the five or the four
or five is jammed. You paymoney and it's tiered money, which means
at times when there's particularly high congestion, you pay lots of money. And
people have accepted it. People haveaccepted this. I'll tell you. One
(03:20):
of the things that I didn't getis for me, and I've talked about
this before with Rich DeMuro, isfor me, cable and streaming TV was
always free and then they started chargingfor it. I got. I went
crazy on that. I can't dothat. It's accepted, and you're gonna
find toll roads being accepted. Sowhy do they want to do this?
(03:40):
Well, of course, relief congencongestion put people on public transport. And
the difference is you go to Londonis one of the best public transport systems
on the planet. You go toSingapore, you go to Stockholm, you're
crazy to drive because the subway system, the public transit is so good,
(04:01):
LA. Come on, I mean, we're we have this huge problem of
homeless people camping in the transit,in the subway cars. So is it
going to happen? We're going tosee it, do you, mark my
words, It's going to happen here. It's going to happen early next year.
(04:21):
A plan is coming out. Thisis so controversial, This is so
explosive in terms of LA drivers beingcharged to drive in on LA roads that
they're not even releasing preliminary findings.But mark my words, we're going to
(04:43):
see it happen. Now, Iwant to move into a story of La
County and mainly in downtown LA.If you go to seventy eighth Street in
downtown LA, it's actually South LA, you'll see a seven member team passing
out They're passing out needles, cleanneedles, and sanitary wipes and fentyl test
(05:08):
strips narcon. I'll tell you what'sreally controversial, which a lot of people
who are pro this program don't like, is they're also passing out pipes.
They're passing out drug pipes, andboy do people argue on that one.
Now, activists are saying it's thesame general aim to help people to help,
(05:31):
particularly the homeless people across the city, because, as you know,
the number of drug addicts among thehomeless is astronomical. And so this is
called harm reduction. Its supplies tokeep drug users alive and safe. It's
all about safety from infection and transmissionof HIV, hypatitis C, etc.
(05:55):
And what this is I'll tell youwhy it's controversial. One of them is
somehow people think that it's a gatewaythat if you hand out pikes, more
people are going to use pipes.It's like it was like marijuana, where
the legalization of marijuana, first amedical marijuana, then recreational marijuana, and
you had people going, you can'thave that because well, as I explained,
(06:19):
my dad when I was sixteen,caught me smoking cannabis. I was
in the garage taking a puff,and he went berserk because he believed you
take a puff of the joint,it goes down, you pick up the
needle of heroin and injected directly intoyour eyeballs. And there are people to
believe that a pipe is going todo the same thing. People who are
(06:42):
not heroin addicts, who are notmeth addicts. If you give if you
give them a pipe. They're gonnabe more liable, They're gonna be much
more excited, they're gonna be moreapt to use these drugs. Absolutely not
true. By the way, allthe evidence out there points that is just
a complete crock. But it doesn'tmatter because when it comes to this matter,
(07:04):
this kind of thing, you havepeople that are against this just make
this stuff up, even though hey, I guess they have some kind of
logic. Okay, So with thatbeing said, the argument is that these
are harm reduction supplies, keeping usersalive and safe. All right, everybody
knows narcan keeps people alive. Imean, there are a couple of people
(07:27):
out there. There's one sheriff Ithink in Texas who won't let narcon be
used in his county because he insistsif you have narcon, people are more
likely to use opioids. Therefore theremore deaths. And the guy's completely out
of his mind. But the argumentthat pipes being handed out is number one
is specious, where you were invitingpeople to become addicts who otherwise wouldn't.
(07:53):
But there's a spin on this,and that is handing out pipes is helping
people to switch from injecting heroin intosmoking heroin. So let's say you are
an addict and you're a member,for example, of this team, and
you're part of the group that believesin needle exchanges and fentyl test strips and
(08:18):
certainly narcon, and they're handing thisout now, handing out drug pipes,
with the argument that it is goingto help people. And here is the
theory. You're an addict. Weaccept the fact that you're an addict.
We're not going to change that.We're gonna help you try to be as
(08:39):
safe as possible. Needle exchange,sanitary, fentnyl test strips, etc.
Certainly an arcad. But the argumentis accepting that you are an addict and
you switch from heroin to smoking isfar, far safer. And here is
the reason when people smoke, atleast according to LA County, according to
(09:05):
this program that does this, Ifyou are an addict and you smoke,
you smoke through the day because thehigh is very short and you want to
keep the high going, so you'repuffing away and you need very little amounts
of it, and therefore you're probablynot going to dive an overdose. A
(09:28):
heroin injection can be a hot shot. The heroine is too pure, it's
all done in one time, andpeople die. Also, if you're puffing
away on a pipe, the chancesof getting hepatitis C or HIV is far
less than using a needle that hasbeen used. And those are the two
(09:50):
points that are used. And thiswas kind of interesting because there are people,
i mean within the community of handingout and needle exchange people and the
narcon people who are saying, waita minute, this is far it's a
it's a far different story handing outdrug pipes and helping people actually administer drugs
to themselves. See, there's needleexchanges, but there's handing out needles and
(10:16):
syringes. Hey, here's needle andsyringes. Use these. You're not seeing
that very often. And fentnyl waspresent. Here's the scary part about about
fentyl, which is involved in weedand heroin and meth, was present more
(10:37):
than half of the fifteen hundred fifteenhundred overdose deaths of homeless people in twenty
twenty one. That's they go backa couple of years to get the numbers,
and so this taps the nerve andyou've got skid row two or maybe
fifteen hundred homeless people live, andthe substance abuse disorder hits up to fifty
percent, and people are dying.And so these programs to either make it
(11:03):
safer for people to get high.I don't care if you get high,
But let me tell you why whyI care that you get hepatitis C.
And it's forget about the morality ofit. Okay. I've always said,
if you want to be an addict, if you want to kill yourself,
if you are not careful enough,you know, knock your socks off.
(11:26):
However, you get hepatitis C.Believe me, Homeless people, what do
they not have? They don't havemoney, do they? And when they
get seriously ill, when they getsick, when they're about to die,
when they get these infections, whenthey get livered disorders as a result of
all of their or not just disorders, liver disease, and they're gonna die,
where do they go? They goto the county hospital. Who pays
(11:48):
for the county hospital. We doso on a bunch of different levels.
I think this makes all the sensein the world. You got to see
some controversy about this, though,because it's a jump from needle exchange to
handing out pipes. One of thethings that we noticed, one of the
aspects of the pandemic is evictions almostdisappeared the protections that tenants have now Here
(12:16):
we're talking about La County. Andby the way, I know La County,
you know. Let me explain realquickly. When I first started practicing
law, I had a partner didn'tlast very long, and we had a
general partnership. I handled the surrogacystuff and I've told you about that a
million year, a million times,and he handled the other stuff. We
did some personal injury, did evictions, and I went down to eviction court,
(12:41):
to the court the handles evictions.I was down there maybe a dozen
times filling in for him when somethingelse was going on. And this is
exactly what happened. So the evictionprotection for tenants who can't pay rent due
to COVID that expired two months ago. And as you can imagine, the
eviction proceedings, the filings are startingto pile up big time. Filings in
(13:07):
March, higher than any other Marchsince twenty fifteen. And guess what's going
to happen, which has happened beforemany times. Courts are going to get
backlog, I mean big time.And you know who don't come You know
the people that don't come out ahead. And this happens across the board.
Whenever an eviction happens is the tenantsget screwed. And why do the tenants
(13:30):
get screwed? The tenants get screwedbecause they don't have representation. They represent
themselves. Tenants who can't pay therent generally don't have a lot of money.
Landlords have money. And if youimmagine you're a tenant and you are
walking into court and it's crowded,it's noisy, you're hearing lawyers talk with
(13:56):
each other. It's a collegial atmosphere. Yers all know each other because there
are specialists who do nothing but evictions. There are judges who hear nothing but
evictions. The lawyers know all thejudges. They banter with each other,
they tell each other jokes. Andof course the lawyers know the law.
(14:18):
They know how to prosecute an evictioncase. And there are defenses to evictions,
but you sort of have to knowthem, and some of them are
very technical defenses, and tenants don'tknow about those. And there are judges
that are very tough. Some judgesbend over backwards for tenants. Other judges
(14:41):
say, nope, you can't usethat argument. Nope, that is that's
not relevant. And then boom downcomes the eviction, the decision to evict,
and it happens more and more becausewhen you look at people who have
not paid the rent, it isvery, very tough to come back and
(15:05):
when number one higher a lawyer andfigure out how you're going to defend,
and frankly, there's very little defensebecause the eviction proceedings, the eviction protections
are gone two months ago, andhow do you defend yourself somehow saying I
don't owe the rent without protections becausethe defense I can't afford the rent just
(15:31):
doesn't fly. It just doesn't work. And therefore they're gonna lose. And
believe me, evictions are very toughbecause the marshals will come in and they
will throw people out, they'll changethe locks and literally put furniture on the
(15:52):
sidewalk. So you're going to seemore and more of that. So at
the beginning of the pandemic, thetenants had all the breaks, and you
had landlords that were effectively going broke. They're saying how can I afford it
without the rent? I can't paythe mortgage because how many people who own
homes, who rent homes or apartmentshave zero mortgage almost nobody. So you're
(16:17):
going to come back and hear storiesabout tenants who are being oppressed, tenants
who are being taken advantage of,and those stories, where absolutely true,
are true, and they're just goingto come back more and more. A
topic that I spent a lot oftime on that affect a lot of us,
especially if you're near one of these. And when am I talking about
(16:41):
homeless encampments, homeless encampments, evenif you're not near one, it still
burns a little bit that so manypeople are homeless. And I'm not going
to get into the morality. I'mnot going to get into the cause of
homelessness. What I am going toget into is La City Mayor Karen ass
and her plan, the Inside SafeInitiative to take care of homelessness, to
(17:07):
deal with a homeless problem. Oneof the things that I have said,
homelessness is almost impossible to deal with. It's going to take many years,
it's going to take insane amounts ofmoney, and we will get or it
will get better incrementally next year,or maybe if they spend enough money,
you'll see it a little bit better, and in the following year you're going
(17:30):
to see it a little bit better. Ten years from now you may see
a really good dent in the problem. Although, as I've said, the
better job that is done with homelessnessin Los Angeles and whatever city, then
the more people are going to comehomeless people and take advantage of the better
conditions. So what is going onwith the homeless issue? And this is
(17:55):
something that is really not talked about. So here is a story. There
were outreach workers went downtown last monthand delivered which is now an old sales
pitch. Give up your spot onthe sidewalk, give up your tent,
and we'll put you in a nearbyhotel room with heat, with gas,
(18:18):
with a working toilet, I meanall of that. So there's one guy,
David Ruther, who has a tenton that street and he said,
not a chance, not a chance. And it's not because as some people
have a want to do, theyjust like living on the street. There
is a percentage of people that justenjoy living on the street. I mean,
they're clearly mentally ill because who intheir right mind is going to live
(18:41):
on the street as opposed to aplace that's warm as a supposed to a
place that may have a bed,has heat, running water, toilets,
that sort of thing. His positionis not that he didn't want to go
there because the hotel which is beingused by the city for homeless housing.
(19:03):
He said that the restrictions are sotight that I have no desire to be
there, for example, having bagsinspected every time they go in and out.
I told them I wasn't going togive up my constitutional rights and have
them search me every time I goto the store to buy a soda pop
or a pack of beer. AndKaren Bass not really paying attention to that.
(19:29):
And you can't do much about that, because you have every right to
be homeless, and you have everyright to be mentally ill. You cannot
be punished for that. Now youdon't have a right to be living on
sidewalks. The law is pretty clearabout that. And there's a whole issue
in terms of those who advocate allowingpeople to live on the sidewalks, because
(19:51):
you can't criminalize homeless people on thesidewalks, So therefore, someone wants to
live on a sidewalk under a bridge, and you're looking an entire Neighborhoo,
there's one near my house, abridge that is and it's clean. It
was wonderful. There were no homelesspeople. It is strewn with garbage.
And the tents are I won't saysophisticated, but they're large tents. Now,
(20:17):
have you ever been to an RIIshowroom with have really neat tents.
That's almost what it looks like.And as I've said before, is there
if there's a porta potty put upthere by the city you've got a two
bedroom, one bath tent, whichis not bad. And so the inside
Safe initiative, and they're spending unbelievableamounts of money so far twelve hundred homeless
(20:38):
people off the street from Venice,North, Hollywood, Delray, Beverly Grove,
and about a dozen other neighborhoods.It recently stalled in one part of
downtown LA and I don't know ifyou've ever been there, but I suggest
you go there. And that's all. There a street that is the heart
the beginning of Los Angeles, andit is surrounded by tent enclosures, by
(21:02):
tent encampments, encampments and they tookaway, well, seventy eight people did
go to shelters, but as soonas seventy eight people went, at least
three dozen tents are still there andpeople are coming in. New arrivals have
taken the place of those who acceptedhotel rooms. And now we go back
to what I said. You movepeople out, you give them a warm
(21:25):
place to stay, and assuming they'renot mentally ill and want to stay there,
which effectively they can legally, thenwhat happens is it's a vacuum and
it's instantly filled again. It's likestorage in your house. The more you
take out, the more it fillsup. You put in an extra closet
(21:47):
that gets more jammed than the previousclosets that you had in the house.
And best acknowledge, we've got realissues going on. And with that two
hundred and fifty million dollars, remembershe pushed that one the Safe Inside Safe
program, two hundred and fifty milliondollars in next year's city budget. That
(22:07):
doesn't count county money, that doesn'tcount state money, that doesn't count federal
money. And seventeen locations have beentargeted. And as as Karen vass has
admitted and as you no doubt thinkthat program is not going to be a
success until your community is free ofencampments. I mean, do you really
(22:32):
care if the city next to youis free of encampments and your community?
For example, the bridge that Idrive under is filled with tents and garbage
literally just well, I'm gonna sayruining the street, but I am the
garbage is really strewn. And I'mtalking about the quire street from sidewalk to
(22:55):
sidewalk. Think I'm gonna be talkingabout this again. Have you ever heard
the term house poor? One quarterof homeowners in the United States are house
poor, and in southern California isclose to one half. And what does
that mean. Well, that meansyou're spending more than thirty percent of your
(23:18):
income, your entire income, onhousing costs. And people think that's okay,
mortgage or rent. Oh no,no, it goes way beyond that,
because when we're talking about housing costs, we're talking about taxes, utilities,
maintenance. That should be no morethan thirty percent of a mortgage.
(23:40):
Now, Chamber of Commerce, that'sa company, it's a product research company
for real estate. The entire realestate industry grabbed numbers from the US Census
Bureau, so this is not justthey're making it up. To analyze the
monthly housing costs and median household incomein the US, and they grabbed one
hundred and seventy in the most popularto US cities. And if you look
(24:03):
at it across the board, abouttwenty eight percent of all homeowners are cost
burden or cost poor or house poor, that is, they spend a lot
more than that thirty percent. Asyou would guess, Miami, La,
New York City have the highest number, more than four and ten homeowners in
(24:25):
each city. We're close to fiveand ten were there in the fours and
with the exception of New York City, the two places. And that's no
surprise that the number of house poorpeople are at the highest California or Florida.
And a lot of them have todo with mortgage rates. If you've
bought a house, well, ifyou've bought a house and at the beginning
of the pandemic, your rates,I mean you were getting three percent money
(24:47):
in some play cases two point sevenfive percent money. You are set.
You're not moving for a long time. If ever, well, in twenty
twenty two, it went past sevenpercent, now has come down a bit,
but we're still looking at it goingup. And therefore values are just
either below or or there or they'veflattened out. And it is very tough.
(25:11):
And homeowners are saddled with higher mortgagerates if you've got your home loan
after at the beginning of the pandemic. Now add to that inflation, skyrocketing
inflation, stagnating wages. At thebeginning of the pandemic, Americans owed trillions
of dollars less than they do now. And what happens with higher housing costs,
(25:37):
well, that leaves mess money foreverything else, saving, spending,
emergencies, retirement. And it's notjust homeowners. For those of you that
rent, look at the rents,they keep on going up and up,
and so you have all of thesepeople who are house poor. That thirty
percent rule is a very long timepiece of finance gospel that we're given,
(26:04):
that have been followed by all lendersfor as far as I can remember it.
And so that thirty percent rule,as I've said, does not just
include the rent or your mortgage,which I always considered. It's everything,
and it's it's tough to get there, especially in southern California, where the
(26:26):
prices are astronomical. I think LAthe median price is what eight hundred and
something Orange County, eight hundred andsomething thousand, Orange County. It's a
little bit higher than that, andLA New York mirror that. Here's an
interesting one. Miami went the otherway. It's the only city that went
the other way among the top onehundred and seventy population centers. So what
(26:52):
is going on? What's next?Well, you've got the Federal Reserve fighting
this battle against inflation, sometimes right, sometimes wrong, has increase least interest
rates every month since March of twentytwenty two. Now, keep in mind
that it's not automatic that the FEDsets mortgage rates at all, has nothing
to do with mortgage rates, butthe home loans are connected to what the
(27:12):
FED does and now the central bank, the FED is signaling that after nearly
a year of these rate increases,a break, a break could be on
the horizon for us, and boys, it so desperately needed to say the
least. Now, I'm going totell you a story or recovering a story,
and I'm sure you know about andthat's American cities, big American cities
(27:37):
and people have moved away because ifyou worked for a major corporation, and
you worked for and you worked inthe office for the most part, right
when we talk about remote remote work, that was just starting to gain some
traction because it was just easier todeal with it. You had everybody had
(28:00):
broadband internet, and it's just itwas happening. And then the pandemic just
turbo did, where the number ofpeople who are have and are doing work
from home has skyrocketed. It's comingback a little bit too. There are
a lot of corporations say oh,no, no, no, you're coming
(28:21):
back this one. I heart thisbuilding where I work with radio stations.
It used to be obviously during thepandemic, no one came to work.
All the office staff stayed away.And now and I do. I work
with the sales department, so Igo down the hall all the time and
talk to them. Now it's threedays a week mandatory in the office.
(28:42):
And so remote work is still accepted. So you would think because people moved
away from very expensive housing in thecity close to corporations, because very few
major corporations are out in the suburbsin the cities, so whole office towers
(29:03):
are empty, and nearby businesses arestruggling to pay their bills. That's logical.
And the residential neighborhoods are really bustling, that's logical. The pandemic has
shifted the center of gravity, theurban center of gravity, moving away from
office districts to neighborhoods with apartments andbars and restaurants. And when you go
(29:26):
outside the city, apartments are cheaper. Housing is cheaper, bars are cheaper,
restaurants are cheaper. So what's goingon, Well, what's really interesting?
And we're just getting this story andthis is of course, this is
science. These are surveys that aretaking is that it literally the pandemic and
(29:51):
remote work has really done not alot to the overall appeal of major cities
New York, Chicago, LA.That's data, foot traffic, rent data.
Even though the pandemic has shifted thecenter of gravity, people are still
coming back. They want to bein the city. They're not necessarily coming
(30:15):
into the office. They like doingremote work. I mean, there is
nothing like sitting in front of acomputer, a computer doing a zoom call
without your pants on. It's hardto go into the office command commando.
Just the lower half of course,and have I ever done that. I've
(30:36):
had meetings where I was in justa really nice open necked shirt and I
have a sports code on and I'min my underwear. You can do that.
So, according to a specialist incity planning at the University of Toronto,
a guy named Richard, Florida,Florida, the which is probably Florida,
(30:57):
we're now back to what cities wereare. They're not containers for working.
They're containers for people to live in. Where it used to be where
people would live and have access tobars and restaurants, etc. Well,
they're all coming back. Those barsand restaurants are coming back, while at
(31:18):
the same time the office buildings aren'tdoing so well. At the height of
the pandemic, analysts, some ofthem, a lot of them, predicted
that the big cities would go rightinto a downward spiral as remote workers sought
more space, cheaper places to live. That happened to some degree, but
it didn't last. It's going theother way and remote working is still very
(31:44):
high on the list of what peoplewant to do and are doing. And
the big metropolitan area has lost aton of population during the first year,
a lot of it had to dowith a drop in immigration too, and
all of those losses, those dropshave since slow or reversed. In terms
of where people live. Residential neighborhoodsbenefit from remote work. I mean that's
(32:08):
a given. People are spending moretime at home, which means that they're
going to local shops, and they'regoing to gyms, and they're going to
restaurants and boosting the economy of thesuburbs. There's data from a company called
placer dot ai tracks people movements basedon cell phone Ushits usage shows a big
(32:30):
divide between office and residential districts.For example, La Downtown, La foot
traffic is thirty percent below pre pandemiclevels. In Chicago, the downtown area,
that's almost thirty percent lower. Now, if you go to Glendale South
Glendale, for example, near thestudio Highland Park, which is right up
(32:54):
near Pasadena on the way to Pasadena, foot traffic has been rising and it's
almost back to pre pandemic levels andit keeps on going up. And food
delivery, as you can imagine.This is according to grub hub. This
is information that grubcump came up within twenty nineteen ninety five of the corporate
(33:14):
lunch orders came from the business districtand this year it's down to eighty five
percent, it's stro ten percent,and that is a lot. So now
we go to rent data, andthat attests to a strong demand for city
living. People want to come backand live in the city. They just
don't want to work in the city. They don't want to go to the
(33:36):
offices. What they want to dois work at home, do what they've
been doing, hang around the house, look at the kids, take a
break whenever they want, take halfhour off, and they want to work
longer hours they can. And sothe trend is exactly what we thought.
Office buildings are empty, but theresidences around office buildings are getting fuller and
(34:05):
fuller. Young professionals are moving backin. They left, everybody left because
it was cheaper, and now they'recoming back in. Sort of counterintuitive,
isn't it. It is now timefor handle in the house, Whisper,
House Whisper with Jean with Dean SharpMorning Dean, Good morning, Bill.
All right, Oh, we gota lot to talk about. Actually,
(34:28):
we probably only have one topic totalk about, but there's a lot to
it, and that is attack ofthe killer bees. Now one that the
reason I already promoted that you happento have a lot of expertise in this
field that can talk not only onan academic level, but also on an
experiential level. Because you are theonly person I have ever met that is
(34:51):
a beekeeper. Well, you needto get out more. But yes,
I am a beekeeper. I'm sittinghere actually in our home studio, and
there's about to sixty thousand buzzing ladies, you know, about twenty thirty feet
away from me. Now, anybodywho would be looking at that, particularly
my daughter Barbara, who is scaredto death of bees, I mean gets
(35:14):
panicked, you're clearly not. Andso a little bit about the reality of
bees. They attack, they're dangerous, you move around the African eyes bees
that if you just blink, they'regoing to attack you. Yeah, not
exactly. That's what we're trying toseparate here, the fact from the fiction.
Because you know, there's been thisincident in Encino that's been in the
(35:37):
news, and I think last weekthere was an incident in Pasadena, and
so I've seen a lot of newsoutlets handling this very in my opinion,
kind of irresponsibly, not having allthe facts, not really referring to the
experts. Not that I'm an expert. I'm a novice, but I do
have a lot of understanding in thiseric because I've been doing it for quite
a while. But I actually,when these things started to happen, reach
(36:00):
out to the experts that I workwith all the time, people I've had
on the show as well, oneKeith Roberts, the former president of the
Los Angeles Beekeepers Association, and thenNicole Palladino, who runs the Bee Catcher.
She's a conservation biologist and she has, in my opinion, the best
bee removal and rehoming business in SouthernCalifornia. So the point is I reached
(36:24):
out to them. I'm like,hey, guys, is this what I
think it is or is it somethingelse? And they're like, yeah,
yeah, it's what you think itis. DNA. Basically, what this
is is there are Bill, Thereare Africanized bees in Southern California. There
have been Africanized bees in Southern Californiasince the men early nineties when genetically that
(36:44):
gene pool eventually made its way uphere from South America. So this is
nothing new. But we've had areally rainy winter, We've had a really
mild spring. We are experiencing,in terms of plant life, a super
bloom that we haven't seen in yearsand years and years. This is eight
and it's great for the bees.So we're seeing a lot of bee activity,
(37:07):
and along with that, they're goingto be, you know, a
couple of incidents with people on thewrong side of an Africanized colony or doing
the wrong things with them. Myconcern is that when it gets reported in
the news that a swarm of beeshas attacked this person, that's not true.
Swarms don't attack, And so thoseare the kinds of things that I'd
(37:30):
like to talk to you about.So we can just kind of, you
know, clear the air. Andhere's what I don't want to see.
I don't want to see all ofsouthern California go back on its heels onto
an anti bee posture again, becausewe need them so desperately and this is
such a fantastic banner year for beesunless we freak out and kill them all.
(37:52):
Let's start with the concept that swarmsdon't attack. Really really, no,
really, here's a thousand bees hittingyou at one time, Yes,
a swarm, Yeah, not thecase. Actually, here's the thing.
A swarm in bee parlance, inbee biology is not just quote unquote a
(38:14):
group of bees, okay. Aswarm is when a hive, an existing
colony, separates into two hives,and half of that colony leaves its home
behind to go search for another home. When they do that, they are
literally homeless. This is a massivegroup of bees, could be fifteen twenty
thousand bees or so. They arelooking for a new home with their old
(38:38):
queen. They are thinking about onething, finding a new home. They
are on reserves. All they haveis the food that's in their belly.
They are trying to conserve energy andscout for a new place to live.
When a swarm is flying through theair, you could, and I'm not
telling people to do this intentionally,but you could, and people have I
(39:00):
have before, stand in the centerof a swarm that is flying from one
place to the next. Bees mighteven be hitting your back or hitting your
arms, and you are not gettingstung. If you're not swatting at them.
You're not getting stunned because they don'tcare about you. The last thing
on their mind is being aggressive towardhuman beings. Number One, Bees only
get aggressive when they have a hometo defend, and guess what, they
(39:22):
have no home. So that iswhat an actual swarm is. Now,
a colony that has already taken upresidence somewhere, they will send out if
they feel like they're being threatened,they'll send out attack parties, okay.
And a European colony, the typicaldocile European honeybee, they may send out,
(39:45):
you know, half a dozen,maybe five or six bees to kind
of fend you off and get themaway, get you away from the hive.
An Africanized colony, and here's theproblem, they will send out you
know, fifty maybe even one hundred, okay, not thousands. Not a
swarm. This is actually an attackparty that is defending an upset hive somewhere.
(40:08):
I'm just making some distinctions here.Wow. That actually is fascinating.
Wow. Wow, I didn't knowhow you describe the difference between a colony
and a swarm. Very interesting stuff. And for those people that just missed
the last segment, play it back. We're on demand. Go to just
go to the iHeartRadio app and you'llsee how that works. The last half
(40:29):
hour of this show. It's reallyinteresting stuff. For some reason, you
really got me on that one,because being a lot of the time I'm
just you know, looking up andmy eyes are rolling, and that's fine
with you. But this nice,huh, but this time around, pardon
always move on, Just move on. I'm a huge fan. So I
(40:51):
had asked you, since you area beekeeper, a amateur beekeeper, what
is the difference in terms of whatthe bees do in terms of all nation,
Because do you just enjoy sixty thousandbees buzzing around your house for no
reason? No? No, Imean, oh, you mean what's the
difference for our home? Yeah?Not you're only not only your home.
(41:12):
But well, let me put itthis way. Tell me about professional beekeepers
and what they do and how theyoperate, because it's a thing you hire
beekeepers. Yeah, yeah, Now, most professional beekeepers are linked up to
the agricultural industry, commercial agriculture becauseyou know, like, for instance,
in California, we are the world'syou know, almonds suppliers, right,
(41:35):
Almond's almonds, almonds everywhere in centralCalifornia. There are zero almonds without honey
bees, zero almonds. So there'sa lot of agriculture tied directly to them.
Sometimes you'll see like semi trucks loadedwith bee hives that are being relocated,
rented out essentially during the spring duringpollination times to large commercial agriculture.
(41:58):
And you know, there are akeystone species that means without them, everything
collapses. About a third of theproduce sitting at the store right now at
the supermarket is bee dependent. Sothat's professional beekeeping in that sense, it's
tied to agriculture. Amateur beekeepers,novice beekeepers. We just love it.
And it's also benefiting everything, youknow, my entire town, because a
(42:22):
beehive has a foraging radius of aboutfour miles, so we're talking about a
you know, a diameter circle aroundmy home of about eight miles of wild
flowers and various other fruiting plants thatall my neighbors have in the yards that
my bees are responsible for pollinating.What if you didn't have the bees at
(42:45):
your place, would there be asubstantial decrease in the number of flowers and
the fruit trees, etc. Well, I think the reality is there are
a lot a lot of feral hives, feral columns being just they're on their
own, you know, all overthe place, all over the southern California
everywhere, and so when you seebees in your yard, they probably these
(43:07):
days, don't you know, aren'tnecessarily coming from an amateur beekeeper. They're
just out there out there in nature. But what amateur beekeeping does is number
One, it just makes everybody moreaware. Number Two, because I keep
the bees, in other words,I watch out for them, I watch
over our colony. I'm actually ableto watch this colony to make sure it
(43:30):
doesn't become Africanized, which can happen. Okay, So everybody who is amateur
beekeeping all throughout southern California is assistingthe entire region in the sense that these
are hives that are being watched over, safeguarded from becoming aggressive hives. And
(43:50):
that's one thing that you can't guaranteewith a Ferrell hive out there in nature,
because you know, most are notthe vast majority are not aggressive african
but there are some, and sometimesthere's no stopping it from happening. All
Right, Now, we've heard I'veread about this about that the bees have
been decimated by this bee disease.Have they come back or there's that still
(44:15):
a real problem. They are comingback. They are coming back. In
fact, we talked about this acouple of months ago on the show.
Conditions have been good just lately andand we are starting to figure out on
the agricultural side, it's not adisease, although there are mites that are
an issue for bees these days,but that's a whole other story. What
(44:37):
it essentially has been are certain chemicalsrelated to commercial agriculture that have messed up
their navigation systems, and so colonycollapse disorder is about bees that can't get
back and don't get back home,and when that happens, the colonies collapse.
(44:57):
Because bees. You know, I'mnot gonna bore you with this,
but when a honeybee goes foraging andleaves the hive, they are on a
specific assignment to go to a specificset of flowers, a specific distance and
bearing away from the hive. Theyonly have enough fuel for a one way
flight to get there, so ifanything goes wrong on that pathway, they're
(45:19):
not coming home. Fascinating stuff we'regonna talk about this weekend. I'm assuming
bees too. Actually, I'm goingto talk about bees on both shows just
because again I want our listeners tobe more informed since it's been in the
news recently. But this weekend we'redoing DIY should you? Could you?
In other words, looking at projectsaround the house and asking the big question,
(45:40):
is this really a DIY project thatyou should tackle? All Right?
This Saturday sixty eight am. Sundaynine am to twelve. We'll catch you
this weekend. Dean, Thank you, Thank you. Bill. All right,
Coming up, Gary and Shannon,Shannon, what's going on with you
this morning? Well, Al Pacino'shaving another baby at eighty three. He's
still got it. AI poses arisk of extinction on par with nukes,
(46:05):
so that's something to look forward to. Also, Elizabeth Holmes is going into
the Pokey and people are already liningup to be her friend. Yeah.
I saw her going in and youknow she was She didn't seem like she
was upset about it. A lotof smiling, very happy camper eleven years.
Yeah, I mean, nothing todo there. You know, she
(46:27):
doesn't have any profit loss statements tosubmit. Coming up, Gary and Shannon
from nine to one. I havea good show. Shannon, thank you,
sir. This is kf I AMsix forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio
app. You've been listening to theBill Handles Show. Catch my show Monday
through Friday six am to nine am, and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
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