September 27, 2024 • 24 mins
Newsom signs formal apology for California’s role in slavery. U.S. speeds approval of citizenship applications as election nears; the fastest in years. Southern California’s hottest commercial real estate market is for tenants that aren’t human. Supply issues loom as California phases out gas vehicles.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from KFI AM
six forty, and yes you are.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
On a Friday morning, September twenty seven, Foody Friday. Up
at eight o'clock Neil with Foody Friday, and then at
eight thirty we're gonna do again. We're gonna try something
that we started last week, and that is going into
the archives.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Of Handle on the law.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
The crazy ass people who call asking for legal advice.
That's always fine, all right, now, yesterday Gavin Newsom signed
a formal apology for California's role in slavery and the
legacy of racism against black people. And this is part
(00:42):
of a series of reparations bills that were approved. Now,
let me go into this because this is a fascinating issue,
and that is reparations. The way African Americans, whom treated
historically in this country has been abysmal.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
In fact, you've often heard me say slavery is the
great sin of this country. And we were last or
very last.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Coming into getting rid of slavery. Okay, So, and the
first black person ever hit the shores of the United.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
States was a slave.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
So it is a very different kind of animal when
we're talking about how we treated African Americans.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
So we start with that.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Now the issue of reparations, and this is fairly controversial
and it ranges all the way from what Newsom did,
and that is, we apologize on behalf of the state.
And we're going to put a plack up state capitol
commemorating or remembering what the state of California and its.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Involvement in upholding the values of slavery.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Okay, I don't think that's quite the way I should
have put it, but certainly upholding slavery.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
California was not a slave state. It never was.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
When it was interesting us into the Union, became a
state in nine, eighteen forty nine, it was not a
slave state. However, what it did do was uphold, for example,
the Fugitive Slave Act. If a slave escaped into the
North from the Confederacy. Prior to the Civil War, bounty
(02:22):
hunters were not allowed to go up there, grab slaves
and bring them back.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
States up there said no, thank you, you're free. You're free.
California went the other way.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
California allowed bounty hunters to go into the state, grab
those runaway slaves and drag them back into slavehood again.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
To where from where they came from.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
That is, and people don't know that. They think California
is this very liberal state.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
It wasn't. It wasn't.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
I mean there were no slave auctions or slave markets
in California, but it wasn't a particularly wonderful slave place
to be if you were a slave. All right, So
what the governor did is say, fair enough.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Oh, by the way, when it became.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
A state in the eighteen forty nine constitution at banned slavery.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
But it upheld the Fugitive Slave Acts.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Okay, Now what the governor did yesterday was one of
two things. One we accept we apologize on behalf of
what California did.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
And there, you know, I don't have a problem with that.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
I think recognizing it is. I mean, do you apologize
for what your great grandfather did, you know, the sins
of the father. I think you remember. I think you
never forget. I think you commemorate apology.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
I don't know. I sort of.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Feel, yeah, I'm not apologizing for what my grandfather did.
I'm not apologizing for my great great great great great grandfather.
I'm not apologizing if I'm working for the government with
what the government did.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
One hundred and fifty years ago. I'm not.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
Now. I may be a governor, I may be the governor,
but it wasn't me. It was my parents, it was
my grandparents. Now I had nothing to do with it.
So should I apologize on behalf of a state of
something that happened.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
Two hundred years ago? Two hundred and twenty five years ago?
Is that correct?
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Was that one hundred and seventy five years ago? I'm
very bad at math. So there's the issue of the apology.
But you know, if it I don't want to put
I'm not going to hold myself to the sword on
that one. And the plaque commemorating what California did, I
have no problem at all.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
I do not want to forget that.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
I don't even mind if California declares a we apologize
for a slavery day. The other issue becomes now reparations,
because that is the most benign of reparations.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
This is sort of the milk toast of reparations.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
And there's a whole movement of reparations that is being
talked about, and you've got some black organizations saying you're
not going nearly far enough. All the way from we
want programs to help black people. We want some kind
of educational programs that our kids are allowed to have,
give them a step up, basically affirmative action based on
(05:31):
how blacks were treated in the past.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
And then right into we want money, we want to
get paid.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Hey, there's a whole group about a whole group of
people saying, you know what five generations ago, where six
generation should go?
Speaker 1 (05:46):
My great great great grandfather was a slave. I want money.
How far do you go?
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Now now comes the issue of reparations, because this is
for many the start of reparations. There is the Black
Hawk in California that is saying we want more than that,
and then there are some black organizations that say we
want a lot more than that. In terms of reparations,
we start with the fact that African Americans have been
treated horribly and even through the Civil Rights era and redlining,
(06:16):
couldn't buy housing, it couldn't get insurance. So it's pretty
terrible as to what happened. Now, how far do we go?
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Now? We have had a history of reparations.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
For example, the Japanese who were interred in the internment
camps during World War Two, the US government paid reparations
to those people, I think a max of twenty thousand dollars,
but only to the people that were actually interred, not
to their kids, not to their following generations. Same thing
(06:55):
in Europe, and this was where my dad's involved. My
dad is the victim of the Holocaust, there's no question
about that.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
You would think he'd be entitled to reparations.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
You know that Germany did pay reparations to anybody that
was affected, to Jews who were affected by the Holocaust
and other groups of people, but only to those who
in fact were affected directly. I can't get him because
my dad was entitled by the way, technically he wasn't
never got him because he was a victim in Yugoslavia,
(07:27):
which was a separate government than Germany. It was a
puppet government during the war Nazi set up the government,
so technically it was in Germany.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
So they didn't pay reparations.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
But they did to every single person in Germany who
survived the Holocaust until the day they died, and so
there's very very few left, but they kept on paying.
One family member that was involved got one thousand dollars
a month until he died, and I think he died
ten years ago.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
So how far do you go?
Speaker 2 (07:59):
And the reparations go all the way from an apology
like this, a commemoration, a remembrance right through we're gonna
pay money, paying money for someone who has who's five
generation to go, eight generation go suffered in slavery. That's
not gonna fly. No one's gonna buy that. I'll tell
you where it really is getting it a little controversial,
(08:23):
and that is there's sort of a middle ground that
a lot of African American organizations are asking for, and
even the task force that was set up by the
governor two years ago, and that is to give African
Americans a leg up basically affirmative action, but not just
in education, but also in business, tax breaks just across
(08:45):
the board and saying, Okay, we treated you horribly, now
we're gonna treat you better, and we're gonna give you.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
Somewhat of an advantage. Now you have.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
The argument is the pendulum is swinging. Do you go
to a level playing field where everybody is treated the same,
which I'm going to argue today as much the case,
or do you go beyond that? And there's a movement
on both sides to do that. The governor took a
(09:15):
lot of heat when the legislature. The legislature refused to
take up bills, for example, for a vote that would
have created a California American Freedman Freedman Affairs Agency.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
Legislature said no. Governor took the heat for that one
because he didn't push it right.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
One of the bills sought to begin the process of
reversing racially motivated land and property seizures under this fre
Affairs agency. That didn't go any place. Now, there's one
case that we talked about. I think it was Huntington
Beach where the black family was given back the property
that was taken from them under eminent domain. But that
(09:55):
was easy because it was state land. It was nothing
was built on it, it was vacant, and the family
got what they should have gotten. What do you do
on property that was taken illegally from black people in
the eighteen nineties that have since been built and there's
twenty seven apartment buildings there which have been bought, sold, bought, sold,
(10:20):
and sold again.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
Do you take those back and give them to the
families that lost them, that lost them in the eighteen eighties. Well,
how about the people that bought it.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Fifteen times over when it was bought and sold and
bought and sold. Where does that money go? Who pays
for that? And can you imagine the cost? How far
do reparations go? And this is going to go on.
So the start is what happened to matter of fact,
as SEMILY member Reggie Jones Sawyer was the one that
(10:54):
introduced the bill calling for the plaque and calling for
the Formal Apology Assembly Bill thirty eighty nine, and he
said healing can only begin with an apology. And he
called what happened yesterday a monumental achievement. And so now
we start the real discussion because I'll tell you what's easy,
(11:15):
formal apologies, thoughts and prayers. That's easy putting up a plaque.
And that doesn't cost you all that much. Neil, you've
done plaques before. How much does a plaque cost?
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Are you kidding?
Speaker 3 (11:29):
You can ask me for the cost of a plaque.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
Yeah, yeah, thirty bucks, eighty bucks, two hundred dollars.
Speaker 3 (11:35):
A bronze plaque, probably a couple couple three hundred.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
Okay, so that's what the state has spen. I only
asked you because you've done awards. You've built awards for people.
That's why I'm asked, yes.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
Sir, I have Okay, depending on its size and detail
and all that stuff catts.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
I wonder if there was a discussion as to the
size of the plaque. I won an eight by ten, No,
I want an eleven by fourteen. Surprised but there is.
But see that's easy though, that part is easy. And
by the way, a formal apology is not a real
small thing.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
It's just easy, all right. There'll be a lot more
about that as we come up expenses, of course, what
they want us to cover when up workers say the
last offer was it now?
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Vacancy rate in commercial buildings is through the roof because
businesses are letting people go home to work. They it's
they want more work from fewer people, and so they.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
Don't need as much space.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Okay, so buildings, commercial buildings are well, it's not a
good time to own a commercial building, except except if
you're a tenant, and you are you're a commercial landlord
and your tenant is a data center.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
One Willshire. I don't know if you know one Willshire.
It's a great building.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
It's a nineteen fifties building, that's in downtown is basically
the mother of all data centers in the West. It
provides major digital links between Asia and North America. Okay,
thirty floors, cables, pipes, coolers, generators, all the equipment needed
(13:17):
to support online functions. They took away to elevators so
they could use the elevator shafts to put the piping in.
There are no tenants other than these data centers. And
if you think about it, smartphones, watching the streaming services
Netflix on TV, ordering food delivery using our laptops. We
(13:39):
are in the middle of living in the computer age,
and they need these centers. And then more and more
information is brought forward every minute.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
We're creating more.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
Well, that means we need storage, and so you need
these massive, massive data centers that are going up like crazy. Yeah, Frankly,
the landlords in this area can keep up with the demand.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
Generators. You can't find them.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
Generators that will power these centers if the property you go,
if the power goes out, and so that's what's making money,
and that's the difference.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
And then yesterday and Neil's eyes went.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
Wide open there really yeah, because you're talking about the AI.
We talk about AI generative AI that demands ten times
more power than a normal search.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
Because it goes through.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
The entire goes through everything it's on the internet, and
searches it and then develops, grabs it and develops language
and concepts of which a Google search is not gonna do.
I mean, you're gonna just find out. Okay, when did
this happen? Eighteen forty seven with AI? When did this happen? Well,
(14:55):
eighteen forty seven, it happened. And by the way, here's
who did it, Here's why they did it, here's the
history of it. It's all there. That takes enormous power,
that takes enormous data storage and basically electricity to.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
Mount all that.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
So construction is taking place at an insane pace. It's
just going crazy. So when we talk about AI, and
I said earlier, we have no idea where AI is going.
Even the people who invented AI have no idea where
it's going none. What we do know now is where
(15:34):
we thought we needed power before, we're on a whole
new level of the kind of storage and electricity that
we need. As a matter of fact, there is a
stat that I found which was just absolutely stunning by
twenty thirty, data centers could account for as much as
(15:55):
eleven percent of US power demand. Of all the power
that's used in this country, eleven percent will be for
data centers.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
I mean that's crazy. I mean, right now, it's a
big deal. It's three percent, so it's going to triple.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
And when you look at the numbers with an economy
as large as Hours, with a population as large as Hours,
this is completely insane. So I just want to share
this story with you because that one Wheelshare building, if
you've ever seen it, is absolutely gorgeous.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
You can't get in there.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
And by the way, it's thirty stories of nothing but
computing coolers, pipes, cables.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
I'd love to have a tour of that, wouldn't you.
I don't think there's room to walk through there.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
Maybe little tiny walkways that you walk through all the computers.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
Okay, all right.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
The governor has asked for an emergency session, and here
is why. Because our gasoline prices are so insanely high,
and when they go high, they go.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
Through the roof.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
And almost his seven dollars a few months ago for
a gallon of gas.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
Go figure that one.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
So what is the state going to do well, the
state's going to get involved or looking at getting involved now?
Is it looking at taking over the refineries? No, although
when the government governor did announce, he had a big
portrait of Karl Marx behind him, because we're talking serious
state involvement.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
So what's going on under Consideration number one?
Speaker 2 (17:38):
A bill that would allow the state to set minimum
levels of gasoline storage at California's refineries that the state
can do. And that is not manipulating prices, that's not
price control. What that is is simply, if you have
a refinery, here's what you have in storage. And why
is that well, because when a refinery goes down for
(18:02):
maintenance or let's say there's a fire, either planned or
unplanned maintenance, every drop that the refineries produced here in
California goes for the supply. If you're off a day
as a refinery, prices are going to go up. And
it turns out that when refineries are down, the oil
(18:24):
companies make more money.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
They like that idea.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
So the governor has to figure out a way, the
state government has to figure out a way how do
we undo this because now the price of gasoline is
so high. By the way, the gas inder saying a
gas industry. The oil industry is saying, hey, you know,
look at your Look at you guys. You know, look
at the taxes. There's no state in the country that
comes near the taxes the California charges for its gasoline
(18:50):
on top of the cost of a gallon. So the
more that the state gets involved, the more obviously that
the quote nationalization or the californianization of the oil industry.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
How far does it.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
Go in controlling the oil industry. Is it going to
nationalize or California is going to take it over? Of
course not, but what kind of restriction is they going
to put on it? So there are two problems.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
Here, two big problems.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
One and that is the oil industry is saying, hey, guys,
you come in and you deal with this.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
You don't have the expertise.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
You don't know how to run refineries and this distribution system.
How do you plan on doing that? This is private enterprise.
Now can they get around that?
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Yeah, they can hire people from the oil industry and
just make it work. We'll see. No one knows.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
Also, the other issue is California is trying to diminish
its use of oil fossil fuels.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
We know that, and go to alternative energy. We know that.
So here's the problem.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
You reduce the amount of fuel that's available, prices are.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
Going to go through the roof.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Because even if there are no cars being sold that
are gasoline power cars after twenty thirty five, there'll still
be millions of cars out there and there is still
going to be a healthy demand. But wait a minute,
we want to cut down on the production because we're
too dependent on it and the prices are too high.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
So here's what we're going to do.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
We are going to set in some kinds of controls
to diminish the price of oil, while at the same
time we're going to do what we can to raise
the price of oil.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
It's completely contradictory.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
We want to bring the supply down, which automatically means
prices go up. But we want to keep the prices
down and the supply up while bringing the supply down. Now,
if that made any sense, it actually did to me.
It's ten pounds in a five pound bag.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
It's that simple.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
Demand for gasoline will decline the industry. Industry becomes more concentrated,
less competitive. That's the California y Energy Commission. This was
a report that was just released last week. And so
we have something that was recently created called Division of
Petroleum Market Oversight, and it's ironing out details of a
(21:26):
plan to penalize refineries that exceed a state set profit margin.
We don't know what that is. They don't know what
that is. Now, that's kind of scary to determine how
much profit a company can make. This is Kamala Harris
saying price gouging. I'm not gonna let price gouging happen
(21:48):
in the supermarkets. Tell me what price gouging is. I
don't know where that limit is. I mean, I know,
during a blackout, if you were in New York and
you had people charge you eighty six followers for a
single candle, okay, that's price gouging.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
That one's kind of easy.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
But how about if a candle normally costs you three bucks,
then they sold it for six bucks?
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Is that price gouging? I don't know.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
I have no idea. And the cost of food goes out, Neil,
you keep track of this. You can have food go
up thirty forty percent basics almost overnight, can't you?
Speaker 1 (22:25):
Of course?
Speaker 3 (22:26):
And okay, you know because gas can go up any right,
you know that anything in the path of getting that
food to you can make that cost.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
Now, is that price gouging? You know, I don't know
what that is. Where is price gouging? And in this case,
where is the profits too high?
Speaker 3 (22:46):
But there are there are. For instance, I have a
small side business where I make promotional items. You know
that I have a shop here, and but there is
a formula about the amount of time I use, the
cost of the materials and stuff, and that is what
I use.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
There isn't anything.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
No, I understand that, but no one mandates that you
could charge three times as much. And we have a
market system and we either use less, don't buy your products,
buy a product that you manufactured that's even crappier in quality.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
No, you can't get crappier in quality than what you use.
It's just a market system that we have.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
When does capitalism control and socialism comes in?
Speaker 1 (23:31):
And that's what we're talking about, and it drives me
completely nuts. By the way, for those people that do want,
I'm gonna give you a plug.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
Now. If anybody wants a Clever Teachain mug t shirt,
just contact Neil. Does a great job the T shirts.
They are very inexpensive. They're made in Pakistan by four
year old kids, and you can't get wet because the
dye tends to run, so don't sweat in them, much
less wash them.
Speaker 3 (24:00):
The Handle Twins are in my basement making clothing for me.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
Coming out Neil and Neil and I join you or
you join us for Footy Friday kf I am six
forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
You've been listening to the Bill Handle Show.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
Catch my show Monday through Friday, six am to nine am,
and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app
You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from KFI AM
six forty, and yes you are.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
On a Friday morning, September twenty seven, Foody Friday. Up
at eight o'clock Neil with Foody Friday, and then at
eight thirty we're gonna do again. We're gonna try something
that we started last week, and that is going into
the archives.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Of Handle on the law.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
The crazy ass people who call asking for legal advice.
That's always fine, all right, now, yesterday Gavin Newsom signed
a formal apology for California's role in slavery and the
legacy of racism against black people. And this is part
(00:42):
of a series of reparations bills that were approved. Now,
let me go into this because this is a fascinating issue,
and that is reparations. The way African Americans, whom treated
historically in this country has been abysmal.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
In fact, you've often heard me say slavery is the
great sin of this country. And we were last or
very last.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Coming into getting rid of slavery. Okay, So, and the
first black person ever hit the shores of the United.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
States was a slave.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
So it is a very different kind of animal when
we're talking about how we treated African Americans.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
So we start with that.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Now the issue of reparations, and this is fairly controversial
and it ranges all the way from what Newsom did,
and that is, we apologize on behalf of the state.
And we're going to put a plack up state capitol
commemorating or remembering what the state of California and its.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Involvement in upholding the values of slavery.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Okay, I don't think that's quite the way I should
have put it, but certainly upholding slavery.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
California was not a slave state. It never was.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
When it was interesting us into the Union, became a
state in nine, eighteen forty nine, it was not a
slave state. However, what it did do was uphold, for example,
the Fugitive Slave Act. If a slave escaped into the
North from the Confederacy. Prior to the Civil War, bounty
(02:22):
hunters were not allowed to go up there, grab slaves
and bring them back.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
States up there said no, thank you, you're free. You're free.
California went the other way.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
California allowed bounty hunters to go into the state, grab
those runaway slaves and drag them back into slavehood again.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
To where from where they came from.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
That is, and people don't know that. They think California
is this very liberal state.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
It wasn't. It wasn't.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
I mean there were no slave auctions or slave markets
in California, but it wasn't a particularly wonderful slave place
to be if you were a slave. All right, So
what the governor did is say, fair enough.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Oh, by the way, when it became.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
A state in the eighteen forty nine constitution at banned slavery.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
But it upheld the Fugitive Slave Acts.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Okay, Now what the governor did yesterday was one of
two things. One we accept we apologize on behalf of
what California did.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
And there, you know, I don't have a problem with that.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
I think recognizing it is. I mean, do you apologize
for what your great grandfather did, you know, the sins
of the father. I think you remember. I think you
never forget. I think you commemorate apology.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
I don't know. I sort of.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Feel, yeah, I'm not apologizing for what my grandfather did.
I'm not apologizing for my great great great great great grandfather.
I'm not apologizing if I'm working for the government with
what the government did.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
One hundred and fifty years ago. I'm not.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
Now. I may be a governor, I may be the governor,
but it wasn't me. It was my parents, it was
my grandparents. Now I had nothing to do with it.
So should I apologize on behalf of a state of
something that happened.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
Two hundred years ago? Two hundred and twenty five years ago?
Is that correct?
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Was that one hundred and seventy five years ago? I'm
very bad at math. So there's the issue of the apology.
But you know, if it I don't want to put
I'm not going to hold myself to the sword on
that one. And the plaque commemorating what California did, I
have no problem at all.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
I do not want to forget that.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
I don't even mind if California declares a we apologize
for a slavery day. The other issue becomes now reparations,
because that is the most benign of reparations.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
This is sort of the milk toast of reparations.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
And there's a whole movement of reparations that is being
talked about, and you've got some black organizations saying you're
not going nearly far enough. All the way from we
want programs to help black people. We want some kind
of educational programs that our kids are allowed to have,
give them a step up, basically affirmative action based on
(05:31):
how blacks were treated in the past.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
And then right into we want money, we want to
get paid.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Hey, there's a whole group about a whole group of
people saying, you know what five generations ago, where six
generation should go?
Speaker 1 (05:46):
My great great great grandfather was a slave. I want money.
How far do you go?
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Now now comes the issue of reparations, because this is
for many the start of reparations. There is the Black
Hawk in California that is saying we want more than that,
and then there are some black organizations that say we
want a lot more than that. In terms of reparations,
we start with the fact that African Americans have been
treated horribly and even through the Civil Rights era and redlining,
(06:16):
couldn't buy housing, it couldn't get insurance. So it's pretty
terrible as to what happened. Now, how far do we go?
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Now? We have had a history of reparations.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
For example, the Japanese who were interred in the internment
camps during World War Two, the US government paid reparations
to those people, I think a max of twenty thousand dollars,
but only to the people that were actually interred, not
to their kids, not to their following generations. Same thing
(06:55):
in Europe, and this was where my dad's involved. My
dad is the victim of the Holocaust, there's no question
about that.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
You would think he'd be entitled to reparations.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
You know that Germany did pay reparations to anybody that
was affected, to Jews who were affected by the Holocaust
and other groups of people, but only to those who
in fact were affected directly. I can't get him because
my dad was entitled by the way, technically he wasn't
never got him because he was a victim in Yugoslavia,
(07:27):
which was a separate government than Germany. It was a
puppet government during the war Nazi set up the government,
so technically it was in Germany.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
So they didn't pay reparations.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
But they did to every single person in Germany who
survived the Holocaust until the day they died, and so
there's very very few left, but they kept on paying.
One family member that was involved got one thousand dollars
a month until he died, and I think he died
ten years ago.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
So how far do you go?
Speaker 2 (07:59):
And the reparations go all the way from an apology
like this, a commemoration, a remembrance right through we're gonna
pay money, paying money for someone who has who's five
generation to go, eight generation go suffered in slavery. That's
not gonna fly. No one's gonna buy that. I'll tell
you where it really is getting it a little controversial,
(08:23):
and that is there's sort of a middle ground that
a lot of African American organizations are asking for, and
even the task force that was set up by the
governor two years ago, and that is to give African
Americans a leg up basically affirmative action, but not just
in education, but also in business, tax breaks just across
(08:45):
the board and saying, Okay, we treated you horribly, now
we're gonna treat you better, and we're gonna give you.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
Somewhat of an advantage. Now you have.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
The argument is the pendulum is swinging. Do you go
to a level playing field where everybody is treated the same,
which I'm going to argue today as much the case,
or do you go beyond that? And there's a movement
on both sides to do that. The governor took a
(09:15):
lot of heat when the legislature. The legislature refused to
take up bills, for example, for a vote that would
have created a California American Freedman Freedman Affairs Agency.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
Legislature said no. Governor took the heat for that one
because he didn't push it right.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
One of the bills sought to begin the process of
reversing racially motivated land and property seizures under this fre
Affairs agency. That didn't go any place. Now, there's one
case that we talked about. I think it was Huntington
Beach where the black family was given back the property
that was taken from them under eminent domain. But that
(09:55):
was easy because it was state land. It was nothing
was built on it, it was vacant, and the family
got what they should have gotten. What do you do
on property that was taken illegally from black people in
the eighteen nineties that have since been built and there's
twenty seven apartment buildings there which have been bought, sold, bought, sold,
(10:20):
and sold again.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
Do you take those back and give them to the
families that lost them, that lost them in the eighteen eighties. Well,
how about the people that bought it.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Fifteen times over when it was bought and sold and
bought and sold. Where does that money go? Who pays
for that? And can you imagine the cost? How far
do reparations go? And this is going to go on.
So the start is what happened to matter of fact,
as SEMILY member Reggie Jones Sawyer was the one that
(10:54):
introduced the bill calling for the plaque and calling for
the Formal Apology Assembly Bill thirty eighty nine, and he
said healing can only begin with an apology. And he
called what happened yesterday a monumental achievement. And so now
we start the real discussion because I'll tell you what's easy,
(11:15):
formal apologies, thoughts and prayers. That's easy putting up a plaque.
And that doesn't cost you all that much. Neil, you've
done plaques before. How much does a plaque cost?
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Are you kidding?
Speaker 3 (11:29):
You can ask me for the cost of a plaque.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
Yeah, yeah, thirty bucks, eighty bucks, two hundred dollars.
Speaker 3 (11:35):
A bronze plaque, probably a couple couple three hundred.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
Okay, so that's what the state has spen. I only
asked you because you've done awards. You've built awards for people.
That's why I'm asked, yes.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
Sir, I have Okay, depending on its size and detail
and all that stuff catts.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
I wonder if there was a discussion as to the
size of the plaque. I won an eight by ten, No,
I want an eleven by fourteen. Surprised but there is.
But see that's easy though, that part is easy. And
by the way, a formal apology is not a real
small thing.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
It's just easy, all right. There'll be a lot more
about that as we come up expenses, of course, what
they want us to cover when up workers say the
last offer was it now?
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Vacancy rate in commercial buildings is through the roof because
businesses are letting people go home to work. They it's
they want more work from fewer people, and so they.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
Don't need as much space.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Okay, so buildings, commercial buildings are well, it's not a
good time to own a commercial building, except except if
you're a tenant, and you are you're a commercial landlord
and your tenant is a data center.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
One Willshire. I don't know if you know one Willshire.
It's a great building.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
It's a nineteen fifties building, that's in downtown is basically
the mother of all data centers in the West. It
provides major digital links between Asia and North America. Okay,
thirty floors, cables, pipes, coolers, generators, all the equipment needed
(13:17):
to support online functions. They took away to elevators so
they could use the elevator shafts to put the piping in.
There are no tenants other than these data centers. And
if you think about it, smartphones, watching the streaming services
Netflix on TV, ordering food delivery using our laptops. We
(13:39):
are in the middle of living in the computer age,
and they need these centers. And then more and more
information is brought forward every minute.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
We're creating more.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
Well, that means we need storage, and so you need
these massive, massive data centers that are going up like crazy. Yeah, Frankly,
the landlords in this area can keep up with the demand.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
Generators. You can't find them.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
Generators that will power these centers if the property you go,
if the power goes out, and so that's what's making money,
and that's the difference.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
And then yesterday and Neil's eyes went.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
Wide open there really yeah, because you're talking about the AI.
We talk about AI generative AI that demands ten times
more power than a normal search.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
Because it goes through.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
The entire goes through everything it's on the internet, and
searches it and then develops, grabs it and develops language
and concepts of which a Google search is not gonna do.
I mean, you're gonna just find out. Okay, when did
this happen? Eighteen forty seven with AI? When did this happen? Well,
(14:55):
eighteen forty seven, it happened. And by the way, here's
who did it, Here's why they did it, here's the
history of it. It's all there. That takes enormous power,
that takes enormous data storage and basically electricity to.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
Mount all that.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
So construction is taking place at an insane pace. It's
just going crazy. So when we talk about AI, and
I said earlier, we have no idea where AI is going.
Even the people who invented AI have no idea where
it's going none. What we do know now is where
(15:34):
we thought we needed power before, we're on a whole
new level of the kind of storage and electricity that
we need. As a matter of fact, there is a
stat that I found which was just absolutely stunning by
twenty thirty, data centers could account for as much as
(15:55):
eleven percent of US power demand. Of all the power
that's used in this country, eleven percent will be for
data centers.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
I mean that's crazy. I mean, right now, it's a
big deal. It's three percent, so it's going to triple.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
And when you look at the numbers with an economy
as large as Hours, with a population as large as Hours,
this is completely insane. So I just want to share
this story with you because that one Wheelshare building, if
you've ever seen it, is absolutely gorgeous.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
You can't get in there.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
And by the way, it's thirty stories of nothing but
computing coolers, pipes, cables.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
I'd love to have a tour of that, wouldn't you.
I don't think there's room to walk through there.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
Maybe little tiny walkways that you walk through all the computers.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
Okay, all right.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
The governor has asked for an emergency session, and here
is why. Because our gasoline prices are so insanely high,
and when they go high, they go.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
Through the roof.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
And almost his seven dollars a few months ago for
a gallon of gas.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
Go figure that one.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
So what is the state going to do well, the
state's going to get involved or looking at getting involved now?
Is it looking at taking over the refineries? No, although
when the government governor did announce, he had a big
portrait of Karl Marx behind him, because we're talking serious
state involvement.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
So what's going on under Consideration number one?
Speaker 2 (17:38):
A bill that would allow the state to set minimum
levels of gasoline storage at California's refineries that the state
can do. And that is not manipulating prices, that's not
price control. What that is is simply, if you have
a refinery, here's what you have in storage. And why
is that well, because when a refinery goes down for
(18:02):
maintenance or let's say there's a fire, either planned or
unplanned maintenance, every drop that the refineries produced here in
California goes for the supply. If you're off a day
as a refinery, prices are going to go up. And
it turns out that when refineries are down, the oil
(18:24):
companies make more money.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
They like that idea.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
So the governor has to figure out a way, the
state government has to figure out a way how do
we undo this because now the price of gasoline is
so high. By the way, the gas inder saying a
gas industry. The oil industry is saying, hey, you know,
look at your Look at you guys. You know, look
at the taxes. There's no state in the country that
comes near the taxes the California charges for its gasoline
(18:50):
on top of the cost of a gallon. So the
more that the state gets involved, the more obviously that
the quote nationalization or the californianization of the oil industry.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
How far does it.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
Go in controlling the oil industry. Is it going to
nationalize or California is going to take it over? Of
course not, but what kind of restriction is they going
to put on it? So there are two problems.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
Here, two big problems.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
One and that is the oil industry is saying, hey, guys,
you come in and you deal with this.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
You don't have the expertise.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
You don't know how to run refineries and this distribution system.
How do you plan on doing that? This is private enterprise.
Now can they get around that?
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Yeah, they can hire people from the oil industry and
just make it work. We'll see. No one knows.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
Also, the other issue is California is trying to diminish
its use of oil fossil fuels.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
We know that, and go to alternative energy. We know that.
So here's the problem.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
You reduce the amount of fuel that's available, prices are.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
Going to go through the roof.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Because even if there are no cars being sold that
are gasoline power cars after twenty thirty five, there'll still
be millions of cars out there and there is still
going to be a healthy demand. But wait a minute,
we want to cut down on the production because we're
too dependent on it and the prices are too high.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
So here's what we're going to do.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
We are going to set in some kinds of controls
to diminish the price of oil, while at the same
time we're going to do what we can to raise
the price of oil.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
It's completely contradictory.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
We want to bring the supply down, which automatically means
prices go up. But we want to keep the prices
down and the supply up while bringing the supply down. Now,
if that made any sense, it actually did to me.
It's ten pounds in a five pound bag.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
It's that simple.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
Demand for gasoline will decline the industry. Industry becomes more concentrated,
less competitive. That's the California y Energy Commission. This was
a report that was just released last week. And so
we have something that was recently created called Division of
Petroleum Market Oversight, and it's ironing out details of a
(21:26):
plan to penalize refineries that exceed a state set profit margin.
We don't know what that is. They don't know what
that is. Now, that's kind of scary to determine how
much profit a company can make. This is Kamala Harris
saying price gouging. I'm not gonna let price gouging happen
(21:48):
in the supermarkets. Tell me what price gouging is. I
don't know where that limit is. I mean, I know,
during a blackout, if you were in New York and
you had people charge you eighty six followers for a
single candle, okay, that's price gouging.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
That one's kind of easy.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
But how about if a candle normally costs you three bucks,
then they sold it for six bucks?
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Is that price gouging? I don't know.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
I have no idea. And the cost of food goes out, Neil,
you keep track of this. You can have food go
up thirty forty percent basics almost overnight, can't you?
Speaker 1 (22:25):
Of course?
Speaker 3 (22:26):
And okay, you know because gas can go up any right,
you know that anything in the path of getting that
food to you can make that cost.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
Now, is that price gouging? You know, I don't know
what that is. Where is price gouging? And in this case,
where is the profits too high?
Speaker 3 (22:46):
But there are there are. For instance, I have a
small side business where I make promotional items. You know
that I have a shop here, and but there is
a formula about the amount of time I use, the
cost of the materials and stuff, and that is what
I use.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
There isn't anything.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
No, I understand that, but no one mandates that you
could charge three times as much. And we have a
market system and we either use less, don't buy your products,
buy a product that you manufactured that's even crappier in quality.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
No, you can't get crappier in quality than what you use.
It's just a market system that we have.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
When does capitalism control and socialism comes in?
Speaker 1 (23:31):
And that's what we're talking about, and it drives me
completely nuts. By the way, for those people that do want,
I'm gonna give you a plug.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
Now. If anybody wants a Clever Teachain mug t shirt,
just contact Neil. Does a great job the T shirts.
They are very inexpensive. They're made in Pakistan by four
year old kids, and you can't get wet because the
dye tends to run, so don't sweat in them, much
less wash them.
Speaker 3 (24:00):
The Handle Twins are in my basement making clothing for me.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
Coming out Neil and Neil and I join you or
you join us for Footy Friday kf I am six
forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
You've been listening to the Bill Handle Show.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
Catch my show Monday through Friday, six am to nine am,
and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app
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