February 17, 2025 • 24 mins
Colleges and K-12 schools ordered to abolish DEI or face funding cuts. Could Trump try to deport immigrant LAPD officers with DACA status? Americans have always sought debt relief after the holidays… now their struggle is year-around. Is California government seriously considering oil refinery takeovers?
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from KFI AM
six forty KFI Handle here on Monday morning, February seventeen.
Some of the top stories that we are looking at
is Secretary I say this before great joke. Secretary of
State Marco Rubio has arrived in Saudi America to engage
(00:22):
in discussions with Russia and the US about Ukraine and
the war ending it. Of course, Ukraine's not part of
those discussions. And a quick factoid about Saudi Arabia, which
is really interesting. Saudi Arabia became a country in nineteen
thirty two. Before that, it was just a bunch of
tribes that control that area, and it was the king
Ibin Saoud, and it's named after him, Saudi Arabia. And
(00:45):
it's the only country world that I know of that
is owned by the royal family. It literally is owned
by the royal family. It's wild. It's completely crazy. Great history,
by the way, if you want to read about that. Okay,
now let's move on to what's going on with the
(01:08):
Trump administration. As you know, abolishing DEI programs and in education,
this is hitting them very hard. So colleges K through
twelve schools ordered by the Trump administration. You abolish DEI
or you're going to face funding cuts, and I mean
big ones.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
So the re.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Guidelines signed by the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights saying
that schools using race and decisions pertaining to admissions, hiring, promotion, compensation,
financial aids, scholarships, prizes, administrative support, discipline, housing, graduation, ceremonies,
(01:49):
and all other aspects I'm quoting now student academic and
campus life were in violation of anti discrimination laws and
legal precedent. And you know what, the administration is one
hundred percent right on the legal the legal position that
they are taking. Discrimination based on race is completely illegal
(02:14):
and admissions based on race is illegal. That goes back
to a nineteen seventy three case I think, and it
was Baki versus the Regions of the state of California.
David Baki applied to go to medical school. They said no,
and an African American student who did not have the
qualifications as the school set out GPA SAT scores or
(02:38):
I think the MCAT and the black was given precedent
given the position. He sued. He just straight out sued,
and the course said, you're right, you cannot discriminate on
the basis of race. It's that simple. Well, let me
ask you something. Let's talk about the basis of race.
(02:59):
Where you have governmental entities. All right, you have a program,
so let's say UCLA okay, you have okay, scholarships aiding underrepresentatives,
racial minorities, culturally themed dorm room floors, African American floors,
(03:21):
Latino dorms. How about graduation ceremonies. Latinos can get their
own separate one. You got, Blacks can get their own
separate graduation. Now, let me ask you something. What would
you think if they had a white's only graduation. Where
do you think that would go? Saying that this theme
(03:44):
is for white people versus this theme graduation. We're going
to do it separately for Latino people. Now there's an argument,
of course about underrepresentative of racism, which is legitimate, but
they're arguing that that this is race. And in nineteen
ninety six, California we voted Prop. Two nine barred all
(04:07):
public educational institution in the state from considering race and admissions.
You know how they get around it, and they do
get around it. What they do is they look at
other factors. For example, Let's say you have a black
students or a Latino student that comes from and not
particularly well off, comes from a poor neighborhood, and they
(04:29):
look at neighborhood, they look at the first student in
the family that gets a college education. But they're saying,
strangely enough, you know, whites don't get that, not nearly
as much as African Americans, who are thirteen percent of
the population. The reality is there is discrimination. Now, whether
(04:50):
you want to justify it or not is a whole
separate issue. But to argue that there is no discrimination,
how do you have a graduation that's only Hispanic and
not call it racial. Explain that one to me, or
dorm rooms or pro Latino programs on campus. Try having
(05:14):
a white program on campus. Now, there is a huge argument.
Of course, the whites are the majority, and they treat
it all all races in a discriminatory manner itself. And yeah,
I mean, we can go on and on and on,
but the loss has no discrimination. It's that simple, and
(05:34):
there is plenty of it out there, plenty of it.
It's public schools. You can't do it. You can't do
it now real quickly. What the Trump administration is doing
is they're arguing, by the way, they're taking away money
and lots of it from schools that have any DEI,
that have any language of diversity and equity and inclusion
(05:59):
at all. And we're talking big money. We're talking billions,
tens of billions of dollars in federal money comes to
California for public schools. Well, and let me tell you
what they left off. Here's I found this interesting when
I looked into this, is that it's only racial discrimination.
(06:20):
That's it. The LGBTQ programs are being left alone. You
have other programs, trans programs left alone. All right, I
remember that, you know, you can't argue that discrimination doesn't happen,
or reverse discrimination does happen. And that is whites are
(06:44):
precluded because they're what And that's the reality. And we're
not going to get into whether that's morally reprehensible or not.
That is a separate issue. All right. Now, A story
I want to share with you about LAPD and LA
sheriffs and what is the story about. Can you think
(07:08):
of a cop being deported? I mean that's impossible, right,
I mean completely impossible. Well, not so much because you've
got the LAPD and the Sheriff's office. Sheriff's Department actually
have DACA officers. Now. DACA recipients, as you know, are
(07:32):
those people between fifteen and forty one, actually between fifteen
and thirty one now who came to the United States
when they were under sixteen years of old old and
they were illegal and their parents brought him across. And
some don't even know or didn't know they were illegal
until they went for a driver's license because parents didn't
(07:54):
share with them, and do they Hey, we're illegal, just
want to let you know. And so they go to
the police force where they're not asked about their status,
or if they are asked, you have to be under
DACA protection or of course a citizen or a Green
card holder. And therein lies a big problem because if
(08:18):
it is true, and I do think it is, that
the Trump administration is going to engage in mass deportations, now,
I would guess that the very last people that would
ever ever be deported would be cops. Can you imagine
the optics of that one. So so far, the deportations
(08:41):
have been felons, those accused of serious crimes, those who
have committed crimes are under indictment. Those people have been deported. However,
the administrations has said we're going to deport all illegal immigrants,
and they sweat. They sweat. You go down to any
(09:04):
home depot or a lows and usually you would see
the driveway coming in, you would see migrants. Can't ask
him if they're illegal, But my guess is the guy's
hanging around looking for casual labor, looking for work. Probably
a huge percentage are illegal, to the point where you
had a couple of the major hardware stores, you know,
(09:28):
the big box hardware stores, had a place there, had
segregated a place for casual labor read illegal migrants. Maybe
ninety percent. Now I'm just throwing that figure out. I
have no idea. And my contractor, Polo, who we think
is terrific. He's the one that is doing the remodel
(09:53):
in my house, and he'll be working here for the
rest of his life. By the way, I just want
to let you know. And he knows it. He just
smiles every time I walk in the do I go, ah,
we're doing this. Oh, we do this, and it's getting
a little crazy. Built a fireplace, tearing it out because
it doesn't we just don't like it. I mean it's
just really crazy stuff. But he said that if you
look at the industry, half of the employees are gone.
(10:19):
They just don't come to work for fear that immigration
is going to pick them up, Ice is going to
pick them up and deport them. There is a real,
real fear among illegal migrants. And you think about it,
think about a method to the madness, if you want
to call it madness. If President Trump is if his
(10:39):
policy is to stop immigration or move immigration south of
the border, and he says he's going to deport, but
let's say he's not going to deport because it's of course,
it's ridiculous to deport eleven million people. I mean, just
doesn't make any sense. I mean, you just can't do it.
But if you have a huge population that cannot make
(10:59):
a living here because no one will hire them, where
are they going to go? If you're going to not eat,
you might as well not eat in the country you
came from, where everybody speaks the language, where you're with family.
I happen to know of people who, actually Maria knows
(11:24):
people who are here illegally and cannot leave, and have
been here for a decade or more. They cannot leave
and visit family because they'll never be able to come back.
And here is where they work. Now. Is the administration
going to go knocking on doors? No, I don't think so.
(11:44):
Are they going to bust factories? Yeah, I think they're
going to do that. Would they bust the big box
hardware stores at that location where it used to be
dozens and dozens of people lined up to work, Yeah,
I think they would do that. So may he may
(12:09):
actually Donald Trump may actually get what he wants by
not deporting, just the fear of deporting. Now, I want
to talk about credit cards, your credit card, my credit cards.
I think credit cards are a great idea. They are
as convenient as you can get and you get free
(12:31):
money if you pay it off at the end of
the month. And the problem with credit cards it's not money.
It's a little piece of plastic that you throw and
you don't really connect money to it. Well, well, believe me,
there's plenty of money involved there. Digging out of debt
used to be out of credit card debt used to
be the first three months of the year. You spent
(12:53):
a fortune on the holidays, and so they are and
then you start working on getting out of debt well,
first three months now are the first twelve months. This
trend is disappearing for a bunch of reasons. Pricey car
loans specifically, and the credit card debt has just exploded. Now,
the pricey car loan is not credit card. It's the
(13:16):
pricey car loan where you don't have money to pay
off your credit card. And here's what people do is
they use that card and all of a sudden, the
balances go up, up up. What they do is they
use it to win and you don't have enough money.
And this is the heartbreaker. They use it for food,
(13:36):
they use it for utilities, because everybody now takes credit
cards and that is a tough way to go. Americans
are having a very very tough time. Credit card debt, well,
household debt is now eighteen point four point zero four,
let's call it eighteen trillion dollars. I mean, that is
(13:59):
just astronomical. The reality is is our entire economy is teetering.
But it has been for years. This is a house
of cards. And when we reach twenty trillion dollars in
debt under Obama, I thought it can't get worse than that.
We're going to collapse. We're at thirty four or thirty
(14:20):
five trillion, and our yearly our yearly deficit is now
two trillion dollars. Used to be Republicans were deficit hawks.
How dare you do that? They've gone the other way.
Let's just spend money like crazy. No one is fighting
it now. One of the things about the Trump administration
(14:42):
Elon Musk, is cutting overhead and is that going to
help the United States? Well, that jury is out. But
look at car loans themselves instead of well, car loans
were always relatively expensive relative to other debt, not as
much as credit card debt. You know, credit card you
(15:03):
pay twenty five thirty percent. There used to be usery
laws in this country where you couldn't charge more than
x percent. That was usury. They have disappeared the banking industry.
The lobby was successful powerful enough to get rid of
usery laws. Those are federal laws too. Now it's wide open.
(15:25):
A credit card can company in a charge of forty
percent interest? They charged thirty thirty five all day long.
So how do people deal with cars that now are
the cheapest car out there? What thirty five twenty eight
thousand dollars? Are there any twenty five thousand dollars cars
out there. I think there are aren't there. I mean
(15:47):
really low, low end cars. But your typical car is
thirty thirty five, forty thousand dollars. And so what people did,
and this one, I was stunned when this happened. Usually
they're three year loan, then they went to four year loans,
then they went to five year loans. Now you can
(16:09):
get a car with a six year loan, which means
the car is going to decrease in value far faster
than you can pay off the car, which means you
are upside down in the car, your entire ownership life
of that car. And you know when you discover that
(16:30):
is when you get in a car accident and they
total the car and tell you your car is worth
twelve thousand dollars, but you owe eighteen thousand dollars. Almost
every Saturday I get a call they can't do that.
Oh yes they can, and they do. The only one
(16:51):
that makes sense, in my opinion, is a three year
because I've always lived with the three years. I sort
of in my head. Even then the car is upside down,
and with interest rates as high as they are, well,
the debt just keeps on exploding because look at the
house of the cost of housing here in southern California,
(17:13):
the cost of energy, the cost of food. I mean,
we pay a lot of money for the joy of
living in southern California. It's big.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
You taught me something about cars a long time ago,
and it changed my mindset. Now I've never bought a
car above twenty seven thousand dollars because I buy used.
But you told me to stop thinking of cars as
an investment of any kind and just think of them
as a utility bill.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
Going to need a car, just think of it. And
so I don't even think about it anymore.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
I just I just assume I'm going to have a
car payment for the rest of my life.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
And that's exactly the case, unless you're willing to. And
I lease because I like a fairly new car every
three four years because the technology has kind of insane,
and I buy any But that's the way I think.
You know, you don't look at paying off your power
bill as an investment. You certainly don't paying off your mortgage.
(18:10):
I guess you do as an investment. But that's very,
very long term, and if it makes more sense, to
Lisa Car because I have a couple of businesses and
you can deduct the whole thing, So that works. But
if you're willing to drive a car into the ground
and keep it five, six, eight years, then you buy.
(18:32):
Then you buy Clark Howard, my dear friend, who is
probably the best consumer radio host television hosts in the country.
He drives cars for thirty years. Well maybe not, but
he runs them into the ground. All right, enough of that. Okay, gasoline.
(18:53):
Have you noticed the price of gasoline is up up
here in California. We pay more for gasoline than any
place other than Hawaii. Why because California is we are well,
let's just say we are the leftist state of the
United States, which is why we're going to be getting
(19:14):
into a fight for the next four years with Donald Trump.
And so how about California taking over right becoming a
socialist state as far as refineries or are concerned. By
the way, Russia, China, Venezuela, Iran, more than a dozen
countries own the government owns the refinery. So California policy
(19:38):
makers are now looking with the state ownership make any sense.
That's actually on the list of options that the California
Energy Commission is looking at to ensure steady gas supplies
while oil companies are pulling back for the refineries. Already,
(19:59):
two you California refineries have ceased producing gasoline to make
biodiesel fuel for use in heavy duty trucks. So two
have just been taken offline. You know when the last
refinery was built here in this state nineteen eighty two.
Now the EV market, well twenty five percent of all
(20:20):
cars that are sold in California are now EV, which
helps a lot, including plugins. But two things are going on,
or several things are going on. The price of gasoline
is going up because there are more cars on the
road than production of gasoline, and these companies are pulling
out they're just not making enough money. Well, look what
(20:43):
happens with the gasoline. We are not part of this network.
When you look at the Western United States, they are
pipelines going all over from state to state, and when
one state runs low, they buy it from another state
and that keeps the market relatively stable and cheap. Not
in California, there isn't one pipeline that goes to any
(21:03):
other state. Because we have different gas We have the
summer blend, which means that refineries have to kick over
with a brand new blend of gasoline because of the
environmental concerns, because we have the most restrictive laws in
terms of the emissions, the gas emissions, the fossil fuels
(21:24):
that we're using. Also, we have no refineries. Also, the
environmental concerns about building refineries are completely crazy, so we
just it's just going crazy. So now what do you do. Well,
you nationalize or in this case, you state alize the refineries.
(21:46):
And they've done that and all of a sudden they're
no longer a profit center. Now the main thrust is
to get as much gasoline out to consumers as much
as possible at the low is possible price, and private
companies don't do that because they want to make money.
So you bring in government to really screw it up.
(22:08):
Because everything else government does screws it up. It's not
even a question of waste or fraud. Let's take that
off the table. It's a question of they don't care.
People get hired by the government. They don't get fired.
They're civil service protections. You've got all kinds of reasons
that if you work for a major company, you're going
to be held a lot more accountable. You know, go
(22:31):
to a major company, Well, go to Chevron, for example,
and you are a senior manager and you screw up
and you go, I don't care. I'm protected by the law.
It's not my money. That's the problem with government. And
that's simply the way government works across the board. By
the way, it happens with virtually every company. So we
(22:52):
aren't producing enough gasoline. And for the first time, the
folks the California Energy Commission are looking at state and
owned refineries. Where refineries can even operate at a loss.
It's simply part of the budget to make sure we
have enough gasoline. Now, in the end, are we going
(23:15):
to need as much gasoline? No, because by twenty thirty
five there won't be a gasoline car sold in California.
So we've got nine years. But in the end, if
everybody has an EV, I have an EV, and we
all have when most of us have anxiety range, I
sweat bullets. I drive up from Orange County and I'm
(23:37):
looking at the number of miles that I have left,
and it's Troup. And remember the Walmart ads where they
used to go in reverse, those little ads that would
go cheaper, cheaper, cheaper. That's what I'm looking at, and
not in a good way. KFI am six you've been
listening to The Bill Handle Show. Catch My Show Monday
(23:58):
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 KFI Handle here on Monday morning, February seventeen.
Some of the top stories that we are looking at
is Secretary I say this before great joke. Secretary of
State Marco Rubio has arrived in Saudi America to engage
(00:22):
in discussions with Russia and the US about Ukraine and
the war ending it. Of course, Ukraine's not part of
those discussions. And a quick factoid about Saudi Arabia, which
is really interesting. Saudi Arabia became a country in nineteen
thirty two. Before that, it was just a bunch of
tribes that control that area, and it was the king
Ibin Saoud, and it's named after him, Saudi Arabia. And
(00:45):
it's the only country world that I know of that
is owned by the royal family. It literally is owned
by the royal family. It's wild. It's completely crazy. Great history,
by the way, if you want to read about that. Okay,
now let's move on to what's going on with the
(01:08):
Trump administration. As you know, abolishing DEI programs and in education,
this is hitting them very hard. So colleges K through
twelve schools ordered by the Trump administration. You abolish DEI
or you're going to face funding cuts, and I mean
big ones.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
So the re.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Guidelines signed by the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights saying
that schools using race and decisions pertaining to admissions, hiring, promotion, compensation,
financial aids, scholarships, prizes, administrative support, discipline, housing, graduation, ceremonies,
(01:49):
and all other aspects I'm quoting now student academic and
campus life were in violation of anti discrimination laws and
legal precedent. And you know what, the administration is one
hundred percent right on the legal the legal position that
they are taking. Discrimination based on race is completely illegal
(02:14):
and admissions based on race is illegal. That goes back
to a nineteen seventy three case I think, and it
was Baki versus the Regions of the state of California.
David Baki applied to go to medical school. They said no,
and an African American student who did not have the
qualifications as the school set out GPA SAT scores or
(02:38):
I think the MCAT and the black was given precedent
given the position. He sued. He just straight out sued,
and the course said, you're right, you cannot discriminate on
the basis of race. It's that simple. Well, let me
ask you something. Let's talk about the basis of race.
(02:59):
Where you have governmental entities. All right, you have a program,
so let's say UCLA okay, you have okay, scholarships aiding underrepresentatives,
racial minorities, culturally themed dorm room floors, African American floors,
(03:21):
Latino dorms. How about graduation ceremonies. Latinos can get their
own separate one. You got, Blacks can get their own
separate graduation. Now, let me ask you something. What would
you think if they had a white's only graduation. Where
do you think that would go? Saying that this theme
(03:44):
is for white people versus this theme graduation. We're going
to do it separately for Latino people. Now there's an argument,
of course about underrepresentative of racism, which is legitimate, but
they're arguing that that this is race. And in nineteen
ninety six, California we voted Prop. Two nine barred all
(04:07):
public educational institution in the state from considering race and admissions.
You know how they get around it, and they do
get around it. What they do is they look at
other factors. For example, Let's say you have a black
students or a Latino student that comes from and not
particularly well off, comes from a poor neighborhood, and they
(04:29):
look at neighborhood, they look at the first student in
the family that gets a college education. But they're saying,
strangely enough, you know, whites don't get that, not nearly
as much as African Americans, who are thirteen percent of
the population. The reality is there is discrimination. Now, whether
(04:50):
you want to justify it or not is a whole
separate issue. But to argue that there is no discrimination,
how do you have a graduation that's only Hispanic and
not call it racial. Explain that one to me, or
dorm rooms or pro Latino programs on campus. Try having
(05:14):
a white program on campus. Now, there is a huge argument.
Of course, the whites are the majority, and they treat
it all all races in a discriminatory manner itself. And yeah,
I mean, we can go on and on and on,
but the loss has no discrimination. It's that simple, and
(05:34):
there is plenty of it out there, plenty of it.
It's public schools. You can't do it. You can't do
it now real quickly. What the Trump administration is doing
is they're arguing, by the way, they're taking away money
and lots of it from schools that have any DEI,
that have any language of diversity and equity and inclusion
(05:59):
at all. And we're talking big money. We're talking billions,
tens of billions of dollars in federal money comes to
California for public schools. Well, and let me tell you
what they left off. Here's I found this interesting when
I looked into this, is that it's only racial discrimination.
(06:20):
That's it. The LGBTQ programs are being left alone. You
have other programs, trans programs left alone. All right, I
remember that, you know, you can't argue that discrimination doesn't happen,
or reverse discrimination does happen. And that is whites are
(06:44):
precluded because they're what And that's the reality. And we're
not going to get into whether that's morally reprehensible or not.
That is a separate issue. All right. Now, A story
I want to share with you about LAPD and LA
sheriffs and what is the story about. Can you think
(07:08):
of a cop being deported? I mean that's impossible, right,
I mean completely impossible. Well, not so much because you've
got the LAPD and the Sheriff's office. Sheriff's Department actually
have DACA officers. Now. DACA recipients, as you know, are
(07:32):
those people between fifteen and forty one, actually between fifteen
and thirty one now who came to the United States
when they were under sixteen years of old old and
they were illegal and their parents brought him across. And
some don't even know or didn't know they were illegal
until they went for a driver's license because parents didn't
(07:54):
share with them, and do they Hey, we're illegal, just
want to let you know. And so they go to
the police force where they're not asked about their status,
or if they are asked, you have to be under
DACA protection or of course a citizen or a Green
card holder. And therein lies a big problem because if
(08:18):
it is true, and I do think it is, that
the Trump administration is going to engage in mass deportations, now,
I would guess that the very last people that would
ever ever be deported would be cops. Can you imagine
the optics of that one. So so far, the deportations
(08:41):
have been felons, those accused of serious crimes, those who
have committed crimes are under indictment. Those people have been deported. However,
the administrations has said we're going to deport all illegal immigrants,
and they sweat. They sweat. You go down to any
(09:04):
home depot or a lows and usually you would see
the driveway coming in, you would see migrants. Can't ask
him if they're illegal, But my guess is the guy's
hanging around looking for casual labor, looking for work. Probably
a huge percentage are illegal, to the point where you
had a couple of the major hardware stores, you know,
(09:28):
the big box hardware stores, had a place there, had
segregated a place for casual labor read illegal migrants. Maybe
ninety percent. Now I'm just throwing that figure out. I
have no idea. And my contractor, Polo, who we think
is terrific. He's the one that is doing the remodel
(09:53):
in my house, and he'll be working here for the
rest of his life. By the way, I just want
to let you know. And he knows it. He just
smiles every time I walk in the do I go, ah,
we're doing this. Oh, we do this, and it's getting
a little crazy. Built a fireplace, tearing it out because
it doesn't we just don't like it. I mean it's
just really crazy stuff. But he said that if you
look at the industry, half of the employees are gone.
(10:19):
They just don't come to work for fear that immigration
is going to pick them up, Ice is going to
pick them up and deport them. There is a real,
real fear among illegal migrants. And you think about it,
think about a method to the madness, if you want
to call it madness. If President Trump is if his
(10:39):
policy is to stop immigration or move immigration south of
the border, and he says he's going to deport, but
let's say he's not going to deport because it's of course,
it's ridiculous to deport eleven million people. I mean, just
doesn't make any sense. I mean, you just can't do it.
But if you have a huge population that cannot make
(10:59):
a living here because no one will hire them, where
are they going to go? If you're going to not eat,
you might as well not eat in the country you
came from, where everybody speaks the language, where you're with family.
I happen to know of people who, actually Maria knows
(11:24):
people who are here illegally and cannot leave, and have
been here for a decade or more. They cannot leave
and visit family because they'll never be able to come back.
And here is where they work. Now. Is the administration
going to go knocking on doors? No, I don't think so.
(11:44):
Are they going to bust factories? Yeah, I think they're
going to do that. Would they bust the big box
hardware stores at that location where it used to be
dozens and dozens of people lined up to work, Yeah,
I think they would do that. So may he may
(12:09):
actually Donald Trump may actually get what he wants by
not deporting, just the fear of deporting. Now, I want
to talk about credit cards, your credit card, my credit cards.
I think credit cards are a great idea. They are
as convenient as you can get and you get free
(12:31):
money if you pay it off at the end of
the month. And the problem with credit cards it's not money.
It's a little piece of plastic that you throw and
you don't really connect money to it. Well, well, believe me,
there's plenty of money involved there. Digging out of debt
used to be out of credit card debt used to
be the first three months of the year. You spent
(12:53):
a fortune on the holidays, and so they are and
then you start working on getting out of debt well,
first three months now are the first twelve months. This
trend is disappearing for a bunch of reasons. Pricey car
loans specifically, and the credit card debt has just exploded. Now,
the pricey car loan is not credit card. It's the
(13:16):
pricey car loan where you don't have money to pay
off your credit card. And here's what people do is
they use that card and all of a sudden, the
balances go up, up up. What they do is they
use it to win and you don't have enough money.
And this is the heartbreaker. They use it for food,
(13:36):
they use it for utilities, because everybody now takes credit
cards and that is a tough way to go. Americans
are having a very very tough time. Credit card debt, well,
household debt is now eighteen point four point zero four,
let's call it eighteen trillion dollars. I mean, that is
(13:59):
just astronomical. The reality is is our entire economy is teetering.
But it has been for years. This is a house
of cards. And when we reach twenty trillion dollars in
debt under Obama, I thought it can't get worse than that.
We're going to collapse. We're at thirty four or thirty
(14:20):
five trillion, and our yearly our yearly deficit is now
two trillion dollars. Used to be Republicans were deficit hawks.
How dare you do that? They've gone the other way.
Let's just spend money like crazy. No one is fighting
it now. One of the things about the Trump administration
(14:42):
Elon Musk, is cutting overhead and is that going to
help the United States? Well, that jury is out. But
look at car loans themselves instead of well, car loans
were always relatively expensive relative to other debt, not as
much as credit card debt. You know, credit card you
(15:03):
pay twenty five thirty percent. There used to be usery
laws in this country where you couldn't charge more than
x percent. That was usury. They have disappeared the banking industry.
The lobby was successful powerful enough to get rid of
usery laws. Those are federal laws too. Now it's wide open.
(15:25):
A credit card can company in a charge of forty
percent interest? They charged thirty thirty five all day long.
So how do people deal with cars that now are
the cheapest car out there? What thirty five twenty eight
thousand dollars? Are there any twenty five thousand dollars cars
out there. I think there are aren't there. I mean
(15:47):
really low, low end cars. But your typical car is
thirty thirty five, forty thousand dollars. And so what people did,
and this one, I was stunned when this happened. Usually
they're three year loan, then they went to four year loans,
then they went to five year loans. Now you can
(16:09):
get a car with a six year loan, which means
the car is going to decrease in value far faster
than you can pay off the car, which means you
are upside down in the car, your entire ownership life
of that car. And you know when you discover that
(16:30):
is when you get in a car accident and they
total the car and tell you your car is worth
twelve thousand dollars, but you owe eighteen thousand dollars. Almost
every Saturday I get a call they can't do that.
Oh yes they can, and they do. The only one
(16:51):
that makes sense, in my opinion, is a three year
because I've always lived with the three years. I sort
of in my head. Even then the car is upside down,
and with interest rates as high as they are, well,
the debt just keeps on exploding because look at the
house of the cost of housing here in southern California,
(17:13):
the cost of energy, the cost of food. I mean,
we pay a lot of money for the joy of
living in southern California. It's big.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
You taught me something about cars a long time ago,
and it changed my mindset. Now I've never bought a
car above twenty seven thousand dollars because I buy used.
But you told me to stop thinking of cars as
an investment of any kind and just think of them
as a utility bill.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
Going to need a car, just think of it. And
so I don't even think about it anymore.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
I just I just assume I'm going to have a
car payment for the rest of my life.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
And that's exactly the case, unless you're willing to. And
I lease because I like a fairly new car every
three four years because the technology has kind of insane,
and I buy any But that's the way I think.
You know, you don't look at paying off your power
bill as an investment. You certainly don't paying off your mortgage.
(18:10):
I guess you do as an investment. But that's very,
very long term, and if it makes more sense, to
Lisa Car because I have a couple of businesses and
you can deduct the whole thing, So that works. But
if you're willing to drive a car into the ground
and keep it five, six, eight years, then you buy.
(18:32):
Then you buy Clark Howard, my dear friend, who is
probably the best consumer radio host television hosts in the country.
He drives cars for thirty years. Well maybe not, but
he runs them into the ground. All right, enough of that. Okay, gasoline.
(18:53):
Have you noticed the price of gasoline is up up
here in California. We pay more for gasoline than any
place other than Hawaii. Why because California is we are well,
let's just say we are the leftist state of the
United States, which is why we're going to be getting
(19:14):
into a fight for the next four years with Donald Trump.
And so how about California taking over right becoming a
socialist state as far as refineries or are concerned. By
the way, Russia, China, Venezuela, Iran, more than a dozen
countries own the government owns the refinery. So California policy
(19:38):
makers are now looking with the state ownership make any sense.
That's actually on the list of options that the California
Energy Commission is looking at to ensure steady gas supplies
while oil companies are pulling back for the refineries. Already,
(19:59):
two you California refineries have ceased producing gasoline to make
biodiesel fuel for use in heavy duty trucks. So two
have just been taken offline. You know when the last
refinery was built here in this state nineteen eighty two.
Now the EV market, well twenty five percent of all
(20:20):
cars that are sold in California are now EV, which
helps a lot, including plugins. But two things are going on,
or several things are going on. The price of gasoline
is going up because there are more cars on the
road than production of gasoline, and these companies are pulling
out they're just not making enough money. Well, look what
(20:43):
happens with the gasoline. We are not part of this network.
When you look at the Western United States, they are
pipelines going all over from state to state, and when
one state runs low, they buy it from another state
and that keeps the market relatively stable and cheap. Not
in California, there isn't one pipeline that goes to any
(21:03):
other state. Because we have different gas We have the
summer blend, which means that refineries have to kick over
with a brand new blend of gasoline because of the
environmental concerns, because we have the most restrictive laws in
terms of the emissions, the gas emissions, the fossil fuels
(21:24):
that we're using. Also, we have no refineries. Also, the
environmental concerns about building refineries are completely crazy, so we
just it's just going crazy. So now what do you do. Well,
you nationalize or in this case, you state alize the refineries.
(21:46):
And they've done that and all of a sudden they're
no longer a profit center. Now the main thrust is
to get as much gasoline out to consumers as much
as possible at the low is possible price, and private
companies don't do that because they want to make money.
So you bring in government to really screw it up.
(22:08):
Because everything else government does screws it up. It's not
even a question of waste or fraud. Let's take that
off the table. It's a question of they don't care.
People get hired by the government. They don't get fired.
They're civil service protections. You've got all kinds of reasons
that if you work for a major company, you're going
to be held a lot more accountable. You know, go
(22:31):
to a major company, Well, go to Chevron, for example,
and you are a senior manager and you screw up
and you go, I don't care. I'm protected by the law.
It's not my money. That's the problem with government. And
that's simply the way government works across the board. By
the way, it happens with virtually every company. So we
(22:52):
aren't producing enough gasoline. And for the first time, the
folks the California Energy Commission are looking at state and
owned refineries. Where refineries can even operate at a loss.
It's simply part of the budget to make sure we
have enough gasoline. Now, in the end, are we going
(23:15):
to need as much gasoline? No, because by twenty thirty
five there won't be a gasoline car sold in California.
So we've got nine years. But in the end, if
everybody has an EV, I have an EV, and we
all have when most of us have anxiety range, I
sweat bullets. I drive up from Orange County and I'm
(23:37):
looking at the number of miles that I have left,
and it's Troup. And remember the Walmart ads where they
used to go in reverse, those little ads that would
go cheaper, cheaper, cheaper. That's what I'm looking at, and
not in a good way. KFI am six you've been
listening to The Bill Handle Show. Catch My Show Monday
(23:58):
through Friday six am to nine am, and anytime on
demand on the iHeartRadio app
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