December 11, 2025 • 21 mins
(December 11, 2025)
Host of ‘How to Money’ Joel Larsgaard joins the show to discuss cash is ‘cringe’ to Gen Z, Instacart’s algorithmic pricing, and what if electricity was free in the afternoon? Fed chair Jerome Powell says U.S. may be drastically overstating jobs numbers. UC Berkeley, Pomona College settle with Jewish groups over antisemitism allegations.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listenings kf I AM six forty.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
The Bill Handles show on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
It don't make godlas, it don't make sense. Don't make
sense FIM six forty. If you'll handle here.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
It is a Thursday morning, December eleventh, quick word about
Ask Candle anything, which happens tomorrow at eight thirty. And
you've got to help us do it because without you,
it doesn't happen. And here's what you do is during
this show, you go to the iHeartRadio app and you
will be listening to this show, and you'll see a
(00:37):
microphone in the upper right hand corner and all you
do is press click onto that and record a question
Ask handle Anything. And it's hugely entertaining because it's usually
hugely embarrassing. And Neil picks the recordings and we have fun.
The more the merrier, okay, And we have to have
you records so you can do it anytime before the
show ends.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Today.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Joe Larsgard every Sunday from twelve to two pm has
heard right here on KFI how to Money. His social
address at how to Money Joel. His website is howtomoney
dot com.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Good morning, Joel, Good morning, bill Ah. Now I have
a question.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
I want to throw something at you, and that is
how cash is a joke. I have one checkbook one
and when I first started, actually up until I met
my current wife, she's number four, number five.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
Is that it?
Speaker 1 (01:33):
I feel like the Big lou commercial.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Anyway, she she started laughing at me for writing checks,
and I still think of checks, but then I'm a dinosaur.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
I'm getting better at it.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Where today, of course, particularly a gen Z, do they
even know what cash is.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
Well, they know what cash is, but they treat it
like it's got no value at all. And you know,
it's interesting because this was the problem with credit cards
a decade ago in particular, but still is with a
lot of people who treat using plastic right, oh, tap
to pay. I've got my auto fill of my credit
(02:13):
card payment information on my favorite retail websites, and people
use tend to use credit cards and they don't know
what they're spending. They're not keeping track, and so credit
cards were the slippery slope, or have been for previous generations.
But for gen Z, cash is kind of the slippery slope,
like they're used to everything being digital and maybe they
(02:34):
have like a you need a budget why NAB account,
or they have a monarch money account or something like that,
and so all of their spending is done from a
digital thing, whether it's from one of their payment apps
or a credit card or a debit card. Everything lives
and filters into that website. So it's easy for them
to go in and look at their dashboard and say, well,
what did I spend here or there. But if they
(02:55):
if they get randomly one hundred bucks or two hundred
bucks or something like that dropped into their life, that's cash.
They're like, well, this doesn't compute with my digital system
that everything's set up on, and so they treat it
like it's absolutely they just like go wast it on stuff.
And so it's just really interesting to see kind of
generational differences in how we think about different types of money.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Yeah, Goo, you can figure out what you spend on
a credit card in three seconds. Cash you have to
bring the receipt and you have to look at it
and compile it. Also, now the tap to pay or
even using your phone, usually anything under ten bucks, I
reach in my pocket and take out cash, and I
pay for it, and then I wait for the change. Now,
(03:39):
if it's three bucks, I'll still just take out my
credit card, only because it's so much easier than actually
dealing with money. And that's not even generational, it's just
it's easier.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
I mean, I don't like change clinking around in my pocket,
and so that's one of the Like my dad used
to always have a pocket full of change, and I'm
like the complete opposite. I'm like, if I have cash,
or if I have like pennies and pennies going the
way of the Dodo bird, but if any of those
coins jingle around my pocket, I gotta get them out.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
I'm just like, oh, it's so annoying. And so yeah,
I'm the same way.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
Like even with with small, small purchases, I'm typically using
my credit card, and if you use your credit card responsibly,
I'm a big fan of people using credit cards as
a method of payment. I guess what I want to
stress to gen zers or to people who feel like
cash is becoming this thing where it just slips right
out of their hands when it comes in one it's
(04:32):
okay to splurge, like when you get cash, right, So
let's say you get birthday holiday money something like that. Yeah,
it's it's totally fine to spend that money on something
that you might not have otherwise allocated it for. But
I also love the idea of people having an envelope,
and so when they get cash, maybe instead of just
frittering that money away, they have a bigger thing that
(04:55):
they're saving for, whether it's like a vacation or a
down payment for a home. Think about even just those
jar I'm sure you knew people, Bill who had a
big jar of coin.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
It's me. You save up and you go to one
of those cash machines at the supermarket.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
You throw it all in there.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
The coin machines they grab fifteen percent or eighteen percent.
You walk out with in some cases. In my case
it was hundreds of dollars. But that took Yeah, it
took free. What is it took forever to say that?
By the way, the point of having a change in
your pocket. I enjoy having change in my pocket, and
a fair amount because here's what happens. I'll be walking
(05:37):
down the street and there'll be some homeless guy sitting
there and say, hey, mister, do you have any change. Well,
I reach in my pocket, I jingle all the money
so you can hear it, and I say, why, yes,
I do, and I just keep on walking. The entertainment
value of doing that is very high, right.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
Yeah, I guess if that's what you're into, if that's
it makes you smile, yeah, does.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Makes me smile a big time, all right, Joel.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Instacart with algorithmic pricing, is that dynamic pricing.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
It's not just dynamic because that's already been happening, right,
And that's happening all across the internet. And we're talking
about Yeah, you log in the morning to look for
a flight, it's one price.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
H No, I understand that. But this is instacart. This
is going to the supermarket.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
That's right. So this is this is different.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
This is less. Hey, prices are changing based on the
price we pay, and it's more, prices are changing based
on who you are and where you're buying from, and
it's seemingly random.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Uh in.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
So there was this test done by Consumer Reports. The
Consumer Reports is one of the stallwarts in the you know,
in the in the business of looking out for consumers.
They do an amazing job on so many different fronts.
They partnered with this company called Groundwork Collective to look
into what's going on with instacart pricing, And basically, it's
not just that the prices are dynamic, it's that they
(07:01):
are seemingly random. And so even when like twenty different
shoppers at the very very same time are adding a
specific item to their cart. Let's say something as basic
as eggs, one person might be paying four dollars for
a dozen, the other might be paying close to five
dollars a dozen. And Instacart's kind of like cut with
their pants down here. They don't really know what to say.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
I find intacart fascinating. I really do, for a couple
of reasons. One it is, on the one hand, it
is the easiest way of shopping. You literally go and
do a cart, and you actually save money because you're
not at the market if you're hungry.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
Particularly, you should see the stuff that I throw.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Into the into the into the shopping cart. So instacart
is easy. Except have you ever do you use instacart
at all?
Speaker 3 (07:54):
So I do, And I've really come around on this
because I agree. I think in so many ways what happened,
especially like Bill, I know your fondness for Costco when
you go to Costco, Like there's something about you don't
stick to the list.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Right, because no, I do not. I buy a treasure
there if you can.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
I have a freezer in my garage that is my
Costco freezer also Smart and Final. I sort of you know.
I hate to say it, but I also shop a
Smart and Final. It is filled with my crap filled.
I'm not kidding you. A full freezer that's top to
bottom jammed inner looks like a display case at Costco.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
And it's only because I shopped there.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
But here's the other thing with instacart is you also
shop for produce and they don't pick and squeeze the
tomatoes and actually squeeze the avocados to get the perfect rightness.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
That that is the problem. Yet with produce, have you
noticed that? Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
I mean like my wife or like she eats spinach
like it's her job, and when when the spinach comes,
it like expires the next day sometimes and I'm like,
you didn't look in the back, like you didn't rifle
through the spinach to find the furthest out expiration date.
And that's one of my frustrations. But I will say, yeah,
it saves time, and I think in some ways it
can save money, like if you're really diligent and you're shopping.
(09:21):
And I also I keep my eye out for discounted
Instacart gift cards, which just helps bring that price down
a little bit. But I think what this reveals one
is just kind of that Instacart is like they're testing
some things out here, and they're testing to see how
much people are willing to pay and how price conscious
people are. And I think if you were to do
a poll, the average Instacart user is less price conscious
(09:44):
than the person who's going down to the making for
every week.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
Right, that's the convenience.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
Hey, In terms of dynamic pricing, has it reached supermarkets?
I'm thinking, let's say eggs, which used to be fourteen
fifteen dollars a dozen if you bought the fancy, if
you bought the fancy schmancy you know, brown eggs, organic stuff,
you know, grain feed, or whatever the hell they do
with chickens and expensive eggs. But as the inventory goes down,
(10:12):
you would think the price would go up.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
Have they reached that point?
Speaker 3 (10:16):
So we are seeing more supermarkets put in like digital
display readers, But most of the supermarkets are saying that
the reason for that is not so that they can
institute dynamic pricing. It's just so that it will be
less labor intensive to change the price labels. And especially
when prices are going up more regularly and you have
to change the pricing labels more frequently, I get that
(10:38):
it makes sense, and I think people still have like
a backlash against prices going up. Like you remember when
Wendy said, Hey, we're thinking about charging more during lunch
and maybe less during Some of the people were so
upset about that, and when Wendy's had to change on
a dime. So especially I think for everyday necessities, people
(11:00):
are revolting a little bit more when they're being told
they're gonna have to pay more if they come at
the wrong time of day. But this is inst Like
I think with instacart, you're going to see because people
using it are less price conscious, you might see some
of that shifting upward of prices and they might see, oh,
you know what Bill in California is. You know, he
(11:23):
doesn't care if the eggs are three ninety nine or
four sixty nine, So we're going to keep pushing up
prices on him. But somebody else might abandon some of
the items in their car or start using this time
less and then they might start trying to pull you
back in with discounts and coupons like it's just one
of those buyer beware things in the modern age of
internet grocery shopping.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
All right, Joel, we'll catch you this Sunday at twelve
to two pm and we can reach you at at
how to Money, Joel.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
And then the website is howdomoney dot com. All right.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
Now, moving over to what happened yesterday, the FEDS cut
interest rates a quarter of a percent.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
Not enough for President and Trump.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
He is going to name a new FED chairman when
Jerome Powell's term ends early next year, and he hopes
that interest rates will be cut.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
Donald Trump wants.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
To control the FED. It's real easy. And unfortunately the
FED is independent. It's a CAUSEI independent and all he
can do is choose the members of the FED. After that,
it's up to the FED to determine interest rates.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Okay. One of the things.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
About the FED, and this is what drives this administration
or any administration's completely nuts. And the President said this
and complained about this. You get an initial we get
an initial number of unemployed federal data, and what the chair,
(12:46):
Jerome pal said, is that the data is overstating job
creation by up to sixty thousand jobs a month.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
Wait a minute, how is that possible.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
Well, they come back and revise, and that was the
problem that Donald Trump had because these revisions coming in
later actually make it worse most of the time, sometimes better.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
And here's what the Bureau of Labor.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
Statistics, that's the that's the administrative arm of the Labor Department,
the Bureau of Labor Statistics. They have a birth death
model and these are new businesses have historically overstated job creation,
which is why downward revisions coming up later on.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
And I'll explain.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
What they do is they take current jobs and they
sort of extrapolate because they don't know exactly how many
people are hired. For example, you start a new business
and it has five people working, well, they don't know
that until a month later.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
You know, if you start a business.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
Today and they're doing they're modeling, going to they're not
going to know how many jobs there actually are. So
this is the quandary with the Labor Department when measuring hiring,
which is a huge determinative of where the economy is going.
Because the Department of Labor Statistics also tells us the
(14:19):
number of jobs that are added, you know, fifty thousand
jobs added, two hundred thousand, or we lost twenty thousand jobs.
They're the ones that come up with it. So how
do they measure the number of jobs? Well, jobs can't
be surveyed directly because as I said, governments don't reach
out or the government doesn't reach out to brand new
(14:39):
companies or companies that no longer exist where jobs are gone.
They have to figure it out at least a month later.
And so what they do is they use a statistical
model and they make a guess. And that's the birth
death model. Not birth death as in people dying, but
birth death of businesses and the number of people who
(15:00):
are being hired. And so what he has said Powell,
and what is known is those estimates over state job
creation initially by hundreds of thousands of jobs a year,
and revisions later on go down. And now they're changing.
They're trying to change the model and they're trying to
(15:23):
make it real time numbers more accurate. And that's starting
in February. They're going to give a different model. And
what is going to do is hopefully make it more
specific and more accurate. So now where the politics of this, Well,
unemployment figures for any president are x number of unemployed,
(15:48):
new jobs, lost jobs. When they go down, which they
have been revised down, the president goes nuts.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
That's fake news.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
Those are politics where the numbers go down and the
FED goes But wait a minute, we're using Department.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
Of Labor statistics numbers that we're seeing.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
Doesn't matter if later on you say that the number
of unemployed goes up, where the number of employed goes down,
then if it's down, it's bad news and it's fake.
If it goes up, well, you know that's helping the economy,
isn't that fun. Statistics there are two kinds of statistics.
(16:31):
Statistics that lie and statistics that really lie. And that's yeah,
you can't understand this. I mean, the longer I'm doing this, literally,
the longer I'm doing this, the more I'm confused.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
All Right.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
There's been a lot of controversy out there with the
pro Palestinian demonstrations, especially in the universities, and the President
has come down pretty hard on the pro Palestinian crowd
and very much in favor of the of Israel and
(17:07):
the politics have run over into the university's big time.
Now there are those that are pro Palestinian that argue,
because we're anti Israel doesn't mean we are anti Jewish. Well,
the reality is for most Jews, except some left wing
groups who believe that Palestine should be a second have
(17:32):
to be a second state, or should be an independent state,
which I happen to believe, by the way, and I'm
certainly not left wing, But do I believe that the
pro Palestinians that those folks.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Are, is it code for Jews? I think so. I
think so. The administration thinks that also happens.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
One of the things about going to university, and this,
I mean this goes back to you know what I
was in school, and I was going to school in
the seventies, the underdog always gets the credit.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
Always.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
The students and the professors are insanely left wing for
the most part, and therefore, if you're left wing, you
probably are not pro ISRAELI, especially if you're a student
and on campus. Well, one of the reasons that the
President has come down hard on universities not only the
wokism but also the anti Semitism. So a couple of
(18:28):
cases just came down a couple settlements. UC Berkeley is
going to pay an Israeli visiting professor sixty thousand dollars
and rehire her because she was rejected to teach a
class frankly because she's Israeli. Pomona College agreed to a
non monetary settlement that includes hiring a title SIK Civil
(18:53):
Rights coordinator and creating a task force on Jewish campus life.
There were plenty of anti Semitic groups or certainly anti
Israel groups on campuses, as far as pro Israeli groups
pretty small, and there are a couple of organization. Habad,
for example, has they have on virtually every campus in
(19:18):
the country. They have a chapter, but for the most
part they're sort of isolated.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
And the schools are Are they caving? Yeah? They are?
And should they cave?
Speaker 2 (19:31):
Yeah, because I truly believe that the anti Semitism and
anti Israel are part and parcel. Now, do I believe
that Israel has committed war crimes?
Speaker 1 (19:43):
Yeah? I do.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
Do I believe in going out and demonstrating, I don't do.
I believe that school should divest and get out of Israel.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
Oh, here's news.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
I don't know if you covered this, Amy, but Eurovision,
that European Song Festival, there are five countries that have
pulled out.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
Because Israel is.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Still performing there, so you're gonna see I think more
and more of that, except in the United States. There's
been a lot of pressure coming down for the universities
and good sneeze. By the way, Amy, excellent, that's quite
all right. I wish you had put that on the air. Okay,
we are done, everybody so much for today. Thursday is done.
(20:34):
But coming up with Gary and Shannon tomorrow morning all
over again.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
It's a wake up.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
It's a wake up call with Amy and Will and
of course Neil and I are here until nine o'clock
and Cono and Ann put all of this together, and
that's why it sounds so bad.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
Also, it's foody Friday at eight o'clock.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
Tomorrow and ask handle anything at eight thirty, So Friday
last hour always great fun.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
That's it, guys.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
We will catch you in the morning. KFI am six forty.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
You've been listening to the Bill Handle Show.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
Catch My Show Monday through Friday six am to nine am,
and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
You're listenings kf I AM six forty.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
The Bill Handles show on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
It don't make godlas, it don't make sense. Don't make
sense FIM six forty. If you'll handle here.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
It is a Thursday morning, December eleventh, quick word about
Ask Candle anything, which happens tomorrow at eight thirty. And
you've got to help us do it because without you,
it doesn't happen. And here's what you do is during
this show, you go to the iHeartRadio app and you
will be listening to this show, and you'll see a
(00:37):
microphone in the upper right hand corner and all you
do is press click onto that and record a question
Ask handle Anything. And it's hugely entertaining because it's usually
hugely embarrassing. And Neil picks the recordings and we have fun.
The more the merrier, okay, And we have to have
you records so you can do it anytime before the
show ends.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Today.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Joe Larsgard every Sunday from twelve to two pm has
heard right here on KFI how to Money. His social
address at how to Money Joel. His website is howtomoney
dot com.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Good morning, Joel, Good morning, bill Ah. Now I have
a question.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
I want to throw something at you, and that is
how cash is a joke. I have one checkbook one
and when I first started, actually up until I met
my current wife, she's number four, number five.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
Is that it?
Speaker 1 (01:33):
I feel like the Big lou commercial.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Anyway, she she started laughing at me for writing checks,
and I still think of checks, but then I'm a dinosaur.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
I'm getting better at it.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Where today, of course, particularly a gen Z, do they
even know what cash is.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
Well, they know what cash is, but they treat it
like it's got no value at all. And you know,
it's interesting because this was the problem with credit cards
a decade ago in particular, but still is with a
lot of people who treat using plastic right, oh, tap
to pay. I've got my auto fill of my credit
(02:13):
card payment information on my favorite retail websites, and people
use tend to use credit cards and they don't know
what they're spending. They're not keeping track, and so credit
cards were the slippery slope, or have been for previous generations.
But for gen Z, cash is kind of the slippery slope,
like they're used to everything being digital and maybe they
(02:34):
have like a you need a budget why NAB account,
or they have a monarch money account or something like that,
and so all of their spending is done from a
digital thing, whether it's from one of their payment apps
or a credit card or a debit card. Everything lives
and filters into that website. So it's easy for them
to go in and look at their dashboard and say, well,
what did I spend here or there. But if they
(02:55):
if they get randomly one hundred bucks or two hundred
bucks or something like that dropped into their life, that's cash.
They're like, well, this doesn't compute with my digital system
that everything's set up on, and so they treat it
like it's absolutely they just like go wast it on stuff.
And so it's just really interesting to see kind of
generational differences in how we think about different types of money.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Yeah, Goo, you can figure out what you spend on
a credit card in three seconds. Cash you have to
bring the receipt and you have to look at it
and compile it. Also, now the tap to pay or
even using your phone, usually anything under ten bucks, I
reach in my pocket and take out cash, and I
pay for it, and then I wait for the change. Now,
(03:39):
if it's three bucks, I'll still just take out my
credit card, only because it's so much easier than actually
dealing with money. And that's not even generational, it's just
it's easier.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
I mean, I don't like change clinking around in my pocket,
and so that's one of the Like my dad used
to always have a pocket full of change, and I'm
like the complete opposite. I'm like, if I have cash,
or if I have like pennies and pennies going the
way of the Dodo bird, but if any of those
coins jingle around my pocket, I gotta get them out.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
I'm just like, oh, it's so annoying. And so yeah,
I'm the same way.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
Like even with with small, small purchases, I'm typically using
my credit card, and if you use your credit card responsibly,
I'm a big fan of people using credit cards as
a method of payment. I guess what I want to
stress to gen zers or to people who feel like
cash is becoming this thing where it just slips right
out of their hands when it comes in one it's
(04:32):
okay to splurge, like when you get cash, right, So
let's say you get birthday holiday money something like that. Yeah,
it's it's totally fine to spend that money on something
that you might not have otherwise allocated it for. But
I also love the idea of people having an envelope,
and so when they get cash, maybe instead of just
frittering that money away, they have a bigger thing that
(04:55):
they're saving for, whether it's like a vacation or a
down payment for a home. Think about even just those
jar I'm sure you knew people, Bill who had a
big jar of coin.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
It's me. You save up and you go to one
of those cash machines at the supermarket.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
You throw it all in there.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
The coin machines they grab fifteen percent or eighteen percent.
You walk out with in some cases. In my case
it was hundreds of dollars. But that took Yeah, it
took free. What is it took forever to say that?
By the way, the point of having a change in
your pocket. I enjoy having change in my pocket, and
a fair amount because here's what happens. I'll be walking
(05:37):
down the street and there'll be some homeless guy sitting
there and say, hey, mister, do you have any change. Well,
I reach in my pocket, I jingle all the money
so you can hear it, and I say, why, yes,
I do, and I just keep on walking. The entertainment
value of doing that is very high, right.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
Yeah, I guess if that's what you're into, if that's
it makes you smile, yeah, does.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Makes me smile a big time, all right, Joel.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Instacart with algorithmic pricing, is that dynamic pricing.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
It's not just dynamic because that's already been happening, right,
And that's happening all across the internet. And we're talking
about Yeah, you log in the morning to look for
a flight, it's one price.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
H No, I understand that. But this is instacart. This
is going to the supermarket.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
That's right. So this is this is different.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
This is less. Hey, prices are changing based on the
price we pay, and it's more, prices are changing based
on who you are and where you're buying from, and
it's seemingly random.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Uh in.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
So there was this test done by Consumer Reports. The
Consumer Reports is one of the stallwarts in the you know,
in the in the business of looking out for consumers.
They do an amazing job on so many different fronts.
They partnered with this company called Groundwork Collective to look
into what's going on with instacart pricing, And basically, it's
not just that the prices are dynamic, it's that they
(07:01):
are seemingly random. And so even when like twenty different
shoppers at the very very same time are adding a
specific item to their cart. Let's say something as basic
as eggs, one person might be paying four dollars for
a dozen, the other might be paying close to five
dollars a dozen. And Instacart's kind of like cut with
their pants down here. They don't really know what to say.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
I find intacart fascinating. I really do, for a couple
of reasons. One it is, on the one hand, it
is the easiest way of shopping. You literally go and
do a cart, and you actually save money because you're
not at the market if you're hungry.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
Particularly, you should see the stuff that I throw.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Into the into the into the shopping cart. So instacart
is easy. Except have you ever do you use instacart
at all?
Speaker 3 (07:54):
So I do, And I've really come around on this
because I agree. I think in so many ways what happened,
especially like Bill, I know your fondness for Costco when
you go to Costco, Like there's something about you don't
stick to the list.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Right, because no, I do not. I buy a treasure
there if you can.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
I have a freezer in my garage that is my
Costco freezer also Smart and Final. I sort of you know.
I hate to say it, but I also shop a
Smart and Final. It is filled with my crap filled.
I'm not kidding you. A full freezer that's top to
bottom jammed inner looks like a display case at Costco.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
And it's only because I shopped there.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
But here's the other thing with instacart is you also
shop for produce and they don't pick and squeeze the
tomatoes and actually squeeze the avocados to get the perfect rightness.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
That that is the problem. Yet with produce, have you
noticed that? Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
I mean like my wife or like she eats spinach
like it's her job, and when when the spinach comes,
it like expires the next day sometimes and I'm like,
you didn't look in the back, like you didn't rifle
through the spinach to find the furthest out expiration date.
And that's one of my frustrations. But I will say, yeah,
it saves time, and I think in some ways it
can save money, like if you're really diligent and you're shopping.
(09:21):
And I also I keep my eye out for discounted
Instacart gift cards, which just helps bring that price down
a little bit. But I think what this reveals one
is just kind of that Instacart is like they're testing
some things out here, and they're testing to see how
much people are willing to pay and how price conscious
people are. And I think if you were to do
a poll, the average Instacart user is less price conscious
(09:44):
than the person who's going down to the making for
every week.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
Right, that's the convenience.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
Hey, In terms of dynamic pricing, has it reached supermarkets?
I'm thinking, let's say eggs, which used to be fourteen
fifteen dollars a dozen if you bought the fancy, if
you bought the fancy schmancy you know, brown eggs, organic stuff,
you know, grain feed, or whatever the hell they do
with chickens and expensive eggs. But as the inventory goes down,
(10:12):
you would think the price would go up.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
Have they reached that point?
Speaker 3 (10:16):
So we are seeing more supermarkets put in like digital
display readers, But most of the supermarkets are saying that
the reason for that is not so that they can
institute dynamic pricing. It's just so that it will be
less labor intensive to change the price labels. And especially
when prices are going up more regularly and you have
to change the pricing labels more frequently, I get that
(10:38):
it makes sense, and I think people still have like
a backlash against prices going up. Like you remember when
Wendy said, Hey, we're thinking about charging more during lunch
and maybe less during Some of the people were so
upset about that, and when Wendy's had to change on
a dime. So especially I think for everyday necessities, people
(11:00):
are revolting a little bit more when they're being told
they're gonna have to pay more if they come at
the wrong time of day. But this is inst Like
I think with instacart, you're going to see because people
using it are less price conscious, you might see some
of that shifting upward of prices and they might see, oh,
you know what Bill in California is. You know, he
(11:23):
doesn't care if the eggs are three ninety nine or
four sixty nine, So we're going to keep pushing up
prices on him. But somebody else might abandon some of
the items in their car or start using this time
less and then they might start trying to pull you
back in with discounts and coupons like it's just one
of those buyer beware things in the modern age of
internet grocery shopping.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
All right, Joel, we'll catch you this Sunday at twelve
to two pm and we can reach you at at
how to Money, Joel.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
And then the website is howdomoney dot com. All right.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
Now, moving over to what happened yesterday, the FEDS cut
interest rates a quarter of a percent.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
Not enough for President and Trump.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
He is going to name a new FED chairman when
Jerome Powell's term ends early next year, and he hopes
that interest rates will be cut.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
Donald Trump wants.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
To control the FED. It's real easy. And unfortunately the
FED is independent. It's a CAUSEI independent and all he
can do is choose the members of the FED. After that,
it's up to the FED to determine interest rates.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Okay. One of the things.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
About the FED, and this is what drives this administration
or any administration's completely nuts. And the President said this
and complained about this. You get an initial we get
an initial number of unemployed federal data, and what the chair,
(12:46):
Jerome pal said, is that the data is overstating job
creation by up to sixty thousand jobs a month.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
Wait a minute, how is that possible.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
Well, they come back and revise, and that was the
problem that Donald Trump had because these revisions coming in
later actually make it worse most of the time, sometimes better.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
And here's what the Bureau of Labor.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
Statistics, that's the that's the administrative arm of the Labor Department,
the Bureau of Labor Statistics. They have a birth death
model and these are new businesses have historically overstated job creation,
which is why downward revisions coming up later on.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
And I'll explain.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
What they do is they take current jobs and they
sort of extrapolate because they don't know exactly how many
people are hired. For example, you start a new business
and it has five people working, well, they don't know
that until a month later.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
You know, if you start a business.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
Today and they're doing they're modeling, going to they're not
going to know how many jobs there actually are. So
this is the quandary with the Labor Department when measuring hiring,
which is a huge determinative of where the economy is going.
Because the Department of Labor Statistics also tells us the
(14:19):
number of jobs that are added, you know, fifty thousand
jobs added, two hundred thousand, or we lost twenty thousand jobs.
They're the ones that come up with it. So how
do they measure the number of jobs? Well, jobs can't
be surveyed directly because as I said, governments don't reach
out or the government doesn't reach out to brand new
(14:39):
companies or companies that no longer exist where jobs are gone.
They have to figure it out at least a month later.
And so what they do is they use a statistical
model and they make a guess. And that's the birth
death model. Not birth death as in people dying, but
birth death of businesses and the number of people who
(15:00):
are being hired. And so what he has said Powell,
and what is known is those estimates over state job
creation initially by hundreds of thousands of jobs a year,
and revisions later on go down. And now they're changing.
They're trying to change the model and they're trying to
(15:23):
make it real time numbers more accurate. And that's starting
in February. They're going to give a different model. And
what is going to do is hopefully make it more
specific and more accurate. So now where the politics of this, Well,
unemployment figures for any president are x number of unemployed,
(15:48):
new jobs, lost jobs. When they go down, which they
have been revised down, the president goes nuts.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
That's fake news.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
Those are politics where the numbers go down and the
FED goes But wait a minute, we're using Department.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
Of Labor statistics numbers that we're seeing.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
Doesn't matter if later on you say that the number
of unemployed goes up, where the number of employed goes down,
then if it's down, it's bad news and it's fake.
If it goes up, well, you know that's helping the economy,
isn't that fun. Statistics there are two kinds of statistics.
(16:31):
Statistics that lie and statistics that really lie. And that's yeah,
you can't understand this. I mean, the longer I'm doing this, literally,
the longer I'm doing this, the more I'm confused.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
All Right.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
There's been a lot of controversy out there with the
pro Palestinian demonstrations, especially in the universities, and the President
has come down pretty hard on the pro Palestinian crowd
and very much in favor of the of Israel and
(17:07):
the politics have run over into the university's big time.
Now there are those that are pro Palestinian that argue,
because we're anti Israel doesn't mean we are anti Jewish. Well,
the reality is for most Jews, except some left wing
groups who believe that Palestine should be a second have
(17:32):
to be a second state, or should be an independent state,
which I happen to believe, by the way, and I'm
certainly not left wing, But do I believe that the
pro Palestinians that those folks.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Are, is it code for Jews? I think so. I
think so. The administration thinks that also happens.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
One of the things about going to university, and this,
I mean this goes back to you know what I
was in school, and I was going to school in
the seventies, the underdog always gets the credit.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
Always.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
The students and the professors are insanely left wing for
the most part, and therefore, if you're left wing, you
probably are not pro ISRAELI, especially if you're a student
and on campus. Well, one of the reasons that the
President has come down hard on universities not only the
wokism but also the anti Semitism. So a couple of
(18:28):
cases just came down a couple settlements. UC Berkeley is
going to pay an Israeli visiting professor sixty thousand dollars
and rehire her because she was rejected to teach a
class frankly because she's Israeli. Pomona College agreed to a
non monetary settlement that includes hiring a title SIK Civil
(18:53):
Rights coordinator and creating a task force on Jewish campus life.
There were plenty of anti Semitic groups or certainly anti
Israel groups on campuses, as far as pro Israeli groups
pretty small, and there are a couple of organization. Habad,
for example, has they have on virtually every campus in
(19:18):
the country. They have a chapter, but for the most
part they're sort of isolated.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
And the schools are Are they caving? Yeah? They are?
And should they cave?
Speaker 2 (19:31):
Yeah, because I truly believe that the anti Semitism and
anti Israel are part and parcel. Now, do I believe
that Israel has committed war crimes?
Speaker 1 (19:43):
Yeah? I do.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
Do I believe in going out and demonstrating, I don't do.
I believe that school should divest and get out of Israel.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
Oh, here's news.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
I don't know if you covered this, Amy, but Eurovision,
that European Song Festival, there are five countries that have
pulled out.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
Because Israel is.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Still performing there, so you're gonna see I think more
and more of that, except in the United States. There's
been a lot of pressure coming down for the universities
and good sneeze. By the way, Amy, excellent, that's quite
all right. I wish you had put that on the air. Okay,
we are done, everybody so much for today. Thursday is done.
(20:34):
But coming up with Gary and Shannon tomorrow morning all
over again.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
It's a wake up.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
It's a wake up call with Amy and Will and
of course Neil and I are here until nine o'clock
and Cono and Ann put all of this together, and
that's why it sounds so bad.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
Also, it's foody Friday at eight o'clock.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
Tomorrow and ask handle anything at eight thirty, So Friday
last hour always great fun.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
That's it, guys.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
We will catch you in the morning. KFI am six forty.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
You've been listening to the Bill Handle Show.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
Catch My Show Monday through Friday six am to nine am,
and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
The Bill Handel Show News
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