December 18, 2025 • 23 mins
(December 18, 2025)
Host of ‘How to Money’ Joel Larsgaard joins the show to discuss gambling becoming a massive problem in the United States, home flipping, and more Americans moving overseas to save money. SpaceX tender offer puts Musk’s net worth record to $677BIL. Community college enrollment is up amid economic uncertainty.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're List Saints.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
KF I AM six forty the bill handle show on
demand on the iHeartRadio fanf I am a sixth forty
handle here. On a Thursday morning, December eighteenth, some of
the stories we were following, the President announced that he
(00:21):
is giving one point four million members of the US
military a check, a bonus check of one thousand, seven
hundred and seventy six dollars before Christmas.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
This is the.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Warrior Dividend in honor of the country's founding in seventeen
seventy six. Also, I don't know if you heard the
President's speech last night or his remarks at the Oval Office,
And I didn't even know this that if you combine
all of the accomplishments of Abraham Lincoln and George Washington together,
(00:56):
they don't hold a candle to what President Trump has
been able to do his first year of office.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Just ask him.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Okay, a little hyperbole, but you get the general gist,
don't you.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Now.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
It's Joel Larsgard, the host of How to Money. Sunday twelve.
You have the two pm all right here on KFI.
His address social address at how to Money Joel. His
website is Howtomoney dot Com and good morning Joel, Morning Bill. Okay,
let's get right to it because we have a fair
amount to cover. As everyone knows that gambling has swept
(01:33):
the United States. It used to be most states did
not allow it, and it was just Las Vegas for
the most part. Now everybody does it. You can do
it online, you do it from your device, and of
course the number of people that are actually gambling has exploded.
At the same time, it's become a huge problem. And Joel,
(01:55):
would you get into that for a moment.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
Yeah, so's it really is becoming a problem as the
vast majority of states have now legalized sports betting, and
let's be honest, there are ways even around it if
your state says, actually it's not legal. That there are
people that be a VPN like partaking and you can't
watch a sporting event without getting inundated with ads for
(02:18):
the stuff, and it's your favorite celebrities and stuff like that,
and it's so normalized and people are just like, oh man,
it's gonna up my enjoyment of the game if I
can bet on not just my favorite team, but if
I can bet on really a lot of interesting like
parlays and prop bets and stuff like that, and so
it's gotten even just more nefarious and integrated with the
(02:39):
sports themselves, and people are finding it. If you look
at the stats, like in states where sports betting was legal,
we're seeing a lot more calls to the National Problem
Gambling Helpline, And so it just looks like addiction is
on the rise and people are betting money that they
can't afford to lose.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Yeah, and each your point when you see these ads
for the websites where you can sports bet, and I mean,
this has become a huge business. You know, at the
bottom there's a disclaimer you should game responsibly and then
they give you the odds right there on the game
of the week. Now, I don't know if you remember
(03:21):
Rich Baratta used to be on this show.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
He was our sports guy. Yeah, and he now lives
in Reno.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Every day he goes to the sports book at the hotel,
which is another one the sports books you play you
gamble like crazy. It used to be just Las Vegas
and people realized, wow, there's a real money situation here.
So I guess it's a growth business among psychologists. Who knows,
(03:51):
I mean, I shrink that's where I would go. It's
just interesting.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
It's interesting to see just how far this kind of
gamblification of America is going. So Like, not only is
it sports gambling, I think that was kind of the
tip of the spear in Robinhood even just announced that
they're launching NFL parlay and prop bets on their prediction
market platform. But we're starting to see the rise of
these prediction markets too, where you can well, it's not
(04:20):
it's not gambling, you're you're I don't know how they
can they can say that it's not gambling, but you
can bet on essentially what's going to happen in the news,
Like there are just a trillion things that you can
bet on now via like kalshih and and and services
like that, and it's just it's kind of interesting. I
think people are getting sucked in and they don't realize
it seems like it's no harm, no foul betting on
(04:42):
who's gonna win a certain political race or something like that.
And it is interesting how how correct a lot of
these predictions markets have been. But that doesn't mean that
it's not risky for a lot of people. And even
to just take this further, I heard about this app
and website this week. It's essentially this new credit card
that's supposed to launch in twenty twenty six. It's called Covered,
(05:05):
and it's backed by the deepest pockets in Silicon Valley.
And basically this is the craziest thing they build their
services paying bills made fun And if that's not a
red flag, I don't know what is. Essentially, it's this
credit card that comes with cash back up to one
hundred percent, they say, And that's because you can essentially
gamble on the back end, potentially losing more money in
(05:27):
hopes to have some of those purchases that you made
on that credit card covered by this company. And it's
just like it just feels like it's gambling all the
way down in the United States right now.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
By the way, good word gamblification. Ooh, that really impressed me.
The other thing about gambling, which is so funny. If
you go to any police department and you go to
their vice squad and they're the ones that go after
illegal gambling, try going there in New Year's Day and
see how many or in early February and see how
(05:58):
many of people in the squad bet on the Super
Bowl that's just something every bit. Does we have a pool?
We have a pool here, don't we?
Speaker 1 (06:09):
Amy? Do we have a football pool around or Kno,
we used to have football pools. I wish.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
Well, there's like a little bit of a difference right
between the friendly office bet on the NCAA bracket or
who's going to win the Super Bowl or so somebody
in the office usually buys, right, like a bunch of
lottery tickets and every moon chips in a little bit
that that seems harmless compared to instant access to all
sorts of various betting types in our pockets at one
(06:38):
hundred percent of the time. That to me is where
people are getting in trouble and they don't know how
to stop themselves. And when we're incentivizing it, and when
states are making money off of it, I think this
is only gonna be going to become more of a problem, all.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
Right, Joel.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
People moving out of the United States, and I know
people that have moved out not because of money, but
because of the political climate. That's a real thing going on.
But a lot of people moving over because saving money.
So let's talk about that. How much money do you
save and is it worth the hassle moving overseas, because
(07:12):
that's no small deal.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
No it's not.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
And yeah, whether you save money, how much money you
save depends on where you go, depends on whether you're
still able to make an income from that new place
that you're moving. Can you still retain Like we had
a listener reaching out recently and he's like going back
to India to take care of his parents if he's
able to continue to keep his job that's over here
in the United States. It's like in the tech sector, man,
(07:37):
he's going to crush because the cost of living is
so much more affordable in India. And that's kind of
an extreme case and one that's going back to take
care of family. But there's been just a surge of people,
especially middle class people, deciding that they want to move
overseas because they think it's going to save the money.
It's just the concept is called geographic arbitrage, and it's true,
(07:59):
like if you're able to keep your same income or
even let's say you've built up enough if you're getting
close to retirement age. I had a neighbor a few
years ago moved down to Panama because she was like, hey,
I've saved decently well, but guess what, my retirement's going
to be a whole lot more plush down in Panama
than it is if I stay here in the United States.
And that's just because the cost of living is something
like thirty percent cheaper. So there's a lot of options
(08:19):
for people to move other places if they're so inclined
to stretch their dollar further.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
Yeah, retired people, it's an easy PZ thing to do.
For example, down in Baja and I think near Rosa, Rita,
or near maybe Yeah, I don't know the name of
the community, but it's like fifty thousand Americans there, and
you can live like king on twelve hundred dollars a month,
and twelve hundred dollars a month here is nothing, and.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
So people move. But how I those places got?
Speaker 2 (08:51):
You know, everybody knows that at this point that when
I retire, I'm definitely gonna live part of my time
in Italy because I just happened to be in love
with Italy.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
But then I'm not working.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
So other than a remote work you can do, you're
kind of out of what because you can't work overseas
unless you're a citizen, So.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
How do you do it? Yeah, how do you put
that together? Right?
Speaker 3 (09:15):
And that's that is the thing that people struggle with
the most if they aren't able to keep some sort
of if they have their own business, small business, let's say,
then you can kind of often do that, let's say,
from anywhere, depending on what your business is, if it's
like an online business. So you see that, especially with
Puerto Rico, right, there are significant tax benefits for moving
(09:37):
to Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico has this thing called Acts sixty,
which allows people who establish residency there to pay a
whole lot less in tax just.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
By living on that island.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
And really for Puerto Rico, it's an incentive to get
people to build businesses down there, for people who are
investors to move down there, so that to build up
the Puerto Rican economy. And so that's another angle that
people take when they're thinking about moving abroad.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
Oh well, hey, if taxes are.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
One of my main problems that I face and I'm
trying to reduce my tax burden, Puerto Rico sure looks good. Yeah,
And so really people kind of come with all these
different ways. Man. Maybe it's just like, hey, I don't
need as much money, kind of I'm semi financially independent,
but guess what, I am financially independent if I move
to Portugal or I've got a tax problem, Puerto Rico
(10:24):
is going to help me solve that. There's just it's
so much depends on the particular situation and where somebody's
wanting to move.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
You know, I know of two people who have moved
to Puerto Rico. And these are high net worth people
who are still working and make buckets of money, and
they've moved to Puerto Rico where taxes are. Keep in mind,
here in California, it's fifty percent taxes if you're making
like over a million dollars a year, and these people
(10:50):
make way north of a million dollars a year. Taxes
in Puerto Rico are between seven and eight percent. If
you look at all the programs, I mean, there's only
one downside by the way to moving to Puerto Rico,
and it's moving to Puerto Rico.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
Well, that's the thing.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
Some people do it for a few years in an
effort to like, you know, be able to unload some
stocks and avoid some capital gains taxes and stuff like that,
or build a business and avoid you know, tax for
a little while, but then they end up moving back
or there are some big xpac communities there though where
and I just this is not one of those things
where most people are going to think about this or
(11:30):
decide to act on it. But it's also just one
of those interesting kind of I mean, even just moving
from one place to another inside of the United States.
As Americans, we've done that less and less, but just
moving from a high cost of living place to a
lower cost of living place.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
It's fascinating to see.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
How and a lot of people are doing that, especially
during COVID saying I'll move them out to the excerbs
and buying a house. I got more property and guess what,
I've reduced my living expenses. At the same time, there
are a lot of ways to skin the cat of
reducing how much money you pay tax, of reducing your
overall living expenses, and thinking outside the box can be helpful.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
Yeah. One of the things and then we're gonna bail
out and we'll do their home flipping story probably next week,
is that Americans, as unpopular as they are in many cases,
in general, they are really unpopular in areas like Portugal
and the Czech Republic, because they come in and start
buying or start renting, and then the prices, the housing
(12:27):
prices go through the roof and the locals, well, they're
not very happy about it. So that's the other side
of the coin, all right, Joel, we think about culture. Yeah,
that's true unless those of us who have absolutely no
culture don't care. Okay, Joel, This Sunday, twelve to two pm,
and it's how to money.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
You have a good one. Take care, Joel, catch over
the week. Okay.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
The richest man in the world we know is Elon Musk,
but he is becoming the rich span of the world
by a long shot. He took another leap towards becoming
the world's first trillionaire. Now as of this point, it's
(13:13):
not that easy, but man, he is moving really along
this path. This is the pathway to trillionaire. Ship SpaceX
launched an offer, a tender offer, valuing the firm at
eight hundred billion dollars.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
Now that's double what it was in August.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
And this is a couple of the company's investors who
were interviewed by Force, which now boosts the fortune of
Musk because this offer, this tender offer, which means stock
is going to be sold based on the valuation of
eight hundred billion dollars, double what it was just in August.
(13:56):
Let's look at what Musk owns. He owns forty two
percent SpaceX. Yeah, and his net worth went from one
hundred and sixty eight billion dollars to an estimated six
hundred and seventy seven billion dollars. He's two thirds of
the way and no one has ever been worth even
(14:17):
close to five hundred billion dollars. And he is worth
seven hundred and seventy seven billion as of right now.
And so SpaceX is targeting this IPO next year and
it could value the company's the company at around one
point five trillion dollars according to one of the investors,
(14:39):
which makes him well, makes him the world's first trillionaire.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
Pretty impressive.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
So his steak in space SpaceX is three hundred and
thirty six billion dollars.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
I mean, these figures are ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
His twelve percent percent Tex steak in Tesla is worth
one hundred nine these seven billion dollars, which by the way,
is excluding the stock options that he got in twenty
eighteen a the CEO performance award that the company gave
him and that was voided by a Delaware judge last
(15:17):
year saying this is way insane. So even with all
that the exclusion, I mean, it is completely crazy. I mean,
it's just going on a good the companies he has
XAI Holdings raising money at a funding of or at
a valuation of two hundred and thirty billion dollars. That's
(15:40):
his AI plus X. I mean, just completely crazy. And
so it's going to be a whole series of milestones.
Bottom line, it seems like everything he touches is worth
and becomes insanely successful. The biggest player is SpaceX, and
(16:00):
there I think you have to give him, well, no,
you have to give him a lot of credit for
the first commercially viable EV with Tesla. Prior to that,
it just didn't work because of the battery, the length
of the battery or the storage of the battery in
terms of mileage, just didn't work. He came up with
(16:21):
a car that it did work, broke all kinds of
new grounds. And SpaceX, I mean he was a visionary.
Everybody thought of space travel as NASA and double and
triple redundancy just insanely expensive. And then we went into
the shuttle, which was insanely expensive, and Musk came up
(16:42):
with a philosophy. And I've talked to a couple of
SpaceX employees where Musk said, you know what, I'm just
building a bus that goes into space.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
That's it.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
Much like you get on a bus, you get off
a bus, and the US is still there. I mean
he likened it to you get on an airplane from
New York to Los Angeles and then you throw the
airplane away. That's what space travel used to be, and
today he's changed it. And he is also a complete
(17:18):
dick from what I understand. Fourteen kids, five different women
and head of those if you remember that, and just
I'll tell you what you can do being the world's
first trillionaire. You know, even a billion dollars is real
money these days. I remember the days when the first
person hit a billion dollars. Boy was that news.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
Jeez. Today, a billion dollars to some of.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
These people is literally change you find between the cushions.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
On your couch or in your couch. Now.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
A couple of stories were covering by the way before
I get to the topic of community college and how
it is a harbinger of things to come because coming
college is a canary in the coal mine, and I'll
explain that in a moment, But first, what's going on.
The US Department Health and Human Services terminated several multimillion
(18:12):
dollar grants to the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
Right, that's just to start, by the way.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
And the House Republicans approved this very narrow package aimed
at lowering health care costs for some Americans starting in January. Well,
it won't pass in the Senate and it will not
lower costs except for a few Americans relatively. And the
subsidies that the Obama Care that was extended because of COVID,
(18:43):
they are now in jeopardy.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
Or actually they end.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
They end at the end of the month, which is
a week and a half hour. Is that two weeks
out or is that twelve days out? End of the month.
It's at the end of the month. Okay, that's easy
to say. Now, the canary and the coal mine. What
do I mean by that? Community colleges enrollment is up
(19:08):
more than ten percent in most community college districts in California.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
And what does that mean?
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Well, when enrollment community college goes up, that generally means
that the economy is going to go south or has
gone south. Now we're not in a recession here in California,
but there are some economic indicators, and one of them
is enrollment in community college.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
Unemployment is going up. It is getting.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
Harder to find a job, there's no question about that.
A lot of it has to do with AI and
that's just part of doing business today living in the
United States or anywhere. The cost of consumer goods toilet paper, cosmetics,
food is going up, and the tariffs have cost us
(20:00):
some money. So put all that together and the future
does not bode well economically speaking. Now we're gonna go
into recession probably not. Are we going to go into
some massive downturn, probably not. Our price is going to
to continue to rise, of course, because inflation goes up
and there's no way around it. They're not gonna be
cut in half. They're not gonna be lowered. They are
(20:22):
continuing to go up. And the trick is with the
Fed manipulating the money supply to keep it relative to
inflation and control, well, control inflation, because that is what
the Fed does, and that's really important. So we're gonna
have inflation, but will it be controlled inflation? Inflation is
good if it is kept down to a certain level.
(20:46):
So what else is bringing students back to school? Well,
the pandemic created this historic immediate drop in college enrollment,
and now you have the students coming back. Although a
lot of districts are saying we're just at pre pandemic levels,
a lot of students are taking these junior college courses
(21:12):
because they're credited towards junior college credits or even university credits,
and those have exploded in popularity and becoming more and
more popular. And the other thing is coming out with
some kind of a certificate from junior college actually gives
you a step up because you're immediately employed medical assisting, welding, automotive. Hey, beforeward,
(21:38):
bail real quickly. Have you seen those ads daytime TV?
Is what they used to have. You go with these
four private schools and you can be a medical assistant
either back room or the front room, in other words,
the receptionist area. And let me tell you how complicated
it is to become a medical assistant because what these
(22:00):
goals who charge three four thousand dollars tuition for a semester,
what they teach you is to pick up the phone
and go hi doctor Smith's office.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Can I help you there? It is, thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
And one of the things I loved because I dealt
with medical groups and doctors for a very long time
when I was doing surrogacy, of course, infertility specialists. I
would call and I would ask for the doctor. Let's
call him doctor Smith, and the receptionists would say, doctor
is not available right now. What do you mean, doctor,
(22:35):
isn't it the doctor? No, doctor is not available, And
I would say, well, tell doctor that lawyer is on
the phone and would like to talk to him. Okay,
we're done, guys, Gary and Shannon up next tomorrow we
come back. It's a Friday, and it's foody Friday, which
is not gonna happen because the Neil. But I still
think we're gonna do ask candle anything. If I'm not mistaken,
(22:59):
will it comes in at five o'clock with Amy wake
up call, and then I jump aboard with just me,
no Neil tomorrow, and then of course Cono and Ann
are always here to make my life completely utterly miserable
and succeed beyond their wildest imaginations. Catch you in the morning, everybody, KF.
(23:19):
I am six point forty.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
You've been listening to the Bill Handle Show.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
Catch my Show Monday through Friday, six am to nine am,
and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app
You're List Saints.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
KF I AM six forty the bill handle show on
demand on the iHeartRadio fanf I am a sixth forty
handle here. On a Thursday morning, December eighteenth, some of
the stories we were following, the President announced that he
(00:21):
is giving one point four million members of the US
military a check, a bonus check of one thousand, seven
hundred and seventy six dollars before Christmas.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
This is the.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Warrior Dividend in honor of the country's founding in seventeen
seventy six. Also, I don't know if you heard the
President's speech last night or his remarks at the Oval Office,
And I didn't even know this that if you combine
all of the accomplishments of Abraham Lincoln and George Washington together,
(00:56):
they don't hold a candle to what President Trump has
been able to do his first year of office.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Just ask him.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Okay, a little hyperbole, but you get the general gist,
don't you.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Now.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
It's Joel Larsgard, the host of How to Money. Sunday twelve.
You have the two pm all right here on KFI.
His address social address at how to Money Joel. His
website is Howtomoney dot Com and good morning Joel, Morning Bill. Okay,
let's get right to it because we have a fair
amount to cover. As everyone knows that gambling has swept
(01:33):
the United States. It used to be most states did
not allow it, and it was just Las Vegas for
the most part. Now everybody does it. You can do
it online, you do it from your device, and of
course the number of people that are actually gambling has exploded.
At the same time, it's become a huge problem. And Joel,
(01:55):
would you get into that for a moment.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
Yeah, so's it really is becoming a problem as the
vast majority of states have now legalized sports betting, and
let's be honest, there are ways even around it if
your state says, actually it's not legal. That there are
people that be a VPN like partaking and you can't
watch a sporting event without getting inundated with ads for
(02:18):
the stuff, and it's your favorite celebrities and stuff like that,
and it's so normalized and people are just like, oh man,
it's gonna up my enjoyment of the game if I
can bet on not just my favorite team, but if
I can bet on really a lot of interesting like
parlays and prop bets and stuff like that, and so
it's gotten even just more nefarious and integrated with the
(02:39):
sports themselves, and people are finding it. If you look
at the stats, like in states where sports betting was legal,
we're seeing a lot more calls to the National Problem
Gambling Helpline, And so it just looks like addiction is
on the rise and people are betting money that they
can't afford to lose.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Yeah, and each your point when you see these ads
for the websites where you can sports bet, and I mean,
this has become a huge business. You know, at the
bottom there's a disclaimer you should game responsibly and then
they give you the odds right there on the game
of the week. Now, I don't know if you remember
(03:21):
Rich Baratta used to be on this show.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
He was our sports guy. Yeah, and he now lives
in Reno.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Every day he goes to the sports book at the hotel,
which is another one the sports books you play you
gamble like crazy. It used to be just Las Vegas
and people realized, wow, there's a real money situation here.
So I guess it's a growth business among psychologists. Who knows,
(03:51):
I mean, I shrink that's where I would go. It's
just interesting.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
It's interesting to see just how far this kind of
gamblification of America is going. So Like, not only is
it sports gambling, I think that was kind of the
tip of the spear in Robinhood even just announced that
they're launching NFL parlay and prop bets on their prediction
market platform. But we're starting to see the rise of
these prediction markets too, where you can well, it's not
(04:20):
it's not gambling, you're you're I don't know how they
can they can say that it's not gambling, but you
can bet on essentially what's going to happen in the news,
Like there are just a trillion things that you can
bet on now via like kalshih and and and services
like that, and it's just it's kind of interesting. I
think people are getting sucked in and they don't realize
it seems like it's no harm, no foul betting on
(04:42):
who's gonna win a certain political race or something like that.
And it is interesting how how correct a lot of
these predictions markets have been. But that doesn't mean that
it's not risky for a lot of people. And even
to just take this further, I heard about this app
and website this week. It's essentially this new credit card
that's supposed to launch in twenty twenty six. It's called Covered,
(05:05):
and it's backed by the deepest pockets in Silicon Valley.
And basically this is the craziest thing they build their
services paying bills made fun And if that's not a
red flag, I don't know what is. Essentially, it's this
credit card that comes with cash back up to one
hundred percent, they say, And that's because you can essentially
gamble on the back end, potentially losing more money in
(05:27):
hopes to have some of those purchases that you made
on that credit card covered by this company. And it's
just like it just feels like it's gambling all the
way down in the United States right now.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
By the way, good word gamblification. Ooh, that really impressed me.
The other thing about gambling, which is so funny. If
you go to any police department and you go to
their vice squad and they're the ones that go after
illegal gambling, try going there in New Year's Day and
see how many or in early February and see how
(05:58):
many of people in the squad bet on the Super
Bowl that's just something every bit. Does we have a pool?
We have a pool here, don't we?
Speaker 1 (06:09):
Amy? Do we have a football pool around or Kno,
we used to have football pools. I wish.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
Well, there's like a little bit of a difference right
between the friendly office bet on the NCAA bracket or
who's going to win the Super Bowl or so somebody
in the office usually buys, right, like a bunch of
lottery tickets and every moon chips in a little bit
that that seems harmless compared to instant access to all
sorts of various betting types in our pockets at one
(06:38):
hundred percent of the time. That to me is where
people are getting in trouble and they don't know how
to stop themselves. And when we're incentivizing it, and when
states are making money off of it, I think this
is only gonna be going to become more of a problem, all.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
Right, Joel.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
People moving out of the United States, and I know
people that have moved out not because of money, but
because of the political climate. That's a real thing going on.
But a lot of people moving over because saving money.
So let's talk about that. How much money do you
save and is it worth the hassle moving overseas, because
(07:12):
that's no small deal.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
No it's not.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
And yeah, whether you save money, how much money you
save depends on where you go, depends on whether you're
still able to make an income from that new place
that you're moving. Can you still retain Like we had
a listener reaching out recently and he's like going back
to India to take care of his parents if he's
able to continue to keep his job that's over here
in the United States. It's like in the tech sector, man,
(07:37):
he's going to crush because the cost of living is
so much more affordable in India. And that's kind of
an extreme case and one that's going back to take
care of family. But there's been just a surge of people,
especially middle class people, deciding that they want to move
overseas because they think it's going to save the money.
It's just the concept is called geographic arbitrage, and it's true,
(07:59):
like if you're able to keep your same income or
even let's say you've built up enough if you're getting
close to retirement age. I had a neighbor a few
years ago moved down to Panama because she was like, hey,
I've saved decently well, but guess what, my retirement's going
to be a whole lot more plush down in Panama
than it is if I stay here in the United States.
And that's just because the cost of living is something
like thirty percent cheaper. So there's a lot of options
(08:19):
for people to move other places if they're so inclined
to stretch their dollar further.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
Yeah, retired people, it's an easy PZ thing to do.
For example, down in Baja and I think near Rosa, Rita,
or near maybe Yeah, I don't know the name of
the community, but it's like fifty thousand Americans there, and
you can live like king on twelve hundred dollars a month,
and twelve hundred dollars a month here is nothing, and.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
So people move. But how I those places got?
Speaker 2 (08:51):
You know, everybody knows that at this point that when
I retire, I'm definitely gonna live part of my time
in Italy because I just happened to be in love
with Italy.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
But then I'm not working.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
So other than a remote work you can do, you're
kind of out of what because you can't work overseas
unless you're a citizen, So.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
How do you do it? Yeah, how do you put
that together? Right?
Speaker 3 (09:15):
And that's that is the thing that people struggle with
the most if they aren't able to keep some sort
of if they have their own business, small business, let's say,
then you can kind of often do that, let's say,
from anywhere, depending on what your business is, if it's
like an online business. So you see that, especially with
Puerto Rico, right, there are significant tax benefits for moving
(09:37):
to Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico has this thing called Acts sixty,
which allows people who establish residency there to pay a
whole lot less in tax just.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
By living on that island.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
And really for Puerto Rico, it's an incentive to get
people to build businesses down there, for people who are
investors to move down there, so that to build up
the Puerto Rican economy. And so that's another angle that
people take when they're thinking about moving abroad.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
Oh well, hey, if taxes are.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
One of my main problems that I face and I'm
trying to reduce my tax burden, Puerto Rico sure looks good. Yeah,
And so really people kind of come with all these
different ways. Man. Maybe it's just like, hey, I don't
need as much money, kind of I'm semi financially independent,
but guess what, I am financially independent if I move
to Portugal or I've got a tax problem, Puerto Rico
(10:24):
is going to help me solve that. There's just it's
so much depends on the particular situation and where somebody's
wanting to move.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
You know, I know of two people who have moved
to Puerto Rico. And these are high net worth people
who are still working and make buckets of money, and
they've moved to Puerto Rico where taxes are. Keep in mind,
here in California, it's fifty percent taxes if you're making
like over a million dollars a year, and these people
(10:50):
make way north of a million dollars a year. Taxes
in Puerto Rico are between seven and eight percent. If
you look at all the programs, I mean, there's only
one downside by the way to moving to Puerto Rico,
and it's moving to Puerto Rico.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
Well, that's the thing.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
Some people do it for a few years in an
effort to like, you know, be able to unload some
stocks and avoid some capital gains taxes and stuff like that,
or build a business and avoid you know, tax for
a little while, but then they end up moving back
or there are some big xpac communities there though where
and I just this is not one of those things
where most people are going to think about this or
(11:30):
decide to act on it. But it's also just one
of those interesting kind of I mean, even just moving
from one place to another inside of the United States.
As Americans, we've done that less and less, but just
moving from a high cost of living place to a
lower cost of living place.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
It's fascinating to see.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
How and a lot of people are doing that, especially
during COVID saying I'll move them out to the excerbs
and buying a house. I got more property and guess what,
I've reduced my living expenses. At the same time, there
are a lot of ways to skin the cat of
reducing how much money you pay tax, of reducing your
overall living expenses, and thinking outside the box can be helpful.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
Yeah. One of the things and then we're gonna bail
out and we'll do their home flipping story probably next week,
is that Americans, as unpopular as they are in many cases,
in general, they are really unpopular in areas like Portugal
and the Czech Republic, because they come in and start
buying or start renting, and then the prices, the housing
(12:27):
prices go through the roof and the locals, well, they're
not very happy about it. So that's the other side
of the coin, all right, Joel, we think about culture. Yeah,
that's true unless those of us who have absolutely no
culture don't care. Okay, Joel, This Sunday, twelve to two pm,
and it's how to money.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
You have a good one. Take care, Joel, catch over
the week. Okay.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
The richest man in the world we know is Elon Musk,
but he is becoming the rich span of the world
by a long shot. He took another leap towards becoming
the world's first trillionaire. Now as of this point, it's
(13:13):
not that easy, but man, he is moving really along
this path. This is the pathway to trillionaire. Ship SpaceX
launched an offer, a tender offer, valuing the firm at
eight hundred billion dollars.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
Now that's double what it was in August.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
And this is a couple of the company's investors who
were interviewed by Force, which now boosts the fortune of
Musk because this offer, this tender offer, which means stock
is going to be sold based on the valuation of
eight hundred billion dollars, double what it was just in August.
(13:56):
Let's look at what Musk owns. He owns forty two
percent SpaceX. Yeah, and his net worth went from one
hundred and sixty eight billion dollars to an estimated six
hundred and seventy seven billion dollars. He's two thirds of
the way and no one has ever been worth even
(14:17):
close to five hundred billion dollars. And he is worth
seven hundred and seventy seven billion as of right now.
And so SpaceX is targeting this IPO next year and
it could value the company's the company at around one
point five trillion dollars according to one of the investors,
(14:39):
which makes him well, makes him the world's first trillionaire.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
Pretty impressive.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
So his steak in space SpaceX is three hundred and
thirty six billion dollars.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
I mean, these figures are ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
His twelve percent percent Tex steak in Tesla is worth
one hundred nine these seven billion dollars, which by the way,
is excluding the stock options that he got in twenty
eighteen a the CEO performance award that the company gave
him and that was voided by a Delaware judge last
(15:17):
year saying this is way insane. So even with all
that the exclusion, I mean, it is completely crazy. I mean,
it's just going on a good the companies he has
XAI Holdings raising money at a funding of or at
a valuation of two hundred and thirty billion dollars. That's
(15:40):
his AI plus X. I mean, just completely crazy. And
so it's going to be a whole series of milestones.
Bottom line, it seems like everything he touches is worth
and becomes insanely successful. The biggest player is SpaceX, and
(16:00):
there I think you have to give him, well, no,
you have to give him a lot of credit for
the first commercially viable EV with Tesla. Prior to that,
it just didn't work because of the battery, the length
of the battery or the storage of the battery in
terms of mileage, just didn't work. He came up with
(16:21):
a car that it did work, broke all kinds of
new grounds. And SpaceX, I mean he was a visionary.
Everybody thought of space travel as NASA and double and
triple redundancy just insanely expensive. And then we went into
the shuttle, which was insanely expensive, and Musk came up
(16:42):
with a philosophy. And I've talked to a couple of
SpaceX employees where Musk said, you know what, I'm just
building a bus that goes into space.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
That's it.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
Much like you get on a bus, you get off
a bus, and the US is still there. I mean
he likened it to you get on an airplane from
New York to Los Angeles and then you throw the
airplane away. That's what space travel used to be, and
today he's changed it. And he is also a complete
(17:18):
dick from what I understand. Fourteen kids, five different women
and head of those if you remember that, and just
I'll tell you what you can do being the world's
first trillionaire. You know, even a billion dollars is real
money these days. I remember the days when the first
person hit a billion dollars. Boy was that news.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
Jeez. Today, a billion dollars to some of.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
These people is literally change you find between the cushions.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
On your couch or in your couch. Now.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
A couple of stories were covering by the way before
I get to the topic of community college and how
it is a harbinger of things to come because coming
college is a canary in the coal mine, and I'll
explain that in a moment, But first, what's going on.
The US Department Health and Human Services terminated several multimillion
(18:12):
dollar grants to the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
Right, that's just to start, by the way.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
And the House Republicans approved this very narrow package aimed
at lowering health care costs for some Americans starting in January. Well,
it won't pass in the Senate and it will not
lower costs except for a few Americans relatively. And the
subsidies that the Obama Care that was extended because of COVID,
(18:43):
they are now in jeopardy.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
Or actually they end.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
They end at the end of the month, which is
a week and a half hour. Is that two weeks
out or is that twelve days out? End of the month.
It's at the end of the month. Okay, that's easy
to say. Now, the canary and the coal mine. What
do I mean by that? Community colleges enrollment is up
(19:08):
more than ten percent in most community college districts in California.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
And what does that mean?
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Well, when enrollment community college goes up, that generally means
that the economy is going to go south or has
gone south. Now we're not in a recession here in California,
but there are some economic indicators, and one of them
is enrollment in community college.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
Unemployment is going up. It is getting.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
Harder to find a job, there's no question about that.
A lot of it has to do with AI and
that's just part of doing business today living in the
United States or anywhere. The cost of consumer goods toilet paper, cosmetics,
food is going up, and the tariffs have cost us
(20:00):
some money. So put all that together and the future
does not bode well economically speaking. Now we're gonna go
into recession probably not. Are we going to go into
some massive downturn, probably not. Our price is going to
to continue to rise, of course, because inflation goes up
and there's no way around it. They're not gonna be
cut in half. They're not gonna be lowered. They are
(20:22):
continuing to go up. And the trick is with the
Fed manipulating the money supply to keep it relative to
inflation and control, well, control inflation, because that is what
the Fed does, and that's really important. So we're gonna
have inflation, but will it be controlled inflation? Inflation is
good if it is kept down to a certain level.
(20:46):
So what else is bringing students back to school? Well,
the pandemic created this historic immediate drop in college enrollment,
and now you have the students coming back. Although a
lot of districts are saying we're just at pre pandemic levels,
a lot of students are taking these junior college courses
(21:12):
because they're credited towards junior college credits or even university credits,
and those have exploded in popularity and becoming more and
more popular. And the other thing is coming out with
some kind of a certificate from junior college actually gives
you a step up because you're immediately employed medical assisting, welding, automotive. Hey, beforeward,
(21:38):
bail real quickly. Have you seen those ads daytime TV?
Is what they used to have. You go with these
four private schools and you can be a medical assistant
either back room or the front room, in other words,
the receptionist area. And let me tell you how complicated
it is to become a medical assistant because what these
(22:00):
goals who charge three four thousand dollars tuition for a semester,
what they teach you is to pick up the phone
and go hi doctor Smith's office.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Can I help you there? It is, thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
And one of the things I loved because I dealt
with medical groups and doctors for a very long time
when I was doing surrogacy, of course, infertility specialists. I
would call and I would ask for the doctor. Let's
call him doctor Smith, and the receptionists would say, doctor
is not available right now. What do you mean, doctor,
(22:35):
isn't it the doctor? No, doctor is not available, And
I would say, well, tell doctor that lawyer is on
the phone and would like to talk to him. Okay,
we're done, guys, Gary and Shannon up next tomorrow we
come back. It's a Friday, and it's foody Friday, which
is not gonna happen because the Neil. But I still
think we're gonna do ask candle anything. If I'm not mistaken,
(22:59):
will it comes in at five o'clock with Amy wake
up call, and then I jump aboard with just me,
no Neil tomorrow, and then of course Cono and Ann
are always here to make my life completely utterly miserable
and succeed beyond their wildest imaginations. Catch you in the morning, everybody, KF.
(23:19):
I am six point forty.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
You've been listening to the Bill Handle Show.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
Catch my Show Monday through Friday, six am to nine am,
and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app
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