January 29, 2026 • 24 mins
(January 29, 2026)
Host of ‘How to Money’ Joel Larsgaard joins the show to discuss bigger tax refunds this year, $3 dinners, and the California billionaire tax.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from KFI AM
six forty six forty Bill Handle. Here. It is a
Thursday morning, December twenty nine. If you missed listening to
We're missed any part of the show because we're on
for three hours, you can go to the iHeartRadio app
the podcasts because we have segments that are just great
(00:22):
fun that you may have missed. Also, oh, here's breaking news.
It's just been announced that the President the White House
is naming a new fraud zar and interesting now they
haven't mentioned his name yet because they're trying to figure
out how they're going to keep someone from pretending to
(00:43):
be the fraud zar. Okay, it is time for Joe
lars Guard, a host of How to Money. He's heard
every Sunday twelve to two pm right here on KFI
and he is at how to Money Joel. That's a
social address in his website is Howtomoney dot com. Good morning, Joel,
(01:04):
Morning Bill. Okay, we get right to it. Tax refunds
are going to be bigger and better for many Americans
this year. And I've always thought that big tax refunds
make zero sense. But at the same time, at the
same time, they make a lot of sense. And I
know that's kind of contradict no, and I think you'll agree, right,
(01:26):
but yeah, let's start with that they're going to be bigger.
Why is that?
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Yeah, I mean you're you're right on both ends that
I think it makes sense in some ways because it's
a forced method of savings for people, and it makes
them feel good.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
Right.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
It feels nice to get like three thousand, four thousand
dollars back in April, and you're just like, all right,
I can do something big now with a giant sum
of money. But really that's just money that you overpaid
to the government. You're getting refunded to you, and you
could have done other things with that money throughout the year, right,
An extra couple hundred bucks in your paychecks, nothing to
(02:00):
sneeze at. But people have gotten used to these giant
tax refunds. And this is even if they realize it's
an interest free loan to the government. Most people don't
seem to mind.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
No A. And here's why, because when I used to
file taxes this way, you know, the way that didn't
make much sense is that you don't put away two
hundred dollars a month to pay your taxes. Nobody does.
So when you get the big tax refund, it is
for savings, and you ignore the fact that it's a tax,
that it's an interest free loan to the government, because
(02:33):
that overrides oh boy, now I have money for sex,
drugs and rock and roll, which you didn't think you had.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Right well, and in some ways, like for a lot
of the way Americans handle money, having some sort of
force method of savings, it's almost like sitting on your hands,
so you can't do the dumb thing and spend it
in the month that you get it. And so from
that standpoint, like, I'm not one hundred percent against a
big tax refund, even though, oh yes, are you missing
out on doing smart things with it?
Speaker 1 (03:01):
For sure?
Speaker 2 (03:02):
But if you, if you treat money like the average
American does, like actually, it might be in your own
most interest to have a big tax refund and then
do something hopefully smart with what's coming down the pike.
And this year we're going to see people getting bigger
tax refunds on average than last year, and that's because
of the so called big beautiful bill. Right, So it's
we're talking about no tax on tips like better overtime
(03:27):
tax tax realities.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
We're talking about.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
If you bought a new card this year, you're getting
a tax break for the interest you paid on on
that car loan, the larger standard deduction. There are all these,
all these ways, all these like little tax perks that
are going to add up in the average person. Instead
of seeing a tax refund of like three grand, it
might it might be closer closer to four thousand dollars.
And that's just a lot of chunk of change that
(03:51):
people need to know what to do with and be
smart with.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
I have a question, and this is a big picture question,
and that is obviously the bigger the tax break, the refund,
the less money comes into the government, and it is well, frankly,
you know, we're running more of a deficit. But at
the same time you've got these tariffs where money is
coming in. Does it even out or are we getting
(04:14):
more money from tariffs than what the tax breaks are
or the other way? I mean, do you know, I
know that unless you keep up with this and looked
at the stats, you wouldn't know.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
Yeah, I'd have to look at the statistics. But my
assumption is that, well, I think the tariffs are bad
on multiple fronts, right, And I think ultimately, like the
latest statistics showed that American consumers end up paying essentially
ninety six percent of the cost of those tariffs. Maybe
some folks in foreign lands who ship their goods here,
they eat a small amount of that tariff, but it
(04:46):
really gets passed on as a tax to American consumers. So, yeah,
are the tariffs generating income for the federal government, Yes,
but typically it's on the backs of American consumers anyway,
in the form of fire prices.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Yeah. And people don't realize that because what's happening is
the President says, you're not paying the tariffs, and it's true.
You're not writing the check for the tariffs. It's the importer,
it's the manufacturer overseas. And as I've mentioned many times,
I have a import business with my friend Savil. We've
been partners for twenty years, and we import cookwar from
(05:19):
China and it's made out of stainless steel and we
are paying about one hundred and one hundred and forty
percent in duties. So the last container we brought in,
I think it was a small, small container and it
was I think seventy five thousand dollars worth of goods,
(05:40):
and we wrote a check to the government for eighty
two thousand dollars on top of paying for the goods.
Oh no, it's crazy. And the point I'm making it's
the manufacturer that's paying it and believing the government. They
say you're not paying for it. Believe me, we're all
paying for it, although the manufacturers importers suck up a
lot of that and profits are way way down. Okay,
(06:01):
just that was off topic a little bit. Here's the question,
and Joel came up with it. Is it possible to
have a healthy three dollars dinner without either dumper dice,
dumper dumper dusting, diving, or standing on the off ramp
of a freeway with a sign will work for food
with no intention of actually working. How do you do
(06:23):
this for three bucks?
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Okay, So I'm I want to throw the question back
to you. Do you think it's possible?
Speaker 3 (06:29):
No?
Speaker 1 (06:30):
Okay, no, I don't unless you unless you get used food.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
No, I do think it's possible, and I do think
it's possible to eat reasonably healthy at the on an
average three dollars per meal per person per day. So
let's say your family of four or five. There are
certain things you can make if you're if you're smart
and you're cautious about what you're bringing into your house.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
Where you buy.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
That food, by the way, super duper important, because yeah,
not all grocery stores are created equal.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
I think it's possible.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
I just think it's really really hard, right, and you
are going to have to be incredibly intentional about buying
things on sale and buying, for instance, like the cheaper
cuts of meat. The Wall Street Journal did an article
about this, and they did they kind of went shopping
at some stores and one of the things they found
was like, oh, yeah, you can with like one piece
of broccoli and some boneless skinless chicken breast. And here's
what I was like, that's ridiculous, Like, no one's gonna
(07:26):
eat like one piece of broccoli. Sorry, it's not enough
for your dinner plate. But when they said boneless skinless
chicken breast, I was like, that's the most expensive cut
you can buy. Like, you can buy whole chickens. This
is something I've been doing regularly lately. I buy two
whole chickens at Costco. They're nine to nine cents a pound,
and then you cook both of them on a Saturday
or Sunday, and you plan your meals for the week
around those chickens. Around ten dollars worth of protein. That's
(07:50):
the kind of stuff you have to And I'm not
saying I eat for three dollars a meal every single
week or every single day. But still I think it's
possible if you choose the right foods.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
Yeah, but you know, based on what you said, lots
of pasta. Obviously, if you're going to get meat, you
get lots of body parts of cows and chickens that
you would never even talk about. But I guess working
is that hard to find? Yeah, I guess it was
a question if your food insecure. I mean, clearly you're
(08:20):
going to do that, Neil, jump in, And I was
thinking of restaurants, by the way, which of course is impossible, Neil,
He's spot on and many of us.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
I used to think it was just a Mexican thing,
but apparently it's all over the place. My mom would
boil a chicken every Sunday, and it wasn't for an
intent for us to eat it that Sunday. It was
for the rest of the week, and it would go
into rice dishes, it would go into pasta dishes, it
would go into enchiladas, whatever it was. But I think
(08:52):
you're absolutely right. I think the word you use was
intentional or something like that, being intentional about what you purchased,
looking for what's on sale. Some of the best cuts
of meat, even ground beef is more expensive right now.
You could probably get flat meat for a better price
and learn to cook it properly and cut it properly
(09:14):
and get really.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
You know, proteins are going to be one of the
most expensive things.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
So yeah, learning how to do these things, I think
you absolutely could do it for three bucks a meal.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
And I want to point something else, Neil, clearly you
know how tasty boiled chicken is. There is nothing tastier
on the planet.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
Boiled chicken with a little salt on it still one
of my favorite things. Wow, it really is. It's a
simple but it brings me back. And you know, I
think it's a good way to prep for other meals
and for salads and for all kinds of things.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
All right, fair enough, moving on then, the billionaire tacks
in California having an intended consequences, I have to tell you,
I think they knew exactly what was going to happen
when the billionaire tax was passed. So come in on
that if you would. So, so you think they just
wanted all the billionaires to vacate. No, they wanted They
(10:16):
knew they were going to or was a chance they
were going to vacate. And I think somebody did a
formula in government simply weighing the consequences and figure out, Okay,
we're going to make more money with the tax. It
was like the Ford motor case. If you remember the
Pinto case where that kid burned to death and the
(10:37):
internal MENMO said oh, we're going to have X number
of people die, but it's cheaper than redoing all the cars.
And I think that went on. But you don't buy that.
You think this was totally unintended. I mean, how unintended
You knew that was going to happen. Yeah, I mean,
you're right.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
I'm sure there was at least some assumption that this
was going to happen to a certain extent. But I
just don't know if the people formulating the law were like, oh,
there's going to be a mass exodus of talent and
wealth from this state if we implement something like a
wealth tax, and I get kind of I get the
desire right to and we already have right the different
(11:17):
a graduated tax system to where.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
You make more money, you pay more money.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
And yes, some of the richest among us they pay
some of the lowest tax rates because of the way
they're income, the way they make their money, and the
way it's tax and a lot of what the richest
people in the country, it's it's like wealth on paper, right,
and so this is an attempt to get some tax
revenue from the wealth that exists on paper. And I
(11:42):
totally understand why they want to do that, but I
just when you look at past examples of wealth taxes
and what happens. The billionaires tend to flee, and it
reduces actually your tax base in the state, and it
reduces opportunity and businesses. Businesses tend to move out of
a state like this. It actually has I think the
(12:03):
unintended effect is actually worse than what you were hoping
to get from this new legislation.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Yeah, and it's and billionaires don't spend that much money.
I mean, they live large, but when you talk about
someone who is worth ten twelve four billion dollars, that
net worth is all stocks and it's all annuities, and
it's not income coming in. The income coming in is
(12:30):
relative to the wealth, not that much. But hey, welcome
to California. You know that. How about the mansion tax
here in Los Angeles and what that did to the
sale of Holmes right exactly?
Speaker 2 (12:42):
I mean, that's just another I think it's just another
problematic way of trying to drive tax revenue. And the
other thing that's going to happen here is if those
billionaires leave, if they take their businesses with them because
they want to avoid this punitive tax. I think one
you might say, oh, well, you have enough money to
pay this tax, so just.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
Get it over with. Like who cares?
Speaker 2 (13:05):
And who cares if you have ninety five billion instead
of one hundred billion dollars? And there is one case
to be made for that, But oftentimes, because these are
paper valuations and there's the sale of stock and capital
gains tax to go along with it, there are other
considerations that need to be made. And it also just
feels I think for these billionaires. I mean I'm not
shedding a tear for any of them, but that it's like, well,
(13:27):
if I'm going to.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
Live in a state where there's opportunity.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
But do I want to live somewhere where they're constantly
looking at me as a source of revenue and maybe
the money's not being spent in a way that seems appropriate.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
Yeah, makes sense. And the issue is moving the businesses.
I think is that is a big hit because those
are jobs that are disappearing, and that is I think
far more detrimental to certainly our economy. All Right, Joel,
thank you. We'll catch you this Sunday from twelve to
two pm. Sorry, thanks Bill. All Right, Okay, this morning
(14:04):
we had a fun conversation about names, and Neil's name
came up in that it's Neil, and he said that
his father happened to be a big fan of the
Space program. So Neil, you are named after Neil Armstrong
(14:24):
and Edwin Aldron aka buzz Aldron. Okay, so it's Neil
Edwin okay.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
And I actually met another Neil Edwin Savedra Latino, who
was also named was born within a couple of days
of me and was a fan of your show and
decades ago set me a fax of his driver's license
and he had the exact same name for the exact
same reason.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
Why wasn't if he's a fan, why wouldn't he call
himself William handle that that's a real fan. So Neil's
name is he was named after Neil Armstrong and Edwin
was named okay, so so he's named after them. My name,
(15:14):
William is I was named after some guy named William
and I have no idea who he was, yes, okay,
So with that it got me spinning immediately in terms
of the space program and the story we did with
Elon Musk and how he we The conversation was is
(15:34):
how he reinvented and he's a visionary, and how he's
now getting into robotics, and he reinvented the space the
space race effectively, how we go into space? And I
remember once I actually went to SpaceX in Hawthorne. I
was invited, and I remember going through it and one
(15:56):
of the engineers who was leading actually guiding me through it,
and I said, you know what was Musk's thinking? And
he said, it's real simple. Basically he thought of spacecraft
as buses. That's it. You know, you get on a bus,
you go from A to B and you come back
from BDA, which is simply the space the concept of
(16:19):
capsules and rockets that really never even occurred to the
folks at NASA that they would be reused. I mean,
the guy's a visionary. So what he did, of course,
is invent the reusable rocket and change everything. And then
when I mean change everything, he did it politically also,
(16:40):
because we're talking about with Neil's name back, we go
to the first moonshot and how spacecraft in those days
were built by NASA never even occurred to anybody to
have any other organization entity other than governments create spacecraft.
We're in the middle of the space race with the Russia.
(17:01):
The government was building those spacecraft. We were building this
our spacecraft with NASA overseeing it. All unlimited budgets, triple redundancy,
insanely expensive and used once. And the analogy is you
build a seven forty seven, you take off from LA
you go to New York, and then you throw it
(17:21):
away and you go, wait a minute, that doesn't make
any sense. Well, that's exactly what we were doing, and
so he changed it all completely. So what I want
to do is come back and give you a little
bit of history, factoids about what happened with Neil's namesake.
(17:41):
For his namesake after How does that work? Namesake? Is
you're named after or someone creates the name that's after you,
Neil Armstrong namesake? Got it all right? I understand now,
thank you. It's in a shafe. It's a nickname for
a wiener. Yeah pretty much, Yeah, thank you so much.
Well said. Now, I want to go back to the
(18:03):
segment that we were doing, and that is Neil's name.
And we know that Neil Savager is named after Neil
Armstrong and buzz Aldrin, so he's Neil Edwin Savadrum. And
then it got me spinning into the space race in
general and what Musk is doing and how he completely
(18:27):
reinvented the way the United States goes into space and
actually now the rest of the world. He has eighty
percent of the entire world market of spacecraft going up.
And so when the space race actually started started in
the fifties, and you know, the first astronauts were all pilots.
They were fighter pilots or they were test pilots for
(18:48):
the CIA. That was President Eisenhower who made that decision saying,
oh no, I want pilots, not that you need pilots
to fly spacecraft, but that was what he said, and
so what happened nas in those days did all of
the work. I mean, it was super complicated. And then
just a quick story. Now we're talking about the moon
(19:10):
shot and the three astronauts that went up into and
landed on the Moon for the first time in history,
and the importance of it, you know, a good part
of the world with watching that live on television, and
the magnitude of man being first on the moon and
the sheer audacity of human kind landing on the moon
(19:34):
the first time that man Americans had landed on the Moon,
and the pictures we saw in the views, I mean,
it was extraordinary. So after the aircraft or the spacecraft
had landed and the astronauts had done their what thirty
days or whatever in over three weeks and solitary confinement,
(19:55):
then in case of any bizarre diseases, then they were
put on world tour as a propaganda you know, just
to show the world how great we are. And it
was a straight propaganda tour, which is fine, and people
were asking him about them all kinds of these questions. Now,
Prince Philip, Queen Elizabeth's husband, was able to get thirty
(20:21):
or fifteen minutes with them, and they were not supposed
to meet with him because it was so rushed, and
he got a private fifteen minute interview, and he kept
on asking especially and by the way, all three of
them had colds at the time, so they were feeling miserable,
and he kept on asking them, did you understand how
big a deal this is? Did you look around and go,
this is the first time man has stepped on the moon.
(20:44):
Did you understand the magnitude of it? And Armstrong said no,
not particularly, and Prince Philip couldn't understand it. You guys
were the first people on the moon. And it turned
out here's a fun factoid part. It turned out it
was no big deal for the three of them. They
(21:07):
were technocrats. They were there to do their job and
that was it. And there in the second by second
they were so full of what they had to do
it was time to the second. They didn't even pay
much attention. They were basically pilots, and they were there
as technology guys who had a job to do, and
(21:28):
they went around and pick up the samples and they
walked around and they're the three people in the world
that literally had no idea of the magnitude of what
they did. Hey, we had a job to do. We
did it. Armstrong was never impressed with the fact that
he was the first guy on the moon. Did you
know that? Never because he just had a job to
(21:49):
do and it happened to be on the moon. You know,
he had been a pilot his entire life, and it
just okay, now what And I find that so interesting
that they were the ones, They were the three people
on the planet that really didn't give a rats about
the fact they were on the Moon. And I don't
know if you knew that, but and I don't care
(22:10):
if you did that or not. I don't care if
you don't care. I find that absolutely fascinating. Okay, there
you go. Kno, did you know that, by the way,
any of that that we didn't land on the moon? Yes, no, idea,
we did land. Well, thank you very much. This is
why Kono will never be promoted. No, I understand that
you knew we landed on the moon, But did you
(22:30):
know the stories behind that? The three guys who didn't
care and they were up there and really didn't pay
attention as to the magnitude of what they did. Yeah,
that makes sense for guys that didn't land on the moon. Yeah, okay,
they did land on the moon. Okay, it makes sense
for guys that didn't land on the moon. They did
land on the moon. Boy. This story is going nowhere
(22:52):
very quickly, but thank you for that. Coming up, it's
Gary and Shannon tomorrow. It's ask Handle Anything following the
food segment of our show Foody Friday, and that starts
at eight o'clock with Neil eight thirty. It's asked Handle Anything.
We've got some great questions, as we usually do, Neil
putting together some really humiliating, embarrassing questions for me. Correct
(23:17):
always best part. Okay, that's what we do every Friday.
So tune in and if you can't, just go to
the podcast on the our Heart Radio iHeart on the
iHeartRadio app and you'll get it all together. And I okay,
oh there you go. We're we're not gonna get emails.
We're not gonna get emails on that one, right, Bill Hamblin. Okay,
(23:43):
five am tomorrow morning. Amy quit laughing to five o'clock
tomorrow morning with Amy and Will and then Neil and
I come aboard and cono and and put all this
together and make me look as stupid, But they don't
have to make me look as stupid as this is
it just that's our show. December twenty. This is KFI
(24:04):
AM six forty. You've been listening to the Bill Handle Show.
Catch my show Monday through Friday, six am to nine am,
and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app
You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from KFI AM
six forty six forty Bill Handle. Here. It is a
Thursday morning, December twenty nine. If you missed listening to
We're missed any part of the show because we're on
for three hours, you can go to the iHeartRadio app
the podcasts because we have segments that are just great
(00:22):
fun that you may have missed. Also, oh, here's breaking news.
It's just been announced that the President the White House
is naming a new fraud zar and interesting now they
haven't mentioned his name yet because they're trying to figure
out how they're going to keep someone from pretending to
(00:43):
be the fraud zar. Okay, it is time for Joe
lars Guard, a host of How to Money. He's heard
every Sunday twelve to two pm right here on KFI
and he is at how to Money Joel. That's a
social address in his website is Howtomoney dot com. Good morning, Joel,
(01:04):
Morning Bill. Okay, we get right to it. Tax refunds
are going to be bigger and better for many Americans
this year. And I've always thought that big tax refunds
make zero sense. But at the same time, at the
same time, they make a lot of sense. And I
know that's kind of contradict no, and I think you'll agree, right,
(01:26):
but yeah, let's start with that they're going to be bigger.
Why is that?
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Yeah, I mean you're you're right on both ends that
I think it makes sense in some ways because it's
a forced method of savings for people, and it makes
them feel good.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
Right.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
It feels nice to get like three thousand, four thousand
dollars back in April, and you're just like, all right,
I can do something big now with a giant sum
of money. But really that's just money that you overpaid
to the government. You're getting refunded to you, and you
could have done other things with that money throughout the year, right,
An extra couple hundred bucks in your paychecks, nothing to
(02:00):
sneeze at. But people have gotten used to these giant
tax refunds. And this is even if they realize it's
an interest free loan to the government. Most people don't
seem to mind.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
No A. And here's why, because when I used to
file taxes this way, you know, the way that didn't
make much sense is that you don't put away two
hundred dollars a month to pay your taxes. Nobody does.
So when you get the big tax refund, it is
for savings, and you ignore the fact that it's a tax,
that it's an interest free loan to the government, because
(02:33):
that overrides oh boy, now I have money for sex,
drugs and rock and roll, which you didn't think you had.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Right well, and in some ways, like for a lot
of the way Americans handle money, having some sort of
force method of savings, it's almost like sitting on your hands,
so you can't do the dumb thing and spend it
in the month that you get it. And so from
that standpoint, like, I'm not one hundred percent against a
big tax refund, even though, oh yes, are you missing
out on doing smart things with it?
Speaker 1 (03:01):
For sure?
Speaker 2 (03:02):
But if you, if you treat money like the average
American does, like actually, it might be in your own
most interest to have a big tax refund and then
do something hopefully smart with what's coming down the pike.
And this year we're going to see people getting bigger
tax refunds on average than last year, and that's because
of the so called big beautiful bill. Right, So it's
we're talking about no tax on tips like better overtime
(03:27):
tax tax realities.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
We're talking about.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
If you bought a new card this year, you're getting
a tax break for the interest you paid on on
that car loan, the larger standard deduction. There are all these,
all these ways, all these like little tax perks that
are going to add up in the average person. Instead
of seeing a tax refund of like three grand, it
might it might be closer closer to four thousand dollars.
And that's just a lot of chunk of change that
(03:51):
people need to know what to do with and be
smart with.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
I have a question, and this is a big picture question,
and that is obviously the bigger the tax break, the refund,
the less money comes into the government, and it is well, frankly,
you know, we're running more of a deficit. But at
the same time you've got these tariffs where money is
coming in. Does it even out or are we getting
(04:14):
more money from tariffs than what the tax breaks are
or the other way? I mean, do you know, I
know that unless you keep up with this and looked
at the stats, you wouldn't know.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
Yeah, I'd have to look at the statistics. But my
assumption is that, well, I think the tariffs are bad
on multiple fronts, right, And I think ultimately, like the
latest statistics showed that American consumers end up paying essentially
ninety six percent of the cost of those tariffs. Maybe
some folks in foreign lands who ship their goods here,
they eat a small amount of that tariff, but it
(04:46):
really gets passed on as a tax to American consumers. So, yeah,
are the tariffs generating income for the federal government, Yes,
but typically it's on the backs of American consumers anyway,
in the form of fire prices.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Yeah. And people don't realize that because what's happening is
the President says, you're not paying the tariffs, and it's true.
You're not writing the check for the tariffs. It's the importer,
it's the manufacturer overseas. And as I've mentioned many times,
I have a import business with my friend Savil. We've
been partners for twenty years, and we import cookwar from
(05:19):
China and it's made out of stainless steel and we
are paying about one hundred and one hundred and forty
percent in duties. So the last container we brought in,
I think it was a small, small container and it
was I think seventy five thousand dollars worth of goods,
(05:40):
and we wrote a check to the government for eighty
two thousand dollars on top of paying for the goods.
Oh no, it's crazy. And the point I'm making it's
the manufacturer that's paying it and believing the government. They
say you're not paying for it. Believe me, we're all
paying for it, although the manufacturers importers suck up a
lot of that and profits are way way down. Okay,
(06:01):
just that was off topic a little bit. Here's the question,
and Joel came up with it. Is it possible to
have a healthy three dollars dinner without either dumper dice,
dumper dumper dusting, diving, or standing on the off ramp
of a freeway with a sign will work for food
with no intention of actually working. How do you do
(06:23):
this for three bucks?
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Okay, So I'm I want to throw the question back
to you. Do you think it's possible?
Speaker 3 (06:29):
No?
Speaker 1 (06:30):
Okay, no, I don't unless you unless you get used food.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
No, I do think it's possible, and I do think
it's possible to eat reasonably healthy at the on an
average three dollars per meal per person per day. So
let's say your family of four or five. There are
certain things you can make if you're if you're smart
and you're cautious about what you're bringing into your house.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
Where you buy.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
That food, by the way, super duper important, because yeah,
not all grocery stores are created equal.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
I think it's possible.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
I just think it's really really hard, right, and you
are going to have to be incredibly intentional about buying
things on sale and buying, for instance, like the cheaper
cuts of meat. The Wall Street Journal did an article
about this, and they did they kind of went shopping
at some stores and one of the things they found
was like, oh, yeah, you can with like one piece
of broccoli and some boneless skinless chicken breast. And here's
what I was like, that's ridiculous, Like, no one's gonna
(07:26):
eat like one piece of broccoli. Sorry, it's not enough
for your dinner plate. But when they said boneless skinless
chicken breast, I was like, that's the most expensive cut
you can buy. Like, you can buy whole chickens. This
is something I've been doing regularly lately. I buy two
whole chickens at Costco. They're nine to nine cents a pound,
and then you cook both of them on a Saturday
or Sunday, and you plan your meals for the week
around those chickens. Around ten dollars worth of protein. That's
(07:50):
the kind of stuff you have to And I'm not
saying I eat for three dollars a meal every single
week or every single day. But still I think it's
possible if you choose the right foods.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
Yeah, but you know, based on what you said, lots
of pasta. Obviously, if you're going to get meat, you
get lots of body parts of cows and chickens that
you would never even talk about. But I guess working
is that hard to find? Yeah, I guess it was
a question if your food insecure. I mean, clearly you're
(08:20):
going to do that, Neil, jump in, And I was
thinking of restaurants, by the way, which of course is impossible, Neil,
He's spot on and many of us.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
I used to think it was just a Mexican thing,
but apparently it's all over the place. My mom would
boil a chicken every Sunday, and it wasn't for an
intent for us to eat it that Sunday. It was
for the rest of the week, and it would go
into rice dishes, it would go into pasta dishes, it
would go into enchiladas, whatever it was. But I think
(08:52):
you're absolutely right. I think the word you use was
intentional or something like that, being intentional about what you purchased,
looking for what's on sale. Some of the best cuts
of meat, even ground beef is more expensive right now.
You could probably get flat meat for a better price
and learn to cook it properly and cut it properly
(09:14):
and get really.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
You know, proteins are going to be one of the
most expensive things.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
So yeah, learning how to do these things, I think
you absolutely could do it for three bucks a meal.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
And I want to point something else, Neil, clearly you
know how tasty boiled chicken is. There is nothing tastier
on the planet.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
Boiled chicken with a little salt on it still one
of my favorite things. Wow, it really is. It's a
simple but it brings me back. And you know, I
think it's a good way to prep for other meals
and for salads and for all kinds of things.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
All right, fair enough, moving on then, the billionaire tacks
in California having an intended consequences, I have to tell you,
I think they knew exactly what was going to happen
when the billionaire tax was passed. So come in on
that if you would. So, so you think they just
wanted all the billionaires to vacate. No, they wanted They
(10:16):
knew they were going to or was a chance they
were going to vacate. And I think somebody did a
formula in government simply weighing the consequences and figure out, Okay,
we're going to make more money with the tax. It
was like the Ford motor case. If you remember the
Pinto case where that kid burned to death and the
(10:37):
internal MENMO said oh, we're going to have X number
of people die, but it's cheaper than redoing all the cars.
And I think that went on. But you don't buy that.
You think this was totally unintended. I mean, how unintended
You knew that was going to happen. Yeah, I mean,
you're right.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
I'm sure there was at least some assumption that this
was going to happen to a certain extent. But I
just don't know if the people formulating the law were like, oh,
there's going to be a mass exodus of talent and
wealth from this state if we implement something like a
wealth tax, and I get kind of I get the
desire right to and we already have right the different
(11:17):
a graduated tax system to where.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
You make more money, you pay more money.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
And yes, some of the richest among us they pay
some of the lowest tax rates because of the way
they're income, the way they make their money, and the
way it's tax and a lot of what the richest
people in the country, it's it's like wealth on paper, right,
and so this is an attempt to get some tax
revenue from the wealth that exists on paper. And I
(11:42):
totally understand why they want to do that, but I
just when you look at past examples of wealth taxes
and what happens. The billionaires tend to flee, and it
reduces actually your tax base in the state, and it
reduces opportunity and businesses. Businesses tend to move out of
a state like this. It actually has I think the
(12:03):
unintended effect is actually worse than what you were hoping
to get from this new legislation.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Yeah, and it's and billionaires don't spend that much money.
I mean, they live large, but when you talk about
someone who is worth ten twelve four billion dollars, that
net worth is all stocks and it's all annuities, and
it's not income coming in. The income coming in is
(12:30):
relative to the wealth, not that much. But hey, welcome
to California. You know that. How about the mansion tax
here in Los Angeles and what that did to the
sale of Holmes right exactly?
Speaker 2 (12:42):
I mean, that's just another I think it's just another
problematic way of trying to drive tax revenue. And the
other thing that's going to happen here is if those
billionaires leave, if they take their businesses with them because
they want to avoid this punitive tax. I think one
you might say, oh, well, you have enough money to
pay this tax, so just.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
Get it over with. Like who cares?
Speaker 2 (13:05):
And who cares if you have ninety five billion instead
of one hundred billion dollars? And there is one case
to be made for that, But oftentimes, because these are
paper valuations and there's the sale of stock and capital
gains tax to go along with it, there are other
considerations that need to be made. And it also just
feels I think for these billionaires. I mean I'm not
shedding a tear for any of them, but that it's like, well,
(13:27):
if I'm going to.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
Live in a state where there's opportunity.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
But do I want to live somewhere where they're constantly
looking at me as a source of revenue and maybe
the money's not being spent in a way that seems appropriate.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
Yeah, makes sense. And the issue is moving the businesses.
I think is that is a big hit because those
are jobs that are disappearing, and that is I think
far more detrimental to certainly our economy. All Right, Joel,
thank you. We'll catch you this Sunday from twelve to
two pm. Sorry, thanks Bill. All Right, Okay, this morning
(14:04):
we had a fun conversation about names, and Neil's name
came up in that it's Neil, and he said that
his father happened to be a big fan of the
Space program. So Neil, you are named after Neil Armstrong
(14:24):
and Edwin Aldron aka buzz Aldron. Okay, so it's Neil
Edwin okay.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
And I actually met another Neil Edwin Savedra Latino, who
was also named was born within a couple of days
of me and was a fan of your show and
decades ago set me a fax of his driver's license
and he had the exact same name for the exact
same reason.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
Why wasn't if he's a fan, why wouldn't he call
himself William handle that that's a real fan. So Neil's
name is he was named after Neil Armstrong and Edwin
was named okay, so so he's named after them. My name,
(15:14):
William is I was named after some guy named William
and I have no idea who he was, yes, okay,
So with that it got me spinning immediately in terms
of the space program and the story we did with
Elon Musk and how he we The conversation was is
(15:34):
how he reinvented and he's a visionary, and how he's
now getting into robotics, and he reinvented the space the
space race effectively, how we go into space? And I
remember once I actually went to SpaceX in Hawthorne. I
was invited, and I remember going through it and one
(15:56):
of the engineers who was leading actually guiding me through it,
and I said, you know what was Musk's thinking? And
he said, it's real simple. Basically he thought of spacecraft
as buses. That's it. You know, you get on a bus,
you go from A to B and you come back
from BDA, which is simply the space the concept of
(16:19):
capsules and rockets that really never even occurred to the
folks at NASA that they would be reused. I mean,
the guy's a visionary. So what he did, of course,
is invent the reusable rocket and change everything. And then
when I mean change everything, he did it politically also,
(16:40):
because we're talking about with Neil's name back, we go
to the first moonshot and how spacecraft in those days
were built by NASA never even occurred to anybody to
have any other organization entity other than governments create spacecraft.
We're in the middle of the space race with the Russia.
(17:01):
The government was building those spacecraft. We were building this
our spacecraft with NASA overseeing it. All unlimited budgets, triple redundancy,
insanely expensive and used once. And the analogy is you
build a seven forty seven, you take off from LA
you go to New York, and then you throw it
(17:21):
away and you go, wait a minute, that doesn't make
any sense. Well, that's exactly what we were doing, and
so he changed it all completely. So what I want
to do is come back and give you a little
bit of history, factoids about what happened with Neil's namesake.
(17:41):
For his namesake after How does that work? Namesake? Is
you're named after or someone creates the name that's after you,
Neil Armstrong namesake? Got it all right? I understand now,
thank you. It's in a shafe. It's a nickname for
a wiener. Yeah pretty much, Yeah, thank you so much.
Well said. Now, I want to go back to the
(18:03):
segment that we were doing, and that is Neil's name.
And we know that Neil Savager is named after Neil
Armstrong and buzz Aldrin, so he's Neil Edwin Savadrum. And
then it got me spinning into the space race in
general and what Musk is doing and how he completely
(18:27):
reinvented the way the United States goes into space and
actually now the rest of the world. He has eighty
percent of the entire world market of spacecraft going up.
And so when the space race actually started started in
the fifties, and you know, the first astronauts were all pilots.
They were fighter pilots or they were test pilots for
(18:48):
the CIA. That was President Eisenhower who made that decision saying,
oh no, I want pilots, not that you need pilots
to fly spacecraft, but that was what he said, and
so what happened nas in those days did all of
the work. I mean, it was super complicated. And then
just a quick story. Now we're talking about the moon
(19:10):
shot and the three astronauts that went up into and
landed on the Moon for the first time in history,
and the importance of it, you know, a good part
of the world with watching that live on television, and
the magnitude of man being first on the moon and
the sheer audacity of human kind landing on the moon
(19:34):
the first time that man Americans had landed on the Moon,
and the pictures we saw in the views, I mean,
it was extraordinary. So after the aircraft or the spacecraft
had landed and the astronauts had done their what thirty
days or whatever in over three weeks and solitary confinement,
(19:55):
then in case of any bizarre diseases, then they were
put on world tour as a propaganda you know, just
to show the world how great we are. And it
was a straight propaganda tour, which is fine, and people
were asking him about them all kinds of these questions. Now,
Prince Philip, Queen Elizabeth's husband, was able to get thirty
(20:21):
or fifteen minutes with them, and they were not supposed
to meet with him because it was so rushed, and
he got a private fifteen minute interview, and he kept
on asking especially and by the way, all three of
them had colds at the time, so they were feeling miserable,
and he kept on asking them, did you understand how
big a deal this is? Did you look around and go,
this is the first time man has stepped on the moon.
(20:44):
Did you understand the magnitude of it? And Armstrong said no,
not particularly, and Prince Philip couldn't understand it. You guys
were the first people on the moon. And it turned
out here's a fun factoid part. It turned out it
was no big deal for the three of them. They
(21:07):
were technocrats. They were there to do their job and
that was it. And there in the second by second
they were so full of what they had to do
it was time to the second. They didn't even pay
much attention. They were basically pilots, and they were there
as technology guys who had a job to do, and
(21:28):
they went around and pick up the samples and they
walked around and they're the three people in the world
that literally had no idea of the magnitude of what
they did. Hey, we had a job to do. We
did it. Armstrong was never impressed with the fact that
he was the first guy on the moon. Did you
know that? Never because he just had a job to
(21:49):
do and it happened to be on the moon. You know,
he had been a pilot his entire life, and it
just okay, now what And I find that so interesting
that they were the ones, They were the three people
on the planet that really didn't give a rats about
the fact they were on the Moon. And I don't
know if you knew that, but and I don't care
(22:10):
if you did that or not. I don't care if
you don't care. I find that absolutely fascinating. Okay, there
you go. Kno, did you know that, by the way,
any of that that we didn't land on the moon? Yes, no, idea,
we did land. Well, thank you very much. This is
why Kono will never be promoted. No, I understand that
you knew we landed on the moon, But did you
(22:30):
know the stories behind that? The three guys who didn't
care and they were up there and really didn't pay
attention as to the magnitude of what they did. Yeah,
that makes sense for guys that didn't land on the moon. Yeah, okay,
they did land on the moon. Okay, it makes sense
for guys that didn't land on the moon. They did
land on the moon. Boy. This story is going nowhere
(22:52):
very quickly, but thank you for that. Coming up, it's
Gary and Shannon tomorrow. It's ask Handle Anything following the
food segment of our show Foody Friday, and that starts
at eight o'clock with Neil eight thirty. It's asked Handle Anything.
We've got some great questions, as we usually do, Neil
putting together some really humiliating, embarrassing questions for me. Correct
(23:17):
always best part. Okay, that's what we do every Friday.
So tune in and if you can't, just go to
the podcast on the our Heart Radio iHeart on the
iHeartRadio app and you'll get it all together. And I okay,
oh there you go. We're we're not gonna get emails.
We're not gonna get emails on that one, right, Bill Hamblin. Okay,
(23:43):
five am tomorrow morning. Amy quit laughing to five o'clock
tomorrow morning with Amy and Will and then Neil and
I come aboard and cono and and put all this
together and make me look as stupid, But they don't
have to make me look as stupid as this is
it just that's our show. December twenty. This is KFI
(24:04):
AM six forty. You've been listening to the Bill Handle Show.
Catch my show Monday through Friday, six am to nine am,
and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app
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