February 5, 2026 • 22 mins
(February 05, 2026)
Host of ‘How to Money’ Joel Larsgaard joins the show to discuss Americans refusing to reduce their travel budgets, Chinse EVs, and in-car ads incoming. The treaty limiting U.S. and Russian nuclear arms expired… what to know. Why a 2026 World Cup boycott is unlikely to be successful.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to bill Handle on demand from KFI A
M six forty.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
KFI AM six forty Bill Handle here on a Thursday morning,
February fifth. And some of the stories we are looking
at mass layoffs continue this past month. Amazon ups. It's
been the worst January for job cuts since the Great Recession,
and so we're on the verge of well, you know,
(00:34):
maybe the bubble bursting or a correction or well some
of the Marcus tanking. I mean, that has to happen.
I mean, what goes up must come down at some point, right,
all right, Joel Larsgard. Every Thursday we have Joel aboard
Joel who is host of How to Money Sunday's twelve
to two pm here on KFI. His social addresses at
(00:56):
how to Money Joel, and you can go to his website,
how Too Money dot com. All good morning, morning, Bille.
All right, let's start right off the bat. And this
is a story that I want to share, and that
is that I am going on vacation coming up end
of September beginning of October. And it is basically it's
(01:21):
a bucket lists vacation for me. It's one of those
that you do once at a lifetime and therein leads
to the story about how even with this economic crisis,
we're looking at Americans, we're just not reducing our travel budgets.
Let's come in on that.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
Yeah, I mean, it's interesting to see what stays and
what goes right when harder economic times hit. And I've
for so many years talked about the value in what
I call a bare bones budget, and that everybody should
essentially create a bearbones budget, which means, like, what could
I get away with the most essential things in my life?
(01:58):
What can I jettison in the ev that I lost
my job or I just had to cut back for
other reasons because took on new expenses. It's just such
a good exercise to say, to just get a good
look at what you're spending on and what you prioritize. Well,
it's interesting Americans, even when times get a little bit tougher,
(02:19):
travel seems to be one of those things that stays
on that bare bones budget, even if other things fall away.
And so there was a study and it said something
like that, like over fifty percent of Americans have will
cut back meaningfully in every other area of their life
in order to keep that travel budget in tact. So
travel is just one of those super sticky things that
(02:40):
people aren't willing to budge on, and they're going to
keep spending on even if you know their finances aren't
looking rosy right now.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Travel exploded right after COVID because everybody was we were
holed up in our homes and any travel budgets we
had were immediately canceled and put on hold. So you
can understand the pent up demand, but it keeps on
going in I'm trying to figure out. I've always thought,
try to figure out why, and that's because travel is
an experience that you don't forget. Now have I forgotten
(03:10):
the pasta dinner I had a week ago, Yeah, that's
not particularly important to me. Where a trip that I
took a year ago to Hawaii, for example, that stays
with me forever. And I think that has a lot
to do with it, one hundred percent.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
And the author and investor Bill Perkins, he talks about
this as the concept of memory dividends. And when you
look at the statistics around travel, or some of the
data around travel, the reason it's so valuable to people
is because it's part of it's just a planning process, right, Like,
let's say you're traveling. You said you're traveling later this fall.
You're already talking about it, you're already thinking about it,
(03:47):
you're already booking places, and so you have this six
eight months worth of build up in anticipation, and then
you go on the trip, and the trip's awesome and
you take pictures and stuff like that. But then you
have this memory dividend on the backside of that trip
as well that you get to you know, you get
to talk with friends and family about and relive those
memories for many many years to come as well. And
(04:08):
so I think that is why travel is such a
sticky thing and why people are reticent to cut back
on their travel spending. I will say this that sometimes
you don't necessarily have to go to Japan or to
Europe or make it some epic vacation that costs tons
(04:29):
of money in order to get that bang for your buck.
So if money is tight and travel is still a priority,
there are ways I think to kind of reduce your
spending so that you're not let's say, going into debt
for that travel, but that you're still getting that experience
in the memory dividend.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Yeah, Well, I'm one, and I was talking to Lindsay
about this. One of the places that I considered was Mexico.
I'm a huge fan of diarrhea, and so I was.
We looked at Mexico and the price was far better.
But you know, again, I've been to Mexico a few times,
and so going to places where I haven't been before,
(05:06):
but you know, prices, I mean, we look at prices
because my income has dropped, like many people, you know,
over the course of the years, and people go, oh,
you're a radio talk show host. Yeah, I have a contract,
and my contract is less than it was four or
five years ago because of the economy, because of the
(05:28):
way what radio is doing, and it goes to streaming
and podcasting. So I pay attention. Just by the way,
just a quick word, if you do go to Mexico,
really stock up on the pepto bismol. That's just advice
from a traveler who is very well experienced. You love Mexico,
(05:49):
It's a great place to visit. It is no, it
is Mexico is kind of neat, especially those street tacos
that are made out of insert name of meat here. Okay,
Joel moving on to EV's and Chinese EV's. Now I
have an EV. I have a Beamer and it's great.
I mean, it's you know, impressive, and I like it
(06:12):
and it works just fine. I'm not keeping the EV.
My lease is up. I have a lease this time around,
and I'm gonna go into an American car, either a
hybrid or a gas power car, because there aren't enough
charging stations out there, and I have range anxiety on
top of that. I don't understand charging stations that aren't
(06:35):
all superchargers where they have regular charging you know ports there,
they take you hours to charge. So I just don't
think that, I know, I mean, I just don't understand
who's gonna sit around for two hours three hours. But
the story is about Chinese EV's, which we don't have
here in this country because of the tariffs. But the Chinese, well,
(06:57):
I mean they've blown past everyone with their EV technology.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
Well, yes, some Chinese EV manufacturers. There are dozens of them,
and there are a few in particular that seem to
be jumping ahead in terms of technology and building a
car that people are really excited about. Right, So, I
don't know how closely you've been following the trend and
the American reviewers getting their hands on on like a
(07:24):
show me in particular, they're like forty thousand dollars sports car.
But this guy, Marky's Browne, who's like one of the
top tech reviewers on YouTube, he got to try one
out and he's like in love with it, like in
in love. And Joanna Stearn from the tech writer for
the Wall Street Journal, same thing. She had the same
experience where she's like she got to test drive the
car for a couple of days and she's like lamenting
(07:45):
its loss now because she doesn't.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Get to keep it.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
And it's kind of crazy when you look at how
good that show me has gotten. When you're reading those
reviews watching the video, she's like, oh my gosh, these
are insanely good cars for forty thousand dollars. How are
they able are able to pull this off? And I
heard an interview with the CEO of Rivian, and I
think Rivian makes some incredible evs too right now. And
(08:08):
one of the things he highlighted, and I think he's
spot on, it's not that these Chinese manufacturers have necessary
In some ways, they found a way to incorporate technology
that makes them more fun, more interesting, more user friendly.
But in other ways. The reason that the cost is
so much lower for these Chinese evs isn't because they've
found some miracle cure to break down the cost structure
(08:30):
and reduce how much it cost to manufacture these cars.
It is the fact that the government in China subsidizes,
essentially builds these factories. I don't know if you've seen
some of the videos.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
Bill, it's crazy. The technology is completely insane, and it's
so of the Chinese. The government wants the Chinese market
for evs. Already, the Chinese sell more around the world
than any other company, any other country. And you're right,
there are dozens of them. Also, have you ever seen
a lease agreement with one of these these Chinese EV cars? No,
(09:03):
I have it. Yeah, there are little rectangular pieces of
paper that are about three inches by about half an inch. Okay,
moving on, Oh.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
Yes, one other thing, one other thing about just when
you look at the videos of what these factories look like,
you know what they have attached to the factories housing
Why Why.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
Is that the case?
Speaker 3 (09:27):
Because the people who work in these factories essentially live
adjacent to them. And the part of the reason Chinese
eb's are so much cheaper. Is because they live in
a society with a lot less freedom of choice.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Also, you've got you know, you've got people that live
in the outlying areas and they go home just for
August or Lunar New Year, and they make two dollars
an hour too, Let's not forget that.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
So that's why these ebs are able to be made
for forty grand and not seventy or eighty grand, which
is if these Chinese companies had to build them in
the United States, they'd still be awesome cars, but they'd
cost a lot more.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Yeah, of course, and if the terriffs are ever lifted,
and they've been one hundred percent tariffs on Chinese cars forever,
I mean, they've been shut out of the American market
ever since Chinese started building evs. But they are extraordinary cars.
What's that company BYD I think is the biggest selling
EV company in the world, and they have the entire
(10:24):
world market South America, Asia, Europe. They sell a ton
of them, just not the US because of that. So again,
as much as I really enjoy my EV and I
get three hundred and three and twenty miles per charge,
it's range anxiety and certainly not enough chargers, although I
(10:45):
don't know how many chargers are out there in the
United States. But now they're starting to build two five
thousand every year, and then real quickly we only have
a minute or so cars getting a lot more techs,
tech savvy in car ads. What is that about?
Speaker 3 (11:05):
Yeah, so you know in these new evs, in these
super tech savvy cars, they're now giant screens. And in
the very beginning of evs, I remember being incredibly attracted.
You see the first Tesla, you know, model three, and
you're like, oh, my gosh, that's screen. You can do
everything from there. You can even like play video games
on it, or or watch videos when you're parked or
(11:26):
something like that.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
How cool is that?
Speaker 3 (11:28):
And it all looks so sleek and so minimal, and
there's just this screen there, and especially to two younger
people who are very screen oriented, they're like, this is great.
But now the manufacturers are saying, oh, we're going to
use that screen that you liked to serve you ads,
and that's a way for us to make more money.
(11:49):
And one of the things I saw interesting, like Ford
apparently just patented a system that's going to serve you
ads based on conversations you're having in the car, So
it's kind of like an election device where it's listening
to everything you're saying to your fellow passengers or if
you talk to yourself like a weirdo or something like that,
and then it's going to serve you ads on your
screen based on what it knows about you. That to
(12:12):
me is frightening and it's probably another reason to drive
an older car and be happy with it.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
Yeah, there's nothing like looking at a screen while you're
driving that really bodes well for safety. What was it? Yeah,
last night I saw a news piece and I only
saw the last part of it where the car itself
is basically a little capsule where you have people sitting
across from each other. Oh yeah, and there was no
(12:40):
driver and there was a fairly big screen where people
were watching TV or movies or whatever because they weren't driving.
And I don't know if that's out. It's probably a prototype,
But do you see something like that coming out soon?
I think that's coming.
Speaker 3 (12:54):
I think that's coming right because Waymo is already like
crushing it with the full self driving and Tesla's doing
solid with that. There was even an announcement this week
from one insurance company called Lemonade that they're going to
reduce insurance costs for Tesla drivers by fifty percent when
they're using full self driving mode. So I think we
just know how safe it is the full self driving
(13:16):
versus humans on their screens trying to drive around on
the streets. And so I do think full self driving,
as it continues to mature, is going to lead to
reduce costs. Although then there's that connectivity issue that frightens
a lot of people.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
All Right, Joel, we'll catch you this Sunday twelve to
two pm. You have a good one, all.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
Right, you too, Bill.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Yesterday a very important treaty expired, and it was the
New Start Treaty, and it was the last remaining nuclear
arms limitation treaty between the US and Russia. Now Russia
said in September it is willing to continue adhering to
the treaty or certain limitations of it for another year. Washington,
(14:01):
the President said, yep, we're good for it, but no
official response yet. So these treaties and New Start was
the last of it. One of the things two things
I remember as a kid in grade school, early days
of grade school, and that is the two items I remember,
and I was I barely remember them, I was so young.
(14:23):
One of them was the states of Alaska and Hawaii.
Those two areas became states in the Union, okay, forty
nine and fifty. The other thing I remember was the
test Ban Treaty that was negotiated with Russia. And what
(14:47):
it did is stopped testing in the atmosphere of nuclear
nuclear weapons. And since then there's been treaty after treaty
after treaty between well, China got involved in treaties after
it became a nuclear power, and certainly Russia in the
United States. So what is the New Start Treaty. Well,
(15:10):
it was signed under President Obama in twenty ten and
came into effect in twenty eleven, and it was agreement
between the US and Russia to reduce the nuclear stockpiles
that each country had, which had ballooned in the early
decades of the Cold War and still by the way,
dwarf any other country. Russia and the US. To give
(15:31):
you an idea, well, let me go through this and
then I'm going to come up with a stat that
is just a stunner, all right. It followed other agreements
between the countries, all aimed at limiting the arsenals. And
the treaty was agreed for for ten years, permitted one
five year extension, and that was agreed to under the
Biden administration and it ended yesterday. And what is it about.
(15:56):
What is the point of this treaty? It promoted and
I'm going to quote now, predict predict predictability, predictability, yes, exactly,
transparency and stability through robust verification protocols. According to Georgia Cole,
a research analysts at Chathamhouse, a British foreign policy thing tank,
(16:17):
do you remember President Reagan in one of the negotiations
of a treaty with the Russia, said believe true, but verify.
And that's what this is about. So the deal limited
both countries to seven hundred deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine
(16:38):
launched ballistic missiles, heavy bombers equipped to transport nuclear weapons.
I mean that is seven hundred of those fifteen hundred
and fifty nuclear warheads on these vehicles and eight hundred
deployed and non deployed launchers. Also placed some limits on
(16:59):
Russian intercontent nuclear weapons that could reach the US okay,
and the treaty provided for eighteen on site inspections every
year each side, although this hasn't happened in several years.
So you just heard those numbers. At the height of
the Cold War, at the height of I'm going to
(17:21):
build more than you are going to build, the United
States had almost thirty thousand nuclear warheads. Can you imagine
thirty thousand pieces of nuclear war I mean, come on,
you think that's enough to blow up the world. And
(17:41):
so both Russia and the US, those are the big players, decided, okay,
we've got to calm this down. And a lot of
people think, and I think it's true. The reason we
had so many and the reason we didn't go to
war was because of MAD. And that is mutually assured
(18:01):
destruction MAD. Right, if you launch, We're going to launch,
and both countries are going to be wiped out completely.
There will be nothing left. Both of the entire countries
will be a parking lot, except it would be a
rubble parking lot. So that held everybody off because of
fear of what a nuclear weapon can do. When you
(18:22):
look at video of what happened at Hiroshima and Nagasaki
at the end of World War two, which is credited
with ending World War two. The destruction. This was a
single bomb that wiped out on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, one
bomb each, and I believe Hiroshima was twenty thousand tons
(18:43):
of TNT the equivalent of that. And then you had
hydrogen bombs, and now we're talking thousands of degrees of
magnitude over those bombs. A single bomb can take out
I mean Los Angeles, New York. I mean, we're done.
And so no, everybody is and should be frightened of
(19:05):
even beginning to think of a nuclear war. And that's
so far. Even crazy people who have nuclear weapons read
you know, Kim Jong un is kind of afraid to
do anything with it. Okay, and you let me tell
you you're going to missing missing some great stuff. Just
(19:26):
ask me, because I know right right, all right, I
want to finish the conversation about the New Start Treaty,
which ended yesterday. It was the last of the treaties
between the US and Russia, and it was about limiting
both countries nuclear arsenals and ensuring verification. Well, the ensuring
(19:49):
verification has disappeared, and we are at a real crossroads.
We have not had such a horrible relationship with Russia
for many years, particularly after the Ukraine and invasion, and
so as of yesterday, we're done. We have no treaties
with Russia, and now we're back to well, it's not true.
(20:11):
We've had treaties with Russia non stop now since the sixties,
with the test ban treaty, with nuclear testing, testing of
nuclear weapons in the atmosphere. You imagine what that was
happening with radioactivity and radioactive rain. So as of right now,
everybody is we're sort of scrambling, and Russia says will
(20:35):
extend for another year. President Trump said that's fine, except
he has an officially responded. And then we have the
doomsday clock, which I told you about. These are a
group of scientists who get together and every year or
every few months this clock and when it hits midnight,
(20:56):
that's when the world disappears, catastrophe happens, and we're blown
to bits. We're at eighty five seconds from that, according
to the clock, and which means we're the closest there
than I think we've ever been. No, yeah, maybe during
the Cuban missile crisis we were close to that. By
(21:16):
the way, the doomsday clock was created in the late forties,
I think right after World War Two, after the two bombs,
the United States dropped on the two cities Hiroshima and Nangasaki,
which to this date and this is always the attack
and it's legitimate, the only time that or times that
(21:39):
nuclear weapons were used, was the United States bombing those
two Japanese cities. All right, guys, we are done finish
Chow Baby. Tomorrow is we have a fun day tomorrow
eight o'clock. It's Footy Friday, Ask candle anything, and a
few other topics we're going to talk about. And so
coming up is Gary and Shannon. We're back again tomorrow
(22:01):
again starting We're back again tomorrow again and again Tomorrow
starts at five o'clock wake up call with Amy and
Will Coleschreiber and then Neil and I jump aboard. And
of course the two people that keep the show running,
which is why we have such crappy ratings and rankings
are Cono and Ann and congratulations, thank you so much
(22:27):
for your efforts. This is KFI AM six. 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 A
M six forty.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
KFI AM six forty Bill Handle here on a Thursday morning,
February fifth. And some of the stories we are looking
at mass layoffs continue this past month. Amazon ups. It's
been the worst January for job cuts since the Great Recession,
and so we're on the verge of well, you know,
(00:34):
maybe the bubble bursting or a correction or well some
of the Marcus tanking. I mean, that has to happen.
I mean, what goes up must come down at some point, right,
all right, Joel Larsgard. Every Thursday we have Joel aboard
Joel who is host of How to Money Sunday's twelve
to two pm here on KFI. His social addresses at
(00:56):
how to Money Joel, and you can go to his website,
how Too Money dot com. All good morning, morning, Bille.
All right, let's start right off the bat. And this
is a story that I want to share, and that
is that I am going on vacation coming up end
of September beginning of October. And it is basically it's
(01:21):
a bucket lists vacation for me. It's one of those
that you do once at a lifetime and therein leads
to the story about how even with this economic crisis,
we're looking at Americans, we're just not reducing our travel budgets.
Let's come in on that.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
Yeah, I mean, it's interesting to see what stays and
what goes right when harder economic times hit. And I've
for so many years talked about the value in what
I call a bare bones budget, and that everybody should
essentially create a bearbones budget, which means, like, what could
I get away with the most essential things in my life?
(01:58):
What can I jettison in the ev that I lost
my job or I just had to cut back for
other reasons because took on new expenses. It's just such
a good exercise to say, to just get a good
look at what you're spending on and what you prioritize. Well,
it's interesting Americans, even when times get a little bit tougher,
(02:19):
travel seems to be one of those things that stays
on that bare bones budget, even if other things fall away.
And so there was a study and it said something
like that, like over fifty percent of Americans have will
cut back meaningfully in every other area of their life
in order to keep that travel budget in tact. So
travel is just one of those super sticky things that
(02:40):
people aren't willing to budge on, and they're going to
keep spending on even if you know their finances aren't
looking rosy right now.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Travel exploded right after COVID because everybody was we were
holed up in our homes and any travel budgets we
had were immediately canceled and put on hold. So you
can understand the pent up demand, but it keeps on
going in I'm trying to figure out. I've always thought,
try to figure out why, and that's because travel is
an experience that you don't forget. Now have I forgotten
(03:10):
the pasta dinner I had a week ago, Yeah, that's
not particularly important to me. Where a trip that I
took a year ago to Hawaii, for example, that stays
with me forever. And I think that has a lot
to do with it, one hundred percent.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
And the author and investor Bill Perkins, he talks about
this as the concept of memory dividends. And when you
look at the statistics around travel, or some of the
data around travel, the reason it's so valuable to people
is because it's part of it's just a planning process, right, Like,
let's say you're traveling. You said you're traveling later this fall.
You're already talking about it, you're already thinking about it,
(03:47):
you're already booking places, and so you have this six
eight months worth of build up in anticipation, and then
you go on the trip, and the trip's awesome and
you take pictures and stuff like that. But then you
have this memory dividend on the backside of that trip
as well that you get to you know, you get
to talk with friends and family about and relive those
memories for many many years to come as well. And
(04:08):
so I think that is why travel is such a
sticky thing and why people are reticent to cut back
on their travel spending. I will say this that sometimes
you don't necessarily have to go to Japan or to
Europe or make it some epic vacation that costs tons
(04:29):
of money in order to get that bang for your buck.
So if money is tight and travel is still a priority,
there are ways I think to kind of reduce your
spending so that you're not let's say, going into debt
for that travel, but that you're still getting that experience
in the memory dividend.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Yeah, Well, I'm one, and I was talking to Lindsay
about this. One of the places that I considered was Mexico.
I'm a huge fan of diarrhea, and so I was.
We looked at Mexico and the price was far better.
But you know, again, I've been to Mexico a few times,
and so going to places where I haven't been before,
(05:06):
but you know, prices, I mean, we look at prices
because my income has dropped, like many people, you know,
over the course of the years, and people go, oh,
you're a radio talk show host. Yeah, I have a contract,
and my contract is less than it was four or
five years ago because of the economy, because of the
(05:28):
way what radio is doing, and it goes to streaming
and podcasting. So I pay attention. Just by the way,
just a quick word, if you do go to Mexico,
really stock up on the pepto bismol. That's just advice
from a traveler who is very well experienced. You love Mexico,
(05:49):
It's a great place to visit. It is no, it
is Mexico is kind of neat, especially those street tacos
that are made out of insert name of meat here. Okay,
Joel moving on to EV's and Chinese EV's. Now I
have an EV. I have a Beamer and it's great.
I mean, it's you know, impressive, and I like it
(06:12):
and it works just fine. I'm not keeping the EV.
My lease is up. I have a lease this time around,
and I'm gonna go into an American car, either a
hybrid or a gas power car, because there aren't enough
charging stations out there, and I have range anxiety on
top of that. I don't understand charging stations that aren't
(06:35):
all superchargers where they have regular charging you know ports there,
they take you hours to charge. So I just don't
think that, I know, I mean, I just don't understand
who's gonna sit around for two hours three hours. But
the story is about Chinese EV's, which we don't have
here in this country because of the tariffs. But the Chinese, well,
(06:57):
I mean they've blown past everyone with their EV technology.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
Well, yes, some Chinese EV manufacturers. There are dozens of them,
and there are a few in particular that seem to
be jumping ahead in terms of technology and building a
car that people are really excited about. Right, So, I
don't know how closely you've been following the trend and
the American reviewers getting their hands on on like a
(07:24):
show me in particular, they're like forty thousand dollars sports car.
But this guy, Marky's Browne, who's like one of the
top tech reviewers on YouTube, he got to try one
out and he's like in love with it, like in
in love. And Joanna Stearn from the tech writer for
the Wall Street Journal, same thing. She had the same
experience where she's like she got to test drive the
car for a couple of days and she's like lamenting
(07:45):
its loss now because she doesn't.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Get to keep it.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
And it's kind of crazy when you look at how
good that show me has gotten. When you're reading those
reviews watching the video, she's like, oh my gosh, these
are insanely good cars for forty thousand dollars. How are
they able are able to pull this off? And I
heard an interview with the CEO of Rivian, and I
think Rivian makes some incredible evs too right now. And
(08:08):
one of the things he highlighted, and I think he's
spot on, it's not that these Chinese manufacturers have necessary
In some ways, they found a way to incorporate technology
that makes them more fun, more interesting, more user friendly.
But in other ways. The reason that the cost is
so much lower for these Chinese evs isn't because they've
found some miracle cure to break down the cost structure
(08:30):
and reduce how much it cost to manufacture these cars.
It is the fact that the government in China subsidizes,
essentially builds these factories. I don't know if you've seen
some of the videos.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
Bill, it's crazy. The technology is completely insane, and it's
so of the Chinese. The government wants the Chinese market
for evs. Already, the Chinese sell more around the world
than any other company, any other country. And you're right,
there are dozens of them. Also, have you ever seen
a lease agreement with one of these these Chinese EV cars? No,
(09:03):
I have it. Yeah, there are little rectangular pieces of
paper that are about three inches by about half an inch. Okay,
moving on, Oh.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
Yes, one other thing, one other thing about just when
you look at the videos of what these factories look like,
you know what they have attached to the factories housing
Why Why.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
Is that the case?
Speaker 3 (09:27):
Because the people who work in these factories essentially live
adjacent to them. And the part of the reason Chinese
eb's are so much cheaper. Is because they live in
a society with a lot less freedom of choice.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Also, you've got you know, you've got people that live
in the outlying areas and they go home just for
August or Lunar New Year, and they make two dollars
an hour too, Let's not forget that.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
So that's why these ebs are able to be made
for forty grand and not seventy or eighty grand, which
is if these Chinese companies had to build them in
the United States, they'd still be awesome cars, but they'd
cost a lot more.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Yeah, of course, and if the terriffs are ever lifted,
and they've been one hundred percent tariffs on Chinese cars forever,
I mean, they've been shut out of the American market
ever since Chinese started building evs. But they are extraordinary cars.
What's that company BYD I think is the biggest selling
EV company in the world, and they have the entire
(10:24):
world market South America, Asia, Europe. They sell a ton
of them, just not the US because of that. So again,
as much as I really enjoy my EV and I
get three hundred and three and twenty miles per charge,
it's range anxiety and certainly not enough chargers, although I
(10:45):
don't know how many chargers are out there in the
United States. But now they're starting to build two five
thousand every year, and then real quickly we only have
a minute or so cars getting a lot more techs,
tech savvy in car ads. What is that about?
Speaker 3 (11:05):
Yeah, so you know in these new evs, in these
super tech savvy cars, they're now giant screens. And in
the very beginning of evs, I remember being incredibly attracted.
You see the first Tesla, you know, model three, and
you're like, oh, my gosh, that's screen. You can do
everything from there. You can even like play video games
on it, or or watch videos when you're parked or
(11:26):
something like that.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
How cool is that?
Speaker 3 (11:28):
And it all looks so sleek and so minimal, and
there's just this screen there, and especially to two younger
people who are very screen oriented, they're like, this is great.
But now the manufacturers are saying, oh, we're going to
use that screen that you liked to serve you ads,
and that's a way for us to make more money.
(11:49):
And one of the things I saw interesting, like Ford
apparently just patented a system that's going to serve you
ads based on conversations you're having in the car, So
it's kind of like an election device where it's listening
to everything you're saying to your fellow passengers or if
you talk to yourself like a weirdo or something like that,
and then it's going to serve you ads on your
screen based on what it knows about you. That to
(12:12):
me is frightening and it's probably another reason to drive
an older car and be happy with it.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
Yeah, there's nothing like looking at a screen while you're
driving that really bodes well for safety. What was it? Yeah,
last night I saw a news piece and I only
saw the last part of it where the car itself
is basically a little capsule where you have people sitting
across from each other. Oh yeah, and there was no
(12:40):
driver and there was a fairly big screen where people
were watching TV or movies or whatever because they weren't driving.
And I don't know if that's out. It's probably a prototype,
But do you see something like that coming out soon?
I think that's coming.
Speaker 3 (12:54):
I think that's coming right because Waymo is already like
crushing it with the full self driving and Tesla's doing
solid with that. There was even an announcement this week
from one insurance company called Lemonade that they're going to
reduce insurance costs for Tesla drivers by fifty percent when
they're using full self driving mode. So I think we
just know how safe it is the full self driving
(13:16):
versus humans on their screens trying to drive around on
the streets. And so I do think full self driving,
as it continues to mature, is going to lead to
reduce costs. Although then there's that connectivity issue that frightens
a lot of people.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
All Right, Joel, we'll catch you this Sunday twelve to
two pm. You have a good one, all.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
Right, you too, Bill.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Yesterday a very important treaty expired, and it was the
New Start Treaty, and it was the last remaining nuclear
arms limitation treaty between the US and Russia. Now Russia
said in September it is willing to continue adhering to
the treaty or certain limitations of it for another year. Washington,
(14:01):
the President said, yep, we're good for it, but no
official response yet. So these treaties and New Start was
the last of it. One of the things two things
I remember as a kid in grade school, early days
of grade school, and that is the two items I remember,
and I was I barely remember them, I was so young.
(14:23):
One of them was the states of Alaska and Hawaii.
Those two areas became states in the Union, okay, forty
nine and fifty. The other thing I remember was the
test Ban Treaty that was negotiated with Russia. And what
(14:47):
it did is stopped testing in the atmosphere of nuclear
nuclear weapons. And since then there's been treaty after treaty
after treaty between well, China got involved in treaties after
it became a nuclear power, and certainly Russia in the
United States. So what is the New Start Treaty. Well,
(15:10):
it was signed under President Obama in twenty ten and
came into effect in twenty eleven, and it was agreement
between the US and Russia to reduce the nuclear stockpiles
that each country had, which had ballooned in the early
decades of the Cold War and still by the way,
dwarf any other country. Russia and the US. To give
(15:31):
you an idea, well, let me go through this and
then I'm going to come up with a stat that
is just a stunner, all right. It followed other agreements
between the countries, all aimed at limiting the arsenals. And
the treaty was agreed for for ten years, permitted one
five year extension, and that was agreed to under the
Biden administration and it ended yesterday. And what is it about.
(15:56):
What is the point of this treaty? It promoted and
I'm going to quote now, predict predict predictability, predictability, yes, exactly,
transparency and stability through robust verification protocols. According to Georgia Cole,
a research analysts at Chathamhouse, a British foreign policy thing tank,
(16:17):
do you remember President Reagan in one of the negotiations
of a treaty with the Russia, said believe true, but verify.
And that's what this is about. So the deal limited
both countries to seven hundred deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine
(16:38):
launched ballistic missiles, heavy bombers equipped to transport nuclear weapons.
I mean that is seven hundred of those fifteen hundred
and fifty nuclear warheads on these vehicles and eight hundred
deployed and non deployed launchers. Also placed some limits on
(16:59):
Russian intercontent nuclear weapons that could reach the US okay,
and the treaty provided for eighteen on site inspections every
year each side, although this hasn't happened in several years.
So you just heard those numbers. At the height of
the Cold War, at the height of I'm going to
(17:21):
build more than you are going to build, the United
States had almost thirty thousand nuclear warheads. Can you imagine
thirty thousand pieces of nuclear war I mean, come on,
you think that's enough to blow up the world. And
(17:41):
so both Russia and the US, those are the big players, decided, okay,
we've got to calm this down. And a lot of
people think, and I think it's true. The reason we
had so many and the reason we didn't go to
war was because of MAD. And that is mutually assured
(18:01):
destruction MAD. Right, if you launch, We're going to launch,
and both countries are going to be wiped out completely.
There will be nothing left. Both of the entire countries
will be a parking lot, except it would be a
rubble parking lot. So that held everybody off because of
fear of what a nuclear weapon can do. When you
(18:22):
look at video of what happened at Hiroshima and Nagasaki
at the end of World War two, which is credited
with ending World War two. The destruction. This was a
single bomb that wiped out on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, one
bomb each, and I believe Hiroshima was twenty thousand tons
(18:43):
of TNT the equivalent of that. And then you had
hydrogen bombs, and now we're talking thousands of degrees of
magnitude over those bombs. A single bomb can take out
I mean Los Angeles, New York. I mean, we're done.
And so no, everybody is and should be frightened of
(19:05):
even beginning to think of a nuclear war. And that's
so far. Even crazy people who have nuclear weapons read
you know, Kim Jong un is kind of afraid to
do anything with it. Okay, and you let me tell
you you're going to missing missing some great stuff. Just
(19:26):
ask me, because I know right right, all right, I
want to finish the conversation about the New Start Treaty,
which ended yesterday. It was the last of the treaties
between the US and Russia, and it was about limiting
both countries nuclear arsenals and ensuring verification. Well, the ensuring
(19:49):
verification has disappeared, and we are at a real crossroads.
We have not had such a horrible relationship with Russia
for many years, particularly after the Ukraine and invasion, and
so as of yesterday, we're done. We have no treaties
with Russia, and now we're back to well, it's not true.
(20:11):
We've had treaties with Russia non stop now since the sixties,
with the test ban treaty, with nuclear testing, testing of
nuclear weapons in the atmosphere. You imagine what that was
happening with radioactivity and radioactive rain. So as of right now,
everybody is we're sort of scrambling, and Russia says will
(20:35):
extend for another year. President Trump said that's fine, except
he has an officially responded. And then we have the
doomsday clock, which I told you about. These are a
group of scientists who get together and every year or
every few months this clock and when it hits midnight,
(20:56):
that's when the world disappears, catastrophe happens, and we're blown
to bits. We're at eighty five seconds from that, according
to the clock, and which means we're the closest there
than I think we've ever been. No, yeah, maybe during
the Cuban missile crisis we were close to that. By
(21:16):
the way, the doomsday clock was created in the late forties,
I think right after World War Two, after the two bombs,
the United States dropped on the two cities Hiroshima and Nangasaki,
which to this date and this is always the attack
and it's legitimate, the only time that or times that
(21:39):
nuclear weapons were used, was the United States bombing those
two Japanese cities. All right, guys, we are done finish
Chow Baby. Tomorrow is we have a fun day tomorrow
eight o'clock. It's Footy Friday, Ask candle anything, and a
few other topics we're going to talk about. And so
coming up is Gary and Shannon. We're back again tomorrow
(22:01):
again starting We're back again tomorrow again and again Tomorrow
starts at five o'clock wake up call with Amy and
Will Coleschreiber and then Neil and I jump aboard. And
of course the two people that keep the show running,
which is why we have such crappy ratings and rankings
are Cono and Ann and congratulations, thank you so much
(22:27):
for your efforts. This is KFI AM six. 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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