January 6, 2026 • 26 mins
(January 06,2025)
40 million Californians just got a permanent delete button for their personal data on the internet. ‘Giving up’ on homeownership leads to riskier investment and less effort at work study says. GPS systems are vulnerable to jamming attacks that could devastate out economy. KFI investigative reporter Michael Monks joins the show to preview his KFI Special airing tomorrow, L.A Fires: One Year Later.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listenings kf I AM six forty the Bill Handles
show on demand on the iHeartRadio f.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Buty F I AM six forty Bill Handle here on
a Tuesday morning, January sixth As we continue on, By
the way, Anne, are we doing ask Handle Anything this week?
Speaker 3 (00:24):
Because Neil normally chooses selects the questions, and are you
going to be doing that?
Speaker 4 (00:30):
I can let me look into what we got. Oh no,
I'm here.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
We can do the holidays. So again I'm just saying,
are we going to even do it? And I guess
we will? And then and will be Neil because Neil
is not here and therefore here's the equation and is Neil?
Speaker 4 (00:44):
And is here therefore and not Neil. That's that's geometry.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
In any case, Ask Handle Anything, you record him, You
record the questions, and what ends up happening is the
questions are selected the ones that embarrass me the most,
and we play them on Friday at eight thirty the
Ask Candle Anything segment and I answer them a hearing
for the first time, much like you do.
Speaker 4 (01:08):
So here is the way we.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
Do it is you go to the iHeartRadio app anytime
during the course of the show, while the show is
being broadcast, and then you click onto the bill handle show.
I think if you go to the app and click
on the KFI, you're going to be having our show on.
And then there's a microphone in the upper right hand
corner and you click on that and it'll give you
(01:31):
ten to fifteen seconds to ask your question. And if
your question is selected, not only do we broadcast and
I answer it, but you also win absolutely nothing. And
that's the kind of questions. Those are the contests that
I like the most. Now, California, forty million of us,
(01:53):
we have a reputation. California has a reputation of not
only the most liberal state by far, but at the
forefront of change, cultural change, and consumer protection. If here's
another one that just came down the pike because under
a California law they just kicked in, we will be
able to use a permanent deleet button on the various
(02:16):
websites and browsers that we use, and it's going to
protect us from personal data that is sold or used
by various advertisers. So on New Year's Day, there's a
new government website that opened up and what it does
is demand and force five hundred intermediaries, data brokers who
(02:40):
pick up your data and turn around and sell it,
and they have to wipe out your personal information from
the data on sale and repeat those deletions regularly. And
it's available only to California residents. We'll see what happens
in the other states. And here's the always talked about
(03:00):
this before. So much of your personal information is amassed
by so many companies that effectively we have no privacy.
That's and getting rid of it. I mean, you can
do it, but you have to be very savvy.
Speaker 4 (03:13):
It takes long. It takes a long time. You have
to know what you're doing. Well. This makes it easy.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
This is going to be a delete button to protect
your information somewhat. As of right now, I can get
you can get from me where I live, where I work.
Speaker 4 (03:30):
I mean that's easy. Where I have.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
Lived, what my Social Security number is, members of my family,
where they live, the jobs they have, the jobs I've had,
names of my kids, what they do, which, by the way,
there's a on that what your kids do. There's also
button that you can press that says nothing, and there
(03:55):
are it's all kinds of personal information that is being used.
The pop up ads that come in all the time
based on your research, based on what you like.
Speaker 4 (04:06):
Well, that's all available and is being sold.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
To these data brokers, or the data brokers are collecting
them and selling them to insurance companies, to advertisers, to
governmental agencies in some cases. And you don't even know
that it's happening. Well, now the law says, you bet you,
it's happening. And so our consumer protection laws have been
passed ay way. This passed in twenty twenty three, and
(04:33):
there's a mandate of a US data privacy history.
Speaker 4 (04:35):
There since then.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
And now the single website has become law.
Speaker 4 (04:42):
It's the Delete Act. And here's what you do. It's there,
it's available.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
And this is an article out of Washington Post in
which the author actually used this.
Speaker 4 (04:54):
You go to the data broker deletion website. It's there.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
You can do an app search on that verify you're
a California resident through a digital identification service that they have.
Then you enter your basic information name, variations of your name,
date of birth, email address, phone number, and that's it
and they have to verify who you are. And once
they do that and use a delete button, that is
(05:20):
going to remove the vast, vast majority of information that
is being sold about you, and data brokers have basically
until the middle of September to act on these deletion
requests because there's a lot of technology involved in this.
And after that there's face daily fines for each unfilled
(05:41):
deletion demand. Now that could be in the millions of
dollars per day. So that's kind of important and that's
going to make them wake up, that's for sure. Now
the data broker deliation deletions won't scrub everything. Uh you know,
for example, voter registration, property records. Uh do you know
(06:04):
why that won't be scrubbed because those are public documents,
that's why.
Speaker 4 (06:09):
And that makes sense.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
So here we are at the forefront of this and
that's kind of a neat idea. So and they don't
have to You don't have to tell them anymore that
you that you choose you choose paper or plastic at
the supermarket, because of course it's only paper.
Speaker 4 (06:26):
Now we knew that now. Uh.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
Something I always talk about is home ownership, and it
is home ownership is something that was the end all
be all as I.
Speaker 4 (06:36):
Was growing up.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
I mean, that was the holy grail of financial stability. Well,
it's tougher today, way tougher today. Home affordability is increasingly
out of reach. So there was a study that was
done about homeowners and home UH and UH home afford ability,
(07:00):
and it was done by some economists doctoral candidates out
of north Western University, and it talked about how people
who cannot afford homes, how they act, and how they
spend and what they do in society economically. These are
economists sing Hung Yong Lie, economists Jung Yun Yo, and
(07:24):
a third No House Yu. Well, actually he is not
part of this study. He dropped out fairly early on.
And they built a mathematical model. And here's the bottom line.
And I didn't even think about this, but it makes sense.
People conclude that if they're never able to afford a home,
(07:45):
that translates into putting less effort into their jobs.
Speaker 4 (07:50):
They tend to spend.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
More on luxuries, do less long term savings, and are
more likely to invest in risk your assets like a
cryptocurrent season.
Speaker 4 (08:00):
I think about this.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
I imagine that if you couldn't afford a home, you
just rented, Okay, life is over in terms of ownership,
with penty of people who just rent and they move on.
Oh no, it is far much farther reaches than that,
because it literally changes.
Speaker 4 (08:18):
The way these folks live.
Speaker 3 (08:20):
Now. I've been a homeowner since I've been in my twenties.
But then again, in my twenties, you could actually afford
a home today. Well I just for example, Soul of
the Persian Palace. I would never be able to move
into that place. I couldn't buy it today. It's just impossible.
Speaker 4 (08:38):
And that's what homes are about.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
Those people that are selling their home, they're moving out,
they're looking at spending insane amounts of money just to
move into another place. I mean, it just changes your
life completely. And so here's a stat. Eighty four percent
of the people born in nineteen fifty became homeowners at
some point in their lives. Okay, eighty four percent born
(09:02):
in nineteen ninety seventy four percent. That's a ten percent drop.
And we just do things that are very different. That's
not just not buying a home or not being able
to afford a home.
Speaker 4 (09:18):
It's anticipating that you.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
Will never own a home, and at that moment, your
life changes. And then it had to do with and
then they went on. It's a little bit more wonky
than that. They tracked five hundred thousand Americans since twenty fourteen,
and they discovered that renters within the top income earning
(09:42):
more than seventy five hundred dollars a month on average,
they pulled back on credit card spending, especially on luxuries
and non necessities. People in the lowest twenty percent earning
less than three thousand dollars a month. That exactly the opposite.
They up their credit card spending. They upped spending money
(10:04):
whatever they had disposable money on vacations.
Speaker 4 (10:08):
So it's exactly opposite of what you think.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
Now there are some economists that say, no, it's way
more complicated than that, because you have to put into
account saving for kids, going to school, activities with your kids,
for example, going to Disneyland and Amy. We can talk
about that because what happens today, Well, you go to well,
for example, vacation, you go to Florida and you spend
(10:36):
a week in Florida with your family in Orlando at
a Disney resort property. That is one of those bucket
lists you save up for years and years to do. That.
Speaker 4 (10:48):
Didn used to be that way.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
Family of four going to Disneyland today can spend eight
hundred dollars for the day.
Speaker 4 (10:55):
So luxuries are far.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
More expensive, and people who have decided that they're never
going to be able to own a home, they're spending
money on that. And the net worth falling below three
hundred thousand dollars. And that's basically where homeowners where people say, okay,
(11:18):
I can afford a home, I'll be able to buy
a home, or even anticipating buying a home. That's where
the that's where critical mass seems to be at three
hundred grand net worth.
Speaker 4 (11:30):
And so what are.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
This is where you've got these these researchers Not only
do they come up with the stats, they also come
up with some proposals that the US government considered grants
for people who are close to giving up, arguing that
it could help them on the path to home ownership.
And is that going to happen anytime in life? No,
(11:54):
of course not. And so there is a company down
payment resources. Strangely enough, it helps connect prospective home buyers
with aid programs that are out there. Say that this
economist suggestion sounds a lot like low or no interest
loans that are already offered to qualified first time buyers.
(12:16):
And according to the CEO, there is plenty of money
twenty six hundred programs across the country, and the CEO said,
I don't think we need more programs. We need to
do a better job of communicating the programs. How are
you going to feel if you have decided you can't
afford a home and you have spent all the money
(12:39):
on what you shouldn't have spend because you're never gonna
have to own it. You're never going to own a home.
You don't have to worry about mortgage, so you're oh.
The other thing is you're not motivated as much at work.
That's another part of the study. You don't work as
hard as you would if you were a homeowner or
saving for a home. Keep in mind this again when
(13:02):
I reiterate, this is only for people who have given
up the hope of buying a house.
Speaker 4 (13:09):
And I get this constantly. I get it from my daughters.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
I even get it from Lindsey who say, you know,
you baby boomers, you've ruined.
Speaker 4 (13:19):
It for all of us.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
And I guess, to the extent we have, or we
just took advantage of what our circumstances we were. We
went to college, you got a good job immediately after college,
you didn't have to worry about it. You wanted a house,
You could probably afford a house. You wanted good money
for what you worked for.
Speaker 4 (13:41):
You were able to do that.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
Life was a lot simpler financially than it is today today,
obviously much much more complicated.
Speaker 4 (13:50):
Most people want a home.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
Very few renders don't want a home until they sit
down and really figure out what does home ownership actually
cost you? A whole lot. I mean, that's a real commitment,
that's real dedication. So if you are a renter and
you've given up, the bottom line, according to the study
(14:13):
that was just done by these economists is you're gonna
work less.
Speaker 4 (14:19):
You're not gonna work as hard.
Speaker 3 (14:21):
You're gonna spend more money going to Disneyland than you
normally would. You are not going to put money for
your kids' education as much as you would because, frankly,
if you're a renter, you just don't care about life.
Speaker 4 (14:38):
Now, Amy, you rent, right, Well, yes, I rent, but
I also I own a home. Oh I just not here. Okay,
So wow, so you're half depressed. Oh I'm mostly depressed. Yeah, okay, yeah,
you work here, that's true.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
Yeah, cono, you're a renter right, Oh yeah, okay, so
do you do you contemplate suicide every day because you're
never gonna be able to afford a home. And and
by the way, is as much joking as I do.
Your wife is an RN correct, and she makes very
good money because our ring is due.
Speaker 4 (15:14):
Yeah, very good money. Well there you go. And are
you an anticipator of owning a home? Yeah, we'll get there. Okay,
you say, okay, then you.
Speaker 3 (15:25):
Are in that category where you do live a life
that you're not spending money on what is considered for qualities.
And I know Anne owns a home, so she's out
of the picture. And will do you rent or do
you live in a tent?
Speaker 4 (15:40):
What do you actually? I currently rent. I've owned a
condo before.
Speaker 5 (15:44):
And I just got to say, even if you own something,
you're still I mean, really, it's the banks you're paying
the bank you're it's it's almost like renting.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
That's a good point, you know that, that is a
decent point. I mean, to really own a home is
to have no mortgage. Yep, that's owning a home. However,
you're still paying for the privilege of owning a home
with these ridiculous property taxes.
Speaker 4 (16:05):
Welcome to California.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
Now I want to talk to you about how our
lives are going to be affected, and not in a
good way. GPS systems and we rely on these GPS systems.
Matter of fact, six billion people, businesses and governments use
GPS and why are they so critical? Well, here's an example.
(16:30):
Pilots flying into Denver International Airport. It just happened recently,
reported to the GPS positioning system that they used to
navigate when haywire and they had to go to a
backup system for more than a day. And the FAA, well,
they issued warnings to air traffic in the entire area.
In October of twenty twenty two, at Dallas Fort Worth
(16:53):
International they shut down a runway as pilots, air traffic
controllers scrambled for over two two.
Speaker 4 (17:00):
Days without GPS.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
Now, the FEDS haven't said who is responsible or I
took so long to get back online, although they did
say this was unintentional. And that's the problem because GPS
systems are vulnerable. They're vulnerable on not only two hackers,
state sponsored hackers. Now, I literally was it in China.
I believe is where we read about there's a building
(17:27):
in China, an entire building staffed by hundreds of people,
and their job is to hack into our financial and
governmental systems. That's what they do. That's their job, and
we're vulnerable. I mean, look at these disruptions. And now
(17:48):
there's a few different kinds of people who do this.
Number one, the state sponsored ones. These are a lot
of them come from Russia with interference with our election.
Oh my god, no that didn't happen. Also, you're talking
about governments that are not on our friendly list. But
you also have private criminals, and we've seen this before
(18:13):
where you have municipalities and hospitals for example, they're hacked
and virus were inserted. This is all done through the Internet,
and they have to pay money, they have to pay
ransomware to allow their system to work again.
Speaker 4 (18:30):
And then there are people that just do it for fun.
They just do it for fun.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
And let me give go back a little bit of history,
before hackers even existed, what they used to do, and
Steven Jobs did this is as a kid and I
had friends that did this. What they would do is
buy is build something called a blue box and the
phone system.
Speaker 4 (18:56):
Was set on these frequencies.
Speaker 3 (18:58):
In other words, you know, had the roto dial system
that connected.
Speaker 4 (19:03):
With and.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
Oh god, there's a word there, analogy not analogy, What
am I looking for?
Speaker 4 (19:12):
Analog? There you go handle working on analog systems.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
And then you had the new system that came into
being with the phone systems where it was electronic and
it was on a high pitched signal, it was a frequency. Well,
what they did with these blue boxes was build these
systems that could mimic the frequencies.
Speaker 4 (19:32):
And I remember, I remember one of the.
Speaker 3 (19:36):
Guys would be built a blue box and was able
to call number in the house. They had two lines,
was able to call the other line by sending the
signal around the world.
Speaker 4 (19:49):
You talk about long distance calls.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
And that was the beginning, certainly in my crew of
the hacking world. Amateurs said, well, of course, then went
into the computer world and it was so been around
for a long time. So there are a lot of
hackers out there that go into these systems just sort
of approve they can. Well, when you go into a
(20:13):
GPS system, now that gets really dangerous. Why is that
Because entire municipalities have water systems are electronic are electrical systems.
The grid is powered by the internet. Finance is powered
by the Internet.
Speaker 4 (20:29):
You keep money in the bank. Guess what that's all
controlled by the Internet, and GPS is, well, it is.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
You'd be surprised how many industries and governmental entities rely
on GPS in and of itself.
Speaker 4 (20:51):
Well, here's a great story I want to share with you.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
That the US has a GPS system, and you think
it'd be international GPS, that everybody would use the same GPS.
Speaker 4 (21:01):
Absolutely not.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
Europe operates its own GPS system, Russia operates its own
GPS system.
Speaker 4 (21:07):
China does.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
China, by the way, has more satellites in orbit than
any other country, and it reached global coverage in twenty twenty.
Speaker 4 (21:15):
It's called the bay Do system I think I pronounced it.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
And the reason that China is becoming so successful at
all of this because China wants to become one of
the world's great power superpowers, and it's moving enormously fast
to do that. So next time you're on an airplane,
I just want to point out that if someone hacks
the GPS system, which is controlling where the plane is going,
(21:42):
there's a very good chance that the plane can't land.
It'll be flying around that will run out of fuel
and they're going to crash and you're going to die.
Oh okay, so much for that. It's an up Tuesday.
Speaker 4 (21:54):
Why not? Okay?
Speaker 3 (21:56):
Now, Michael Monks is with us, Michael who is a
KFI reporter, and he covered the fires, the La fires.
Speaker 4 (22:05):
This is a year later, and there's a special that
is going to.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
Be broadcast tomorrow night at seven pm here on KFI.
Speaker 4 (22:13):
Hey, Michael, you covered the fires.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
I mean you were there on top of them, going
from location to location. So I talk about what we're
going to hear tomorrow night.
Speaker 5 (22:25):
Well, it's been a year since those devastating wildfires took
over LA County, eliminating major parts of Pacific Palisades, Alta, Dina,
parts of Malibu, and there were other fires as well.
We forget that it wasn't just the Palisades, it wasn't
just the Eating Fire. There were a lot of fires
going on, and a lot of damage was suffered, and
not just physical damage. People are still dealing with the
emotional and mental fallout from that. So our special tomorrow
(22:49):
night will focus on a variety of those things. And
I apologize I'm in downtown LA. So you're going to
hear some of the ambient noise of downtown Los Angeles,
including some of the sirens, and goodness knows, there were
plenty of those during the wildfires.
Speaker 4 (23:01):
So we're looking at what happened.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
By the way, excellent segue. How you connected those two.
I must tell you I should get into broadcast. Yeah,
this is why you get paid the big bucks because
you were able to take that and move And I'm thinking, oh, wow,
that wasn't bad.
Speaker 4 (23:13):
Okay, I'm sorry interrupted.
Speaker 5 (23:16):
Yeah, just saying that there's you're dealing with the fire
at the moment, but it it's so much work in
the aftermath of it, and how that work has gone
is one of our focuses for Tomorrow night. How people
are feeling a year later later, just in general, that's
a focus tomorrow. The obstacles they're facing and trying to
(23:38):
rebuild their homes and their lives, the federal investigation from
lawmakers who are not who are not even from California.
We talked to Florida Senator Rick Scott about that. That's
going to be here and Amy King is also featured
in this special as she revisits the Dream Center which
was so helpful during the fire. We talked to them
one year later about their recollections.
Speaker 4 (23:58):
Of that event.
Speaker 3 (23:59):
Hey, let me ask you a couple questions first, and
first of all, of course, you covered what was actually
happening and the people that were being affected, as well
as what was going on at that moment in terms
of the fire. But were you able to get information
or were able to notice what people were thinking looking
(24:22):
like with fire men and women, with firefighters looking at
where they ran out of water at that moment?
Speaker 4 (24:28):
What was the response to that?
Speaker 5 (24:30):
From what you saw, there seems to be official dispute
over what happened with water with resources, and that's not
going to be wrapped up tomorrow night. That's not going
to be wrapped up for some time. You can expect
litigation to continue. You know the law very well. I mean,
there are folks in the Palisades who are hosting a
protest or a rally or a remembrance, however you want
(24:53):
to characterize it, tomorrow morning, and they've called this thing
they let us burn. So that should get you an
indication of the feelings around the response. You have a
fire chief in the city of Los Angeles who was
fired by the mayor over the response to the fire.
But you have a new fire chief who has disputed
some reporting by the La Times that there were firefighters
(25:15):
on the scene of what would later become the Palisades
fire seeing this earlier fire, the Lockman fire, This thing's
not out. Why are we leaving? He disputes that these
text messages exist. So there's a lot of confusion, a
lot of dispute, and we're probably not going to know
all of the answers for quite some time.
Speaker 3 (25:33):
The bottom line is, have the authorities done a decent job?
What grade do you give the fire department, the city,
the insurance companies. It's all over the place, everything from
an F to and A plus, depending on which insurance
company you're dealing with.
Speaker 5 (25:50):
So talked to residents of the Palisades, If you talk
to residents of Alta Dina, if they were handing out scorecards,
I don't think anybody would score higher than a DP plus.
I mean, there are some local elected officials that might
receive higher marks than others, but cumulatively, the response has
not been adequate enough. And it's not just local officials.
I mean, when you're talking about the insurance situation that's
(26:11):
mostly a state issue, and there are folks who are saying,
we can't get insurance, or we can get insurance but
it's not enough, or we can get insurance and it's
way too expensive. The fallout from this is not wrapping
up anytime soon, no kidding.
Speaker 4 (26:26):
All right, Michael.
Speaker 3 (26:27):
That'll be tomorrow night at seven o'clock right here on KFI,
and it's not to be missed. I have a good one,
go and report on something.
Speaker 4 (26:35):
Thanks Bill. Okay, this is KFI AM six point forty.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
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 listenings kf I AM six forty the Bill Handles
show on demand on the iHeartRadio f.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Buty F I AM six forty Bill Handle here on
a Tuesday morning, January sixth As we continue on, By
the way, Anne, are we doing ask Handle Anything this week?
Speaker 3 (00:24):
Because Neil normally chooses selects the questions, and are you
going to be doing that?
Speaker 4 (00:30):
I can let me look into what we got. Oh no,
I'm here.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
We can do the holidays. So again I'm just saying,
are we going to even do it? And I guess
we will? And then and will be Neil because Neil
is not here and therefore here's the equation and is Neil?
Speaker 4 (00:44):
And is here therefore and not Neil. That's that's geometry.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
In any case, Ask Handle Anything, you record him, You
record the questions, and what ends up happening is the
questions are selected the ones that embarrass me the most,
and we play them on Friday at eight thirty the
Ask Candle Anything segment and I answer them a hearing
for the first time, much like you do.
Speaker 4 (01:08):
So here is the way we.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
Do it is you go to the iHeartRadio app anytime
during the course of the show, while the show is
being broadcast, and then you click onto the bill handle show.
I think if you go to the app and click
on the KFI, you're going to be having our show on.
And then there's a microphone in the upper right hand
corner and you click on that and it'll give you
(01:31):
ten to fifteen seconds to ask your question. And if
your question is selected, not only do we broadcast and
I answer it, but you also win absolutely nothing. And
that's the kind of questions. Those are the contests that
I like the most. Now, California, forty million of us,
(01:53):
we have a reputation. California has a reputation of not
only the most liberal state by far, but at the
forefront of change, cultural change, and consumer protection. If here's
another one that just came down the pike because under
a California law they just kicked in, we will be
able to use a permanent deleet button on the various
(02:16):
websites and browsers that we use, and it's going to
protect us from personal data that is sold or used
by various advertisers. So on New Year's Day, there's a
new government website that opened up and what it does
is demand and force five hundred intermediaries, data brokers who
(02:40):
pick up your data and turn around and sell it,
and they have to wipe out your personal information from
the data on sale and repeat those deletions regularly. And
it's available only to California residents. We'll see what happens
in the other states. And here's the always talked about
(03:00):
this before. So much of your personal information is amassed
by so many companies that effectively we have no privacy.
That's and getting rid of it. I mean, you can
do it, but you have to be very savvy.
Speaker 4 (03:13):
It takes long. It takes a long time. You have
to know what you're doing. Well. This makes it easy.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
This is going to be a delete button to protect
your information somewhat. As of right now, I can get
you can get from me where I live, where I work.
Speaker 4 (03:30):
I mean that's easy. Where I have.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
Lived, what my Social Security number is, members of my family,
where they live, the jobs they have, the jobs I've had,
names of my kids, what they do, which, by the way,
there's a on that what your kids do. There's also
button that you can press that says nothing, and there
(03:55):
are it's all kinds of personal information that is being used.
The pop up ads that come in all the time
based on your research, based on what you like.
Speaker 4 (04:06):
Well, that's all available and is being sold.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
To these data brokers, or the data brokers are collecting
them and selling them to insurance companies, to advertisers, to
governmental agencies in some cases. And you don't even know
that it's happening. Well, now the law says, you bet you,
it's happening. And so our consumer protection laws have been
passed ay way. This passed in twenty twenty three, and
(04:33):
there's a mandate of a US data privacy history.
Speaker 4 (04:35):
There since then.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
And now the single website has become law.
Speaker 4 (04:42):
It's the Delete Act. And here's what you do. It's there,
it's available.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
And this is an article out of Washington Post in
which the author actually used this.
Speaker 4 (04:54):
You go to the data broker deletion website. It's there.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
You can do an app search on that verify you're
a California resident through a digital identification service that they have.
Then you enter your basic information name, variations of your name,
date of birth, email address, phone number, and that's it
and they have to verify who you are. And once
they do that and use a delete button, that is
(05:20):
going to remove the vast, vast majority of information that
is being sold about you, and data brokers have basically
until the middle of September to act on these deletion
requests because there's a lot of technology involved in this.
And after that there's face daily fines for each unfilled
(05:41):
deletion demand. Now that could be in the millions of
dollars per day. So that's kind of important and that's
going to make them wake up, that's for sure. Now
the data broker deliation deletions won't scrub everything. Uh you know,
for example, voter registration, property records. Uh do you know
(06:04):
why that won't be scrubbed because those are public documents,
that's why.
Speaker 4 (06:09):
And that makes sense.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
So here we are at the forefront of this and
that's kind of a neat idea. So and they don't
have to You don't have to tell them anymore that
you that you choose you choose paper or plastic at
the supermarket, because of course it's only paper.
Speaker 4 (06:26):
Now we knew that now. Uh.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
Something I always talk about is home ownership, and it
is home ownership is something that was the end all
be all as I.
Speaker 4 (06:36):
Was growing up.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
I mean, that was the holy grail of financial stability. Well,
it's tougher today, way tougher today. Home affordability is increasingly
out of reach. So there was a study that was
done about homeowners and home UH and UH home afford ability,
(07:00):
and it was done by some economists doctoral candidates out
of north Western University, and it talked about how people
who cannot afford homes, how they act, and how they
spend and what they do in society economically. These are
economists sing Hung Yong Lie, economists Jung Yun Yo, and
(07:24):
a third No House Yu. Well, actually he is not
part of this study. He dropped out fairly early on.
And they built a mathematical model. And here's the bottom line.
And I didn't even think about this, but it makes sense.
People conclude that if they're never able to afford a home,
(07:45):
that translates into putting less effort into their jobs.
Speaker 4 (07:50):
They tend to spend.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
More on luxuries, do less long term savings, and are
more likely to invest in risk your assets like a
cryptocurrent season.
Speaker 4 (08:00):
I think about this.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
I imagine that if you couldn't afford a home, you
just rented, Okay, life is over in terms of ownership,
with penty of people who just rent and they move on.
Oh no, it is far much farther reaches than that,
because it literally changes.
Speaker 4 (08:18):
The way these folks live.
Speaker 3 (08:20):
Now. I've been a homeowner since I've been in my twenties.
But then again, in my twenties, you could actually afford
a home today. Well I just for example, Soul of
the Persian Palace. I would never be able to move
into that place. I couldn't buy it today. It's just impossible.
Speaker 4 (08:38):
And that's what homes are about.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
Those people that are selling their home, they're moving out,
they're looking at spending insane amounts of money just to
move into another place. I mean, it just changes your
life completely. And so here's a stat. Eighty four percent
of the people born in nineteen fifty became homeowners at
some point in their lives. Okay, eighty four percent born
(09:02):
in nineteen ninety seventy four percent. That's a ten percent drop.
And we just do things that are very different. That's
not just not buying a home or not being able
to afford a home.
Speaker 4 (09:18):
It's anticipating that you.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
Will never own a home, and at that moment, your
life changes. And then it had to do with and
then they went on. It's a little bit more wonky
than that. They tracked five hundred thousand Americans since twenty fourteen,
and they discovered that renters within the top income earning
(09:42):
more than seventy five hundred dollars a month on average,
they pulled back on credit card spending, especially on luxuries
and non necessities. People in the lowest twenty percent earning
less than three thousand dollars a month. That exactly the opposite.
They up their credit card spending. They upped spending money
(10:04):
whatever they had disposable money on vacations.
Speaker 4 (10:08):
So it's exactly opposite of what you think.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
Now there are some economists that say, no, it's way
more complicated than that, because you have to put into
account saving for kids, going to school, activities with your kids,
for example, going to Disneyland and Amy. We can talk
about that because what happens today, Well, you go to well,
for example, vacation, you go to Florida and you spend
(10:36):
a week in Florida with your family in Orlando at
a Disney resort property. That is one of those bucket
lists you save up for years and years to do. That.
Speaker 4 (10:48):
Didn used to be that way.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
Family of four going to Disneyland today can spend eight
hundred dollars for the day.
Speaker 4 (10:55):
So luxuries are far.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
More expensive, and people who have decided that they're never
going to be able to own a home, they're spending
money on that. And the net worth falling below three
hundred thousand dollars. And that's basically where homeowners where people say, okay,
(11:18):
I can afford a home, I'll be able to buy
a home, or even anticipating buying a home. That's where
the that's where critical mass seems to be at three
hundred grand net worth.
Speaker 4 (11:30):
And so what are.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
This is where you've got these these researchers Not only
do they come up with the stats, they also come
up with some proposals that the US government considered grants
for people who are close to giving up, arguing that
it could help them on the path to home ownership.
And is that going to happen anytime in life? No,
(11:54):
of course not. And so there is a company down
payment resources. Strangely enough, it helps connect prospective home buyers
with aid programs that are out there. Say that this
economist suggestion sounds a lot like low or no interest
loans that are already offered to qualified first time buyers.
(12:16):
And according to the CEO, there is plenty of money
twenty six hundred programs across the country, and the CEO said,
I don't think we need more programs. We need to
do a better job of communicating the programs. How are
you going to feel if you have decided you can't
afford a home and you have spent all the money
(12:39):
on what you shouldn't have spend because you're never gonna
have to own it. You're never going to own a home.
You don't have to worry about mortgage, so you're oh.
The other thing is you're not motivated as much at work.
That's another part of the study. You don't work as
hard as you would if you were a homeowner or
saving for a home. Keep in mind this again when
(13:02):
I reiterate, this is only for people who have given
up the hope of buying a house.
Speaker 4 (13:09):
And I get this constantly. I get it from my daughters.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
I even get it from Lindsey who say, you know,
you baby boomers, you've ruined.
Speaker 4 (13:19):
It for all of us.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
And I guess, to the extent we have, or we
just took advantage of what our circumstances we were. We
went to college, you got a good job immediately after college,
you didn't have to worry about it. You wanted a house,
You could probably afford a house. You wanted good money
for what you worked for.
Speaker 4 (13:41):
You were able to do that.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
Life was a lot simpler financially than it is today today,
obviously much much more complicated.
Speaker 4 (13:50):
Most people want a home.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
Very few renders don't want a home until they sit
down and really figure out what does home ownership actually
cost you? A whole lot. I mean, that's a real commitment,
that's real dedication. So if you are a renter and
you've given up, the bottom line, according to the study
(14:13):
that was just done by these economists is you're gonna
work less.
Speaker 4 (14:19):
You're not gonna work as hard.
Speaker 3 (14:21):
You're gonna spend more money going to Disneyland than you
normally would. You are not going to put money for
your kids' education as much as you would because, frankly,
if you're a renter, you just don't care about life.
Speaker 4 (14:38):
Now, Amy, you rent, right, Well, yes, I rent, but
I also I own a home. Oh I just not here. Okay,
So wow, so you're half depressed. Oh I'm mostly depressed. Yeah, okay, yeah,
you work here, that's true.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
Yeah, cono, you're a renter right, Oh yeah, okay, so
do you do you contemplate suicide every day because you're
never gonna be able to afford a home. And and
by the way, is as much joking as I do.
Your wife is an RN correct, and she makes very
good money because our ring is due.
Speaker 4 (15:14):
Yeah, very good money. Well there you go. And are
you an anticipator of owning a home? Yeah, we'll get there. Okay,
you say, okay, then you.
Speaker 3 (15:25):
Are in that category where you do live a life
that you're not spending money on what is considered for qualities.
And I know Anne owns a home, so she's out
of the picture. And will do you rent or do
you live in a tent?
Speaker 4 (15:40):
What do you actually? I currently rent. I've owned a
condo before.
Speaker 5 (15:44):
And I just got to say, even if you own something,
you're still I mean, really, it's the banks you're paying
the bank you're it's it's almost like renting.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
That's a good point, you know that, that is a
decent point. I mean, to really own a home is
to have no mortgage. Yep, that's owning a home. However,
you're still paying for the privilege of owning a home
with these ridiculous property taxes.
Speaker 4 (16:05):
Welcome to California.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
Now I want to talk to you about how our
lives are going to be affected, and not in a
good way. GPS systems and we rely on these GPS systems.
Matter of fact, six billion people, businesses and governments use
GPS and why are they so critical? Well, here's an example.
(16:30):
Pilots flying into Denver International Airport. It just happened recently,
reported to the GPS positioning system that they used to
navigate when haywire and they had to go to a
backup system for more than a day. And the FAA, well,
they issued warnings to air traffic in the entire area.
In October of twenty twenty two, at Dallas Fort Worth
(16:53):
International they shut down a runway as pilots, air traffic
controllers scrambled for over two two.
Speaker 4 (17:00):
Days without GPS.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
Now, the FEDS haven't said who is responsible or I
took so long to get back online, although they did
say this was unintentional. And that's the problem because GPS
systems are vulnerable. They're vulnerable on not only two hackers,
state sponsored hackers. Now, I literally was it in China.
I believe is where we read about there's a building
(17:27):
in China, an entire building staffed by hundreds of people,
and their job is to hack into our financial and
governmental systems. That's what they do. That's their job, and
we're vulnerable. I mean, look at these disruptions. And now
(17:48):
there's a few different kinds of people who do this.
Number one, the state sponsored ones. These are a lot
of them come from Russia with interference with our election.
Oh my god, no that didn't happen. Also, you're talking
about governments that are not on our friendly list. But
you also have private criminals, and we've seen this before
(18:13):
where you have municipalities and hospitals for example, they're hacked
and virus were inserted. This is all done through the Internet,
and they have to pay money, they have to pay
ransomware to allow their system to work again.
Speaker 4 (18:30):
And then there are people that just do it for fun.
They just do it for fun.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
And let me give go back a little bit of history,
before hackers even existed, what they used to do, and
Steven Jobs did this is as a kid and I
had friends that did this. What they would do is
buy is build something called a blue box and the
phone system.
Speaker 4 (18:56):
Was set on these frequencies.
Speaker 3 (18:58):
In other words, you know, had the roto dial system
that connected.
Speaker 4 (19:03):
With and.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
Oh god, there's a word there, analogy not analogy, What
am I looking for?
Speaker 4 (19:12):
Analog? There you go handle working on analog systems.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
And then you had the new system that came into
being with the phone systems where it was electronic and
it was on a high pitched signal, it was a frequency. Well,
what they did with these blue boxes was build these
systems that could mimic the frequencies.
Speaker 4 (19:32):
And I remember, I remember one of the.
Speaker 3 (19:36):
Guys would be built a blue box and was able
to call number in the house. They had two lines,
was able to call the other line by sending the
signal around the world.
Speaker 4 (19:49):
You talk about long distance calls.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
And that was the beginning, certainly in my crew of
the hacking world. Amateurs said, well, of course, then went
into the computer world and it was so been around
for a long time. So there are a lot of
hackers out there that go into these systems just sort
of approve they can. Well, when you go into a
(20:13):
GPS system, now that gets really dangerous. Why is that
Because entire municipalities have water systems are electronic are electrical systems.
The grid is powered by the internet. Finance is powered
by the Internet.
Speaker 4 (20:29):
You keep money in the bank. Guess what that's all
controlled by the Internet, and GPS is, well, it is.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
You'd be surprised how many industries and governmental entities rely
on GPS in and of itself.
Speaker 4 (20:51):
Well, here's a great story I want to share with you.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
That the US has a GPS system, and you think
it'd be international GPS, that everybody would use the same GPS.
Speaker 4 (21:01):
Absolutely not.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
Europe operates its own GPS system, Russia operates its own
GPS system.
Speaker 4 (21:07):
China does.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
China, by the way, has more satellites in orbit than
any other country, and it reached global coverage in twenty twenty.
Speaker 4 (21:15):
It's called the bay Do system I think I pronounced it.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
And the reason that China is becoming so successful at
all of this because China wants to become one of
the world's great power superpowers, and it's moving enormously fast
to do that. So next time you're on an airplane,
I just want to point out that if someone hacks
the GPS system, which is controlling where the plane is going,
(21:42):
there's a very good chance that the plane can't land.
It'll be flying around that will run out of fuel
and they're going to crash and you're going to die.
Oh okay, so much for that. It's an up Tuesday.
Speaker 4 (21:54):
Why not? Okay?
Speaker 3 (21:56):
Now, Michael Monks is with us, Michael who is a
KFI reporter, and he covered the fires, the La fires.
Speaker 4 (22:05):
This is a year later, and there's a special that
is going to.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
Be broadcast tomorrow night at seven pm here on KFI.
Speaker 4 (22:13):
Hey, Michael, you covered the fires.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
I mean you were there on top of them, going
from location to location. So I talk about what we're
going to hear tomorrow night.
Speaker 5 (22:25):
Well, it's been a year since those devastating wildfires took
over LA County, eliminating major parts of Pacific Palisades, Alta, Dina,
parts of Malibu, and there were other fires as well.
We forget that it wasn't just the Palisades, it wasn't
just the Eating Fire. There were a lot of fires
going on, and a lot of damage was suffered, and
not just physical damage. People are still dealing with the
emotional and mental fallout from that. So our special tomorrow
(22:49):
night will focus on a variety of those things. And
I apologize I'm in downtown LA. So you're going to
hear some of the ambient noise of downtown Los Angeles,
including some of the sirens, and goodness knows, there were
plenty of those during the wildfires.
Speaker 4 (23:01):
So we're looking at what happened.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
By the way, excellent segue. How you connected those two.
I must tell you I should get into broadcast. Yeah,
this is why you get paid the big bucks because
you were able to take that and move And I'm thinking, oh, wow,
that wasn't bad.
Speaker 4 (23:13):
Okay, I'm sorry interrupted.
Speaker 5 (23:16):
Yeah, just saying that there's you're dealing with the fire
at the moment, but it it's so much work in
the aftermath of it, and how that work has gone
is one of our focuses for Tomorrow night. How people
are feeling a year later later, just in general, that's
a focus tomorrow. The obstacles they're facing and trying to
(23:38):
rebuild their homes and their lives, the federal investigation from
lawmakers who are not who are not even from California.
We talked to Florida Senator Rick Scott about that. That's
going to be here and Amy King is also featured
in this special as she revisits the Dream Center which
was so helpful during the fire. We talked to them
one year later about their recollections.
Speaker 4 (23:58):
Of that event.
Speaker 3 (23:59):
Hey, let me ask you a couple questions first, and
first of all, of course, you covered what was actually
happening and the people that were being affected, as well
as what was going on at that moment in terms
of the fire. But were you able to get information
or were able to notice what people were thinking looking
(24:22):
like with fire men and women, with firefighters looking at
where they ran out of water at that moment?
Speaker 4 (24:28):
What was the response to that?
Speaker 5 (24:30):
From what you saw, there seems to be official dispute
over what happened with water with resources, and that's not
going to be wrapped up tomorrow night. That's not going
to be wrapped up for some time. You can expect
litigation to continue. You know the law very well. I mean,
there are folks in the Palisades who are hosting a
protest or a rally or a remembrance, however you want
(24:53):
to characterize it, tomorrow morning, and they've called this thing
they let us burn. So that should get you an
indication of the feelings around the response. You have a
fire chief in the city of Los Angeles who was
fired by the mayor over the response to the fire.
But you have a new fire chief who has disputed
some reporting by the La Times that there were firefighters
(25:15):
on the scene of what would later become the Palisades
fire seeing this earlier fire, the Lockman fire, This thing's
not out. Why are we leaving? He disputes that these
text messages exist. So there's a lot of confusion, a
lot of dispute, and we're probably not going to know
all of the answers for quite some time.
Speaker 3 (25:33):
The bottom line is, have the authorities done a decent job?
What grade do you give the fire department, the city,
the insurance companies. It's all over the place, everything from
an F to and A plus, depending on which insurance
company you're dealing with.
Speaker 5 (25:50):
So talked to residents of the Palisades, If you talk
to residents of Alta Dina, if they were handing out scorecards,
I don't think anybody would score higher than a DP plus.
I mean, there are some local elected officials that might
receive higher marks than others, but cumulatively, the response has
not been adequate enough. And it's not just local officials.
I mean, when you're talking about the insurance situation that's
(26:11):
mostly a state issue, and there are folks who are saying,
we can't get insurance, or we can get insurance but
it's not enough, or we can get insurance and it's
way too expensive. The fallout from this is not wrapping
up anytime soon, no kidding.
Speaker 4 (26:26):
All right, Michael.
Speaker 3 (26:27):
That'll be tomorrow night at seven o'clock right here on KFI,
and it's not to be missed. I have a good one,
go and report on something.
Speaker 4 (26:35):
Thanks Bill. Okay, this is KFI AM six point forty.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
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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