January 29, 2025 • 25 mins
A slimmed down LAPD seems here to stay. Will the city still be safe? Trump’s tariffs could raise car prices at dealerships. Gym regulars can’t wait for you to quit your resolution.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from KFI AM
six forty KFI AM six forty handle here on a
Wednesday morning. A lot going on today. Robert Kennedy in
front of a Senate confirmation panel by He's got some
splaining to do, Lucy for sure, and Google has complied.
(00:21):
It is now the Gulf of America. All Google Maps
will indicate Gulf of America. Also, Mount McKinley is back
to Mount McKinley instead of Denali, which it has been
for three hundred years. Gulf of Mexico has been around
for four hundred years. Hey, we change, We change. Now.
I want to talk about the LAPD because it's again
(00:45):
the issue has come up. We go back to We'll
go back. Last year Mayor Karen Bass of LA gave
pay raises to the rank and file cops and what
she did sold it to us as an investment towards
regrowing the LAPD to ninety five hundred members, which it
(01:10):
was before the election in twenty twenty two. Now it
should be around from what I understand, about ten thousand.
That's what sort of the general feeling is among folks
that are in the police world. Ninety five hundred is
just north of adequate. Adequate being C it's a C
plus ten thousand being a okay. So since then you've
(01:37):
got the mayor and leaders in the LAPD continuing to
project optimism about reaching that goal of ninety five hundred members.
O contraire peer ain't gonna happen because behind the scenes,
the cops, the officials are starting to confront the reality
(01:58):
it's not going to have and anytime soon, and acknowledging
that the department may even continue to shrink. It is
now at eighty six hundred and twenty cops and it's
going to continue below that, so twenty percent less than
it should be. Recruiting shortfalls, there's attrition. Leaders expect this
(02:24):
year to lose more than one hundred and fifty police
officers and that's the lowest deployment of cops in roughly
thirty years. And I'm going to give you some reasons now.
During public appearances, Bass, the Chief of Police, Jim McDonnell,
other leaders still marking the case, still making the case
(02:44):
the department needs to grow. We need more manpower to
maintain public safety while the department is shrinking. Wait a minute,
if it's if we need to grow, but what's going on.
Don't tell us that it's growing when it's not growing.
A couple things. The Palisades fire just showed the department
(03:07):
can be stretched very thin during a major disaster. We've
got the upcoming World Cup, we have the Olympic Games
in twenty twenty eight. All have massive security challenges. Now
here's the other side of it, and I'm going to
continue on in a minute. The LAPD has gotten smaller,
but by some measures, the city is becoming safer. Many
(03:31):
types of violent crime are down. This is police Department data,
especially homicides and shootings, and that's a year's long decline,
So less of a chance that you get shot or killed,
more of a chance that you get graffitied, burglarized, car
(03:52):
broken into, car, stolen. LAPD leaders have debated for a
long time how many cops are really necessary. The push
has always been for more manpower, more cops, but now
some are saying, wait a minute. Even though the city
itself is saying we need more cops, the police department
(04:14):
is saying we need more cops. While cops are shrinking,
some are saying, wait a minute, you know what, Maybe
we don't now keep in mind the city of Houston
and Chicago much smaller city to police, however, many more cops.
I think the city of New York has fifteen or
(04:36):
twenty thousand police officers. I mean, it's a lot of people.
But the city of New York is about the size
of the Sherman Oaks Galley, isn't it where they cram
ten million people in, Yet it has substantially more police officers.
We don't have many cops in our city relative to
the size of our city. So what's going on? Well,
(05:01):
a lot of things are happening with no money. Nine
to one one calls, it's getting longer and longer. Have
you called nine one one recently, You're on hold, you
get a menu. HI, your call is very important to us,
so hang on. Then. If this is a real emergency,
press number one. If it's only a moderate emergency, press
(05:23):
number two. And sometimes I love these menu calls. You
have between ten and twelve minutes before your call is answered,
sometimes twenty to twenty five minutes. I have called nine
to one one calls when I've seen a crash on
the freeway, and I'll immediately call nine one one, And
I'm going from La to Orange County. I actually reach
(05:46):
Orange County before they get on the phone. That's part
of our system where they're just ain't enough money. Now
I have lived in Los Angeles, although now I live
in Orange County, but I still come up to Los
Angeles all the time. The LAPD is a big deal,
always has been. And if we go back in history
(06:07):
and I remember this, it wasn't that long ago where
police officers were some of the most respected members of society.
Ha think that's happening anymore. It's not so we're short
of police officers. We should have ten thousand. Matter of fact,
well you've got the official saying, okay, we'll take ninety
(06:29):
five hundred, not ten thousand. Okay, the problem is there's
eighty six hundred and it is dropping. Just to give
you an idea, the last class, the academy class had
a big twenty one cops in it. That's it. Cops
are not coming to the table. We don't have enough
(06:50):
of them. Although the city and Karen Bass said we're growing, well,
in reality we're shrinking. And what are they doing. The
city is doing plenty. First of all, older cops saying
we'll pay you a ton of money. Retired cops come
(07:10):
back trying to get new cops raising the money. Now
here's the stat for you, which I found kind of interesting.
As a starting cop in Los Angeles, you can get
as much as eighty six thousand dollars. Now, I'm assuming
(07:33):
those are cops that are coming from other agencies, or
they have a bachelor's degree or accommodation or in the military,
and all of that has points. But up to eighty
six thousand dollars, I think the starting rate is over
fifty fifty five thousand dollars. If you have no experience,
you're a brand new cop. The contract ratified in the
fall of twenty twenty three, starting salary increased eighty six
(07:56):
thousand dollars by nearly thirteen percent since the previous com
tract and guaranteed thirty three percent annual raises. So LAPD
starting salaries are higher than Pasadena Long Beach Burbank. But
if you become a comp in Beverly Hills or Santa Monica,
the pay is even better. City council signed off on
(08:21):
the raises. And of course there are those that are
against cops or increasing the number of cops, and a
lot of that happened from the George Floyd incident in
the Minneapolis Police Department. Of course, murdered or officer Chauvin,
the previous officer Chauvin the erstwhile officer Chauvin killed George Floyd,
(08:43):
murdered him and is in jail for decades and decades.
All of a sudden, police were bad, bad guys, and
there was a move to defund even dismantle the police completely.
And the reason is, well, frankly, stupidity. Now, council Member
Nthya Rama, and have to be fair, she is not
calling for defunding. She is calling against the raises because
(09:10):
she was convinced they would that they wouldn't fix the
real problem. And what's the real problem. Well, the real
problem is how we deal with crime. See there's a
philosophy there that criminals are criminals because it's our fault,
it's society's fault. And so how do we deal with society? Well,
(09:35):
what we do is we need a holistic alternative response.
She says, hiring more cops now is distracting from the development.
This is a quote, by the way, hiring the fixation
on hiring more cops now is distracting from the development
and long term investment in community led programs that research
(09:55):
has shown more effective in addressing the underlying causes of crime.
All right, so let me ask you a question, and
that is, we want to cut the budget or not
increase the budget of the police force, per this council member,
And what we want to do is invest in community projects,
after school programs, dealing with the kids out of areas
(10:19):
that are high crime rates. You got areas that have
gang bangers, you got areas that don't have really good schools.
We're talking about minority areas that have high crime rates.
So let's put a pile of money into those areas
for community projects versus hiring a cop. Now, I am
(10:40):
guessing that a holistic approach would increase the budget of
these community programs by billion, well at least hundreds of
millions of dollars. The police department, by the way, has
north of a billion dollar budget. I mean, this is
no small way. Now, what is happening is young people
(11:04):
are not coming into the police department because well, police
departments are not viewed very favorably. People don't want to
be cops. So they're advertising on TikTok, they're doing marketing
and it's not working. How do you get people? Well,
(11:25):
I have some ideas of marketing. I mean, if I
was the marketing person marketing manager for the LAPD and
I was hired, I take out the billboards, big letters,
you get to kill people. That would get me going.
(11:45):
As a matter of fact, I want to share with
you a quick story. One of the chief police officers
years and years ago kept on inviting me to go
on a ride along with the police. I don't know
if you've ever been or know someone that's on a
ride a line that they let you go. And it's
the real stuff too. It's not just you buzz around
(12:07):
the city and you patrol. When the cop is called
and you're in the car, you're on your way, and
if it's a shooting, you're there and they tell you
get the hell out of the way and you're told
you're warned. And I kept on asking, or I was
asked a bill you want to do it? And I
was supposed to talk about it because ostensibly, well I
(12:29):
love the police anyways, I've always been so pro police,
and they know it, so I didn't need that to
show how great the cops were. And I kept on
saying and asking do I get to shoot anybody? And
they said no, And I replied with then why would
I want to go on a ride along to watch
(12:53):
you guys shoot someone. I want to do it. Can't
do it, damn it. So the problem is that they
don't have enough cops. Eighty six thousand dollars at the end.
And do we know what starting salary actually is for
the police? I think it's in It was in the
(13:15):
top forties. I think it's now fifty thousand. What is it, cono,
I mean you're looking it up. The story is starting
salary is eighty six thousand. No, that's for okay, that's
this story. And that's for I'm assuming cops who are
being transferred in from other departments who leave or as
(13:37):
I said, have military experience. That's for a trainee. Yeah,
I mean that's crazy, and they don't have enough. And
by the way, for those of you, and I'm now
going to pitch for the department right now, I'm going
to be a spokesperson for the department for those young
people that want to become or thinking of becoming police officers.
(13:58):
You do get to kill people, okay, you do? And
if that is what you want to do, and a
lot of us do. Hey, the LAPD is open to you. Okay,
we're done. Uh see, I'm telling you they should hire
(14:18):
me now. Oh so, a little bit of politics I
want to share with you and our new president, our
new old president, and that is the president, and I
think his heart is in the right place. Wants to
bring back, or not lose American auto workers. He says
(14:40):
we need American auto workers, which means American made cars
with American labor. Now, if he was really serious about
American auto workers, not that he's not, but I'll tell
you what would bring back auto workers. Get rid of
all the robotics, get rid of to chnology. You don't
(15:01):
know how many auto workers we lost when robotics came in,
when technology wasn't around. I mean, thousands and thousands of
auto workers in every plant. And those are good jobs too.
United auto Workers is a very strong union. So what
the President has done is said, we want to make
(15:23):
sure that cars are made in America by American auto workers.
And he is hitting both Mexico and Canada with tariffs
because too many cars are being brought in and if
terriffs are being paid for theoretically by Canada and Mexico,
(15:44):
which they're not. By the way, all tariffs are paid
by US. When tariffs are in actually they're hit against
foreign foreign manufacturers. So what the President did is he
has threatened a twenty five per cent tariff on all
imports from Canada and Mexico as soon as Saturday, arguing
(16:07):
that if cars are as expensive built by Americans as
built by Canadians or Mexicans or Mexico workers in Mexico,
then of course you'd buy American and all these autoworkers
would be employed and none would be let go. I
guess that's true in a way. I mean, all things
(16:28):
being equal, If a car costs forty five thousand dollars
and it's all built in America, and a car costs
forty five thousand dollars as built in Canada, which way
you're gonna go. Well, of course you're gonna go to
the American built car. But here's the problem. This move
of twenty five percent tariffs is as soon as Saturday
(16:50):
is going to hit car dealerships and factories in the
US virtually immediately and would add a minimum of thousands
of dollars to the cost of cars. And I'll explain why,
because it's not just the cars that are assembled in
the two countries and brought in ship to the United States,
but cars built and American auto plants. Now, how is
(17:14):
that possible if cars are built in American auto plants.
What's the bitch about cars that are built in Mexico
and Canada. We just don't buy them. Ooh guess what.
Even American built cars have huge amount of Canadian and
Mexican parts that can't be replaced very readily. I mean
(17:37):
over the course of months or years. The tariffs start
on Saturday. According to the President, twenty five percent. Now
you have to save the American auto industry because it's
losing workers to Mexico or Canada. And the car dealers
and the American manufacturers, well they get hit financial Well,
(18:02):
they are reporting record profits this year and last, making
money hand over fist with Canadian and Mexican cars and
or parts. What is absolutely clear is that the tariffs
are going to up end production of cars across the
(18:24):
continent and put the price of cars. I'm explaining why
they're going to go up so high. Put the price
of cars, which are already near record highs. I mean,
look how much you're paying for a car relative to
a few years ago, and it's going to be out
of reach for a whole lot of people. I mean,
cars are just insanely expensive. And this Saturday there may
very well be a twenty five percent tariff on all
(18:47):
imports car and car parts imports from Canada and Mexico.
Why because the President wants American cars sold and made
American auto workers employed, and not Canadian auto and Mexican
auto workers. So he goes, Okay, here's what we're gonna do.
(19:09):
I'm gonna make cars more expensive from Canada and Mexico,
and we're gonna sort of equal it out, and therefore
people are going to buy American made products. Here's the problem.
There isn't a car in the United States that is
made or sold, well certainly made, that at least doesn't
(19:31):
have parts that come from Mexico or Canada. The President
wants to save the American auto industry through tariffs, and
he says that it's these foreign companies are gonna pay
the tariffs. That's not true. It's the American factories that
are paying the tariffs, which means if a car goes up.
(19:53):
If a tariff goes up several thousand dollars, who do
you think pays for it? Of course you do, And
where is that cost put in on the cost of
the car? So what is going to happen if it's
this Saturday, unless we start really talking And already Canada
has caved in a couple of areas. We've got a
(20:15):
couple of We've got Latino countries that have caved Columbia
for example. But when it comes to the auto industry, man,
that's not an easy one to undo because every car
that's assembled in the United States has parts for Mexico Canada,
and it's going to simply cost way too much. No
such thing in an all American car doesn't exist. We've
(20:38):
got NAFTA, we got the USMCA trade deals, and so
cars and parts moved pretty freely across the border, and
sometimes multiple times before a car is finished. So what's
gonna happen with tariff? It's going to be like the
market during COVID limited supplies of new cars for sale.
If you remember the inability to bring in anything. The
(21:02):
supply chain issue came in and there was there were
fewer cars. The price of cars exploded, and that's what's
going to happen here. And automakers are going to make
a calculation. It's real simple, what does it cost us?
And we're going to charge the buyers us. And at
(21:23):
this point slow down shutdowns could come fairly quickly. Plants
in that operate in Mexico and Canada are going to
shut down a little quicker than ours because it's you
buy parts the way manufacturers. You buy parts that are
met immediately know in inventory's parts anymore. Let me give
(21:46):
you the numbers. Mexico built four million cars last year,
Canada built one point three million. Okay, seventy percent. Seventy
percent of the Canadian and Mexican assembled cars were shipped
the showroom in the United States. That's a lot. And
we're not just talking Fords in Chevrolets either. For example,
(22:06):
the Super U Outback is built in Indiana, the BMWX
five SUVs South Carolina, Mercedes SUVs built in Alabama, the
Kietelia Ride is in Georgia. Half of the ten million
vehicles built in American plants last year were for foreign brands,
(22:29):
and all of those cars that are quote made in
America are built with Mexican and Canadian parts. And it's
not just Mexican and Canadian parts coming in, but it
is also American parts going there, and tariffs are going
to explode the cost. So is this the way it goes? Maybe?
(22:55):
And as I said earlier in the earlier segment, if
you really want to save American auto workers, and I
mean really save jobs and increased jobs, just get rid
of the robotics, get rid of the technology. Before robotics
came in, before technology was applied to the car industry,
thousands and thousands of workers for each shift at auto plants.
(23:22):
So what can you do? By the way, another number,
thirteen point eight billion dollars worth of cars to Canada,
that's what we shipped twenty six billion dollars worth of parts.
It goes the other way also, I mean, it is
a god awful mess. So the major auto manufacturers were
(23:43):
asked what's going to happen didn't have a comment. Volkswagener said,
we're not going to comment on speculation. They have a
plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and the largest plant in Mexico.
And if it production is scaled back or shipments for
Mexico or Canadian parts are put on hold, Well, you're
(24:04):
gonna see dealers jacking up their prices virtually immediately. So
you know what are you gonna do? Yeah, we're gonna
pay a lot more unless the President caves on those
tariffs because they really make no sense. There's stuff that
the President does that make sense, or east at least
(24:26):
has a logic to it. For example, the immigration issue,
there's a logic to it. There is no logic to
this none. It's exactly opposite of what he is going
to say, exactly opposite what's going to happen. And we're
not going to know about it until you buy a
car that you could have bought for forty two thousand
dollars and it's going to cost you forty eight thousand dollars.
(24:47):
All right, tomorrow morning, Amy, who is back? It's a
wake up call at five am the rest of us.
That's the deal at I come in at six until
right about now, Gary and Shannon are up. This is
KFI AM sixty. You've been listening to the Bill Handle Show.
Catch My Show Monday through Friday six am to nine am,
(25:09):
and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app
You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from KFI AM
six forty KFI AM six forty handle here on a
Wednesday morning. A lot going on today. Robert Kennedy in
front of a Senate confirmation panel by He's got some
splaining to do, Lucy for sure, and Google has complied.
(00:21):
It is now the Gulf of America. All Google Maps
will indicate Gulf of America. Also, Mount McKinley is back
to Mount McKinley instead of Denali, which it has been
for three hundred years. Gulf of Mexico has been around
for four hundred years. Hey, we change, We change. Now.
I want to talk about the LAPD because it's again
(00:45):
the issue has come up. We go back to We'll
go back. Last year Mayor Karen Bass of LA gave
pay raises to the rank and file cops and what
she did sold it to us as an investment towards
regrowing the LAPD to ninety five hundred members, which it
(01:10):
was before the election in twenty twenty two. Now it
should be around from what I understand, about ten thousand.
That's what sort of the general feeling is among folks
that are in the police world. Ninety five hundred is
just north of adequate. Adequate being C it's a C
plus ten thousand being a okay. So since then you've
(01:37):
got the mayor and leaders in the LAPD continuing to
project optimism about reaching that goal of ninety five hundred members.
O contraire peer ain't gonna happen because behind the scenes,
the cops, the officials are starting to confront the reality
(01:58):
it's not going to have and anytime soon, and acknowledging
that the department may even continue to shrink. It is
now at eighty six hundred and twenty cops and it's
going to continue below that, so twenty percent less than
it should be. Recruiting shortfalls, there's attrition. Leaders expect this
(02:24):
year to lose more than one hundred and fifty police
officers and that's the lowest deployment of cops in roughly
thirty years. And I'm going to give you some reasons now.
During public appearances, Bass, the Chief of Police, Jim McDonnell,
other leaders still marking the case, still making the case
(02:44):
the department needs to grow. We need more manpower to
maintain public safety while the department is shrinking. Wait a minute,
if it's if we need to grow, but what's going on.
Don't tell us that it's growing when it's not growing.
A couple things. The Palisades fire just showed the department
(03:07):
can be stretched very thin during a major disaster. We've
got the upcoming World Cup, we have the Olympic Games
in twenty twenty eight. All have massive security challenges. Now
here's the other side of it, and I'm going to
continue on in a minute. The LAPD has gotten smaller,
but by some measures, the city is becoming safer. Many
(03:31):
types of violent crime are down. This is police Department data,
especially homicides and shootings, and that's a year's long decline,
So less of a chance that you get shot or killed,
more of a chance that you get graffitied, burglarized, car
(03:52):
broken into, car, stolen. LAPD leaders have debated for a
long time how many cops are really necessary. The push
has always been for more manpower, more cops, but now
some are saying, wait a minute. Even though the city
itself is saying we need more cops, the police department
(04:14):
is saying we need more cops. While cops are shrinking,
some are saying, wait a minute, you know what, Maybe
we don't now keep in mind the city of Houston
and Chicago much smaller city to police, however, many more cops.
I think the city of New York has fifteen or
(04:36):
twenty thousand police officers. I mean, it's a lot of people.
But the city of New York is about the size
of the Sherman Oaks Galley, isn't it where they cram
ten million people in, Yet it has substantially more police officers.
We don't have many cops in our city relative to
the size of our city. So what's going on? Well,
(05:01):
a lot of things are happening with no money. Nine
to one one calls, it's getting longer and longer. Have
you called nine one one recently, You're on hold, you
get a menu. HI, your call is very important to us,
so hang on. Then. If this is a real emergency,
press number one. If it's only a moderate emergency, press
(05:23):
number two. And sometimes I love these menu calls. You
have between ten and twelve minutes before your call is answered,
sometimes twenty to twenty five minutes. I have called nine
to one one calls when I've seen a crash on
the freeway, and I'll immediately call nine one one, And
I'm going from La to Orange County. I actually reach
(05:46):
Orange County before they get on the phone. That's part
of our system where they're just ain't enough money. Now
I have lived in Los Angeles, although now I live
in Orange County, but I still come up to Los
Angeles all the time. The LAPD is a big deal,
always has been. And if we go back in history
(06:07):
and I remember this, it wasn't that long ago where
police officers were some of the most respected members of society.
Ha think that's happening anymore. It's not so we're short
of police officers. We should have ten thousand. Matter of fact,
well you've got the official saying, okay, we'll take ninety
(06:29):
five hundred, not ten thousand. Okay, the problem is there's
eighty six hundred and it is dropping. Just to give
you an idea, the last class, the academy class had
a big twenty one cops in it. That's it. Cops
are not coming to the table. We don't have enough
(06:50):
of them. Although the city and Karen Bass said we're growing, well,
in reality we're shrinking. And what are they doing. The
city is doing plenty. First of all, older cops saying
we'll pay you a ton of money. Retired cops come
(07:10):
back trying to get new cops raising the money. Now
here's the stat for you, which I found kind of interesting.
As a starting cop in Los Angeles, you can get
as much as eighty six thousand dollars. Now, I'm assuming
(07:33):
those are cops that are coming from other agencies, or
they have a bachelor's degree or accommodation or in the military,
and all of that has points. But up to eighty
six thousand dollars, I think the starting rate is over
fifty fifty five thousand dollars. If you have no experience,
you're a brand new cop. The contract ratified in the
fall of twenty twenty three, starting salary increased eighty six
(07:56):
thousand dollars by nearly thirteen percent since the previous com
tract and guaranteed thirty three percent annual raises. So LAPD
starting salaries are higher than Pasadena Long Beach Burbank. But
if you become a comp in Beverly Hills or Santa Monica,
the pay is even better. City council signed off on
(08:21):
the raises. And of course there are those that are
against cops or increasing the number of cops, and a
lot of that happened from the George Floyd incident in
the Minneapolis Police Department. Of course, murdered or officer Chauvin,
the previous officer Chauvin the erstwhile officer Chauvin killed George Floyd,
(08:43):
murdered him and is in jail for decades and decades.
All of a sudden, police were bad, bad guys, and
there was a move to defund even dismantle the police completely.
And the reason is, well, frankly, stupidity. Now, council Member
Nthya Rama, and have to be fair, she is not
calling for defunding. She is calling against the raises because
(09:10):
she was convinced they would that they wouldn't fix the
real problem. And what's the real problem. Well, the real
problem is how we deal with crime. See there's a
philosophy there that criminals are criminals because it's our fault,
it's society's fault. And so how do we deal with society? Well,
(09:35):
what we do is we need a holistic alternative response.
She says, hiring more cops now is distracting from the development.
This is a quote, by the way, hiring the fixation
on hiring more cops now is distracting from the development
and long term investment in community led programs that research
(09:55):
has shown more effective in addressing the underlying causes of crime.
All right, so let me ask you a question, and
that is, we want to cut the budget or not
increase the budget of the police force, per this council member,
And what we want to do is invest in community projects,
after school programs, dealing with the kids out of areas
(10:19):
that are high crime rates. You got areas that have
gang bangers, you got areas that don't have really good schools.
We're talking about minority areas that have high crime rates.
So let's put a pile of money into those areas
for community projects versus hiring a cop. Now, I am
(10:40):
guessing that a holistic approach would increase the budget of
these community programs by billion, well at least hundreds of
millions of dollars. The police department, by the way, has
north of a billion dollar budget. I mean, this is
no small way. Now, what is happening is young people
(11:04):
are not coming into the police department because well, police
departments are not viewed very favorably. People don't want to
be cops. So they're advertising on TikTok, they're doing marketing
and it's not working. How do you get people? Well,
(11:25):
I have some ideas of marketing. I mean, if I
was the marketing person marketing manager for the LAPD and
I was hired, I take out the billboards, big letters,
you get to kill people. That would get me going.
(11:45):
As a matter of fact, I want to share with
you a quick story. One of the chief police officers
years and years ago kept on inviting me to go
on a ride along with the police. I don't know
if you've ever been or know someone that's on a
ride a line that they let you go. And it's
the real stuff too. It's not just you buzz around
(12:07):
the city and you patrol. When the cop is called
and you're in the car, you're on your way, and
if it's a shooting, you're there and they tell you
get the hell out of the way and you're told
you're warned. And I kept on asking, or I was
asked a bill you want to do it? And I
was supposed to talk about it because ostensibly, well I
(12:29):
love the police anyways, I've always been so pro police,
and they know it, so I didn't need that to
show how great the cops were. And I kept on
saying and asking do I get to shoot anybody? And
they said no, And I replied with then why would
I want to go on a ride along to watch
(12:53):
you guys shoot someone. I want to do it. Can't
do it, damn it. So the problem is that they
don't have enough cops. Eighty six thousand dollars at the end.
And do we know what starting salary actually is for
the police? I think it's in It was in the
(13:15):
top forties. I think it's now fifty thousand. What is it, cono,
I mean you're looking it up. The story is starting
salary is eighty six thousand. No, that's for okay, that's
this story. And that's for I'm assuming cops who are
being transferred in from other departments who leave or as
(13:37):
I said, have military experience. That's for a trainee. Yeah,
I mean that's crazy, and they don't have enough. And
by the way, for those of you, and I'm now
going to pitch for the department right now, I'm going
to be a spokesperson for the department for those young
people that want to become or thinking of becoming police officers.
(13:58):
You do get to kill people, okay, you do? And
if that is what you want to do, and a
lot of us do. Hey, the LAPD is open to you. Okay,
we're done. Uh see, I'm telling you they should hire
(14:18):
me now. Oh so, a little bit of politics I
want to share with you and our new president, our
new old president, and that is the president, and I
think his heart is in the right place. Wants to
bring back, or not lose American auto workers. He says
(14:40):
we need American auto workers, which means American made cars
with American labor. Now, if he was really serious about
American auto workers, not that he's not, but I'll tell
you what would bring back auto workers. Get rid of
all the robotics, get rid of to chnology. You don't
(15:01):
know how many auto workers we lost when robotics came in,
when technology wasn't around. I mean, thousands and thousands of
auto workers in every plant. And those are good jobs too.
United auto Workers is a very strong union. So what
the President has done is said, we want to make
(15:23):
sure that cars are made in America by American auto workers.
And he is hitting both Mexico and Canada with tariffs
because too many cars are being brought in and if
terriffs are being paid for theoretically by Canada and Mexico,
(15:44):
which they're not. By the way, all tariffs are paid
by US. When tariffs are in actually they're hit against
foreign foreign manufacturers. So what the President did is he
has threatened a twenty five per cent tariff on all
imports from Canada and Mexico as soon as Saturday, arguing
(16:07):
that if cars are as expensive built by Americans as
built by Canadians or Mexicans or Mexico workers in Mexico,
then of course you'd buy American and all these autoworkers
would be employed and none would be let go. I
guess that's true in a way. I mean, all things
(16:28):
being equal, If a car costs forty five thousand dollars
and it's all built in America, and a car costs
forty five thousand dollars as built in Canada, which way
you're gonna go. Well, of course you're gonna go to
the American built car. But here's the problem. This move
of twenty five percent tariffs is as soon as Saturday
(16:50):
is going to hit car dealerships and factories in the
US virtually immediately and would add a minimum of thousands
of dollars to the cost of cars. And I'll explain why,
because it's not just the cars that are assembled in
the two countries and brought in ship to the United States,
but cars built and American auto plants. Now, how is
(17:14):
that possible if cars are built in American auto plants.
What's the bitch about cars that are built in Mexico
and Canada. We just don't buy them. Ooh guess what.
Even American built cars have huge amount of Canadian and
Mexican parts that can't be replaced very readily. I mean
(17:37):
over the course of months or years. The tariffs start
on Saturday. According to the President, twenty five percent. Now
you have to save the American auto industry because it's
losing workers to Mexico or Canada. And the car dealers
and the American manufacturers, well they get hit financial Well,
(18:02):
they are reporting record profits this year and last, making
money hand over fist with Canadian and Mexican cars and
or parts. What is absolutely clear is that the tariffs
are going to up end production of cars across the
(18:24):
continent and put the price of cars. I'm explaining why
they're going to go up so high. Put the price
of cars, which are already near record highs. I mean,
look how much you're paying for a car relative to
a few years ago, and it's going to be out
of reach for a whole lot of people. I mean,
cars are just insanely expensive. And this Saturday there may
very well be a twenty five percent tariff on all
(18:47):
imports car and car parts imports from Canada and Mexico.
Why because the President wants American cars sold and made
American auto workers employed, and not Canadian auto and Mexican
auto workers. So he goes, Okay, here's what we're gonna do.
(19:09):
I'm gonna make cars more expensive from Canada and Mexico,
and we're gonna sort of equal it out, and therefore
people are going to buy American made products. Here's the problem.
There isn't a car in the United States that is
made or sold, well certainly made, that at least doesn't
(19:31):
have parts that come from Mexico or Canada. The President
wants to save the American auto industry through tariffs, and
he says that it's these foreign companies are gonna pay
the tariffs. That's not true. It's the American factories that
are paying the tariffs, which means if a car goes up.
(19:53):
If a tariff goes up several thousand dollars, who do
you think pays for it? Of course you do, And
where is that cost put in on the cost of
the car? So what is going to happen if it's
this Saturday, unless we start really talking And already Canada
has caved in a couple of areas. We've got a
(20:15):
couple of We've got Latino countries that have caved Columbia
for example. But when it comes to the auto industry, man,
that's not an easy one to undo because every car
that's assembled in the United States has parts for Mexico Canada,
and it's going to simply cost way too much. No
such thing in an all American car doesn't exist. We've
(20:38):
got NAFTA, we got the USMCA trade deals, and so
cars and parts moved pretty freely across the border, and
sometimes multiple times before a car is finished. So what's
gonna happen with tariff? It's going to be like the
market during COVID limited supplies of new cars for sale.
If you remember the inability to bring in anything. The
(21:02):
supply chain issue came in and there was there were
fewer cars. The price of cars exploded, and that's what's
going to happen here. And automakers are going to make
a calculation. It's real simple, what does it cost us?
And we're going to charge the buyers us. And at
(21:23):
this point slow down shutdowns could come fairly quickly. Plants
in that operate in Mexico and Canada are going to
shut down a little quicker than ours because it's you
buy parts the way manufacturers. You buy parts that are
met immediately know in inventory's parts anymore. Let me give
(21:46):
you the numbers. Mexico built four million cars last year,
Canada built one point three million. Okay, seventy percent. Seventy
percent of the Canadian and Mexican assembled cars were shipped
the showroom in the United States. That's a lot. And
we're not just talking Fords in Chevrolets either. For example,
(22:06):
the Super U Outback is built in Indiana, the BMWX
five SUVs South Carolina, Mercedes SUVs built in Alabama, the
Kietelia Ride is in Georgia. Half of the ten million
vehicles built in American plants last year were for foreign brands,
(22:29):
and all of those cars that are quote made in
America are built with Mexican and Canadian parts. And it's
not just Mexican and Canadian parts coming in, but it
is also American parts going there, and tariffs are going
to explode the cost. So is this the way it goes? Maybe?
(22:55):
And as I said earlier in the earlier segment, if
you really want to save American auto workers, and I
mean really save jobs and increased jobs, just get rid
of the robotics, get rid of the technology. Before robotics
came in, before technology was applied to the car industry,
thousands and thousands of workers for each shift at auto plants.
(23:22):
So what can you do? By the way, another number,
thirteen point eight billion dollars worth of cars to Canada,
that's what we shipped twenty six billion dollars worth of parts.
It goes the other way also, I mean, it is
a god awful mess. So the major auto manufacturers were
(23:43):
asked what's going to happen didn't have a comment. Volkswagener said,
we're not going to comment on speculation. They have a
plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and the largest plant in Mexico.
And if it production is scaled back or shipments for
Mexico or Canadian parts are put on hold, Well, you're
(24:04):
gonna see dealers jacking up their prices virtually immediately. So
you know what are you gonna do? Yeah, we're gonna
pay a lot more unless the President caves on those
tariffs because they really make no sense. There's stuff that
the President does that make sense, or east at least
(24:26):
has a logic to it. For example, the immigration issue,
there's a logic to it. There is no logic to
this none. It's exactly opposite of what he is going
to say, exactly opposite what's going to happen. And we're
not going to know about it until you buy a
car that you could have bought for forty two thousand
dollars and it's going to cost you forty eight thousand dollars.
(24:47):
All right, tomorrow morning, Amy, who is back? It's a
wake up call at five am the rest of us.
That's the deal at I come in at six until
right about now, Gary and Shannon are up. This is
KFI AM sixty. You've been listening to the Bill Handle Show.
Catch My Show Monday through Friday six am to nine am,
(25:09):
and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app
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