Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to bill Handle on demand from KFI AM
six forty kf I AM six forty Bill Handle.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
It is a Thursday morning, May ONCET as we start
yet another month.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Are we actually in our fifth month? Wow? It is insane.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Yeah, it's got Well here's the problem. The older we get,
the faster everything goes. And there's a reason for it.
And someone told me this once and it makes all
the sense in the world. When you're ten years old,
a year is ten percent of your entire life, and
that is the perception. You know, for example, summertime. Do
(00:42):
you remember when we would get out in June and
we'd beat three months during the summer when we were
in grade school.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
That lasted forever because we were young.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Now when you, for example, I'm ninety and all of
a sudden, one year is basically, what is it, one
percent of my life orero point nine percent. So it's
a different perception. That's why things are going so quickly.
And you better do your Christmas shopping right about now. Okay,
(01:13):
for a couple of reasons. Now moving over to what
happened yesterday, and it is well, no big surprise. Kamala
Harris came out with her first major appearance, and sort
of everybody knew what was going to happen, and she
did not disappoint.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
First of all, she is part.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Of this organization that pushes for women to be empowered,
and particularly minority women.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
So she was there.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
And in a shocking speech, she blasted the Trump administration
and said that this policy or policies were a dangerous
betrayal of the nation's founding incibles and warn of a
looming constitutional crisis.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
I don't know about that.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Well, if Trump prevails and Congress gives him all the
power and relegates all power to the president, which seems
are on their way, you know. I mean, there's going
to be an issue, especially with the Supreme Court the
way it is at this point made up could very
(02:27):
well say Congress voted effectively itself out of business, and hey,
that's what Congress wanted to do.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
We play along.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
So she said about five hundred people that she was
in front of. Now, I know tonight's event happens to
coincide with one hundred days after the inauguration, and I
will say this about the administration. Instead of working to
advance America's highest ideals, we're witnessing the wholesale.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Abandonment of those ideals. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
You know, here's the problem is that President Trump is
doing exactly what he said.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
He campaigned on everything he is doing.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
And it is a democracy, and he was voted in
and the majority of those people voting in America have
decided that they are prepared to have these policies in place. Hey,
it's a democracy, it's not that complicated. So she said,
(03:29):
the end result cutting the size of government, privatizing services,
giving tax breaks to the rich, slashing public education pre
date Trump and are the outcome of a decade long
effort to we shape the nation's norms and safety net.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Well again, welcome to America.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
And she said, it's an agenda, a narrow, self serving
version of America or vision of America. Which basically that's true.
We're becoming isolationists. We are abandoning our allies because Trump
feels they are not our allies anymore. NATO is not
(04:09):
doing what it should. It's just a different it's a
different vision of America, which we have in fact elected
that vision. And she said, this is a self serving
vision where they punish truth tellers favor loyalists cash in
on their power and leave everyone defend for themselves, all
(04:30):
while abandoning allies and retreating from the world.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Yeah, So what's happening and what we are experiencing right
now is exactly what they envisioned for America.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
Yes it is. We're living in their version of America.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Yes, we elected this administration and we were told this
version of.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
America, this vision for America. You know what. You can
bitch all you want, but get elected. That's the problem.
Get elected. And I think the move by the way,
which is so early.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
To give Donald Trump a third term, so early, but
I think that's going to grow and grow and grow
to the point where it's going to be a movement.
There has to be a constitutional amendment. It's going to
take two thirds of both houses of Congress, the Senate
and the House, and two thirds of the legislature legislatures
(05:30):
in the country. And if that happens, you know what,
the constitution has changed and Donald Trump gets his third term.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Okay, what are you to do.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Who's going to say no when you have an elected,
democratic decision made, that's the problem, or it's not a
problem one way or the other. But if it continues
to go like this to where his you know, approval
rating is so low and all that you think that
that movement would do No, No, I think, first of all,
I think it's impossible. Frankly, I think it's impossible because
(06:07):
you're not going to get two thirds of the Democrats
or two thirds of Congress, two thirds of the Senate,
to three quarters of the States.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
If we've gotten to that point, you know whatever. But
then let me ask you this.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
When President President Trump ran for office the first two times, everybody.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Thought that was a joke. Who took that seriously? And
here we are who took Richard Nixon seriously.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
That he was going to win in nineteen sixty eight,
after losing the presidency in nineteen sixty the governorship of
California in sixty two, and I mean landslide, losing the governorship.
That's when the famous you won't have Dick Nixon to
kick around any more speech came out. Six years later,
he's a president.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
Of United States.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
That's hey, this, You know, we elect we we the
people of this country, make those decisions. And if we
want an autocratic government, if we want a president for
life by changing the constitution, then the the the people
have voted that in.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Stop bitching, run.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
For office, you know, wipe out the Republicans in Congress
at the mid terms.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
Okay, enough, you know I'm not thrilled.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
But at the same point, you know, let's talk about
democracy sometime, all right. Mayor Bass says a LA Animal
shelters won't close.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
Okay. One of the issues this affects.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
People so deeply, and particularly she's such an animal lover.
And this has to do with LA Animal Shelters.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
As you may know, the LA.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
City budget or and if you live in the City
of Los Angeles, which I no longer do. Uh, it's
a billion dollar deficit this year and Mayor Bass is
just spinning to.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
Figure out how to close the deficit.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
And one of the things she did was take away
four point eight million dollars from animal services, and that.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
Would close three of the six shelters. And of course,
people are in an uproar.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
Because these are innocent animals. There's nothing they can do
except go into crowded shelters, more crowded shelters, which means
more animals being euthanized. And that if an animal doesn't
have to be euthanized, it's such. It's a shanda that
animals are killed because we don't have shelters for them
(08:44):
dogs and cats Now, can or should animals be euthanized, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
They're very sick, or they're very old.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
Even then there's a thing now where you take old
where people take old animals and take them home so
they can live out the rest of their lives until
they die now naturally, and so only very ill animals
are put down. And we were on such a good
path from a huge number of animals being euthanized every
(09:12):
year down to very few, and then we had no
kill shelters. There's loads of those those no kill shelters.
Do you know that adoptions? You know, human beings our
way up. People adopting kids are way up. They're going
into no kill shelters and grabbing these kids who have
been put into shelters.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
No, that's not true. I don't think we have no
kill shelters for kids, do we?
Speaker 3 (09:39):
No?
Speaker 1 (09:39):
I have that wrong. The point is.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
There was such an uproar about these shelters being closed
that all of a sudden Bass changes her mind and go, Okay,
the budget is already in place, so we can't do
much about that, but we found an extra five million
dollars in a section of the budget which is known
(10:02):
as the quote unappropriated balance, and it's a holding tank
and these are this is money that has not yet
been finalized, although the budget has been submitted, and five
million dollars enough to keep all six of the city's
animal shelters open. That's what Bass said in a post
on Monday. And that's halfway through a five hour budget hearing.
(10:24):
And you talk about people being exercised at that budget
hearing in terms of the animal shelters, I mean people
went nuts.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
And I think rightly so.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
One of those attempt attending the hearing said that the
four point eight million dollars in cuts would mean a
death sentence for animals inside the city shelters.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
True.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
And another one said these animals are already scared, abandoned, living
in horrible conditions, and they have no family to love them.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
True.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
Another speaker vowed to send her fellow activists to as
she described him as cat and Dog warriors, to Pet
Coast stores across the city and publicized the name of
any council member who votes for cuts to animal services.
Another speaker stands up and Warren's council members they would
(11:17):
be remembered for having the blood of thousands of puppies
and kittens on their hands. Another speaker said, this will
end your political career, and so Vass turned around and said, okay,
we found five million dollars. We cut four point eight
(11:39):
and we found five million. So actually, the animal shelters
are going to get two hundred thousand dollars more than
they did last year. And for animal lovers, you know,
you won, and you should have won. For those of
you who like kids who aren't going to get enough
money to eat, you're not so lucky. Okay, maybe I'm
(12:04):
exaggerating a little bit on that one.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
Just a little bit.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Okay, Kono's just you know, giving me that little tiny,
you know, thumb and index figure.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
All right, guys, enough of that. We have a success
from Scratch segment.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
We're bringing that back due to popular demand, which is
actually true and Success from Scratch brought to you by
NetSuite by Oracle. Howard Mackler, a friend of mine who
I've known for decades now and I've done commercial for
one of his companies years ago. Is well, Howard, you
(12:39):
are probably the epitome of success from scratch, starting at
age thirteen with your first business. So take us through
how you went from there to where you are now.
And we don't have five segments either, so yeah, because
you've got a lot of stories, so give us a
(13:00):
little background.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
Well, good morning, Bill, and thanks for having me. I
appreciate it. I am definitely a serial entrepreneur. I start
with a blank sheet of paper and for me, it's
all about solving a problem. So I identify something that
is missing in the marketplace called a hole, and then
I'm able to figure out a way of filling that hole.
(13:24):
And as you know, I've done a number of amazing startups.
For those of your listeners in Orange County, they might
remember how He's game Shack going back twenty years ago.
That was with the former CEO of Cisco Systems. We
created the largest computer game centers before there was online
computer gaming. And then with the Chairman's CBRE, I created
(13:45):
a rate was called Rich Uncles and that was a
real estate investment trust. Today it is traded on the
New York Stock Exchange. My last business was one where
we help businesses to tap into tax credits and tax refunds.
We helped twenty six thousand businesses to receive seven billion
dollars in tax refunds.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
Yeah, let me interrupt you for a moment.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
That is the company that I was doing spots here
for on the KFI and I became a customer and
got a nice tax refund. So, you know what, let
me throw some questions because we can go with your
successes literally for the next five segments. But you mentioned
the game stop or the gaming center and hugely successful.
(14:32):
What happens when a company is obsolete?
Speaker 1 (14:34):
What do you do with it?
Speaker 2 (14:35):
Do you just shut it down? Do you sell it
before it goes south?
Speaker 3 (14:41):
Yeah, that's a very good question. It really depends on
the business. Every business is unique. In the case of
Howie's Game Shock, that business required substantial topital contributions to
remake the business and to buy new technology. I operated
it for fifteen years successfully. We made money every year,
and at the end of the fifteen year cycle, I
decided not to continue to invest in the business, and
(15:03):
I did end up closing it down. That's not the
normal route. Normally you can sell it or you can
extract some value from it. But that business just kind
of ran its course with the technology and the timing.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
All right, let me ask this.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
When you start a business and you're looking for the
whole in the marketplace, and usually you're successful, and this
is the fun part. Have you been just dead wrong
on some of the businesses you started and you walk
away with your tail between your legs.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
So there was one. It was a business that I
bought with a very dear friend of mine. He's still
a dear friend, Marvin Winkler, and at the time doing
these small vertical access wind turbines that was on Jay
Leno's green garage and a number of high profile businesses,
and the founder died and Marvin and I bought the
technology and we were very excited. And at the time,
(16:00):
his thirteen year old daughter said, hey, guys, I don't
think this is going to work. And we said, well,
you're thirteen, what do you know And she said, well,
I don't know something about physics. It doesn't seem like
these windmills are large enough, are tall enough to capture
enough wind to generate power. And she was right. She
was right. So notwithstanding all the experts that told us
(16:22):
they would generate power, they generated enough power to light
a light bulb. We love it.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
You started your first business at thirteen years and it's
not selling lemonade on the corners or delivering newspapers. I mean,
this was pretty sophisticated stuff that you started at thirteen.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
How many of those did you get?
Speaker 2 (16:40):
Where people go, come on, Howard, you're thirteen years old,
give me a break.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
Well, actually, that's a funny story. So that was I
was in computer software and this goes back many years,
and I had credit lines from various distributors, and I
remember I was on the phone with a distributor and
I said something about going to school and she said, oh,
what university do you go to? And I said, well,
I'm in middle school. And at the time I had
(17:07):
maybe a fifty or seventy five thousand dollars credit line
with them, so they were a little surprised, but it
ended well. We were able to do great business. We
paid back our vendors, and I actually had CPA produced returns.
Even at that age. We had I think our sales
were about one hundred and fifty thousand a year. And
this is quite a few years.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
At age thirteen. How are your testicles hadn't descended yet?
Speaker 3 (17:33):
Yeah, it's the truth and then I would go to
school and the teachers would say you have to go
home and do your homework, and I'm thinking, yeah, but
I'm making more money than the teachers. So I was
a handful of I was a handful of a kid.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
All right, Howard.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
We could go on forever, but we're out of time, unfortunately,
and your story is amazing. And for those of you
that have thirteen year old kids who were also starting
a million dollar business, is.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
Feel free, Howard. A great success from Scratch. Thanks a ton, Phil,
Thank you so much. Hope you have a great day
you too.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
Success from Scratch brought to you by NetSuite by Oracle.
Get the cfo's guide to AI and machine learning at
NetSuite dot com slash handle. All right, Tourism. Tourism is
a wonderful thing. I am a tourist a lot. One
of the things about my life is I'll tell you
(18:30):
where I spend my money.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
And I've talked about this before.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
My disposable income is vacations for me. I buy my
clothes at Costco. My idea of a pizza parlor is Domino's,
which is true. They're pan pizza, which I love, you know.
I spend money on tourism. And I'm a pretty good
tourist too, and that's because I don't drink, I don't cavort.
(18:56):
I eat at restaurants a lot, obviously you do when
you're tourists. I don't stay at particularly cheap lodgings because again,
I spend my money on vacations. And let me tell
you what's going on around the world is cities and
places love me. Why because number one, I'm not a
(19:17):
drunken brawler.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
Number Two, I spend money.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
And what they have found these cities and I'm talking about, well,
let me go through some of them.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
You've got the Baialareic Islands. No idea where that is.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
But they're looking at ways to clamp down on these
boozy travelers, restricting party boats, banning alcohol.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
Sales through certain hours.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
The Spanish government began a new initiative to gather data
on which nationalities are the worst drunkards. Prague wants pub
tours to attract quote more culture tourists read tours that
have more money. Miami Beach producing some fake reality shows
(20:06):
showing influencers upset about drunken behavior. Sure, and that's been
going on for years. Now Dubrovnik. If you ever have
a chance to go to Dubrovnik, one of the great
cities in the world. It's probably the most best restored
medieval city on the planet. You saw part of it
in Game of Thrones. They have noise meters in the
(20:29):
old city. Uh and clamping down on restaurants and cafes
hosting these high spirited tourists. Two things are going on,
and by the way, it's it's happening here in States.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
I just mentioned some of the worst ones.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
Miami big one in terms of holding down tourism. Tourism
read for example, spring break. They don't make money on
spring Break. They cost Miami. It costs a lot of
money for the security. And there's a and is it
fun to have drunks in your restaurant? So people with
(21:05):
money don't show up, the regulars don't show up. So
there's two things going on with the fun police.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
One is that, first of all, tourism is too crowded.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
When you go to Paris, you go to Venice, you
go to any of the places that people do overseas,
even in the United States. If you're going during the
high season read a vacation season, summertime, it is so
crowded you can barely walk. I was in Venice a
couple of years ago. It was Sardine's. It was literally
(21:43):
jammed where I couldn't move. I mean it was shoulder
to shoulder. And so that is not particularly wonderful for
a city because it gets a reputation and people stay away.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
Who stays away people with money. And the other.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
Issue is, and it seems this way that the drunker
you get, the less money you are spending at museums,
at good restaurants, at theater, at events where people want
to go. And if you develop a reputation for just
(22:18):
this horrible drunken behavior your city, you're gonna lose money
in the long run. Also, it's a drag for the
people that live there because keep in mind the legislators,
the city councils, etc.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
They live there. They don't want to deal with this.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
So be prepared for instead of pushing for tourists come
to us now, there are certain places that want tourists.
For example, South Sudan, Yemen, they want tourists and will say, hey,
you can see more RPGs than you've ever examined in
a lifetime.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
Just come to Yemen. Short of that, you talk about major.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
Cities, the world. World has changed, the world has changed.
Kf I am sixty. 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
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