July 15, 2025 • 47 mins
Norm Blumenthal - an attorney for workers and consumers. Selected as one of the Top Attorneys in Southern California. Norm was inducted and recognized as one of America's Most Trusted Lawyers in Employment Law.
“Is there light at the end of the tunnel?”
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About the host:
Bert Martinez is a successful entrepreneur and best-selling author. Bert is fascinated by business, marketing, and entrepreneurship. One of Bert’s favorite hobbies is to transform the complicated into simple-to-understand lessons so you can apply them to your business and life. Bert is also obsessed with exploring the mindset of the high achievers so you can follow their secrets and strategies.
“Is there light at the end of the tunnel?”
Connect with Bert: YouTube | Twitter | Instagram
Get a Free Copy of Dominating Your Mind: https://amzn.to/2XuM9Xr While supplies last, limited time.
About the host:
Bert Martinez is a successful entrepreneur and best-selling author. Bert is fascinated by business, marketing, and entrepreneurship. One of Bert’s favorite hobbies is to transform the complicated into simple-to-understand lessons so you can apply them to your business and life. Bert is also obsessed with exploring the mindset of the high achievers so you can follow their secrets and strategies.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome back everybody today on the show Norm Blumenthal. Norm
Blumenthal's an attorney for workers and consumers. Selected as one
of the top attorneys in Southern California, Norm was also
inducted and recognized as one of America's most trusted lawyers
in employment law. Norm Blumenthal, welcome back.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Nice to be back, Bert. You know, and question now
for us is where do we go from here? Seems
like every time we have an idea, it gets adopted somewhere.
We just remember, I don't know if you remember. Back
we had the idea of having school districts build housing
(00:44):
for their teachers on the properties so that they have
the teachers right there and they can afford the housing
that they'll be entitled to right And recently San Diego
school or adopted that approach, So that was really a
(01:06):
big win for teachers and that you know, don't make
the kind of money that other people do. They do
it for the love of the job more than anything else.
So it's nice to see that, and that, you know,
dovetails into the next issue we have, which is the
(01:26):
velocity of money. And you know, we've talked about this
many times, and it's the consumer. Is you know, almost
seventy percent of the gross domestic product in this country.
So if you can't get the consumer to spend, you're
not going to get the economy up and running to
the point where we cover our debt right and we
(01:53):
have lower interest rates, So right now, how do you
get the consumer to how do you stimulate the consumer?
And you know, we had an idea a couple of
shows ago where if you allowed an apartment owner with
(02:16):
ten units that he wanted to sell for a million
dollars and had to recapture all of his deductions, it
wouldn't even be worth it for him to sell it
for a million dollars because.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
He would lose.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Money wrote off all of the expenses plus plus plus.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
So you know, we came up with the idea of.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Having no tax on the sale and allowing the owner
to instead of having ten units and selling advertising him
for a million dollars for the whole back and you
then be able to break it up and turn them
into ten condos at one hundred thousand each, and you
(03:09):
pay no tax on the gain or the income that
you wrote off. And I just recently read that that's
something that the current administration is interested in so they
floated out that idea that there'd be no capital gains tax.
So that's something good that we've talked about before, and
(03:32):
I haven't heard it anywhere until when it was until
it was repeated by the administration. So we have to
increase the velocity of money. This is the where we
have to go. Because I guess they had just Amazon
Prime and the sales were off by forty percent, and wow, people,
(03:55):
that's incredible. Well, people aren't spending. I think they everybody's.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
Nervous.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
I mean, they're spending some money, but not you know,
not the kind of spending that we'd like to see
across the board. So these are ideas that if an
actor would stimulate spending.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
The other thing is to stimulate spending is to reduce the.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Fed Fund rate, and you know, that's been an issue
that administration and Fed chair pal have gone back and
forth on. It was interesting to note that for every
one increase in the Fed Fund rate, it costs a
(04:48):
federal government three hundred billion dollars for each one percent.
So if you bring it down two percent, that's six
hundred billion that we would save in expense on the debt.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
And we have a lot of it.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
You know, we have thirty five trillion dollars in debt,
and so that's wait.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
Wait, wait, I want to make sure I got the
math right. For every one percent, we're looking at three hundred.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Billion, right, that's if you add if you do the man, sure,
what thirty five trillion dollars in debt.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
So if you take thirty five trillion and one percent of.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
A trillion is one hundred one hundred million, one hundred billion. Uh,
that's the kind of numbers you're talking about. So it's
three hundred billion dollars as savings.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
This is something that you know, it's good.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
I think that the administration should continue to push for
reduction in interest rates. And it goes across the board too,
because then home loans are cheaper, and people would be
more inclined to spend and buy a house if they
if it was you know, a couple of points less
(06:12):
interest rate, I'd be way more attractive. And then that's
the key, which is to increase the velocity of money.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
That is the secret sauce. Right.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
I mean, look, let's just take the home purchase example.
Somebody buys a home, uh, even you know they're going
to probably rent a moving truck or they're going to
hire a moving company. So again that's increasing local sales.
Most new home buyers are going to replenish, i'm sorry,
replace one or two or several pieces of furniture, so
(06:47):
you get you got those sales. It's it's a it's
a win all the way around.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Yeah, this is you got to stimulate the economy. You
need to get the consumer spending again. And I think
that they're.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
All kind of leary.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Everybody is on spending because one is the interest rates
too high for them to afford it, and two is
they don't know where the economy is going. And I
think you solve both problems. If you cut rates a
couple of points, you'll save those problems because and as
(07:26):
you say, you'll increase the velocity of money. Is everybody
we're talking about, they're going to spend their dollars.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
I mean the millionaires and billionaires.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
They may be able to spend, but how many boats
can you own, and so how many vacations can yet take?
How many planes can you own? So there's a certain
point in time where the top tenth of one percent
just isn't spending the money, and so the money gets
(08:00):
tied up, and it becomes in the hands of people
that won't spend.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
While a person.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
Buying a house or an apartment of a kind of
they'll spending, as you say, on all the things that
go with via that new carpet, new paint, clean up,
you know, but you need to if you're just building
single family homes alone, is just not going to do
(08:31):
it right.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
And and the thing about it is, again, guys, when
norm is talking about the velocity of money, it's kind
of think of it as a daisy chain or what
do you call it anywhere else my thought. But you know, again,
you walk into a store and let's say you buy it.
You know, you buy a thousand dollars worth of furniture
or whatever, and so that keeps those people employed. Those
(08:59):
employees now can go and spend that money in the community.
And so that's the velocity of money. It's just how
quickly does that money go from one hand to the other.
And so right now, because the economy is kind of
in limbo, I don't want to say in limbo, but
the economy is certainly uncertain. So you're you're seeing the
slow down not only in the velocity of money, and
(09:23):
then that makes the economy slow down. People are concerned.
You can you can see the you can see what's
happening in Wall Street. Wall Street reacts to consumer confidence,
and so when consumer confidence is high, you'll see the
stock market high. When consumer confidence is low, stock market suffers.
And as norm just mentioned, you know, here's here's Amazon
(09:46):
during their last special prime day.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
They're down.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
So it is this is what's what our governments, in
my opinions, number one job is to create jobs, help
create jobs, and keep the economy moving.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Yeah, and I think the administration is doing with it,
thinks is right. I mean, obviously we have they're putting
more debt on, which is not a good thing. But
in the long run, they have to have a sustainable
economy for for people to want to spend money. And
(10:26):
you know, you're not going to get the billionaires to
spend because there's a finite amount of things that toys,
that and trips and that they can take and do so.
But if in the middle class, that's the sweet spot.
And if you there's jobs, the unemployment rate is low,
(10:49):
employment rate is high.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
There's jobs out there.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
They people can at good salaries, and I can see
it where you have to get people back into the
workforce and get them then spending, and you have to
make things attractive for them.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
And so you make.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Housing attractive by making it attractive for the seller. You know,
people don't want to sell their house because they if
they go to another house, the interest rate is going
to be too high and they're going to have to.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
Take a tax.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
The capital gains tracks on the sale of their house,
and then you just multiply that for apartment owners and
all of a sudden you have gridlock in the economy.
Speaker 3 (11:41):
And that's what we're experiencing right now.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
You know, we have to get the wheels of the
economy turning again to make it make sense, to get
it going, and you have to stimulate it. And there's
a lot of ways to do it. One is spending
and the other is kind of interest rates. So I
think we've done plenty of spending, not necessarily in the hands,
(12:04):
and that people will spend it. But the main thing
is is that can be done is to cut interest
rates from the FED and that will stimulate the economy.
It's it's worked in the past and the work again.
So we'll see what Chairman Powell. You know, says at
the end of the month, he shouldn't be making a report,
(12:27):
so hopefully he'll do that. You know, they're trying to
bring home manufacturing and we'll see where that goes. The
immigration policy and for employees is it's, you know, not
(12:47):
what we want because it's too draconian. In California, now,
the judge just ruled that you can't take people and
go and arrest them and search them just because they're
the color of their skin or where they live or
(13:10):
what they do. So you know, you can't profile people.
So that's going to slow down this push to you know,
take anybody out of the country that is, regardless of
whether or not they've committed a crime, but just because
of the.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
Papers they have are only temporary.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Right, I mean it, look what's happening. So we've so far,
we've had several US citizens that have been detained, arrested,
whatever the correct term is. We have another gentleman who
has five kids, he's been married. They went to visit
(13:55):
Canada and he was not allowed back in because when
he he was in his twenties, he committed a couple
of I consider mister small crimes, right. I think it
was driving with a suspended driver's license, and there was
a marijuana conviction, which I don't think should even stay
(14:17):
on his record. But the bottom line is he paid
off everything, he hasn't committed a crime since, but yet
they won't allow him to come back in the States.
They told him, if you try to come back in,
we're going to detain you. And this is the kind
of stuff that is unnecessary. It's one thing if you
(14:39):
are detaining and deporting people who are here illegally, who
have committed crimes, you know, real crimes, and they're currently active,
I guess, in committing those crimes. But when you're looking
at somebody, and when you look at somebody who hasn't
committed a crime in over thirty years, and you know,
(15:03):
again these are crimes that that are very common among young,
inexperienced people, and so you're you know, there's no point,
you're not achieving any kind of you're not helping the
US in any way. And so this is one of
the things that hopefully the administration will be able to
(15:25):
figure out in a timely way. And the way I
see it, it's just going to cause more chaos and
turmoil and more money because you deport some of these people.
And let's say that eighty percent of them are here undocumented, Great,
what about that twenty percent? You have lawsuits that are
(15:45):
going to be filed, The dj is going to have
to work more, and you're not saving any money, you're
not making things better. But it's good. It's great for headlines,
and it's great for those people who feel disenfranchised with
their particular life and they feel as though, man, by
getting rid of some of these immigrants, my life is
somehow going to be better. It's not going to be better.
(16:07):
It's it's going to be exactly the same because you're
focused on the wrong thing. And I think that it's
going to be interesting to see what Chairman Powell does,
because I think he's already at least I think last
week he stated we're not doing anything right now, So
I'm eager to see. I think everybody's kind of holding
(16:27):
their breath to see what he does.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
Yeah, it's that that's you know, two parts, two sides
of the of the sword. You know, the immigration. I
think people don't. I was just studying it so I
have a little better understanding. There is Biden for the
most part, the people that he led into the country
were on temporary visas from countries where there was persecution.
(16:58):
So the best example would be Afghanistan. There's people in
this country who helped the Americans when we were there,
and they had to leave because they they would have
been jailed and the life would be was threatened because
they helped the Americans. For the Taliban took over. So
(17:21):
they all came to this country under visus. What the
administration is doing is it's canceling those visas for our allies.
These are our friends, and.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
That's a mistake. And there's a lot of.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
Issues with cancelation of these visas, and there has to
be an examination of you know, this person committed a crime.
You know they should or should their visa be revoked?
If not, let it be and so. And these people
(18:03):
have jobs and if they I think they feel like
they're not going to be profiled and taken away, they'll
be out spending money.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
In working in the society.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
And those that group is a completely separate group from
people who have crossed the border illegally, and that is
you know, they came through the fence right and that
group has no right to be in the country legally.
They can you know then petition for asylum, but that
(18:38):
generally has not worked because the administration takes the view
that you committed a crime when you cross the border.
But that's not the biggest group. The biggest group actually
are here legally on temporary visas, so the questionnaire student
(18:58):
visas or tourists visas right, and so some have overstayed
there welcome, some haven't. But we need to get the
issues resolved as to you know, you can't profile number
one and number two.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
You don't go after people that like some woman showed
up for her hearing.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
She's been in the country over forty years and they
arrested her because she overstated her visa. Well, I mean
that's you know, what has she done during that time?
No crimes, clean record, shows up every time for her
hearing periodically they want to know if she's still hearing,
(19:42):
what she's doing. And so it's a self defeating process
because these people are already here, they're productive, they're doing jobs,
and it has to be a one by one situation
and you can clean it up because the administration, to
their credit, has closed the borders. And that was what
(20:07):
got the president elected. People wanted the borders closed. They
didn't necessarily want law abiding citizens to be arrested and
sent back to a country where they where they came from,
especially when they're facing persecution if they go there.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
Yeah. Absolutely, And and what's interesting to me is in
something that that kind of reminds me that this administration
does not understand or doesn't care about friendship or loyalty. Right,
They're not into that. They are not going to parciprocate
(20:50):
any kind of I don't know, decency because like you said,
here are these these people who put next on the
line against the Taliban. They were promised that they could
relocate here, and now this administration saying, oh that doesn't count.
(21:11):
That was somebody else's deal. It wasn't our deal. And
it's those kind of things are unnecessary. There is so much,
there is so much that that can be done for good.
Why are they going after, like you said, law abiding allies.
Why are you going after people that are trying to
(21:33):
do the right thing. What is the point of arresting
a lady who is showing up to her immigration appointment.
It just you know, to me, Immigration could have sent
her a letter and saying, hey, you're at a time
we're gonna give you thirty days to pack up and leave.
Then if she didn't do that, that's when you arrest her.
(21:54):
But again, she's showing up to her appointments. She's trying
to do the legal thing, and what good what value
is being delivered by arresting her at her appointments. All
it's doing is scaring everybody else who's trying to do
it legally.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
Yeah, and you know that. You know, we talk about
spending money in the velocity of money. No one's going
to spend money knowing that they may be evicted from
the country to points unknown. They're picked up off the street.
Some lady was doing her gardening and they picked her
up out of her garden and put her in a
(22:35):
prison that the family can't find out where she is.
You know, this is no due process at all, and
it's not a way to handle it, and it doesn't
help the economy. All it does is is make things
worse because no one's going to spend any money in
the system like that, And there's people that just aren't
(22:57):
going to do these jobs, the farm jobs, the meat
packing jobs, the you know, gets your hands dirty jobs,
to construction jobs. You're just not going to landscaping jobs.
You're just not going to have the personnel to do it,
and then it grinds to a halt. It's the same thing.
Speaker 3 (23:18):
So everything.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
The administration should be looking at this on a one
by one situation. And the people that you know have
committed crimes, you know, of course they should be given
due process, but then relocated and not in some unknown
facility in the middle of the Everglades.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
I mean, that's no process at all.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
Absolutely, And and again I think that this is not
the first administration that has done mass deportation. Of course,
President Trump wants to do the biggest, you know, and
and every time they deport somebody and makes the headline
because that's what some of a lot of his constituents want.
That right. What's interesting to me, and I've mentioned this before,
(24:10):
Sixty Minutes has done a report saying that twenty percent
of the people coming over the fence here illegally are Chinese.
I think that's to me scarier than having a person
who's coming over here to pick crops and do some
menial labor type stuff. I think that the administration needs
(24:33):
to focus on what is it that's going to help
the economy, How do we get more jobs? And it's
I'm all forgetting more jobs here and getting more manufacturing here.
But here's my question to you, norm Let's say that again,
they bring a bunch of manufacturing here, it's going to
(24:53):
be more expensive. Are US citizens so patriotic that they're
going to pay two or three times what they're paying
now for a suirt because it's made in the US?
I don't think. So what's your thoughts?
Speaker 2 (25:07):
Yeah, you know, it's an interesting question because are they
going to pay more if they don't have to?
Speaker 3 (25:13):
Of course not.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
But the question is when they come over and there's
a tax on it, a tariff, they don't call it
a tax, a tariff on it, that increases the price
of the product coming in at the same time the
US manufacturer, it's going to increase their price, or a
(25:35):
vice a versus. So if a product comes in from
a foreign country with a tariff on it, that tariff's
going to be put into the cost of good soul
and basically the competition will increase the price the same way.
Speaker 3 (25:54):
Right, So I think all it does.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
Is increase the price across the board, you know, And
if the manufacturer overseas absorbs the cost. Then I assume
that the US manufacturer will also absorb the cost. So
we don't know the answer to that question because it
(26:17):
hasn't developed yet. You know, expect that Nike shoes are
going to be more expensive, so you know that's and
the question is who eats the tariff?
Speaker 3 (26:30):
We don't know the answer to.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
That, right in. One of the other things that that
all of this chaos and fear that again back to
the the immigration folks. Uh, you know they started raiding farms.
Talk about shooting the you know, shooting the economy. If
(26:54):
if those farms aren't able to get their crops to market,
they're going to sit there and rot. We've had that
before during the first Trump administration. Secondly, that means that
your produce prices are going to go up, so again
you're not helping the economy if these immigrant workers aren't
(27:19):
there to pick the crops. Again, last time this happened
with the Trump administration, there wasn't anybody who was willing
to pick those crops. And I think at one point
the farmers were paying like thirty or forty bucks an
hour and they still couldn't get anybody to come pick crops.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
No, it's a backbreaking job. There's a good decision out
of California. It only applies to southern California under the
new rules where you can't profile. Like when they rated
those cannabis farms and everybody was running. You can't profile. Say, Okay,
if you're somebody handling crops on a farm, you're probably illegal.
(28:01):
So they go and start chasing down people to look
for their papers. You can't do that. You have to
have probable costs to stop and question them. And the
fact that they may their skin may be brown, and
they're working on a canvas on them, that's profiling. That's illegal.
So if you make it one on one way, better
(28:25):
off going to universities too. Yeah, there's a big business
in educating foreigners in this country with student visas and
the universities. It's a good profit center for them because
they pay, you know, top dollar for the education.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
What's wrong with that?
Speaker 2 (28:46):
You know they're not taking anybody's spaces on there because
this is a different system.
Speaker 3 (28:52):
You know, at California you're in the top five percent.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
You go to the top five percent of schools Berkeley
or u c LA, you know, u CSD.
Speaker 3 (29:04):
So it all evens out in the end. But people
have to spend money.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
And the problem we have here is the administration's thought
on how it's going to get the debt paid for
is by stimulating the economy, which is good.
Speaker 3 (29:25):
But you can't stimulate the economy when people.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
Are out there worrying about whether or not they're going
to get arrested.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
Absolutely correct. And again let's look at things historically, we
for the most part, we have not had problems with
the immigrant worker. You know, yeah, some of them get
drunk and get rowdy, but you know that's in my opinion,
isn't that bad? But and yes, look, I'll tell you
(29:58):
a really funny story here. So I was at a
red light and this was so it was me and
another gentleman, and we're both the two first cars at
the red light. And somehow this car came out of
nowhere and smashed in between us, damaging my vehicle a
little bit and and damaging the other person's vehicle a lot.
(30:22):
And what had happened. It was an undocumented person, a gentleman,
and he had fallen asleep at the wheel. He had
he had overworked and fell asleep at the wheel. The
police were there and we go through all this stuff,
and you know, information exchanges hands, and the police come
to me. And this is in Houston, Texas. The police
(30:44):
come to me and say, hey, do you want me
to arrest this guy or let him go? I said no.
I said, you know, I appreciate the fact what he's doing,
but he didn't have insurance, he had no ID, he
was here illegally. It's like, no, let him spend a
night in jail. So maybe whole attempt to get insurance,
because you can get insurance if you want. It's called
(31:07):
non owner's insurance, at least in Houston. You can get
better in Texas anyway, So the cop says, man, we
really don't want to arrest him. You know, it's a
lot of paperwork, and we're almost done with our shift.
We don't want to do it. So they didn't arrest him.
And I think that that is again lacey, lazy policing.
(31:30):
I think that if you commit a crime, and again
in this situation, luckily nobody was hurt. Yes, some property
was damaged. I was okay with the guy spending twenty
four hours in jail then releasing him, But in this case,
he got away with everything. And I think that now
we have this pendulum that swung to the other end
(31:52):
where they're looking for anything brown skin, he might be illegal.
And we're going to get to the point now that
you're going to have to carry your papers. You're gonna
have to carry your birth certificate or something with you
to prove that you're a US citizen. You're gonna have
to you know, you're gonna have to have something on
you because let me tell you, if I was at
(32:15):
one of these farms when they did a raid, they
would have probably hauled me away too. I fit that description.
Speaker 3 (32:22):
Yeah, it's hard, it's hard to know.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
Well, the good news is that the borders closed, you know,
that's the good news. Yes, So if you're a US
citizen and you cross the border, make sure you have
your your birth certificate or your.
Speaker 3 (32:39):
Passport with you, otherwise you're not getting in.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
So they had and they have plenty of money to
cover the borders. So then you're dealing with a finite
set of people that are here, and if they're arrested
for a crime, there should be or there is a crime,
there should be a database to whether or not they
have the proper papers. If they don't, then they need
(33:07):
due process and they.
Speaker 3 (33:10):
And sent back to the country of origin.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
That's where you go, unless there's some asylum law that's
an effect that allows them to stay right and or
they have papers, you know, a student visa, tourist visa,
a visa that allows them to stay. After that, you know,
as the visas run out, you'll have less and less
(33:35):
people that are here illegally and they're not crossing the
border illegally, and all they're doing is overstaying their visa,
which may require them to get it renewed. And that's
all part of the process and it keeps the economy going.
It's the idea of taking people off their workforce is
(33:58):
a mistake. We have any of jobs that no one
wants to do that. There's people there that will do
it if they were given the opportunity.
Speaker 1 (34:09):
Absolutely, and again, the biggest, biggest mistake that the administration
is making is avoiding the new process. I think that's
just going to come back and bite them in the
(34:31):
butt on so many different ways. It's there's going to
be an increased cost. Of course, you know, we have
a new we have a Supreme Court that is I
would say it seems to follow the MAGA mindset, not
all the time, but at least fifty percent of the time.
(34:51):
So maybe they'll write some new laws that that says, hey,
probable cause is unnecessary anymore. Who knows what they're going
to come up with. But bottom line is, probable cause
is important. Due process is the most important thing. I
think that you got to give people a chance to
go to court and explain their situation and show the
(35:14):
evidence that they're here illegally or here illegally, and then
if they're here illegally you want to terminate their stay,
then do that. And as you mentioned earlier, then the
other thing is can we do it in a way
that doesn't hurt people. So to send somebody for no
reason to some prison in l Salvador because you think
(35:36):
they're here illegally or you think they're part of a gang,
then again, how is that helping the US. It's not
really helping the US. You can say, oh, we got
some we got some bad people off the streets. So
crime is going down. Crime is still not going down.
It's going to make a maybe a blip in that area.
But bottom line is, I think that we as the US,
(35:58):
we have a duty to make sure that not only
are we following the law, but that if this person,
if we deport this person to their their or their home, yeah,
their place of origin, they may be killed or tortured.
Then let's do the right thing and deport them someplace else.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
Well, the biggest problem is is this idea of picking
somebody up off the street and not they're not They
don't get a phone call to get an attorney or
tell their family where they are.
Speaker 3 (36:32):
They're in limbo.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
And you know, people are are never returned from these gulags.
I mean, it's basically what it is. There's no due process,
there's no information. You arrest a person, they should be
entitled to a phone call and tell them where they are.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
Absolutely, it's such a basic thing to do. It doesn't
hurt them, it doesn't cost any real money. And then
the other thing that I find a little palling it,
and I want to get your take on this norm
is we now see a bunch of these police officers
who are wearing masks and and uh, I just find
(37:13):
that to be suspicious. What's your take on that?
Speaker 3 (37:18):
Yeah, I have the same take.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
I think that they should have identified themselves, not necessarily
with their name, but there has to be some identification
numbers on them that you can verify. They can very
you can verify that this this number matches a person
who is employed by ICE, so that you're not dealing
(37:44):
with some rogue uh impersonator. Right, Hey, that's that's what
I object to, because anybody can put a mask on
and a badge.
Speaker 3 (37:56):
I mean, they can sell these things.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
I guess that these good gun shows or whatever, and
so they can impersonate an officer and there's no way
to know because you can't check, right, and so there's
no accountability. And that's you know, and now that now
you're into the realm of the police state.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
Right and and look, nobody, nobody likes to be held accountable.
But accountability does make us better. It helps to help
us all to perform better, and and and and whether
it's in your family setting, work setting, or any place else,
we have to hold each other accountable. And you've got
(38:39):
a police officer who's unidentifiable. You don't know, you don't
know what branch he works for, you don't know anything
about his name or any way identifying him. And so
to me, that seems unlawful. It seems like almost the
opposite of what the police should be like. And look,
(39:01):
I understand that in some cases you have to hide
that police officer or law enforcement person's identity to an extent,
but like you said, there could be a number on
his best uh, some kind of way of saying, hey,
this officer with whatever number X, y Z, you know
(39:24):
needs to be investigated. They you know, they need to
be held accountable. You know, let's do that. But when
they all look the same and their and their faces
are covered, I think we're we're on a what do
they say? What do they say? A slippery slope?
Speaker 2 (39:40):
Yeah, you know, this whole idea of profiling has to
go away and do process has to be brought back.
Speaker 3 (39:47):
And you have to have a.
Speaker 2 (39:49):
Probable cause when you take somebody and I ask them
for I d that that they if they can't produce it,
then you put them in a gulag.
Speaker 3 (40:00):
That's not what America is all about.
Speaker 1 (40:03):
Right, And so let me give you, let me ask
you this norm. Here we are, we're on the seventh
month of the Trump administration. Do you see any light
at the end of the tunnel?
Speaker 3 (40:16):
You hope springs eternal?
Speaker 2 (40:19):
From an economic standpoint, best set Treasury Secretary has his
finger on the pulse of things that can be done
to stimulate the economy. So I think, you know, reducing
interest rates, making loans, sales of homes and apartments without
(40:47):
any taxes on it stimulate the that economy and to
a large extent. So I think the economy will be stimulated.
Then I think the borders are secure. Now it's just
a question of people in this country that we don't
want to stay here. I mean, they have to have
probable cause to want to remove them, you know, and
(41:13):
it's if they've come in here illegally, that's cause for removal.
If they've committed a crime, that's cause for removal. So
they have overstayed, they're welcome, that's caused for removal. But
there has to be a way that they can cure
that and still staying. And that's what we need to emphasize.
(41:36):
And so we get everybody back on the same page
and have them spend money and not be afraid.
Speaker 3 (41:41):
To go to go out and.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
Go to a bar and enjoy themselves and stimulate the
economy and keep everybody working and spending. That's what we
have to do. Velocity of money is the keys to
the Kingdom.
Speaker 1 (41:58):
Absolutely. When you look back at what made America strong
was that velocity of money innovation putting more and more
people to work. And we see it all through history
from the Industrial Age all the way up to today.
You see that the pie just kept getting bigger and bigger,
(42:20):
and people were finding not only good jobs, but there
was a variety of jobs that they could attain. I
think that one of the other things that people are
concerned with norm is AI shrinking that pie a little bit,
because it looks like AI is going to be here
forever and it's going to definitely take some jobs.
Speaker 3 (42:43):
Well, I think it'll create jobs too. I look at it.
Speaker 2 (42:47):
You know, everybody thought, oh, when we had the internet,
you know, this is going to take away everybody's job.
It took away a lot of jobs, but created a
lot of jobs.
Speaker 1 (42:57):
And that's a good point. I mean, I remember that
with the UH, with the auto industry, when they started
using those robots, people some people did lose their jobs,
but guess what other people found jobs repairing those robots
and making those robots, uh, you know, being able to
program those robots. So you're right there, is that that
that other side of the coin.
Speaker 2 (43:20):
Yeah, I think that you're going to see that, and
I think, again, that's just a step in progress.
Speaker 3 (43:27):
But at the end of the day, AI.
Speaker 2 (43:31):
Cannot do what people advertised it would do, which is reason,
and it can't reason. It can give you data and
you can ask questions, and it's like, you know, when
I was a kid, of the world book you had,
you looked it up with Encyclopedia Britannica. Yeah, this is
(43:55):
just a big encyclopedia that you have and you can
look it up, but it's not going to be able
to reason and say, oh, this is the answer to
solving the pollution problem. You're not going to get that.
It can't reason. It can only give you data, and
if the information is not in the data bank, then
(44:19):
you're not going to get it out.
Speaker 3 (44:21):
And so there's a step. You know, maybe.
Speaker 2 (44:24):
Quantum mechanics will cross over that step, but right now
we're not there yet. There's still another at least one
more level of progress that we have to make on
what we have, and so you know, I'm hopeful that
we'll keep going and you know, we get everybody back
(44:46):
on the same page. I think, if there's a chance
that we can do that and hopefully it'll happen done
in a reasonably short period of time.
Speaker 1 (44:56):
Absolutely, and I like your take on that, reminding us that, yeah,
AI is not full proof, it doesn't reason. Look at
all the people who've gotten in trouble relying on AI
for their paper or just recently, servial lawyers were fined
three thousand dollars not because they used AI, but because
(45:17):
they relied on AI to be accurate, and it turned
out that either all or eighty percent of the case
law that they cited was completely made up, factitious hallucinations,
whatever you want to call them. So AI it's a
step up from Internet, from the Internet to an extent,
But like you said, it doesn't reason. It doesn't know
(45:37):
when it's wrong or doesn't know when it's giving you
wrong information based on the data. So we still got
some wiggle room there. But overall, I think that today's
takeaway is just getting the velocity of money cranking. The
velocity of money is really going to help out so
(46:00):
many of us, but unfortunately a lot of people are
afraid to spend money.
Speaker 2 (46:06):
Yeah, that's you got to get everybody off the sidelines
and back in the game, and you have to make
it where they're comfortable playing, and you can't have people
hiding out in their homes in fear of being deported.
You know, you can't, can't, you can't do it.
Speaker 3 (46:25):
It's not going to work, and you end up with
less and less velocity.
Speaker 1 (46:30):
Absolutely, Norm. On that note, we're going to end as always,
my friend's good to have you here and we'll talk
to you soon.
Speaker 3 (46:36):
Thanks Ert, always a pleasure, Thank.
Speaker 1 (46:38):
You, good stuff there from Norm bloomin Ball. Norm Bloomenthal
is a lawyer who represents working class people like you
and I. He really loves to champion the underdog, and
I love Norm he is. He's one of those lawyers
that has a lot of heart and he really can
(47:01):
empathize with the struggles that we all deal with. So
if you have questions about Norm Blumenthal, you can reach
out to him at BAM law CA. That's Biz and
Bravo Alpha Mary Bam law c A and share this
episode with everyone you know. Let's get the conversation started.
(47:22):
I'm not talking about hate. I'm talking about an intelligent conversation.
Tell me what you think. Do we get some stuff right?
Are we one hundred percent wrong? Drop your drop your
comments in the comments and let's get the conversation started
as always, my friends, thank you for being here. Remember
you were created to succeed
Welcome back everybody today on the show Norm Blumenthal. Norm
Blumenthal's an attorney for workers and consumers. Selected as one
of the top attorneys in Southern California, Norm was also
inducted and recognized as one of America's most trusted lawyers
in employment law. Norm Blumenthal, welcome back.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Nice to be back, Bert. You know, and question now
for us is where do we go from here? Seems
like every time we have an idea, it gets adopted somewhere.
We just remember, I don't know if you remember. Back
we had the idea of having school districts build housing
(00:44):
for their teachers on the properties so that they have
the teachers right there and they can afford the housing
that they'll be entitled to right And recently San Diego
school or adopted that approach, So that was really a
(01:06):
big win for teachers and that you know, don't make
the kind of money that other people do. They do
it for the love of the job more than anything else.
So it's nice to see that, and that, you know,
dovetails into the next issue we have, which is the
(01:26):
velocity of money. And you know, we've talked about this
many times, and it's the consumer. Is you know, almost
seventy percent of the gross domestic product in this country.
So if you can't get the consumer to spend, you're
not going to get the economy up and running to
the point where we cover our debt right and we
(01:53):
have lower interest rates, So right now, how do you
get the consumer to how do you stimulate the consumer?
And you know, we had an idea a couple of
shows ago where if you allowed an apartment owner with
(02:16):
ten units that he wanted to sell for a million
dollars and had to recapture all of his deductions, it
wouldn't even be worth it for him to sell it
for a million dollars because.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
He would lose.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Money wrote off all of the expenses plus plus plus.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
So you know, we came up with the idea of.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Having no tax on the sale and allowing the owner
to instead of having ten units and selling advertising him
for a million dollars for the whole back and you
then be able to break it up and turn them
into ten condos at one hundred thousand each, and you
(03:09):
pay no tax on the gain or the income that
you wrote off. And I just recently read that that's
something that the current administration is interested in so they
floated out that idea that there'd be no capital gains tax.
So that's something good that we've talked about before, and
(03:32):
I haven't heard it anywhere until when it was until
it was repeated by the administration. So we have to
increase the velocity of money. This is the where we
have to go. Because I guess they had just Amazon
Prime and the sales were off by forty percent, and wow, people,
(03:55):
that's incredible. Well, people aren't spending. I think they everybody's.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
Nervous.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
I mean, they're spending some money, but not you know,
not the kind of spending that we'd like to see
across the board. So these are ideas that if an
actor would stimulate spending.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
The other thing is to stimulate spending is to reduce the.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Fed Fund rate, and you know, that's been an issue
that administration and Fed chair pal have gone back and
forth on. It was interesting to note that for every
one increase in the Fed Fund rate, it costs a
(04:48):
federal government three hundred billion dollars for each one percent.
So if you bring it down two percent, that's six
hundred billion that we would save in expense on the debt.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
And we have a lot of it.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
You know, we have thirty five trillion dollars in debt,
and so that's wait.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
Wait, wait, I want to make sure I got the
math right. For every one percent, we're looking at three hundred.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Billion, right, that's if you add if you do the man, sure,
what thirty five trillion dollars in debt.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
So if you take thirty five trillion and one percent of.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
A trillion is one hundred one hundred million, one hundred billion. Uh,
that's the kind of numbers you're talking about. So it's
three hundred billion dollars as savings.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
This is something that you know, it's good.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
I think that the administration should continue to push for
reduction in interest rates. And it goes across the board too,
because then home loans are cheaper, and people would be
more inclined to spend and buy a house if they
if it was you know, a couple of points less
(06:12):
interest rate, I'd be way more attractive. And then that's
the key, which is to increase the velocity of money.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
That is the secret sauce. Right.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
I mean, look, let's just take the home purchase example.
Somebody buys a home, uh, even you know they're going
to probably rent a moving truck or they're going to
hire a moving company. So again that's increasing local sales.
Most new home buyers are going to replenish, i'm sorry,
replace one or two or several pieces of furniture, so
(06:47):
you get you got those sales. It's it's a it's
a win all the way around.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Yeah, this is you got to stimulate the economy. You
need to get the consumer spending again. And I think
that they're.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
All kind of leary.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Everybody is on spending because one is the interest rates
too high for them to afford it, and two is
they don't know where the economy is going. And I
think you solve both problems. If you cut rates a
couple of points, you'll save those problems because and as
(07:26):
you say, you'll increase the velocity of money. Is everybody
we're talking about, they're going to spend their dollars.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
I mean the millionaires and billionaires.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
They may be able to spend, but how many boats
can you own, and so how many vacations can yet take?
How many planes can you own? So there's a certain
point in time where the top tenth of one percent
just isn't spending the money, and so the money gets
(08:00):
tied up, and it becomes in the hands of people
that won't spend.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
While a person.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
Buying a house or an apartment of a kind of
they'll spending, as you say, on all the things that
go with via that new carpet, new paint, clean up,
you know, but you need to if you're just building
single family homes alone, is just not going to do
(08:31):
it right.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
And and the thing about it is, again, guys, when
norm is talking about the velocity of money, it's kind
of think of it as a daisy chain or what
do you call it anywhere else my thought. But you know, again,
you walk into a store and let's say you buy it.
You know, you buy a thousand dollars worth of furniture
or whatever, and so that keeps those people employed. Those
(08:59):
employees now can go and spend that money in the community.
And so that's the velocity of money. It's just how
quickly does that money go from one hand to the other.
And so right now, because the economy is kind of
in limbo, I don't want to say in limbo, but
the economy is certainly uncertain. So you're you're seeing the
slow down not only in the velocity of money, and
(09:23):
then that makes the economy slow down. People are concerned.
You can you can see the you can see what's
happening in Wall Street. Wall Street reacts to consumer confidence,
and so when consumer confidence is high, you'll see the
stock market high. When consumer confidence is low, stock market suffers.
And as norm just mentioned, you know, here's here's Amazon
(09:46):
during their last special prime day.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
They're down.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
So it is this is what's what our governments, in
my opinions, number one job is to create jobs, help
create jobs, and keep the economy moving.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Yeah, and I think the administration is doing with it,
thinks is right. I mean, obviously we have they're putting
more debt on, which is not a good thing. But
in the long run, they have to have a sustainable
economy for for people to want to spend money. And
(10:26):
you know, you're not going to get the billionaires to
spend because there's a finite amount of things that toys,
that and trips and that they can take and do so.
But if in the middle class, that's the sweet spot.
And if you there's jobs, the unemployment rate is low,
(10:49):
employment rate is high.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
There's jobs out there.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
They people can at good salaries, and I can see
it where you have to get people back into the
workforce and get them then spending, and you have to
make things attractive for them.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
And so you make.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Housing attractive by making it attractive for the seller. You know,
people don't want to sell their house because they if
they go to another house, the interest rate is going
to be too high and they're going to have to.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
Take a tax.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
The capital gains tracks on the sale of their house,
and then you just multiply that for apartment owners and
all of a sudden you have gridlock in the economy.
Speaker 3 (11:41):
And that's what we're experiencing right now.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
You know, we have to get the wheels of the
economy turning again to make it make sense, to get
it going, and you have to stimulate it. And there's
a lot of ways to do it. One is spending
and the other is kind of interest rates. So I
think we've done plenty of spending, not necessarily in the hands,
(12:04):
and that people will spend it. But the main thing
is is that can be done is to cut interest
rates from the FED and that will stimulate the economy.
It's it's worked in the past and the work again.
So we'll see what Chairman Powell. You know, says at
the end of the month, he shouldn't be making a report,
(12:27):
so hopefully he'll do that. You know, they're trying to
bring home manufacturing and we'll see where that goes. The
immigration policy and for employees is it's, you know, not
(12:47):
what we want because it's too draconian. In California, now,
the judge just ruled that you can't take people and
go and arrest them and search them just because they're
the color of their skin or where they live or
(13:10):
what they do. So you know, you can't profile people.
So that's going to slow down this push to you know,
take anybody out of the country that is, regardless of
whether or not they've committed a crime, but just because
of the.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
Papers they have are only temporary.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Right, I mean it, look what's happening. So we've so far,
we've had several US citizens that have been detained, arrested,
whatever the correct term is. We have another gentleman who
has five kids, he's been married. They went to visit
(13:55):
Canada and he was not allowed back in because when
he he was in his twenties, he committed a couple
of I consider mister small crimes, right. I think it
was driving with a suspended driver's license, and there was
a marijuana conviction, which I don't think should even stay
(14:17):
on his record. But the bottom line is he paid
off everything, he hasn't committed a crime since, but yet
they won't allow him to come back in the States.
They told him, if you try to come back in,
we're going to detain you. And this is the kind
of stuff that is unnecessary. It's one thing if you
(14:39):
are detaining and deporting people who are here illegally, who
have committed crimes, you know, real crimes, and they're currently active,
I guess, in committing those crimes. But when you're looking
at somebody, and when you look at somebody who hasn't
committed a crime in over thirty years, and you know,
(15:03):
again these are crimes that that are very common among young,
inexperienced people, and so you're you know, there's no point,
you're not achieving any kind of you're not helping the
US in any way. And so this is one of
the things that hopefully the administration will be able to
(15:25):
figure out in a timely way. And the way I
see it, it's just going to cause more chaos and
turmoil and more money because you deport some of these people.
And let's say that eighty percent of them are here undocumented, Great,
what about that twenty percent? You have lawsuits that are
(15:45):
going to be filed, The dj is going to have
to work more, and you're not saving any money, you're
not making things better. But it's good. It's great for headlines,
and it's great for those people who feel disenfranchised with
their particular life and they feel as though, man, by
getting rid of some of these immigrants, my life is
somehow going to be better. It's not going to be better.
(16:07):
It's it's going to be exactly the same because you're
focused on the wrong thing. And I think that it's
going to be interesting to see what Chairman Powell does,
because I think he's already at least I think last
week he stated we're not doing anything right now, So
I'm eager to see. I think everybody's kind of holding
(16:27):
their breath to see what he does.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
Yeah, it's that that's you know, two parts, two sides
of the of the sword. You know, the immigration. I
think people don't. I was just studying it so I
have a little better understanding. There is Biden for the
most part, the people that he led into the country
were on temporary visas from countries where there was persecution.
(16:58):
So the best example would be Afghanistan. There's people in
this country who helped the Americans when we were there,
and they had to leave because they they would have
been jailed and the life would be was threatened because
they helped the Americans. For the Taliban took over. So
(17:21):
they all came to this country under visus. What the
administration is doing is it's canceling those visas for our allies.
These are our friends, and.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
That's a mistake. And there's a lot of.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
Issues with cancelation of these visas, and there has to
be an examination of you know, this person committed a crime.
You know they should or should their visa be revoked?
If not, let it be and so. And these people
(18:03):
have jobs and if they I think they feel like
they're not going to be profiled and taken away, they'll
be out spending money.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
In working in the society.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
And those that group is a completely separate group from
people who have crossed the border illegally, and that is
you know, they came through the fence right and that
group has no right to be in the country legally.
They can you know then petition for asylum, but that
(18:38):
generally has not worked because the administration takes the view
that you committed a crime when you cross the border.
But that's not the biggest group. The biggest group actually
are here legally on temporary visas, so the questionnaire student
(18:58):
visas or tourists visas right, and so some have overstayed
there welcome, some haven't. But we need to get the
issues resolved as to you know, you can't profile number
one and number two.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
You don't go after people that like some woman showed
up for her hearing.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
She's been in the country over forty years and they
arrested her because she overstated her visa. Well, I mean
that's you know, what has she done during that time?
No crimes, clean record, shows up every time for her
hearing periodically they want to know if she's still hearing,
(19:42):
what she's doing. And so it's a self defeating process
because these people are already here, they're productive, they're doing jobs,
and it has to be a one by one situation
and you can clean it up because the administration, to
their credit, has closed the borders. And that was what
(20:07):
got the president elected. People wanted the borders closed. They
didn't necessarily want law abiding citizens to be arrested and
sent back to a country where they where they came from,
especially when they're facing persecution if they go there.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
Yeah. Absolutely, And and what's interesting to me is in
something that that kind of reminds me that this administration
does not understand or doesn't care about friendship or loyalty. Right,
They're not into that. They are not going to parciprocate
(20:50):
any kind of I don't know, decency because like you said,
here are these these people who put next on the
line against the Taliban. They were promised that they could
relocate here, and now this administration saying, oh that doesn't count.
(21:11):
That was somebody else's deal. It wasn't our deal. And
it's those kind of things are unnecessary. There is so much,
there is so much that that can be done for good.
Why are they going after, like you said, law abiding allies.
Why are you going after people that are trying to
(21:33):
do the right thing. What is the point of arresting
a lady who is showing up to her immigration appointment.
It just you know, to me, Immigration could have sent
her a letter and saying, hey, you're at a time
we're gonna give you thirty days to pack up and leave.
Then if she didn't do that, that's when you arrest her.
(21:54):
But again, she's showing up to her appointments. She's trying
to do the legal thing, and what good what value
is being delivered by arresting her at her appointments. All
it's doing is scaring everybody else who's trying to do
it legally.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
Yeah, and you know that. You know, we talk about
spending money in the velocity of money. No one's going
to spend money knowing that they may be evicted from
the country to points unknown. They're picked up off the street.
Some lady was doing her gardening and they picked her
up out of her garden and put her in a
(22:35):
prison that the family can't find out where she is.
You know, this is no due process at all, and
it's not a way to handle it, and it doesn't
help the economy. All it does is is make things
worse because no one's going to spend any money in
the system like that, And there's people that just aren't
(22:57):
going to do these jobs, the farm jobs, the meat
packing jobs, the you know, gets your hands dirty jobs,
to construction jobs. You're just not going to landscaping jobs.
You're just not going to have the personnel to do it,
and then it grinds to a halt. It's the same thing.
Speaker 3 (23:18):
So everything.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
The administration should be looking at this on a one
by one situation. And the people that you know have
committed crimes, you know, of course they should be given
due process, but then relocated and not in some unknown
facility in the middle of the Everglades.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
I mean, that's no process at all.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
Absolutely, And and again I think that this is not
the first administration that has done mass deportation. Of course,
President Trump wants to do the biggest, you know, and
and every time they deport somebody and makes the headline
because that's what some of a lot of his constituents want.
That right. What's interesting to me, and I've mentioned this before,
(24:10):
Sixty Minutes has done a report saying that twenty percent
of the people coming over the fence here illegally are Chinese.
I think that's to me scarier than having a person
who's coming over here to pick crops and do some
menial labor type stuff. I think that the administration needs
(24:33):
to focus on what is it that's going to help
the economy, How do we get more jobs? And it's
I'm all forgetting more jobs here and getting more manufacturing here.
But here's my question to you, norm Let's say that again,
they bring a bunch of manufacturing here, it's going to
(24:53):
be more expensive. Are US citizens so patriotic that they're
going to pay two or three times what they're paying
now for a suirt because it's made in the US?
I don't think. So what's your thoughts?
Speaker 2 (25:07):
Yeah, you know, it's an interesting question because are they
going to pay more if they don't have to?
Speaker 3 (25:13):
Of course not.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
But the question is when they come over and there's
a tax on it, a tariff, they don't call it
a tax, a tariff on it, that increases the price
of the product coming in at the same time the
US manufacturer, it's going to increase their price, or a
(25:35):
vice a versus. So if a product comes in from
a foreign country with a tariff on it, that tariff's
going to be put into the cost of good soul
and basically the competition will increase the price the same way.
Speaker 3 (25:54):
Right, So I think all it does.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
Is increase the price across the board, you know, And
if the manufacturer overseas absorbs the cost. Then I assume
that the US manufacturer will also absorb the cost. So
we don't know the answer to that question because it
(26:17):
hasn't developed yet. You know, expect that Nike shoes are
going to be more expensive, so you know that's and
the question is who eats the tariff?
Speaker 3 (26:30):
We don't know the answer to.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
That, right in. One of the other things that that
all of this chaos and fear that again back to
the the immigration folks. Uh, you know they started raiding farms.
Talk about shooting the you know, shooting the economy. If
(26:54):
if those farms aren't able to get their crops to market,
they're going to sit there and rot. We've had that
before during the first Trump administration. Secondly, that means that
your produce prices are going to go up, so again
you're not helping the economy if these immigrant workers aren't
(27:19):
there to pick the crops. Again, last time this happened
with the Trump administration, there wasn't anybody who was willing
to pick those crops. And I think at one point
the farmers were paying like thirty or forty bucks an
hour and they still couldn't get anybody to come pick crops.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
No, it's a backbreaking job. There's a good decision out
of California. It only applies to southern California under the
new rules where you can't profile. Like when they rated
those cannabis farms and everybody was running. You can't profile. Say, Okay,
if you're somebody handling crops on a farm, you're probably illegal.
(28:01):
So they go and start chasing down people to look
for their papers. You can't do that. You have to
have probable costs to stop and question them. And the
fact that they may their skin may be brown, and
they're working on a canvas on them, that's profiling. That's illegal.
So if you make it one on one way, better
(28:25):
off going to universities too. Yeah, there's a big business
in educating foreigners in this country with student visas and
the universities. It's a good profit center for them because
they pay, you know, top dollar for the education.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
What's wrong with that?
Speaker 2 (28:46):
You know they're not taking anybody's spaces on there because
this is a different system.
Speaker 3 (28:52):
You know, at California you're in the top five percent.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
You go to the top five percent of schools Berkeley
or u c LA, you know, u CSD.
Speaker 3 (29:04):
So it all evens out in the end. But people
have to spend money.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
And the problem we have here is the administration's thought
on how it's going to get the debt paid for
is by stimulating the economy, which is good.
Speaker 3 (29:25):
But you can't stimulate the economy when people.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
Are out there worrying about whether or not they're going
to get arrested.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
Absolutely correct. And again let's look at things historically, we
for the most part, we have not had problems with
the immigrant worker. You know, yeah, some of them get
drunk and get rowdy, but you know that's in my opinion,
isn't that bad? But and yes, look, I'll tell you
(29:58):
a really funny story here. So I was at a
red light and this was so it was me and
another gentleman, and we're both the two first cars at
the red light. And somehow this car came out of
nowhere and smashed in between us, damaging my vehicle a
little bit and and damaging the other person's vehicle a lot.
(30:22):
And what had happened. It was an undocumented person, a gentleman,
and he had fallen asleep at the wheel. He had
he had overworked and fell asleep at the wheel. The
police were there and we go through all this stuff,
and you know, information exchanges hands, and the police come
to me. And this is in Houston, Texas. The police
(30:44):
come to me and say, hey, do you want me
to arrest this guy or let him go? I said no.
I said, you know, I appreciate the fact what he's doing,
but he didn't have insurance, he had no ID, he
was here illegally. It's like, no, let him spend a
night in jail. So maybe whole attempt to get insurance,
because you can get insurance if you want. It's called
(31:07):
non owner's insurance, at least in Houston. You can get
better in Texas anyway, So the cop says, man, we
really don't want to arrest him. You know, it's a
lot of paperwork, and we're almost done with our shift.
We don't want to do it. So they didn't arrest him.
And I think that that is again lacey, lazy policing.
(31:30):
I think that if you commit a crime, and again
in this situation, luckily nobody was hurt. Yes, some property
was damaged. I was okay with the guy spending twenty
four hours in jail then releasing him, But in this case,
he got away with everything. And I think that now
we have this pendulum that swung to the other end
(31:52):
where they're looking for anything brown skin, he might be illegal.
And we're going to get to the point now that
you're going to have to carry your papers. You're gonna
have to carry your birth certificate or something with you
to prove that you're a US citizen. You're gonna have
to you know, you're gonna have to have something on
you because let me tell you, if I was at
(32:15):
one of these farms when they did a raid, they
would have probably hauled me away too. I fit that description.
Speaker 3 (32:22):
Yeah, it's hard, it's hard to know.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
Well, the good news is that the borders closed, you know,
that's the good news. Yes, So if you're a US
citizen and you cross the border, make sure you have
your your birth certificate or your.
Speaker 3 (32:39):
Passport with you, otherwise you're not getting in.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
So they had and they have plenty of money to
cover the borders. So then you're dealing with a finite
set of people that are here, and if they're arrested
for a crime, there should be or there is a crime,
there should be a database to whether or not they
have the proper papers. If they don't, then they need
(33:07):
due process and they.
Speaker 3 (33:10):
And sent back to the country of origin.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
That's where you go, unless there's some asylum law that's
an effect that allows them to stay right and or
they have papers, you know, a student visa, tourist visa,
a visa that allows them to stay. After that, you know,
as the visas run out, you'll have less and less
(33:35):
people that are here illegally and they're not crossing the
border illegally, and all they're doing is overstaying their visa,
which may require them to get it renewed. And that's
all part of the process and it keeps the economy going.
It's the idea of taking people off their workforce is
(33:58):
a mistake. We have any of jobs that no one
wants to do that. There's people there that will do
it if they were given the opportunity.
Speaker 1 (34:09):
Absolutely, and again, the biggest, biggest mistake that the administration
is making is avoiding the new process. I think that's
just going to come back and bite them in the
(34:31):
butt on so many different ways. It's there's going to
be an increased cost. Of course, you know, we have
a new we have a Supreme Court that is I
would say it seems to follow the MAGA mindset, not
all the time, but at least fifty percent of the time.
(34:51):
So maybe they'll write some new laws that that says, hey,
probable cause is unnecessary anymore. Who knows what they're going
to come up with. But bottom line is, probable cause
is important. Due process is the most important thing. I
think that you got to give people a chance to
go to court and explain their situation and show the
(35:14):
evidence that they're here illegally or here illegally, and then
if they're here illegally you want to terminate their stay,
then do that. And as you mentioned earlier, then the
other thing is can we do it in a way
that doesn't hurt people. So to send somebody for no
reason to some prison in l Salvador because you think
(35:36):
they're here illegally or you think they're part of a gang,
then again, how is that helping the US. It's not
really helping the US. You can say, oh, we got
some we got some bad people off the streets. So
crime is going down. Crime is still not going down.
It's going to make a maybe a blip in that area.
But bottom line is, I think that we as the US,
(35:58):
we have a duty to make sure that not only
are we following the law, but that if this person,
if we deport this person to their their or their home, yeah,
their place of origin, they may be killed or tortured.
Then let's do the right thing and deport them someplace else.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
Well, the biggest problem is is this idea of picking
somebody up off the street and not they're not They
don't get a phone call to get an attorney or
tell their family where they are.
Speaker 3 (36:32):
They're in limbo.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
And you know, people are are never returned from these gulags.
I mean, it's basically what it is. There's no due process,
there's no information. You arrest a person, they should be
entitled to a phone call and tell them where they are.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
Absolutely, it's such a basic thing to do. It doesn't
hurt them, it doesn't cost any real money. And then
the other thing that I find a little palling it,
and I want to get your take on this norm
is we now see a bunch of these police officers
who are wearing masks and and uh, I just find
(37:13):
that to be suspicious. What's your take on that?
Speaker 3 (37:18):
Yeah, I have the same take.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
I think that they should have identified themselves, not necessarily
with their name, but there has to be some identification
numbers on them that you can verify. They can very
you can verify that this this number matches a person
who is employed by ICE, so that you're not dealing
(37:44):
with some rogue uh impersonator. Right, Hey, that's that's what
I object to, because anybody can put a mask on
and a badge.
Speaker 3 (37:56):
I mean, they can sell these things.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
I guess that these good gun shows or whatever, and
so they can impersonate an officer and there's no way
to know because you can't check, right, and so there's
no accountability. And that's you know, and now that now
you're into the realm of the police state.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
Right and and look, nobody, nobody likes to be held accountable.
But accountability does make us better. It helps to help
us all to perform better, and and and and whether
it's in your family setting, work setting, or any place else,
we have to hold each other accountable. And you've got
(38:39):
a police officer who's unidentifiable. You don't know, you don't
know what branch he works for, you don't know anything
about his name or any way identifying him. And so
to me, that seems unlawful. It seems like almost the
opposite of what the police should be like. And look,
(39:01):
I understand that in some cases you have to hide
that police officer or law enforcement person's identity to an extent,
but like you said, there could be a number on
his best uh, some kind of way of saying, hey,
this officer with whatever number X, y Z, you know
(39:24):
needs to be investigated. They you know, they need to
be held accountable. You know, let's do that. But when
they all look the same and their and their faces
are covered, I think we're we're on a what do
they say? What do they say? A slippery slope?
Speaker 2 (39:40):
Yeah, you know, this whole idea of profiling has to
go away and do process has to be brought back.
Speaker 3 (39:47):
And you have to have a.
Speaker 2 (39:49):
Probable cause when you take somebody and I ask them
for I d that that they if they can't produce it,
then you put them in a gulag.
Speaker 3 (40:00):
That's not what America is all about.
Speaker 1 (40:03):
Right, And so let me give you, let me ask
you this norm. Here we are, we're on the seventh
month of the Trump administration. Do you see any light
at the end of the tunnel?
Speaker 3 (40:16):
You hope springs eternal?
Speaker 2 (40:19):
From an economic standpoint, best set Treasury Secretary has his
finger on the pulse of things that can be done
to stimulate the economy. So I think, you know, reducing
interest rates, making loans, sales of homes and apartments without
(40:47):
any taxes on it stimulate the that economy and to
a large extent. So I think the economy will be stimulated.
Then I think the borders are secure. Now it's just
a question of people in this country that we don't
want to stay here. I mean, they have to have
probable cause to want to remove them, you know, and
(41:13):
it's if they've come in here illegally, that's cause for removal.
If they've committed a crime, that's cause for removal. So
they have overstayed, they're welcome, that's caused for removal. But
there has to be a way that they can cure
that and still staying. And that's what we need to emphasize.
(41:36):
And so we get everybody back on the same page
and have them spend money and not be afraid.
Speaker 3 (41:41):
To go to go out and.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
Go to a bar and enjoy themselves and stimulate the
economy and keep everybody working and spending. That's what we
have to do. Velocity of money is the keys to
the Kingdom.
Speaker 1 (41:58):
Absolutely. When you look back at what made America strong
was that velocity of money innovation putting more and more
people to work. And we see it all through history
from the Industrial Age all the way up to today.
You see that the pie just kept getting bigger and bigger,
(42:20):
and people were finding not only good jobs, but there
was a variety of jobs that they could attain. I
think that one of the other things that people are
concerned with norm is AI shrinking that pie a little bit,
because it looks like AI is going to be here
forever and it's going to definitely take some jobs.
Speaker 3 (42:43):
Well, I think it'll create jobs too. I look at it.
Speaker 2 (42:47):
You know, everybody thought, oh, when we had the internet,
you know, this is going to take away everybody's job.
It took away a lot of jobs, but created a
lot of jobs.
Speaker 1 (42:57):
And that's a good point. I mean, I remember that
with the UH, with the auto industry, when they started
using those robots, people some people did lose their jobs,
but guess what other people found jobs repairing those robots
and making those robots, uh, you know, being able to
program those robots. So you're right there, is that that
that other side of the coin.
Speaker 2 (43:20):
Yeah, I think that you're going to see that, and
I think, again, that's just a step in progress.
Speaker 3 (43:27):
But at the end of the day, AI.
Speaker 2 (43:31):
Cannot do what people advertised it would do, which is reason,
and it can't reason. It can give you data and
you can ask questions, and it's like, you know, when
I was a kid, of the world book you had,
you looked it up with Encyclopedia Britannica. Yeah, this is
(43:55):
just a big encyclopedia that you have and you can
look it up, but it's not going to be able
to reason and say, oh, this is the answer to
solving the pollution problem. You're not going to get that.
It can't reason. It can only give you data, and
if the information is not in the data bank, then
(44:19):
you're not going to get it out.
Speaker 3 (44:21):
And so there's a step. You know, maybe.
Speaker 2 (44:24):
Quantum mechanics will cross over that step, but right now
we're not there yet. There's still another at least one
more level of progress that we have to make on
what we have, and so you know, I'm hopeful that
we'll keep going and you know, we get everybody back
(44:46):
on the same page. I think, if there's a chance
that we can do that and hopefully it'll happen done
in a reasonably short period of time.
Speaker 1 (44:56):
Absolutely, and I like your take on that, reminding us that, yeah,
AI is not full proof, it doesn't reason. Look at
all the people who've gotten in trouble relying on AI
for their paper or just recently, servial lawyers were fined
three thousand dollars not because they used AI, but because
(45:17):
they relied on AI to be accurate, and it turned
out that either all or eighty percent of the case
law that they cited was completely made up, factitious hallucinations,
whatever you want to call them. So AI it's a
step up from Internet, from the Internet to an extent,
But like you said, it doesn't reason. It doesn't know
(45:37):
when it's wrong or doesn't know when it's giving you
wrong information based on the data. So we still got
some wiggle room there. But overall, I think that today's
takeaway is just getting the velocity of money cranking. The
velocity of money is really going to help out so
(46:00):
many of us, but unfortunately a lot of people are
afraid to spend money.
Speaker 2 (46:06):
Yeah, that's you got to get everybody off the sidelines
and back in the game, and you have to make
it where they're comfortable playing, and you can't have people
hiding out in their homes in fear of being deported.
You know, you can't, can't, you can't do it.
Speaker 3 (46:25):
It's not going to work, and you end up with
less and less velocity.
Speaker 1 (46:30):
Absolutely, Norm. On that note, we're going to end as always,
my friend's good to have you here and we'll talk
to you soon.
Speaker 3 (46:36):
Thanks Ert, always a pleasure, Thank.
Speaker 1 (46:38):
You, good stuff there from Norm bloomin Ball. Norm Bloomenthal
is a lawyer who represents working class people like you
and I. He really loves to champion the underdog, and
I love Norm he is. He's one of those lawyers
that has a lot of heart and he really can
(47:01):
empathize with the struggles that we all deal with. So
if you have questions about Norm Blumenthal, you can reach
out to him at BAM law CA. That's Biz and
Bravo Alpha Mary Bam law c A and share this
episode with everyone you know. Let's get the conversation started.
(47:22):
I'm not talking about hate. I'm talking about an intelligent conversation.
Tell me what you think. Do we get some stuff right?
Are we one hundred percent wrong? Drop your drop your
comments in the comments and let's get the conversation started
as always, my friends, thank you for being here. Remember
you were created to succeed
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