WEBVTT

1
00:00:00.160 --> 00:00:03.319
So I was driving all up and
down the ninety nine. Yesterday, I

2
00:00:03.399 --> 00:00:08.160
was doing different work for Right to
Life Central California. So I was up

3
00:00:08.160 --> 00:00:14.439
in I went down all the way
to Bakersfield to give a presentation at Garsis

4
00:00:14.560 --> 00:00:18.320
High School down there. And I
went all the way up to Fireball to

5
00:00:18.359 --> 00:00:22.839
give a presentation at a Catholic church
there. So I was burning rubber all

6
00:00:22.920 --> 00:00:27.600
up and down, all up and
down the ninety nine yesterday. And when

7
00:00:27.600 --> 00:00:31.320
I was in Bakersfield, I stopped
to get a bite to eat. I

8
00:00:31.359 --> 00:00:38.359
went to Taco Bell, and I
realized it was my first time getting fast

9
00:00:38.399 --> 00:00:49.439
food since the implementation of California Is
New April first, twenty dollars per hour

10
00:00:50.840 --> 00:00:57.079
minimum wage for fast food workers.
And I thought I would share my experiences

11
00:00:57.119 --> 00:01:02.200
with you, my beloved radio audience, now saying several of you have likely

12
00:01:03.920 --> 00:01:10.680
gone through a fast food restaurant in
that time. Now, I'll admit I

13
00:01:10.799 --> 00:01:15.280
was not at Taco Bell probably at
peak rush hour. I was there at

14
00:01:15.280 --> 00:01:19.200
two o'clock, which I'd have to
imagine is in the course of a Taco

15
00:01:19.239 --> 00:01:23.760
Bell day has to be kind of
one of the deader hours. Nonetheless,

16
00:01:23.640 --> 00:01:33.799
not one employee at the register.
It was all replaced by touchscreens, which

17
00:01:33.840 --> 00:01:40.519
I hate. This is a thing
my wife and I have laughed about,

18
00:01:40.920 --> 00:01:45.840
especially with like books and stuff.
Right, I said, hey, maybe

19
00:01:45.879 --> 00:01:48.879
we could go to Barnes and talking
about some book, and maybe I'll go

20
00:01:48.920 --> 00:01:51.319
to Barnes and Noble see if I
can pick it up for a present.

21
00:01:51.640 --> 00:01:56.239
So I'll just get it on Amazon. I'm like, well, look,

22
00:01:56.599 --> 00:02:00.519
both Barnes and Noble and Amazon are
massive, evil left wing corporations. So

23
00:02:00.599 --> 00:02:02.799
it's not like, you know,
six to one, half a dozen the

24
00:02:02.840 --> 00:02:07.959
other on the moral side of things. But there's a big part of me

25
00:02:07.039 --> 00:02:10.599
that's like I would rather go to
Okay, let's just say AH bookstore.

26
00:02:10.960 --> 00:02:15.439
I would rather go to AH bookstore. I like going to bookstores. I

27
00:02:15.560 --> 00:02:21.080
like going there myself. I like
grabbing the thing. I like walking around.

28
00:02:21.639 --> 00:02:24.759
I like looking at other books.
I like doing that. And this

29
00:02:24.840 --> 00:02:30.400
is my my whole thing with Christmas
shopping has always been get in my car.

30
00:02:30.479 --> 00:02:35.039
And I remember they used to exist
in Fresno, these stores called sir

31
00:02:35.159 --> 00:02:38.319
La Tabla. I would just go
to ser La Tabla and I would look

32
00:02:38.360 --> 00:02:43.840
around and I'd always find something awesome
for my wife, something awesome for my

33
00:02:43.919 --> 00:02:51.039
mom. I like going in person
and doing things, and I don't really

34
00:02:51.120 --> 00:02:58.520
love self checkouts. I begrudgingly do
them. I don't like it. I

35
00:02:59.439 --> 00:03:07.639
like interacting with a human being.
I like that. Now, economic policy

36
00:03:08.120 --> 00:03:12.800
and the construction of a fast food
restaurant, I understand if it's not gonna

37
00:03:12.800 --> 00:03:19.000
be tailored around my likes. But
basically, I get to this taco bell.

38
00:03:19.120 --> 00:03:23.560
It looks like there's two people working
in the back. Two maybe three

39
00:03:23.599 --> 00:03:30.240
people working in the back, nobody
working the register. I walk in and

40
00:03:30.280 --> 00:03:31.879
someone says, yeah, it's all
at the touch screen. Just use the

41
00:03:31.879 --> 00:03:38.479
touchscreen, okay, which she says, I'll come help you if you have

42
00:03:38.680 --> 00:03:44.000
a difficult time with it, because
obviously any older person is going to have

43
00:03:44.039 --> 00:03:46.560
a difficult time with touchscreens, and
especially like the one I went to.

44
00:03:47.280 --> 00:03:51.919
The touchscreen wasn't working. One of
the two touch screens was not working.

45
00:03:52.280 --> 00:03:55.199
I kept trying to tap the things
I could get a diet coke or whatever,

46
00:03:55.759 --> 00:03:59.840
and it just would not enter,
and it seemed like the whole thing

47
00:04:00.199 --> 00:04:04.800
froze up on me. So I
had to use the other screen. This

48
00:04:04.960 --> 00:04:11.159
is the Gavin News. Some twenty
dollars per hour minimum wage now I want

49
00:04:11.159 --> 00:04:18.120
to sift through this because on the
one hand, like I want to sift

50
00:04:18.160 --> 00:04:26.000
through this because on the one hand, I do believe people should have the

51
00:04:26.079 --> 00:04:30.839
right to earn a living wage.
People should be able to earn a living

52
00:04:30.879 --> 00:04:39.839
wage, and to have a totally
laisse fair, unregulated labor market where people

53
00:04:39.879 --> 00:04:44.120
are doing backbreaking work for almost no
pay and can't support families is not good.

54
00:04:46.319 --> 00:04:48.920
And so there's a part of me
that sees this impulse to want to

55
00:04:49.000 --> 00:04:59.040
increase minimum wage as motivated by well
meaning people. But what is the outcome.

56
00:04:59.199 --> 00:05:08.439
The outcome is instead of people making
fifteen dollars an hour and having more

57
00:05:08.480 --> 00:05:16.040
employees and cheaper food, you now
have much fewer employees who were replaced by

58
00:05:16.079 --> 00:05:21.680
touch screens that don't work as well, and the food's more expensive. That

59
00:05:21.759 --> 00:05:25.519
was the other thing I noticed was, you know, Taco Bell was usually

60
00:05:25.600 --> 00:05:33.120
like you're guaranteed go to Spot for
you know, super cheap food, and

61
00:05:33.439 --> 00:05:39.279
it was definitely like a solid dollar
more expensive than I would have guessed.

62
00:05:39.319 --> 00:05:43.480
I mean, Taco Bell is still
probably the cheapest thing going, but definitely

63
00:05:43.560 --> 00:05:46.399
a solid dollar or so more than
I would have anticipated. And a lot

64
00:05:46.399 --> 00:05:49.160
of the things that I usually like
getting at Taco Bell. They had different

65
00:05:49.240 --> 00:05:54.040
kinds of combo deals that I usually
liked, were all of a sudden two

66
00:05:54.160 --> 00:06:00.120
or three dollars more expensive than they
had been. So so this is what

67
00:06:00.199 --> 00:06:06.319
twenty dollars per hour minimum wage does
the response that businesses have. I feel

68
00:06:06.360 --> 00:06:15.519
like liberals have this sense that they
will tinker with some economic tool and nothing

69
00:06:15.519 --> 00:06:19.920
else will happen in response. Just
the thing that they have increased will change,

70
00:06:19.959 --> 00:06:24.879
the thing that they have tinkered with
will change, and all the other

71
00:06:24.920 --> 00:06:30.240
factors will remain stable. And that's
just not how life works. What's happening

72
00:06:30.319 --> 00:06:31.800
in all these fast food restaurants,
and I could see it, you know.

73
00:06:31.800 --> 00:06:38.759
I was bopping back and forth between
Fresno and Los Angeles over the course

74
00:06:38.800 --> 00:06:44.759
of the last month or so will
my dad was ill and he was being

75
00:06:44.759 --> 00:06:48.519
treated at USC So I was going
back and forth between here in LA and

76
00:06:48.560 --> 00:06:53.439
I could see some of these restaurants, these fast food places when I would

77
00:06:53.480 --> 00:06:59.160
make pit stops already sort of trying
to get ready for the April first,

78
00:06:59.199 --> 00:07:06.040
twenty dollars hour minimum wage. So
I could see this coming. It's not

79
00:07:06.240 --> 00:07:13.000
like they're just going to retain all
their same workers and just bump up all

80
00:07:13.040 --> 00:07:16.399
their wages, you know, from
fifteen dollars an hour to twenty dollars an

81
00:07:16.439 --> 00:07:19.879
hour and just keep the same staff, keep the same payroll. No,

82
00:07:20.399 --> 00:07:26.399
they're all transitioning to touch screens all
over California. They're firing, they're laying

83
00:07:26.439 --> 00:07:30.920
off employees and putting in more touch
screens. They're keeping the bare minimum skeleton

84
00:07:31.000 --> 00:07:36.759
crew that they can maintain in the
restaurant and they're putting in touch screens to

85
00:07:36.800 --> 00:07:43.480
adapt. And some restaurants just can't
even do that. I read a story

86
00:07:43.560 --> 00:07:47.480
like on April second, that the
Foster Freeze and Lamore just closed, just

87
00:07:47.519 --> 00:07:56.639
shut down as soon as the April
first twenty dollars per hour law came into

88
00:07:56.720 --> 00:08:01.199
effect, that Foster Freeze had to
close down. So everyone who works there

89
00:08:01.199 --> 00:08:09.639
now is out of a job.
Now, let's look at the counter arguments.

90
00:08:11.519 --> 00:08:15.959
The counter argument to this would be, look, unemployment in California is

91
00:08:15.959 --> 00:08:24.920
actually relatively low. We're okay with
sacrificing some of that unemployment, with sacrificing

92
00:08:24.959 --> 00:08:28.920
that having some people getting laid off
in a strong labor market where there are

93
00:08:28.920 --> 00:08:35.919
probably other opportunities for those people to
get work in order for the people who

94
00:08:35.960 --> 00:08:43.519
stay at fast food restaurants to get
a better wage twenty dollars per hour on

95
00:08:43.639 --> 00:08:46.759
the macro. Yes, on the
micro level, it's very sad that the

96
00:08:46.799 --> 00:08:52.120
Foster freeze and Lamora closes down.
It's sad that, you know, Frank

97
00:08:52.440 --> 00:08:56.799
and Gloria get fired from Taco Bell
because they were the cashiers and now we

98
00:08:56.840 --> 00:09:01.480
don't need the cashiers, so we
laid them off. That is sad as

99
00:09:01.519 --> 00:09:05.159
a human thing on the micro level. But at the macro level, Gloria

100
00:09:05.159 --> 00:09:11.320
and Frank are going to be able
to find another job somewhere else, and

101
00:09:11.360 --> 00:09:16.600
the other people who you know,
Teresa and Tiffany and Mike who are working

102
00:09:16.600 --> 00:09:20.120
in the back of Taco Belt,
their pay is all going to go up.

103
00:09:20.840 --> 00:09:22.759
So at the end of the day, everything's actually going to work out

104
00:09:22.840 --> 00:09:26.960
better. By us increasing the minimum
wage for fast food at twenty dollars an

105
00:09:26.960 --> 00:09:35.039
hour. That would make sense were
it not for the inflationary impact of increasing

106
00:09:35.320 --> 00:09:43.840
minimum wage specifically for that industry for
fast food. Fast food is has been,

107
00:09:43.399 --> 00:09:48.440
probably always will be as long as
it exists in America, a barometer

108
00:09:48.639 --> 00:09:54.039
for what is entry level unskilled work. This is the standard of what you

109
00:09:54.159 --> 00:09:58.360
pay entry leveled, unskilled workers,
the people who work at McDonald's, Burger,

110
00:09:58.440 --> 00:10:07.000
King, Taco, be Well,
et cetera. If anyone in this

111
00:10:07.120 --> 00:10:11.960
state is being offered a job and
the hourly wage is under twenty dollars per

112
00:10:13.000 --> 00:10:18.159
hour, they can't do it anymore. Twenty dollars has become the de facto

113
00:10:18.279 --> 00:10:22.360
minimum wage for all industries in California, not just fast food, not just

114
00:10:22.399 --> 00:10:28.159
fast food restaurants that don't have a
bakery, the Panera exception. Who's gonna

115
00:10:28.200 --> 00:10:33.720
want to work for an employer who
is paying you less than I can make

116
00:10:33.759 --> 00:10:41.320
flipping burgers at taco, you know, flipping burgers at McDonald's. Also,

117
00:10:41.639 --> 00:10:52.320
it's the fast food industry. When
you increase the minimum wage for fast food

118
00:10:52.840 --> 00:10:58.639
workers, what does that do.
It increases the cost of food. It's

119
00:10:58.720 --> 00:11:09.159
going to increase the cost of what
people pay out for food over the course

120
00:11:09.159 --> 00:11:11.399
of an average month. Yeah,
I know, fast food's not good for

121
00:11:11.440 --> 00:11:18.159
you. Fast food does, though, provide a certain important role of feeding

122
00:11:18.480 --> 00:11:22.360
people, people who are on the
go, people who are traveling, people

123
00:11:22.399 --> 00:11:28.080
who are working. That is a
somewhat useful role that fast food plays in

124
00:11:28.120 --> 00:11:37.840
the American economy. So it's going
to have an inflationary impact on the whole

125
00:11:37.960 --> 00:11:45.879
job market and on food costs in
general. And you might think, well,

126
00:11:45.919 --> 00:11:48.080
if everyone has to make more than
twenty dollars per hour, isn't that

127
00:11:48.200 --> 00:11:54.639
just a good thing. No,
this is inflation. This is the kind

128
00:11:54.639 --> 00:11:58.360
of thing that makes inflation. If
everyone's going to be making twenty dollars per

129
00:11:58.399 --> 00:12:03.919
hour, well the value of the
dollar just isn't what it is. It's

130
00:12:03.960 --> 00:12:11.039
going to come along with higher food
costs, higher grocery costs, probably higher

131
00:12:11.039 --> 00:12:13.679
gasoline costs. People figure, well, if everyone's getting twenty dollars per hour,

132
00:12:15.039 --> 00:12:16.759
I'll bump up the cost of this. I'll bump up the cost of

133
00:12:16.759 --> 00:12:26.399
that. So it's not like a
rising tide lifts all boats. It's almost

134
00:12:26.480 --> 00:12:33.320
like it's almost like the Greek myth
about Tantalus. He was the guy who

135
00:12:33.600 --> 00:12:39.879
his punishment in the nether world was
standing in a lake that's up to his

136
00:12:39.919 --> 00:12:43.120
middle, except whenever he tried to
bend down to drink the water, the

137
00:12:43.159 --> 00:12:48.440
water would recede. And then he
had a you know, an apple tree,

138
00:12:48.480 --> 00:12:50.039
some kind of fruit tree above his
head, and every time he would

139
00:12:50.039 --> 00:12:54.879
reach up his hand to grab it, it would go farther away. It's

140
00:12:54.919 --> 00:13:00.960
where we get the word tantalizing.
It's kind of like that, Yeah,

141
00:13:01.120 --> 00:13:05.600
you're you're reaching. Everyone's reaching up
like tantalis to grab the fruit, but

142
00:13:05.639 --> 00:13:09.039
the fruit just gets farther away.
Yes, you're gonna make Yes, fast

143
00:13:09.039 --> 00:13:11.960
food workers are going to make more
money, but it's going to be accompanied

144
00:13:13.000 --> 00:13:22.720
by inflation across the board. So
I I just I mean, it was

145
00:13:22.919 --> 00:13:26.039
just a very And there's also sort
of this human element, like do we

146
00:13:26.200 --> 00:13:33.960
really want economic policy where we are
telling major corporations it is better for you

147
00:13:35.000 --> 00:13:41.759
are one percent directly incentivized to replace
your human beings with machines. And what

148
00:13:41.840 --> 00:13:50.519
an advantage that gives some mega corporate
fast food chains over and against you know,

149
00:13:50.679 --> 00:13:52.320
for example, Fosterphree, I mean
Posterphe's is a bit more of a

150
00:13:52.360 --> 00:13:56.679
localized chain. It's not a small
business, but it's not a national chain.

151
00:13:56.759 --> 00:14:00.399
It's I think a kind of California
exclusive deal. Yeah, they can't

152
00:14:00.440 --> 00:14:07.120
afford to have elaborate touch screens in
all their restaurants, so they had to

153
00:14:09.080 --> 00:14:11.919
Basically they were like, this is
not a sustainable business anymore. We got

154
00:14:11.919 --> 00:14:18.080
to close the Foster Freeze and Lamore
so there's a lot of aspects of this

155
00:14:20.399 --> 00:14:28.480
that are I think just gonna be
disastrous all around when we return how California

156
00:14:28.600 --> 00:14:35.639
only seems to focus on one side
of the spectrum when it comes to combating

157
00:14:35.039 --> 00:14:43.919
poverty, increasing almost the supply of
money side without actually lowering the cost of

158
00:14:43.960 --> 00:14:48.600
anything. Ever, that's next on
the John Girardy Show. I've noticed this

159
00:14:48.879 --> 00:14:54.360
trend among liberals in California. Hear
me out, follow me along if you

160
00:14:54.440 --> 00:15:07.159
will. There's a problem in California
where stuff is too expensive. Housing is

161
00:15:07.200 --> 00:15:16.159
too expensive, gas is too expensive, food is too expensive. There's never

162
00:15:16.720 --> 00:15:28.240
an energy costs in general are too
expensive. There's never a sense from our

163
00:15:28.360 --> 00:15:33.960
powers that be, the Democrats who
control the state legislature, that we should

164
00:15:35.639 --> 00:15:41.200
look at it, that we should
address it from the perspective of what are

165
00:15:41.240 --> 00:15:46.679
the things making it more expensive,
and how do we get rid of those

166
00:15:46.720 --> 00:15:54.879
things to actually bring the price of
the thing down. It seems like that

167
00:15:54.919 --> 00:16:08.600
is never explored, certainly never affected
effected. What we always see happen is

168
00:16:08.720 --> 00:16:17.679
some attempt to subsidize, either direct
state subsidy or a mandate for other people

169
00:16:17.679 --> 00:16:23.320
to pay more funds out. We
subsidize the ability to pay for the cost

170
00:16:25.120 --> 00:16:30.679
of the expensive thing, but we
never do anything to make the thing less

171
00:16:30.720 --> 00:16:45.080
expensive. It's crazy expensive to build
in California, to build houses, So

172
00:16:45.399 --> 00:16:48.559
what do we do. Well,
we give a bunch of state subsidies to

173
00:16:48.960 --> 00:16:56.200
help builders build so called quote lower
income housing, and as a result,

174
00:16:56.240 --> 00:17:00.200
like the only things that are profitable
for builders to build anymore are are high

175
00:17:00.320 --> 00:17:08.400
end construction, so very fancy schmancy
apartments built in kind of around like Copper

176
00:17:08.519 --> 00:17:14.200
River area or out in fancy parts
of Clovis, where you know, the

177
00:17:14.240 --> 00:17:15.880
only people who can afford to live
there is like, you know, a

178
00:17:17.000 --> 00:17:21.759
single nurse making you know, six
figures, or a single lawyer making six

179
00:17:21.799 --> 00:17:29.359
figures something like that, a divorced
lawyer. But a lot of times I'm

180
00:17:29.400 --> 00:17:33.119
looking at those condoms, I'm like, who can possibly afford to live?

181
00:17:33.240 --> 00:17:40.079
Is this all just divorced lawyers and
doctors or you know, high income like

182
00:17:40.160 --> 00:17:44.720
nurses, Like who all is living
here? Because it isn't like, you

183
00:17:44.759 --> 00:17:48.720
know, it's not a guy who's
driving an Amazon truck around delivering stuff,

184
00:17:48.759 --> 00:17:52.640
Like I just am not sure there's
no family living here obviously, Like I

185
00:17:52.960 --> 00:17:57.720
just don't I cannot fathom who lives
in these things. But basically that's what's

186
00:17:57.759 --> 00:18:03.680
happened with californ An environmental law,
the ability of lawsuits to stop new construction

187
00:18:03.799 --> 00:18:11.359
projects through sequa. The only things
that are profitable to build are really high

188
00:18:11.480 --> 00:18:18.519
end things or California certified lower income
housing where the state will give you subsidies.

189
00:18:21.759 --> 00:18:25.960
So housing is too expensive, we
subsidize stuff. Cost of living is

190
00:18:26.000 --> 00:18:30.359
too expensive. We force the minimum
wage to go up. We don't make

191
00:18:30.400 --> 00:18:37.000
the things less expensive. We just
force minimum wage to go up. Gasoline

192
00:18:37.160 --> 00:18:41.440
is expensive, well, we'll give
subsidies for lower income people for PG and

193
00:18:41.480 --> 00:18:45.960
E will give subsidies for buying electric
cars. But we're not going to do

194
00:18:47.039 --> 00:18:49.720
anything to make the cost of gas
go down, to make energy costs go

195
00:18:49.880 --> 00:18:56.960
down, we just kinda give you. Basically, we're only attacking it from

196
00:18:56.000 --> 00:19:02.480
one side. We're absolutely never attacking
the problems that we see in our state

197
00:19:03.519 --> 00:19:12.480
from the perspective of make the thing
less expensive. Food costs just keep skyrocketing

198
00:19:12.559 --> 00:19:15.599
up and up and up. So
what's the solution, Oh, more food

199
00:19:15.599 --> 00:19:19.000
stamps. I'm sure that's the proposed
solution. I guess, I guess I

200
00:19:19.000 --> 00:19:23.160
haven't heard anything definitive about that.
But it's certainly not in the realm of

201
00:19:23.240 --> 00:19:26.640
Hey, maybe we should repeal that
law that's making pork prices so much more

202
00:19:26.680 --> 00:19:32.359
expensive because of regulations about selling pork
in California that the piggies need us all

203
00:19:32.400 --> 00:19:36.079
that's you know, x amount of
square footage, you know, Maybe we

204
00:19:36.119 --> 00:19:41.519
should you know, these environmental regulations
that we're putting on farms that make the

205
00:19:41.559 --> 00:19:45.200
sale of different kinds of produce more
exp Maybe we should do this to No,

206
00:19:45.640 --> 00:19:49.559
we never address the actual things driving
cost Our gas is super expensive in

207
00:19:49.599 --> 00:19:53.319
California. Maybe we should roll back
some of these California specific taxes and the

208
00:19:53.359 --> 00:20:00.759
California specific you know mix for gasoline
that California itself has a other states don't

209
00:20:00.799 --> 00:20:04.359
have, which makes the refinement caught, the refinery process more expensive for California

210
00:20:04.440 --> 00:20:07.960
specifically. Uh, maybe we should
address that. No, we just said,

211
00:20:08.039 --> 00:20:11.480
oh, no, one hundred percent
of all new car sales will be

212
00:20:11.519 --> 00:20:14.119
electric vehicles by twenty thirty five,
so we don't even need to address it,

213
00:20:14.279 --> 00:20:17.920
and we'll just keep subsidizing electric vehicles, which only super rich people can

214
00:20:18.000 --> 00:20:30.440
afford. It's this insane pathology that
California has where we never actually try to

215
00:20:30.519 --> 00:20:33.799
address the actual cost of the thing, because guess what, we can never

216
00:20:33.880 --> 00:20:41.960
actually catch up. We can never
actually catch up. The left basically has

217
00:20:41.000 --> 00:20:47.240
these sacred cows for why stuff has
to keep being more expensive. We're not

218
00:20:47.279 --> 00:20:51.400
gonna buck the environmental movement. That's
chiefly the reason why so much stuff is

219
00:20:51.480 --> 00:20:56.640
expensive, and we're not gonna buck
organized labor who wants higher minimum wage,

220
00:20:56.720 --> 00:21:02.160
higher minimum wage, rather than addressing
well, why is fifteen dollars an hour?

221
00:21:02.240 --> 00:21:04.319
Why is sixteen dollars an hour?
Why has that not become a livable

222
00:21:04.359 --> 00:21:10.079
wage anymore? Why don't we do
stuff to address that? No, instead

223
00:21:10.119 --> 00:21:14.759
we just say higher minimum wage,
twenty dollars per hour for fast food workers.

224
00:21:15.599 --> 00:21:19.079
Obviously that's going to have an inflationary
effect on the entire labor market.

225
00:21:19.079 --> 00:21:23.759
Obviously, that's going to have all
kinds of I mean, anyone in California

226
00:21:23.759 --> 00:21:27.160
who's making under twenty dollars an hour
right now is probably gonna be able to

227
00:21:27.200 --> 00:21:32.480
go to their boss and say,
you're paying me less than fast food.

228
00:21:32.079 --> 00:21:37.559
You give me a raise, or
I'm out of here. I'm sure that's

229
00:21:37.559 --> 00:21:41.039
happening all up and down this state
right now. When we return is Valley

230
00:21:41.119 --> 00:21:45.880
Children's short changing its nurses. This
is the latest accusation that's next on the

231
00:21:45.920 --> 00:21:55.559
John Girardi Show. It's now seemingly
in local media open season on Valley Children's

232
00:21:55.559 --> 00:22:00.839
Hospital. After the story came out
about Valley Children's CEO Todd's Cunrapac that he

233
00:22:00.880 --> 00:22:07.039
had certain years where he made a
large amount in executive compensation. Valley Children's

234
00:22:07.039 --> 00:22:11.559
tried to explain that this is because
in certain years he was getting they sort

235
00:22:11.559 --> 00:22:17.079
of had two years worth of bonuses
happening in one year. It's actually,

236
00:22:17.359 --> 00:22:21.119
though, his pay is really not
that far outside the norm for executive compensation

237
00:22:21.279 --> 00:22:26.640
for a large children's charitable hospital.
And in part it's because Centrapac has met

238
00:22:26.680 --> 00:22:32.279
a lot of these really significant benchmarks
and people are not wanting to see that.

239
00:22:32.839 --> 00:22:37.200
It's sort of turned into this open
season. The Fresno Bee is very

240
00:22:38.160 --> 00:22:42.440
all in on this story of Valley
Children's as bad. They're all in on

241
00:22:42.480 --> 00:22:48.799
this. I think Fresno b is
all in on this, and there are

242
00:22:48.799 --> 00:22:52.680
a lot of other sort of there
are local politicians all in on this.

243
00:22:52.799 --> 00:23:02.160
Gary Brettefeld, Miguel Arius painting this
picture that Valley Children's Hospital is paying its

244
00:23:02.200 --> 00:23:07.839
executives too much all right. I've
talked about it a couple of times on

245
00:23:07.880 --> 00:23:08.799
the show, and there are a
couple of things about this that I think

246
00:23:08.839 --> 00:23:12.319
are silly. So even in this
attempt at there's a column in The Bee

247
00:23:12.359 --> 00:23:17.400
by Merriic Worzowski talking about how,
oh, they're bilking nurses, But then

248
00:23:17.480 --> 00:23:21.759
he actually goes through the job listings
and notes, well, it's actually not

249
00:23:22.799 --> 00:23:26.359
yeah, I mean salaries for nurses
that children is offering, it's not that

250
00:23:26.519 --> 00:23:30.799
much less really, or in fact, kind of a little better in some

251
00:23:30.839 --> 00:23:37.039
respects some ways of looking at it
than community hospital. Yes, it's less

252
00:23:37.079 --> 00:23:41.319
than what you'd make in Sacramento,
but it's a different market. Like you

253
00:23:41.359 --> 00:23:44.079
know, Fresno is a different market
from Sacramento. Cost of living is different.

254
00:23:48.319 --> 00:23:49.920
So even his attempt to sort of
make that, oh, the Valley

255
00:23:51.000 --> 00:23:56.680
Children's is bilking all these poor nurses
while the fat cat executives are making tons

256
00:23:56.680 --> 00:24:00.839
and tons of money. And it's
like, well, nurses who do a

257
00:24:00.880 --> 00:24:04.880
good job and work a long time
at Children's do just fine. Right,

258
00:24:06.319 --> 00:24:11.880
they're making good salaries. Let's not
act as though a nurse working at Valley

259
00:24:11.920 --> 00:24:15.839
Children's Hospital is living in the poorhouse
here, all right, first of all,

260
00:24:17.359 --> 00:24:22.119
and this is a thing, This
is a narrative I just hate.

261
00:24:22.400 --> 00:24:30.799
There's this idea. You'll notice this
the more you see it. Nurses are

262
00:24:30.839 --> 00:24:37.319
all wonderful superheroes. Doctors are bad. Nurses are all wonderful superheroes. Hospital

263
00:24:37.359 --> 00:24:44.000
executives are bad. Paralegals are powering
through and doing their best. Lawyers are

264
00:24:44.039 --> 00:24:52.279
mean and evil. There's this sort
of attitude that the mid like teachers are

265
00:24:52.480 --> 00:25:02.000
superheroes and wonderful, the college professors
like. There's this idea that mid level

266
00:25:02.079 --> 00:25:10.039
professionals who can do what they do
with a bachelor's degree or a master's somehow

267
00:25:10.279 --> 00:25:19.359
are a more virtuous, noble calling
than the person with the doctoral level experience.

268
00:25:19.559 --> 00:25:26.400
And you'll notice this attitude like this
in a lot of different fields and

269
00:25:26.480 --> 00:25:33.400
across society, across the economy.
I noticed this as a lawyer, where

270
00:25:33.400 --> 00:25:37.119
people say, well, the paralegal, she knew more of what was going

271
00:25:37.119 --> 00:25:42.000
on than the lawyer. And I
don't know if there's some gender stuff there,

272
00:25:42.079 --> 00:25:48.240
that paralegals were mostly women and attorneys
were historically mostly men, although that's

273
00:25:48.599 --> 00:25:52.119
very much change nowadays, just as
likely to find a female attorney as a

274
00:25:52.119 --> 00:25:56.160
male attorney just likely to find female
doctors you are a male doctor. The

275
00:25:56.240 --> 00:26:00.200
nurses knew more of what was going
on then the doctors. I don't know

276
00:26:00.200 --> 00:26:04.759
if there was some historic, sort
of gendered thing to that, but I

277
00:26:04.799 --> 00:26:08.960
will tell you, as a lawyer, I knew a heck of a lot

278
00:26:10.000 --> 00:26:17.960
more than the paralegal. And all
the paralegals at my office were good in

279
00:26:18.039 --> 00:26:22.359
their lane. And that's good.
They didn't go to law school, and

280
00:26:22.480 --> 00:26:29.279
the attention to detail and the willingness
to work hard was obviously much higher among

281
00:26:29.279 --> 00:26:36.039
the attorneys. I'm not saying all
paralegals suck. I'm not saying paralegals are

282
00:26:36.039 --> 00:26:40.880
all lazy. I'm not saying paralegals
are dumb. They are good for their

283
00:26:41.000 --> 00:26:49.680
job. And I think, though
it's a common sort of it's a common

284
00:26:49.720 --> 00:26:55.599
sort of sappy argument to make that, well, the nurses, they're the

285
00:26:55.680 --> 00:26:57.680
ones who really know what's going on. They're the real superheroes, not the

286
00:26:57.720 --> 00:27:03.200
doctors. Why aren't we paying nurses
more? Well, Well, because nurses

287
00:27:03.200 --> 00:27:06.599
didn't go to medical school for four
years, nurses didn't do a residency for

288
00:27:07.160 --> 00:27:11.279
however, many years they were doing
twenty hour shifts and busting their brains and

289
00:27:11.359 --> 00:27:15.279
blah blah blah blah, like,
yeah, we pay doctors more. They

290
00:27:15.319 --> 00:27:19.559
have more education, more experience,
more knowledge. The stuff they're doing is

291
00:27:19.559 --> 00:27:27.079
more difficult. Yes, the CEO
of the hospital needs to make more than

292
00:27:27.119 --> 00:27:32.680
a nurse. It's a much more
difficult job. It's a much more complicated

293
00:27:32.759 --> 00:27:36.200
job. It's a much more high
stress job. It's a much more high

294
00:27:37.039 --> 00:27:42.799
money going one way or another job. Yes, critical executives at the hospital,

295
00:27:44.880 --> 00:27:48.960
some of whom have worked there for
thirty years, should make more than

296
00:27:49.000 --> 00:27:55.319
a nurse. They are a lot
more critical to the functioning of the hospital

297
00:27:55.359 --> 00:28:00.359
than any one individual nurse. That's
not to say nurses are unimportant. Nurses

298
00:28:00.400 --> 00:28:04.359
are very important. Nurses are very
good at what they do. Good nurses

299
00:28:04.440 --> 00:28:12.160
are a godsend. But they're not
the CEO of the hospital. They're not

300
00:28:12.240 --> 00:28:22.799
administrators who run whole departments of the
hospital. So this attack from the present

301
00:28:22.799 --> 00:28:26.599
will be like, oh, look
at how they're not compensating nurses. From

302
00:28:26.599 --> 00:28:32.680
what I can see from their own
story, nurses and children's are compensated pretty

303
00:28:32.720 --> 00:28:37.559
much middle of the pack for the
for the presne market. It doesn't seem

304
00:28:37.599 --> 00:28:47.519
like it's that bad. A lot
of hospitals are being bled dry because they

305
00:28:47.559 --> 00:28:53.160
can't recruit nurses. They have to
get travel nurses. And possibly that's because

306
00:28:53.160 --> 00:28:56.920
they're in more rural parts of the
state. Madeira community had that problem.

307
00:28:56.960 --> 00:29:03.680
They couldn't get nurses, so they
were bleeding money spending all this money on

308
00:29:03.720 --> 00:29:11.640
travel nurses. Now there's this last
point I sort of want to make about

309
00:29:11.640 --> 00:29:15.680
the valued Children's controversy, and then
I think i might shut up about it

310
00:29:15.720 --> 00:29:18.000
because I think I've talked about it
a couple of times over the course of

311
00:29:18.000 --> 00:29:22.440
the week. And look, I've
my dad worked a valid Children's for thirty

312
00:29:22.440 --> 00:29:27.000
one years. I'm you know,
you might argue John's biased. Okay,

313
00:29:27.119 --> 00:29:33.920
yeah, maybe I am a little. Let me just point this out.

314
00:29:33.480 --> 00:29:44.319
The accusation, which has no current
evidence for it, that Children's was misusing

315
00:29:44.640 --> 00:29:56.160
medical funds to fund executive compensation for
its executive staff is silly. Medical For

316
00:29:56.200 --> 00:30:00.200
those who don't understand this, okay, medical is state funded, state slash

317
00:30:00.240 --> 00:30:07.519
federal funded health insurance for lower income
people, people who are under a certain

318
00:30:07.640 --> 00:30:11.880
income threshold. It's paid for with
tax dollars. It covers a lot of

319
00:30:11.920 --> 00:30:17.400
people. So you want to take
medical to help people, but it doesn't

320
00:30:17.440 --> 00:30:21.400
pay out very much because they don't
have enough tax revenue to really pay for

321
00:30:21.519 --> 00:30:26.359
totally covering the cost of care.
Lots of doctors don't want to take medical

322
00:30:26.480 --> 00:30:32.559
because medical is an absolute nightmare to
work with. They never want to pay

323
00:30:32.599 --> 00:30:36.799
out, and when they do pay
out, often what they pay isn't really

324
00:30:37.000 --> 00:30:41.759
even covering the cost of care.
And this is a point that Children's made

325
00:30:41.759 --> 00:30:45.240
in their response, that everyone seemingly
is just blowing by because they don't really

326
00:30:45.319 --> 00:30:52.480
understand how healthcare economics work. The
idea that Valley Children's is rolling in California

327
00:30:52.559 --> 00:31:00.680
state medical dough and that that is
what they're using to pay Todd Cuntrapak a

328
00:31:00.720 --> 00:31:08.680
five million dollar home loan is absurd. They don't get that kind of money

329
00:31:08.720 --> 00:31:14.039
from medical. Money from medical.
Obviously, you can make the argument all

330
00:31:14.079 --> 00:31:17.839
money is fungible. They get this
much money from medical, it's being directed

331
00:31:17.880 --> 00:31:25.119
towards this value. Children's is probably
losing money on their medical patients. On

332
00:31:25.240 --> 00:31:34.000
the whole. Medical reimbursement for services
provided to patients often is not even covering

333
00:31:34.000 --> 00:31:41.319
the cost of the care. You're
losing money. So the idea that they

334
00:31:41.319 --> 00:31:45.279
are so flush with medical cash that
they're going to use it to inappropriately overcompensate

335
00:31:45.359 --> 00:31:55.039
their CEO. It makes no sense. The reason Valley Childrens can pay their

336
00:31:55.079 --> 00:31:59.319
executives so much is for a couple
of factors. One. Okay, so

337
00:32:00.680 --> 00:32:05.519
the arguments in the coverage here have
been not just that Todd Centrapack, the

338
00:32:05.640 --> 00:32:09.160
CEO, is making so much money. And by the way, I haven't

339
00:32:09.200 --> 00:32:14.920
necessarily agreed with Todd Centrapack on several
things. I think during COVID he was

340
00:32:15.319 --> 00:32:21.920
I thought he was a little over
I thought he was kind of over conscious

341
00:32:22.000 --> 00:32:28.519
about vaccines, and I think time
has indicated that he would wound up being

342
00:32:28.559 --> 00:32:31.440
incorrect, especially about school closures and
things like that. I don't you know,

343
00:32:31.480 --> 00:32:37.960
I'm not saying Todd CenTra Pack is
above any criticism as a public figure.

344
00:32:39.839 --> 00:32:44.279
But let's also note this. You
know, what's the only hospital that's

345
00:32:44.319 --> 00:32:49.519
being run pretty darn well right now
is Valley Children's. But Derek Community went

346
00:32:49.559 --> 00:32:55.559
out of business, it's closed,
Saint Agnes is not doing great all right

347
00:32:57.240 --> 00:33:02.160
in a number of respects. Valley
Children's is clearly the best run. Valley

348
00:33:02.200 --> 00:33:07.400
Children's, I think is the best
run hospital in the Fresno market, and

349
00:33:07.440 --> 00:33:13.119
they're able to pay their executives a
bunch of money. One because they're sitting

350
00:33:13.200 --> 00:33:16.319
on an incredibly successful investment portfolio.
Well why do they have such a big

351
00:33:16.319 --> 00:33:21.359
old investment portfolio. What's a children's
charitable hospital to it? What would you

352
00:33:21.440 --> 00:33:24.079
rather them be going out of business
and be broke? You know, Madera

353
00:33:24.119 --> 00:33:28.519
Community is seeing a whole bunch of
medical patients too, just like Valley Children's

354
00:33:28.559 --> 00:33:30.680
is they're out of business. I'm
sure Mideric Community, which is they have

355
00:33:30.759 --> 00:33:37.960
the investment portfolio Valley Children's does so
that they could stay afloat What would you

356
00:33:38.039 --> 00:33:45.839
rather have a nobly closed Valley Children's
hospital or a successfully run Valley Children's hospital

357
00:33:45.880 --> 00:33:53.519
that gets a lot of investment income. And that's why they're able to compensate.

358
00:33:57.480 --> 00:34:00.920
That's why they're able to compensate,
mister back at the level that they're

359
00:34:00.920 --> 00:34:02.519
able to do so, and other
executives, which, by the way,

360
00:34:02.880 --> 00:34:07.200
some of those other executives they've been
at Valid Children's for like thirty years.

361
00:34:07.759 --> 00:34:10.199
They're doing a great job. They're
not just going to artificially fire those people

362
00:34:10.239 --> 00:34:14.880
to reset their pay scales. You
want to retain those people. They have

363
00:34:14.960 --> 00:34:17.320
thirty year history, some of them
with valid Children's. I know a lot

364
00:34:17.320 --> 00:34:22.840
of them came in around the same
time my dad did. So this notion

365
00:34:23.239 --> 00:34:28.800
that all of the valid Children's,
you know, well they could have dialysis

366
00:34:28.840 --> 00:34:31.639
systems, they have to refer people
to stand for for dialysis. The fact

367
00:34:31.639 --> 00:34:36.719
that they're paying the CEO one million
dollars more than you think he should make,

368
00:34:36.960 --> 00:34:39.719
that's not paying for a dialysis system. Sorry, you know, the

369
00:34:39.880 --> 00:34:46.400
tens of millions of dollars year over
year over year that that would take to

370
00:34:46.440 --> 00:34:52.719
sustain certain of the kinds of services
that Children's doesn't happen to have because it's

371
00:34:52.760 --> 00:34:58.239
this level of a hospital. So
in short, I just think this is

372
00:34:58.280 --> 00:35:02.760
such a non story. It's a
non story about the one very successful,

373
00:35:04.400 --> 00:35:08.960
very successfully run hospital in Fresno.
I just think it's I think it's unfair

374
00:35:09.159 --> 00:35:15.800
and I when we return a troubling
survey that indicates that most Christians in America

375
00:35:15.880 --> 00:35:21.280
are complete morons who don't understand Christianity. Next on the John Gerardy Show,

376
00:35:22.719 --> 00:35:31.639
So Christianity Today had a survey which
they surveyed American Christians and asked them certain

377
00:35:31.800 --> 00:35:36.280
doctrinal points. So this will be
just a little bit of Christian doctrine but

378
00:35:36.360 --> 00:35:45.159
kind of a pretty basic one here. First, they asked, and this

379
00:35:45.320 --> 00:35:49.400
was actually just looking at evangelical Christians. Okay, so I guess Catholics are

380
00:35:49.400 --> 00:35:52.079
not part of this, but I'll
cross to the evangelical side of the street

381
00:35:52.159 --> 00:35:59.840
to make some criticism here for the
proposition that Jesus is a created being.

382
00:36:00.559 --> 00:36:07.800
Seventy three percent of evangelicals agreed that
Jesus is the first and greatest being created

383
00:36:07.880 --> 00:36:19.800
by God. That is not right. Literally, the very fundamental Christian dogma

384
00:36:19.920 --> 00:36:24.639
that Jesus is not created created,
He's begotten, not made. That's what

385
00:36:24.679 --> 00:36:29.599
we say in the Niceen Creed,
the Apostles Creed, the Athenasian Creed.

386
00:36:29.880 --> 00:36:34.239
This is a very fundamental idea that
Jesus is God, God from God,

387
00:36:34.360 --> 00:36:39.719
Light from light, true God,
from true God. So he's not created.

388
00:36:40.480 --> 00:36:47.119
His human body and soul were created. And maybe that's what evangelicals mean.

389
00:36:47.159 --> 00:36:52.039
That's my hopeful looking at it.
Well, then we get to this

390
00:36:52.079 --> 00:37:00.679
other question that Christianity Today asked.
Actually, this was from Ligandier Ministries and

391
00:37:00.760 --> 00:37:07.920
LifeWay Research. I guess it was
published by Christianity Today. Percentage of Evangelicals

392
00:37:07.960 --> 00:37:13.800
who agree with the proposition that Jesus
was just a teacher. Jesus was a

393
00:37:13.840 --> 00:37:21.719
great teacher, but he was not
God. Forty three percent of Evangelicals think

394
00:37:21.840 --> 00:37:29.960
Jesus was a great teacher but was
not God. I got bad news for

395
00:37:30.159 --> 00:37:36.840
the forty three percent of evangelical Christians
who do not think that Jesus was God,

396
00:37:36.960 --> 00:37:42.760
just think he was a great teacher. You might be Evangelical by a

397
00:37:42.800 --> 00:37:45.800
certain way of looking at it,
but you're definitely not a Christian anymore.

398
00:37:46.320 --> 00:37:52.119
You're kind of an arian at this
point if you think Jesus was just a

399
00:37:52.159 --> 00:37:57.079
great guy, just you know,
kind of Socrates, Buddha kind of equivalent.

400
00:37:57.800 --> 00:38:04.000
Great guy, super nice dude,
not God though, Sorry, you're

401
00:38:04.000 --> 00:38:07.880
an arian. That'll do it for
John Girardi show. See you next time

402
00:38:07.119 --> 00:38:07.800
on Power Talk.