Speaker 1: You're listening to bill Handle on demand from KFI AM
Speaker 1: six forty.
Speaker 2: KFI AM six forty Bill Handle. Here it is Aday, Wednesday,
Speaker 2: September twenty five.
Speaker 1: Some of the big stories we're looking at.
Speaker 2: Yesterday, the Senate passed a bill that gives Vice President
Speaker 2: Kamala Harris and former President Trump the same protections.
Speaker 1: As Joe Biden, a sitting president. And that's new.
Speaker 2: And by the way, it was unanimous in the House
Speaker 2: and in the Senate. You don't see that very often. Also, Helene,
Speaker 2: Florida residents are bracing for Helen the first or excuse me,
Speaker 2: I think it's what the fourth hurricane to make landfall
Speaker 2: in the US this year and we're only into how early.
Speaker 1: In the season, are we? Huh? We're going to see
Speaker 1: a lot of hurricanes this season. Okay. Lawsuit time.
Speaker 2: The Justice Department is sued Visa alleging it has monopolized
Speaker 2: the market for consumer payments and it's worth trillions of
Speaker 2: dollars every year the market. It's an anti trust complaint
Speaker 2: that effectively says Visa, you are curtailing the market, you
Speaker 2: are not letting free enterprise, and we're gonna stop it.
Speaker 2: And here's what the Justice Apartment is saying Visa did
Speaker 2: it has paid companies like Amazon or like Apple and
Speaker 2: others in an Amazon.
Speaker 1: To hold on a minute.
Speaker 2: I'm I've got double vision here for a moment. A right, Yeah, no,
Speaker 2: I just you know, occasionally I get vertigo and then
Speaker 2: I go crazy.
Speaker 3: I get you know, wait, how many fingers am I
Speaker 3: holding up?
Speaker 1: Nine? No, it's just the one. Oh, okay, it's one.
Speaker 1: So let me get through this a moment anyway. I'm
Speaker 1: that's weird, Neil. You're four people.
Speaker 2: Well, I had no idea, you know, and it's it's
Speaker 2: not any better looking either.
Speaker 1: You don't want four of me? No, no, I don't
Speaker 1: want four of you in any case? What all right? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm okay, I just have a I'm not going to
Speaker 1: stand up. Yeah, I have a little vidigo.
Speaker 3: They'd be concerned about you.
Speaker 1: It occasionally hits me. No, I'm fine. I'm fine. It's
Speaker 1: not like I'm having a.
Speaker 3: And then we'd have to go pokey with a stick.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's true.
Speaker 2: That's by the way, if I ever do stroke out
Speaker 2: or have a heart attack or whatever, I'm definitely gonna
Speaker 2: do it on the air.
Speaker 1: Boy, what ratings? Where we get on that one.
Speaker 3: And it makes us signed documents that we will we
Speaker 3: will do it for the ratings.
Speaker 2: In any case, the point of this story is that
Speaker 2: Visa is being accused of using its power.
Speaker 1: It has sixty percent of the market.
Speaker 2: We're talking about it when it chargess to process the
Speaker 2: credit cards, and there is a fee that Visa and
Speaker 2: other processors charge, And the Justice Department is saying, hey, guys,
Speaker 2: you have a huge market and the way you're acting,
Speaker 2: because not only are you curtailing the transactions, and here's
Speaker 2: how they do it. If one of the vendors who
Speaker 2: uses you, in fact ghosts uses anybody else for anything else,
Speaker 2: higher fees kick in. And they've paid Amazon and have
Speaker 2: paid Apple to not develop their own transactions and cut
Speaker 2: them in for their profit.
Speaker 1: And according to the Justice Department, if.
Speaker 2: It's true what they say, you bet, it's in violation
Speaker 2: of the antitrust laws.
Speaker 1: You can't do that. You can't do that.
Speaker 2: You cannot work that aggressively to control the market, in fact,
Speaker 2: successfully control the market. And this is what Visa is
Speaker 2: being accused. Of course, Visa said, absolutely not true. We
Speaker 2: don't control the market sixty percent. And the lawsuit this
Speaker 2: is according to the Visa General Counsel, that the lawsuit
Speaker 2: ignores the reality that Visa is just one of many
Speaker 2: competitors in a debit space that is growing and believing
Speaker 2: this is growing like crazy because how many stores are
Speaker 2: disappearing and how much is online shopping growing.
Speaker 1: It's growing like crazy, and it's.
Speaker 2: Credit cards that have to be used, although credit cards
Speaker 2: are used across the board, and it's the Just Department
Speaker 2: saying this, just thinkt fair the way Visa is acting.
Speaker 2: Of course Visa said no, no, no, no, there are
Speaker 2: plenty of competitors out there. If this is true, I
Speaker 2: think Visas in a lot of trouble. There's no question
Speaker 2: about it. So it's not going to be broken up.
Speaker 2: That is not going to happen. Just Apartment is not
Speaker 2: asking for that. They're just asking that Visa stop doing
Speaker 2: what it's doing. Now, let's move into politics for a
Speaker 2: moment with this story. Who gets elected, Well, e, she
Speaker 2: gets elected, She's going to continue on with this lawsuit
Speaker 2: to nail Visa. Now, if Donald Trump gets elected, is
Speaker 2: he get to stop this because he is pro business?
Speaker 2: You know, this lawsuit was started under Donald Trump, He's
Speaker 2: the one under his administration. They went after Visa for
Speaker 2: anti trust. So you can't necessarily think that it's.
Speaker 1: Going to be all roses. What's the phrase peaches and cream.
Speaker 2: Peaches and cream, pins and roses, raining cats and roses.
Speaker 1: I don't know what that is.
Speaker 2: In any case, it's not necessarily going to be a
Speaker 2: whole lot of help for Visa if Trump wins this election.
Speaker 2: And by the way, if this is true, which I
Speaker 2: think it is, well, Ticketmaster got nailed for excessive prices
Speaker 2: and because it controlled the market and did everything it
Speaker 2: could to stop any other sale of concert ticket by
Speaker 2: anybody else, and they got nailed pretty hard for it.
Speaker 1: And the same thing is going to happen to Visa.
Speaker 1: Do you remember, if.
Speaker 2: Memory serves and and you can look this up, Visa
Speaker 2: was originally Bank Americ card, one of the very first
Speaker 2: credit cards out there. The first one I think was
Speaker 2: Discover and I think that's the case. Which is the
Speaker 2: one that was Oh no, I think Dining the Dining card.
Speaker 2: I'm going way back. This is just I'm playing with
Speaker 2: history here.
Speaker 3: Oh Diner's card, Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 1: The Diner's card I think may have been the first one.
Speaker 2: And then Visa was originally Bank Americ Card because Bank
Speaker 2: of America got into this one of the early players,
Speaker 2: and it became massive, and then it changed its name
Speaker 2: to Visa.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that was in nineteen fifty eight.
Speaker 2: Okay, Now I wasn't aware of it. I wasn't using
Speaker 2: credit cards in nineteen fifty eight. But it's this credit
Speaker 2: card business. Well, as you know, it's just exploding. It's
Speaker 2: getting even crazier and we're not going to have Does
Speaker 2: anybody carry cash or anymore? Do you buy anything with cash?
Speaker 2: Very rarely do I have any anything with cash? I
Speaker 2: mean I carry you know, I've told this for I
Speaker 2: always have a couple hundred dollars in my pocket, and
Speaker 2: I do that as a matter of policy only because
Speaker 2: if someone sticks a gun to my head who's a
Speaker 2: dope addict and says I want all your money, at
Speaker 2: least they're happy. There's nothing worse than giving someone a
Speaker 2: dollar and a quarter who's robbing you and get getting
Speaker 2: really depressed and you have a hole in your head
Speaker 2: after that.
Speaker 1: Not very nice.
Speaker 3: By the way, I had Pepe's towing service out there
Speaker 3: in Ontario tow us we high centered on this thing
Speaker 3: a couple days ago, and they came out and I
Speaker 3: didn't have any cash on me, and I want to
Speaker 3: tip them. I said, could I you? He says, no,
Speaker 3: this is a courtesy. We're just helping you out. I
Speaker 3: couldn't take it. Couldn't take it if you had it
Speaker 3: on you.
Speaker 2: He was running a temperature at that time. Okay, I
Speaker 2: have a story for you, and this you may know about. Well,
Speaker 2: it's it's kind of interesting.
Speaker 1: It's one of those this is what's happening in the
Speaker 1: future stories.
Speaker 2: A few years ago, tech giants swore that they were
Speaker 2: going to slash their carbon emissions. And since tech giants
Speaker 2: use an unbelievable amount of energy, how do you reconcile
Speaker 2: we are going to slash our carbon emissions since they
Speaker 2: don't produce the energy, they use the energy. And so
Speaker 2: you have power companies that are trying to deal with this,
Speaker 2: and they are you just we don't have enough power
Speaker 2: out there. So there are there is a the economy here.
Speaker 2: There's actually a contradiction. We need more power, a lot
Speaker 2: more power, and at the same time, we want to
Speaker 2: zero zero out of our emissions or bring them down,
Speaker 2: and you're the ones that provide the power.
Speaker 1: We need more, but you don't have it.
Speaker 2: You have to then well, basically you got to keep
Speaker 2: power plants going longer than is on the books.
Speaker 1: Just give me an idea of the kind of.
Speaker 2: Power, especially where AI is going. You have your normal
Speaker 2: search on Google and that takes power. I mean, there's
Speaker 2: no question. Computers have to be involved, and you've got
Speaker 2: the search engine and you.
Speaker 1: Have hardware that's involved.
Speaker 2: So that costs x sense or fractions of a penny
Speaker 2: or nano's fractions of a penny to do that search.
Speaker 1: You do a search on.
Speaker 2: Chat GPT that takes ten times more power for that
Speaker 2: search than a regular search on Google.
Speaker 1: And imagine how much you're going to use AI.
Speaker 2: And it's not just Chat GPD, it's AI searches. And
Speaker 2: so these tech companies are scrambling to one get more
Speaker 2: power that they need and cut emissions.
Speaker 1: Well how do you do that?
Speaker 2: And the power companies are saying, well, of course you
Speaker 2: need more power, and we're going.
Speaker 1: To give you more at the same time cut emissions.
Speaker 2: So people are companies are going crazy trying to figure
Speaker 2: out which way do we go. Battery power that lasts
Speaker 2: for days instead of hours, nuclear nuclear power, which by
Speaker 2: the way, everybody is frightened up I like nuke power.
Speaker 2: I always have. I don't live near a nuclear power
Speaker 2: plant either. But even environmentalists are about fifty to fifty
Speaker 2: on nuclear energy now because there are no carbon emissions
Speaker 2: with nuclear power and the nuclear waste issue, Hey, I'm
Speaker 2: going to be dead by the time you have to
Speaker 2: deal with it. So muzzletov enjoy. So there are they
Speaker 2: are scrambling. There's geothermal power. Now, hydroelectric power is basically done.
Speaker 2: You're not going to build any more dams. But everybody
Speaker 2: is working in conjunction. So now instead of these companies
Speaker 2: just buying power, there now partnering up to try to
Speaker 2: figure out how we're going to do this this massive
Speaker 2: new demand for power, this massive move towards reducing carbon emissions.
Speaker 2: Have you There was a story I was that on
Speaker 2: sixty minutes where you have the bitcoin mining operations, right
Speaker 2: and this computers that do this, and there is a
Speaker 2: community that lives next door to one of these massive
Speaker 2: operations and.
Speaker 1: They have thousands and thousands.
Speaker 2: Of computers in these buildings and the amount of power
Speaker 2: that it takes and the computers heat up because they're
Speaker 2: just generating heat, so they need air conditioning. Now, how
Speaker 2: loud do you think in air conditioning a or several
Speaker 2: or dozens or hundreds of air conditioning units, how loud
Speaker 2: do you think those get that are sitting on roofs?
Speaker 2: And you if you want to be next door, No,
Speaker 2: very few people live right next door, for example, to
Speaker 2: an Amazon fulfillment center of two million square feet, because
Speaker 2: the noise that's generated is crazy. And by the way,
Speaker 2: the power that a two million square foot warehouse uses.
Speaker 1: Up, what do you think of that? Huh? And you
Speaker 1: got the utility, it's most of what the utility produces.
Speaker 1: And that's what's happening.
Speaker 2: Demand is increasing like crazy, emission controls are increasing like crazy,
Speaker 2: and so basically all of this becomes a partnership. That's
Speaker 2: what the wave of the future is. And you're going
Speaker 2: to see all kinds of alternative wind. We already have solars, certainly.
Speaker 2: You know, I have a solar system in my house
Speaker 2: and people are buying him like crazy.
Speaker 1: You're going to see small.
Speaker 2: Reactors that they're developing in neighborhoods.
Speaker 1: Even I saw plans for.
Speaker 2: A reactor of back yard reactor, little tiny guy. So
Speaker 2: when that up, all it does is take out a
Speaker 2: diameter of ten houses. It is the wave of the future.
Speaker 2: We are going to see that. That's what changes. Okay,
Speaker 2: community colleges interesting. We have a community college system in
Speaker 2: California that is unlike any other system in the country.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's extraordinary the amount of money we pay
Speaker 2: in the opportunities community colleges give us and give Californians. Now,
Speaker 2: there's two aspects of community college. One of them is
Speaker 2: pretty much a failure now and the other one is
Speaker 2: even more of a failure. And here are the two
Speaker 2: areas that community colleges are about. One is getting the
Speaker 2: AA degree for purposes of transferring into either a UC
Speaker 2: or a cal state and finishing up your four year degree.
Speaker 1: And it's an easy way of doing it. It is
Speaker 1: far cheaper doing it now.
Speaker 2: The community colleges are commuter colleges. You're not going to
Speaker 2: have dorms at community colleges. You're not going to have sororities, fraternities,
Speaker 2: I mean, none of that happens. And it's usually older
Speaker 2: students that go to community colleges. Although there was a tutor,
Speaker 2: a math tutor when my kids were smaller, and just
Speaker 2: the brightest lady I've ever seen who was instantly accepted
Speaker 2: by any school in the UC system. And what she
Speaker 2: did is she decided to go to junior college to
Speaker 2: get her first two years and not pay the money
Speaker 2: and not have to live outside of the area. She
Speaker 2: lived at home with her mom and dad, and then
Speaker 2: went on to accept a full scholarship. I think it
Speaker 2: was UC San Diego, and that made sense, But that
Speaker 2: is aberrational she made. She was she defined exactly what
Speaker 2: junior colleges were set up to do, certainly in that sense. Now,
Speaker 2: the other way junior colleges work so well is you
Speaker 2: get an AA degree in one sense, or you get
Speaker 2: a certificate because they have professional courses. You can get
Speaker 2: a certificate in welding, for example, autoshop.
Speaker 1: You can get a certificate in.
Speaker 2: Not computer sciences, well maybe against computer science has been
Speaker 2: not at the same level you would get with a
Speaker 2: computer engineering degree, and you walk out the door with
Speaker 2: a skills set having gone to school that is marketable,
Speaker 2: that is saleable, and you've just come from a junior college. Also,
Speaker 2: I've always wondered and such a good time. You know,
Speaker 2: when I was laid up, I was at home after
Speaker 2: my back surgery and I was sitting there, I was
Speaker 2: watching CNN I was watching Netflix, et cetera. But I
Speaker 2: also was turning on cable TV and regular broadcast TV,
Speaker 2: and it was all these for profit professional schools. Professional
Speaker 2: in the sense of you two can learn how to
Speaker 2: be a front row receptionist, a front line receptionist, receptionist
Speaker 2: for a doctor's office.
Speaker 1: You can get our certificate.
Speaker 2: It's only six months, and of course it costs you
Speaker 2: thirty five thousand dollars. And I always sat and wondered,
Speaker 2: you know how much and why you would pay thirty
Speaker 2: five thousand dollars so you could pick up the phone
Speaker 2: and go Hi, doctor Smith's office, Can I help you?
Speaker 1: Now?
Speaker 2: I understand that takes a lot of training. At least
Speaker 2: in junior college you get that virtually for free. The
Speaker 2: point is they have certificates. They actually give you a
Speaker 2: marketable skill. Now is it working at all? Well, well,
Speaker 2: if the point of junior college, which it was supposed
Speaker 2: to be, this is the reason it was set up,
Speaker 2: is to give you the first two years of college,
Speaker 2: you get your a day degree, and then you transfer
Speaker 2: to a four year institution. And that's the way the
Speaker 2: system was built. Started in nineteen sixty, I think, is
Speaker 2: when they changed the rules and they made it easier
Speaker 2: for transfer students to even transfer in. There's a whole
Speaker 2: system of you do your two years, you transfer in.
Speaker 2: So how many students you think actually make the grade
Speaker 2: who go from junior college and graduate from college. One
Speaker 2: in five twenty percent do.
Speaker 1: What the system is supposed to do.
Speaker 2: So I'm going to come back and talk to you
Speaker 2: about why it is not working and there is a fix.
Speaker 1: And by the way, I am a fan of junior college.
Speaker 2: For those of you that have kids and you're writing
Speaker 2: the checks for college tuition today, let me tell you
Speaker 2: why junior college at solutely works for you.
Speaker 1: In a major way and it helps the kids.
Speaker 2: At the bottom line is community colleges are supposed to
Speaker 2: be you go, you get your two year associate's degree,
Speaker 2: and then you move on to a regular four year college,
Speaker 2: and that is the plan. Well, the audit tells us
Speaker 2: that one in five students do that, and the transfer
Speaker 2: rates from community college to a four year college. It's
Speaker 2: fewer for people in the less affluent parts of the state.
Speaker 2: If you're poor, you're going to do this less, of course,
Speaker 2: and this is inevitably. Students who are black or Hispanic
Speaker 2: are always at a disadvantage doesn't matter where we're talking about.
Speaker 1: There's always a disparity, unfortunately.
Speaker 2: And why would you want a bachelor's degree even though
Speaker 2: they are insanely expensive?
Speaker 1: A lot of jobs require bachelors.
Speaker 2: Kids young adults with bachelor's degree earn sixteen thousand dollars
Speaker 2: more per year than those with just an AA degree.
Speaker 2: And of course if you only have a high school diploma,
Speaker 2: you're going to even earn far less. So why is
Speaker 2: it so difficult, Well, you have community college. The UC
Speaker 2: system and the state system are three different entities, and
Speaker 2: there are three different bureaucracies. They don't talk to each other,
Speaker 2: so you have you're supposed to be able to transfer classes. Well,
Speaker 2: some ucs and some cow states don't take community college credits,
Speaker 2: and you don't know which one because you don't know
Speaker 2: what'school you're going to.
Speaker 1: Okay, some don't take transfers. Some community college don't even.
Speaker 2: Offer the classes that are necessary to go to certain
Speaker 2: UC classes. So what they're trying to do is make
Speaker 2: it easier because assuming you want to go, assuming.
Speaker 1: You're willing to put in your two years and get an.
Speaker 2: AA degree, assuming you want to transfer, the hoops people
Speaker 2: have to go through are in sc because you're talking
Speaker 2: three different systems, three different jurisdictions, three different requirements. As
Speaker 2: a matter of fact, certain schools depending on say you
Speaker 2: want to go to UC is totally different requirements than
Speaker 2: you know, a cal state system and different. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's just it's so so difficult to do this. So
Speaker 2: the plan is to reform the entire system. Oh, there
Speaker 2: are guarantees certain spots, and that's another one. You want
Speaker 2: to get into a really good school, do it as
Speaker 2: a transfer student. If you can't get into UCLA, which
Speaker 2: is almost impossible to get into, go to junior college
Speaker 2: because a certain number and far more than just applying
Speaker 2: for UCLA out of high school, going from a community college,
Speaker 2: they have to reserve certain amount certain numbers of spaces.
Speaker 2: It is far easier to get into a major, good,
Speaker 2: insanely good public school out of junior college. And a
Speaker 2: lot of people don't know that. It just makes more sense.
Speaker 2: It is if you look at it. When the community
Speaker 2: college system works well, it's one of the best best
Speaker 2: ways to get into a four year college. And let
Speaker 2: me tell you something else. Let's say you go to
Speaker 2: community college, you do your two years.
Speaker 1: And I'll talk locally.
Speaker 2: You go to UCLA, let's say, or you see Davis
Speaker 2: or you see Irvine or whatever. On your diploma, it
Speaker 2: doesn't show you went to a community college. All it
Speaker 2: shows is you graduated from UCLA. All it shows is
Speaker 2: you graduated from Berkeley.
Speaker 1: That's it. So it's all the reason in the world.
Speaker 2: To go to community college. And my kids I told them,
Speaker 2: not only are you going to community college, I don't
Speaker 2: even think I'm going to pay the tuition for.
Speaker 1: Community college, because it is just to give you an idea.
Speaker 2: I remember, I don't know how many years ago it is.
Speaker 2: I don't even know what the tuition is. I just
Speaker 2: remember that it was ten dollars a unit when I
Speaker 2: was looking at it, so a full semester it was
Speaker 2: one hundred and sixty bucks a semester if you took
Speaker 2: sixteen units.
Speaker 1: I'm sure that's not the case now.
Speaker 2: But if you look and compare tuition community college, cal
Speaker 2: state colleges, then the UC system, it's still far far cheaper.
Speaker 2: Although go to the UC system and get a medical
Speaker 2: degree or get a law degree, fifty grand a year
Speaker 2: in tuition at a state school. This is kfi AM
Speaker 2: six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1: You've been listening to the Bill Handle Show.
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