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