Speaker 1: You're listen Saints KPI AM six forty. The bill handles
Speaker 1: show on demand on the iheartradiop handle here. It is
Speaker 1: a Wednesday day, Wednesday, December eleventh. Fire still going, but
Speaker 1: a little bit of good news. Only seven structures.
Speaker 2: Don't know how many homes.
Speaker 1: Were burnt and were destroyed, and yet it's certainly not
Speaker 1: increasing as rapidly as it was, so I guess okay,
Speaker 1: I'll call it good news. Coming up a little bit
Speaker 1: later on actually, next segment, I'm going to talk about
Speaker 1: baby boomers for those of us that are some stats
Speaker 1: and what I'm doing. I want to throw a personal story,
Speaker 1: being a boomer of my own. But first, this story
Speaker 1: is still going strong after yet a week, and that
Speaker 1: is the suspect in the murder. Matter of fact, the
Speaker 1: assassination of the United Healthcare a CEO has become a story.
Speaker 1: I think it's already international, certainly a major national story.
Speaker 1: So now we have this guy who was arrested, Luigi Mangioni,
Speaker 1: And whenever anything like this happens, the authorities instantly dive
Speaker 1: into motive.
Speaker 2: What happened? Were there are any accessories to this? It's
Speaker 2: an interesting he's an interesting guy. First of all, he's
Speaker 2: been arrested. He was at a McDonald's.
Speaker 1: He was with his face mask he's been wearing the
Speaker 1: whole time, although he blew it a couple of times.
Speaker 1: He went to a hustle and took off his mask
Speaker 1: and flirted with a clerk, And so the authority has
Speaker 1: got a pretty good idea of what he looked like.
Speaker 1: And it was a man hunt that it was going
Speaker 1: to end.
Speaker 2: His arrest.
Speaker 1: Too much out there, too many of his photos being
Speaker 1: broadcast constantly, and the authorities were just going out of
Speaker 1: their minds.
Speaker 2: So we knew this was going to happen.
Speaker 1: Major, major manhunt. So there he was yesterday in orange
Speaker 1: jumpsuit and he's going into a prison in central Pennsylvania
Speaker 1: and he is.
Speaker 2: Going to be in front of the court and the
Speaker 2: court said no bail.
Speaker 1: Of course, on the way in, he's in his jumpsuit,
Speaker 1: he is screaming about all the injustice that's going on.
Speaker 2: What the hell is he talking about?
Speaker 1: Well, it turns out if you look at his background, man,
Speaker 1: is he an interesting guy. Comes from a very very
Speaker 1: high end or very successful family, went to one of
Speaker 1: the premier.
Speaker 2: Boys' schools high schools in the.
Speaker 1: Country, was valedictorian at that school, then went to the
Speaker 1: University of Pennsylvania undergrad and master's degree in computer sciences.
Speaker 2: I mean, he was on his.
Speaker 1: Way and then all of a sudden it started going
Speaker 1: downhill in a big way. He was engaged, he was
Speaker 1: doing well, he had friends, and then what's happening. It
Speaker 1: looks like that he underwent a back surgery and somehow
Speaker 1: the insurance company I'm assuming United Healthcare was involved in
Speaker 1: denying him certain claims, and he just spun off into
Speaker 1: this anti insurance industry.
Speaker 2: He went off into that world and he I'm not
Speaker 2: going to.
Speaker 1: Argue he's a conspiracy theories because this isn't conspiracy other
Speaker 1: than the insurance companies all deciding they're not going to
Speaker 1: pay they're not going to pay claims. But he really
Speaker 1: went deep into that world, fighting the insurance companies and
Speaker 1: thinking the insurance companies.
Speaker 2: Are evil, evil folks who are there not to pay claims.
Speaker 1: They're there simply to collect money and they care not
Speaker 1: a whit about the insured. And by the way, there's
Speaker 1: a lot to that argument. And I get questions all
Speaker 1: the time handle on the law. I'm having all kinds
Speaker 1: of problems with my insurance company, and they won't accept this,
Speaker 1: and they did not acclaim here. And I always say,
Speaker 1: let me tell you the way insurance works in this country.
Speaker 1: The insurance even though by law their duty goes to
Speaker 1: the insured, in reality, their duty, because we're a business society,
Speaker 1: their duty is to their stockholders.
Speaker 2: That's the facto what really happens.
Speaker 1: No matter what the law says, no matter what court cases,
Speaker 1: they care about their stockholders the hell of a lot
Speaker 1: more than they care about anybody putting.
Speaker 2: In a claim. And he took that and.
Speaker 1: Where most of us wouldn't come up with a silent
Speaker 1: skun and shoot an executive in the back of the
Speaker 1: head in midtown Manhattan. He's gotten a lot of favorable
Speaker 1: I won't say press, but if you go on social media,
Speaker 1: he is a hero to a lot of people. And
Speaker 1: Eh even said that he apologized for what he had
Speaker 1: to do. That's at this point, that's some connection. We're
Speaker 1: getting some evidence of what he has written, but somebody
Speaker 1: had to do it.
Speaker 2: And that's his position. Right now.
Speaker 1: His attorney is saying, you got the wrong guy. He's
Speaker 1: fighting extradition because this happened in Manhattan. They picked him
Speaker 1: up in Altuna, Pennsylvania and all kinds that. Well, all
Speaker 1: these facts are coming out, and I think I may
Speaker 1: be premature here. I think is going to point out
Speaker 1: to a real simple premise. You have a bright young
Speaker 1: man who was injured, insurance company denied all or most
Speaker 1: of his claims. He went into this deep world of
Speaker 1: hating the insurance company as many of us do, but
Speaker 1: just went way deeper than most of us would, and
Speaker 1: he ended up assassinating the CEO of United Healthcare.
Speaker 2: And we're going to hear more and more about that.
Speaker 2: This thing is not going away.
Speaker 1: It's a story that you know what, I'm not surprised
Speaker 1: that it has gotten this big and gone on for
Speaker 1: so long. I am just noting that this is and
Speaker 1: the kind of topic this is, and it affects so
Speaker 1: many people.
Speaker 2: I'm talking about the insurance.
Speaker 1: Side of it all. Right now, I want to share
Speaker 1: a story with you. This is out of USA today and.
Speaker 2: It really hit home, and it has.
Speaker 1: To do with a new report from ARP ARP being
Speaker 1: that organization, the American Association of Retired Persons and is
Speaker 1: what seal say our bar BARP and that's the mosque.
Speaker 1: No never mind, I'm not going to go there and anyway,
Speaker 1: America is getting older. I mean, we know that that's.
Speaker 2: Not new news.
Speaker 1: And a survey was just done by ARP found that, again,
Speaker 1: this is not news, but it's just it puts it
Speaker 1: in writing. It just gives us more solidity when we're
Speaker 1: talking about it. Most people want to stay in their
Speaker 1: homes as they grow older, and a lot of people
Speaker 1: aren't confident that being able to stay in the home
Speaker 1: is a possibility.
Speaker 2: And here here's some facts. Today.
Speaker 1: It's very difficult to get a single family home, a
Speaker 1: single story home. They're expensive, they take up way too
Speaker 1: much of the footprint. So built communities that have been
Speaker 1: built for the last twenty thirty years have been second
Speaker 1: story homes. I mean, I don't even know of a
Speaker 1: single story community that's been built. So here we are,
Speaker 1: and I'm a baby boomer and I'm you know, at
Speaker 1: some point I'm not.
Speaker 2: Gonna be able to walk very well because you know,
Speaker 2: I'm going to get old. We're all going to get old.
Speaker 1: And if you live in a second story house, a
Speaker 1: two story house, what do you do? Now?
Speaker 2: Look at those stairs? Those aren't fun.
Speaker 1: And so people have to move out and that gets
Speaker 1: to be a real drag because where do they go.
Speaker 1: Are they going to move into another two story house,
Speaker 1: Are they going to move in with family? Are they
Speaker 1: going to move into some assisted living facility, which eventually
Speaker 1: they might. So they're kind of stuck. So let me
Speaker 1: tell you what I am doing. As a matter of fact, today.
Speaker 2: It is happening.
Speaker 1: Let me start with when I built the Persian Palace
Speaker 1: and I moved in in the year two thousand and
Speaker 1: you've heard this story many times.
Speaker 2: I put in an elevator. I built the house around
Speaker 2: an elevator.
Speaker 1: I literally built an elevator in my house, which is,
Speaker 1: by the way, if you're going to build in an elevator,
Speaker 1: that's the time to do it. If you're building a house.
Speaker 1: Here's a takeaway. I always put it in an elevator.
Speaker 1: It's not that expensive and it changes your life completely.
Speaker 1: So here I am in my new place, sold the
Speaker 1: Persian Palace downside, kids are gone, new chapter in my life, etc.
Speaker 1: So we bought a home which is a fair amount smaller.
Speaker 1: Today my elevator goes in. I'm putting in my elevator
Speaker 1: and it happens to be. The technology today is really neat.
Speaker 1: It looks like, what are those star trek transporters, those
Speaker 1: round cylinders that are clear that go from the floor
Speaker 1: right up through the second story in my cases outside
Speaker 1: of a landing. And oh my god, how expensive visit.
Speaker 1: It's a lot cheaper than remodeling a bathroom. It's a
Speaker 1: lot cheaper than putting in a new kitchen. And that
Speaker 1: changes your life. And it's going in today. Why because
Speaker 1: I don't want to move when I get old and decrepit,
Speaker 1: And Neil, please don't tell me how old and decrepit
Speaker 1: I am. Now, I get it, but at least I
Speaker 1: can walk up the stairs five years from now. That's
Speaker 1: going to happen, and I don't want to move again.
Speaker 1: Let's say you hit your mid seventies, right or your
Speaker 1: late seventies or early eighties, whenever the hell you decided
Speaker 1: that you.
Speaker 2: Have to move. It's no longer tenable.
Speaker 1: Can you imagine the hassle of moving when you're in
Speaker 1: your mid seventies. Tell me how that disrupts your life completely?
Speaker 1: And I've moved three or four times. That is the
Speaker 1: biggest deal I've ever I've ever encountered. It is horrific,
Speaker 1: And so more and more people want to stay in
Speaker 1: their homes and realize that frankly, they want to die there.
Speaker 1: There aren't that many pieces to go. We're getting older,
Speaker 1: and so incomes my elevator today, and I'm going to
Speaker 1: video it and put it up. By the way, it's
Speaker 1: really neat technology. And as I said, I don't know
Speaker 1: if I'm going to share the price with you. I
Speaker 1: haven't decided yet where I'm going to share the cost,
Speaker 1: but I guarantee you.
Speaker 2: Because I don't want to, I'll do it.
Speaker 1: Let me think about it, but I guarantee, I guarantee
Speaker 1: it is just a hell of a lot cheaper.
Speaker 2: Well, Neil, let me ask you this. You redid your kitchen, right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: what did it cost you?
Speaker 3: It cost it probably was twenty grand, but I paid
Speaker 3: half of it because it was with reborn cabinets.
Speaker 1: So you remodeled your kitchen. I went half of it.
Speaker 1: And then no, I don't care, it doesn't matter. I'm
Speaker 1: talking about total value. Oh yeah, it's twenty grand. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's less money than an elevator. Anybody else in this
Speaker 1: crowd remodeled their home.
Speaker 2: What's that? Okay? Fair enough?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it did substantially more than that. But I've seen
Speaker 1: a lottery models and we put it this way.
Speaker 2: Phil, I'm with you, though. I think.
Speaker 3: I have my aunt uncle, my aunt Donna and uncle Bob.
Speaker 3: They still live in the two story house. They're in
Speaker 3: their eighties that I remember growing up and going over
Speaker 3: there and uh, and they seem to move around just fine.
Speaker 3: But if there is I would want to stay in
Speaker 3: the house that I you know, raised max in and
Speaker 3: all those things if we could. It's a single story,
Speaker 3: but I think that's a small expense and as luxurious
Speaker 3: as it sounds to have an elevator.
Speaker 2: We're not talking about leves either. You're absolutely white. It's
Speaker 2: almost part of you know.
Speaker 1: Ski is getting older today. Yeah, well, let me give
Speaker 1: you a quick story. Marjorie had fallen down and her
Speaker 1: femur had ruptured right, and so she had all the
Speaker 1: surgery and the doctor was saying, you have to go
Speaker 1: into a rehab facility for several weeks because can't have
Speaker 1: you going up and down the stairs. She said, I
Speaker 1: have an elevator at home, and the doctor said, good
Speaker 1: for you. You can stay home and you don't have
Speaker 1: to be in a rehab facility.
Speaker 2: That alone made it, well, not.
Speaker 1: Quite worth it, because it was for her, But that
Speaker 1: alone was worth it. So anyway, I'm gonna video this
Speaker 1: whole thing, my elevator coming in. It's kind of neat too,
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna be and this is not a oh
Speaker 1: my god, a pompous So I have an elevator, let
Speaker 1: me tell you how valuable it can and will be.
Speaker 2: You know what, don't do your kitchen. You still can
Speaker 2: live in a kitchen.
Speaker 1: You know your bathroom, you still have the toilet and
Speaker 1: it still flushes.
Speaker 2: You know what.
Speaker 3: I had our whole bottom floor kitchen and everything turned
Speaker 3: into an elevator, so I can just have the whole
Speaker 3: thing moved upstairs.
Speaker 2: Very strong. All right.
Speaker 1: I want to go into a little bit of politics here,
Speaker 1: and this one's kind of fun unless you like beef.
Speaker 1: There is a severe shortage of cattle. We have price
Speaker 1: hikes in beef that is incredible. It was in Costco
Speaker 1: yesterday with a shaker and I look at the beef
Speaker 1: prices and I can actually see.
Speaker 2: Them go up by the minute.
Speaker 1: Remember the Walmart commercials where the prices would roll back
Speaker 1: with that rolodex kind of thing they had and you
Speaker 1: could actually see the prices roll back. That's sort of
Speaker 1: what's happening with beef. Prices going forward. That's going the
Speaker 1: prices are going up, and I'm sitting there saying, really.
Speaker 2: Sorry about that. It is is that expensive.
Speaker 1: And by the way, these hikes have wiped out billions
Speaker 1: of meat processing profits. I'm not talking about just us
Speaker 1: getting nailed. The processors are getting nailed. And it's going
Speaker 1: to get worse before the next election cycle. And I'm
Speaker 1: going to make a political statement for a moment. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's go back to the herd is the smallest in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty one, the US herd, and now we have
Speaker 1: years of depressed prices, severe droughts, surging costs. What's happening
Speaker 1: is farmers are now in the beef industry sending more
Speaker 1: females to slaughter, which means there are fewer females to
Speaker 1: create cabs and young ones and young meat and young steak.
Speaker 1: And now comes the possibility of new tariffs and immigration reform,
Speaker 1: and how those two are connected big time. The President
Speaker 1: to be is saying we're going to nail virtually every
Speaker 1: country that imports the United States some kind of tariff.
Speaker 1: We import a fair amount of beef, and the reason
Speaker 1: that we are going to nail it we want to
Speaker 1: make prices here in the United States.
Speaker 2: We don't want to undercut. We want American workers.
Speaker 1: And therefore, if American workers are employed, it's not the
Speaker 1: Canadians who are making the money, but we are making.
Speaker 2: The money, which, by the way, is true to a
Speaker 2: great extent.
Speaker 1: If it is too expensive to bring something in and
Speaker 1: it's created in the United States, that means money is
Speaker 1: invested here, workers are higher here, and it's just a
Speaker 1: much better, better environment.
Speaker 2: But here's the problem. A tariff can start next week.
Speaker 1: Boom, there's your twenty percent increase right there, starts Monday.
Speaker 1: To build a twelve billion dollar computer chip factory in
Speaker 1: the middle of Ohio takes three years. Now, granted, great
Speaker 1: construction jobs, great daily jobs, very high end, well paying jobs,
Speaker 1: tax base.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's all.
Speaker 1: It's wonderful, and I truly believe in buying and investing
Speaker 1: in America.
Speaker 2: But let me go back to the premise.
Speaker 1: Tariffs can start next week, that plant comes online three
Speaker 1: years from now. Tariffs can start next week. To rebuild
Speaker 1: the herd here in the United States amongst the beef
Speaker 1: beef producers is years in the making. We're not going
Speaker 1: to see the herds if we went balls to the
Speaker 1: wall right now and said, let's go for it. Let's
Speaker 1: rebuild our herds years before it comes up to where
Speaker 1: it was.
Speaker 2: That's the problem. And what does it all translate to?
Speaker 1: A whole lot more money being charged and being paid
Speaker 1: for beef and a dwindling supply.
Speaker 2: I'm going to come back and dive.
Speaker 1: A little bit deeper into this and get a little
Speaker 1: bit into the weeds and talk about how the promise
Speaker 1: of lower prices.
Speaker 2: Good luck, guys.
Speaker 1: And by the way, I don't necessarily disagree because this
Speaker 1: is long term. This is Ronald Reagan when he first
Speaker 1: came office, and he said, hey, it's going to get
Speaker 1: worse before he gets better. It's not simple. Be prepared, guys.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm bringing an economic plan to the table,
Speaker 1: and you are going to suffer before it gets better.
Speaker 1: And of course it did get better. He was right on.
Speaker 1: What we're hearing now is we're not going to get suffer.
Speaker 1: We're not going to suffer. It's going to get better
Speaker 1: from day one. Really, all right, I want to go
Speaker 1: back to what's going to be happening with tariffs that
Speaker 1: are coming. I do believe the tariffs are coming. I mean,
Speaker 1: the insane number I do believe is not going to
Speaker 1: be happening because I think President elect Trump is using
Speaker 1: the bombacity as a negotiating tool, which he does brilliantly.
Speaker 2: But there will be some tariffs.
Speaker 1: And the problem is is tariffs make everything more expensive
Speaker 1: right off the bat. So in the world of beef,
Speaker 1: and beef is so important to us in America, American
Speaker 1: ism and the livestock industry have been entwined since forever.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's just simply who we are raising cattle,
Speaker 1: and the cowboys and all that. Well, it's become more
Speaker 1: and more difficult. And even before Trump's return to Washington,
Speaker 1: you've got high interest rates, feed prices, farmer debt, bad weather,
Speaker 1: shifting consumer preference to cheaper chicken, where everything tastes like chicken,
Speaker 1: and now we're finding out even chicken tastes like chickens,
Speaker 1: so we're buying more chicken, and so struggling ranchers have
Speaker 1: been calling their hiffers way too fast a clip and
Speaker 1: they're simply the herds are declining and declining rapidly. It
Speaker 1: should be back, we should be increasing herds.
Speaker 2: Ain't happening.
Speaker 1: The federal authority said we should be on a good
Speaker 1: clip starting in twenty twenty five. It's not even a
Speaker 1: start until twenty twenty seven. And so you combine what's
Speaker 1: happening with tariffs. As I said earlier, the problem with
Speaker 1: tariffs is, well, the good news are terrorists. It makes
Speaker 1: things more expensive coming into the country, which means we
Speaker 1: have to buy from American producers, which means it makes
Speaker 1: more sense for Americans to build factories, infrastructure, hire people.
Speaker 1: But teriffs happen immediately, infrastructure happens over years. And what
Speaker 1: happens in the middle and no more jobs and we're
Speaker 1: not hearing that. We're hearing that jobs that we're going
Speaker 1: to have a great economy walking in day one, great prices,
Speaker 1: no inflation.
Speaker 2: When we've sort of gotten rid of inflation.
Speaker 1: But you know, tariffs are not going to help prices,
Speaker 1: They're going to go the other way.
Speaker 2: Also, you have the.
Speaker 1: The issue of illegal immigration, which was one of the
Speaker 1: big points that won Trump the presidency. Look to see
Speaker 1: who works in those b plants slaughterhouses. Very very few
Speaker 1: cardiovascular surgeons do a weekend job slaughtering cattle or cleaning
Speaker 1: up those plants. Just not too many, not too many
Speaker 1: college grads. It's unskilled labor and guests. Who is in
Speaker 1: there for the most part migrants. Now the big producers
Speaker 1: want they want people to show their passports, their residencies,
Speaker 1: residency papers. But you want to know something, the fraud
Speaker 1: that goes on because these poor people have to work
Speaker 1: and they'll come up with anything. And just the number
Speaker 1: of illegal migrants that work in the industry is just astronomical.
Speaker 1: And the argument is, wait a second, if we don't
Speaker 1: have them here, who's going to work the plants?
Speaker 2: There are certain jobs that Americans.
Speaker 1: Genuinely don't want, genuinely picking strawberries. Working in the food
Speaker 1: industry is go for Tyson Foods and start chopping up
Speaker 1: chickens eight hours a day and is thirty five degrees
Speaker 1: in the plant.
Speaker 2: These are jobs that Americans won't take in. The argument is,
Speaker 2: if they pay high enough money, people will take it.
Speaker 1: Probably true, you pay thirty bucks an hour, someone's going
Speaker 1: to take up the job cutting off chickens heads, Oh,
Speaker 1: grant that. But you pay thirty dollars an hour, how
Speaker 1: much you think is going to cost you for that chicken.
Speaker 1: Matter of fact, you'll be shopping for the chicken head
Speaker 1: versus the rest of the chicken because the prices will
Speaker 1: be astronomical, So we're looking at some real issues. There
Speaker 1: is good news on the tariffront. I mean a lot
Speaker 1: of it is not particularly realistic. But the bad news
Speaker 1: is that the good news may take years.
Speaker 2: To actually hit.
Speaker 1: So for those of you that are prepared for lower
Speaker 1: prices based on promises that were made, we'll talk again
Speaker 1: six months from now, and I'll ask you, you know,
Speaker 1: how much less are you paying for your beef? How
Speaker 1: much less are you paying for products that are made
Speaker 1: out of steel? How much less are you paying for
Speaker 1: clothes that you buy at Walmart?
Speaker 3: But you know what, isn't it You say this all
Speaker 3: the time with self driving cars that when planes we
Speaker 3: first had planes in the air, there were crashes. You
Speaker 3: have to expect that if our goal is to bring
Speaker 3: men factoring in the like back to the United States,
Speaker 3: there's gonna be an uncomfortable cost at the beginning for
Speaker 3: something that should pay off in the end.
Speaker 2: By the way, did I hear that? Was that part
Speaker 2: of the Trump campaign?
Speaker 1: There's going to be an uncomfortable cost and it will
Speaker 1: pay off later or was it costs will drop immediately
Speaker 1: when I'm president?
Speaker 2: Which one did I hear? I?
Speaker 3: Wasn't asking Trump. I was asking you. I'm not responding.
Speaker 3: But he is the one that's responsible for the tariffs.
Speaker 1: That is a presidential universal directive that he can throw
Speaker 1: on there tomorrow. All I'm saying, and by the way,
Speaker 1: I'm not saying I disagree. Long term that may be
Speaker 1: the answer. Just don't pretend it's going to happen immediately,
Speaker 1: all right, KF I am six forty.
Speaker 2: You've been listening to The Bill Handle Show.
Speaker 1: Catch my Show Monday through Friday, six am to nine am,
Speaker 1: and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.