Speaker 1: You're list Saints KFI AM six forty The Bill Handles
Speaker 1: show on demand on the iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: App KFIM six forty Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 2: This is the Bill Handle Show. Wayne resumes sitting in
Speaker 2: Bill's on vacation. He's back after the new year, and
Speaker 2: every Thursday at this time we love to talk to
Speaker 2: Joel Larsgard. He hosts the show How to Money right
Speaker 2: here on KFI Sundays from noon to two. You can
Speaker 2: always get podcasts of that show on our website at
Speaker 2: KFIM six forty dot com or on the iHeart Radio app,
Speaker 2: and he's on social media at how to Money. Joel.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to the show. Joel Larsgard, glad to be here.
Speaker 3: Wayne.
Speaker 2: Hey, let's get right into this first bottom line, there's
Speaker 2: all the talk of tariffs are coming. The new administration
Speaker 2: will impose all kinds of terifts all over the place,
Speaker 2: and that will cause inflation and just I don't think
Speaker 2: there's enough time in the world to try to unpack
Speaker 2: all of that. But bottom line, should people be stocking
Speaker 2: up on anything or making major purchases right now because
Speaker 2: tariffs are coming? If so, what things should we be
Speaker 2: doing that.
Speaker 3: With Yeah, that's a good question.
Speaker 4: And there's been more inks billed kind of about the
Speaker 4: potential incursion of tariffs onto our lives. And the truth is,
Speaker 4: the way tariffs work, they get passed on right to companies.
Speaker 4: Let's say the price of a washing machine goes up
Speaker 4: or parts that you're the washing machine that a company
Speaker 4: might be importing from overseas well, the company's not just
Speaker 4: going to eat the extra expense, they're going to pass
Speaker 4: out on to us. And so the washing machine example
Speaker 4: is a real example from the first Trump administration and Washington,
Speaker 4: a washing machine prices really did go up in price,
Speaker 4: and so yeah, people were paying an extra fifty or
Speaker 4: sixty bucks for a washer or a dryer, and the
Speaker 4: same thing could be true of other things that we buy.
Speaker 3: Potentially a lot of things that we buy.
Speaker 4: It's just hard to know, right, It's hard to know
Speaker 4: how much of the tariff talk is like political rhetoric,
Speaker 4: how much of it is going to happen. And so
Speaker 4: I think, you know, we've seen people like stocking up
Speaker 4: let's say at the grocery store or something like that.
Speaker 3: I don't necessarily think that's a great idea.
Speaker 4: They're assuming, Hey, higher prices are coming down the pike,
Speaker 4: why don't I frontload some of my grocery shopping. Now,
Speaker 4: I think if there's like a great sale on something
Speaker 4: you're totally going to use, that's when I'm okay with
Speaker 4: frontloading a purchase. But just because of the promise of
Speaker 4: certain tariffs, I think maybe some folks at least are overreacting.
Speaker 4: And it's it's just really hard to kind of make
Speaker 4: a buying decision based on vapor policy, right, like kind
Speaker 4: of like vapor where it's not it's not quite real.
Speaker 4: It's been talked about, but we just don't know the
Speaker 4: extent of the impact that it's going to have.
Speaker 2: Okay, So that was that was the wise answer. It
Speaker 2: sounds like that was a correct answer. It doesn't. Unfortunately,
Speaker 2: now I don't know if I should buy.
Speaker 3: Some or not.
Speaker 2: Well, okay, I'll say this.
Speaker 4: So there's one there's one place where I think some
Speaker 4: of the Trump promises should have an impact on buying
Speaker 4: decisions and so, and that specific thing is electric vehicles.
Speaker 4: So some folks have said, oh, I'm thinking about buying
Speaker 4: a car next year, should I frontload that purchase? And
Speaker 4: I think, well, one I want people to buy used
Speaker 4: cars anyway for the most part, because they're so much cheaper.
Speaker 4: But if you said, hey, listen entering, I don't know.
Speaker 4: I was thinking about getting it in February or March.
Speaker 4: I think front loading that purchase to the next few
Speaker 4: days before the end of the year, when you are
Speaker 4: guaranteed to get the seventy five hundred dollars tax credit
Speaker 4: for many vehicles for many makes and models, makes sense.
Speaker 4: If it was something you were going to do anyway,
Speaker 4: you were just going You're just moving that purchase forward
Speaker 4: a little bit. I think because of the threat of
Speaker 4: removing the ev tax credit. It just a seventy five
Speaker 4: hundred dollars price difference is significant, so ensuring that you're
Speaker 4: able to get while the getting is good, I think
Speaker 4: it least on something like that, you might let the
Speaker 4: rhetoric influence the timing of your purchase, not the fact
Speaker 4: that you're actually making the purchase.
Speaker 2: Though, Okay, I got it. If it's something you're going
Speaker 2: to buy anyway at some point, yeah you may, and
Speaker 2: you can go ahead and buy it now, buy it now,
Speaker 2: But that doesn't mean I have no need for a
Speaker 2: new refrigerator whatsoever. But I'm going to buy a new
Speaker 2: one just because I want to win. I want to
Speaker 2: win some kind of game exactly.
Speaker 4: Some people who could find themselves in in kind of
Speaker 4: that position where they're justifying purchases that they otherwise wouldn't
Speaker 4: have made because you're like, well, the tariffs are coming,
Speaker 4: so this is a smart money move, right, And it's like, well,
Speaker 4: were you going to buy the item anyway? Or or
Speaker 4: are you stocking up needlessly on something that isn't even
Speaker 4: you know, in this tariff discussion. That's what I want
Speaker 4: people to to not fall victim to.
Speaker 2: All right, good, So the mother of all purchases, and
Speaker 2: we're talking about should you buy a thing? And the
Speaker 2: mother of all purchases is a home And and I
Speaker 2: understand you have some interesting information about some differences between
Speaker 2: homeowners and people who are not homeowners.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So there were two really interesting studies that came out recently.
Speaker 4: One finds that people live longer if they buy a
Speaker 4: home by about six months, so homeowners versus renters, homeowners
Speaker 4: are going to live roughly six months longer.
Speaker 3: You're adding six months to your life span.
Speaker 4: The other interesting statistic was that the media networth of
Speaker 4: homeowners versus renters in the US, and it's a significant discrepancy.
Speaker 4: So the average net worth of a renter in the
Speaker 4: US is ten thousand dollars. The average net worth of
Speaker 4: a homeowner is four hundred thousand dollars. And so you
Speaker 4: might be tempted to hear those stats and say, well, gosh,
Speaker 4: I want the fountain of youth, I want to live longer,
Speaker 4: and I would like to have you have more money,
Speaker 4: have higher net worth. Maybe I actould just go out
Speaker 4: and buy a house tomorrow. I don't think it's quite
Speaker 4: that simple, and we can talk about the nuances of that,
Speaker 4: but it is kind of fascinating to see that, especially
Speaker 4: like the longer life thing. I've never heard anything like
Speaker 4: that before. The network discrepancy has kind of been around,
Speaker 4: it's just grown, especially as the as the real estate
Speaker 4: market has been flourishing. But it's it's fascinating to see
Speaker 4: that that homeowners tend to come out on top.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm either going to now reveal myself to
Speaker 2: be incredibly smart or super dumb, and I don't know
Speaker 2: which one. I don't know which it is. But isn't
Speaker 2: that I'm talking about the net worth differences between non
Speaker 2: homeowners and homeowners and I assume most non homeowners were
Speaker 2: thinking of renters or maybe people that live with their
Speaker 2: parents or something. Isn't the difference there simply the market
Speaker 2: value of the house that they have. Yes, I'm you're
Speaker 2: I mean, of course, of course, everything else being equal,
Speaker 2: wouldn't a homeowner have more net worth because they have
Speaker 2: a home that gets counted. Your apartment doesn't get counted.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 4: I mean, you have an asset depending on when you
Speaker 4: bought your home. Let's say you bought your home five, six, eight,
Speaker 4: ten years ago. We're talking about substantial growth in equity
Speaker 4: in that home over those years.
Speaker 3: So if you bought a home in twenty twelve, you, you.
Speaker 4: Know, almost thirteen years later, you're talking about that at
Speaker 4: home having at least doubled in value, probably more.
Speaker 3: And so it is.
Speaker 4: It has been this forced method of savings for you,
Speaker 4: and it's accumulated to your bottom line, so it's made
Speaker 4: your network look pretty fantastic. The problem with just saying, oh,
Speaker 4: then I should buy a home that's the best way
Speaker 4: to get rich is that it's just not true when
Speaker 4: you look at the average increase in home values over
Speaker 4: time versus the average annual increase of.
Speaker 3: The stock market.
Speaker 4: The stock market is a better investment than a primary home,
Speaker 4: and a primary home comes with other expenses as well.
Speaker 4: Anybody who owns a home knows this, like, hey, my
Speaker 4: insurance bill just skyrocketed, or oh my goodness, the gutters
Speaker 4: need to be replaced, or I sprang a leak in
Speaker 4: the basement, and you know, my neighbor the other day,
Speaker 4: like literally had a pipe burst, and you don't want
Speaker 4: to know what's flowing into his basement. It's terrible, right,
Speaker 4: and the repairs are incredibly expensive. So it's not that
Speaker 4: I'm against home ownership. I'm certainly not. But you don't
Speaker 4: want to assume that owning a home is the best
Speaker 4: way to grow your net worth. If you rent, and
Speaker 4: you're paying a whole lot less for rent, and you
Speaker 4: invest the difference between what you would have paid for
Speaker 4: the mortgage and the repairs on a home that you
Speaker 4: would buy, you'd come out in a much better position
Speaker 4: over time growing that route and investing the difference than
Speaker 4: you would putting that money into a primary home.
Speaker 3: Typically.
Speaker 2: All right, awesome, Joel, thank you so much. We love
Speaker 2: talking to you. Your show is on Sunday's noon to two.
Speaker 2: Right here on KFI how to Money and Social Media
Speaker 2: at how to Money, Joel, We'll talk to you again soon.
Speaker 3: Sounds good. Thanks for having me Wayne.
Speaker 5: Hey, remember the it started in the nineties, really, when
Speaker 5: Walmart was a big police topic and multiple people wrote books,
Speaker 5: the titles of which were things like Walmart The High
Speaker 5: Cost of Low Price or I don't know if you
Speaker 5: read how Walmart is Destroying America and the world. They
Speaker 5: were getting such bad publicity that they actually set up
Speaker 5: a special department. They did this in two thousand and five,
Speaker 5: I think, and a special department just to try to.
Speaker 2: Improve their image. Now, eventually people came to Walmart's rescue,
Speaker 2: and those people were a lot of economics professors and
Speaker 2: other hoity toity and elite economics people, and they start
Speaker 2: So you had the narrative first, which is Walmart moves
Speaker 2: in and they shut down all my mom and pops
Speaker 2: and they destroy the communities. Then the economics people came
Speaker 2: and they said, no, no, no, no, you dummy. Yes,
Speaker 2: it's true Walmart doesn't pay as much as some other retailers,
Speaker 2: but it's not that big a deal because when Walmart
Speaker 2: shows up, also you save money on your groceries. You
Speaker 2: see it all works out, It evens out. Maybe there's
Speaker 2: a tiny little bit of an effect, but it's not
Speaker 2: that big of a deal. And you have to listen
Speaker 2: to me because I have a patch on my jacket
Speaker 2: and I'm smoking a briar pipe, so obviously I know
Speaker 2: more about it than you. And that went on for
Speaker 2: a while, and then some economists and social scientists decided
Speaker 2: to use to try to use science to figure out
Speaker 2: whether there's an effect or not from Walmart. So they're
Speaker 2: two different papers that have come out, and they don't
Speaker 2: have an agenda. They just they wanted to try to
Speaker 2: get the best information and data they could and the
Speaker 2: best methodology and try to figure out what is there
Speaker 2: a Walmart effect, and if there is, what is it.
Speaker 2: So the first one, which was published ole Bok three
Speaker 2: months ago or so, got data going back to nineteen
Speaker 2: sixty eight, a bunch of data about eighteen thousand specific
Speaker 2: people all across the country. They sorted it for demographic similarity,
Speaker 2: so they wanted to compare apples to apples, and they
Speaker 2: created these two groups that were comparable demographic and then
Speaker 2: they tracked various outcomes for those people, economic outcomes, health outcomes,
Speaker 2: morbidity and all of it. And it's the first time
Speaker 2: that you've been able to do the same thing as
Speaker 2: a clinical trial for a medicine, but for an economic
Speaker 2: question like this, because you know what happens with a
Speaker 2: clinical trial. Two groups, one gets the actual drug, one
Speaker 2: gets a placebo, and then you follow them for a
Speaker 2: long time and you see what happens. This is kind
Speaker 2: of what they were doing, but with people. And they
Speaker 2: compared one group people that got a Walmart that's kind
Speaker 2: of like getting the drug, and the other people didn't
Speaker 2: get a Walmart, they got a placebo. And after they
Speaker 2: crunched all of that, they found that ten years after
Speaker 2: a Walmart opened in a community, the average household had
Speaker 2: a six percent decline in income. Now you still have
Speaker 2: the guy in the jacket with the patch and smoking
Speaker 2: the pipe saying, well, maybe so, but they saved that
Speaker 2: because there was a Walmart that they could shop at.
Speaker 2: So now you have to figure out, oh gosh, how
Speaker 2: do we find out how much people save by shopping
Speaker 2: at a Walmart. Well, Walmart put out a study themselves
Speaker 2: and in twenty twenty four equivalent dollars, Walmart itself found
Speaker 2: that households who shop their save an average of thirty
Speaker 2: one hundred dollars a year. So Walmart is certainly not
Speaker 2: going to understate how much you save by shopping there.
Speaker 2: I'm not saying they exaggerated it. I'm saying there's no
Speaker 2: way they understated it. So that would mean it's still
Speaker 2: a net loss if you If you the average income
Speaker 2: declined because a Walmart opened up is at five thousand
Speaker 2: dollars a year, and you save, according to Walmart, thirty
Speaker 2: one hundred dollars a year. These are both twenty twenty
Speaker 2: four dollars, then it is a net loss to the
Speaker 2: average household. So there is a Walmart effect according to
Speaker 2: that paper. Here's the problem, though, how do you know
Speaker 2: Walmarts open up equally distributed across the country. Probably Walmart
Speaker 2: chooses where to try to open a Walmart based on
Speaker 2: whatever factors they look at. Maybe they look at this
Speaker 2: area doesn't have a lot of union activity going on,
Speaker 2: or maybe they look at something else. So how do
Speaker 2: you now you got to go, Well, how do we
Speaker 2: know there are all all kinds of parts of the
Speaker 2: country that are getting Walmarts and other parts of the
Speaker 2: country that never get a Walmart. And this has something
Speaker 2: to do not with Walmart. But whatever the reasons Walmart
Speaker 2: chooses to go into a community, it's those reasons. The
Speaker 2: same reasons are why the happens. It doesn't really have
Speaker 2: to do with Walmart. Well, there's another paper that came
Speaker 2: out that did an analysis where they were because how
Speaker 2: would you compare. Here's what they did pretty smart. Let's
Speaker 2: compare places that got a Walmart with places where Walmart
Speaker 2: wanted to go but wasn't able to go. Now we're
Speaker 2: talking about areas that Walmart chose, and sometimes they were
Speaker 2: able to open the store, and sometimes they were not
Speaker 2: able to open the store. But they chose all of
Speaker 2: these areas and they found the same thing. And it's
Speaker 2: not hard to understand because in a nutshell, it's not
Speaker 2: just that Walmart comes in and has low prices and
Speaker 2: undercuts the competitors, and the mom and pop and the
Speaker 2: regional change have to go out of business and then
Speaker 2: all you have is Walmart and that's the only place
Speaker 2: you have to work in some communities becomes Walmart. But
Speaker 2: it's also this Walmart makes their supple sell to them
Speaker 2: at a reduced cost. That's how their prices are lower.
Speaker 2: If you're a supplier in the community. You have to
Speaker 2: cut your price, you go out of business. The people
Speaker 2: who worked for you, they didn't have anything to do
Speaker 2: with Walmart directly. It's just you made a product that
Speaker 2: you sold to Walmart. Now you're out of business. Jobs
Speaker 2: are lost from your business, and you switch in your
Speaker 2: community from not having local employers who produce things because
Speaker 2: it's all coming in from China now because it's all
Speaker 2: going to Walmart. So, according to these two papers, there
Speaker 2: is a Walmart effect. I don't know that that makes
Speaker 2: Walmart evil. I mean it may make capitalism a little
Speaker 2: bit evil. I don't think Walmart is singular in this
Speaker 2: as to these issues, but I don't know that they're
Speaker 2: the savior of any particular community at all. This topic
Speaker 2: of discussion does involve Mexico in a big way. During
Speaker 2: the campaign, now President elect Donald Trump talked about many
Speaker 2: many things, and a lot of them had to do
Speaker 2: with Mexico. For example, he said he would put twenty
Speaker 2: five percent tariffs on a lot of Mexico's exports here,
Speaker 2: like tomatoes and avocados and tequila and car parts. Only
Speaker 2: one of those is not recommended as an ingredient in
Speaker 2: a drink. And also said that maybe we would send
Speaker 2: troops into Mexico to fight the drug cartels. The idea
Speaker 2: being Mexico is not able to get a handle on
Speaker 2: these cartels, so we might use and he said, this
Speaker 2: is a quote, He said, we'll use special forces, iber warfare,
Speaker 2: and other covert and overt actions to inflict maximum damage
Speaker 2: on cartel leadership, infrastructure, and operations. Okay, cyber warfare fine
Speaker 2: with me, should be fine with most people. Do you
Speaker 2: care if we act into the cartel's computers? Covert overt
Speaker 2: actions could be anything. So I don't know what to
Speaker 2: make of that special Forces. Here's where it gets dicey.
Speaker 2: Do you send troops into Mexico to fight cartels without
Speaker 2: Mexico giving you permission to do it? As a general proposition,
Speaker 2: the answer is no. You don't send your troops into
Speaker 2: another country to fight somebody without the permission of that country.
Speaker 2: Is this a special case because of who we're talking about?
Speaker 2: These cartels that are so violent and so really disturbingly
Speaker 2: violent and and can't be stopped by the Mexican government.
Speaker 2: So he said all these things, and it was seen
Speaker 2: as more bluster than an actual plan by many. But
Speaker 2: now he has said who he would appoint to be
Speaker 2: the ambassador to Mexico. And because of who it is,
Speaker 2: people who formerly said, oh, he's just, you know, saying
Speaker 2: some stuff are now saying, oh, he may be dead
Speaker 2: serious about sending US troops into Mexico. The guy is
Speaker 2: Ronald D. Johnson. I believe there is a congress person
Speaker 2: named Ronald Johnson. This is not him. This is a
Speaker 2: different guy. This is a former military guy, a former
Speaker 2: Green Beret and also a former official with the CIA,
Speaker 2: also a former ambassador to El Salvador, a country not
Speaker 2: immune from a violence problem with the gangs there. And
Speaker 2: when he was the ambassador to El Salvador, this guy Johnson,
Speaker 2: he supported the president of El Salvador big time all
Speaker 2: the policies, and you may recall a lot of controversy
Speaker 2: as the government of El Salvador went to crack down
Speaker 2: on the gangs. They were accused of a lot of
Speaker 2: human rights abuses. But also, which is one thing where
Speaker 2: you kind of go, I mean, I'd like to be
Speaker 2: the most the most progressive guy on the block, maybe,
Speaker 2: but I kind of go, well, human rights abuses, but
Speaker 2: it's gangs that you're like the rights you're abusing are
Speaker 2: those of gangs. I don't know. I don't know how
Speaker 2: upset I am about that. I don't know where it's
Speaker 2: prioritized on my list of things to worry about. But also,
Speaker 2: the president El Salvador was known for, you know, cracking
Speaker 2: down on any dissent, which seems decidedly Unamerican, but then again,
Speaker 2: it's not the United States anyway. He was into all
Speaker 2: that stuff. Ronald Johnson now he's going to be the
Speaker 2: ambassad to Mexico. So the idea is he's a guy
Speaker 2: who would be totally into something like having troops sent
Speaker 2: into Mexico, and he's a guy who might really press
Speaker 2: the President of Mexico hard to allow it. Now, the
Speaker 2: thing is this, Okay, if the concern is, what if
Speaker 2: we send an ambassador over there and he successfully pressures
Speaker 2: the President of Mexico Hardye Scheinbaum to allow US troops
Speaker 2: to go in and fight the cartel, Well, then he
Speaker 2: was able to convince somebody to allow something. Would we
Speaker 2: send troops without their permission? Though, that's a completely different
Speaker 2: kettle of fish. To send in troops and Mexico has
Speaker 2: said no, and we send them anyway? That really could
Speaker 2: create a massive problem worldwide. The world could very rapidly
Speaker 2: turn against the United States. And we have a history
Speaker 2: already with Mexico where we tried to do something where
Speaker 2: we did not go into Mexico at all, and it
Speaker 2: pissed them off. Don't know if you remember this. There
Speaker 2: was a former Defense secretary of Mexico. His name was
Speaker 2: Salvador Sanfuegos, and he was arrested at lax Here in
Speaker 2: the United States on suspicion of drug trafficking, and the
Speaker 2: government of Mexico at the time it was Lopez Obrador,
Speaker 2: went crazy, what are you doing? You rested this guy,
Speaker 2: He's a Mexican citizen. You don't have enough evidence. We
Speaker 2: don't know what's going on. We hate this and they
Speaker 2: forced they forced the Trump administration to send him back
Speaker 2: to Mexico. And when he got back to Mexico, what
Speaker 2: did they do. Did they put him in jail and said, yeah,
Speaker 2: we should get to the bottom of whether or not
Speaker 2: you're a big drug dealer. No, they gave him a
Speaker 2: major military award. And it really hurt US Mexico relations
Speaker 2: and it made it much more difficult for our DEA
Speaker 2: to work with the authorities in Mexico, So there's already
Speaker 2: some history when we did not send any troops into
Speaker 2: the country. If we were to do that, it would
Speaker 2: probably be game over for any kind of friendly relationship
Speaker 2: with Mexico, which I'm well o. I already hear some
Speaker 2: of you going, yeah, who needs it? Joining me now
Speaker 2: as he does every Thursday on this show, the host
Speaker 2: of Later with Mo Kelly from seven to ten pm
Speaker 2: Monday through Friday on KFI. This is earlier with Moe Kelly. Obviously, Mo.
Speaker 6: How are you good morning, Wayne, Happy holidays, post merry Christmas,
Speaker 6: a second day of Hanaka, second day of Honika.
Speaker 3: If I'm not mistaken, how are you, sir?
Speaker 2: Good? All of that is correct what you said. I
Speaker 2: gotta give it to you.
Speaker 6: It's always good to talk to you, just because we
Speaker 6: need to talk just more often.
Speaker 2: Oh oh, I agree, I agree. Maybe sometime later today
Speaker 2: we can have a talk off the air.
Speaker 3: As well, Yes, definitely, but also on the air. Now.
Speaker 2: People may not know that we used to be adjacent
Speaker 2: to each other on the weekends. You had a show
Speaker 2: on the weekends. I had a show on the weekends,
Speaker 2: and you were better than me. So your show was first,
Speaker 2: and then I came on after you or or I
Speaker 2: guess you opened for me, would be any other way
Speaker 2: to say it.
Speaker 3: Now, I owe all my first tests to you. No.
Speaker 6: No, If you remember you were the first person to
Speaker 6: bring me on the air at KFI when you informally
Speaker 6: interviewed me, oh yeah, I.
Speaker 2: Mean I didn't know it was the first time or anything.
Speaker 3: I do remember that was first time. Yeah, the thirteen
Speaker 3: years ago.
Speaker 2: But yes, well kudos to me.
Speaker 3: Yes, you get all the code, all of it.
Speaker 2: H thank you, You're a very sweet man. We'll talk.
Speaker 2: So squid Game. This was a huge phenomenon, and now
Speaker 2: it's back for season two. There are already some reviews
Speaker 2: coming out about it. What are we looking for with
Speaker 2: squid Game season two? And also, if I'm a person
Speaker 2: who isn't though I don't remember anything about squid Game one,
Speaker 2: do I need to go watch squid Game one or
Speaker 2: can I jump right into squid Game two.
Speaker 6: That's a great question, and here's a semi great answer.
Speaker 6: I would say no, because the beauty of the first
Speaker 6: season a squid Game was you went in completely dark
Speaker 6: line hopefully you did, and you didn't know, and you
Speaker 6: let the whole series unfurl itself in real time, and
Speaker 6: so you got to find out as you went along.
Speaker 6: From what I understand, this season is much the same,
Speaker 6: except that you kind of know and the lead character,
Speaker 6: protagonist kind of knows what's going on, and I don't
Speaker 6: know if it's going to have the same type of
Speaker 6: magic or surprise. We do know that season two is
Speaker 6: only seven episodes long, and there is going to be
Speaker 6: a third and final season, but in such a truncated season,
Speaker 6: it's not going to have all the magic and wonder
Speaker 6: that the first season did, all right, So just in.
Speaker 2: Case people don't know, generally, squid Game is about a
Speaker 2: group of super rich evil people who recruit regular people
Speaker 2: to compete for a tremendous amount of money, life changing
Speaker 2: amount of money by subjecting them to different weird games
Speaker 2: that are actually deadly, which is to say, if you lose,
Speaker 2: you die, and somebody wins. At the end of season one,
Speaker 2: there's a guy who wins, and if I understand it right,
Speaker 2: he comes back now to play again. But number one,
Speaker 2: he's got huge amounts of money because he won the
Speaker 2: first time, and his intent is to intrait and try
Speaker 2: to shut it all down from the inside. Is that
Speaker 2: somewhat accurate.
Speaker 3: Yes, that is exactly accurate.
Speaker 6: I was trying to hold back some of the details
Speaker 6: because I think a lot of people, or if you're
Speaker 6: some of the people who have not seen season one,
Speaker 6: part of the magic is not revealing everything which is
Speaker 6: going on. But you kind of know season two, episode
Speaker 6: one what is going on, and he's going through the
Speaker 6: game again, So it's not going to have the type
Speaker 6: of reveal or surprise with the exception of different games
Speaker 6: and different players.
Speaker 2: So here's what I'm assuming. You can't use the surprise
Speaker 2: of revealing over the course of a season what's going
Speaker 2: on right now. So instead are they going to amp
Speaker 2: up the violence or the gore or the intensity of
Speaker 2: the thing instead?
Speaker 6: Yes, Yes, from what I understand, the episodes just dropped
Speaker 6: hours ago and all of the all of them are available.
Speaker 6: You can watch all of season two today if you want,
Speaker 6: which I plan to do. But it's supposed to be darker,
Speaker 6: it's supposed to be more violent, more tense, if you
Speaker 6: could believe that after season one. But yes, they have
Speaker 6: to balance out the fact that no one is completely
Speaker 6: unaware of what's going on anymore.
Speaker 2: I would also say, if you know a ton about spoilers,
Speaker 2: and this isn't a spoiler because I haven't seen it
Speaker 2: and I don't know, but you did say it's commonly
Speaker 2: known there will be a third season.
Speaker 3: Yes, they have an next year.
Speaker 2: Okay, So by announcing there will be a third season,
Speaker 2: I believe we can assume this guy doesn't manage to
Speaker 2: shut it all down.
Speaker 3: Absolutely correct.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so then knowing there's a season three, does that
Speaker 2: not take some of the tension out, at least of
Speaker 2: his quest to shut it down if we know he
Speaker 2: can't possibly completely shut it down because they need season three?
Speaker 6: For me, it does for me, it absolutely does, because
Speaker 6: the stakes cannot be the same. Now, can we be
Speaker 6: introduced to characters that we may feel emotionally more attached
Speaker 6: to and hope that he or she or they will
Speaker 6: survive to the end of the season. Of course, but
Speaker 6: we know that the story is not going to end
Speaker 6: or be resolved this season.
Speaker 2: All right, Hey, do you want to say anything about
Speaker 2: what you'll be talking about tonight on your show Later
Speaker 2: with mo Kelly starting at seven pm.
Speaker 6: Sure, we're gonna go a little bit deeper into Squid
Speaker 6: Game season two. I will have beinge watched all of
Speaker 6: it by then, and also we'll talk about some of
Speaker 6: the best and worst movies of twenty twenty four.
Speaker 2: Quickly. Just a huge thumbs up or a huge thumbs
Speaker 2: down or something in between. On the movie The Substance.
Speaker 3: I don't do horror, but Mark Ronner.
Speaker 6: But Mark Ronner, who is our anchor, did a review
Speaker 6: for it, and he thought it was fantastic.
Speaker 3: I'm being serious.
Speaker 6: I try to stay away from horror because it impacts
Speaker 6: my sleep.
Speaker 3: And I'm just not the guy for it. I see.
Speaker 2: All right, you're a gentive soul.
Speaker 3: Yes, all right, buddy, good to.
Speaker 2: Talk to you. Hey, are you here next week for
Speaker 2: your segment as well?
Speaker 3: I am here. What is next Thursday? Is that the second? Yes, yes,
Speaker 3: I'll be back.
Speaker 2: Oh fantastic. All right, we'll talk to you then. Thank
Speaker 2: you very much, sir.
Speaker 3: Bye, Wayne, There.
Speaker 2: Goes Moe, Here goes me. It's KFI AM six forty
Speaker 2: live everywhere on the Iheartradiot.
Speaker 1: You've been listening to the Bill Handle Show. Catch my
Speaker 1: show Monday through Friday six am to nine am, and
Speaker 1: anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.