Don't want to be an American.
Got a new angle on the violence downtown. So you go back to the brawl and lay chu lot. We had one person out of hundreds calling nine one one Fountain Square shootings. We just had again a little number of people calling nine one one inside of the business that was shot up, and it begs the question why. From the Brain Performance Center in Dallas, Lee Richardson is here. Welcome back to the show.
How are you, good morning, Thanks for having me back. I'm doing well.
Thank you.
You've seen the video. It's been national international news and it's hard still kind of hard to watch too. And regardless of who said what and what transpired, the fact that only a couple of people, maybe one or two people, said hey, I better call the police is something I
don't think we've ever seen. I mean, it's a newer trend, I suppose, but in our lifetimes, if you would have said maybe ten or fifteen years ago, maybe five years ago, that yeah, you'd have something like this and one personal call nine one one, which means in the future, I suppose maybe no one calls nine one. Maybe these things happen and then we never hear about it because no one thinks to call the police. The question for someone like yourself is why how much of that as social media.
And COVID Well, I think that you know, anytime you've seen a really intense event that triggers adrenaline in their body and drenales, they start kicking out all that corsal and that gives you a psych physiological rush, and you
get excited and you want to capture the moment. And I think many people, honestly social media plays into it because they think if they get the shocking footage, that's going to get them more likes, more shares, more comments on social media and the thought of being the one who got the video that activates the brand sopammine reward system. It's just like when you win at cambling. I think filming it can make you feel like you're doing something
without risking any personal safety as well. I Diddeo Scott and I couldn't believe it appeared that people were cheering, almost cheering it on. You know, there was no space, everybody was crowding around and that certainly escalate the intensity of it. And people pull out a camera and cameras create an audience.
Well, you maybe just think of this. Speaking of video. This summer on vacation, did a bucket list trip to Australia. It's beautiful. My wife wanted to do like a whale watching crew. So you get on this boat and you look for whales because whales go up and down the Aussie coast. It's called the Humpback Highway, and so this time of year especially get to see whales, which you want to do, like, all right, I'll go check some
whales out, which sounds pretty good. And so we're on this bat and it's interesting because every single person for the entirety of the trip, as I look around, is recording every little thing, holding the phone up to their face and not actually looking at the whale. They're looking at through a monitor. And there are a couple of younger people who wanted nothing to do with well watching, who were dragged by their parents, as you typically have, and they were in the boat inside on their phones
playing games in the middle of the ocean. So I look at that and go what And this is before all this happened too. I thought, it's very surreal that we experience life through a viewfinder, and I think, lee when you do that, it's not real if you're watching a device. So what you see on your your viewfinder, what you see on your camera or your phone is not real. It's a it's a show, it's streaming, it's a TV show. And so if you looked up in
a Wow, this is really happening. It's a much different experience than looking through a little, you know, four inch by two inch you finder.
I can make really good points. God, I mean when you're when you're in a spectator mindset and you're just watching something. If you were there and maybe you would have thought about being a help helper. No, you're just part of an audience, and that makes it much easier just to watch or filmed whatever it is, rather than act on it.
That might explain why people are doing I think the other element too. Everyone wants to be Insta famous too and post these provocative videos. And the people who posted are the ones that caught on that we've all seen now are getting all sorts of clicks and views and subscribers maybe to their channel, even if that's nothing we're about. And so that also feeds this too as well. We're in the we're in the essentially the content creator phase. Everyone's a content creator. Now that's a problem.
That is a problem, and you know we have to remember, especially at night, and when you add a little bit of alcohol, it makes us feel more anonymous. It we're with if we drop our inhidditions, and we also behave more impulsively and we lose empathy.
Brain expert Lee Richardson on the Scotsland Show on seven hundred WLW, we had the brawl over the summer and one person out of hundreds called nine to one one. We saw, well police respond pretty quickly what happened and just happened on Fountain Square over the last couple of days, but again an another low level of nine one one calls because people are just rather recorded then do something
about it. And it has to do with obviously being a content creator, but looking through your screen and not seeing things in real life, being a spectator and not someone who's engaged. How much do you think COVID has factor in this as well? Is this still like we're seeing more of the stuff because of COVID and how does that work if so?
Well, I think we're still on the aftermath of COVID, and I think COVID left all of us with some emotional trauma and that impacts our judgment, particularly late at night with alcohol. But I think that we shut down during COVID, and for some people that has maybe become the default mode. They see something, it's intense, they're not sure how to overreact. Then they see everybody, you know, kind of encouraging it, and everybody pulls out their camera,
so that becomes the social norm. Oh it's okay to film this, everybody else is. And I think that we just we go more into the free state after COVID than we did before.
And of course now we have to talk about the algorithms that encourage us kind behavior to begin with, and how much worse is it going to get? You know, you want to think this has got to be bottomed, but it's not.
Probably, no, it's not.
I mean, if you look at loneliness, loneliness is and an all time high. And I think that that started with COVID. We were forced to isolate. We didn't go to school the same way, we didn't go to work, we didn't go to church, we didn't go to the gym the same way. And for a lot of people that had severe anxiety, it was very comforting but that I think for many people, that just pushed them deeper into their anxiety, and we've got to start to connect
everybody wanted. I think resilient is the foundation that we all stand on. But that doesn't just mean cognitively that your brains biken. Emotionally you're you're able to control your emotions and socially you feel connected. And I think that's one thing that we're all we haven't really built back up. It's our resilience.
How do you see this thing shaken out? I mean, it's part of our culture, it's part of our fabric. It's not going away. Do we just simply adapt? Do we learn to we be able to back off and understand that what the negative consequences of this lifestylence?
Well, you know it's really complex. Holly that took the big punch in the face, someone started to go fundme page for her, So we see an extreme of non caring and then at the same time we see people do care. So I think that it all ties into emotional balance and that we're still in that aftermath coming out of COVID how to connect, how to react, and we're still riding the roller coaster that fights flight freeze, and I think until we can create more stabilization. And
that's mentally as well as physically. It's one unit brain in the body. It's one ning. The body keeps score of everything going on the brain with the Once we can calm that brain down and we can all do that, we can work on that on our own. There's no meditation. Breathing and making sure you get a good night sleep, exercising the basics, eating healthy foods. I've heard a term the neuroprotective diet. What you eat can protect your brain.
You know, we've also heard you mentioned meditation, all these things which are much harder to do because you know your dopamine receipponers are going nuts. Anytime you look at something online, you're being fed a steady dyet of that stuff, and you know it all sounds well and good. You have to be very very proactive and saying, hey, listen, I've got to balance out my digital lifestyle with real life.
Very very few people are going to do that simply because you're not being rewarded as much as you are when the algorithms do what they do and you're getting that neural response.
Absolutely and osttle neuron gendrit thin get really confused. You know, that brain starts kicking out that dopamine, and that confuses those neurons and gendrits. Instead of you know, I like this, it turns into I want this, and then it turns into I need this.
It's interesting, I think also because you wonder how much it's a cyclical behavior, is that we watch what happened, people are all recording. No one's calling nine one one because they become spectators. It's become everything's a show. Now everything is going meant to be put online, and it's a performance in front of me. Despite the fact that we've lost any sense of empathy, that we saw people kicking folks when they're down, people normally don't act like that.
And I wonder how many people who are caught up in this and who are going to be charged and prosecuted and sentenced may have regret for the actions, but look back and go, what the hell was I thinking? I got swept up in a moment in the zeitgeist, and now I'm paying a heavy prices. Well you should for that kind of behavior. I don't think that's going to cause anyone else to be interested back to go.
Man.
Maybe you know what I maybe it's social media. Maybe I need to quit recording everything and just live more life, life as it's meant to be, and not document every little mundane moment in life and live life in the moment. But very few people are going to think like that. I think that this has just encouraged more behavior. And that's what happens, right is that doesn't this lead to more impulsivity and normally public behaviors because you're hiding behind
that screen name where you'll go and attack people. You'll get that dopamine spike and you'll have this heated argument online or attack or dock somebody and it makes you feel good, but you don't think that's a real person.
Well, yeah, I think you make a good point. This has become a social norm there. Everybody pulls out their phone and if they're like taking selfies or are they're looking for something to see them. They're looking for something to catch. Everybody's watching and recording. So if everybody else is doing it, the actually doing it too. Once you create a social norm, it's going to be very hard to change.
It's almost like life itself has become a video game. M you know, I mean, you share followers, you get points. Essentially, it don't turns social interaction into competitive game. And and people there are people out there doing stuff online, just ridiculously stupid stuff, dangerous stuff for that matter, at any cost and for shock value, and we manufacture outrage and uh that just encourages more attention seeking antisocial behavior.
Uh.
And it's a race to the bottom. And so it's literally I mean, if you get points, we're doing what you do what should be clicks? So what should be like isn't this a game?
Sounds like it? I mean, and I think we're becoming these sensitized. I think we see so much of it that it's just like, uh, there's you know, here's another one. And I think that a lot of us are we're seeking stimulation and we're and for young adults are they're looking for pure a proof well, and putting it on social media is a quick way to get that.
Yeah. Yeah, And it also effects I think socialization too. I see a number not all, of course, but there are a lot of young people now that you know, we'll talk in one hundred and forty characters or less and not make eye contact to you that's almost like you if you wouldn't know. They seem autistic in a way, But it's actually the fact that all their communication has done digitally. There's very little one on one, face to face communication. It feels like that's a dying art.
Well, it does. And eye contact and just verbal I have many clients that say, I don't call anybody. I can't remember the last time I called somebody.
Yeah, I just text him.
I just text him. And you know, if you think about how we're using AI now, there are studies that have come out that the younger population they're turning to AI, and I think thirty five percent of one survey I said that's because it didn't have anybody else to talk to.
Yeah, you hear that. And that's a very interesting point you just made, Lee Richardson. Is the fact that with all this technology gretting more and more isolated and therefore depressed. COVID exacerbated that, to be sure, But it doesn't feel like we've moved away from that. I mean, you know, when you are social distancing and you're working at home, and I know they're calling people back to the office
and people reluctantly are doing that. But you're not interacting with anyone that is so dangerous to the human psyche because we're social creatures, are not built for.
That, and I think we kind of forget how when you don't, when you don't use social skills, well thinks that. You know, we've talked about COVID when people first started getting on the road again and driving as we came out of COVID, the road range was incredible. We forgot how to drive nice.
I don't know if we ever knew how to drive nice, but it certainly got I agree with it got worse after COVID, simply because it all became about us. We are ready very self centered people with the advent of digital technology, because it became our bone individual brand, right, That's what it was about, you know, and you're told the steady diet. If you're the most important person, your snowflake, you know, your your fingerprint, you're you're different than everyone else,
and you're special. And we started naming people, you know, people get names like princess and king and things like that, and queen and those titles go around. But then you add the isolation of COVID and social media in there, and we have a very self centered society now, and it's about me and my instant gratification and no one else. How we see that people getting getting shot at McDonald's behind the counter because you know, they got a cheeseburg
instead of a hamburger. If we allow that, it's not much of a stretch to go, wow, hey, there's a guy that I got beef with sitting at Citybird on Fountain Square and Broad dala al, I'm a fire. Couple of rounds in the window. Or the guys that got in an argument and started shooting across traffic rush hour right a Fountain Square a couple of days ago, same thing?
Wow?
Right, yeah, I mean, and there's something that we have to do about it. If we just we just roll us and say, oh, that's just the way it is now, it will only get worse. And I think that that's something that we as we move forward with technology, we've got to redefine our relationship with technology. Your phone is not your best friend. Your phone does not need to sleep with you. And I have clients that when I say where's your phone's sleep form? You know I used
to follow asleep with it in my hand. Really, is that where it needs to be. And I have clients that refer to AI as AL. Well, I'm going to go home. I'm going to go home and hang out with AL. Who's out? I ask my boyfriend, I don't know you had a boyfriend, Well AI, I call him out.
Wow, And they to have conversations with AI. And I've done that kind of jet to see when the responses are. It's frightening, is what it is. And we're becoming Yeah, we're becoming more attracted to digital a digital person than a real person. That's that's frightening. And explain I think a lot of this, a lot of what's happened here now anyway, what we're gonna.
Say, because they tell us what we want to hear.
Of course we're gin it.
We want that.
I mean AI talks to you just like you talk to it, and it will tell you. And if you use it consistently, it picks up your algorithm. It will and it will learn to talk and it will tell you what you want to hear. So yeah, we all do like you, Hey, beautiful, you have a great day.
And eventually we're gonna have a machine that does that in real life and there'll be no human interaction. I'll be dead and gone unhappy by then. But Cheeesilee Richardson at the Brain Performance Center in Texas, Lee all the best, thanks for the inside good stuff as always, Thank you
so much. Take care, b Welly. So what we saw in July on the streets of Cincinnati, the international news to the most recent Fountain Square shootings, which has led to the dismissal essentially whatever you're calling it, administrative leave of Chief Terry Fiji. I'm guessing that that's what helped drive in this thing. And then you had the shooting
in front of the in between Thursday on football. All these people around the city's lit up, and there's cops are around, cops are around Fountain Square, and these people they just simp, don't care. It's almost they lived in their own world, a video game as it were, or a world where I'm the central attraction. I'm the only
thing that matters. I'm not going to discount criminality, predatory criminal behavior, and sociopaths that are engaging, there's no question, but I think there's a reflection there on all of us as societies where we're headed now with AI coming into fruition, which we still don't know what tomorrow is going to bring with that, but also the fact that you know, look at the few people calling nine to one one when something goes on, they'd rather record it
post content on their page to get clicks and views, and that feeds even more of the stuff too. And I think in that regard we are all to blame to some degree because we're feeding that and then you put that in the hands of well street thugs and criminals and sociopaths, and this is what happens. Just something to think about and if that's true in any way, shape or form, is it really the fault of Terry Fiji or Adam Henny or whoever the chief is a
city of Cincinnati, Probably not. Could you do better with the policies, absolutely, but that's above them. Scott'sland with News in four minutes your seven one hundred W the scott'sand here seven hundred w l W Welcome to the show. I just talked to Lee Richardson, and Lee is with the Brain Performance Center in Dallas, and we just had
the you know what cost Terry Fiji her job? Essentially, that would be the violence downtown, the shootings at Fountain Square and also I would include there what happened at the end between two and you know, you talk about the impact social media has on people, and just let's look, let's look back at what happened in July when you had all these people that were fighting and getting curb stomped and everything else, and what one person, maybe two
people called nine one one, and even the person who's gonna call nine one one was threatened and didn't you know, didn't feel comfortable in reaching out to police because they felt like, hey, you know what, we don't want to upset this. This is happening in our little ecosystem here, and we're gonna have race wars, but we don't want anyone responding. And you know there's people down bleeding, and you know, significant and serious injuries to two people, and
you wonder why that exists. Well, she talked greatly about how the impact that social media has had on all of us, and even if you're not involved in your offended by that, we also are still to blame because we drive the content through the algorithms and that's why clickbait is created. I think it's interesting too just reading the story about social media. The social media make you dumber, And the answer is, well, yeah, I think we can. I think we can absolutely measure that. But think, okay,
well how do we test that? How we got simply just you know, there's really no way to measure it, but there is. If you had a you know what they call in the research field. You know you've got a you've got a test, and a test better than a I'm not done blanking on the name of it, but you know I'm talking about anyway, long story short. If I think scrolling the Internet days making it dumber, what about AI? So what they did is fascinating researchers,
I think Texas. And then they took junk data. They took the stuff that we look at, the clickbait, the millions and millions of short social media posts. They took stuff from Facebook and x and Instagram and all that, and they put a bunch of it into AIAI models. The stuff that has a lot of engagement, likes, reposts, longer content, that kind of stuff. It sensationalized presentations and
really thin on actual information. Basically the same type of content that's rotting our own bridge or it feels like our writting own bridge. What did AI do with this stuff because it's a learning model. The AI models that they use saw significant drops in reasoning capabilities, understanding context, and being safe a sense of adherence to safety standards.
So more than just getting dumber, they included the clickbait, they included the junk, and it also changed the model's personality because it's a learning model and so we'll learn and the responses when you read them, you tend to look at and go, Okay, it's not just data, but there's a little personality. Well that's that's a yeah. You know, you could say, hey, take the story and make it funny, and it would make it funny that there's a personality element to it. And I know it's a I know
it's a computer and it's it's AI. But that's the scary part of the good part about it. I suppose. So they put this through I think metas one of Meta's AI bots, and it displayed significantly higher levels of narcissism and became less agreeable, and also went from displaying nearly no signs of psychopathy to extremely high rates of psychopathy.
That's crazy, literally, it's making the computer crazy. So if that is AI, and we can measure baseline AI and go, okay, well this is before we feeded a bunch of junk. If that's rotting the brain of the computer, so to speak, what is that doing to me and you? And conversely, when you look at what happened at Fountain Square, when you look at what happened during the beat down in July, it wouldn't surprise one that no one is going to
call the police. No one cares to call the police or reach out and say, hey, these are actually living human beings here because we're programmed to steady died of this donsense. And you know, if you spend all day looking at it, and I'm guilty of it too, you might be as well. I try to avoid it as much as possible because it just feels toxic to me. It really really does. So social media, when you take it and put it at AI, makes AI worse, dumber,
more angry, just like us. We're in day twenty three the shutdown now and now officially the second longest funding lapse in modern history, eclipsing the one back in back to nineteen ninety five during the Clinton administration. Thirty five days would be the record. By the way, in case you're counting thirty five days. And healthcare, of course, as the hold up in this whole thing. We've been talking
about that. I'll have a guest on at eleven oh six on that topic entirely too now, especially as we head into benefit season here. It's open enrollment coming up November first, and we're expecting the worst. We're expecting, you know, a lot less coverage and more cost and that's for all of us too. So we are now day twenty three of this thing yester. They tried to pass the I think the twelfth attempt to pass the bill and nothing,
largely because no one's outrage yet. Now I know that they're going to start cutting SNAP and that does affect seniors as well as low income families. I wonder if that will get someone's attention or they'll just go what they usually do is just say, well, you know we can we we'll find some money for because you know, it's theater up until a point that someone gets hurt, no doubt about it. So we have that going on.
This is in the medical area here too. I didn't know this last year they hadn't do a Nobel Prize and on the Nobil risory toxic and polarize these days. But the Nobel buying Physiology went to I guess said a scientist or scientists, I should say that studied animals, animals that can breathe through their anus. What So now they've taken their research and said, there's mammals that are capable of breeding through their butt. What do we do with that? Well for people who have disabilities or blocked
airways or clogged lungs, THEPD for example. Maybe I don't know. They are now experimenting and getting promising results to bring rectal oxygen delivery one step closer to medical reality. I don't know if that's a foot pump. I'm not sure. If you, I don't know, you stop at UDF and you put quarters in. I have no idea how that would work, but guarantee this, if they get to that point,
there will be some product that comes out. PNG is probably already working on something to make your anus smell better. So it's to have fresh breath from the mouth and the butt as well, a butt muffler or something. I don't know how they're going to do this. It's a I don't know if it's a stovepipe. I'm not going. Sure, you just think of I go, well, you now you've seriously if you can't breathe, that's problematic for the human
condition generally. Not breathing is frowned upon in these parts, tends not to have good outcomes, as they say in the metal field. Now there's an option to actually be able to breathe through your butt, well, not an option yet, it's maybe they're working on this thing. What is that king to look like? Science is freaking amazing, absolutely amazing. That's good stuff right there, Scott's Sloan Show on this Thursday morning. So yeah, we're on the backside of this
whole thing. Coming up at ten oh six dominic. Misser Indido's here. He's a retail expert. Okay, what nine months in roughly we're heading to the quarter four quarter four is here? How's this whole tariff thing working out? I was at the store yes two days ago and it was Costco. Of all places, which I love be some Costco because the prices are good, people are very friendly there,
and everything's in quantity, which we like. I actually, for the first time a long time or since I can ever remember, said look to beef and went, yeah, it's too expensive. It didn't high like to eat right, being Italian and all that. And I look at it and go, wow, pick up a pack of steaks and they were just like I don't know, strip stakes or something like that. And it was one hundred dollars for it was a good It was a costco sized pack mine. It wasn't
like tuesdaks. Even the hamburger was like, you know, six between six seven dollars a pound, Wow for hamburger. It looks at it when okay, it's a lot of hamburger freeze, like a lot of the stuff putting in the ceiler and bag it up. But yeah, you know what, I'm good chicka dizer, Like I got two forty nine pound, I'll go that. I'll do that, Like do I need no, No, we're good, We're good. I couldn't believe it. But then that's just me, and I'm sure you and in course
countless other people. So many people feel the effect that every day. And you know, you look at it and go, can I actually afford to buy hamber It used to be steak, right or something nicer cut of meat. Now it's like I can't even I can iffer eggs, hamburger. It's all going through the roof inflation and tariffs and of course you know with beef too. There's a lot of other factors in there as well, with droughts and sicknesses.
But we'll get into that with the dominant coming up at twelve I'm sorry, twelve or six, I said, coming up at t ten oh seven this morning here on the Scott Sloan Show on seven hundred WW News on the way about six minutes here, seven hundred W WELW
Scott's Loan Show. Keeping on top of everything. The latest Thigi news kind of light today, But yesterday I think it was WCPO nine at a interview with aftab Purevall and he said, no, this investigation is going to take months to figure out what she did wrong so we
can fire her. And you know, typically you go, well, maybe, okay, yeah, you know, maybe Thigi was did something that's going to cause her to be suspended and paid leave and what what has she got summoned back from the conference in Denver and we thought it was crime related and they're investigating her and now she's paid leave. What's going on? What kind of high level stuff is going on. Ask yourself a question, and that may be true, but ask
yourself a question. How many times has that actually happened where someone is said, hey, we've suspended a person. Now we're going to wait two or three months and then tell you what it is we think they did wrong. Doesn't that Isn't that completely counter to the criminal justice system, even did the basics of due process And ironically, she's the chief of police. Due processes. Okay, here's what we're charging you with. Here are the accusations against you. Defend yourself.
Instead they're going, okay, we're going to suspend you. Now we're going to look for the stuff we suspended you. It's it's part and parcel for what's going on in city hall. It really is something else. I'm not saying she's cla I don't know. I knowing Terry and her family and what they've done, hard to believe that she'd be up to something that would cost her her job, and you start to the mind wanders of things you could do as a chief that would cause you to
be forced out. But we've never heard a rumor about that. Talk to people at other news organizations, they haven't heard anything like that. With Terry Thiji. It doesn't pass a sniff test. But again, no, normally how you do, like PG sitting and felt for example, okay, we heard rumors and then okay we had the FBI and the sting and all that. That information came out and he of course denied it all and then went to prison and then got out of prison because it was overturned. I
get that. That's usually how it works. I don't see too often, if ever, we hat somethe go, we're suspending them and there's no inkling as to what they They don't know what they did. So I'll reach out to Steve vm over at Finny lawfer maybe he wants to come on and address this. We'll probably do that next week because hey, you know what, Thursday, Friday, you're thinking about the weekend, and so am I. So it feels like a good Monday topic. And who the hell knows
what's going to happen between now and then? You got me? You got me? Speaking of crime and punishment, the Louver The louverra reopened yesterday, first time since Steve's stold eight of France's crown jewels and the value on that by the Way Street value of over one hundred million dollars for eight jewels, and they're still in the hunt obviously for the four thieves that did this during daylight hours. And what it incredibly they are addressed is construction workers.
They get in and out of the louver in less than what seven minutes while the museum was opening to the public, and they also set off two alarms and were confronted by security personnel and somehow talked their way out of it and then hopped on some motorcycles and took off, which is pretty smart when you think about it. I mean, Paris, there are a life you've never been.
But it's an incredible number of motorcycles they have in Europe, but particularly in France and in Paris obviously because so many people in the streets are so narrow, but you can get around on them pretty quickly. The idea that you're going to know all the things it gets you know, if you I stole a painting, be much harder to get away on a motorcycle. But he's still jewels, which
is probably part of the target. It's like, okay, well I can throw them in my pocket, get them on bike and roll and then they had that image of the electric ladder that was extended the second floor window. But the louver is undergoing extens remodeling, as you may or may not know, and that's a pretty common sight. That's how you get things to the top floors. If you've you know, we see it occasionally in Cincinnati and
are the most densest urban area. But if you go to I don't like Chicago or New York for example, and you watch them work on a building, I mean to hoist drywall up is a feat of engineering. We're literally got to blow all the windows out and just hoist it up on a giant lift and get the sheets of drywall up to the thirtieth floor whatever it is you're going. That's a whole different operation there. So
it all it all kind of fit together. The fascinating part about this to me is how the alarms want they know the alarms would go off in security to respond, and how they are still able to get away in talking their way out of this thing dress as construction workers. I cannot wait to hear that element of it. That's the most fascinating part of this to me. And also it makes you think, well they had some insight knowledge of how things are going to work, because I did
read that there are cameras in the second story. We're facing in the wrong direction. And you know, if you're working in construc diduction on a floor a couple of floors, moving stuff around is commonplace, and so you wonder if that was maybe how they got in, but you also think you'd have to have people inside the loop helping you too, and pretty precise the fact that they got in they got specifically what they wanted because there I know there's I don't know the total number of Crown jewels,
but there's a number. They got eight of them, very specific items. But doesn't that make you think, okay, if specifically they got these things, was this like a did they already have the fence set up? And it was that someoney who said, hey, listen, we'll pay you this amount of money if you can get these jewels, go in and get them. And they did that. It was like a basically they placed an order and the thieves
went and got this stuff. And just the number of people it took too, I think to pull this off is fascinating to me. So and it's just like the Italian job or Snatch or I mentioned Inspectorcluso in Pink Panther or Ocean's eleven. Yeah, it's just a good fevery story and you look at it, go this is gonna be Give me some pop because this it's gonna be great on Netflix when they finally solve this whole thing.
By the way, uh.
Scotts Tholone coming up next to the show Don Mizarndinos. Here is retail experts, the terraffs feeling that we're feeling the squeeze the consumer end. And I think that is indeed the problem here because when it's I don't know, cattle ranchers are getting money, Venezuela is getting money. We got money coming in from the terrace, but it's not trickling down to me and you. And if so, how
long can we stand this pain with the terraffs. That's just ahead on the Home of the Best Bengals coverage seven hundred ww Cincinnati.
Do you want to be an Americanio?
He's got flown back on seven hundred WWT So, my wife and I work Costco the other day. Love me some Costco even though it's just two of us for summer speaking chop at Costco. Do I really need Do I really need a fifty five gallon drum a mayonnaise? No,
but damn it, look at that price on that. Unfortunately, I'm looking around it for the first time since I don't know when I looked at a package of beef and I think it was like, you know, a pack of steaks or something you freeze on me to cut, and it was over one hundred dollars may like a package of ground beef. Now granted it's the Costco size package, but it was like forty to fifty bucks. And I looked at it and went, nope. So where are you on tariffs, because that's part of this too. Beef is
a I think maybe a little bit different. But you know, we have that we have inflation driving the cost of goods or consumers the stuff that is widely important in the US, in particular furniture, car parts, electronics. I mentioned beef getting hit some of the big ones companies that passed on roughly two thirds of those costs to us to meet and you and we're waiting for all this
to come back to us. The question is if and when and on that is dominic mister Indino is a CEO at retail tech Media Nexus Rtmnexus dot com Dominic. Welcome back, How you doing.
Brother, Thrilled to be back. Thrilled to be back and cover some light and airy issues the economy.
I was cringing at the price of beef and walk in and went now And I don't ever remember doing that because I like beef, I like chicken, I like you know this, My body type is beef. So when we look at the tariffs themselves and what's happening or President Trump just told cattle ranchers, I think yesterday, the only reason they're doing so well is because tariffs on cattle come in the United States are causing their prices and they're causing make a more profit. And that includes
a fifty percent tear from Brazil. But now we want to import beef from Argentina because we want we want to help their economy, and then cattle ranchers here will get three billion dollars in assistance to those who have been hurt with the trade dispute with countries like China.
So it's like just a malgam. It's a casse role of subsidy and giveaway and tariffs and then we're taking the money and giving it to farmers, and it feels like everyone's getting money of foreign countries and farmers, but they ain't doing anything for me and you.
Well, and I think started the basics of the equation, and I go back to the basics, mean, what is a tar of the tariff is attacks essentially passed on to the consumer unimported goods, which means and you're gon't have to buy beef right now. Your choice is American beef at the price, and everything else has a paraffon it, there by making it more expensive, making the American beef price grows up. If the American consumer is good with that,
paying higher prices, then hooray on Paris. Now the challenge is the American consumer, such as yourself, knock on the door, say one hundred dollars for feet. What's going on, dude? And cause there's one cycle. In the addition, you have this other issue, this whole Argentina thing. And then the farmers themselves saying, wait a minute, I thought we were winning in this equation. By stopping all external beef, you're
helping Argentina. So I think you have almost like two stories hitting each other like the cars driving into each other middle the highway. And to be honest, the only one to lose is the guy who has a paycheck who says, are these parents necessarily getting me where I want to be?
I think it's a fair assessment because you look at the Brazil and the tariffs and women to Argentine, Well Argentina, okay, Well need to help their economy. So we're gonna we're with the tariffs. I don't know what the impact is Argentina tariffs, but we only left their economents. They're gonna give them subsidy. We're gonna Venezuela in another one. Cattle ranchers here get three billion dollars because they're not selling stake because somebody like me walks in goes. I ain't paying
that for a stake. You know, it'll be special came back to special occasion or grand beef or whatever it is. Okay, So they're getting money through you know, tariffs and sub said it, we don't get anything as the consumers. Now we're waiting. We're told back in January and up to that that hey, we're gonna hit the tariffs, and guess what we're gonna start getting jobs back, it's going to
start just cost everyone's going to be rich. And we keep waiting for that, and I think, you know, here we are and and the Q four right now, we're not seeing that, and that really is the problem right here, we're not getting the relief we were told we're going to get.
I think the critical part of that is the when, meaning tariffs add to the American overall budget to put them in supplicitic we get the money we're collecting. Everyone has to pay more for their beads, and they put sending money right to the US government. All right, theoretically paying down debt, but the when kicks in, so you're paying one hundred bucks x percentage of it goes to tariffs if it's not US based, goes right to the
US budget, and thereby you're paying down the budget. Now your next question of when, well, most estimates are ten years plus, right, So the average consumer has to think the when timeline is a little bit off. You know, we're not going to see necessarily you're paying a hundred
bucks and the next week prices magically dropped. Yep. And I think the American, the average person you know, can can live with this three months, six months, nine months, and now we're coming down to nine months of the presidency. It's a doubt. See how people look at saying, why am I paying this much? Wealthy?
I get it right, We're not in the town. We've seen this before, like the wars and stuff. We just
you fight America, just go. We'll just hang on for a lot longer because we have the attention span of a moth, which is pretty much non existing, and we just okay, well, look at the midterms and we'll punish Republicans because it's not going fast enough, and then a Democrat will come in and undo all this stuff and start their own policies, and that won't work, and then we're back to a Republican and meanwhile, the cost of
everything is going through the roof. I think in particulars, you know Dominic with beef, there are some outliers there an addition to tariffs and not just fair to say tarraffs. But we had a multi year drought that caused cattle herts to shrink. We know that farmers are hit with that, and production expenses went up and I think we're down by like seven to ten percent. Fewer ranches in America number of cattle producing farms, and America's gone down over
the past several years. We had to stop importing cattle from Mexico because of the screw worm, which is a parasitic flesh eating maggot, I guess, And so we all these factors in addition to the tariff that.
Doesn't help well, you know the other factor to me economically, I am very much the type of thinking. More competition gives us more choices. Isn't it great when you go when you could say I want to buy Argentinian beef, I want to buy a New Zealand lamb or whatever you want. The problem with the tariffs is actually we're eliminating to other choices For the average consumer. You go there and you have to buy whatever is the cheapest because you're just trying to make a paycheck at this point.
That doesn't necessarily help any lucky. But the competition does reduce the prices and cause people to say, say, you know, let me make the choice and maybe it's equal, and you choose Americans, and that's great, right as an argument about.
That, right, Yeah? And I think the thing is we heard that, I guess because of the tariffs America has made, I guess, and the taxes and the import tax it would be some two hundred million. I forget with the numbers. It's a lot of money, but that's not getting sent back to the tax for the consumers. It's going to you know, the ranchers to not to make offsets and other manufacturers get subs to the other countries are getting
that money back. It's not time to go ar Argentina, right right, And none of us coming back to the American consumer. Although some good news India. I guess the US were close to coming up with a trade deal that could cut things from fifty percent down to like fifteen percent, which would be huge. How big a dent does that make to the consumer? Do we see that?
I don't think we will because the other other factor in all, if you're running a company in America and let's say you're not affected by terrffs, but all the other prices and now going up by fifty percent, you're going to raise your price. I mean, I've spoken to many retailers who said, we are American based, and while the theory was the tariff, you know, I guess raises everyone else's prices and the American is there by cheaper and reason up because why am I going to charge
five bucks when everything else at ten? Because I'm just making five bucks more now at this point. I'm raising my price from five to ten at that point, and the American consumer will take it because all the other prices are now right.
Well at some point of me, you know, we heard about the cost Well, we're going to eat the costs. Eat the costs. Well, we know now that manufactures because the data's out there that said they're passing two thirds of stuff out of the consumer. So, but how do retail how did they do? You're in the retail business dominic, mistery, you know, how do they decide which tariff costs to absorb, which wants to pass on the consumers?
What?
What?
What factors in on that?
I mean, I'm actually not only see r TM next is the must board for Engaged three, a pricing company, And we have these conversations all the time. It's what the consumer wants in the sense that right now you're buying all are you going jump to one fifty tomorrow? Probably? Now you might switch to vegetables. However, one hundred dollars beef for the next six months. Your mindset starts to switch and you say, this is normal now and right now.
If you think we had this mantra of the price of eggs, the price of eggs, the price of eggs, it's not like the price of eggs is less when Trump came to office. Now, I'm not saying that in a political sense. I'm saying in a psychological sense. We we set as a as a society, we all go, this must be normal, there's nothing wrong about it's whatsoever? And in fact, well, it isn't down. You know, it's roughly where we were a year or two ago. Is that?
Yeah? And I think that's true, especially in Dominican gas prices. Right when when the gas has been low recently, but you know, hey, gas is up near for well, hits that magic. You know even number four dollars, three fifty four dollars gas four dollars agains. This is outrageous. But if it drops down to three seventy five, three fifty, you're like, oh, okay, gas prices down, but a year ago gas was three dollars. Callum, we forget.
We absolutely do. I mean I'm looking right now, live at the price of gas. It has been roughly the same and high since twenty twenty when it dipped when no one was using gas anyway during COVID. So we do say, hooray went from four to three. Horay beef is now one hundred, it goes down to ninety. And I think we have to almost look and the data
is there. You can go Google. Everyone on this listening now can go immediately Google, look at the price and historically states and decide for themselves as voters, is this the policies they want and how long? And the answer could be yes in certain circumstances. Now to me, I will say, in my opinion, I think certain times don't make any sense to me in a sense like calling the premise being you're going to raise that American industry,
but there's only one state that makes coffee. Yeah, it's light, right, so why stock all others? Gasoline is a good example. I don't think we should be limiting resources, and there's very few resources. I think as a consumer makes sense to limit because it's if limits my choices. I enjoy going supermarket and having something different to try today.
Yeah, well, when by shut down a Keystone pipeline we need more of that in the interim. I mean, you know, clean energy is great, it's a great goal to have, but for the least next hundred years, we're going to dependent on fossil fuels. There's just no way around it because it's in everything we consume, not just your car, but your clothes, your house, your your your coffee cup, all this. If it's insane to think that we can
just slip a switch and make everything green. Dominic miss Redino's the CEO of Retail Tech Media and Nexus RTM mediaext dot com and uh he is a expert when it comes to why stuff costs what it costs in the retail environment, and specifically it's starting to I think we're starting to see at the checkout timing, what is the impact on like Kroger for example, Cincinnati bas Kroger.
You know, all this comes down back to the consumer in the sense that yes, is a question of passing it on. But when you're limiting choices, what does the consumer say? Generally, the consumer, when the price hit it, we'll go into survival mode. So maybe you're not buying the organic beats you want to buy. You know, maybe you're not buying this specialty localized and they're buying survival. So I think the mindset switches to what the consumer needs.
M what about independent retailers though? What about the little guy.
That theor to me, if you're the average consumer listening on this broadcast and you're thinking yourself, where am I going shopping? It's one hundred bucks people have When they said that out loud, they're everything once can costco see it, oh, buying that. They're not necessarily saying themselves, I'm going to go downtown to that specialty butcher to buy that's specialty localized XYZ. Not because they don't want to, because the price is it's survival of that, you know, for the
family pay the bill. Yeah.
Yeah, We've got the holidays coming up. So then there's a factor of seasonal planning and holiday inventory. Are we going to notice a difference and how much stuff in stock is on shelves because you don't want to overbuy, you know, on underbuy. And it's a season starting earlier and earlier because well, they're going to get their inventory and when it's gone, it's gone.
I tell people the times start earlier for the holiday season. I'm already starting to see it. I'm talking to retail thing. Our inventory is shifting, we're running out of star more often than not, we're hitting those delays. I don't think it's necessarily panic as much, and I don't think kients ever the right answer. It is planning. It's always planning over panic, right.
Dominic as far as the big picture here, and you know the way, Well, we're doing these teriffs because we're going to repatriate American jobs. And I mean, are your suppliers, are your the companies you represent, are they specifically seeking American manufacturers and American trades people to supply them with the goods that they need to stock their shelves.
To be fair, I think the answer, of course is it depends chip manufacturers, chemicals dirty that Americans don't want. They're not coming back, and nor maybe do we even want them to come back. We don't necessarily want our kids going into minds, right if we can avoid it. That said, if it's something that can be repatriated, but you know, you're not getting coffee coming to America anytime soon. I'm not building a chick factory for ten years anytime soon.
Those things are definitely getting limited. So I think, uh, you know. One example, I just spoke to an eyeglass company. She's like, the only people can make these glasses, specialty, high end glasses are in Italy. She's like, I can't get a factory. She's like, if I get them to even even if I could immigrate them over, which is
another immigration question. How do I get the specialtiest specialty guy who's been doing this for fifty years to come to Ohio and train the people on that craft craft and artisanship and factories take a there are some that might not woodworking, you know, we have there find things we do have in America we don't. But when it comes to industries that need to be recreated from scratch,
you hear these factories overseas. We're not going to get American workers going in at four dollars an hour anytime soon, just not the economics. But they have that instead.
Yeah, nobody knows where this ends, is the thing and what happens over the next year or two years, because belts are tightening and I think you know, your your retailer see that at the counter, what people are buying or not buying. You know, we look at the layoffs of companies like P and G, for example here in Cincinnati, because they're forward looking, right, they're looking quarters ahead, going, well, you know what, people are buying cheaper laundry decrision, or
they're doing fewer loads of laundry. They'll still buying tide, but they're doing fewer loads or trying to cram more in their laundry. And so now we have to offset that by well, we got to tighten our belts as well. So it's it seems like it's slow moving, but it's not, and the tariffs are coming on roofs, and longer it goes on, we got to start seeing some payoffs at some point, otherwise it's just going to be held to pay here. I don't know how you can afford ground
beef at this point for the typical American family. I mean, it's my wife and I We do fairly well, but family members, our kids are example like, yeah, we can't buy we can't afford that anymore. And you start to wonder the effect if this how much longer this can go on? He's Dominic Misterndino, CEO at Retail Tech Media and Nexus Rtmnexus dot com. Dominic always appreciate the insight. Thanks again, brother, I appreciate it.
Thank you very much. We'll talk soon.
Take care. News on the way in just about four minutes, five minutes from now here in the Big one, seven hundred WLW back half the week is here at least. Yeah, steak is now. It feel like a luxury man. And you know, if you go to Jeff Ruby's or Tony's or any one of the fine steakhouses in the city that were blessed to have, you know, you look at some of these prices, you go, wow, that went up like,
you know, twenty bucks since I last remembered it. Yeah, there's a lot of sticker shot going and it's squeezing those guys too. So you want to see the worm turn here, and you wonder if it ever is going to turn at this point. I know nine months is not a long time, but for Americans, nine months is a long time. Just how it is. Seven hundred WLW. All right, here we go with drama in the Natural Basketball Association.
Re MA.
Mafia families have ties to some figures NBA players. You've got Chauncey Billups, a coach, you got players. It's incredible. It's like Tony soprano James Gandelfini has come back to life with Polly Walnuts and and the rest of the crew from the Sopranos, and like Jersey is representing today in the National Basketball Association, that's a huge developing store.
We're gonna have more in that coming up on the show on seven hundred w WIT because I got feeling I gonna be wrong about this, but somebody's gonna get whacked. Somebody is gonna get whacked. And when whackings breakout, we break in here on seven hundred WW slowly and this morning.
And this affects all of us too. By the way, I just tell you a story about the social media and how they fed all the clickbait and all this nonsense you read on social media into AI chatbots, and it actually made aichat Ai dummer and more angry, which is it's measurable, and that's computer imagement's doing us. And of all the things that keep you awakened, that may be one thing. Some sixty to seventy million Americans have chronic sleep deprivation. Twenty two of us have sleep apnea.
Twenty two million people have sleep apnea. Insomnia effects about a third of the population. A third of adults in four and ten say they often feel or fall asleep at work. And if you're a truck driver, that's really concerning. Some jobs you probably can get away with. There are times where I've admittedly fall asleep during the show and no one noticed. But truck drivers that is bad. You're flying an airplane. Bad. You're probably in somebody's heart doing surgery. Bad.
Talk show, not so much. Sonjay Shaiva Crimani's on the show this morning is in the air physician at doctor Sonja Sinsey with a y or. He intersects the worlds of food and health and fitness and jumps in the show this morning in studio this morning, how are you a coach? How you doing doing well? Thanks for having me doing good? Thanks for coming in this morning. Okay, so you're an your air physician in Cincinnati, but you're
also you're in the fitness realm as well. You hear the story and you probably see it a lot of sleep apnea presents, and we know that you can get some very serious illness. You can die from sleep apnia. How much how many undiagnosed the twenty two million, how many of those you think are undiagnosed, like the bulk of them.
I think it's probably the bulk. So I mean, to have the diagnosis, you kind of have to see a doctor, have the studies done right right. And some people, you know, are just getting slapped in the middle of the night by their partner in bed, being like you're snoring, when it's actually it's something more serious than that, specifically sleep apnan.
Or you just go into another bedroom of the couch exactly. You can't stand it.
That's a new thing. It's sleep divorce. Yeah, you've heard of this thing. Yeah, yeah, that's a big deal. Yeah, so people are starting to do that. But it's not like divorcing because of sleep. It's just sleeping in separate areas. But that might actually be your clue that maybe there's something else going on other than you just can't sleep well without the person or you can't stand your partner like it could be something worse.
Well, let's get how much how much of these sleep problems that we have in America and affects most all of us. I mean, they say get between eight you know, eight hours of sleep? Is that an actual goal? Is that a hard fast number? Is it different for different people. So it's a pretty solid number. So seven to eight hours is what we're shooting for. Something less than seven does start adding up. In fact, your performance in general
kind of decreases over time. So I actually went to this Ted talk several years ago and the guy said, you know, the first four hours of sleep is just to restore your body.
That's all you're doing. You're repairing your body. But the next four hours is where your brain regenerates. So like all that emotional stuff that you need to face your day, you need to face the struggles of your day, the challenges, like, that's what you get in the next four hours, and you need those next four hours, all of it to be your best in those emotional situations. So yeah, we can survive, but we are not the best versions of
ourselves while we're just surviving. If we're getting four to six hours of sleep, it's ours seven and eight where we really get like the maximum benefit.
Can you make that up in the weekend when some people go working really hard and then I mean, you know you're an ear doc, so you were crazy. Do you sleep for like twelve hours? Is that? Can you? That would be a healthy right? Yeah? Excuse the pun. If you could do that like a college.
So the whole idea of like banking sleep and getting it, there's there's a little bit of benefit there, but it's not as much as we think. It's the it's the daily kind of thing we need to get and this is one of those Yeah, you just nailed it. Like as an er doc, my my schedule is crazy. It's days,
it's nights, it's weekends, it's all over the place. And so that's why I hold sleep such in such importance in my life because it's it's not good, but it is literally the foundation of my well being and everything else. It is the number one thing. And you can ask my fiance. I'm almost obsessive about my sleep, but I need to be because it's thrown off so often that I have to do whatever I can to maximize it so I can be my best in every.
Realm in my life. And it's more like a shift work because you're you know, you're not, hey, I'm not nine to five er doc. No, it's where they need you in different times and for twelve hours of a time, right or maybe longer in some cases. But that's true for a lot of people who work second third shift, they wrotetate cops do that, right.
Yeah, And and it affects you over time. A lot of people love working nights for for good reason. It's usually a cooler vibe, right, But turning around or sleeping during the day, it's just not what our bodies were built to do. And over time that where on us. I mean, there's studies out there that you know, if you're if you're a night shift worker, you literally die
earlier than people who work dacious, right. And I've known this my entire career, and I'm just like, oh, I just accept it, and now I'm doing what i can to like die a little later, I guess.
But it's yeah, well you know what I mean. Look, we're going to at a time a year now, son Jay where you don't see the sun, and if you work thirds, like I did that for a while, you literally you don't see the sun at all ever. Yeah, and we know that has a big, big effect on the sleep cycle or Katie.
Rhythms exactly, so like when when you wake up. So the whole thing is people oftentimes say watch your blue light at night before you go to bed, and that's a that's a whole thing, or being exposed to light in the last couple hours before you go to bed, but they're actually finding Also the morning time daylight is really important, so like within an hour, getting ten to
fifteen minutes of light exposure in that hour. But if it's dark outside, if you got one of the Cincinnati winters, you're not going to see this the sun necessarily if you're sleeping all day. And so it does affect the night shift workers over time, and it initially you may not feel it if you're young, but as we get older, it really starts adding up.
What about one of those happy lights. I've got one of those, I don't know. In the winter, sometimes I'll plug it in at my desk or whatever and it throws out simulates the sun. Does that work? Does that do anything?
It's something. It does a little something. It's not as great as being out in nature being exposed to the to the elements, but at the same time, you'd be exposing yourself to the elements. And so it's like fifteen degrees outside. Hell yeah, go right, go hit the light.
Why do we do this? I mean you just hit on two things. You want that sunlight, that natural sunlight early in the morning. Why not make an alarm clock that has a light hooked up to it and it gradually comes on and lights up the room? What about that?
It's got your billion dollar idea has already been invented over and over again.
But I had something again, But no, it exists.
I forget the brand names for it, but they definitely exist, and they slowly come on, slowly wake you up, and I'll tell you, the smallest shred of light will have me up and eyes open. So like, it's not great for me, but it works for some people.
Sanjay Shave of Krimani's on the show. He's in our physician at Doctor Sanjay's and an expert in fitness and food and health and fit. We're talking about sleep this morning, which is a big deal. Most of us don't get the necessary seven to eight hours if you're getting sad. I'm like a seven guy myself, so I think I'm okay. But I noticed too, the older you get, you wake up in the middle of the night and you're up for like two or three hour it feels like you're
up for hours, right, yeah, what is that? Why has that happened?
So the brain starts getting I mean you're just getting old, Sloan, that's what it is. So your your brain starts.
Telling me about it because I'm limping around the studio just getting off crutches. Yeah, no, kidd and thanks. You and me both are broken aples shop jel. It's fine.
But overtime, so when we're young, our brain knows what to do, and over time our brain kind of forgets what to do and how to sync with the cycle of life. That's what That's what the current thought is. So as we get older, our brain's like, oh, it's the middle of the night, maybe I'm supposed to be awake right now, as opposed to our younger brain that is smarter. So yeah, we're just getting dark. It's dumb, and here we are.
I thought it was something to it, like I'm so efficient at sleep. I only need four or five hours and I wake up and I awake for two or three.
But I remember seeing something sign Jay years ago, a fascinating story about the history of sleep in how screwed up we got when electricity came on and you know, candlelight things like because it used to be hey, you and sun goes down the fire go to bed at five o'clock and then get up in the but people would sleep for four hours, get up, they'd make babies, they get the stuff ready to eat the next day, get some firewood going, and then they go to bed.
They'd be up for a few hours and then go to bed for So because human history is a relatively small sliver of our existence, so modern history we're talking about here, we're like genetically wire to wake up in the middle of the night to some degree somewhat.
I mean, we don't have a lot of evidence of all that stuff, but I'll tell you that. Like, what we've also found is different cultures need different amount of sleep. So like we say we need seven eight hours as humans, but it's actually kind of an American state. I don't know what other countries there are, but some countries actually require less sleep and you're okay, you're actually thriving at sex.
So it's kind of weird.
So maybe that was a different culture back then too, where you needed less sleep or needed to sleep in the middle of the day. But you know, like European culture with the siesta and everything that also works for them, and so it depends. But the kind of cumulative amount you need is seven or eight in today's world for the most part, now that we're all becoming semi one culture because we're all plugged into the same stuff.
Right right, Okay, now that makes a lot of sense. So we're also told, hey, you know you need a ten thousand dollars mattress that cools and heats you unless you up and down all that stuff to get the best nice sleep in your life?
Is that just marketing? Is are some truth in that? There's definitely truth to it. I think you know, you got mattresses, you got supplements, you got all the other things out there. Mattress is important. I mean I definitely invested in a good mattress and a good pillow. But there's other things you can do, and specifically, you know, temperature of your room, which a lot of people don't key in on. It's the light that we just talked about.
And then it's consistency of sleep schedule, which coming from me, I mean, do as I say, not as I do on that one, because I literally can't. But the the mattress quality is important. I mean, if you're if you're sleeping on a bed of rocks and that's something new to you, it's not gonna it's not gonna turn out well.
If you toss and turn son, Jay, is that indicating indicating you a bad night's sleep or is it just your toster return because I'm a toster turn.
So are you a tosser and turner all night or is it a tosser and turner intermittently?
I have no idea. I'm sleeping. Yeah, what I know. You're the doctor and tell me I asked a really good questions. Yeah, you definitely, you're flipping all over the place.
So, so you know, our body goes through the cycles of sleep, and you know, we're light sleep, then we're deep sleep, and then there's the REM cycle where our brain goes a little wild. That's when our dreams happen. And as we go on further in the night, typically if we're if we're healthy, we'll have more and more
REM cycles as the night goes on. And so it's not atypical for you to be tossing and turning, especially like between if you're sleeping from eleven to seven, from three to seven, you're probably going to be tossing more because you toss more with your dreams because your brain's a little restless. And doing all the rem things that it needs to do and having all the dreams.
Yeah, it seems I wake up, it'll be like a solid four hours and you wake up and then you go to the bathroom or whatever. And that's the other thing too, is you get older, you tend to go to the bathroom more.
Yeah, it's it's all you know, you and I, I mean for the whole my part where we're definitely the four hour wake up guys now and it doesn't matter what I do. And and now are their ankle bros. You know, with with those injuries. I have a little more swelling in my ankle now than I used to. And so that just that's what goes in the middle of the night.
Wake up and go Should you just get up? If it's like, Okay, I'm wide awake, I feel good, Should I just go up and do something and then come back to bed later. So it's a great point you makes it on.
So a lot of people are like, oh, I'm just gonna stay in bed, I'm gonna I'm gonna sleep, I'm gonna sleep, I'm gonna sleep, I'm gonna get back to sleep. But one of the best things you can do sometimes is get up and move around and change your environment just for a little bit and come back to bed. You don't want to necessarily like play a video game or look at a screen or maybe even even look
at an eeater. You just kind of want to move your environment a little bit, don't eat, don't drink a thing, but just move a little bit, come back to bed and try again as opposed to just willing it to be just lying in bed, because when we force something like that, it just never turns out good.
Yeah, Sonja Shava Karani is on his e our physician, and we're talking about health and fitness and well and sleep. It is a big thing. Especially we're going to have the time change here in a little bit. That always screws people up.
Yep.
You know, our gain, our lost whatever. But at the end of the day, your body still has to adjust to these whole things. And you may be getting up in the middle of the night and you're tossing and turning. What does that mean to I need a better mattress. Is the room comfortable? These things? And I'll come full circle on this because we were talking about how social media pollutes the brain, and they tested with AI and
it it's making AI dumber. If they feeded a steady dyet a clickbait, what does that say about me and you? I think that's the other thing is do most people who is you know, we talked about sleep apnean, We've talked about other reasons why people don't get a good night's sleep, But how much of this is by you know,
just life baggage? You know, we're consuming news, we're online and reading all this stuff, and then you wake up and you start thinking about it, and then you have this fear and you start getting this cycle, this mental cycle, and now all of a sudden, that's where the I would say, you know, nighttime, that's when the demons come out in your head when it's quiet and you start thinking fatalist things and horrible things. And how do you
break that cycle? And how much does that contribute to what we're talking about?
It is a great question because the two things that we're keying in on here is one the use of the phone in general. So you have blue light, you know, shooting into your eyeballs and it's waking up your brain while you're using it, and so we really want to turn that off literally at least one hour before bed with any like any device, tablets, phones, et cetera, to
allow our brains to rest a little bit. And then you have the issue of well, the content of that and what it's doing to you and adding to your stress and anxiety, especially taking in world events, et cetera, but maybe even your own personal stuff. Right, your brain's just going and it is hard to calm down. And a lot of people say, you know, I got to read before I go to bed, or I got to get my news in before I go to bed, and
it's actually working for me. You've probably conditioned your brain, like watching TV before bed, which a lot of people do. I'm my best friend falls asleep watching TV every night. You probably condition your brain to say, oh, that's the TV.
I'm going to go to sleep now, okay, right, but you're not going to get good sleep, so your brain's going to be kind of still going with all of that stuff, still processing it, and then you know, you'll have one of those middle of the night wake ups, like you're talking about everything's quiet, and that's the time when your brain shows up and has a party, and so it's really hard to fall asleep when there's stuff. You know, when you're taking in stuff right before you go to bed.
You should tell my wife this because she'll sit there and scroll TikTok for like an hour, yeah, and then go put it down, and she's sleeping in thirty seconds and sleeps with straight eight hours.
I mean, there's superhumans among us. They're superhumans out there, and I am definitely not one of them.
I can't, I can't. I get my iPad. But I'm reading a book, yeah, you know, and something that's like history, or I'm reading a book about George Remis from Cincinnati here of all things. And yeah, it takes you know, for me, I read like a half a chapter and fall asleep. So I try to find boring topics and things like that and not to get all worked up and just you know, falls.
There's two ways of as far as content goes. So my fiance was reading this boring book and literally she read two lines every night and she out and it was, you know, it was this like really scientific book. And but I I prefer actually reading fiction on a on like a Kindle e reader, so you get a little less blue light coming out, but there's still some lights are out. And I read fiction because it just sends me into like fantasy.
World and I'm in a dream zone. Now.
Some people will say that e readers do admit, well, they do. They emit some light, so you're kind of affecting yourself a little bit. So, but you know what's the other way you're going to do it is have a light above your head right, and that's hitting them book and now it's hitting your eyebo.
Like the dark background with the light white light right is exactly like that's that mode or whatever.
You definitely want nightmode if you're using like one of those fancy tablets e readers as opposed to like the kindle.
You know, where are you on melatonin?
I So I think we're using too much melotone? So the effective dose is like this zero point three zero point five literally and people are dropping like twenty milligrams a night, and you know it's okay. There you get to a plateau point where it's just not as effective. So what melatonin does for us is it says it's nighttime, and that's all it does. It doesn't say I'm going to keep you asleep or anything like that. It just
sets your clock and says it's nighttime. Great for like if you've been working nights or if your sleep's been off a little bit, just to use sparingly every now and then. Now I use melotone in kind of a combination with a couple other things a couple of times, maybe one or two times a week, but it's usually when I'm flipping or I haven't had a good sleep and my body's just thrown off for a wheit.
It's fine.
I'm more frequent than that. I probably should back it up, but I but again, I've noticed so I take like it's like a three milligram trouble that was too much for me. I would I like take a third of that? Yeah? And where'd you feel it was too much? What time of the day? Like I don't know, Like I didn't want to wake up, Like I don't feel rested, Like maybe it's too much of this stuff. Yeah.
I so I've about a twelve hour period that I have to give myself where I'm going to be awake again. Yeah, because I'm going to be groggy as hell if I take something even one and a half milligrams, I'm going to be groggy afterwards. So you kind of want to take it a little bit earlier. Now the packaging will say twenty to thirty minutes before you sleep. I give myself a little more time if I'm only going to be sleeping eight hours.
Yeah, yeah, now you really want to sleep? You know some some Nike will four or five of those talamol pms and a half a like a fifth of Jim Beaman. You're good. You sleep like not doctor baby, like a baby. That's just all right, doctor Sonjay. He's our physician health food fitness at doctor Sanjay Sinci with why two wis and there and thanks for coming in to this man, It's great to talk to you. I the I love the intersection of medicine and health and just common sense
kind of stuff there. Yeah, I appreciate the timesloan.
It's just it is all one to me, and it all kind of feeds into each other back and forth. You know, having a better life while you're awake will make you sleep better versus. Yeah, so it's all health.
To me, all right. Goodness, So whether that's not the regular I think anyway, Doctor Sanjay, thanks again. We got to get to a news update. The NBA has apparently falling apart. We have the mobsters, my people, Lakos on Ostra, Tony Soprano, all those guys involved in the NBA. What details seconds away here seven hundred ww Cincinnati.
You want to be an.
Americano, I'm flowing in with you this morning got seven hundred WUWT. Somebody asked the question, I don't know who it was. Why has the price of hospital services gone up two hundred and twenty percent? I said two hundred and twenty percent since two thousand and that is roughly what four times faster than inflation. There's a group called Hospital Facts at Org. They launched an initiative to figure out why. And they think it's waste, its fraud, its
abuse at at hospital. Jerry Rogers is here. Jerry's with a Real Clear Health, part of the Real Clear system. Jerry, welcome to the show. How are you.
I I'm blessed, I'm good.
You know, it's it's not just waste, fraud and abuse with the hospitals. It's it's bad policy, it's bad business, it's ban health. It's at science because hospitals aren't part of the discussion. In terms of the healthcare system. We hear much about big big band pharmo. We hear about the insurance companies and all the rest of it, but
the hospital costs are breaking the budget. Americans spend well over a trillion dollars on hospital costs and the reasons besides the fact that no one ever discusses them in terms of Medicaid cuts, the healthcare systems, all the rest. But it's also because of hospital consolidation, because there's no transparency in pricing, the list of pricing when you go imagine going to the grocery store and nothing, no price is listed.
This is what we have in our hospital system.
And of course also you know, we have this it's called site neutral payment reform, which would fix the fact that if you go to a hospital for a Medicare.
Procedure, get a shot.
Whatever it might be, costs more in the hospital than it does the doctor's office because hospitals are fee for service, so it's in their best economic interest to uh just make the charges skyrocket for individual tests and therapies.
Yeah.
I think that's a good point because in the past I've talked about, you know, pharmaceutical companies which certainly deserve to get their investment back on R and D, and I have you know, I look at big pharma pharmaceutical companies, go, I get how the model is because they invest in a tremendous amount of stuff ahead of before they can start to take a profit off, and not not every drug is profitable.
I understand that three billion dollars. It's three billion dollars.
Everyone thinks about the blockbuster of blockbusters, blockbuster drugs. But the tact of the matter is is that most big medicines fail and so you know, and it's a it's a it's a fracture.
Of the healthcare dollars.
The major costs in our healthcare system are hospitals, not medicines. Fact, medicines keep us out of the hospital.
Yeah, that makes sense. The pharmacy benefit manager's got an issue with them and insurance companies, but no one really talks about, as you mentioned though, the hospitals themselves. When you talk about hospital services, is that beyond or including the actual physical treatment you get from a practitioner.
Well, here's the thing in terms of I mean, yes, so God forbid, you have to be in the hospital, and once you're there, they want to load you up with various tests, whether you need.
Them or not.
Now, listen, if there was a menu of prices. Hey, sir, ma'am, you're in the hospital, we might as well check for this. Okay, what does it cost? No one can answer that question, the technicians, the nurses, and there's practitions, the doctors, the folks coming in and out. Even the business the business associates of hospitals that you know, have you sign the paperwork, can't tell you what things cost. So I'm not saying that tests or therapies or items of the hospital does
us for you while you're there are bad. No, but we don't know what they cost. And again, we could fix this. Yet Washington is very good at not fixing problems. They complain, they cry, they whine, but this is a pretty easy fix. And you know, again, demand and enforce price transparency. In other words, when I'm at the hospital, I know what things cost. Second is we should allow for a senior specifically, or any patient to go to their doctor's office for certain tests or interventions because it
costs less. So this is why you see the hospital consolidation because they want to charge more. Medicare ironically will charge more or allow for a higher payment for a test done in the hospital. So our hospital is doing they're going around and they are buying up medical practices.
So therefore, when you go to.
Your doctor, you're really at the hospital and you're paying the hospital.
As a network. So you see all these physicians groups that pop up and it's by ex hospital. Well, that's exactly why it's because it's more money for them and consolidation all that. I don't know if it leads to better health outcomes, but based on the metrics that we have now, Jerry Rodgers, the answer would be no, We're getting sicker despite spending more and more on healthcare costs in the United States of America and on that too.
Could I just back up a second, Go all right, at first plus you go on, okay, to what two hundred and twenty percent cost increase is two thousand for healthcare or I guess hospital services anyway goes up two hundred twenty percent, four times faster than inflesh.
Right?
Could I blame that on COVID? And then the increased labor costs in the shrinking job market, so you've got to pay labor more to get people. And then of course baby boomers getting old or ancient in some cases. Doesn't that all add up to so why.
Well, yes and no.
Right, COVID put a strain on the system, but again because you made bad political choices in it. During COVID, we actually drove medical practices into bankruptcy during COVID, we closed them down. We did it more difficult for nurses and physicians and technicians to serve during COVID because we.
Had vaccine mandates.
During COVID, when we followed the science, things went well. When we followed the politics, everything went sideways. And so, yeah, you're right, there's after effects of COVID, but those were political choices, not not health choices.
Number one. But remember this too.
We have a shrinking position base because it's more it's impossible to become a doctor in this country, the costs, the liability, and also we're importing jobs for physicians and nurses when we should be looking for homegrown talent. We're not doing that. But here's here's the kicker.
Though.
It's not just we're we have too few doctors or nurses. The fact is that we have too many administrators, too many executives.
I'll give you an example.
The Cleveland Clinic pays a million and a nonprofit hospital, but Cleveland clinic pays a million dollars to twenty two executives. In the same system the Cleveland clinic, thirty individuals, executives administrators get five hundred thousand dollars a piece. These are huge salaries. This is not money going to your health, not money going to doctors. Are more nurses, money going to essentially pencil pushers. And that's part of the problem too.
Jerry Rogers here from real clear health and cost of hospital services has gone U two hundred and twenty percent since two thousand, about four times Fastian inflation. And it's fair to look at that and go why when it's put in the context of well pharmaceutical companies gouging us with pharmacy benefit managers insurance costs. But the hospitals themselves are making some money here. Yet at the same time, though, and here's the paradox, we have so many rural and
other hospitals closing right now. How do we explain that.
Well, again, it's because of three forty B you mentioned PBM, So three forty B pricing is a mechanism for rural areas, rural hospitals, the very poor, the folks who need care. There's a there's a rebate or a discount that hospitals are given. But what's happening instead is because of consolidation, hospital systems are purchasing rural hospitals. They're getting the three forty B benefit, and they're not using it to service the poor.
Or the rural community.
Rather, they're using it to attract other consumers, not you know, they look at patients as consumers. And what's happening because the very poor communities aren't being served, the facilities aren't being served, the facilities closed. So and you mentioned PVMs, the pharmacy benefit benefit managers, So your listeners understand these are middlemen who are profits servants who literally take profits I'm sorry, who take rebase and discounts away from patients
and they keep them in pocket them themselves. Again, maybe thirty years ago we needed the PBM system, I have no idea.
We certainly don't need it today.
But part of the reason why rural hospitals are closing and seeing a massive problems is because of these middle men, because of three forty B abusion of the three forty B program. And there's lots of reasons. And again these are all physical right now, before Congress. There are reforms for both three forty B and the PBM crisis. Let's see what Congress does.
Yeah, I'm not old, b Yeah exactly. And we elect these clowns. Why why are we We're sending them there and they wind up doing this to us and then they scream like their hairs on fire. It seems like, you know, we got a real we did a new bunch of elected officials. It sounds like Jerry again.
I know, throw throw, throw them out. But there are The problem again, is is that, well, we need to fix the whole system. No, I'm old enough to remember when Nuke Dindrich became Speaker of the House and he said, look, we're not going to reform everything all one.
We have to get to hold over of bread. Let's get slice here, sliced there.
And I think the same is true on healthcare costs, on hospital costs, and that is we can do, we can do. We can do slices of reform, for instance, price transparency. Have hospitals lift and be transparent about their prices.
How thought we heard that? Didn't we didn't? Didn't they say, oh, yeah, we've got choice. Well, we enacted a law and a role that we don't enforce.
Thank you very much. And imagine if we enforce the reforms already.
But that's a.
Choice, right, I mean, accountability, responsibility, These are choices, and perhaps the laws doesn't have the proper teeth, or there is enough conversation about it. Look how many people today waking up. There's so much going on in the world, you know this, right, the world's on fire, and so we don't care about hospital costs or you can healthcare costs until we live the doctor, and so it's not a sustained conversation. This is the problem with the twenty
first seven news cycle. We're always going to the next bit, oh, to the next big news story, and the problems that impact us every single day we forget about until it becomes an urgent matter. So we need to focus on the importance, so the important never becomes the urgent. Once it's urgent, then it's like, oh my goodness, what do we do? And we quit and we and we just got talking about it, and we just we just you know what, I'll just pay the pay the bill. Well, it shouldn't have to be that way.
Yeah, we can only remember three things at a time. Maybe two as we get older, and one if you're lucky.
So in my cage that half a thing. I know that I joke with my kids, you know, what's the diet? What's the diet? Sandwich is the half of you know, I can remember half a thing.
But you know what I do think we have to have a focused, sustained conversation here. And looks a lot of healthcare reforms happening on a state level, and so folks and your your listeners should be talking to their state legislators because you put pressure on them to have reforms in the states. Remember, uh, you know, federalism, states can do things that prove would be a model for what Washington count do. I would encourage your listeners to
go out and contact your state legislators. Get involved, whether it's healthcare issues or or or if it's policing, or it's criminal justice or whatever it might be. Go and pressure your state legislators to do the right thing. Because I used to work for a state rep in New Jersey years ago, and I'm telling you, every single day dozens of constituents would drop in and we listened to them.
We had to. They were they were, they were present and These were good conversations that moved my boss to do things in the state capitol so there we could get good outcomes. You know, people, an old friend of mine, my mentor at the Competive Enterprises, Tode Fred Smith, used to say that people in politics are stupid because they're smart.
In other words, they're paying attention to They're paying attention to the to the things that matter most of them, Uh, their tuitions, their their kids, baseball practice, you know, putting dinner on the table.
Uh.
And they don't think about the larger political things until unfortunately it's too late. I would just get encouraged folks to pay attention to these political things. But it does matter to your personal life.
It really does. And that's the thing. It's not the party politics. And I've got to be on one side or the other. And even if my guy or girl does something stupid, I can never call them out. No, we were supposed to do that. We've got to distrust government more, especially the at the more federal levels of that. And on that point too. You know you brought something earlier, Jerry, about hospitals or hospitalists anyway, or doctors and ordering all
these tests and driving the constant. But that's also part of the problem, right, It's because you have hospital administrators, you have lawyers that they have that they're afraid of. You had the federal and state governments all looking over your shoulder before you even treat a patient, And so why wouldn't you order a whole bunch of tests it may or may not be needed, simply to cover your own.
Ass, exactly right.
And what makes that problem worse, if that's possible, is that insurance companies pay a fee for service. So there's there is a liability, legal, regulatory pressure to test test, but there's also a fantial incentive to test. Test test. But here's the thing. You know, you know, informed voters make good choices. Informed patients can make good choices. So you know, if I understood, you're giving me this pill, you're giving.
Me this shot.
You want to do an echo cardiogram even though I'm even though I'm here for my foot, explain to me the.
Costs, because maybe if the cost is.
Right, I might get the echo cardiogram because I won't be back at the hospital anytime soon.
So there's a problem to figure it out.
Well, you can't give the consumer, the patient uh, the menu with the private Again, imagine going to a restaurant and sitting down to eat dinner with your family and the waiter says, what do you want?
But there's no prices to the to the menu items. I walk out of that restaurant.
But with hospitals, unfortunately, because we're sick, we're almost captured.
I was in a hot I had a help.
Make your leg, Or you have cancer and aggressive, what do you do your shop around? You could take six months to get the best price going on price line or you know consumer reports. What are we doing here?
But right?
But that's again an excellent, excellent point. But the thing is, once hospitals UH are held accountable for prices and this price transparency, You're right, when I'm sick in the emergency room,
I can't shop around. But if the but if the ethos is created that hospitals are posting, then when I when I do go in for something elective, when I do go, UH bring my have you know my kid needs stitches and there are three hospitals within driving distance, I can then make choices and that will UH discipline the entire system because competition will be introduced. Imagine price competition again.
I get it.
Emergency room, but even emergency room cost prices will come down if hospitals are forced to compete on prices.
Makes sense. He's Jerry Rogers. Jerry h is with real clear health and talking about why hospital services, just hospital calls have gone up over two hundred and twenty percent in the last twenty twenty five years, four times faster than inflation. We talk about pharmacy benefit managers, big farm insurance companies, but we got a factor of this and as well. Jerry, all the best, Thanks for jumping in.
Appreciate it all right, bye. Appreciate the info news on the way four or five minutes from now, and the very latest on what's going on with Chief Watch in the city of Cincinnati. Our partners at WCPO nine broke the story yesterday that aftaed Peerval this investigation into the chief and her suspension, her paid administrative leave anticipating her firing. The investigation is going to take months because, as you know, during investigations, you will always suspend someone and then you
announced for doing the investigation. I don't know, I don't know what crime show. Maybe he's watching crime shows backwards Normally it's like, hey, we have all these things and we have information, and then we make the charge because we have all these details not not here. It can take months to like basically well after the election, then we'll sort all this stuff out. God almighty, every day something new. The Buffoonery Scott Sloan seven hundred penn station is turning up the heat.
The Ghost Pepper Cheese, Steak, Premium Steak, Provolona and Fiery Ghost Pepper Cheese only here through November.
Get it before take a look at your watch. It's Real Estate Time with Michelle Sloan, Remax time agent extraordinaire from Sloan sellshomes dot com. Now pay attention and take notes. There might be a pop quiz at the end on seven hundred WLW.
No, I'll get a catch up with my wife on a Thursday Morrow. All the time. We talk all week. What's going on? Are you there? Oh my god, she's got Michelle Sloane come in.
Hold on again.
This is the problem that you bring your dog to work. How much work do you actually get done? That's the question.
Hi, I'm back.
Does it bring your dog to workday?
It is bringing your dog to work day and there's a dog next door to the office. I just tried to open the door. He's still scratching. I'm just gonna have to let it.
A good boy, that's it. So he's got there's a dog next door, and he's got to go get that dog.
Well, he also wants to come in because I locked him out of the studio that I'm in in my office. And this is a new environment because we just made it a little bit of a change. There's so much change happening.
Change, change, change, But that dog is not to be deterred. No, I'm trying to go. They have the bring your dog to work. How much work actually gets done?
Actually, everybody.
A lot of work.
Well in bandit.
If the garbage cans aren't put on desks, he's going to rummage through them to find it, to see if there's any crumb available.
Got you, because he's a wee fat bastard.
He's a good boy. Have we started? Are we on the air?
Well, I'm just sitting here waiting for you to get your act together. You got dogs, you got I don't know what's going on over there, but this is live radio. So yeah, three two, Yeah. My wife Michelle Sloan in case you haven't notices here with with Bandit, who, by the way, is our our lovely dog. That is a distraction. Nonetheless, what are we talking about besides dogs dog dog problems?
Well, we're talking about changes in the weather. You know, something happened last night when you were snoring? Yeah, do you know what it was? You were snoring louder? No, okay, no, the heat turns on.
Oh you know what. I woke up, so yeah, we knew her house, so I woke up and I smelt something burning, Like immediately your radar goes off, like oh, and then my you know, my, my construction brain kicked and went. But the heat kicked on. It's the dust gets on the essentially the dust of collects in yeah yeah, yeah, the heat exchanger, and once it kicks on for the season, it burns off. So what you're smelling is basically just dead skin and dust mites and all that nasty stuff,
and it burns up. So you're smelling that. But in the middle of the night when it kicks on, you're like, crap, what the I'm waiting for the smoke detectors to go off, and you know, I was on alert for a second and I realized, oh, yeah, it's kicking on because the cross warning, and I went back to sleep.
Oh I know, I can't believe.
So this was that was the first heat turned on because you had it on, you had the you had our thermostat set to both.
Cool and heat.
Yeah, it turned that on auto. This time of year, you never know in Cincinnati what you're going to get.
Right, So that way, if it gets above a certain temperature, the air will come on. If it gets below a certain temperature, the heat will come on. So we don't know what it will be from hour to hour.
We could have heat overnight.
In the exactly I don't know. You don't know because it's Cincinnati. I will say this now this time of year, you don't have to do this, but I like to set the fan on on in the winter to kind of bounced out because you have some cold spots maybe and it'll you know, circulate the heat a little bit better throughout the whole house.
Okay, so on you like that?
On? Who doesn't like it?
On?
On and on? But you know, I mean you could set it on auto. I supposed to if you want. It depends on you know how old your windows are, how draft your walls are.
I mean, there's a lot of considerations exactly, And now's also a good time if you want to get a new thermostat. Honestly, sometimes if the thermostat isn't working, We've noticed this with our rentals and that sort of thing. The whole system gets wonky if that thermostatus has gone bad.
Yep, yeah, yeah. We got a thermostat that like it was like a carrier furnace or something, and they don't support it anymore. So I actually ordered a smart the thermostat to put in. And I'm in the process of, as you know, moving a new place, Like okay, well you got to change your locks and stuff, so I kind of did I want the smart route on our house, and having some integrated locks and things like that just make it easier because we tend to sometimes be forgetful
about locking doors and such. And you can look at it going, oh yeah, the doors like garage doors down that kind of stuff.
That's just an age thing.
But programmable thermostats can also be very energy efficient, which I feel like is something that we all need because the cost of everything is through the roof. So there was another change that happened in our life. You actually have graduated from the scooter to a real shoe.
I yeah, we saw my doctor, my pediatrist, doctor Samantha Baker at christ who's wonderful. Their staff is amazing.
That a good sense of humor, too, up with your crap.
So yeah, I did it in like less than six weeks, which I think is pretty good. Went from the surgery to being able to walk around limp around a little bit. It's weird because my caf is like a little sore,
but man, not having crutches. I talked about crutches the other day, Michelle that with all the medical inventions we have, I mean, you could take a pig valve and put it in someone's heart, and we have all these ais running your body, and you've got this thing right, all this huge technology, the drugs, the pharmaceuticals, R and D. It's incredible, and yet we are still walking around with the device it was. I mean it goes back to before the Civil War, the crutches. That it is the
worst invention ever. They tear up your forearms, your arm pitt or sore. You think we'd come up with anything better. That's my point is you think someone would be on top of that though, and there's isn't there a better crutch, a better way to design a crutch? I mean, okay, I have the knee scoot. You put your good knee on it or your bad knee on it, I guess, and rolled around. But that's kind of clunky. It's hard
to get in another car. When I was dress started driving myself to work, I just take crutches because can't get it in and out. So, yeah, you think of something. I was like, there's there's gotta be something in the crutch realm that they're looking at, going we're going to come up with a new crutch, right, you know what?
Maybe you should do that and then we can retire.
Let's do a medical invention that has never been imagined to be for.
I really would have.
Yeah, I don't know what it would that would look like, Like, I'm not sure. There's got to be some way to do that. A robotic type of foot thing. I don't know. I don't know.
I don't Outside of the reason why I talk about this change, so you're you're you're standing on two feet again, So that honeydew list baby is back.
I know, wear ut my other foot.
Now, no, we're not going to do that, but we you know, and it is that time of year when we get when it gets cold, we have to think about, okay, cold weather, getting our home prepped for the winter months. We don't want to hear about it, but we have to. You have to think about it. And now's the time. We talked a little bit about your HVAC system. Your HVAC the heating and cooling systems. So you're going to be there's really nothing to do right to turn off the AC or to winterize your AC unit.
Is there No, Some people do put like I'll see people cover their outdoor unit. You don't want to do that because it traps chat traps moisture in there, which is bad for obviously you don't need to people. I've seen people do that before. So yeah, I got to put a tarp on top of my outdoor. You know the big fan, the big box that the condenser it's called. You want to leave that, leave that exposuing, like I said, you know in the winter. You know, you could set
auto in the winter. A lot of people do that, but I said, leave it on. But I would have to qualify that by saying, if you have a whole house humidifier that works a little bit better. If you have immification system, you want to leave it on because you're humidifying the air, which is what you want, and it might reduce some cold spots and things like that. But typically most people just leave it to auto when they're fine.
And the basic, basic, most basic thing that you can do is replace your furnace filter.
Correct, you should be doing that. Checking that filter. You hold it up to like the light down in the basement, and if you can see through it it looks dirty. You're gonna replace it, that's all. If you can. If you can't see through it, you got real problems. You don't want that thing breaking down because it strains the motor and then in this expensive repair calum we're trying to save you money there, So don't do that.
Absolutely, Okay.
So the next thing I want to talk about, I want to go actually outside of your home because now we have the temperatures are nice enough during the day to do some outside work, so now's a perfect time to you know, clean up your yard and trim the trees and bushes around your house. You should never have vegetation touching your home, because it can lead to bugs coming in, animals coming in climb up the things. So you want at least a foot to two feet away
from vegetation and your house. And so a lot of people they have their bushes and they're right up against the house. They're touching the house. They have trees with limbs that are overhanging onto your roof. When those big winds come like we had last week, we had some serious winds, and any of those branches that are a little bit brittle, they're going to fall on your roof.
They could cause damage to your roof. So now is a perfect time if you have to hire somebody to help you make sure that the vegetation, any trees, shrubs, whatever, are at least I'm gonna say, at least two feet away from your home. The other thing is if you have that growing ivy that has gotten out of control and it is climbing up your the side of your house,
and it is the one of the worst things. I've talked to people who are brick layers who if you're gonna if it's gonna be coming up siding, it's gonna go into and under the siding and into your walls and into your home. I've seen it crawl into gaps in people's windows, window wells.
So I will destroy the brick.
It will.
It takes away the mortar, and it's it's bad.
It's just bad.
And when I see there's a couple of our new neighbors have ivy climbing up the front of their house actually, and some people think it looks really cool in old school and whatever. No, just say no to ivy. That's what that's my that's my tip for today. Well, eventually it's going to keep growing and grond. I wonder, does I've never seen it get to the point where gutters are I mean no, no, they've gone into attics before.
I've seen actually, i've seen it crawl into attics. I've seen it actually crawl through walls, through cracks and walls and on some of the really older homes in Cincinnati, and I've seen it crawl through. And then it's then they leave these little suckers behind the little their little tentacles.
And it's a mess. So now's a good time.
You know, you're going to have to make sure that you're cutting it off at the base. But then you have to remove it. It may need some power washing. It's not an easy task to get rid of because it's pretty invasive. But it is so bad for your house. And so today's to my message today and I'm going to be talking about this on my podcast.
Just say no to ivy.
Yeah, people see like you know, old homes in the Northeast at Wrigley Field. But keep in mind, you know that that that ivy wall is it's by design. It takes a lot of people to maintain. They maintain that all the time. It's built for that house.
Wall for the ivy.
Ther house is venear brick, so it's a whole different yeah. Yeah, and the English, the Boston ivy is terrible for your house too. And the other thing too is it also will trap moisture against sighting, so you're looking at mold and rot and things like that as well termites. That's the whole air for disaster. You don't want to do it.
No, Yes, So there you go if you if you want to tune in for me, just you have you have a hot against green bean castro all I have one against ivy. I hate I hate the climbing ivy.
You can cut it down and kill it and let it die and then kind of you know, fall and but the but the like the stickers remain behind the little suckers.
Will remain for quite a while. And that's why. And it looks bad too, I.
Mean it just know some people, you know, you look at it, go with ivy wall, that's kind of stately and stuff. But it's it's a lot worse then. You know, the offset of the aesthetic is far worse.
So if it's a garden wall, you know, if you have a moat around your.
House, well, now, if you really want to do it, you can attach a trellis and stand it off the side of the house.
But again, is it going to be at least a foot away from the house, because it's gonna climb, and it's gonna climb across your trellis and it's going to climb into your home and it's gonna no, just just say no.
Well, and they're like, well, why did that even start in the first place. I didn't look at the history of it, but I would guess it's because back in the day people were also lazy.
It's as well, absolutely well, if you put ivy in your in your landscaping beds and it looks cool because it's just it climbs.
It grows, and it spreads and it's not too tall.
You're also spending We spent five minutes talking about something that maybe seven people have. So that's about IV anymore. Do you see that much?
I see it.
I'm telling you, okay, in your dreams, you see it? Anyway? What else you got? Cold weather home maintenance? Get rid of it. By the way, let me remind you at some other point, because it's still I mean, it's still very early. Make sure you take off the faucets on the outside of your house. If you've got a hose attached to outdoor faucet, the hose bib, you got to take that off. Even if it's a frost free silcock.
You got to unscrew that, take the hose off, and then take the hose and put it like in the garage, or make sure you drain it all the way too, because you know, you drag that in the garage or you put it wherever. It's still got water and it's all nasty. So let the hoses drain out and then you know, put it down the driveway for a minute. Let's let gravity do its job well.
And if you wait until it's frozen, it's harder to get that off.
You say you're not gonna Well, what happens is even though frost So what happens that the freezes inside the hose itself and then because cold water ice expands, it pushes itself back up the line into the house. And you don't want that it creates that that the freeze it could wind up breaking a pipe on the inside of the house. So you know, even if you have a frost free one of these things most houses do, and you may not if you have an older house. You just got to be aware of that and make
sure you know, take the hostes off. It's the best thing you can.
Do, right exactly. Okay, how much time we have left? Because I do have like three or four more things.
You talked about ivy way too long. So this is on you again. It's poor planning in your part. It's like you, you, but.
I think it's pretty interesting.
We got to get to the airport, Michelle ohing cawn, but I'm out of gas stops.
That isn't anything to do with the house.
Poor planning in your part. You spent way too much time talking about IVY.
It's fine, it's fine.
Get you get your carbon monoxide right, get your smoke detective.
Windows and doors.
When you save the time, we should save the carbon monoxide the smoke detectives for next week, when or when the time change happens, like a week or two.
Okay, all right, probably we're out of time.
Yeah, because your dog. Your dog is probably crapping in the corner right now.
Oh no, he scratched up the door at the office.
Job.
Here is something else you're gonna have to fix her. I'm just gonna have the rent here forever.
Who fixes the stuff at your office? This guy? Great? Awesome? You can't control your doctor.
All glad you're feeling better and you have two legs.
Now now crawl you're asked to work. My wife, who I love dearly, is Michelle Sloansloan Salesholmes dot Com, Open the House Show and Remax Time in Mainville. You can catch the podcast for the iHeartRadio app and of course the show on the YouTube as well. There's fascinating guests and stuff too. She does hours and upon hours talking about IVY. All right, I gotta get going. I'll see
you later. I love you. Gotta go, Gotta go because I've got Cunningham Show on the way right after news that's all coming up here on the Home of the best Bengals coverage. Got to the J. E. T. S Jets, Jets Jets on Sunday on seven hundred. W everbody Cincinnat