Doing to being a mad.
Harry Harry Harry is I don't mean style also I mean Harry driving this morning. The roadways seven hundred w W. Scott's Loan show, first significant snowfall of the season two to four plus depending where you are early on this morning. The early early hours are extremely difficult. I heard poor Chuck Ingram and traffic getting in about three and a half hours late this morning. Left at three o'clock, didn't get it until just after six sometime. And same for
Brian Combs and a bunch of other folks. Right, I got here about six thirty, so I left the left my place at until after six o'clock, and it was thirty five in this ice eventy one by the way, maybe thirty five miles an hour some spots and after that, but those coming in now, I you're driving right now.
Roads O doubts certainly did a great job.
The other question would be the counties, but also the city of Cincinnati last January. We know snow removal of the city was a complete train wreck, was a disaster. We had equipment breakdown, shortages, roads left untreated, communication problems this time, lots of changes with snowplows, equipped with state of the art technology to track routes and a new real time snowplow tracker website that apparently is not working as it should on that And he's out on the
street right now. That is a council member. Seth Walsh on the show campaigned on the issue of snowplows and snow removal, so he is our official snow guy for the City of Cincinnati.
Seth, welcome back. Where are you right now?
We've just exited the UC area checking out around you see health that was a hard spot last year when the big snowstorm came in. We could literally couldn't gage cancer patients to U see help. But it's looking great right now.
You're actually out there.
Someone's driving you around, Buddy's driving you around, just because you want a lay of the land. You want to see what's working and what's not. Give me on a scale of one to ten, how impressed are you with the snow removal this morning with the City of Cincinnati.
Yeah, I'm gonna go seven or eight. This is prior already the priority streets have really they're looking really good from what I'm seeing right now, and I think that's an incredible testament to the hard work of GPS overnight, the strategy they put in place of last year and make sure we didn't have to mess up from last from the last year. And you know, frankly, Priority one
streets are looking good. I think that we're going to see over the rest of the day, we're going to get the rest of the side streets taken care of, and you know, we'll move that up to a ten when we get there.
Yeah, and on that too.
Last year, there were literally city managers said, hey, listen, there's going to be maybe it was some bridges and roads said that listen, there's some streets that aren't going to get clowed. It's just a matter of fact. Is that has that changed since this time last year?
That's my understanding. Yes, you know, we found last year after the snow emergency that there were six hundred streets we didn't even know that we hadn't touched. And so we have literally redrawn the maps. We've put in place a new system that makes so much sense. You know, it's a GPS based system where you can actually real time track streets are being plowed, what streets have not been touched, and then we're making sure, we're hitting all
of them. And even though the Cloud Tracker is kind of hit or miss right now, that's mostly because they have too money people coming to watch it. It's working. It seems to be working really well.
Yeah, on that, we're getting some calls. We had difficulty trying to log on and see in real time what roads have been plowed, and we had calls many a lot of people expressing frustration with that, and it's a bandwidth issue. I understand that, but is heavily this was that with all the problems last years, heavily this this solution was advertised. Shouldn't shouldn't that have been an issue that was foreseen that a lot of people are getting get on to see what the roads look like.
I would say that the issue that we did not foresee was how successful our marketing campaign would be at getting people to trust this and use it. Because we definitely expected a lot of usage, we did not expect nearly as much as we're getting today. And I think that's I think that's fantastic, and we're going to get it fixed for the next time. That's why you stress test these experiences, and we're found out that it's you know,
it is working hit or miss. I've had the same problems that you're talking about there, but the miss is the problem, and so we're going to we're going to increase that bandwidth. We're going to make it better for the next time. Unfortunately that is the problem. But frankly, I'd rather take a problem. We have too many people watching a successful system than last year, where it was literally making up data and making us think that it hit streets that it had we hadn't come close to touching.
Yeah, but I guess you'll push it back if if you stress test something, it shows you it's working. Apparently the stress test wasn't stressful enough.
Well, I mean, yesterday I was watching it. It was really it was actually really fun to watch. As we were showing what streets were getting pre treated. We were getting a lot of comments from people that they've never seen so many so many poles out there pre treating roads. But then today the snow hits a lot more people watched it. So what we expected to stress us to have in terms of how many people would watch it, we've we've passed. Then today finds out that a lot
more people are watching it. Again, that's a good problem.
To have.
Yes, we got to do better at it. We're going to do better at it. But the problem is too many people ultimately are watching it that we didn't anticipate. And I think we will fix that. And that's an easy problem to fix, as opposed to again last year, where we literally just didn't pow six hundred streets. That's a big problem. This is a little Okay, let's fix that internal it problem.
Yeah, I'm not going to be labor the snow tracker app or the website anyway being down from time to time and getting you know, slow to load and things because so many people are watching it. I don't think that's a pot It's a step in the right direction the sense that you know, last year it was six hundred roads if you're simply were left untreated and not enough equipment, not enough manpower, not enough everything. And the
communication was terrible, the communication as much. You know, if we get it right for the next no Store, I'm fine. If we don't, there's probably more problems there than not. But the fact of the matter is the roads are getting treated and plowed. That's the big thing.
Yeah.
Absolutely, And to your point about communication, I mean here in forty five minutes, the director of DPS is going to be coming to city Council to talk about, you know, all the work we've done the last year. Anyway, so we're actually we're getting what. We're not waiting a month to have a conversation about what the reaction is. We're actually going to get real time. Here's what happened, here's how it's put out, Here's where we need to do better.
This is the first time that I think we've had a pretty successful reaction to the snow emergency in many, many years. And so yeah, there's a little some little things that are fonts in the cracks, but on the whole, it's looking good. And I think the fact that we're open to the feedback and criticism is really critical as well, because for too long, you know, the answer was just well, when you're not every sheet can get plotted, and that's just not an acceptable answer. And this year we're not
accepting that as an answer. And I'm happy about that as well.
You should be.
I mean that this was the feather in your cap to get this done. There is going to be some rough patches as you roll this thing out, and I think most people understand it and appreciate it, but it's moving in the right direction. And the last year, council Member Seth Walsh, what was happening behind the scenes relative to personnel changes, disciplinary actions, the failures addressed last year? What what you to the last three hundred plus days.
Well, since the snow emergency, I mean you saw some of the reporting that came out right afterwards. You know, immediately we were trying to figure out what was happening, why did we have such a terrible reaction to the snow emergency? And lifted up the hood and we I mean we found a multitude of problems, and so they moved Assistant city Manager Kathy Bailey over DPS and she really dug in on figuring out what happened, what support needed to be better put in place, what systems need
to be fixed. They found over forty four different areas and let me stress areas not like issues. So each area had its own issues that needed to get fixed within it that they spent the last three hundred plus days fixing. The DPS director at the time retired. We brought in Mark Riley, who has been fantastic. I mean he was texting me this morning, giving me real time updates of what was going on on the streets, really
making sure that we had this figured out. You know, they found out within the first couple of days of the emerge to see that we didn't touch six hundred streets, and they've spent the last year really going through that and redesigning all these snow routes. They've brought in all this new technology, but also they haven't We haven't solved all four to four of these issues yet because those
are some massive issues that we're solving. So we've solved the immediate problems and then like today, we find you know, we got sixty percent of the way there on the snowplow tracker. We didn't expect as many people to be watching it as possible, so we got to do better and we're going to fix that for the next time. And there's other issues we're going to continue to work on. But the real big stuff is, you know, we have a plan to actually pile the streets. And again you're
from Buffalo off from Michigan. Most of this comes down and you pre treat it and then you plow it. And we literally we're sending our crews out to Denver, saying, how do you take care of your streets? You guys want to handle this, and then we're taking their businesses. We don't need to reinvent the wheel, and I think you see that today.
Yeah, yeah, you look at the areas that get a lot of snow and go, okay, we don't need to replicate that, but we need to learn best practices to handle things here in Cincinnati. Seth makes a lot of It makes a lot of sense. Did you add more plod drivers this year?
Yeah?
So we actually, you know, it sounds crazy, but we actually created a system where everybody is now that would drive a plow is actually trained to drive a plow instead of last time where we were literally putting people behind the wheel for the first time ever. I've actually just seen two snowplows in the last like thirty seconds, which is a great sign here. So you know, last
time part of the problem. If you if you can imagine, we were literally putting people behind the wheel for the first time, giving them a binder with map quest like directions to say, hey, here's where you got to drive. They were driving in the middle of a blizzard at night with like flashlights in their mouths to figure out where they had to go. I mean, that's just chaotic and that's a mess, and that's the reason we saw
the disaster we saw. Now these everybody who's driving a snowplow today that you see out there has actually gone through simulations. They've been trained on how to drive. We've brought people in who had the appropriate trainings. We've been sentivized people to get trained on how to do it. And they're out there and they're doing a great job. And I think that day is going to continue to show over the months and years ahead, have some really positive returns for the city.
Yeah, and it's investing in that critical infrastructure. You know, you can talk about all those bells and whistles and nice stuff, but if the roads aren't plowed and the roads aren't full of potholes, that's another issue that was addressed to in the last year, then you're gonna have very unhappy residents. So it's good to hear that this has now become a big priority with you and the rest of council.
Seth.
I think a tip of the hat. If the roads are is good and you're you're driving around right now, well, somebody's driving you around, So I'm gonna make it like you're on the phone, by the way, I would if I were that person, I'd be demanding you buy them breakfast if you haven't already. And also the other thing too is breakfast. It is the most important meal of the day. Also, that the twelve hour ships are new, is that correct?
Say that again, the twelve hour ships?
Yeah?
I think was it twenty four hour coverage? And you know, there was a huge burnout issue because I remember, you know, news would be talking to people who are driving a truck for twenty four straight hours being snowblind. And now you've kind of even changed the way that the ships are scheduled, right, Yeah.
I mean, so we got we put them on twelve hour shifts. There's a select crew that's on twelve hour shifts when the weather starts to change. But in emergencies like this, we put people on the twelve hour shifts. And you know, emergency I think is a very loose word for what we're dealing with today. But yeah, they're
on twelve hour shifts. They're hard work, and they were out all night again yesterday they were pre treating watching that on the snowploud tracker cool and I think that's really important that you can see your roads got appreciated and then today you can see hopefully you know, as the day progressage of ALC your roads goot plowed and them they're they're hard workers. And none of this problem has ever been the drivers. The problem has been the
system we set up has failed them. And I think for the first time they're they're set up for success and we're seeing that.
We know Seth Walsh that the tracker only activates during full winter response operations. What you call that like for example the snow just remindfully, what's the threshold for that?
Who makes the call.
And we didn't have one during the dusting is I think we had a conversation about that as well. We'll change eventually to where any snow event where the roads are treated, will least snow where they're doing their job.
Oh well, I don't want to talk too far out of school on this one, but I think that that was a little bit of some bureaucratic speak when we gave that answer. I think this is again part of how we were learning and growing. So last time when we had the dusting, the reason that the snowplow tractor
wasn't working. Is there weren't snowplows out there? And shortly before you and I had our last call about this, one of the things I challenged them on was, hey, we're pre treating streets like show people, We're pre treating streets so you don't have to have a snowplow out there. And you see this time again, you can track the pre treating in your streets on there. They reacted quickly,
they made the adaptions, they moved forward. So I think the appropriate answer how you track snowplows is if there's a snowplow snowpower out there, you should be able to track it. And if that is pre treating your street, if that is power your street, we want to be able to track the snowpower. If you can't track it outside of the situation like today where there's too many people watching it, you can't track it, it's because there's no snowplow out there. And then you can ask us
why is it not snowplowt there. We'll probably say it's because it's a sunny day and there's not no reason for one. That's the hope, at least.
Yeah, well right exactly.
I mean, if there's a threat, as we know, you know Cincinnati's, we freak out the minute there's even the forecast of snow. We start driving with our hazards on. We pump our brakes. Some people drive sixty miles over the speed limits and people thirty miles under the speed limit. It's chaos out there before the first flake even flies. I think having that system in place, when that's part of it's like, hey, the roads are treated. There's a little bit of comfort there knowing that you guys are on.
I think it's a good ad for the competence of the city.
I agree, and I think it's going to be critical as schools have to make decisions about whether they're gonn to be open or closed. You know, they have to build trust the city is going to be able to do their job and get the streets plowed, and the
part of city government is rebuilding that trust. What happened last year was big in the sense of is ten inches, but it's been an issue that's been building a building building for years, and so hopefully this allows not only have streets clear, but to be able to get schools open appropriately build trust that we were ready for, and it just kind of ripples out from there so that you know, jobs aren't interrupted and people can continue their
lives even though snow's coming down. They get enjoy the beauty of watching the snow as opposed to worry about driving in it.
Yeah.
The other element of this too, you kind of touched down a little bit is the prioritization of streets. Obviously, the arteries, the ones that get you to the hospitals for example, campuses, things like that, those have to be cleared for emergency runs and the like. Side streets get deprioritized. But what is a reasonable wait for people listening this morning seth wallsh relative to their street being cloud.
Yeah.
I think the biggest way I'd say it is, you know, right off the bat, we've got to clear the arteries, and to your point, you know, cancer not cancer hospitals are really important because people need to be able to get to and fro there from there. From there, we kind of spread out to you know, the streets that most people are traveling on. You probably know what they
are because you're probably driving on them. And then once the snow really kind of stops, it allows us to start tackling and triage in the side streets, but immediately when the snow's coming down, we're trying to get those the main arteries, the main emergency roads, the main roads people are going to be driving on as clear as possible. We just keep hitting them and then I'm when the
show's over, we're gonna go out there. We're gonna hit the side streets and get those clear because that's a lot easier to just hit it once or twice and then it's completely solved.
Yeah, and I love the you know, the when the apps up and fully working should be for the next cycle here, then you're gonna be there's gonna be accountability. You can see that where the roads are, when they've been treated, when they've been plowed, where they've been salted and plowed. There's a whole bunch of metrics on the page. And that's a step in the right direction for sure.
I know, a little glitchy this morning with that website not working at times, a little slow to load, but you're confident you're going to get this taken care of for the next round.
I'm I'm very confident and I'm I'm optimistic that going forward, it will not be a thing in Cincinnati where you say my street never gets plowed. If your street doesn't get plowed, it should be for other reasons, like it's a private street, not because it's subsidious and Snati street and we just don't plow it. And I think that'd be a huge change that hopefully you don't even realize happened.
He says, well, well, she's in the thick of it right now, checking out the roads, make sure the plow crews are doing what they're doing, making sure of things working right. It sounds certainly well, not perfect, light years away from where we were, well almost a year ago in January went that ten inch storm and literally six hundred streets not plowed. That is an unmitigated disaster. Far sight better today for sure, Buddy. Appreciate you checking in
this morning, Seth as always. Thanks again, Thanks scott Council member Seth Wilson in the Scotsland Show on seven hundred w Dow.
There you go.
Hopefully your commutes okay, And looks like a lot of the roads got cleared in the last couple hours anyway for those straggling the work.
Maybe a little bit late this morning. That's good. That's good.
So yeah, not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but far sight better than it was. At least the needle is moving in the right direction slowly with news. We'll get a full traffic and weather update seconds away here on seven hundred wlws hi Scott's here seven hundred w Hope you get to where you're going. If you had to get where you're going, If you didn't have to get anywhere, then good for you. What you doing A bad day yesterday? Well, one good, one bad, the
really bad. I was watching, for some reason, watching that stupid Monday night game last night, the Patriots and the Giants, and watched the kicker, young Ouku, do something I've never seen before in all my years of watching football. If you haven't seen the clip yet, it is worth it. Not only did he miss the football in the field goal attempt, his he kicked the he kicked the ground in front of the ball like he didn't make contact with the ball.
His foot struck a good I don't know.
I had to be probably a foot behind the football like drove his tone into the groud like Joe Burrow, to the point where Jackson got the quarterback said, some caught on the sideline saying some very unsavory words coming out of his mouth. But I've never seen that before in my life. And I brought it up to Tom Brenneman and we were passing the hall. He said, nope, I've covered a lot of football. I've watched a lot of football. I've never seen that happen on any level.
That was incredible. And Joe Burrow got tackled at turf toe surgery. He actually did it to himself. I don't think he's injured or hurt. Then they tried to fake it and pass it and they got sacked and it was just a It's the Giants. New York teams are terrible, just terrible. The other good news story, I guess if you're Lane Kiffin, you got paid new head coach at LSU.
But those interesting, these other videos of this or he's getting on the private plane to fly to Baton rouge Ole, Miss fans are out on the tarmac booing him, like throwing stuff at him, and he said yeah. At the press conference. On the way to the airport, people are trying to run him off the road. They were so mad at him leaving before the Bowl Bull games.
You know, I'm sorry.
Number one is if you were gonna get a pay, if you're gonna make thirteen million dollars, you do this, I would do the same thing.
Presumably you do the same thing. Yeah, I'll tank some heat. I don't care.
The other element is that's outside of Lane Kiffin's control, Like you're mad at him for doing what.
Well, you left.
You quit in the middle of the you quit. That's how works in college football. It doesn't work that way in the NFL. They have a rule that says, well, you can't leave during the season for another job. College football could certainly do that and fix that problem, but they choose not to. Part of that has to do with recruiting because unlike the NFL, where there's a draft, you know you're when you're not coaching and coming up with game plans, you're out recruiting. So it's a twenty
four to seven job. It's a three hundred and sixty five day a year job. There's just no good time to leave when when when's a good time? Right after you start? So college footle go change it and say, hey, listen, there's a window. I don't know if it's a month or however long it is. After the last bowl game and before they start of the season, you can apply and get a job or someone can hire you away. But that's in Thailand. College swoop. That's not Lane Givens
fault man. I think that's some weak sauce. If you're trying to run them off, allegedly run them off the road, or you're you're mad at him, why gotta leave it s and app again. I realized what happened with Tony Pike and Brian Kelly when Brian Kelly left. But them's the rules. If college footballans to fix it, they should. If they don't, it's on them. That's where the anger
should lie. Anyway, this is a very interesting week, and I in my lifetime, I don't think I've seen something that has changed the game in such a short period of time as AI this week. This week marks the three year anniversary since the launch of Chat GPT. It feels like artificial intelligence, whether it's Chat, GPT or Claude. I use Claude, there's other products out there. It feels
like it's been around for about ten years. Doesn't that it's hard to believe they rolled it out three years ago, November twenty twenty two, and simply because within months millions of hundreds of millions of people were online using AI assistance. You could write, you could code, you could analyze, you can reason, you can research, and it feels it feels like cheating.
You know, future.
Generations will look at us and go, well, that technology, who is really bad? But it's so much better now. How it's going to improve? We don't know. It's going to get wiser, smarter, faster, and more intuitive, there's no doubt about it. But future generationals kind of laugh at us, like it just feels like it's magic, Like you're cheating. Well, that's kind of cheating. I know people who do coding.
I know people who do research and can generate just tons of good data in a very very short period of time, literally in seconds or minutes, as the case may be. And now your whole industry that's built around these language models, and it's affected pretty much all of us. You're not using AI and yours you kind of are.
Programmers use coding assistance for drafting and editing. Designers use image generation, there's chatbots, research analysis, thirty to I think the upwards like four out of ten white collar workers now use it regularly use generative AD and it affects ninety percent of all jobs right now, and that's only going to get up to one hundred at some point. But it's also a disruptor too, because the image generators
have basically democratized visual creation is what's going on. So you know, we're going to see all these lines blurred if they're not already. About artistic ownership and copyright, we're having fights over that right now. We have AI generated art in music and video. There's songs that are charting that are completely AI made. There's voices that are completely a AI. You never know it. So there's a lot
of controversy as well. I think the point is coming certainly within our lifetimes where most of the stuff that you as far as content goes, is going to be created by AI because you know, you don't have to worry about actors going on strike, you don't have to worry about production costs and filming on location and things
like that. AI can dream all that stuff up and do such a good job because it's only going to get better of tricking the eye into seeing what you say we see you know, people falling for stuff all the time. And I think the other challenge, the big challenge of this one, at least from my end of it, when it comes to content, is with deep fakes and a I generated content. I keep getting this ad pop up on social I'm sure you've seen it as well, where it's a it's kind of like a it's allegedly
it's a robot dog. I think they have a robot cat, but it's a robot dog and it looks extremely realistic, like yeah, even veterinarians are fooled by this, and you think it's a real dog and you look at them, Oh that's and you know, like I'm watching, going, okay, that's AI. It's clearly AI. It's fake and there's no way the robot looks exactly like that. It's just it's impossible. But you wonder how many people are fooled going, oh, it's a dog that looks exactly like and you open
the box. It's nothing like that. It's not that lifelike. Yeah, it's an AI image, is what that is? And say, it's what we can tell now. And I think in the next few years, and it's getting harder and harder to discern with the naked eye what's real and what's fake. So there's gonna be a lot of challenges with that coming up, and the challenges to anyone who's in the entertainment field for that matter, because you know, future entertainers are gonna be AI based, it's gonna be AI generated
if they be such a thing. And you know, it's all integrated right now. It's hard to believe all this has just happened in the last three years. I think to me that is the amazing part. Three years since Chad GBT was launched. It feels like it's it's about ten because in the past it was yeah, okay, search engines and bots and things like that.
Yeah, yeah, you know we had Google.
Well Google's become commonplace, but before that, there were other search engines out there that we would use, or social media platforms right that are now extinct for that matter.
But the chatbots that that's that's going to be.
Interesting to see how it develops over the next wee probably two weeks is going to feel like two years at this point. Anyway, it's slowly here on seven hundred WW and got Steve Gooden coming up he's an interesting perspective on this. Steve, of course, you know he ran
for council, but also his background. He's an attorney constitutionals, a very sharp all one of the sharpest attorneys I think in the in the state for that matter, but also a former judge advocate general for the United States Army. And we talk to him, especially pick his sup a legal mind about Venezuela and the attacks. And now we have somewhat of a constitutional crisis. You know, you love
him or hate him. The thing about the Trump administration is it is a very interesting test of our legal system. Now if you don't like it, you're complaining that he's shrinding the Constitution, and this is awful for the country. And every day it's something new and how you pervert the Constitution of twisted your needs and meets. But as we saw with January sixth, which you know, my mind dissuaded him from getting my vote, I wasn't going to
do after that. You know, I understand it's a constitutal test. I look at that way and go, okay, all of these are probing to see how far we can take the Constitution. I think from a legal standpo he's an armchair fan of the law. Myself certainly know a turn,
but I watch this and go, yeah. The other side of this fact is like the Constitution is living, breathing document, and what happens is people test the Constitution all the time and that is interpreted by the Supreme Court of the United States to find out what the parameters law are.
And it's always changing.
It's it's always becoming something else, simply because there's so many things that happen on a daily basis that the framers didn't foresee. It's it's amazing to see how this document is supple, that is holds a test of time for twohndred and fifties.
So really it's really cool.
But this one, I think even pushes the limits of the Constitution itself in a sense, because Navy pilots ordered to attack that another suspected drug runner off the coast of Venezuela back in what September, and survivors afterward were spot in the water, according to reports from multiple outlets. Now, the Secretary Offense Pete's Headswith ordered a second attack to kill everybody that was clinging to the wreckage. Now, he
said that report is inaccurate. The White House says it was actually Admiral Frank Bradley and not to Secretary of Defense that ordered that. President Trump says he didn't order it. So yeah, it's it's gonna be a lot of finger pointing here, and eventually what happens is probably Frank Bradley is the one who falls on the sharp stick as often as the case. But White House yesterday defending the legality of that attack. Congress said we're going to investigate this,
and it's bipartisan. It's not just Democrats too, like Jeffers, it's many others as well, saying, well, we've got to look at this because it's pretty clear with the laws of Engagement, laws of war, rules of war. You know, killing in already a questionable enemy combatant, but killing someone who is no longer a threat is against our rules. And it states that the DoD has been pretty clear
on this for various reasons. Anyway, we'll get into what all this means with Steve Gooden covered at ten oh seven this morning here on the Scotts Loan Show on seven hundred WWT. Good news is the weather looks like it's over right now. These storms have moved out left a good several inches of snow depending where our roads are getting cleared. Just at congress Member or congress Member Console member Seth Walsh on the show because he was like, literally,
he's the guy getting all the street stuff fixed. That was his rallying cry for his reelection. And I know the app the storm tracker, and I want to say app it's on appets just a website. The plowtracker was down periodically. He said, well, you know what, we had some twenty more people on that looking at than we anticipated, even during the stress test. So we'll get that right for the next time we get significant snowfall in Cincinnati.
But he's driving around and roads look pretty clear. In a lot of heirs, I will say Odat did a great job too.
This morning.
When I rolled in very early, this would have been six o'clock, six thirty, I got into the station roads, I was like thirty thirty five maybe forty miles an hour in places driving seventy five south. I know those driving northbound where just it was like three hour delay in some cases took forever for folks to get in. But I'll buy and large in this case, we are fairly clear roads right now, So cruiser out there, whether
it's the state, the county, or the city. And they got us caught up at this point too, so it's all good anyway. I'm gonna get a quick time out in more to follow Scott's loan on this snowy Tuesday.
Here I got you covered seven hundred.
WW news update and it's away here on seven hundred WW Scott's Loan show. Here is a This is an old weird trick for you. I just saw this win I didn't. I'm really if there's a thing to it. It's called dark showering. Apparently, if you take a shower, well, the lights are off for the lighting dim rather than bright, and you're, you know, getting all the the undercarriage clean because you don't want the rust, get the simonies on there. It's not only the hygiene you're doing, but apparently by
dimming you're turning off the lights. You create you're creating what they call a sensory cocoon that signals the body to unwine. And this, of course is important if you shower at night. Now, are you a morning shower? Are you an evening shower? Are you a I don't know, two times a day shower. But if you shower in the evenings before bed, which I'm a fan of because I like to be clean before I slid in the bed,
it helps you down regulate your body's stress response. So and it also supports natural circadian transition from day to night and night to day. And it's kind of a threshold moment, they said, So you're not only just getting clean, but the warmth of the shower and the soap and the smells and everything in the dark is leading you to sleepy time. So stress goes down, you're kind of unwinding. It's the signal to your body to chill out, get ready for bed, improves your sleep, gets your mood right,
your mindfulness. And there's I guess, I don't know I'm rating this, and it says in a time where most people barely have space for rest, let alone intimacy, dark showering has the power to rewaken sensuality. The low light, warm water, and heightened sensor awareness creates a soft atmospheric mood.
I don't know what that means.
Intimacy, But you're by yourself, I mean, if you're in the shower someone else then I'm good for you, but you're clean and dirty at the same time. So apparently this is a new thing. Maybe not a new thing. It's been around turning the lights off for your shower, but I don't know. You get that certain age too, it's like, oh, that's all well and good. They start worrying about, well, you know, I trip over the shower into the curb of the shower, or I got to
try and grab a towel. And on the other side as well, you know what, I hate myself image is so bad. This is good because I don't want to see myself naked. I can't stand it dark showering.
There you go.
We'll get a news update in we'll get a little bit more serious after ten oh seven was Steve Good, an attorney and former judge Advocate General for the US Army, and what is going on on Veszuela, specifically with not just a strike against an alleged drug smuggler in a boat, but killing those who were already in the water. So you know there's an issue there whether or not that's a war crime. The words war crimes are being thrown around right now relative to the Pentagon. We'll get to
that with Steve and kick the tires on it. Just ahead on the Scott's Loan Show, Home of the Best Bengals coverage seven hundred WWT Cincinnati. All right, snow behind us.
We move forward, always moving forward.
Constitutional crisis burning at the Pentagon after Navy pilot's ordered to attack a suspected drug runner off the coast of Venezuela in September. Afterwards survivor's spot in the water, and according to reports, Secretary of Defense Headseth ordered a second attack to quote kill everybody claning the wreckage. She said, that's inaccurate. The White House now says Admiral Frank Bradley
and not Hegsith directed the strikes. President Trump says he didn't order it, said the first one was effective, we didn't do the second one. White House defended the legality of it all. But now Congress, in a bipartisan fashion, believe it or not, wants to investigate, and some members are warning, if substantiated, this could violate the laws of war.
We're talking about significant constitutional violations and war crimes. No one better suited to talk about this in Cincinnati than Attorney Steve Good and of course he was also an Army judge advocate general, so understands the process here, Steve, welcome, high.
Ben great snowed in but good.
Otherwise, well, it's good. Now we can work from home. When we used to go mad I got to leave five hours early to get into war. Some people here were three hour through our commute when normally takes him about twenty minutes. So yeah, if you left earlier this morning, we had the worst of it, that's for sure. So yeah, if you go work from home, get or done, big boy?
So what do you at first? Blush? This is not good.
The core argument here, the core legal argument we'll get to in a second, but from a perspective of someone who served as an attorney the fact attorney in the United States Military of the Army as a judge at the general this is if this is true, is this a wark?
Right?
You know, it's really hard to say. And I'll tell you it's funny. I used to teach the law of war and the rules of engagement and all the stuff down at Fort Bragg. And you know this was a Seal Team six operation actually done out of Fort Brag, So I know that world a bit. I spent about thirteen months there during the Iraq War. And I can tell you that it's more complicated than it might seem. I mean, there's really multiple parts of the what we
call the American law of war. We have our own rules of engagement, but we're also signatories to the Geneva Convention, which deals with how we treat prisoners of war and injured soldiers on the other side. And really what's happened here is the Trump folks have made an argument that we're in an armed conflict with Venezuela, which is where most of these boats are originating from, because of their role in the cocaine trade. They have designated Maduro, their president,
as a terrorist, what they're calling a narco terrorist. Now, this is kind of a term that's sort of new, it's sort of made up. This concept has been kicking around since the Reagan administration. That this is really the first time that the America, that the United States and a lot of people are paying attention to this. That the United States basically said the regime in Venezuela is illegitimate.
They are part of the problem. They are pumping fatanyl and cocaine and other drugs into the United States.
And we consider this to be.
An armed you know, an armed conflict, which is the first thing you have to have in order for the rules of engagement to take place or to be applicable. And then second, we're considering these folks on these boats to be armed combatants. Now, whether any of that all turns out to be true is really what I think these hearings are going to flesh out.
You know, at this point, we don't have anything in any.
Facts that I have heard that seriously robut the administration's claim that these folks were drug runners. So if you accept the argument that the government of Venezuela and the people behind this are in quote unquote narco terrorists, that we're in conflict with them because they're bringing these dangerous drugs to go with fentanyl into the United States. Uh, then then there is some justification of the laws of
war to engage. Now this very specific issue about what they call it double tap strike, which is heads up or the admiral or whoever it was, going back and shooting the prisoner or not the prisoner shooting the two survivors.
That's not uncommon.
Uh. The double tap thing is something that occurred in the Rack over and over again that occurred, and uh, the idf uses it in some of their battles and palest on and so forth. So it's not an uncommon thing. The theory being that that the the injured person, if he truly is a combatant, is still sort of in
the fight, could call for backup, could cause problems. Now, it is distasteful, it is tough, and there's a lot of conflict in military law circles about whether it's appropriate, whether you have some sort of obligation to go try to rescue that person even though they're they're down. So all of this, in my mind, is going to hinge on the administrations. The accuracy really of the administration sort of designation of Venezuela and its government as being actually
in combat with us because of the drug thing. That is a kind of a new frontier legally speaking. But if that holds water, then then it's sort of a fair game for us to engage these folks as they come.
Back and forth.
And I've really not heard any evidence to the contrary that that isn't true. And if you look, the other thing that's really fascinating to me that I think is getting lost in all this is we are having a slow but discernible build.
Up around Venezuela.
And if you read in the New York Times, which is sometimes are ead with a huge grain of salt, you know, they've been writing for weeks that there are sources in the administration saying that there is a movement
toward total regime change, you know, in Venezuela. On the part, you know that there are people in the Trump administration, including Mark Arrubio, who really just want to overthrow the government of Venezuela under the theory that it will bust up out of the narco terrorism, in that Venezuela is actually propping up Cuba, the cognist Cuban regime. So there may be a much larger long term play here on the part of the Trump administration in terms of actually
changing the entire administration in Venezuela. So really, at this point we've got it. There are more facts that we really need to know before we can talk about it with any kind of you know, any kind of certainty. But those are the sorts of things we should be looking for.
Well, initially, Steve Gunn, I can't help but think, Okay, maybe this is a signal to Mexico and China is under givenment in Mexico and other nations because if you go after Venezuela, they are literally the I mean they really, if you believe the government reports leading up to this, they're not a big player when it comes to narco trafficking.
It's a very small percentage. You know, certainly when you look at south of the border, you think Mexico and drug cartels and other countries like that, but certainly not Venezuela. And even the government reporting up to this point and said now they're not really not on the radar for this, but you're making a case of what this is. And I wonder if that's a signal for other nations going off,
they're going to go after Venezuela. It may be the bigger players next, So that even I think is going to get called a question by either Congress or the Supreme Court eventually.
I think you're right, and I think if we're looking at this not just that, if we step back from whatever happened with these boats and look at the bigger picture here, I mean, it looks to me like of all the kind of narco terrorists, drug trafficking nations in South and Central America. They've picked the weakest one and
the weakest government, which is Venezuela. We know that most of the FEDNOYL is coming up through Mexico, but we also know because of all kinds of geopolitical reasons, we're not going to invade Mexico.
We can't.
We know that's really the problem. And but Venezuela is probably these of those countries from how it's always been explained to me is they're very much involved in the coke king trade, but a lot of it goes to Europe from Venezuela for whatever reason. I mean, you know, you have the US is kind of a secondary market for their drugs. So it's clearly meant to send a signal to and destabilize and send a signal to the whole mass, the whole region, you know, by going after
these boats in these very simininess, very small way. But also it looks like very slowly amassing troops and ships in that region. And the other thing I think kind of tone throw it into the mix is just this week, Trump pardoned the president of Honduras, who was in a
US federal prison for cocaine traps. Yeah, so they and if you read all these together, it looks to me like the Trump administration is telling these folks down, you know, the presidents, the generals and the folks who are really kind of looking the other way or actually participating in the dirugt trade in these countries, like, hey, I'm going to be picking winners and losers here in a big way. And if you want to cut a deal with me, you ought to be cutting a deal with me right now.
And absolutely going after Venezuela, which is sort of the weak link. It has to be about sending a message to Mexico particularly.
Yeah, and I get the political gamesmanship that's going on here, Steve Goodin. But the other hand is, you know these are real kills. The one now when the question is the second strike, I'm looking at a court order. Well, it's from the US Court of Appeals about nine years ago that says if a soldier, and this is in your guys, is to be the army intentionally kills a pow, he commits murder. We don't kill POW's in the Navy.
According to the Commander's Book of Naval Operations, enemy combatants or combatants or civilians defenseless because of a shipwreck also fall into that category. So I guess the observation here would be if you've already destroyed the ship and whatever that ship is carrying, yeah, I guess you don't have to rescue the prisoners in that case or the people who are still alive from that. But going and killing them that is that's a different type of me. It's
an execution, is what it is. Does that not fall into the category of work rhymes in?
Yeah?
You know that That is the one piece of this where I think there will be some real investigation. I mean, that's again what they call the double tap. You have the you have the strike, you have the destructure, and then you come back and and hit it a second time. Uh and and you're right like particularly you know under under the navy rags. You know, a shipwrecked person is somebody that I guess you would in theory have an
obligation to go back and help. But then the other question is going to be who gave the order, When was the order given, what was the context of the order. There's been a lot of talk, I guess by like Senator Mark Kelly and others about this idea that some of the individual troops involved could have could face court martial because they had an obligation to resist an illegal order. But in this case, I don't know that you know in the moment that it would be so obvious to
the officer that this is illegal. I mean, these these individuals who were in the water were not POW's and I view, they were not subject to the genemic convention. They were not in our custody. You know, this was still kind of an active or what they may now call a kinetic operation. So there is going to be some inquiry into that about who gave the order. There's been conflicting reports. Some say it was heg Seth, the others say it's this admiral. There were some indication, but
did it come from the president? All of that seems kind of unlikely that he would have been engaged in this.
Kind of a granular level.
But yes, that is the one part of these operations where I think there is going to be some look. But I also, you know, the flip side of this is, I mean from a political standpoint, and if this plays out in the congressional hearing, it will become a political matter. It's already become a political matter. I don't want to sound colder callous, but perhaps I am being colder callous in this is the countless lives that we have lost in this country to fetanyl and to drug addiction and
to other things that these folks have profited on. And indeed, these folks were running drugs back and forth here. My gut is that the American people just aren't going to care about these two guys really running drugs.
But that's really the crux of this, right Steve is like, I'm with you on that one. If you're bringing drugs and narcotics in this country, you deserve to get what's coming into a long time coming. But how are we sure that these are actually drug runners? That's the big question. And in any military operation, what kind of oversight is there to make sure that these are actually who they say they are?
Well, and again that that's where a lot of the court martials end up falling apart in this area, because I mean, I mean, this is no different in my mind. For I mean, if you accept, I guess the idea that we were lawfully engaged with a and you know, in a in a in an armed conflict with these folks,
which I think is the first big threshold question. You know, these are the kinds of questions that came up all the time in Iraq court martials, which is, you know, was that person was the person who was shot?
Really? Uh?
You know, really a terrorist really attacking troops? You know, were they really planning a roadside bomb?
Uh?
You know, these kinds of things really do.
Hinge upon the intelligence and then a court martial setting if we're going if it does go that way, which it thinks unlikely, but if it does, you know, you really do have a jury of your peers and a court marcial. And I've tried a few court martials, I've seen the down of Fort Bragg. I mean, they you tend to you end up with a panel I call a jury there of soldiers or sailors who are.
Your rank or higher. Uh.
And and these are folks that tend to give you the benefit of the doubt on situations like this, particularly if you were relying on intelligence. So it really is going to boil down to a question of intelligence and who you want when. And look, if they're just out there randomly blowing boats up, I mean, I agree that's bad. And I agree that people look to the United States to have a higher standard, and we probably you know,
and we should. But if there was credible intel there and uh and and this this whole you know, the public buys into and the Senate buys into the idea that we really are rightfully in conflict with these countries that are whose governments allow and encourage and sometimes you've
promit from these drugs coming in. Then it's ultimately going to turn on a political question, and all these things about the Uniform Code to Military Justice and the Genevan Convention, a lot of that's going to fall by the wayside of my opinion.
Yeah, I think it's going to be a difficult legal arm because you go, well, the reason why we're this is an act of war, right, because we've now taken Narco terrorists and projected them as essentially a standing army or war crimes, and so therefore we have military justification of attack. But if this is the report is true that you killed people who were essentially survivors of a shipwrecker in this case, an attack, and you killed them, the defense can't then be well, you know, the rules
of war don't apply in this case. Because you essentially said they did earlier. That's a tough argument. The other element here too, and this is the political element. Steve goodin the Senate voted forty nine to fifty one against blocking unilateral authority for the president for these strikes. So the Congress's value to certain war powers contribute to this.
Well, you know that's been going on forever.
I mean, yeah, you know, the War Powers Act in nineteen seventy three was meant to sort of him in Nixon, you know, after the Cambodian bombings, and and really you know, it's on the books, but Congress has really never enforced it.
And just the hard reality is, you know, we have a really declared war since World War Two, but yet we've been in Korea, we've been in Vietnam, we've been in Afghanistan, we're in Iraq, and you know, tens of thousands of casualties and you know, we you know, we've cost hundreds of thousands of casualties on the other side, you know, all without a declaration of war.
But you know the reality is that.
In today's world and its tied together as the whole world is, we have to have you know, our executive branch in our military has to have some autonomy to make these smaller, you know, these not through war it acts, but to engage in these kinds of operations or else we're going.
To be.
Sometimes they work out horribly and sometimes you know, they get ahead of the public and the public ultimately pushes back, which is what Frank ultimately occurred.
In Vietnam and Iraq and other places.
But you have to you know, these things ultimately do become political in a way.
But in the in the short term, you know, you're right.
I mean, the Senate is never really, not even since seventy three, really raining the president in a big way on these things.
Is they're afraid to.
Yeah, and we see presidencies. Was Biden and trumpet extension of that, an acceleration of that, and it's everything's done by executive order. Congresson do anything. You can't even get a budget together for crying out loud. And finally here too. You know, for those who think it's a Trump it's like this is as old as the president's up. I mean, if you think of you know, Clinton and Aristete and Haiti, you had Noriega and Panama, you had Bush, you had
Obama with strikes. All these constitutional questions and war powers came in. This is just the latest incarnation of that under President Trump'll see how it plays out. Steve Good, attorney at law, former judge edicat General in the United States Army. Thanks again, Budd, appreciate the inside good stuff anytime.
Star.
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We Got You, We Got You. I was talking a little bit about this yesterday and I've now seen in the interim and maybe just because I was just talking about now two different stories that talked about out the insolvency of Social Security just kind of to recap and my thoughts on this is we've known this was coming for forty years, but for the first time candidates for Senate in next year's midterms, because that's all I tell you,
the midterms, a midterm. I know, I wouldn't say the least political person here at the station, but because it does impact us, for sure, it's important, but it's not the center of my life. I'm oyl Leary to people who everything is that's about, like following this primary or that's primary. It's a selection in Tennessee today for example, Like Okay, well it's interesting, but not like the country hangs the balance here.
You might think it does, but it doesn't.
Candidates in next year's midterms, though, are going to have to address the issue of insolvency when it comes to Social Security so eleven months from because this is going to come due on their watch, essentially proving again there's no free launch, right. So the Social Security and Retirement Fund as we know it'll be depleted in twenty thirty three, and if that indeed happened, and again that's a big if to because Congress can just take more money from
somewhere else and patch it. But that's still a lot of money. It's a what one percent, roughly one percent of our GDP, so you know, it seems like a lot of money. But they could find a way to fix at least quite a band aid. And they've done this with the budget, you know, continuing resolutions. That's all it is, is kicking the can down the road. But again, it just adds more and more to that debt bomb, which is a much bigger issue that's on the horizon,
and this will just accelerate that process. When we can no longer service the debt on our loans and then we're in real trouble. That's pretty much turn the lights out if that indeed happens. Well to the Social Security though, as we all get older and get closer to it, we don't want people touching our benefits because we quote unquote earned it. This is my money, it's not your money, it's not my money. What happened was they spent your
money out of the other things. They put a patch in forty years ago to deal with this issue, and that was, you know, throwing some more money in the trust fund, but that's going to be depleted again in twenty thirty three. The reality is the average beneficiary is about two thousand dollars a month. You'll see that down to about fifteen hundred dollars a month if indeed this goes on. Because we have the Baby Boom generation, which
is at peak retirement. Youngest are now well almost they were at though sixty one, oldest is seven almost eighty years old, and we're not reproducing the population at the same right, so we have fewer workers to support more people. That model, and I saw that in my lifetime, which is why I'm a big proponent about on. But to say relative to private investment, as I saw my dad go through this. My dad was worked in steel mills, and your kid, you kind of know what's going to
but you really don't know what's going on. When he was in his forties, maybe late thirties, early forties, the pension and steel completely went away. He was left little with pennies on the dollar left hold in the bag. And this is before they kicked in, Hey, listen, we're going to have to have insurance on pensions that didn't exist in his era. He watched his dad and his grandfather work for thirty years and get a gold watch. He was expecting the same, and they change the rules
on them and a whole generation of people. I saw that and what it did to him could never really recover and it made me steadfastly and that before when it come to find this, going wow, you've got to really take care of yourself. You've got to make sure you set some money aside as difficult as it might be, you're gonna have to make some tough, tough choices in order to save a little bit of money at some point, because it's going to be totally dependent on that they
can't take away from you. And so now we look ahead to this twenty twenty three or twenty thirty three, rather three hundred and fifty billion dollars shortfall in this thing. And now it's just that accelerated because also as part of the One Beautiful Bill, one big Beautiful Bill, we know that seniors got a break when it came to pensions, jobs and taxes on what they pay. That helped accelerate
it by I think another year and a half. So when it reduced income rates paid by seniors, that decrease the revenue flow into the trust fund, and insolvency got moved up to now twenty thirty three, so it got a little bit worse in that regard as well. And I've always said, I think the future test of patriots and it may be me it maybe you, is not going to be you know, studying the constitution and rallying around amendments, first amendments, second Amendment, whatever it might be.
It's going to be, hey, we're going to have to get less benefits and pay more money in order to right size this thing. And it looks like that that is coming to fruition here in the next eleven years for sure. But all along and the way to fix the thing in this guy, of course destroyed by progressives because you want a safety blanket there. The government's job is to protect you. But what do they actually do. They don't really do they good job in countries like Chile,
I know, Mexico, Australia, I was just there. Britain does this and they've made a transition from social security to individual retirement compliants, and it seems to be working there. The way to do this is just to let people keep their own money. I get what happened when FDR initiated social security back in the day because of the
Great Depression. But the thing we live our lives to say what we did in the nineteen thirties and nineteen twenties, nineteen thirties, and the whole depression was accelerated by the way we you know, piece of people. Basically it was had right. People were buying on we're buying stock with the expectation I'll go up forever. But they were doing it on credit, and when they called the credit, no
one had it. Everyone was underwater, kind of like what happened with the housing market in two thousand and eight. To a large degree. Today though we know at least we think we know a lot better than that. And the thing is everyone wants to guarantee It's like social security is guaranteed. Well, what if the markets go down. The markets may go down, but they do go back up. You may lose in the short term, but the long
term you'll gain. It's always been that case because we're investing in future development and building and companies, et cetera, et cetera. That's part of how this whole thing works. And I understand there's so many people in this country that are risk averse that no, no, I want my guaranteed money.
We just don't.
We don't do pensions anymore, and those are largely going away for that reason, seems to me. And you know, when you look at the private accounts, the rate return
on it is much higher than Social Security. You know, and if people start opting out I mentioned younger people would that would be the death of Social Security for sure, because you know, you pay to administer the tax and bureaucracy and the Social Security administration and all that, when you could just invest in, pay a fund manager and get money back on it and still be ahead of the game. You're talking what twelve I think twelve point
four percent taxes what we pay for Social Security. And you know, if you're paying into this and been paying enter did it for a long time, and there's a threat you may not get that money back. That's a different thing entirely. And the old adage about well I paid into if that's my money, No, they've they've done other things. It's not sustaining itself anymore because we're paying out so many benefits to people are retired right now
that the future generations are retirees are in jeopardy. Now again, do I think this is going to happen? And most experts will tell you no, they're going to fix this thing, They're going to patch it. But again it's with more bowered money as opposed to actually fixing the root cause of this thing. If you just get away with Social Security and we're left to your own devices to invest, how many people would And I think that's the scary part.
You know, we know that Americans were really bad at investing. Now there are many people will tell you, well, it's because you you know, buy avocado toast and get tattoos. That's not necessarily true. Certainly, today's generation is faced with an earnings crisis. We haven't had to face that. My generation has seen it to some degree. But you know,
younger generations are really getting squeezed. Gen Zers for example, you know, aren't buying Christmas and spending money Christmas as they have generations past, because it's so tight on money, with student loans and the cost of everything, inflation going up as they're just they're out of that line of work buying houses and all that stuff. So we're depending on them to buy stuff and work in order to fund our lifestyle and that's just simply not happening at
this point. So I feel for younger generations for sure, because it's not lifestyle chases the choices they're making that are causing them to out largely be poor. But it's because of economic forces, for sure, and something we got to figure out in this country. If we don't, it's at our own peril because if you're older, you to bet on younger people to keep you afloat.
That's how the system works.
Called a Ponzi scheme if you will, but that's how the system goes. It seems to me like I would think that if we did this, younger people would not save money at all for retirement. But maybe at some point you do make money, get money back, and you do something with that.
It's on you.
And then what happens when you have all these people who aren't participating in the system with then Now we do have course plenty of good charities out there. I think people would be more charitable, and we have churches and other institutions out there in a safety net to some degree, but it's not run by the government.
I think that's what bothers a lot of people.
It just seems like, you know, I'm pretty much leave government out of my life kind of guy. If I'm an old school conservative maybe, but more libertarian going well, you know, again, there's a lot of things you got to do as an adult to prepare yourself for the future, whether it's health or education.
Whatever it might be.
You know, when you hit that period of adulthood, there's a lot of adult things you have to do. One of those is making sure you've got trying as best you can to set money ahead, not only for a rainy day, but for retirement. And I'm not you know, telling you you suck as a person because you're not doing that. As I said, I fully understand the economic realities out there, especially for younger people. It's difficult for
you to save any money, let alone for retirement. It's such and you know, let's face it, in your twenties. I mean, I was the first I'm part of that Gen X or crowd that came along post pension, as I mentioned with my dad and first generation too, and we're starting to see those of us who are older gen xers start to retire. Now we're seeing them. We're
seeing them retire solely based on four own case. I mean, pensions are some people get pensions, for sure, if that's you gay, good job, But largely it's in the public sector. Private sector's done away with that, and there's plenty. I don't know what the stats are because it's too early to tell how well we've saved as that generation's a cohort towards retirement ourselves, because we're the first generation to
have to fund it on our own entirely. That said, I you know, it seemed all these years there's enough people in that group to look at it and get a good sample. I would think of how prepared you are to no longer work now Some people admittedly I'm going to wind up work on the rest of my life is what they will tell you. And you know, there's plenty of peple who enjoy their job, their career path, whatever their business, and want to work until they fall over.
And good for you if that's what you want to do. But I think there's the majority of people just want to would love to stop working at some point and call quits the pull up stakes and said that said I'm tired of working. I want to relax now, or it just simply physically can't do it anymore. And for those people who do that and have to work, that's really sad. But we've known it for a long time.
It's kind of companed upon you to say, for retirement, looking at social security is more of a benefit and go, hey, you know, if I get it, it's gravy on top of what I've already invested and saved. But so many people look at that as the primary source of social Security is retirement, and that's that was never designed for that. It was to make sure basically that the very the
very basics of life. And this is even FDR said, this isn't about you know, you go on vacation and buying a new car every couple of years and you're not going to get that much money back. It's just simply out of the cards. But it's enough to maybe buy medicine or food or the very basic necessities of life, but you've got to cover the rest yourself. So it was never designed for this. Hey you know, I can retire in two thousand dollars a month, and you know my house, maybe my house if I have one, is
paid for. But you're able to afford everything else in life and to be tight. But I can get it was that designed for that? It was about it's mainly supplemental, and I think that's something else in the entitlement crowd we got wrong. So and an als I look at this guy. I just I don't know if this is solvent anymore in a sense that that Social Security needs.
To die that death. How would you do that? I don't know.
I've heard plans about facing it out over ten years basically and or cutting having a cut off. Perhaps that And I think that's the other thing is how the hell do you get out of this? That's a difficult. Park One quick calling this before I get it news updating here on seven hundred w A do able to make a Mike and Clairmont County on it on seven hundred w W Scott Slunsho, what's up, Mike?
You were equating solo security to steel workers pension fund. The dibbers is those security is mandated. You can't opt out, never could you can't. You're you're you'd.
Have to that's what I'm saying. You'd have to you'd have to phase it, you'd have to phase it out.
Well, I'm saying though, but you know, that's why it is entitled, and we did pay it in and we are entitled to get it back down. If I put money in the bank on an interest rate.
They have to pay it back. And that's basically what you did in close security.
You paid it in.
With the promise of getting it back yep, when you retirement.
Yeah, it's but a big one. It's a promise, not a contract. I'm saying, is if there's no money left because we have it was all built on the fact we had more workers and retirees. Now we have more retires than workers. It's not the same. And that's essentially what happened with my you know, with pensions in America, my dad's pension for Gentlin Steel is you know, American steel got off short and left and there were enough workers to support the retirees. And that happened in the auto
industry for that matter as well. So it's you know, whether it's whether it's fair or not, is that that's that's debatable, but that's the reality of it. There's just not enough money left and where's that going to come from? Is the big question. And they've got to address this in the next eleven years for sure. Got to get a news update in more to follow. None of you
saw this. If you're headed downtown the Convention Center Hotel as a go because they're going to add a tax every time you buy a meal or a drink in areas of downtown Cincinnati. Joe Runemil from three c DC will lay it out of force. Next on the Scots Fland Show seven hundred WWD Cincinnati.
You want to be in a man.
He's got a clone on this. Snow is Tuesday morning, seven hundred w WELW. Snow is behind us now, of course, so we can talk about some other things, and that includes starting in March twenty twenty six, if you go downtown to eat at a restaurer on Relisa a certain area and some restaurants and bars are going to add a one percent fee on all their sales. That's going to help finance the five hundred million dollar plus seven
hundred room Marriott Convention Center Hotel. It's going to go in right and Brenton right next to the newly redundant Duke Energy Convention Center on that from.
Three c DC.
He's the guy that put it all together. That's Joe Rude Milli. It's all his idea. Joe welcome.
How you been.
Buddy, it's been great. Thanks for having me on.
Yeah, good job on this one. Everyone wants to pay more. It's it's interesting because you hear that, you go, man another tax. You know, if you live in Hamlin County, you're hit by the uh. You know you're supposed to get that property tax rebate of Atalisia Reeson talking about how well that's not going to come back to anytime soon. We're seeing more and more taxes and then there's another one percent.
Uh. There's going to be a tough sell to bargain restaurants, or wasn't it.
Yeah, it was.
I mean, look, the bargain restaurants didn't want to add an extra fee, and I won't point out it's a fee, not a tax, first of all.
And it's a usage fee.
So it's people who are at these restaurants in the Fountain district that really are going to be the ones that benefit the most from this new hotel and all the people that were going to be bringing downtown with the construction of the hotel, with the new Convention Center and the modernization there, as well as the Elm Street players that we that we just opened up with the brand new UC Health ice rink. So I think it's
a credit to the businesses for them stepping up. And I think they saw essentially without their participation, this hotel couldn't be built, and so I want to credit them and thank them honestly for stepping up. And as I mentioned, they didn't want to add an extra fee, but it's necessary for the community.
And ultimately, I think.
They saw the importance of this project for our downtown in the whole region.
How do you picture this to them?
Essentially just that you know, we're making this generational investment in our convention district and everybody else has come to the table. You have money from the city, the county, the state, three CDC visits, since the support, everybody is at the table. The hotel operators have added a one percent feed to the transit occupancy tack that's been in
place for a year. And so essentially we went to the restaurant tour and said, look, we understand you don't want to add this fee, but without your participation in this, we can't build this hotel. It's a complicated financing stack, a lot of different sources. As I mentioned, there's a ton of parties that are involved. But without this piece, we can't close that gap. And so they said, we understand. We love our community. It's an exciting time for Cincinnati.
This is us making a collective investment in the community.
Yeah, I know that Jose sales are of course, you know, one of our best chefs in Cincinnati opened his new restaurant in that air, specifically because of the proximity of the convention Center and the hotel. But if you're a business it's already operating this area before the convention hotel was planned. Was there pushback more from them than from the newcomers.
Well, I think there are a lot of questions and trying to understand what this was. I think whether it's a long standing business or one that's opening new. Obviously, these past you know, eighteen months while we've been under construction on the convention Center have been difficult.
I think we all collectively.
Agree that when this new, modernized convention center opens, when the hotel is added, it is going to be massively impactful for all of those whether they've been operating a long time or they're brand new. And so I think they recognize the foot traffic and the activity that this
investment is going to make in the area. And so when it came down to it, ultimately, you know, this is one penny per dollar spence, right, and so if you go down and you're eating at a restaurant or getting a drink at a bar in the Fountain District and your tab is twenty five dollars, you're going to add another quarter to that. If it's fifty dollars, fifty cents, right,
If it's one hundred bucks, it's a dollar. And so I think ultimately they recognized that while they didn't want to add another fee, it was necessary, and so they wanted to be good community partners and they really stepped us to the plate just like all these other organizations have, and they understood really the bigger picture of what we're trying.
To ACCOLI here sure makes sense.
Joe Rudimiller from three CDC on talking about the one percent restaurant in bar Tech. It's going to hit businesses around the new Convention Center and hotel and on that. There's no formal list yet of the bars and wrestlers participating. Is that going to come out before council? The reason I ask that is to don't voters or consumers in this met need to know exactly how it's like it's hits only one percent? I mean, you probably shouldn't go out eating if you can afford extra dollar one hundred.
But on that point, don't don't we deserve to know which businesses are in and out?
Yeah?
Sure, I mean right now this is going through kind of the legislative process and it's not actually going to be formally launched until March first of next year, so we're still finalizing that list. It will be shared at some point, not in an advance of council essentially at this point kind of getting into the weeds. The property owners have to opt in, and that's who's listed on the city council legislation. So that would be like this, the three CDC owns the building, so we've opted in.
There's six property owners, and then the businesses within there also have to opt in. So that list will eventually be shared. But yeah, we we believe that. Again it's it's one penny per dollar spent. I would point out again it is not attacked as a service a service fee, and also that you know this is this is only going to be paid by people who are going out and dining in the bars and restaurants that they are coming out in this uh specific geographic area just a
few blocks kind of around the convention center there. We think those businesses stand to benefit mode from the additional traffic. And and also it's not attacked that everybody in Hamilton County is going to pay. It's just folks who if they're coming down, they will pay that service fee when they're when they're enjoying it here in the Lovely Fat It's.
Similar to initially when we did the street car years ago, and it was like we're just going to do a tax along the track. And the businesses that came from being that close in that proximity to the tracks, are they uh of the triale is that.
They're the ones that going to pay.
And now that got shot down and that seems like more of a fair thing, like what you're doing here. The businesses are going to directly benefit from the hotel and convention center pay that, but again that does go back to consumers on that and you said the fee doesn't start till March of next year. Construction begins this month. What happens if businesses eventually, I mean some go because
it's voluntary. Can't force people to pay. This's what they change your mind or closed or just it doesn't generate the expected revenue.
What happens in.
Sure, So One, it's based on the expected generated revenue that we are able to get additional bond financing. So that's why it's important to have it set up right now before the fee is actually being collected.
We have projections on what we think this will generate.
Also, as new businesses open, they will be asked to participate. Once the business ops in, they are no longer allowed to opt out.
So once you're in, you're in.
We do intend to add future businesses within the Fountain District to this NCAA or the Fountain District Community Authority as we move forward, So we're confident at the revenue that will be ultimately generated collectively will be enough to help pay down the debt to build the hotel. Gotcha, And I would also point out that this is not the only new community authority in the area. There's one
of the banks and the businesses down there. People may not even realize that when you go down and eat or drink at the banks, you're also paying a one percent fee. Now they use that money from marketing. It primarily goes to their Dora district and buying the cops and putting together the materials for that. And there's also one out in Liberty Center where they use that NCAA fee for infrastructure around that development. So there are other NCAAs.
I'm not sure that people even realize. Again, if you're going down to the banks that you're paying this speed.
Yeah, yeah, it gets baked and you'll see it on your ticket. But again it's a dollar for every hundred fifty cents for every fifty, so yeah, it makes sense. The other element here too is, let's face it, I think Jeff Cramerting council member, said this that this is going to hit largely out of town convention of visitors at some point here too. Doesn't mean that folks like
me and you won't go there. Of course we will, but this is targeted towards those out of talents because we'd rather get their money than that ours and out of tiers. We love taking our money, so it's a good thing for everybody. What percentage of customers is a projection there are going to be out of town convention attendees versus residents of Cincinnati, Hamblin County, Warren Kamder, Butler County, Northern Kentucky.
Yeah, we don't have any projections on the breakdown of intown versus out of town. We do expect that the majority of this will be put people who are coming from out of town who are visiting conventions, who are staying in the hotels in this area and frequenting the bars and restaurants. So there isn't a specific breakdown, but
I think that's a great point that counts. I mean, cramering makes and I think that's something that we expect is that this will primarily be paid by people who are from out of town coming to enjoy these great
new amenities. And I think one of the things that really sets us apart is when we finish these projects and we have this modernized convention center, this brand new hotel, ELM Street plaza, we're really unique in Cincinnati and that you can walk out our convention center and you have this incredible collection of high quality restaurants and bars right in the area that is walkable. You don't have to
hop in your car to drive. A lot of convention centers sit off in a distance it's difficult to navigate. This is all right down, very walkable. You can walk a few steps the Fountain Square and all the great programming there.
You can go up to over the Run, and you can go down to the Bank.
So we really think that this whole collective investment sets us apart from a lot of our competitors because of the proximity of all of these great assets that we have downtown. And so this is just one more step forward in getting us to that point.
Okay, very good, Joe Rudymiller from three CDC. On the one percent tax around the convention center, bars and restaurants will pay that. It's a thirty year commitment unless the construction deck gets paid off early. Totally voluntary for the businesses, by the way, which is the big question. And it's all part of what's called the New Community Authority. That's a state financing tool that louts of sport to collect charges for area public improvements around that convention Center District.
You said early on, Joe that this could not be built without that one percent fee. But one million of the what five hundred and thirty six million dollar plus financing deal, that's like two one thousandths of a percent. One way look at that and go, that seems to just be like not even you know, whipped cream or a cherry on top that that feels like maybe a
quarter teaspoon of sprinkles at that point. Is that you hear that and go, why is the million dollar a year so critical the entire project hinches on it?
Yeah, so it gets pledged towards the overall bond financing, and so it allows us to unlock more money because we say we can back those bonds with this million dollars that we're collecting. So if not just a million dollars, it's that it opens up access to additional capital that we can get through that bond finding dancing and allows us to essentially get more money upfront for the project
and make the construction happen. And then this is one way that the people who are buying those bonds can understand this money is pledged to that there is this revenue stream coming in. So that they can ensure that the money will get paid back.
Yeah, okay, gotcha, And I guess I look at it. Okay, you got that money. You've got one hundred and twenty million from the Port Authority from bonds that you're talking about, fifty million dollars from the city, another roughly fifty million dollars from the state and Investment fund. There another thirty seven million in state tax credits. A lot of public money going back in. And then you know, at the end of it, we're still asking private businesses to contribute even more on top of that.
Yeah, I mean we're asking everybody to contribute, right, you mentioned all those sources. In addition, the developer is going to bring equity and also take out a loan. I mentioned already that the hotel operators increase their trains and occupancy tax by one percent. So everybody has really come to the table here. This is a collective investment in the community for the community and buy the community. So everybody is pitching in. Everybody is giving what they can
to this. And so again I would applaud the restaurant tours for stepping up to the plate and saying, you know, we don't want to add another feed, but we understand that this is necessary and we need to do this in order to continue to move forward as a community.
It seems like we're going to see more of the community authorities you mentioned the Banks and Liberty Center and now the Convention Center District that it feels like that that is going to be how these projects are done all over the state.
I think as possible. There are other community authorities in different jurisdictions, so there's now only three here in southwest Ohio. It is a, you know, a somewhat unique financing tool that I think a lot of people probably didn't know about or weren't aware of. I'm not sure how much we will see these continue to just spring up. I think they're kind of unique on a case by case basis, so it's not something that we're seeing necessarily as a trend.
We just know that in this instance, we kick the tires on any way we can finance this hotel and looked at a lot of different avenues and this and this is kind of the last piece, hopefully to the puzzle.
Do you feel comfortable with the number of bars and restaurants you have sign up already?
You're going to need more.
Yeah, I mean we feel comfortable with the amount that we have to start. As I mentioned, I think we'll continue to work on businesses that are either not participating or open new to make sure that they understand the importance of participating in this. So we feel good about where we're at now, but expect to add more and so hopefully we can pay down that debt sooner and this would ultimately then you know, go away.
Have you done?
What's a public reaction? I mean, is there any pushback that you've heard so far? Any polling your community meetings to discuss this. I mean, again, it's just one percent, is very small slice of the pie, but enough crumbs make a loaf.
Are you earn aning negative ursus?
Yeah?
I mean I think if you look at you know, social media, which is always a bastion of really high quality engagement and conversation, I think it's been mixed. I think a lot of people do understand it. And we saw a lot of social media comments yesterday say and you know this is this is a one percent fee on one hundred dollars tab. I'm going to pay one dollar And I think a lot of people get it. I think if you just look at a headline, maybe
you get frustrated. I think people that actually dive in and read the article, which we obviously need more people to do that understand the bigger picture and understand what we're trying to do here and why this is necessary.
Right right, Yeah, I get it.
We need that hotel down there, and I suppose there are other options if if business has felt like somehow this is going to give them a disadvantage in that, you know, I can get a stake at this restaurant. It's going to cost me twenty dollars more because it's near the convention center.
No one's going to go for that.
But you know, a dollar on a couple hundred dollars tab, you're not not or one hundred dollar tab, you're probably not going to notice it.
Yeah, I mean, I think that's our thinking is it's spread out, it's depending on every dollar spent, and it's again it's a usage fee, So people who are using it, they will pay that. Those who don't, you know, they
they won't have to pay that. I think that we believe that there is such high quality restaurant, tours and bars in that area that people are not going to be dissuaded from coming down to visit them because of this one penny per dollar that they're that they're paying into this bigger picture to help build this hotel.
Yeah, it's going to be higher end restaurants and bars, right like Aaron Off Center on that.
Yeah that yeah, I mean, you know, I think the other thing that's really cool about the Fountain District is if you go to entertainment districts across the country, what you see as a lot of chain restaurants, and when you're in the Fountain District, you recognize these are these are primarily almost all of them are locally owned businesses.
These are cra Cincinnati entrepreneurs. These are people who are committed to the community, who love being here, and who put out I think, some of the best food in the country. And so I think there is this incredible collection of these locally owned businesses in the Fountain District and again I'm grateful to them that they've come on board for the most part, nearly all of them, and are willing to participate in this and make this investment in our community.
Now you're eating at Salazar's or Rubies or Media, you're not going to notice that dollar on one hundred, that's for sure. He's Joe Rudimiller at three c DC. And the good news is whether you like this or doesn't matter to you. The twenty one host Store hotel is going to open up and twenty twenty eight to fifth in Plumb and bring a whole lot of new bodies downtown.
We've got to get back in the convention business. It's been too long.
Yeah, totally. I think we're really excited. I don't know if you've been down to the new Elm Street plaza.
Yeah, it's beautiful, it's gorgeous.
Yeah, it's been great. I think it's succeeded our expectations.
The ice rinks there, and in the summer it's going to be a beautiful green space that can be used by both the community, convention visitors, residents and everyone. So I think we're really on a great track here. We're excited about that opening. The Convention Center is going to be finished on time and on budget. We're turning that over January first, and we'll open the building with RedFest
on January sixteenth. So we're really excited about the trajectory that we're on and where we're headed as a community. This is I believe, a generational investment in the southwest corner of our downtown that I think is going to have ripple effects.
For the whole region.
We're going to be able to attract bigger events, bigger conventions, and everybody is going to reap the benefits of that, whether you're a small business in the Fountain district or in the surrounding area. I think everybody ultimately is going to be uplifted by this investment that everybody is collectively making it in the community.
Will we do an arena next? Is that priority that.
Is not on our radar currently.
I know there's a lot of conversation about the arena, and so it's something that that continues to be out
there and be discussed. We have not been formally engaged on that yet, so we're hearing those conversations and right now our focus is really on getting this hotel built, finishing up the convention center, and then we also have some great things going on in northern over the Rhine with the new find the Community Center that we're building and renovating the old OTR Rec Center and the Crossroad Health Center. So we have a lot on our plate
that we're working on. I know that there are a lot of great minds thinking about how to move forward on that.
Arena as well as should be. And then you get three c DC you Joe Rudemeller. Of course, you know, you start slapping head, cracking heads, make this thing happen. Let's get this done exactly. Let's go, let's let's off and go here, Joe Rudemeller. Three got your maade out to be a mobster or something like that. All right, tough guy, We got to get going. Thanks again, buddy. I appreciate you.
Thanks well, I appreciate you hiting me on.
Yes, sir, take care. We gotta get a news update in. Yeah, you're gonna get people.
Now.
There are another tax and then he said it wasn't a tip of fee. It's a tax. Let's call it what it is.
But you know, if you're feeling that at that level of restaurant, you probably shouldn't be eating there. And the restaurants are good with it. I'm sure their clientele will be good with it. And a lot out of towners are gonna pay for our sins as it should be. That's the American way. After all, sloany seven hundred ww.
Time to talk about money, how to make it, how did keep it, and how to keep others off your stack.
This is all worth advice with Andy Shaeffer.
Money never sleeps, but Andy Shaeffer he likes to get a good nine hours, nine ten hours.
Andy, how you doing, brother.
I'm good.
I got nine hours last tear? Did you get your nine hours? Yeah? Hey, Money's gonna stay awake. I don't need to stay awake. You guys, you got to watch.
All right, So let's jump into this holiday season. And then we saw some of the post government shutdown data coming into outdated obviously a little bit there too, but starting to understand a little bit more with each passing day, the positioning and the impact on the Federal Reserve certainly laid out for us.
Yeah, and I think it is important to understand that it does have an impact on the economy and the Federal Reserve for them to be able to make smart decisions moving into December. And so we did get some delayed September retail sales numbers and it showed spending was up point two percent, but we had a point six percent gain back in August now, you know, if you take out auto sales and gas, that was really pretty flat.
But the softists came after a strong summer, and it appears to me like it's more of a reversion than a collapse. And so that data is starting to soften a little bit now. The producer price index that showed an increase of about point three percent, that kind of matched what economists were already feeling like the numbers would come in at. And so I think that those costs have been contained enough for the Fed keep the December rate cut on the table.
All right, So yet another rate coming up, rate cut coming up this month? When is that exactly what?
It's early December? I can't remember the exact day, Maybe the twelfth.
Okay, so another morethly week or so week and a half, all right, So we looked at all as at the jobless claims felled, the consumer confidence slip though, so it's like conflicting information here.
Yeah, and sometimes that can be good, you know. So we did see the jobless claims fall to about two hundred and sixteen thousand, that was the lowest since April. And so you know that tells you on the surface, all right, Well, you know, and a lot of people weren't really losing their job, and this is kind of more of the same of what we've been talking about. But what we've seen or continuing claims continue to move higher.
So if you're out of work and you've been collecting unemployment, you know, that's still continuing on and that's kind of been at the top of the recent range. And so there's a stable labor market right now that's losing some momentum. Consumer confidence, you know, we always watch that very closely. It's slipped to eighty eight point seven in November. That's its weakest reading since April. Households basically cited inflation, tariffs,
and politics as concerns. And so I think, you know, in a nutshell, what we're what we're talking about to summarize is that I think the economy is steadying, but the momentum is starting to moderate to some degree. Growth is still intact, but the edges are softening enough to reinforce the FED shift towards easing this month.
Right which is a cut because let's face it, those lower income end credit use is rising, discretionary spending is fading. That's reflecting about the consumer conference numbers.
Yeah, and that's right. And one of the interesting things that we're going to get fairly soon is the Fed's Beige Book and you might hear that terminology, and it's very interesting to me. And essentially what the Beige book is, it's it's what we consider antidotal evidence of economic activity across the FED twelve district. Now, the closest one to us is up in Cleveland. Cincinnati actually has a Cleveland
branch here downtown, so that's pretty neat. But the Fed's base book is more of a qualitative analysis versus quantitative, and what that means is that it's it's more an understanding of concepts and experience. As you know, they do interviews and observations and the FED twelve districts get together and discuss it. So it's more about you know, momentum, emotion and things like that. But it is very important to the FED in order for them to make a good decision about where we are as far as labor
market is concerned. And you know, right now, what we're getting back from these districts is that we're we're seeing a little bit weaker hiring and in some cooler wage growth. So you know, again, sometimes news that's not super bad but kind of cooling can help us and help the FED be a little bit more confidence in cutting rates moving forward, which will you know, we'll obviously help our labor market.
Yeah.
The FED seems they have a lot of meetings that big on meetings, aren't they.
Yeah, they like to meet they like me, they like Catholics.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, And I think, well then they also like to talk about their meetings. And the thing about it is is I think there's some politics at play. You know, obviously the FED is an independent organization outside of politics, but you have two separate factions within the FED. You have some that want to make sure that inflation gets very under control to try to reach their two percent target. You know, we're somewhere around three percent at
this point. And then you have others that say, hey, the momentum is going in the right direction as far as inflation, we're not seeing it heat up, and they want to, you know, start cutting rates and start piling
momentum into our economy. And so you have these two different factions that are kind of, you know, always at each other's throats, and they get up and they stop about it and they talk about why their opinion is, you know, super important, and how smart they are, and so we get a lot of them every week.
We actually have one coming up tomorrow.
Okay, another meeting. You gotta love the meetings.
Speaking the consumer confidence end and spending because we're in the holiday season right now. We just had Black Friday, so we're in the thick of it as we speak. I saw some interesting, sobering numbers for that matter. Younger consumers cutting back on holiday spending, you know, Gen Millennials, Gen Axors, gen Zers not so much. But baby boomers, the older I guess over thirty crowd is spending money.
But the college educated twenty some things, the kind of shoppers who traditionally have had the most spending power are taking a hit this year because I'm guessing student loan costs rising, restaurants, meals, groceries, all that stuff.
Yeah, and I think some of it has to do with just general demographics and your upbringing and Christmas experiences and things like that. But another thing is going back to the labor market. You know, when we're talking about the labor force and the participation rate and things like that, for millennials and Gen Zers, it's still hard to find a job, it's still hard to find an entry level position, it's still hard to get your foot in the door.
So there's a lot of uncertainty there. And I think, you know, with that demographic, who have surprisingly been shown to be pretty decent savers and fairly responsible with their finances, a lot of them are hesitant to start spending money when they're uncertainty within the labor market can be a challenge for them. And so it doesn't necessarily mean that they don't have the ability to earn a wage or
that they don't have any savings. I think it's more of a cautious approach and one that I admire with that that demographic. And I think, you know, you know, and Christmases that I see with my clients. You know, I have clients that are in their sixties and seventies
and they're spending all conds of money on Christmas. Well, their kids aren't really that much, you know, they might be the kids might be getting you know, full Christmases, and then the kids in turn, you know, get their parents so shovel and so that might be the extent of it.
Yeah, yeah, I mean you kind of remember being younger than in twenties and you didn't have that much money to begin with, but especially our this generation. Uh and another element of this thing too, And I know if you saw this a new you know because credit card dat is is it an all time high? I don't know if it's Is it.
All time now?
And did I read that?
I mean it's up there, it's it, It's not all the time, it's near there read out something called deferred Interesting.
Familiar with this?
No?
Okay, so they're they're and this is kind of scary too. So the deal is is it's different interest. So typically what happens is you buy a big purchase and you do it on a sort of credit card. The retailer is going to charge no interest if you pay off
the balance with the set timeframe. And of course what winds up happening they're banking on is at some point you can't make the payment or you can't pay the entire sum, the promotional clock runs out, and now you're on the hook for like a thirty percent APR.
Yeah, yeah, that's and that's more of you know, when you have these these lenders that are kind of sharking with these big interest rates and these layaway programs and
things like that. There has to be something in it for the organization that's offering the zero percent interest, and they have a team of actuaries that are running the numbers and say, hey, the probability if somebody needs or is looking for that zero percent interest they always have in the back of their mind, well, I'll be able to pay it off. You know by the time that interest kicks in. Well, most of the time that never
really happens. And that's been my experience with a lot of people where they say, you know, we were talking not too long ago about a fifty year mortgage, right, and so if you don't have the ability to afford that particular good, yes it might be an entry for you to have that particular product, but maybe you can't
really afford it. And in a lot of times, you know, those rates will start to kick in, and those companies are backing on it because they're in the business of making money and rewarding their shareholders, not in providing favors for the consumer. So I would be very careful if you try to get in some type of agreement with that. That's new to me, but it doesn't surprise it. It doesn't surprise me.
Now always looking for a new vehicle to try and buy stuff that they can't afford. Right, it's the America way, but even American, I mean, we have a we have a breaking point too. I noticed similarly that American car buyer, we're starting to draw the line on what we're going to pay for a new car. We've seen prime car prices since COVID certainly go through the roof literally, and now Americans are like, Okay, it's starting to cool off
a little bit. And it's a signal to the Big three and of course global companies to start figuring out ways to get that cost down.
Yeah.
And I think people are starting to realize is that the expensive items like cars is starting to become astronomical and maybe not even affordable. I had a call with one of my clients yesterday. She's in her late seventies and she's a widow, and she's had a Toyota Corolla for the last eight years and it only had eighty thousand miles on it. Well, she wanted to give that
to her granddaughter. Their family had a hard time finding a car that was affordable for a teenager and so she said, you know, I think I'll go ahead and give her this car, and I'll go out and look for a new one for me, because I haven't had a new one in the bells and whistles, you know, might be nice. Well, you know, I had a conversation with her yesterday. She said, Andy, most cars are thirty thousand dollars or more. She's like, I'm not sure I'm prepared to be able to spend that kind of money
on a new car. Now she can afford it. But I think the lesson here is that consumers, particularly mature consumers, are being a little bit more discreet and a little bit more frugal with their money and being smarter about what they spend their money on. And I see that a trend firsthand every day when I meet with my client. So I think there's a lot of legs to that.
Yeah, okay, And that's again the consumers thing, because some consumer confidence taking a little bit of a hit, But in the end it's all balancing out. A lot of this of course, seeing even more chirp this week about artificial intelligence spending spree, and it's all over inflated, and but it's balancing out tariffs and sense that some are revising their growth predictions experts like yourself predicting upward trend
as opposed to a negative one with the tariffs. So how much of that is driven by the AI?
A lot of a lot of it. And I think you know, as we've discussed in the past, you know AR is here to stay. It's a revolution. I believe in it. I use it in my job. I think if you work for an organization that is not implementing it, you're going to get left in the dust. It's a part of everyday life. Most everybody uses it in some capacity. You might not even realize it. You know, when you're typing any email, when it finishes your sentence, that is
a form of AI. And it's only going to start to get more and more profound, and it's going to be start to be more and more of our daily lives. And with any business, when you start a business, or if you get into some type of industry, a lot of time it can take a couple of years before you actually become profitable. So it's more about the guidance that we get from these companies and the outlook that
we have for these companies. And not only you know, with a certain product, but with an entire revolution of a way that we go about life. I think most investors are smart to understand that, yes, the price is a little bit inflated. The value might not be there today, but future growth suggests that this is still a good investment because they will eventually start to have significant earnings on top of what they already have today. And so I'm still pro AI. I think you should have it
as a part of your portfolio. A lot of times you do and don't even know it. Within your four to one K. It's probably a part of mutual funds. And that's why your accounts have really done so well over the last three years. A lot of it has to do with AI and technology.
You know what.
This week is the third anniversary of the rollout of chad GPT three years.
Only been three years, it feels like it's been longer.
It does.
It feels like it's been around for ten yeares it does. That's incredible.
It is incredible and and and we use that in our daily business. Most people do. My wife does uses it for work, and it helps you draw emails and it gives you a lot of good information. And now when you get on Google, you know, a lot of the information that you're searching comes up first with an AI summary, pulling from a number of different sites to try to summarize in a succinct way the information that
you're looking for. So I see it even if I'm just searching something in Google about something that I watched on National Geographic Channel, And.
So it's more intelligence is the thing that's right.
And I'm and I'm fine with that. You know, we want to keep advancing, we want to become more efficient. We've had other industrial revolutions and technology revolutions where people felt that jobs were going to be lost and and maybe some more. But at the end of the day, it's going to create more opportunity. It's going to create more jobs and different industries for everybody throughout the United States and the rest of the world.
All right, real quick, what do you got week ahead here? What indicators you're looking at?
Yeah, there's a few, you know, for the most part where we're going to get some back data. The PCE is going to come out Friday. That's the FEDS Preferred Inflation measure, you know, So that's going to be interesting to see what we get from there. We're also going to get job as claims, payroll reports, the ism, manufacturing
and service surveys. Those are always interesting, interesting because you know, those are reflections of supply managers and how they feel about their inventories and whether they feel it's you know, gaining momentum or losing momentum. And so those are the things that I'm looking at this week, and so we'll see how it goes, but I do expect that at this point we will probably see a rate cut in the next couple of weeks.
Okay, Andy Schaeffer, Allworth Financial Simply Money is the show at airs at six o'clock tonight on fifty five. Care soe you appreciate Andrew, Okay, Seeliers, take care. I'll see you next week and Willie is on the way right after news update here on the home of the best Bengals coverage seven hundred ww since net