Do you want to be an American? Plon me back on seven hundred. W welw.
I don't have to tell you about care costs, and justin like since two thousand, they the number there has tripled.
In most cases, we're tied.
I'm just talking about healthcare, but pharmaceuticals and everything, and we know what's kind of driving that. Congress is allegedly addressing it and trying to make things more affordable. I don't know how that's going to work with the HSAS. It's a big question. And we've talked to a lot of people at the receiving end, patients like me and you, healthcare providers, doctors, nurses, et cetera. Very well, very rarely we get a chance to talk to somebody on the inside, and we do today.
It's Beth Kaiser.
She's the West region president for Anthem, Blue Cross, Blue Shield, joining the show. Good morning, How are you, Beth?
Good morning Scott. It's nice to be with you there in Ohio.
When you think about the most hated institutions in America, you know, even above maybe politicians and trial ors, certainly the healthcare professionals like yourself come to mind. We saw the assassination of healthcare CEO. And additionally, there are constant, NonStop stories about people who pay their premiums and yet
they're denied coverage even when it's life saving. And you know, someone in the media or online gets involved and you guys reverse your policy and it's a black eye and it feels like it's coming at you every single day. How are you guys responding to and feeling this pressure?
Beth, I would say that all stakeholders are filling pressure now too. Have you know, the affordability of health care be an issue and so you know what we say at Anthem is Anthem Blue Cross, Blue Shield, is that unaffordable healthcare is inaccessible healthcare. So it's a critical time for us.
What is the latest affordability to numbers that you guys do internally show? And how do our auto pocket increases in Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana compared to other states outside the Midwest.
Gosh, and you know some people follow the rand study from years ago, but certainly shows that there's plenty of work for both of our states to do. But just to give you some facts, the US healthcare spending grew seven and a half percent in twenty twenty three, reaching nearly four point nine trillion, and as you know, that's continued to escalate. Prescription drugs spending alone increase more than
eleven percent last year. So these trends are putting significant strains own individuals, employers, and government programs.
And we also, let's face this demographic demographic issue. As baby boomers get older and older, they're going to use more, need more care, and there are a few people at the end to pay for that, and so it overwhelms the system. And then you factor in people who need assistance, and it it's even worse.
This is true.
So that's one of the reasons addressing people's health from a holistic standpoint, looking at whole health is so important.
Yeah, and that's part of the Republican plan. But I don't dismiss that because we all have a stake in our health. But I mean, let's face it, if the healthcare plan is, hey, take better care of yourself and your incentives to do so, that that's fine. But so many people, and it seems seemingly there's a story every day about someone who's you know, the drug cost for something for their kid or a loved one is so exorbitant they have to file for bankruptcy.
That shouldn't be happening, but it is.
Yeah, And delaying and skipping care can affect people in the healthcare system as well. So we have to keep it affordable because if those health issues that individuals have worsen are they become harder to treat, they certainly become more expensive as well. And so that a lot of people think, well, that only impacts the individual, but actually it impacts more than the individual's health outcomes. It puts a strain on the broader healthcare system and it drives up costs for.
All of us.
How do you determine who gets care for some specific disease lets, I don't know. It might be I mentioned the horror stories, right that someone who's denied care clearly they're sick. It becomes a news story, goes viral, and then all of a sudden and maybe not you guys, but another healthcare insurance make insured, maybe like yourself, and others will go ay, okay, well we're going to take care of this person because of public pressure in.
The outcome, right, how are those decisions made at the granular level?
Yeah, I would say many employers, individuals, families are determining how do they access healthcare, how do they make it affordable? And so we are addressing that by the first looking to see the factors that are causing the increase health care costs, and those factors include an aging population, people with increased chronic conditions like you mentioned, Scott, escalating drug prices, provider consolidation, fraud and abuse, as well as ongoing legislative changes.
And then we're working to address that with the stakeholders that you mentioned as well.
She's Beth Kaiser, she's a president of Blue Cross Blue Shields and and Blue Cross Blue Shield West Region president. Talking about health care costs and the insurance end of this thing. One of the other elements here is hospital consolidation. We've seen that accelerate tremendously here in our region, Beth, and how does that help with rates? And we also
worry about rural areas too. We're in Cincinnati, you're out in Indye, but there's a lot of country between us and you and across both of these states as well as Kentucky where rural hospitals and clinics are closing it record amounts.
How do we address that, yeah, and unfortunately, you know a lot of people think just what you mentioned that when healthcare providers going together, it may be lower costs, but often it means that patients have fewer choices and the prices actually go up. So what we're doing at ANT and Blue Cross Blue Shield to address those challenges is we're prioritizing strategies that protect affordability and enhance the
value for our members. And the way we're doing that is we're creating benefits and contracts with our provider partners that give people access to mini quality providers, and at the same time, we're helping focus on the think using AI and data to make sure that we're cutting waste and avoiding unnecessary treatment, which also helps keep costs down.
But when I speak specifically to waste and fraud and waste, there's things that now with AI as well as that we're allowed through billing to look at for unusual charges that may have occurred in the system, such as phantom billing where they're built for a service that didn't occur, double billing where they're bill twice, and then upcoding where they're charged for a service at a higher rate than what was provided.
One of the things you hear from government on this Beth is waste frawed abuse, waste fraud abuse constantly. But you know, I always contended that if you're a business like you are, and you're in the business of providing healthcare, but you have to be profitable, uh in you you probably do a better job than anyone as far as that and making sure that those people who are using the care, or vendors particularly are getting what they deserve, but not more or less.
We do.
It's important though, I mean, you know, we want to make sure we're looking at individuals and members in their whole health, so helping them remain healthy longer in life and helping them have a tool and the support they need. Where in the past we were much you know, we were known, how plans were know more for you know, just managing the quality, the costs and administration of billing. We feel at Anton Blue Cross we shield that we have a larger role to play.
Let's segue to pharmacy benefits. That's a big one. PDM's right. Pharmacy benefit managers not quite sure what they do, but they drive the cost up. That is the constant cry. I guess that you probably hear. What percentage of premium increases can you attribute to prescription drug costs and specifically, how do.
You address that?
Yeah, I mentioned just a minute ago that the prescription drug spending alone has increased more than eleven percent from last year. But what specifically We've been focused on negotiating lower costs around specialty pharmacy as well. That's an important area for us, and our responsibility is to negotiate lower price.
You know that's the model, but seemingly prices continue to spiral upward.
Where's that coming from?
Yeah, I would just say that, I mean, we all want we all want access to the best and to the latest, and we want to make sure we give our members access. So we feel like as we negotiate for better drug costs, especially around the specialty costs, that we can bring those costs down.
I've had this happen personal experience, family experience with this to where there's times where insurance and we're Anthem Blue Crossbow Shield where we work here at iHeart and have very good coverage. I can't complain. Some people, obviously you don't have that, maybe your experience varies, but pay a fair amount of money for that. Absolutely. When it comes to the pharmacy, though, I've noticed at times where we'll go in and say, okay, here's your prescription. Well how
much do I pay out of pocket? And it's less? Or if I use something like good orax with it, which is like a discount. Why would that occur if indeed we're negotiating the lowest prices? Why do Why are some medicines cheaper if you get them out of pocket or use a discount.
Yeah, I think that it depends upon the individual. So in your I mean, this is the reason it's so important for us to be talking about affordability because without I mean, the individual's portion of being engaged and involved in their health and understanding what tools, what discounts, what their benefit structure looks like, helps them to be a more empowered member and to your point, be aware of costly option.
Yeah.
We're talking to Beth Guiser this morning on the Scots Loan Show seven hundred wol she's a regional president for Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield talking to Ensure about what can be done about high costs and always, almost always we blame the insurance companies, but there's a lot driving that as well, and we're kind of getting into this morning here on the show in a limited time that we have. One of the other questions too, is surprise medical billing. You know, Trump in his first term said hey,
we know we're going to disclose prices. You're going to know what you're get coming in and still most of those metrics have not been hit. That is a huge complaint before federal legislation, and we've had a you know, the President doing that and moving even more I think in this term to do that. But we're sti getting unexpected bills and costs despite the reforms. Why does that remain problematic?
Yeah?
I would just say, first, we fully support the No Surprises Act because the intention was for it to protect patients from receiving surprise to healthcare bills. But as you mentioned, Scott, there have been some issues, some unintended consequences, some fraudulent
behavior that have unintentionally raised those costs. And so we're committed at ANS and Blue Crossley Shield to fixing the No Surprises Act, and in twenty twenty six we'll introduce the policy with hospitalists or curb out of network specialists billing through in network facilities and so this will aid those specialists in wanting to join our networks, which will lower patient costs and whole facilities accountable for repeated non emergency use of out of network and so that will
drive down healthcare costs personally. So you can't do that, Scott though, without thoughtful collaboration with our hospitals and our providers, right right, that's the key path to our affordability.
Well, you have the collaboration, and I know there's price transparency tools out there and they're required, but the data, and maybe it's because it's new, few consumers use them effectively. Are they confusing? And you know what's driving that? Are more people adopting it or just simply they don't know.
We're seeing adoption, least specifically with our Sydney app. We're seeing great adoption because because of the unaffordability, many members are wanting to understand their benefit options.
I brought this up before and I would love your unvarnished point of view on this this. You know, I go to my do we go to our doctor. You look in there, Okay, I've got a doctor. Maybe he has a PA or a nurse or something like that. And then you have five five people who just handle coating and billing and insurance and medicare and medicaiding and all that stuff, and as we know, it drives costs up.
I always use the parallel to you know, you bring your dog into a vet and you know, canines felines use some and sometimes the same medicine or overlapping menage, and you look at that and go, Okay, that's pretty affordable my dog, cat or whatever.
It comes to me.
There's paperwork, there's bills that come for the next six, seven, eight months, and you forget what they're for, and it's this whole mess. If we simply took the edict and made it an edict for employers in America, Listen, you're no longer in the business of providing health insurance. Can offer health insurance you got buy in the free market. Is that better for you guys? Is it better for the patient?
I mean, I believe that the reason that we want to make sure people remain covered is because if it becomes unaffordable for individuals. In some cases, many people are very reliant on their employer to help subsidize their healthcare calls. And again, as I mentioned earlier, if unaffordable healthcare will become inaccessible health care. So it's important that they get
the resources they need. And I think to your point on data, and I mean, how we need to become more efficient and effective with the way we work in healthcare.
That's a job for all of us. And we're doing our part at Anton Blue Cross Blue Shield by adopting AI, by adopting new data technologies, and providing coordination with our provider partners so that we have access to the whole view, to the whole health view of you, Scott, so that we can see your health holistically and that we can help aid in keeping you healthier longer.
Right.
But I guess the question is more about compliance and things like you You still have to obviously address compliance issues, but it seems there's a lot of things elements involved, particularly the government in our healthcare. Why can't I just buy a plan directly from you and like minded people do that. I think we'd save enough money in the long run to be able to take care of the indigen and the people who really need it. Looking ahead five years, what do you and it's just going to
continue to get worse. I mean, we're going to start to see things level off or is it just simply a matter of demographics that I started with, where you're going to see baby boomers as they age out and eventually pass, we have a younger generation coming in replacing them as old folks, and so it goes. Is it simply just a numbers game that way, or is it going to level out in the next five or ten years.
Well, my optimistic to use Scott is that we're going to work together the stakeholders. They appreciate how urgent this is. Individuals understand that they certainly can access individual plans, but many again are reliant on the benefits and the subsidies that they have in place today. So we've got to
make sure. You know, it's a delicate issue, right, But what I would say as a society, and what I'm hoping that in the next few years that will come together as stakeholders, is making the healthy choice, the easy choice, and allowing individuals to have more control over their health and their health care costs.
Yeah, but that doesn't mean prices are going on.
That's the biggest concern, and you know, we're probably pretty bad about that ourselves, and you know, you led with and it's a good point. If we took better care of ourselves eight better, you know, exercise and all that stuff, then we need less health care. It makes it less expensive for everyone. But we don't do that. But it's not like we're alone. Other countries have the same problem. And yet here in America our health care costs are
out of control. Administrative costs the US are substantially higher in other countries. What percentage of premium dollars goes to administration versus actual.
Care, you know, that would be dependent upon the situation. But I'm not sure Scott, if you're aware that the majority of employers are self insured. So and specifically in the states. I'm in Indiana next to you, ninety percent of our employers are self insured. So what that means is they're paying directly for the cost of a procedure, and that there's a small admin fee that goes on that.
And as you know, health plans are regulated and the cost that we can charge for that is regulated by our government.
Yeah, and that all factors into the cost as well, because the regulation adds a little bit more overhead in that. I guess that's the initial point. As it seems there's a lot a lot of hands in the cookie there. There's a lot of money to be had here, but at the end, consumers suffer and some people are not making the decision to go without healthcare, especially during these times where we talk about the ACA and all that
being in jeopardy. Beth Kaizier, West Region President for Anthem Blue cross Bow Shield out of Indianapolis, Thanks again for the time, Beth, appreciate it.
Thank you so much, Scott, and I would encourage individuals that are interested in this topic to go to our website. It's www dot Anthem dot com. Forward slash Affordability in Ohio. Thank you Scott so much for the conversation.
Thank you, Beth. And uh yeah, well Gutsia.
It takes a lot to come on a see out of a healthcare company or at least a regional president. Anyways, the case may be is understand it wasn't that many years ago and you kind of didn't really have an opinion about it. Now, if you look at the hate index in America, that group is rising close to the damn time. We had a lot of people we hate on these days, but I can't think of a group, a private group, maybe more so than healthcare CEOs for Sure
News is on the way in just minutes. A fine recap coming up of last night's vestivity in order to Kentucky Convention Center for Martographer Homeless Chisle Slow today because we were partying until about ten o'clock last night.
Scott flown show seven hundred.
There we go slonely seven hundred wolw on this Wednesday morning. Thank you were probably you've probably an here, I know what. I'm thanking you for it because you're sleeping if you're Marty Gruff for Homeless Kids, twenty twenty six last night at the Northern Kentucky Convention Center. But congratulations though, and thank you so much for your support on this, and that includes people who couldn't make it who still donated to the cause. And so we will sleep well tonight.
And maybe you're sleeping well on unknowing that we're going to provide more than one hundred and fifty thousand meals this year for children in need and also support Bethany House Welcome House in Brighton Center. And last night we raised in excessive two hundred and fifty thousand bottles, which is an all time high, So it was fantastic We had a blast last night on behalf of myself, the King.
Sheila Gray, my queen from Local twelve OO was great hanging with she she for a while, John John with Kiss one oh seven to one, and Sarah Alice from the Kid Chris shown of course a snort report she will not be here today, she's sleeping it off. And the man himself, Tom Brenneman, those two m seeing and we had an absolute fantastic time. The restaurants were amazing, the food was great, the drinks were great, and of course the most important thing raising money for all those charities.
I will say that, and also thanks to my friends Melissa Reed and everyone in DV eight one of the best cover bands in Cincinnati. Melissa one of the greatest vocalists too, I think at Cincinnati as well. So great to see those guys and hang with those guys for a little bit briefly. And you know, two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, that's a lot of cash to raise
in one night. The Joe Burrow Foundation, Jeff Ruby Foundation, of course, Mercedes Benz of Fort Mitchell and Don Pepperell over there doing a great job and supporting the mission as well raising just a ton of money. Obviously, I was watching briefly we had Local twelve was on. I caught on the corner and my eye the video from
last night. And I have to apologize to the folks at the Northern Kentucky Convention Center who have the task of having to clean up because it started, as I think it was started as a senior prank and now it was just completely out of control. Years ago, when Mike McConnell was the the aforementioned the artist formerly known as Mike McConnell was the king of Marty Gras and then I took over for him. His bodies had come
and throw bread. Closterman Baker's always there and they have, you know, bread like a bread stand, and so his body started throwing bread at him and judge because we're in this big rolling platform way up above and we're throwing beads out to the crowd the Marti Gras Court, and it was good natured fun, and we started talking about this on the show and every year now more and more people engage in throwing rolls at and.
So there's this video on twelve.
It's me and Sheila up there and three Bengal cheer a couple Bengal cheerleaders and John John and we are getting it. Just if you didn't know what it was, You're like, what, why are they ducking? What is going on? I think they having fun, but they look like they're under attack. And we are underttack by rolls from Closterman and people are just like firing rolls at us left and right, and we're trying to throw them back to the crowd and throw beads and it's complete to bauchery
and mayhem. But now we have these pockets of I don't know in cells that are rising up in the crowd. For the bread is not just where the stand is. Now people are taking the bread and going to other parts of the convention center to the throw bread. So there'll be these pockets of you know, popping up of people throwing bread at us in the middle of the room. And it's funny as hell. Some guy, I think I got a hogy. I think I got like one of those sub I don't know where it came from. And
now people are bringing their own bread. Apparently this was left over from a Super Bowl party. You know those giant subs that feed fifty like it was coming at us and it looked like the sun was getting blocked out at this point, like what is happening right now? So just part of the fun and mayhem of Marty Grausse. So thanks again two hundred and fifty K and we're gonna feed a lot of kids with that, So thanks
so much for joining us. Always glad to be part of that wonderful event with the Northern Kentucky Restaurant Association. Everyone down there, Gordy Sneyder, Pat Kenala, everybody, all right, moving on, moving on. Saw the big headline today that apparently we're this close to striking a deal with Iran because we're talking in Geneva with Progress to try and go tell their nuclear energy and Iran and they may be back.
I don't know. It's the Middle East.
So you hear this and you go okay, So in two weeks they'll wind up doing something. They'll blow it up. It's like, you know, Israel and God say, okay, we've got peace, do we really? Because you know the stuff's still going to continue to happen. It's just I look at it going okay, it's wishual thinking, but the reality is there'll be some sort of aggrievance, some sort of microaggression that they perceive on the part of the United States or vice versa, and we'll be back at it again.
But had a little little brief piece and some hope. We need some hope these days, so we will take it. We will take it. There's a guy named Michael Sullivan arrested outside the Capitol eighteen years old. Parked a suv near the western of the Capitol exit of the b a shotgun and insteaded running toward the Capitol. He's we're in a tactical vest and gloves, kevlar, helmet, gas mask inside the suv, everything with an attempt to try and I don't know what he's going to do is try
and take out people inside the capital. Of course, the good news is and may I don't know if the good news or not news, but it would have been more effective if Congress are actually working, Like, if you're going to do that, you may want to, I don't know, go online and do some research and find out if they're actually they're not saying I was wishing they would by any stretch. But you know, if you're going to
go to prison for the rest of your life. I guess you know, at least there's some sort of perceived threat. But it's like, yeah, they're not working. They in addition to the recess, they also are they shut down government. So what actually has happened over there? It's like, wait a minute, I did that. I'm going to prison forever. And man, they weren't even that. Oh man, man, the times in which we live. I have you heard this story?
So if you had kids or have kids that are in school, you know about a company called Life Touch Photography. And so every every beginning every school year in the fall, your kids, you know, you get the you go shopping. You're back to closed school. And then the best outfit from your back to closed shopping experience, of course, will be the one that your mom will tell you not to get dirty because you've got school pictures. You can wear this, but you need to say this is for school.
When you have your school pictures, you gotta look nice for your school pictures. And you know, they give you the comb, you comb your hair, you look all nice, and of course they capture that moment it look like you just got maced or something like that. It's the stupid expressions on your face when you're a kid. But nonetheless, the life Touch photography is a big deal. It's a
big money maker for everyone. So the Kentucky Educational Development Corporation is suspending their partnership with life Touch due to concerns over a tie to Jeffrey Epstein. So this is from the let me get the straight department. Okay, the CEO has a documented business relationship with Epstein, and it was in charge of Apollo when it bought Shutterfly, who
owns Life Touch now in twenty nineteen. Life Touch says, well, no exact if there have ever had any contact with Epstein, and Apollo did not acquire shutter Fly until after Jeffrey Epstein died.
So so you.
Had this guy who was tied to the previous company, which was then bought out, and then that was sold package up and sold the Shutterfly. So we're like, we're two we're two child molesters away from this evening tying to the current company, and yet Kentucky's going, well, we got to question our business and largely probably because of
backlash from parents. You know, you want to think that we're getting a little better allowing our kids to be a little bit more feral and you know, kind of plot their own direction to some degree.
You know, you give them controls.
I'm not suggesting the five year old should be, you know, out there doing whatever he wants. You know, you give him a give a limit, the list of selections, like, hey, I want to wear this, I want our Halloween cost him to school. Well you really can't, Well I can. I Well here's why, but I'll give you three outfits you can pick from. You pick, and it makes you feel like they have some control, right, And the older you get, the more autonomy they should.
And then they want to serve.
But now it's like you think, at this point, now we start going back the other way, but we're not. It's like, okay, did the current did this guy have any tie? Did Leon Black have does he have any bearing on what they're doing today? And the answer, of
course is now. Now if you think it's like blood money or something like that, even that I'd questioned, going, well, wait a minute, the company was sold and was sold again, and so you are at least two transactions removed from this guy have anything to do with it, and it was the CEO anyway, and you know, you go through CEO,
it's a change. They change, and if you did something wrong, you certainly deserve to be fired and go to prison and something as serious as this for sure, But I don't know what you're protecting your kid from.
It's it's life touch.
I could see if what was going on now a different story, but not just part of the overprotective society in which we live. It's kind of like a few weeks ago we had that it escapes me where it was, but locally where you had because of all the snow and ice, the roof collapse in the on a school gym and an elementary school gym, which is served your
costs for concern. So they shut the school down for a couple of weeks and uh, it was just a gym roof, And like the rest of us, they had structural engineers go in and inspectors from the state and everything else going to look at the place and inspecting, like, Okay, we're good, we're gonna open it back up. And they had an open house and parents are showing up and saying, well, I'm not sending my kid to school because it's not safe.
It's like, well, we're not sending them to you know, like back in the day, your mom and dad did that, going, wait, what happened? Yeah, the roof collapse in the gym? Oh okay, well we got to see what's good?
All right? Can I go back to school?
Well yeah, you just can't have gym, but you should go and learn stuff and also get the hell out of here.
You're driving me crazy.
I think it was just maybe a little I don't want to be the guy going, oh, it's so better back in the day, but something like that to me is like, all right, well, you've had all these people and there's a huge liability issue and they're not going to let not only teachers and the staff and but kids, especially if if it's unsafe. And yet even though you've had certified engineers structural engineers coming to go yeah, it's okay, it's just the gym.
We got to rebuild it. Okay.
Well, the rest of school's fine, right, yep, Now we're good. There's no more snow on the roof, and we inspected everything looks good. Okay, good enough. Yeah, but there's a chance that no, there's no chance.
I mean, you guess you.
Could have a media rite or a piece of ice off an airplane and fall through the roof. I suppose, but you know, really we've inspected it and anything about that. It's like, I'm not sending my kid to school anyway. Well you had inspectors there. You may send your kid to a school before that was never inspected. So there's probably the safest roof of any building in the state at this point. Considering how many people are inspecting the roof, Well,
what if they're wrong, Well, they're probably not. I would err on the side of having that inspection. And maybe you have a kid go to a different school and you're like, well you go to school, Well they'd inspect our roof.
That could fall down too. I don't know. I don't know. But the shutterfly thing is that is absolutely fascinating to me.
This is pretty good. I know, if you saw this
or not. He was on a podcast and President Obama was to I know it was like like a little Q and a thing like a speed round thing, and he's answering questions about whether or not aliens were real, and he I don't know if it's a slip up or not, but you know, he said that, oh, they're real, and then he had to come back and walk it back and said, I I was joking, wanted to you know, I want to know the whereabouts of like if there's an underground bunker with aliens and they're keeping this from
the president because I didn't know anything about it. And it was kind of funny too, and you know, it just feels that speculation about aliens and Area fifty one and conspiracy theories. And he said, yeah, they're real, but we don't have them here. We don't have them an Area fifty one. And he had to kind of walk those comments back a little bit, which just fuels a conspiracy theorist even more.
It's kind of funny. I was, hey, I don't I always thought of that.
I really think that there's some sort of extraterrestrial life out there. We just assume they're smarter than us, because that makes her a good story because they could come control us, because the other way around, it's like, well, you know, there there's life forms out there, but they're pretty dumb, right, pretty pretty stupid. It's like our dumbest criminals are still smarter than the extraterrestrial life out there. Oh okay. It was one of those guys yeah, all right,
we're good. Like, you know, maybe they don't even have opposable thumbs. Yeah, I haven't even invented a crew ton or anything good like that. Yeah, spreadable cheese, like, yeah, we're good. It's the eating dirt.
Okay.
Maybe there's I don't know if it's intelligent life, but developed life out there sure probably probably, But daddy that you know, there's a superior being out there and it's not us, Like, I don't know about that. But I was reading this, it's interesting what we know about Area
fifty one now. And I was reading a following a book about that, and it's interesting because the first uf of the saucer, right back in the fifties, if it's all in the flying saucers, flying saucers were UFOs, and now they're called UFAs or UFDs.
I don't know.
They changed the name every few years. And so the very first one they found it had crashed and there was evidence, Oh my god, this thing crashed, and you know, the FEDS came in and sealed the area off, and it fueled all this conspiracy later on, as it turned out, according to the story, is that obviously the scientists there took it apart in the desert and wanted to see what the hell it was because there was no visible signs of a way to propel the vehicle, you know,
no exhaust is the equipment. And so anyway, they took this thing apart and they found on parts inside it things written in the cyrillic alphabet, and the cyrillic alphabet, of course is Russian. Now think about it, when this happens nineteen fifties, we're coming out of World War Two. We instantly went from World War to the Cold War. We're battling the Russians, Russians Vus, atomic superpowers, duck and cover.
Everyone's paranoid thinking the bomb's going to go off, and now the Russians are flying saucers, which we looked at and want how the hell they're doing this, and they're doing it on our airspace, and so huge national security concern. Now you can't come out and say that. And the speculation was of course by someone said, well, they're like little alien men, or they're alien. Maybe it's an alien,
it's something from outer space. And because of the time, you know, that was a whole thing that you know, we're going with fifties, you know, it's a war of the Cold War. But also, you know, we're involved in the space race. They're launching spot nicking things, and so all that ties together. It's like, well, maybe it's an alien life form. And so the government said, you know what, that mistruth, that narrative is good for us because that gives us cover for what we're doing out there in
our space program. And so you saw things develop like the U two spyplane was actually which we flew over the Soviet un over to Russia, was developed out in the desert, and that's where they tested these things, and they'd get reports of these mysterious objects flying really high and glowing lights, and the B two stealth bomber, same thing.
That's where they tested this thing.
And people get reports of well, mysterious objects that were defying gravity plant and largely it was these experimental aircraft that they were working on, some of them man some of them unmanned, and they just let people run with it, going okay, well we had a sighting, Yeah it's probably an alien because we did not want to expose the truth of our space program. Pretty cool, I think, and it you know, you think about it fits together and
It's also part of Ockham's razor. Rockham's razor basically is like, generally the easiest story is the true story rather than going aliens and everything. I was like, yeah, we're trying to protect our national interests and develop these things because we're in a race with the with the Russians. Still don't know what's inside that flying sauc where I was flying, but it might and I've been fueled or powered. Maybe it was launch from an airplane or something. Who knows.
But to today, you know, we think there's aliens out there. Yeah, and I think there's intelligent life out there. I just don't know if they're smarter than we are. At this point, we've been trying to communicate with them forever based on this premise that they're out there, and we've got radio telescopes and everything else, still try sending signals and picking signals up and from distant galaxies and it's all fascinating stuff.
And boy, it's kind of funny.
It's like, man, this thing was was sort of like a I don't know, kind of like we let this mistruth go and let people believe it, and now it's this whole inn we actually now the sam government's actually spending what million, tens of millions of dollars on a radio, telescopes and everything else, not necessarily all to you know, make contact with alien life forms. But it's all based on that premise. That's kind of it's got a funny use of money. Like we're not gonna we're not gonna
blow up the bed here. We got a pretty big it gotten so big now you're just like, we can't really give them the truth because they're gonna be really mad at us now because we spend all this money with anti alien technology.
For God's sake, that's how the world works.
I suppose we've got news on the way in just about six minutes here on the Big One, seven hundred W LW. Bill, this is interesting. Bill Henson is his name is from Manhattan. Institude's there think tank. But it did come up with a new way to measure return on investment for public education and the astomic part about this whole thing. And they're based on New York and so I think, you know, you hear that and you go, oh, it's New York.
I don't really care. I live in Ohio, living Kentucky, live in the Danna. Yeah.
But the truth the formula still works. It developed something called EROI, and that is a new return on investment educational return on investment, because you figure in is how much the average student costs, the averageer people spending is, and then how many students you have in the district, and then how many kids graduate or go on to college or go on And so is it fair to include in the per people spending the number of kids who don't graduate? And the answer be well, yeah, you
need to do that. It's not just so how much does that average diploma cost a taxpayer? And well it certainly fuel for people to go, hey we got to you know, go do more private schools or homeschooling. Okay, fine, But at the same time I look at it going, yeah, is this really an efficient use of money?
Can we do better? And I think we can and have to do with AI.
We'll get into that right after a news update on the Scott's Loan Show seven hundred WLW.
Do you want to be an American idiot?
Let's go Scott's Loan Show, seven hundred WLW. You know how much we spend on the military, and often I always spend seven eight times more than the next twenty nations gone by whatever it is. And we do spend a lot on the military, and how much is enough? That number pals in comparison to the amount of money we spend in this country on K through twelve education. We spend more on K through twelve education than we
do national efense. That is an astounding high number, and the results of that spend are eye opening, especially in light of a new way to look at how much bang we get for the buck.
It is about ROA.
Don't let anyone tell you any difference like well, these are about kids in their future and it's more than just you know, getting a job and being productive citizens. It's part of it. All feels good, it's all the fields. But we want to know what the ROI is are what's the return of our investment?
Here?
Are we getting the maximum we can for our dollar? And that's not only fair to ask as taxpayers, but more so as parents and grandparents. And the new metrics that we're using are downright infuriating. William Henson is here. Bill is with Manhattan Institute and primarily talks about, you know, what's going on in New York public school system. But I think it's a good illustration because this is true everywhere else else.
Bill, Welcome to the show. How are you.
I'm well, Scott, thank you, thanks for having me.
Yeah, of course, So this ree you. You did this with new and it's not New Day. But it's called e ROI Educational turn on Investment. So it's a way to calculate per pupil spending versus academic outcomes. We're talking graduation rates, college completion to says what that ROI is, what the bang for the buck is, what it's educational values?
How do you formulate that?
So it's relatively straightforward, and getting the lot of the information was a bit more of a challenge. Yeah, but most school districts, whether they be in Cincinnati, Kentucky, or New York, California, et cetera, you can get access to
how much those school districts spend per student. Okay, although even there it's a little bit complicated because they'll publish their direct operating costs not necessarily and I don't want to get too much in the leads here, but you know they're indirect cost capital expenditures, pensions and the like, and then you have enrollment and it's pretty simple. Okay, what's you know, what's the total spending divided by the number of kids in the system that gives are your
per pupil spending. What that doesn't do, though, is tell you, well, what am I getting, like you, like you said in the introduction, what am I getting for that money? Whether it be as a parent, student, taxpayer, et cetera.
Yeah, and it's a fair question.
And I looked at the numbers for Cincinnati a larger school listening area bill, Cincinnati Public and so the cost to educate a kid, and it's right now, it's about our pupil's per pupils about nineteen thousand dollars A little some studies say more, a little more, a little low, but we'll say nineteen grand over thirteen years, okay, through twelve. That's almost too. That's almost a quarter million dollars a kid. Now, the other element there is what about kids who don't graduate?
And I think that's something that this this formula bakes in. It is like, okay, great, but are they're they're graduating? But what about the roughly fourteen fifty percent kids who don't That should be factored in the equation as well.
So if you so, you know, just staying with you know, Cincinnati, and they round numbers twenty, you know, quarter million dollars to educate one student over the course of his or her primary and secondary.
Years.
But if only ten percent or twenty percent or thirty percent of those kids ultimately graduate from college, ont's just assume from the moment that's the ultimate objective. That could be a whole another conversation whether that's.
The right path for everybody, sure, but.
Assuming that's you know, that's your goal, that's your objective, and you say, okay, well, if it's twenty percent of ultimately graduate from college, that's one fifth. So my cost, Cincinnati's cost in this hypothetical example is actually five times a quarter of a million or what would that be? A million and a quarter a million, two hundred and fifty thousand to graduate one young person ultimately from college. And that's what you got to ask the question, am
I getting the bank for the buck? As you said, am I, am I.
That is a you know, in New York City's seven hundred thousand dollars today's dollars, and of course you know you don't. It's hard to factor inflation and matriculation moving from district to district. But it's and it's a rough number, but I think it's important too. It's like, if we're failing to educate these kids. I don't think that's solely back on the school system, quite honestly. I think there are multipleitude, multitude of factors as why an urban area.
I mean, for example, I know you taught a very prestigious private school, which is the best of the best, and of course you're going to have higher graduation attendance because you know, parents.
Are paying a lot of them.
I think, like you said, is procedure, but in a different way, right, it exclusively serves low income kids. If you, if your family, God bless them, makes above a certain amount of money and you can afford another private school, we will. How should I say, invite you to take me?
Yeah?
No, I I understand that nuance, And that's true a lot of areas as well. You're crystal ray and could not right right, Yeah, But public schools also have you, they have to take they have to take spec special education students of life too, So there's I think there's some nuances there. There's you know, the absent tee chronic apps and tee rates, kids who are under house underfed. You know that's that's certainly those are certainly mitigating factors
for this whole thing. But you know, I was, I was speculating about this the other day in that you know, the whole educational system itself, we miss so many kids. I was one of those kids because I'm more of a tactile learner. You know, you put a you put numbers in front of me, and I'm confused. Used, But you put a tape measure in front of me or something, I can say, Okay, what's the point of this and
apply more of an applied learner in that regard. And so many kids are and we I think we're starting to learn more about admiss it. But my point is, you know, today you hear about kids being disengaged in school and not paying attention to kids. Maybe we're not teaching to their level and maybe, you know, with the distractions of phones and social media in AI, now it seems like, I don't know, do we even need THEE
or should the public school model change? In a sense, it's like, why aren't we teaching kids on their level? AI can learn how to teach to each individual student, They'll learn more, will retain better, they'll be better students, and ultimately be more productive and successful in life. Maybe the way to do this is using AI as the teacher as opposed to a well, actual human teacher.
Well, and there are some school models that are pursuing that where it's it might be too strong to say AI driven, but certainly AI I supported, And then you and m they'll dedicate or ear mark maybe two three hours of the education of the school day to sort of traditional curriculum, et cetera, utilizing AI to be hopefully that much more efficient, that much more effective, et cetera, and then allocating the rest of the normal school day to other programs, services, et cetera. That would be in
a perfect world of address. You know, kids, the way you describe yourself as a different kind of learner or a different interests, et cetera. So I think there's a tremendous, tremendous opportunity there. And I think, you know, over the course of the next several years, and it probably won't even be that long, you're you're going to see more of those type of sort of models and initiatives you know pop up.
Yeah, I think it's a way to explore us.
Now, of course, this is a total threat to the ecosystem of public education, in particular that well wait a minute, now, if we use AI, we need future teach we need less teachers. That is a threat to unions. We certainly need to help a lot less administrators, which is a threat to the bureaucratic class. It's also a threat to the brick and mortar of the schools that we continue
to fund the buildings themselves. Because if this is all a digital enterprise and you can teach kids on their own level, to their own means using AI, all of that stuff is now in jeopardy. That's a threat to that's a threat to the American way of life in itself.
Bill, Yeah, And I think you can even extend that line of thinking beyond just the implications of AI, but to anything that represents a different model, a different way of doing things from the traditional public school model, where you know where where the unions and entrench bureaucracy are nervous at best, if not to downright resistant to any kind of of change. And that's what we see here in New York. And you know the purpose of my
study was sort of twofold, and we touched on. The first bar was to provide families, taxpayer, policymakers, et cetera, with the tool so it could really see, all right, what am I getting for this huge investment, you know, over a trillion or about a trillion dollars nationally. And then secondly is to then use that tool to evaluate a few different educational alternatives. And you know, I use
New York because that's where I am. In New York is sort of the tip of the spear in the sense that they are the most expensive public school system in the country. And you see that, well, these there is one, you know, there is this alternative out there called this Christal Ray model. Educates low income kids and ninety nine percent kids of color, most of them come from uh, you know, single parent households, et cetera, et cetera.
And yet for every one student out of the New York City public school system that ultimately graduates from college for the same amount of money, Christo Ray model graduated or produced nine kids from college.
What's what drives that? What do you think drives that?
Oh, there's a there's a you know, a host of factors. Scott I'll say the ones I you know what, folks who work and teach in in In this case, it's a Catholic school model lowled You know, approximately half if not more of the kids are non Catholic. They don't
get paid as much as public school teachers. So that's not necessarily a good thing in some ways, especially if you're that particular teacher or staff member, But in other ways, it sends a pretty powerful message to the leadership of the school, the board, etc. That those staff members, those teachers, they really want to be there, they want to teach, They're willing to make that sacrifice so that they can
help these young people ultimately realize their full potential. And that whether it comes through overtly or more subtly, that sends a very very powerful message to the students themselves, to their families, to the rest of the community, and that once you get young people motivated and believing in themselves, that goes a long long way to them being able to actually grow and achieve and accomplish.
What they want.
So culture is a big part of it, you know, just just one part of it.
Well, it also isn't it.
Also the kids are coming there because their parents, regardless of income or socioeconomic level, bill they want their kids to succeed in school, and so they have a vestigations to making sure the kids shows up. They go to the parent teacher beings. I mean, it probably takes a very alert and education oriented parent because that's who's going to go to a school like this, Whereas you may have kids that come from troubled homes and parents that simply don't see the value in education.
I think that's a distinction.
But you know, to your point, yeah, And the other point too is you know, this is about college, and I does it factor in those who are going to the skilled trades or military service or just going directly the workforce.
Well, the Crystal Ray model, which is national over forty Chrystal Ray schools around the country, including in Cincinnati to others in Ohio, has been a since its beginning, which was in the mid to late nineties. First Chicago has been a college, college access, college success driven model. Now as we go forward in the world, that's changing pretty darn rapidly for some of the reasons we've touched on
here and others. Does that evolve over time possibly, but also remember it's a it's a large network, but it's still a niche player. There's maybe, you know, in the grand scheme of things, you know, thirteen thousand students probably double maybe by now more than double that, thirty thousand alumni, et cetera. So when you look at it relative to all you know, high school population and the country, it's
it's still a small player. But again, you know, so its model is is is a is a college driven one. And I think, you know, going back to its founding and and and in the decades since you know, the ethos has meant, hey, there's these young people by virtue of their economic circumstances and others should not be denied the same the same opportunity as they're more affluent peers have.
Yeah, and unfortunately we have this hierarchy of the system in place, and anything that's been in trench for a while, they're going to protect their own And of course you're looking at this model and say, wow, we should replicate this is a threat to their to their existence the way they've always done things, and saving to the cries you don't care about education and you want to destroy public schools, that's not it. It's if you look at it as a tax payer, you want and none all
that for our future. We need young people to be successful and well led you because it's in our best interests as we get older too it our kids need to because they're the ones that are going to be
funding our lifestyles in the future. It's Bill Henson, he's at Manhattan Institute joining the show this morning about how we calculate the metrics or what success looks like in public schools and when we spend more on public education, then we do self to our defense system for example, and you see the results our defense gets us versus what education does or like is this money well spent and we should be kicking the tires on what that ROI looks like.
Bill, all the best, Thanks for jumping on this.
Morning, my pleasure, Scott, thanks so much for having.
Me take care.
Yeah, at some point it breaks right as we look at AI and go, well, if kids aren't engaged in their phone more than in the classroom, because that's the model, that's the formula, it's the algorithm. Or right now in Washington they're fighting with well Facebook and other social media platforms, TikTok and everything else about kids being engaged all the time.
It's become addictive. How do we take that formula, how do we take that algorithm and just simply using AI making an educational model the way to teach kids to make them addicted to learning. It seems like a great opportunity, but it threatens the hierarchy I was just talking about, and no one wants that, from the administrative class, to the teachers, unions, to hell, the people who take care of the buildings, the brick and mortars. Scott's Loan Show
with news on the way in five minutes. Here Julie on the job, next seven hundred WLW program.
Helping you put the big P in profession. Here's our career, Sir Julie Balki.
Yeah, I'm thinking we ought to bring that back, that work whistle at the end of the day, and now were that that that horn that the shift is over. Of course you're not going to be going off all the time because everyone leaves at different times. But bring that up with that work whistle back, Julie, how are you?
I'm good, but I think why stop with the whistle at the end of the day. Let's do a bell for lunch and morning and let's just keep.
Selling all day.
You're going to do the uh that like I don't know if they still do it or not, but like Japanese factory workers back in the day where they do their calisthetics, the aerobics before before the work they started, nev's out there.
The Japanese manufaction principles, like all that stuff. In the morning.
Yeah, yeah, you get up and instead of having coffee out there working out. So here's the question for you listening, is do you prefer money or do you prefer time? Uninterrupted time off correlates with higher job satisfaction, better relationships with your coworkers, and you're more engaged. Therefore, lower turnout time beats money.
Does that surprise you, Julie, Well, I think we're gonna put a caveat there. First of all, I'm not sure why this surprises anyone. Everything that this study said, well da, I mean, so, I think what's what's tricky here is this is a either or It really depends on your situation. So let's say that salary is not a concern for you, and yes, there are plenty of people who aren't working.
The salary is not the most important part of the job, or they're not the primary red winner, or they've got good savings and other things are more important for people like that. Yes, they would prefer to have more time off than they would a bonus in many cases because it gives them chances to do things that they want to do outside of work. And so I think that the lesson here is, and I've said it over and over and over again, is one size does not fit all.
And until you understand what motivates your folks, and you have those conversations and you show and you really start getting down to what can we offer that maybe does resemble a little bit of cafeteria style benefits they used to have, where you know, you get certain number of credits or instead of this, uh, you know, thousand dollars bonus or whatever, we're going to offer you two days
off instead and give people that choice. Instead of saying everybody gets X number of days off where everybody gets this bonus. You've got to offer what people value. And just because you, as a leader might value money and believe your people value money, their studies and studies upon studies that go back decades to show that leaders believe
that people value salary more than they do. But that's not to say they don't want to be paid fairly, but it's the other things, recognition that I have a personal life, there's other things I enjoy doing, that I do have interest outside of work that matter to me, and that you're not going to go you're not going
to bother me and I'm on vacation. I was talking to somebody the other day, yep, who worked for, you know, a big organization, and he said, this guy called one of our staff members on she was at a wedding out of state, and they asked her to come back because he needed her. And it wasn't even anything that important that it was just this person who was used to saying when I jump you out to say how high? And that's an extreme example, but some variation of that is not uncommon.
It's interesting that the way they did this study, So the study that they did, Julie Bokie, if I'm paid vacation times make employees feel more quote unquote human than cash bonuses.
And the key.
Drivers just the time away. It's like a psychological boundary work in personal life. So they measured this out and there's like it's a very small gap and it's a seven point scale.
It's kind of weird.
But they said, every single text from a boss during your vacation drops that feeling human score so much it nearly wipes out the benefit of taking that vacation the first it's just by getting a few texts over the course of your vacation.
Oh, absolutely, it triggers for this.
What am I gonna thing?
I've got to get got trying to relax. I've got to put my head back into work. And if you own a company or you're the CEO and you want choose to live your life like that, great, but don't assume that everybody else that everybody else is going to
do that as well. So if you're really trying to relax, and part of this comes from as a leader, establishing a culture that doesn't contact people on you know, on their vacation, that doesn't you know, that says we're going to have somebody else take care of this, because every time you get dragged back to what's going on at work, the messenger sending is I don't care about you other than what you can do for me, So do this for me, please.
How do you work with someone or for someone who values work more than time, because there are so many people in the world that their entire existence are entire life is about what they do for a living, and their whole cost for getting up in the morning is to do that. Now, you know, there's also people going, well, it's I loved I like my job, I like what I do, I like the money, but it's not my whole life. I work so I can have other things in my life. I don't work just for the pure
joy of working. And that's and that kind of attitude is around that is that like the person who puts work above everything else in society, And it's starting to change. But that person is is more revered and more dedicated than someone who doesn't that. Fortunately, I think that model is starting to change, isn't it, And has been changing for a while for sure.
For sure, I had a client who was in my age range, and he interviewed with a CEO, and the CEO was asking a couple of questions for his family, and then the CEO said, I'm never just I'm met. This is the only time I'm going to ask you about your family. I expect you to put work first in family seconds, and he took himself out of contention for the job. That moment, Wow, I said, that is not going to work for me.
And so.
When you weren't interviewing for a job, it's very fair to say, Now, tell me about what it's.
Like to work here, Tell me about the culture.
Talk to as many people as you can who work there and understand is this the type of place that expects you to be on call twenty four to seven, or or is a place that really values your off time? And I know people Flany that went on vacation purposely to places where they had no self service. Now this was years ago before self service was anywhere, like a crucis only so that they could not be contacted by the company. That is crazy. So I think part of
this is setting expectations. You say something like I'm going to be off enjoying my family for a week. I will have very limited access. If there is I will check my email twice a week. If there's something urgent, please contact this person. But we kind of do it to ourselves. I'm not available, they will decide they don't need me, and then I'll be first on the layoff list. And you can't walking that fine line.
Yeah, that makes sense. I think there's another element to this whole thing too. By the way, it's Julie Balki our career, Sirpa, it's Julie on the job every Wednesday morning on the Scott Slan show her seven hundred wylw that a new study fund that paid vacation time makes employees feel more human than cash bonuses and makes them seen as individuals' lives beyond work. And it's that paro. It's all changing now, right, So people prefer time over money.
I think there's another If you look at this almost like a graph, you have the time side on you know, the one access is time, the other access is money.
But I will ask I'd offer a third.
One in there, and that would be age because that age line would intersect where you know when your first start. Now you have any money, you're working, You maybe have a degree or you get your training, whatever it might be, and you're ready to take on the world, and you're ready to work ob scene hours and put your nose to the grindstone because you really don't have anything else
going on in your life. Maybe you're dating, you're not a serious relationship, but as you age and and everyone's different, but typically you age, you start to value relationships. Maybe you meet that special someone who will to start a family, and all of a sudden, that age line starts interacting where time is more important than money. And it's different for everyone, but I think that's a third factor here.
Absolutely, your values and priorities change as you age. There are certainly young people now it's flipped on a pad a little bit, that are not that focused on working career, and that's really frustrating to older generations because we're used to the model you just laid out. Be super focused early, kind of kill a little bit later on, and they're saying, maybe I want to chill now, maybe I want to chill forever, or maybe I'll get serious about my career
in another few years. And so we have to recognize that each person brings a different, different life experience. And I'm not saying you don't expect great performance from your people. You absolutely do, and if they're not performing, that's a
whole other conversation. So don't take this to mean that I think everybody ought to be able to lobby other away through the day, But you do have to recognize that each individual that it is never going back to the way it was yep, And that each individuals in your company has a life you know nothing about and you don't have to understand it, and you don't have to get into it, okay, and you don't have to agree, you just have to recognize it.
Yeah, what about the rto component return? We live in a moment Return office is a thing now, but we live in a moment where remote and hybrid work have blurred that line between work and personal life. Does that context may vacation time more or less valuable?
Well, it depends if you so. I know some young, younger people who have work for companies that are very, very open and flexible with just get your work done, big national companies, get your work done and you're fine, We don't you know, take as much time as you need,
but get your work done. And they are so loyal to those organizations and they are so appreciative of the fact that nobody's bringing down their neck that I know for sure they work harder because of that, and they don't necessarily need as much one hundred percent away from work vacation time because they haven't had to have their nose to the grindstone twenty four to seven to get those two weeks up. So it's finding that right mix for you and organizations that have that type of a
framework and realize that they've hired adults. Until I've hired you as an adult, I expect to get your work done and most time until you show me you can't. And then those individual cases where they show you can't, You've got to take care of those because if you don't, you're going to lose the You're going to lose the engagement and the loyalty of the other people who are playing by the rules.
Another element of those studies that they may sure, do you know, does it? Does a research hold across different income levels on it? For example, if you make a five thousand dollars bonus versus an extra week off, that might feel different if you're making you know, thirty five grand a year, but if you're making don't one hundred and fifty two hundred k year, that five thousand dollars is like, yeah, you know, I'll do the vacation instead.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And also, I mean there are people who are doing three and four jobs and if you gave them, I mean, I've seen this. If you gave them a two hundred dollars bonus. That's potentially their electric bill. I mean that's a big deal. So yes, the proportion of what the proportion combined with what the person's individual situation is is, is what And that's why I think you've got to create a You have to get out
of the mentality that one size fits all. Get a benefit of your compon benefits person, Bring in a consultant of compon benefits consultant. Make sure your attorneys in the loop so you're applying things consistently, but start to recognize and offer benefits that allow people to to to be recognized as a person who's not like this the person sitting in the next view.
Yeah, Julie Balki.
If a company offers you more vacation but you're afraid to take it because of that mantra from the loss is you know, because a work or culture of fear is seeing being less committed, does it does it benefit evaporate entirely? I mean, so many Americans have vacation days on the table. I don't know why, but they do. And that's probably part of it.
Absolutely, So it's the culture set. So you might work for a company where the very top leadership is saying, absolutely, take all your time. You want you to take all your time. But you might work for a director. You might be direct reporting to somebody who rolls his eyes, rolls his or her eyes at that statement and says, yeah, kind of do as you know, do as I do, not as they're telling you to do, and really actively discourages it. And so yeah, I mean, and that can
we say. I've said over and over again, all the research indicates the number one people reason people leave organizations is poor leadership. And that's an example of poor leadership.
Yeah, that makes sense, But I don't think you're going to change that, you know, as long as they manage your boss or owners there, I don't think you're going to change that mindset. And you may see, you know,
some some changes there as well. And I think you know what the boss test experiment, you know, one text drops the human feelings score by more than a full point in the seven point scale, and so, you know, I guess that tells us a lot more about what most workplaces actually, how they operate as approached to how realistically they're disconnected from the time off model here that you know, there's plenty of people listening who work in environments like this, and you think at some point the
message you get through.
It never does though, No, no it doesn't. I mean I can't even tell you the number of conversations I have with people that they work for someone who nine out of ten people could quit and say, you know, the leadership care is horrible, or nine not ten people could quit, and that leader would say, people just don't want to work anymore. That that lack of saying, wait a minute, maybe I'm doing something wrong. It is like this denial that leaders have over why people leave organizations.
It's like they must twist themselves into some incredibly incredible prexels to believe that if you have really high turnover it's because people don't want to work anymore.
It's ridiculous.
Yeah, I guess all that fair is that it's not just the workplace, it's human nature.
Is.
For example, you know, if you're divorced, if you get a divorce, well it's it's probably them. Second divorce is like well, and by the third one it's like, well, clearly it's not them, it's you.
Right, I just keep picking bad people, do you know it's probably you.
Yeah, yeah, but that that lack of even awareness that even says we don't want to believe that should I be doing something different, it's going to be leading differently. It is crazy to me and I stories all the time leaders write in Cincinnati who don't like the most clueless because they don't want to admit they thought they have the mentality that I'm in charge, so I'm the smartest and so nobody can question me. Well, especially if you have a younger workforce, they are not going to
stick around and stuck it up. They're just not And so that that is part of why we're getting as younger generation doesn't want to work. Maybe they don't want to work for you, Maybe they don't want to work in the way you want that to work. Maybe you need to take a look inside and see how you're leading and see, you know, see if your behavior matches, you know, matches what you're putting out there. And there's just this human nature that's like it can't possibly be me.
Do you think that employers will trust this data? I mean, we have studies like this all the time, and I don't just fall on deafirs.
No, I know.
It's just it's just it's you know, after you've been around for us, Wow, there are so many. But you just look at the number of books that are written on how to be a good leader and the fact that the needle hasn't moved, you know, forever on why people leave organizations, But their number one complaint is about their culture. The person who has the most influence over
their lives. Nobody wants, nobody wants to believe it's that, and they can read book after book after book, but it requires that introspection and that well wait a minute, you know, am I really open to receiving feedback from people who have experienced me as a leader and really open and open myself up and not be defensive, no doubt, and think about what I can do differently because of training and training and books and everything out there.
It addresses the problem. And that's the biggest problem. There are bad bosses. You know, there's not many there's books on how to be a better boss or And it's kind of like, why aren't there there are plenty of weight loss books, Julia, Why aren't our books out there on how to gain weight?
Right?
Julie Bouki, Right, Julie Bouki career shir up here on the Scotsland Show Julie on the Job every Wednesday morning. It's again the website her and her team. She got a whole team, by the way, it's b a Uk Debaki Group, dot Com, career Coach consult, et cetera. Thanks again, we'll talk next week. Have a good one, all all right, appreciate it.
Han.
Let me get a news update in when a return boots on the ground here. Alex Schaeffer is his name, and he's a resident Adams County and you know it's the normal guy who now has become well to a lesser great activist. There's a local battle over data centers waging across not just Ohio, but Kentucky, Indiana, all over and where to put these things? We need them, we're using them, but we got it. We don't want them in our backyard. He has literally boots on the ground
and fighting. And what's going on in Adams County. There's no the meeting tonight and what does that look like? Because now you're going as Adams County. But you know this is an issue we're all gonna face sooner rather than later. Where to put the data centers. He's next on the show one hundred W regisins.
Now it's got flowed on seven one hundred w welw so this week, and you're probably gonna spend a lot more time in front of devices than you do during the week, right just because you're not working hopefully and you yourself.
On average, you have around twenty one devices which are online in various places throughout the day, all of them using data pretty much all the time. And with the AI boom comes the need for more data centers. Thus the debate. So here in the Tri State, the debate over regulations being fought tooth and nail. And if you don't think this affects you, it's probably coming to your area, no matter if you live in the city or in the outlining area especial rural areas Ohio. Right now we're
fifth nationally for data center development. We want to be number one. The state SENESUS is an economic machine force to get us on the technology well at the top of the technology map. I guess City of Cincinnati's you may or may not know, it's getting very proactive. They just put a temporary moratorium on data centers in the city while they do a zoning study Adams County. There was another meeting over well, well, we really don't know.
This is probably the most interesting battle over data centers is that adding the controversy over these plants comes a plan here in Adams County that's completely secret because Economic Development director signed a non disclosure dree agreement, and nobody really knows what it's going to be, where it's going to go, and what it's going to do.
Other than that, everything's great. Alex Schaefer's here.
Alex is a resident and he's proactive in the process of finding out if this is right for his community, and he's out in Adams County and the Monroe Township and joins the show this morning. Basically, the bottom line is you're not going to do a more toim like City Cincinnati has, but you're going to make sure there's some strict zoning regulations in place. So it's it's progressing, it's moving.
Forward, it's progressing, it's moving forward. There's a lot of community input. The role of the trustees now within the township is they are going to work with outside legal counsel to put.
In the framework for zoning.
You know, within these industrial areas within the township because everybody was on the same page where we have to get more information, We have to have more facts, and more importantly, we have to know even who these people are that are wanting to come in and what they're wanting to do.
Yeah, so what raised the red flags for you about these projects and what motive motivated you to get involved.
You know, these sites at Stewart and Killing Station, Killing is in and Roe Township have been empty for roughly eight years since the power plant shut down, and a lot of that has to do with the site cleanup. And those were the economic drivers of our county, and Adams County is such a prideful, beautiful countryside, but those were the economic drivers that really our community was built around. So it is these are general generational issues that we have in our county and we want to make sure
that we're doing the right things. So not only us, but our children and our grandchildren are proud to continue to live and remain in Adams County.
So this isn't completely going Hey, we don't want a data center, we don't want to of this stuff, stay the hell out of our town.
No, I would say everyone is of the mindset where as I would akin these NDAs to that mister Worley signed is you're essentially agreen to get married before you've even seen who you're going on a date with. So you know, we need to have more facts. We need to know exactly who these companies are. Are they are they you know, companies based in the US. Are they foreign based companies? And you know what exactly the plans are because there's so many different variables that come into play.
And I think that's a critical point because in this particular case, and we'll get into the NDA battle in just a second. And Paul Warley, I believe is the Economic Development director for Adams County. He signed an NDA with a company, But you guys have no idea on you know, the size and scope of the project, the
exact location. I mean, you could kind of figure that out maybe with EPA records, but if you don't know the company, you don't know even if it's a data center or the type of services they offer before this thing goes.
So the projects that are being proposed in Spring Township are a little bit further along, specifically at Stewart Seite, and there's also Buck Canyon site, which is across the road to inn Row, is very much earlier on in the process, which is very fortunate. And so that's precisely it. You know, we have to have more information on this because there I mean, it's just it's a black hole right now for the county, Okay.
So the Economic Development director signs this non disclosure agreement with a couple companies and says, we've got to do this and they'll be transparency if the project gets to a point. So, you know, how do you respond to residents like yourself being asked away for details until the deals are nearly finalized. At what point is it too late for meaningful public input?
I think that starts at the time that you actually signed the nbas. You know, Paul Whorley executed two nbas, one in January of twenty twenty four, the other one was in November of this year, and based on my tracing them, it's my opinion that they are linked to Amazon because the framework around the NBA's is the same as what's going on in Mount Warb right now in Brown County. And you know, to that point, and I had raised this issue and discussions with some of the
Commissioners on Monday. Is Paul Whorley serves at the pleasure of the Board of Commissioners in Adams County. So how is the Board of Commissioners able to oversee Paul discharging his job duties for the board and thus in the best interests of the county if they cannot even monitor what he is working on?
Who is who he is working with on these sites?
Sure, but from the company standpoint, be it Amazon or whatever it might be, we don't know at this point. He's kind of like the kind of what so on these deals, you get a guy like him, an economic development guy, signs a non disclosure agreement with whoever's building this thing, which is kind of standard practice because you know, they want to keep the secret for as long as pus from the competition because there's a lot of proprietary
technical information of all. But the people who don't sign it would be the the elected lawmakers, right, that would be the county commissioners of Adams County. And so at some point there's going to have to be a disclosure so that you can you can vote on this. So based on that, is this anything?
Is this?
Is this different than how it's done elsewhere, not that it makes it right, but you know what I'm saying is like, if this is standard practice, I get why Amazon or whoever is trying to protect their interests here because you know, you don't want all this information out there until you get a deal kind of put together.
The debate on whether NDA's is standard practice or not really dependent on who you ask. I can tell you in certain areas and Columbus, which Columbus has over one hundred data centers right now, is not the most standard practice. And to your point about competition, that is actually what NDAs specifically inhibit. My degree is in economics from Ohio State University, and when you put an NDA in place, that prohibits you from even looking at other alternatives as
to those sites and those developments, thus reducing competition. What happens when you reduce competition, you harm the consumer. Who's the consumer here the residents of Adams County.
Yeah, and I get the argument, and you, you guys, you definitely should have a hand in the process here. We don't want government just going out and no, we know what's best, and that's it doesn't work that way. County officials there will switch to the jobs saying they said, well, seven hundred seven hundred jobs lost with the power plant
closures there in Adams County. Another five and a half million from school funding gets pulled out because as they said, look, I've going hey, listen, this is going to help support the tax space here. But as I understand it, data centers are obviously exempt from property taxes because it's commercial. What about the job creation element?
So job creation, the studies have shown that you have to have roughly twenty million dollars of capital input costs to create one full time job. So if you have a billion dollar data center development, you are on going to create roughly fifty jobs, Whereas if you look at other industrial usages for that site that actually provide you know, not only additional jobs and infrastructure and increase land value
for the community. You are actually specifically targeting a broader workforce, the technical skill set of the workforce that we have in Adams County. And it's also then benefiting the community for people to work there and also the school districts in terms of the generation of those taxes from the payroll.
Yeah, well, what about the element of what about the this is you know, the trail. I love the trades, but there'll be like over a thousand, around a thousand construction jobs for up to five years, and some of those would have to be in place for maintenance because a minute you finished this huge project going to take you know, three years, you're going to start having to refit some areas that were done three years ago because
it's technology to change as rapidly. So some of the estimates say, you know, maybe one hundred million plus in local wages, one thousand, two thousand workers, eighty percent of those will be and radius of where you live.
Those jobs are nothing to some of your nose.
App there are nothing good. Some of your knows that.
But I think you have to look at the actual data in terms of the payroll. And I've talked about this with David Gifford, the county auditor, who's a good
friend of mine. And you know, when people try and say these auxiliary jobs that are created in the permanency of them, the numbers simply do not support that in the payroll records, and the auditor has that, and I think you also overall with these data centers in the job creation, you have to look at what's happening in the Greater Columbus area with Intel, where essentially Mike Dwine sold the farm to Intel and we had and the plants were supposed to open last year, and they were
all these financial incentives and benchmarks that were supposed to be met by them.
They have not.
Mike had the option to enforce those agreements last year and he basically.
Said, no, it's okay.
You know, you can do whatever you want here in Ohio. So what would make the situation any different in Appalasha areas.
And the Yeah.
But the same time you look at it and go, are there industries that are are knocking at the door and trying to get their way into Adams County right now? You know you mentioned Columbus, Cincinnati, the big cities. A lot of companies want to do business in those areas. It makes a lot of sense for reasons we don't. The obvious reasons would be infrastructures already in place. But
you know, Adams County I lost jobs, power plants. Is it kind of like you're turning your nose up with a good thing or you're trying to basically avoid a slam dunk. Care I mean, I think people see this and go, well, it's Adams County. It's not like and it's not being I'm not being derogatory. It's just like there are in companies that are looking to knock the door down to Adams County at this point.
Are there.
No, I would disagree with that. The sites have been looked at for a multiple for a multitude of different sectors over the years. And again, I think it's important for people to remember that once the power plants closed, it's not like you can just open up, you know, a new enterprise there the next day. There's so much environmental cleanup the head to be done with King Fisher Partners.
To come in.
There's a brownfield, yeah exactly precisely, yes.
Yeah, yeah, and but okay, so there's some infrastructure there, but people are well, well, I'd rather build something, you know. At the same time, you know, these data centers take a lot of power. So you know, put two and two together, it's pretty obvious that you want to be near water, which you have, and you want to be near you know, megawats of electricity.
They're easily accessible.
Correct, and we do have the power grid there in place, and you know, this is something that a big Ramaswami has discussed about the strain on the power grid right now, and there's currently a House bill in place, House Built six forty six sitting in the House Rules Committee in terms of actually setting a thirteam member commissioned to study these data centers because of the boom of them in Ohio,
because of the strain on our electrical grid. So I kind of akin it to people as this is, how are we going to continue as a society to supply the power and energy to these data centers because they are not they are they are an energy input, They're not an energy export if we do not have facilities in place to actually generate that power for them.
Yeah, I've talked about this a lot of my show Well in the Future, and I you know, you're in the tech sector as well, So it's not like you know your lott of your scream at the old man, scream at the clouds and saying damn computers.
Go away, right, I mean you lean we all leaned into it.
We're all and it's it's such a paradox, right, Alex, because we're all guilty of this. We all have devices. I mean, we're talking you know, digitally. Right now I'm recording you digitally, it's going into a cloud. And so we're guilty of this ourselves right now. We have no choice but to figure out a way we can all live.
With us absolutely. And you know, my company uses you know.
Cloud servers, and you know, we have to have them as society, and we have to have them also in terms of national intelligence and also being independent from you know, foreign control. And I think we all saw what happened with COVID when manufacturing shut down and the rest of the world look that, you know, Oh my god, look how the pendent we are on China. So you know,
that is definitely, you know, a great point. And that's the thing I think everyone's standpoint is we are not saying no to data centers overall, but in terms of specifically the locations and the phases in which you possibly would put those in and where you would put those in at is what the biggest concern is with not having any information from these companies?
The number one, the biggest outside of transparency the politics of it, which generally they tend to settle down at some point. What's the biggest concern for residents? Would you say there Alex Schaeffer and Adams County over this.
I would say specifically where they're proposing it is, you know, the landscape in you know, the southern part of Adams County, the hills and the river and everything is what makes Adams County beautiful.
And also, you know.
You know, the side effects that you have from the data center's long term is something that again we don't know about. So if the state is at the process sets to where they're looking at creating a thirteen member committee to study those effects, then us as Adams County should sit here and look at it and say, Okay, if this is a broader issue at the state and obviously the national level, you know, we don't have the ability as a small community to fight this later on
down the road. So we don't want to make the wrong decision now that we look back ten years and we're like, what did we do right?
It's hard because you know, you're at the tip of the spirit at this point. There are not many other peers you could look at that have been doing this for you twenty years and see what the long term effects are. You've got to make a decision. It's going to impact the next hundred exactly.
And you know that's that's honestly the problem in society with a lot of things, whether that's technology or medicine, and you know, we have to continue to evolve and adapt.
Yeah, there are unforeseen consequences that no one can predict. And usually that's the case, we didn't we didn't think of that, or we didn't see that coming. Because while the world is always changing, for sure, So what are the next steps here?
So from area township right now they're in the process of obtaining outside legal counsels, start trapped in the framework for what they want to put in for zoning. Specifically, their Sprig Township has a meeting I believe it is February twenty third, and there there is going to be some more information hopefully that will come out about at that standpoint. And so overall for the county, the commissioners have promised to have more public input and a more
dedicated special meeting to this. But again I think it's very important to point out, you know, in terms of these developments, the Board of Commissioners has the option to direct mister Warley to recuse himself from these NDAs, and that prevents these companies moving forward with the speed that they would like and garner that public input and have these representatives come in and talk to the community, talk to us about what their plans are and how they
want to integrate themselves into our county in a way that we're proud of, just like General Electric has done with their jet engine testing facility in.
People makes sense, You think Cincinnata has it right putting the moratry monusor.
Did I do?
And several other townships and Columbus have done that. Jerone Township, Washington Township, and the city of Dublin have done that, and they have data centers kind of around the perimeter of the City of Dublin. And because you know right now it's an arms race for data centers, it truly is, and that stems from, I believe, you know, a technological.
Arms race with China. So again, in order for.
Us to properly look at this for our future and look at the side effects of it, and look at where we want to see these things in the landscape of our communities, we have to put the pause button in place, get more information, get more facts, and truly be able to make and more educated and informed decision.
Alex Schaeffer is a residence in Adams County and it's certainly one of the more interesting cases because of NDAs and land and not knowing what really is going to go and who even owns a data center for that point. But it's a great example to look at for the rest of us because Alex is a resident, is getting involved. He's being proactive in the process of finding out if it's right for his community and where he lives and breathes,
he eats and works. And that's a battle. It's you hear and that's going well, that's Adams County, but guess what it's happening in Cincy. It's going to happen in not only the city, but it's going to happen in maybe suburban areas, but particularly rural areas, Butler County, Mount Orb, the list goes on and on and on. So it's a battle we're all going to have to face, or an issue we're gonna have to face, I guess, and figure out how to to what the best practice is.
It's not going away. We're gonna have to put them somewhere. How do we coexist, I guess is a question it's a great case, Alex. We'll talk again in the future, I'm sure.
Man.
Thanks for coming on and shedding some light on this issue.
Absolutely, and Scott, you know on behalf of the people of Adams County. Thank you for having me on to allow us to raise our voice on your platform into the greater Tri State area. We are truly and greatly appreciative of all.
I appreciate you, brother, and again we'll talk soon. Thanks again, Thanks Scott. All right, there we go, Alex Schaeffer on the show. Yeah you hear that, you go. It doesn't really, it doesn't concern it, does it concerned? We're the ones doing it right. We use all this stuff as far as information goes in data. We're using it right now. You're using it right and we're all using it. We have no choice. This is it's what it is. It's
the future too. So can we lean and make money and make Ohio a more vibrant and improve our economy because of Intel, because of aws et cetera, et cetera. Well, we also have to live where these plants are too. So watching these guys, I think it's a great test case for all of us. If you will anyway, we'll continue to follow that. Scott's Loan show continues seven hundred wl slonely seven hundred w Aldo.
It'll be sharing the day off.
She is resting after her work is MC along with Tom was off today. Marty grap for Homeless Kids twenty twenty six raised a quarter million dollars to feed kids in Cincinnati, So thank you, as King of Marti grat thank you for that. Speaking of kids, the weather is starting to get warmer and more kids will be participating in sports, and we know when it comes to concussions that kids are particularly susceptible to this. Football comes to
my first and foremost. But now with the advent of flag football and girls participating at record levels, we're starting to see more and more kids present in emergency departments with concussions. And seven out of ten ed visits for sports and recreation related injuries are concussions for kids seventeen and under. It's incredible. Joining the show this morning once again is Bruce Parkman. He's an expert in preventing TBIs. Bruce, welcome back, how are you?
Thank you very much, sir, appreciate you having me on the show.
Doing fine today, Yeah, it's an important issue when you are exposed to early concussive trauma and we're talking about maybe multiple one, two or three or more, and maybe you don't know that your kid is suffering from a concussion. There's a hidden risk there. What are we seeing in relation to that? And then later on mental illness? Are we talking about CTE in.
Particular talking about was called RhI repeated head impacts and those are the little blows, the subconcussom blows that kids take when their head hits the wrestling mat, or they get tackled in football, or they head the soccer ball. And these little impacts are now known over time to be the cause of CTE, which is of course you
don't know about that to you die. But there are also the cause of damage to the brain that over time, through the inflammation and continued prolonged exposure to the subcust of is hits, leads to mental illness from the damage to the brain.
Yeah, in some cases we know it may be one or two decent I mean really really good ones graded higher graded concussions that may causes but you're talking about now just the jarring of the brain, not necessarily concussion.
Right, absolutely, sir. Every one of those hits changes the brain at the microcellular level. And the issue is because they don't provide any concussive symptoms like the child is not busy or the planning of a headache, we assume
that it's safe. But what we now know from science and research and how I lost my son from mental illness, and that was validated by research and a study that we funded at Boston University with the NFL players as well, is that there is extreme structural damage that occurs over years, and that damage has been associated and known to be correlated with mental illness for over four decades.
What type of mental illnesses are we talking about? How does it present later?
So most of the mental illnesses that we could actually runs the gamut from psychological, cognitive, and behavior disorders. So we're talking about aggression, rage, and pulsivity. But it could be light noise sensitivity, it could be apathy, it could be just a lack of care. And the problem is that we have is that as a society, we assume that our kids are growing up or you know, they're just not you know, they're not taking part in the activity that used to love so well. But we are
now finding out that all these mental illnesses. We have kids that are incarcerated right now only because they started playing sports so young that their brain is damage and rage, aggression, and pulsivity. I'll emanate from the prefrontal cortex damage, which is right behind the forehead and assumes the majority of the trauma that these kids are are are are being exposed to in contact sports.
You know, I'm sure there's some folks listening and maybe being dismissive about this, going, oh, come on, okay, so you get you know, bump your head a little bit. You know, you made your body, We've developed as human beings, We've evolved, or maybe God made imperfect people, depending on how you look. And then you're telling me just the notion of living your life and drying your brain is going to cause someone to be a serial killer by
the time they're sixteen or seventeen. You know, I get the extremism, and that maybe that argument that you would pushback, you would get from that, but we know scientifically that concussive repetition is causing problems, you know, the more severe ites. Certainly early on when it said when's a full blown concussion. Yeah, you can see it, but later on in life. I think there is something there that the constant jarring and the NonStop assault on your brain causes some of these
things later in life. I mean, it seems to me to be a pretty clear connection. And I'm just a lay person.
Oh no, sure, you're absolutely correct. And unfortunately, we were contacted by a family yesterday who just lost their son. He jumped off a bridge and his only contact sport was he liked to head the soccer ball, and he started heading the soccer ball kind of obsessively around the age of six or seven, and they watched their son degrade.
And because they had no knowledge that it was the heading that was causing the mental illness, this kid had been to multiple psychiatric counselors, been all through treatment, been on every kind of drug because everybody thought he had a brain problem. It was never associated with contact sports. The issue of subconcussive trauma is not taught in any medical nursing or psychiatric institution of learning in the America. So if parents have no recourse they had, they cannot
make informed decisions. When my son came to me and said, hey, Dad, I want to play football and he's already a heavy wrestler. I said, okay, who dies in this thing, let's man up right, and so but I ended up allowing my son to be exposed to more trauma, which you know, after you know, being his brain was validated and studied shown to be the cause of the trauma through his brain, that was then you know, causing his schizophrenia and depression
and causing him to take his life. This happens around the country and we are absolutely uninformed about this as a society. And just by mitigating stuff. If we took contact drills out of high school football, we could eliminate sixty to eighty percent of the subcust of trauma. If we stopped exposing kids heads till fourteen, when the prefuntal portex starts to develop, we could make a massive debt and the amount of mental illnesses that are resulting from this.
Even in the military right now, we trained so realistically we are having special operation.
This guy him a former Green.
Berasard major demonstrating mental health just because they train around too many explosions like they're going the war. So it's like you're you're comment about, we're always always in sports. Kids are playing sports. You can play football year round. Now we are harming our children just through obsession with these sports and their passion for these sports of the sports as well.
And I think there's something there, by the way, thanks for your service. I know a sergeant major that I've heard that before too, is that we have soldiers and sailors that are around concussion, concussive devices, right, explosive devices, artillery and the like, and it's NonStop.
It's a barrage.
And what happens is that jars your brain much like getting hit because you feel it, you know, it literally makes you move, takes your breath away. That repetition is never accounted for when we're talking about things like this.
And so we have a we have people who served in a military that that are turning on and we think it's because of their service and the connection to higher suicide rates and the mental illness that soldiers and sailors have, and it may be in ef fact, maybe part of this says to do with their training.
I am at a conference right now today to look at blast exposure and its effect on military services brains. And we are now pushing hard and there is recognition in the military that a lot of the mental illnesses and suicidality that has that has occurred over the past could be associated yet was never attributed to their mental to their military service. Again, a huge oversight in the way we have looked at things that we assume to be innocent because they don't affect us like you could be.
I've been around thousands of explosions, right and you can or you know, I've been tackled on rugby fields. I played semi professional rugby. You get up, you make the next hit, you assume you're okay. We as society have to understand the risk and dangers of these continuous forms of exposure. What is doing to our brains, both that for kids and veterans and professional athletes.
I guess the other part of the problem here too.
By the way, on the show's Bruce Parkman and Bruce's former Green Beret, a Sergeant major, lost his son to what they believe is exposure to concussive and subconcussive trauma and from youth sports, from wrestling and from football, and ultimately took his own life at seventeen after battling mental illness and what we've seen in athletes, particularly professional athletes, is with each in every transgression, each and every head injury,
it gets easier to become concussed. And now you develop a pattern what effects not only your senses, but it affects who you are, your personality, which makes you much
much more dangerous. And so we're starting to learn the effects much more of not just one or two a couple head traumas, but over the years repetitive head injuries, and especially the ones in a sport like soccer, which we love here in Cincinnati with a you know, we've got a major league soccer team, we've got a pipeline for kids to play, and no one's suggesting we should stop that, but you know, the repetitive micro traumas that kids have.
We're starting to see some data.
On this now, yes, sir, I mean when ct was found by doctor Omalu in two thousand and nine, it was found in fifty and sixty year old men. Well, now we're finding it in twenty and thirty year olds. As a matter of fact, quick story, I funded a study at Boston University because I challenged them on the evaluation of my son's brain for CTE. He did not have CTE, and I asked him, did you find structural damage?
And then they asked me why, and they said, well, I wrote a book for parents, I read over one hundred couple hundred research papers, and you know, long story short, I am convinced that the structural damage is what's contributing to these mental illnesses. They went back and looked at every brain under thirty at the Unit Bank, NFL players, college players, and to children, the seventeen year olds that
are up there like my son. What they found out was that one hundred percent of the brains had structural damage, one hundred percent of those brains had psychological disorders, and eighty percent of the diabuce suicide and overdose, even though only forty percent had CTE. So you're right, it is the continuous exposure that is the big problem here. Now, if our kids played, say you wait until fourteen, we recommend eighteen. You're an adult, you want to hurt yourself, smoke,
do whatever you can make your decision. We'll never get contact sports out of high school.
We know this.
Or our compromise is if you wait till fourteen before you start, you play green safe sports, flag football, baseball, basketball, right, you can't avoid the occasional concussion. But then you start at fourteen and you just pick one sport and then you rest for the rest of the year. Play tiddley winks, play not play green sake sports. Study, you know, play your video games, go study, get ready for college. Right, you know, then you're ahead of the game, and you're
probably going to be absolutely fine. Now, we do have kids that are with my son that started contact sports at fourteen, so there is a risk there, But they might have played excessively, they might have played way too much. But we know that if we wait till fourteen and we can just start taking the concussiveness out of our child's life, we give them a better chance. Personally, nowadays, I would say baseball, track and field, basketball, volleyball, all
day long. Stay away from these things only because it's our children. Nobody wants to be in my shoes. But then when you're an adult, the same thing. You know, it's it's we these football players. I have NFL friends right now and they are all a mess man and they all do not let their kids play these sports. And if those folks are saying my kids ain't playing sports, and I absolutely support what your foundation's saying. They've lived it,
they've walked the life, They've made money. They can't enjoy their life. They can't enjoy their money. They're having a horrible time with us in They tell me flat out that there is there is a huge problem with this in the NFL, with the with the retired players, and it's a shame.
Man.
They gave me my Sundays. I love my Sundays and my doritos. But it's not that you know, there's NHL players, rugby players, soccer players. Right now, a soccer player, a soccer ball hits ahead at one hundred and thirty miles an hour up to that's a massive joke, and we see them heading the balls all the time. I'm saying, it's just just some topics there, man.
No, I youree hundred percent right.
But I think in Bruce, I don't want to say this because of what you've been through with your son taking his own life and serving our country and seeing all the stuff firsthand. When it comes to repetitive concussive trauma, subconcussive subconcussive trauma is starting contact sports at fourteen, I
don't know if there's ever going to happen. I don't think Grimmy'll put the toothpaste back in the two because of well, it starts with competitive dads and moms and they want their kid to be successful and get the scholarship, be a star, and the kid loves the sport and loves to play. My nephew grew up playing hockey. You couldn't get a stick out of his hand. He's at Miami University now. But I just don't see because there's so much money involved in you sports and contact you sports.
I don't see that ever changing.
I don't think it. I think it will change as the as the effects become more known and parents are more and well, right now you have parents that are non informed, saying yeah, put a hockey stick, put a helmet in the kid's head, lit him play hockey, and start checking at eleven I think is eleven to twelve is the age they start checking. Well, remember that prefrontal cortext that the CEO of the brain doesn't start developing
till fourteen. That's why scientifically we asked that parents wait till then, because without a functioning prefuntal cortex, you have a dysfunctional adult guarantee. So you know, if you want to take that risk and you think that Jimmy's going to be playing in the NHL and being on a weedy box, all right, go for it, Okay, but you're harming your children. And that's why we're pushing for formed consent. So if you know you're doing it, that's on you.
But you as a parent, if you had the option of playing hockey or playing soccer without hitting the ball, or baseball or a sport that you knew in your heart of hearts was not going to jeopardize the future of your child, that what sport would you pick that? And that's what we're saying now, we're pushing for in formed consents. You know, that's all. You know.
It's not a fan, but you're right.
And I think personally, I think the thing is this, it's kind of like social media so to up in the last twenty or fifteen years, and we didn't know anything of it. Now we're starting to see because we're starting to see results of this and why it's bad. And now we're starting to take phones away from kids in classrooms, which I think is great. We you know,
anything new is going to have upside and downside. And it's only been what since two thousand and nine we've learned about CTE and really started taking seriously and starting to understand the brain. And I think in a generation of what you're talking about is going to come to fruition because my parents are going to go, hey, if the data is in, it's inconclusive, it's unconclusive. I mean it's conclusive rather than unconclusive, and I'm not gonna let
my son or daughter to play this. And I think it's start to see youth sports change because of the work you're doing, Bruce Parkman, Youth contact sports, understanding the hidden risks of mental illness from early exposure to concussive trauma. If your kid plays sports, you got to check this out. And again, thanks again for the time, Bruce, all the.
Best, Hey, thank you so much. You remember sure that we did. The book I wrote is free for any parent that wants to Just contact the Mac Parkman Foundation and will send them a digital copy and they can make the decision.
For their child that they exactly one and I'll get The website is MP fact dot com.
MP fact dot com. Bruce, thanks again, man all right, Thanks a lot, Blash.
You take care. I'll come back anytime.
Talk care.
Keep it at sports related, Thanks Bruce, Sarah day off today with Marti Groo. Happened last night, so we're chasing recovery mode as it is. Tom Runneman so I think John John for that matter, I am here. I'm toughing it out Willie on the way AFTERNOWS on the home of those red seven hundred www.
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