Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 02-03-25_MONDAY_8AM

Episode Date: February 4, 2025

Dr. Powers Where Past Meets Present profile of the late Eugene Debs Potts, Open for Business with Cheriess from No Wires and some phone action, too.

The Bill Myers Show podcast is sponsored by Clouser Drilling. They've been leading the way in Southern Oregon well drilling for over 50 years. Find out more about them at clouserdrilling.com. Quarter after eight, Dr. Dennis Powers, retired professor of business law at Southern Oregon University. And by the way, speaking of Ashland, I don't know if you realize this, but DMV closed again in Ashland for some reason today here, Dr. Powers. They say it's due to staffing. What's going on there? I don't know if you know.

I think it was closed on Friday, too, if I recall correctly. Yeah, we have one of the least transparent councils ever. Yeah, okay. Well, I don't know. I wanted to ask you, though, what is your thought about a city council that sits and listens to the bleedings of Ashland High School students on natural gas policy? Who's in charge there? Do you know? Well, unfortunately, what it is is that the city councilors are with their special interests, which are environmentalists. So they actually agree with them, but they would prefer then to agree with, well, we're going with the kids, with the future of our city.

It's all a setup. It's all a stage presentation. Kind of like the federal government's sue and settle, where you would have, they would tell the environmentalists, well, you better, well, just sue us, and then we'll settle, and they really wanted to do what the environmentalists wanted to do anyway. That kind of scam? Well, what happens is when, my friend, when the city council has their quote unquote coffee, that typically you have supporters, you know, far left people who attend. One leans over to, and I could name some, but I'm not going to right now, and say, you know, we'd really like to push for climate change. Net gas is one, of course, as you know, we're against. We have friends of ours, and they're going to talk to their students at Ashland High. Could you go ahead and arrange to have them as kids for climate change come in?

Well, I know that I always go to 16- and 17-year-olds who have no life experience when I want to determine where my city goes. I understand. Oh, you're just being rational and on point. But the way that these things happen here, especially on NatGas, is they never tell the city council it's really too bad that they are staying in office. They should be thrown out. Here's why. for new construction, everything from net gas heaters to washing machines to you name it, it comes to an additional approximately $8,000 to $10,000 of additional fees to the city of Ashland. Yeah, and I know that just for putting in a natural gas furnace, it's more than like $4,200, if I recall, quickly. Oh, that's right. Something like that. And then, Bill, when we add on the other appliances, quote-unquote, then you get up to a fee measure

of where they say, hey, this is a win-win. And we'll never tell the people exactly why we're doing it, because we want to get up to Salem. Yeah. Meanwhile, China continues to build coal-fired plants, though. So I guess that makes no difference. You know something? All of your arguments are so right on and so on point. But most people who feel as you do have given up going to the city council to talk about it

because it's been so prearranged. What we're seeing here in Ashland and in oregon is exactly what would have happened if biden and the chameleon had won all right fair enough hey doc why don't we talk about today's uh today's profile and that has to do with deb potts tell us about deb potts because my only knowledge other than the fact we've talked to them about him before is every time i would go to deb potts well pottsville pottsville and joseine County, that amazing museum of the old equipment. And I just love going there when I visit on Father's Day weekend. But there's a lot more to Deb than that. I was wondering if you could kind of break that down for us.

Yeah, Bill, it's very timely, my friend, because of the fact that Deb Potts was a conservative Democrat. He owned sawmills and operated them. He was named after the socialist labor organization and organizer Eugene Debs. Okay, so he wasn't a socialist per se or a hard lefty, but he was named after one. That's interesting. Well, he was raised as a socialist. However, to earn a living, his father and parents got into sawmills, and so he then went ahead and started joining with his parents in terms of logging and sawmills. But the other thing, my friend, is the fact that

he had a long interest in local politics and unsuccessfully ran for the Klamath Falls City Council, where they had some sawmills in the area. But then after World War II, he ran for mayor in Grants Pass, because he had graduated from Grants Pass High School, and he won. And then he was elected to the Oregon State Senate for Josephine County from 1960 to 1984. Some 25 years, he was, as I mentioned, a conservative Democrat. And then he was, as a matter of fact, as he became the president of the Oregon Senate, he was the acting governor because Oregon does not have, and still doesn't have, a lieutenant governor. And he actually served in that role for over half a year, for over, you know, actually 194 days.

He finally was defeated by a Republican in 1984, where he was put in charge of the State Lottery Commission, and he did an exceptionally good job there, Bill. Then he was a lifelong collector of historical artifacts, and then went ahead and created Pottsville, which was the 30 acres that he owned along Pleasant Valley Road. Oh, so that was his property then, is where he built Pottsville. Yes, you're absolutely right. It's actually where he had a sawmill. And so he created this historical replica town with, you know, there is a church, a country store, a library, a blacksmith shop, even a hotel open to the public. But the key thing for why I looked at Deb Potts, in addition to the fact I had a couple of listeners that said, you know,

what about Deb Potts, was the fact that he was a conservative Democrat and way before the woke, sad socialists that we have, because I don't know if we can find in the state of Oregon a conservative Democrat as they are just about all. You know, I think that the last conservative, I wouldn't even call him conservative Democrat, but even reasonable Democrat was the former Speaker of the House. His name escapes me at the moment. Or maybe it was the Senate President, Peter Courtney. Maybe. You know, even then, he wasn't a conservative, but he wasn't a hard left ideologue either.

Yeah, he was. You know, you're absolutely right in terms of what I've looked into and Peter Courtney. But the thing other that stands up to me, especially for all of us, is think back to the hell that all of us went through when we were called garbage by the Democrats, the far left. And is there a reasonable Democrat left? But at that point, Bill, we had federally the Supreme Court. We also had the House of Representatives. Here in this state, and if we went through and spent one time on all the edicts that come down from this super majority of sad socialists with all the problems that are coming in, we don't have one of them. Do not have the problems that are coming in. We don't have one of them.

Do not have the Supreme Court of Oregon. Do not have any of the houses. And, of course, with Tina Kotek, who is the only public elected lesbian governor of all 50 states. Well, that's a qualification in Oregon. You understand that, though? Well, the only reason why I bring that up is that it really means, to a certain extent, when you go through her history, that she is a sad socialist and wants to get up to Washington. But the problem is, Tina's not going to make it because of the fact that Trump is there. And so now they're coming up with all these different things in terms of listeners of yours, my friend, who have rentals.

The changes there are absolutely outrageous. And why don't we talk about that some more here? We'll take it from the past with Deb Potts to, well, the president with Tina. Okay, there was some issues here. Did I forward you Randall's email from me? Yes, and that's a really a good one, because Bill, that's one we should really go into, because that's another one to where Tina and her boys and girls are really showing how much they really don't care about the rest of it. Because it is an attack on Southern Oregon, and it really, and we'll talk about how

that works. We're talking about the PLAs, and Randall from Advanced Air was mentioning this. We'll do that more with where past meets present. We're going to take it to the present here right now with Dr. Powers coming up. This is the Bill Myers Show. The iconic song, Changes, by David Bowie was not a hit in 1970. ...completed electric plus dot com. You're hearing the Bill Myers Show on 106.3 KMED. At the end of the year, Governor Tina Kotek dropped a,

well, for lack of a better term, let's just say, a piece of fecal excrement into the state labor punch bowl. And it's called a PLA. And the more we read about this, the more this could be a real problem, especially for firms here in Southern Oregon. And Dr. Powers, I was wondering if you could break us down what the PLA is with this executive order that she ended up burping out at the end of the year. Oh, and this has been going on since 2023. for having labor union contracts for – the case right now before the Oregon Supreme Court bill is having to do with ODOT. And so what happened, if we go back to it, that what happened was that highway projects are generally non-union, 80%. So back in using what was apparent statutory authority,

the ONOT then went into negotiations just with the trade unions and said that we're going to go ahead and bring in these labor agreements, which means basically you have to go ahead, if you are running and owning a contract company on an Oregon state contract, you have to go ahead and become a union shop. You have to be unionized, which of course throws the wages really absurdly high. And in Southern Oregon, most of the firms are not unionized, which of course throws the wages really absurdly high. And in Southern Oregon, most of the firms are not unionized. It's not a huge union presence. So is this a giveaway?

Is Governor Kotak's PLA, this labor agreement here, just a giveaway to Democratic union donors, I guess? That's all it is. It's a stop to the unions. But the problem is there's two fronts going on. One is that back in 2023, with ODOT saying that there were eight different public works coming up for highways that anyone that was going to bid had to go ahead, Bill, and be a union shop, had to be a union, have a union agreement for the dues, for minority workers, for all these different things that most try to avoid, especially in this state. It went to a lawsuit brought by the

Associated General Corporation, actually the general... Was it contractor? Is that what that is? Yeah, I just had a slight problem here with the line. Yeah, General Contractors Association. And it first came through, and this is 2023, on this one, which had to do with ODOT and had to do just with highway construction, they had a hearing and were waiting for that decision. What Tina does, it comes out in January with an executive order rather than relying on statutory authority for all public contracts. All public contracts now have to be union. So if you're not union, you can't even bid on the job. Let's say that the state of Oregon wants to replace the HVAC in some state facilities down here in Southern Oregon. Randall, as an example, over at Advanced Air and a lot of the other non-union shops would not be allowed to bid on it.

Isn't that, in essence, what it means? That is an excellent point, and that's exactly what happens. You can't bid unless you are a union shop, and that completely throws off your entire business. Now, is this something that is worthy of suing over, you think? Okay. There's another change in this, which is the fact that in the governor's edict, executive order, that labor that costs more than 15, 1.5% of total costs must include these project labor agreements or the PLA. that the Oregon Supreme Court comes out on what was already brought out by the Associated General Contractors, already brought out in 2023, she probably might have and could have some inside

information. So she has doubled up with all contracts, whether it's highway or, you know, actually right now the airport is one that's a union shop to where it's going to be all of Oregon. Yeah, except that we don't have many union shops here in southern Oregon. So this is great, I guess, if you're a Portland construction company, you come and bid down all the contracts down here, right? Yeah, and that's what's terrible because all the experience has shown that there are increased costs of 20%. And don't they already have to pay a prevailing wage anyway?

The problem with the prevailing wage is that if you are a union shop, it's one thing. And if you're not a union shop, it's another thing. But remember, this is all about scratch your back, Bill. Oh, okay. It's all about those people that gave money so that Tina and her crew could stay in Salem are now being amply rewarded. But still, what a corrupt governor for doing something like this, putting a thumb on it like this. It would strike me that with no statutory authority to do something like this, that this is just ripe for some sort of a court challenge, wouldn't you think?

Well, it is. But again, remember this, that on a less of a problem being just highways and ODOT that were waiting for the Supreme Court of Oregon to come out with their decision. Oh, so we don't know the decision from the Supreme Court yet. Oh, so she front-loaded this before. Okay. All right. Because that was the hearing in December. It was December 7th of 2024. And then in January, Tina comes out with this, okay, guys, we're going to really help you this time. It's an executive order for everything, and we're going to put in something new, which is anything that's 15% or more, labor would have to have a PLA.

And so you'd have to be union or else you couldn't even – boy, that even sounds like a corrupt – wouldn't there be a restraint of trade kind of angle to take on this? Because that's what the AGCs brought in 2023 was unfair trade competition. But all is not lost. This is what's so important. Federally, which has been lost with everything else that's happening in with the squawks and squeaks of the drive-by media, Trump has already gone ahead and fired the head of the NLRB, the National Labor Relations Board, and also fired the real biased General Counsel. Right now it's two to two,

so there's no quorum. But Bush, way back when, had made an executive order, and the order said that we do not recognize these PLAs because they're a strain of trade and they increase costs. Bush did that. Trump continued it. Now, I don't know the extent to which it was continued, but I do know that it went out with Biden. And so hopefully, since Trump has already gone ahead and pinpointed the NLRB and pinpointed the executive orders that he can do, there could be some hope there. So there could be, in other words, don't, stay tuned, in other words, because the last word has not come out on this.

But boy, what a corrupt governor. I was always suspicious of this, but boy, you hear about this and it's just such a giveaway. And it also makes our construction costs higher for a state. And the state's already complaining that they don't have enough money here, Doc. Hey, Doc, let me grab a quick call here, maybe a question involving this here. Hi, you're on, caller, with Dr. Powers. Who's this? Bill, it's Brad.

Good morning to you. Yeah, Brad, go ahead. You're with Dr. Powers. Yeah, Dr. Powers, good morning. What a great topic and what a great reminder that Democrats, Oregon Democrats, didn't used to be such left-wing progressives. So, good point. Well, we had lots of Democrats back in the day, but they weren't these hardcore left-wing progressives. And you mentioned Deb Potts. Deb Potts was born down in Shasta County, not too far away from where Captain Bill Simpson hangs out, spent most of his life in Oregon.

And he was really a good example of your average Oregon Democrat guy back then. He was physically very conservative, did a great job running things. Yeah, I would dare say you could almost call them what we used to call in Pittsburgh lunch pail Democrats, right? You know, the lunch pail Democrats, the ones that were going to work in the steel mills, places like that, right? Yeah, we really need to get away from this idea that Democrats are bad just because they have a D at their name. There's an awful lot of good people, good managers, but their party has been hijacked by these hardcore progressives. So on your current topic, it's really important, I think, to remember that when it comes to these things, for instance, like Tina Kotek just did, you got to ask yourself, why in the world would she do something that is so harmful to the business

community in Oregon? And the answer is really simple. If you look at the people that funded her campaign back in 2022, the majority of that came from left-wing labor unions. Unions are the piggy banks of the progressive left. That's where their money comes from. And when they give these politicians money, there is implicit understanding that when they want something done, those politicians are going to do it for them. All right. That's a good point on that, Brad. And thanks for the call. All right. You know, Brad and Bill, that's excellent. That's why we chose Deb Potts, because of that changeover. And you're absolutely right that a conservative Democrat then is not what we're seeing now, because is there one that exists? All right. Hey, Brad, appreciate the call. Doc, before we take off here, a quick one

on tariffs. How do you think this is going to play out? Now, as a professor of business law, I would imagine you're, generally speaking, not in favor of tariffs, or maybe you are. I don't know. It's difficult to say at this point in time. It does appear that President Trump is trying to leverage tariffs for getting certain things done. But what do you think? That's exactly right, because even with the 25 percent tariff on Mexico, it was already just postponed for 30 days. Yes, this just happened a few minutes ago, by the way. Yeah, it just came down on the wire. And the reason is, is the fact that the governor, actually the president of Mexico, said that she was going to bring in 10,000 troops to the border. And it's the fentanyl problem that's coming in. had to do with something I did not know was the Chinese influence on 60% of the production

of fentanyl that comes in from Canada and also the Chinese mafia, as you're pointing out, is very strong in terms of the fentanyl trade in Vancouver North. And so these type of things are what the tariffs are aimed for. If I was running a business, you know, where it was having these types of tariffs coming in on goods that I was either manufacturing with the components coming in from overseas, et cetera, I would say, gee, this is not fair. But the problem is that this fentanyl one is so under-discussed by the drive-by media that I have to listen in as much as I can to what you're saying to get the truth. I appreciate the take on it, but overall, the market seems to be reacting and gold seems to be reacting as this will be a pretty inflationary time. What is your overall economic take on it moving forward? I think that, you know, Trump was very honest about it.

He said there can be some short-term hurt. And you're right. But, you know, there is, you know, you know, there is no advantage that you get unless having to take a little risk and having some pain. Again, it depends on where you are in terms of these tariffs as to whether it's good or bad. But overview after what Biden did in the four years of hell that all of us went through and I'm'm retired. I might be different if I wasn't retired. I am glad he's doing this because we see the problems of fentanyl, illegal immigration, no security in terms of in the inner cities, etc. All right. By the way, before we take off, Doctor, I just wanted to let you know that a major story in the Oregonian I was talking about today was saying that marijuana prices have hit a record low. Oregon's supply is nearly double the demand.

And perhaps you need to get in touch with the marijuana farmers and say, well, grow half as much. OK, could you do that? They're starting to discover, though, that if you, of course, as long as you have the Mexican cartels taking the excess away, I suppose they're able to do okay. Maybe that's what we're talking about, really. I don't know. But I just thought that was interesting. It's like government getting involved in terms of what happens here in our state. Yeah, well, they need a retired professor of business law saying, okay, if you want your price to go up, quit growing so much.

But it will save you. All right, Doc. You take care. We'll talk next Monday already. Take care. Take care. It's always fun. All right. Dr. Dennis Powers, retired. You take care. We'll talk next Monday already. Take care. Take care. It's always fun. All right.

Dr. Dennis Powers, retired professor of business law. By the way, you can find out more about his books on DennisPowersBooks.com. It's 19 before 9 ran a little bit long. We're going to catch up on some additional news here. And then we have Open for Business. Charisse is going to tell us about the latest deals to save you some money. And believe me, in inflationary times, which are still there, despite best efforts here, we've got to save money.

We'll talk about that. Since 1938, BlueStarJay.com. News Talk 1063 KMED. This is the Bill Myers Show. Open for business. We talk with locally owned and operated businesses you need to talk with. And the person I want you to call is, well, I mean, I love it when you call me, but it's great when you also call Charisse over at NowiresNow.com.

Her number is 541-680-5875. You can call or text message, send a picture of your bill, become a client, and she goes to work and tries to lower your expenses when it comes to phone and internet and, let's see, television providers. I mean, you just do it all over there, don't you, Cherise? Welcome back. Good morning, Bill. All right. Yes, I love helping people save money. And you were in the store, you and Linda. It was so nice to meet Linda. You came in the store the other day. And it was a pretty interesting experience because you know how I'm always a late adopter to some of the stuff that you offer. I mean, how long have you been talking about, hey, Bill, you know, we can cut you a really good deal on a cell phone bill, right?

And I'm thinking to myself, all right, all right. And so I finally called you up, and I'm just going to give you my experience here. We went down to No Wires and just brought our phones, and we had a different provider here in southern Oregon. And, you know, Linda was at $48 a month and two gigabytes a month of data and this and that and the other. And, you know, I was okay, you know, with them, but it just wasn't working well. And what was even worse, though, is that I wasn't getting good coverage. I couldn't get a phone call out of the radio station here half of the time, right? And so he said, okay, we'll try it because Spectrum is doing wireless now,

and they contracted with Verizon, the Verizon network, right? That's what happened. And how's that working? Is it working good so far? I can now make a call, no problem. I can be in the bathroom. Not that I want to make calls from being inside the bathroom, but I can now. All right? So it worked out really well.

I love it. I'm so happy. I love it. Scuba Steve is laughing. He knows what it's like trying to get a phone call. We got a steel building that we're inside. But still, it was a good deal because right now, you get two lines for $30 a month for a year.

$30 a month for the year, and then it's got $30 a month per line after that. Right? It's an incredible deal. Loved it. Yeah. And you get unlimited data. Linda was only getting two gigs. That is so lame.

Yeah. And she was paying $50. Yeah, that's right. So now she can stream all the movies she wants, I guess, that she she does that but she could if she wants to and way better coverage yeah so unlimited call text or data and uh my gosh it's uh it like i said we're real pleased really pleased with this so far okay just want to let you know can i mention can i mention who you had before and kind of explain what's going on sure go ahead Go ahead. Okay. So you had U.S. Cellular, both of you, correct? Yeah. And U.S. Cellular now is on AT&T Towers.

And AT&T is not that great here at all. It doesn't work by Albertsons, Cherry Hill, Foothills. I mean, not even in where you work. And Verizon has the best coverage. You have to have Spectrum Internet to get this awesome deal, right? Yeah, because they kind of got together for this particular deal, right? Right, right. And then I can help you get your Internet to as low as $30 a month.

And then free cell phone service for a whole year. You're only going to pay $30 for Internet and cell phone. Yeah. Hello. It's wonderful stuff. It really is. And it's just All you have to do is just head down to No Wires Now.

That's on Biddle Road by People's Bank and you're by the Cigar Cave over there. Bring in your bill and start it working. Even though the phones that we both had were relatively old, I guess mine's three years old, maybe five, six years old, qualified, went no problem. You got it

all punched into the computers. Easy peasy. Worked really well. Keep your same phone. Keep your same number. Nothing changes on your phone. Nothing. You can keep your same phone. But when you're ready, Bill, to get a new phone, I will help you get a new phone and I'll help you transfer all your data and your pictures to your new phone. That's the best service okay well and that's what you do all the time all right so that's a deal right now and of course so you can talk with sharice at no wires and of course uh just just check in with her could be restriction supply may may work for you may not but just to do that and the other thing i wanted to ask you people were uh more than one person was asking me about the dish now dish and direct did not merge or did

they yay they didn't merge someone gave dish someone gave dish like nine billion dollars and the reason why dish was having issues is because they spent a ton of money on cell phone towers okay so they were trying to be the big w. They bought out Sprint, Dish owns Boost. So Dish is trying to be like the big cell phone cheese company. And that hurt them just like when they bought Blockbuster, which was the dumbest thing. But we all know Dish is awesome. The TV is awesome. We don't have to worry about DirecTV stealing Dish from us. It's going to be separate. And, you know, I'm happy with that. Okay. So how can people save money with that right now? What do you say? You got to come talk to me. Bring me your bill. Tell

me what you have. Do you have cable TV? Do you have direct TV? Do you have, you know, do you have DISH and you're not happy? Come talk to me. We'll figure it out. I'll help you save some money. If you're getting the $500 Visa cards in the mail, don't call the 1-800 number. Please call me. I'll take better care of you. Okay. And what I really like about you, and you've done this in the past, is that you'll take back the equipment, which is pretty darn cool. Yeah. All right.

I'll spoil you. Yeah, you do that. And stop by. And by the way, you're going to be at the booth at the Sportsman Show this year at the Expo, the 21st, 22nd, and 23rd. And so if you mention you heard about me or heard about me rather he heard about you rather on my show you get a free gift right some swag yes okay yes okay and i might not be going to work today i think i might stay home but i have valentine's for everyone that come in the store this week so if you come in and say hi i I have a Valentine's for you. All right. 541-680-5875.

Call or text. If you're calling on a landline, put a 1 there. 541-680-5875 or nowiresnow.com. Get these deals that we're talking about. And, hey, good luck on that. Become a client. Pretty good experience. All right.

Thank you very much. Cherise, take care. Thank you. All right. And like I said, I can make a call out of the station now. I can't tell you how irritating that was. It's like I'm sitting here looking at towers all around us, and I couldn't get a call out of here. It is 854 at KMED.

Don't settle for a typical store-bought cake. Serve a nothing. Airway Drive. Hi, I'm Randy with Diner 62, and I'm on KMED. And tomorrow we'll have a Diner 62 Real American quiz. That'll be fun. Joel's over in the Iron Gate. Hey, Joel, how's the weather in your neck of the woods at Elevation?

What's the story? Well, it's 31 degrees. We've got four and a half inches of snowing falling. Since Friday, we've got two and a half inches of rain before the snow came. Whoa, that's a lot of wetness. By the way, how's the river looking? I'm just curious. It's moving. It's ripping down.

Okay. I'm just curious if we get that next storm. Have anyone ever called in from Happy Camp? No, I've never had anybody call in from Happy Camp. I don't think the signal reaches it, but it could be interesting.

Appreciate the call, though. Let me go to line one. Hi there. Good morning. Good morning. This is Tracy up here in 50 miles from the Canadian border, and all the talk up here, of course, is about the tariffs. Tracy, tariffs. Give me the tariff talk.

What are you thinking, huh? Saturated on the airwaves over the weekend from Canada. No, they're really scared about it, and frankly, I think this is going to hurt a lot of Americans. If anybody wants to study up on tariffs, the most recent big tariff hit was back in like 2018. I want everybody to go look it up. It's about the washing machines. Trump put a big tariff on washing machines imported from Korea, mainly the LG and Samsung washing machines.

And it was a 25 percent. I think it jumped up to 50 percent. Anyway, it was a 20 percent, rather. Yeah, well, I remember that, though. What did happen other than the fact that washing machines got more expensive? So what happened, well, even the Canadians, their Electrolux factory went to Mexico, so they got hurt too in this. So what really happened is not only did the price of foreign imported washing machines go up, but the price of American-made, like the Maytags and the GEs, they went up as well. The manufacturers saw an advantage in the price, and hey, let's have some fun with this.

And then not only did the washing machines go up, but anything that was paired with that. What do you usually buy with a washing machine? You buy a dryer. A dryer, yeah, sure. So the price of dryers went up, but there was no tariff on dryers. So it was all around a bad deal, and for me it's going to be very painful because you deal with stuff in Canada. If you want to do some arbitrage on this, go down to your Costco and buy a pallet of maple syrup from Canada or a box of Canadian cookies or something. But it's really – it's going to hurt all around. We've got oil refineries up here in Bellingham that a lot of their ingested oil is coming

out of Alberta and BC. And those tariffs going up, it's just going to pass on to the customer. This is not good. Well, we can see, and maybe there will be a blink. You never know. This could be just a throwing out. We'll see. We'll see where it goes.

Here's the problem. I know your time's short. Here's the problem. We don't have the structural way to ramp up American manufacturing to meet those places like in Canada that we're supplying us or Mexico that's supplying us with steel. We don't have that capability to just turn on a dime. So we're all just going to eat in higher costs. We'll see. Gold seems to be indicating that it's going to be higher costs, all right?

But I will be, you know, we'll see where it goes at this point. What I think, what you think, may not be how it plays out. Could be, though. Interesting times, Tracy. Thanks for the call, 770-5633. This is KMED and KMED HD1 Eagle Point Medford. KBXG Grants Pass. You know, I'm going to hold off the news.

We'll grab another call, maybe an email or two of the day before we take off. Tom's here. Hello, Tom. How are you? Oh, doing fine. Boy, yeah, the terrorist. Unintended consequences, which we don't know fully, as your previous caller was pointing out. There is a great interview on lerockwell.com today between Paul Roberts and Doug Casey. These are two very big economic brains, and they're

kind of giving a talk on a 30,000-foot view of the state of the state of America. Yeah. Now, just to be clear, Paul Craig Roberts is former Treasury official, is where, under Reagan, I think is where he worked at. And Doug Casey, big financier, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah. So what they say, but it was very fascinating. It's about an hour talk and so forth. Certainly, Paul Roberts was echoing my comments about the Federal Reserve System, where we went wrong. And basically, as long as we have an IRS, we're all government slaves and so forth. And I think, you know, you have to look at the system from a systemic point of view. When you had Biden leave an office, hours before he turned in his scepter, he sent $50 billion to Ukraine,

you know, go kill more people. And you have to look at a system that would allow a single individual to send $50 billion out like that. And that's the trouble with the system right now, with the funny money that we're dealing with. It needs to be abolished. And I think money creation should be a public utility, kind of like an electric company that's actually owned by the public and so forth. It needs to be controlled by real people and not the politicians directly, and just like where we can keep real account of money creation because of those systems we got. I mean, $36 trillion in debt, it's already a failure with red flags on it.

I mean, the system is collapsing. It's not working. Okay, well, I hope you're wrong on that because system collapsing is not a fun thing to live through. Okay, we just have—but, of course, collapse is a process, and we've been in the process of doing that a while, I guess. Okay? Yes. All right. That's what they both say.

And Martin Armstrong says the same thing. He said, Trump is not dealing with a swamp. He's dealing with an ocean, and collapse is inevitable. Boy, I'll tell you, it'll be—may we live in interesting times and we're there. Okay. Hey, Tom, I appreciate the call. All right. And I'm not going to have time for emails of the day, but we'll do some emails of the day tomorrow on Pebble in Your Shoe Tuesday. And I just really appreciate your listenership. If you wanted to weigh in on something, we've been talking a lot about tariffs and various other things. Submit a dad joke of the day too so we can laugh about some of the

insanity that is around us and the good stuff too email bill at bill myers show.com and we'll catch you again on pebble in your shoe tuesday if you're remodeling your house start with the foundation millet construction offers a no pressure