Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 02-19-25_WEDNESDAY_6AM

Episode Date: February 19, 2025

Morning news, Rogue X moneymaker?? Trump fires the attorneys, Toronto crash...I smell DEI, your calls and more. Auto journalist Eric Peters talks the KIA Sorrento, what if insurance costs soar and much more.

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. Here's Bill Myers. Delighted that you are here for Wheels Up Wednesday. Yes, that indeed means that Eric Peters will be joining the show in about 20-25 minutes or so. And we have a lot of good conversation. Did a really in-depth review of the Kia Sorento, which I found really interesting

because it's one of the last of the small crossover SUVs that is still available in some cases not with the continually variable transmission. And there's a whole bunch of different engine options. He actually really dug into this. And, of course, you know, we sell lot of kia sorrentos around here in southern oregon no doubt and there must be a reason for it but we'll kick that around with him and also uh various other issues that are going in there in fact eric even raising the issue what could be happening when we get to the point if or when we get to the point where

insurance becomes too affordable unaffordable rather to be able to purchase you know we always sit around here we talk about what's been going on with the wildfire map and i've been kind of half musing that gosh is there going to be a situation coming in which the west is uninsurable against uh you know many kind of uh risks you know that sort of thing for uh for wildfire given to uh poor policies from the past that are coming home to roost so to speak you know, many kind of risks, you know, that sort of thing for wildfire given to poor policies from the past that are coming home to roost, so to speak, you know, that kind of thing. And then what happens if some of the government policies that have been put into place, size of vehicle, expensive vehicles, everything being a compliance vehicle, et cetera, et cetera,

what happens if it gets to the point where you can't afford to insure it for uh for an accident you know that sort of thing what's going to happen then what happens well usually what ends up happening is that people just start driving without it and what could be happening with that we'll kick that around he has a pretty good article about that on epautos.com all right some of the uh the local news we had around here, former Rogue River School District teacher Jesse Orndorff pleading not guilty yesterday afternoon, and he has more than 30 charges relating to the alleged sexual abuse of a former student. This is when he was in Rogue River. A bail set at a half million dollars and a preliminary hearing scheduled for 4 o'clock February 25th.

He's facing 10 counts of second-degree sex abuse, third-degree rape, third-degree sodomy. And it involved a whole bunch of instances allegedly occurring between 2021 and 2022 involving the same victim while she was a student at Rogue River Junior and Senior High School when she was a 15 to 17-year-old. All right. Most recently, he had led the math and science department over to Rogue Christian Academy in Grants Pass, arrested by sheriff's deputies from Jackson County on Friday, by the way, so keeping an eye on that story. Rogue Valley Times also has an interesting story economic boom rogue x lithia fields a big

win for medford in 2024 medford's two sport parks rogue x and lithia driveway and fields hit two home runs in 2024 according to damian mann together the two parks scored a half million visitors and helped generate an estimated 20 million million into the local economy, filling restaurants, hotels, and other businesses. Rogue X in Northwest Medford opening up in January 2024 with two indoor pools and a large event center. Overall, we think about a quarter million people came through the doors in 2024, said Rich Rosenthal, director of Medford Parks and Recre and recreation at a medford city council meeting earlier this month medford's aquatic

center and event center got about one and a half million dollars in revenues in its first year with 200 000 of that amount coming from hosting 920 birthday parties. So the big shining revenue deal with Rogue X, $1.5 million in revenue, with $200,000 coming from hosting 920 birthday parties. Let me tell you, nothing makes me feel better than paying my inflated parks and utility fee each month, than realizing that my 60 to 70 dollars per year more if you're a business most likely is going to make sure that we can have 920

birthday parties subsidized at taxpayer expense 1.5 million dollars in revenue over at rogue x okay how much was contributed by the taxpayers i know i kicked in an involuntary donation of $70, and everybody else in town ended up having to kick this in, too. Is this the reason? Is this the reason why? You know, you don't do tax dollars. You don't force people to pay for nice stuff. You force people to pay for the stuff you have to have.

But I guess that's not the way that uh that cities work anymore that we're in the the tourism and birthday party business you try to tell me that nobody had a birthday party here in southern oregon until roguex ended up fleecing the taxpayers for 60 70 80 million dollars in the end i've been saying for a long long time that my issue with roguex is not having an aquatic or event center. It's just the fact is that the private sector never did it because they knew you couldn't make any money at it. It's a money losing deal. But this is that sort of little corporatism, fascism thing in which a government gets together and says, that's all right. We'll tax taxpayers for the things that are nice that people would like to go to,

and then they'll fill up your motels if you end up having swim meets and stuff like that. But really, if you were talking about fulfilling the needs of the community, I still insist that having pools in various neighborhoods around here in Southern Oregon. Walking distance for children is much better than having one big place in Northwest Medford that everybody has to drive to get to, unless you live in the neighborhood. I lost that argument, but I love that now we're going to be getting the propaganda. Oh, look at how much you're filling our coffers. Yeah, you should be subtracting the money fleeced from uh medford residents

before you start talking about the amazing profits rich just saying it's a 17 minutes after six that's always been a pebble in my shoe i know it's wednesday but uh you know the way that they will say well we've generated 20 million dollars of economic activity there's always a formula that makes them do this this is the the way government ends up selling these kind of projects to the people. Where's $20 million in economic activity? And of course, they have that interesting computer modeling sort of world. Yeah, because of people going across town to have a birthday party at Rogue X. Really? And like I said, if people wanted to build Rogue X on their own, more power to them. But this whole idea that we had to build an entertainment facility in order to

improve the economy, it just gets exhausting sometimes. Sometimes you just need to provide a service like neighborhood pools that the kids can go and swim to or swim in. It's like I think about even in my East Netford neighborhood, I think there's a couple of parks. It's about it. There's like nothing over there on the East side. They're building all these houses and apartment complexes. So I guess if you want to swim, you got to go, you know,

all the way over to the Northwest end section of town. That was always my issue with Rogue X. We needed something distributed all around the sprawling city rather than just making everybody go to one. And that section of town is on the far edge. It would be like taking everything that Medford wants to do and putting it in my neighborhood by Foothill. Now, they might be doing that over time. I don't know. So there we go.

There's my irritation for the morning, okay? All right. So we have that story. Ended up getting an email from United States Attorney Natalie K. White. Oh, yeah. The United States Attorney's Office. This is in Portland, by the way. United States Attorney's Office for the District of Oregon announced today,

this was yesterday, the departure of United States Attorney Natalie K. White. Uh-oh. Ms. White has informed of her termination in a communication from the White House. As a presidential appointee, Ms. White is subject to removal from the office at the discretion of the sitting president. The White House thanked her for her service to the United States. So, yes, indeed, this is part of the story. President Donald Trump ordered the Justice Department to fire all U.S. attorneys left over from the Biden administration. And Trump writing on his Truth Social platform that we have to clean house immediately and restore confidence. So there we go.

They're all fired fired this is actually nothing unusual a lot of times this has happened in past administrations i remember barack obama i think famously fired practically everybody that was in the uh that was fireable so nothing new but yes it has hit that our democracy took a hit in o. I'm sure that's how it will be promoted in Oregon Live or Willamette Week or any other left-wing newspaper, that sort of thing. Oh, our democracy is under attack. When the democratically elected president ends up saying and doing something that they don't like. All right. Another interesting story.

Jack Phillips reporting in the Epoch Times today, the new head of the USDA said Americans who rely on SNAP benefits, that's food stamps, but we call them SNAP benefits here, it's the Oregon Trail Card in Oregon, could be barred from using SNAP benefits to buy sugary drinks and food. What do you think about that? You understand how Bobby Kennedy might be getting his claws into this

kind of a policy, too, making America healthy again, right? And Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins telling reporters at the White House, will we ever take food out of a hungry child's mouth? Of course not. This is the United States of America. But Rollins said, snap,

expanded by about 30 percent more than before under the past administration and we really need to look at where that money is going what it's being spent on rollins did not elaborate on what types of sugary foods or drinks sugary drinks or food rather could be affected if the usda decides to make changes to snap and she says i look forward to working with Bobby Kennedy as we figure this out. Do we have the healthiest choices? So when a taxpayer is pouring money into SNAP,

are we okay with us using their tax dollars to feed really bad food and sugary drinks to kids who perhaps need something more nutritious? Both Rollins and Kennedy confirmed by the U.S. Senate. So as she spoke with reporters, Rollins said she would welcome a review of SNAP funding by Elon Musk, the Doge, you know, the Doge deal, and suggesting that the program is being abused. I wonder how much pushback she's going to get on this, because you know which companies

really like the snap benefits the big industrial food chains of course love it and also i'm going to have to say honestly the walmart's a huge part of walmart's revenue stream huge part of walmart's revenue stream is snap benefits same with target and and all the various other things and a lot of times they're not worried about uh you know having the most uh you know nutritious food out there snap benefits are able to buy doritos right you go out there and you buy doritos and you get your uh your soy so the kids get man boobs and you have the um gosh what are those those excitotoxins you know the, gosh, what are those?

Excitotoxins. You know, the reason why they talk about how food people talk about Doritos being so addictive, and they're delicious, and they are absolutely addictive. What is it? Oh, it's the MSG. The MSG, the excitotoxins that they put in there, they'll call it natural flavors and yeasts. They put it in there as like, you know, it's like a yeasty something or other, natural flavors, and really what it means is MSG.

And so you can't stop at one potato chip or you can't stop at one Dorito chip. You have to eat the whole bag. Well, you can buy that on SNAP benefits. And I wonder if they start restricting it. And I'm completely in agreement with this. I don't know about you, but I don't think the taxpayers should be subsidizing junk food. And to me, subsidizing the food should be subsidizing something reasonable. Now, normally I would not be in the business of telling people what they should eat

or what they should not be eating. However, if you are taking a taxpayer'solen money in order to supplement your grocery bill, then I think we have a right to be able to tighten up on what's allowed. And maybe all you have to do is just go with the rules that WIC uses for the young expectant mothers, or the expectant mothers, or the pregnant people, that kind of thing right and um if it wouldn't pass the test over at wick maybe it shouldn't pass the test for snap benefits maybe we could talk about that this morning i think i i'm intrigued with this one and i'm wondering how granular you could get in this like you could use your oregon trail card to buy apples but you couldn't use it to buy snap uh you couldn't use the snap benefits

the oregon trail card to buy let's say fruit roll-ups that processed piece of garbage that they claim is fruit you know that kind of thing would you be all right with doing something like that 770-5633 we're talking about i think this morning on Wheels Up Wednesday. This is the Bill Myers Show. Joel here at Butler Ford and Truck Center. And you know how I spell transparency? I-N-V-O-I-C-E. Invoice. As in how we now post the invoice on every single new Ford every day.

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Providing fresh water for Rogue Valley residents for over 50 years. Visit SiskiyouPump.com. Hi, I'm Michael with Gage of Construction, and I'm on KMED. 627 on Wheels Up Wednesday, 770-5633, 770-KMED to join in. I'm fascinated that someone's finally wanting to get to the bottom of SNAP benefits. In other words, Oregon Trail Card Abuse here, at least in our state. I don't know what it's called in california but one way or the other it's been food stamps snap benefits uh oregon trail card you know whatever it is essentially people getting food subsidized and i'm okay with this

if someone is poor and gosh darn it we certainly want to make sure that the uh that the ability to live and thrive is helped out. And yes, even a taxpayer expense. I get that. There's a role in the state, I think, to do something like this. But does this mean that you subsidize the industrial crappy food chain? That I don't think we necessarily have to do. And the USDA is talking about, all right right let's see about you know about making sure

that we're not subsidizing junk food and that we subsidize nutritious food instead now that's going to break a lot of rice bowls because i'm sure a lot of congressional critters end up getting donations from big farm big food big pharma you know all that kind of stuff. So there could be a lot of resistance to this. Of course, Walmart just wants unfettered access to Snap benefits. So does Target. So does every other big retail. I don't know. Does Amazon take Snap?

I don't know. I haven't noticed that. I don't think so. I don't think they're doing that. But you understand, there is a big incentive just to pile up the grocery carts with junk. That's just the way it is. Tastes good. But should the taxpayers have anything to do with this?

I don't know. Dave, you were talking about some friends that are also on SNAP benefits. What do they call it in California? I know you're right across the border. I'm not sure what they call it. I call it EBT. Okay, EBT. It's a're right across the border. I'm not sure what they call it. I call it EBT. Okay, EBT. Okay. All right. So I get $27 a month, and I buy real third. If I wanted soda, I spend it out of my Social Security, and I don't drink that much soda anymore. I used to be addicted to it, but I've cut it back. But I've got a neighbor here who's got a 12-year-old.

He only lets them have juice, and that's all they have is EBT for food. The other thing is they're starting to find out that giving the kids juice and such is not nearly as good as having them eat the actual fruit because the fruit will then reduce the insulin resistance because the fiber in the fruit ends up slowing the progress of sugar into the bloodstream. That kind of thing. Well, he normally at home, like if he needs to bake a cake, he bakes his own cake. He just buys the ingredients and and he buys all the healthy stuff. And, you know, mostly, you know, he's buying vegetables.

Heck, he even— Yeah. Yeah, you're getting a little choppy on me this morning. I think I kind of get the basics of it. By the way, you were talking about drinking soda, Dave, just a moment ago, right? Yeah. Okay. Something that Linda and I started doing that I'm actually really enjoying. Talking about drinking soda, Dave, just a moment ago, right? Yeah. Okay.

Something that Linda and I started doing that I'm actually really enjoying, I didn't buy the SodaStream machine. I didn't feel like doing that and having to go buy the CO2, but I just go buy seltzer water, and I buy those SodaStream things, and it's like the syrups that you can buy, and you can mix it with carbonated water for an occasional cola of some sort of thing. And I really like that because most of them you can get now with sugar instead of high-fructose corn syrup in the mix, which I think is quite interesting.

It's better, I think, for people. Appreciate the call. Thanks for that, Dave. Maybe we'll have to revisit this. But, yeah, what would you like to see the rules for, how they would be reformed over in the SNAP benefit deal? What I'm kind of wondering about is if we'll just see fraud kind of squeeze into a different way. You know, someone says, okay, I really want Doritos. I really want to have my junk food high, my junk food junkie high with Doritos. And I've got an EBT card, got the SNAP benefit card, the Oregon Trail card, and they're not going to accept it for snacks any longer.

Let's say that they do this because right now, practically, you can go into 7-Eleven, into the little pantries. You can go anywhere pretty much and buy a lot of this stuff with taxpayer money, taxpayer subsidies. Now, Big Food, Big Garbage Food Inc. loves that. And so I'm sure that they're going to just be hissy fit. They'll be squealing, squealing like stuck artificial know if this ends up happening but i wonder if it'll just get to the point where okay i got my ebt card and i really want doritos and so is it one of those things where they're going to be standing out of the store and say hey um i'll buy you a steak which would be okay under under EBT, but you go buy me a Dorito and we swap or doing

something like that. Could you see that sort of thing going on? I'm sure it goes on even right now in this situation for what is prohibited. I'll buy you a steak and you buy me a bottle of booze. Hmm? Keep that conversation open. This is the Bill Myers Show. You're on KMED 99.3 KBXG.

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we extend our Heroes Discount to all active or veteran military personnel and to our active or retired first responders. There is no way to completely repay your dedication to the protection of our country and communities, but we will do what we can. Latest news brought to you by locally owned and operated Artisan Bakery Cafe in South Medford. It's a full-service cafe offering breakfast, lunch, and specialty coffees. You'll be wowed one bite at a time. From the KMED News Center, here's what's going on. A former Rogue River School District teacher and coach Jesse Orndor, pleaded not guilty Tuesday afternoon to more than 30 charges related to alleged sexual abuse of a teenage former student. Orndorff's charges include sex abuse, rape, and sodomy that allegedly occurred between 2021 and 22 at Rogue River Junior Senior High School. Orndorff was arrested Friday.

He recently taught at Rogue Christian Academy Senior High School. Orndorff was arrested Friday. He recently taught at Rogue Christian Academy in Grants Pass. Investigators believe there may be other victims. Cryptocurrency scams appear to be increasing in Southern Oregon. The Josephine County Sheriff's Office says they've received numerous reports from victims. Various scams include references to PayPal, Norton, Antivirus, and LifeLock. Scammers pretend to be from law enforcement or financial institutions and may even provide convincing documents about your accounts. U.S. Attorney for the District of Oregon Natalie White's been fired by the White House. She was appointed by President Biden.

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please remember American Industrial Door is Southern Oregon's premier door company, including residential, with locations in Medford, Grants Pass, and Klamath Falls. The Phil Myers Show on 106.3 KMED. Wheels Up Wednesday with Eric Peters. We're going off the rails on a crazy train. I think crazy trains are always a great introduction for this kind of deal because you look at what's going on in the automotive world

and where it intersects with politics, and it's pretty much a crazy train off the rails most of the time. Isn't it, Eric? Welcome back. Thank you for having me, Bill. And, you know, Ozzy always kicks me into overdrive and gets me ready to go. Absolutely. Absolutely. That and also, what is it?

What is that other? I just love that intro to one of his songs, too. No Fear? Something like that? Is that what it is? I can't. No Tears. That's what it is.

You're going to have to do a better imitation, and I'll be able to tell you what it was. Okay. All right. Well, it is great to have you on, as always, from epautos.com. You've got a lot going on this morning here. And one of the things I wanted to dig into, first, I actually want to talk about your review first you have, because you really did a deep dive on the Kia Sorento. And I hear a lot about them. A local Kia dealer here does advertising, and he did some good things.

And you had a lot of good things to say about this because of the versatility and a lot of the ability to choose it to be what you wish. Everything from plug-in hybrids and up, right? That kind of thing? Yeah. plug-in hybrids and up, right? That kind of thing? Yeah, you know, ordinarily it's very difficult for me to come up with a couple thousand words about these crossovers because they are also fundamentally the same. I can say, oh, well, look, this one's got a 10-inch touchscreen. That one's got a 12-inch touchscreen. But, you know, otherwise it's really tough. It's a real challenge. But in this case, it was a little bit easier because the Sorento offers a variety of choices, and that's something that's largely absent, and particularly from the compact crossover class, where you can get only three

vehicles that have three-row seats. The Sorento is one of them. The other two are the Volkswagen Tiguan and the Mitsubishi Outlander, which is basically a rebadged Nissan Rogue, the one we talked about last week. Yeah, and those things come only with one take-it-or-leave-the-drive train. You know, an underpowered little four-cylinder in one, and an underpowered three-cylinder in the other. Okay. Whereas the Kia comes standard with a pretty decently sized 2.5-liter four-cylinder engine that doesn't need a turbo because it's appropriately sized for the vehicle,

so it makes adequate power to move it. Yeah, it's like 180, 190 horsepower or something like that, wasn't it? No, more than 200. Oh, more than 200. Well, what is it, 190? It's just shy of 200. But, you know, that's a decent amount of power out of a four-cylinder engine without a turbo. Well, I think back to when we were kids and they started wimping out the engines because

of air pollution controls back in the day. And a 200-horsepower V8 was maybe about as good as you got on the bigger cars then, right? Oh, sure. In 1976, you know, I have that 1976 Trans Am. And with its optional 455, which was the biggest and strongest engine that you could get in an American car in 1976, all you got was 200 horsepower. That was it, man. Yeah, I had a 76, my father's company car that I bought after I, when I left home, 1980, went out to the West Coast, and it was a 1977 Chevy Impala with the 305. You know, the ones that would, were pretty reliable,

except they ate camshafts, I recall, back in those days. And I think it was maybe 175 horsepower. It wasn't. Oh, I don't think. No, you would have had to get something like a Z28 for that. You probably had about 140 horsepower. Oh, really? Okay.

No wonder it kind of felt doggy at the time and contrasted. But yeah. Out of a V8. Yeah, exactly. A V8, bigger than just about anything they're putting in vehicles right now. Now, how are they doing it? How are they getting such a decent power out of just the lowly 2.5 liter 4-banger these days? What's the take on it? Well, it's all about airflow. You know, back in the 70s, they were still using engines that were designed back in the 50s, and they just didn't flow that much air. So now they flow much better, and they're able to use higher

compression, too. My Trans Am back in 76 had, if you can believe it, 7 to 6 to 1 compression, which is basically no compression at all. Not very much. Yeah, not very much. Because the gas was terrible back then, and if they had any higher compression, you know, compression is what helps the engine make power, because the explosion is stronger. But if you don't have adequate octane gas, what you get is detonation, and then you get a broken engine after a while. So that was one of the reasons they went to those low-compression engines. But now the gas is of higher quality, higher octane, and they can run higher compression ratios, and they have knock sensors to prevent the

engine from detonating. And that is the good side, then, of the electronic ignition. They're able to dial it back if it notices the detonation, and that'll stop the engine from blowing up. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And they're able to use variable cam timing systems. You know, back in the day, you had to basically pick because it was purely mechanical. So if you picked an aggressive camshaft for high performance, the engine was kind of lumpy at low RPM. The idle would be not smooth, and it wouldn't have a whole lot of power. So it was fine if you wanted a performance car, but it wasn't so good if you wanted a grocery getter.

Today, with these variable valve and cam timing systems, they can ramp it up to be much more aggressive when you want the power. But when you don't, it's a very mild-mannered engine. So all of this is wonderful, and you can only imagine what we could have if the manufacturers were actually able to build cars according to what the market wants rather than what the government demands. Yeah. Now, back to the Kia Sorento, because this is what kind of got us on this subject in the first place. Even the base engine, the 2.5, very good. But there are also smaller ones that come with the hybrid. There's also a plug-in hybrid. A lot more expensive for those models, though, I imagine. Well, yeah, but let's focus on the optional engine, which is something you cannot get in

the Volkswagen Tiguan or the Outlander. If you want something that's got some real guts, they offer a turbocharged version of the same 2.5-liter engine. That one makes 281 horsepower, which absolutely blows the Tiguan and the Outlander in the weeds. With that engine, this thing will do zero to 60 in just under six seconds, and that's really quick. You know, that was supercar performance back in the 80s and 90s, wasn't it? Now that I think about it. Out of a grocery gallery, you can do now, right?

Yeah, and if you look at the numbers, the gas mileage difference between the base 2.5 engine without the turbo and the one with, it's only about three miles per gallon, so it's an irrelevant difference, really. Now, you did talk about how the plug-in hybrid availability of the Kia Sorento is an interesting option because there are some areas of the country that are actually exploring not letting any gasoline-powered vehicles in. Everything's got to be no emission, that kind of thing, right? Yeah, absolutely. So it gives you essentially a dual-fuel vehicle

because the thing can operate like an electric car on a full charge for about 30 miles. So in the eventuality that they do pass some kind of draconian system like that, you would have a vehicle that would be usable in that circumstance. And plus, it's kind of nice to have that capacity anyway. You know, we've had power outages here, and sometimes when the power goes out, then the gas station, because the pump doesn't have electricity, won't be able to give you gas. But if you charge your vehicle up, now you're going to be able to drive somewhere to where there is gas, and that's not a bad thing either. Okay, I'll tell you what. Take your inverter, connect it up to your hybrid battery, and then turn on the gas pump. Could you do that?

Yeah, and let me mention one other thing that's laudable about this Kia. Both versions of the hybrid, they make a regular hybrid that just charges itself as you drive, and then there's the plug-in that you can plug in. But the really interesting thing about it is that both of those come with a regular automatic transmission, not a CVT. And almost all the hybrids out there have CVT automatics. Do you think that it is now getting out there to most people just how bad or how unreliable CVTs can be unless they are meticulously maintained. And sometimes even if they're meticulously maintained, they just seem to last the warranty period. Am I engaging and am I smearing them by saying this? No, you're not smearing them. And I think also

the compounding problem is that people just don't like them. Their operating characteristics are not pleasant. They give you the feeling that the driveline is slipping, that the transmission's got a problem. There's a lot of noise. They don't feel right. It's this intangible quality that people just don't like about CVTs. And word has percolated out about that. And so a lot of the manufacturers are revisiting just going back with geared automatics again. So with the hybrid version, you get a six-speed transmission, right? Conventional transmission. The plug-in. The regular hybrid gets an eight-speed. Okay. And that's the eight-speed transmission comes with the regular 2.5, too. Okay. All right. So overall, though, like I said, I was pleased to see, though, that you were pleasantly surprised.

And I guess the main thing, though, is because there are so many choices, unlike so many of the other crossover SUVs, that, hey, here's the engine. It's a triple turbocharged 1.2, you know, that kind of thing. Yeah, you know, I really miss the era. You can remember this era when you would go to the dealer, you know, you're shopping for a vehicle, and you could look at the vehicle, and then you could go through the options and pick and choose what you wanted, and you could kind of personalize the car to suit you. Well, we've gotten to a point now where it's kind of one-size-fits-all and take it or leave it. Here, this is it. This is all there is. Like it or lump it.

Eric Peters, once again, epautos.com. Read up more on the details of the review on that. A bunch of other reviews in there, too, and you've been having a good time on that because you had the Nissan Rogue week before, the Ram 1500, 1500 you know the the 2025 ram and a whole bunch more and i think it uh you do a good job of explaining the the ins and outs the bad and the good and of course mostly more good on most of these wouldn't you agree most of them oh sure you know i have great respect for the engineers who have to work under really difficult conditions particularly in our time coming up with vehicles that are appealing.

Because, you know, they can't force people to buy them yet, so they still have to sell you. And they managed to come up with a lot of very appealing attributes despite all of the obstacles. And I think to myself, if only those obstacles weren't there, can you imagine the kind of stuff that we would have available to us today? All right. If you have a question for Eric Peters, want to ask a question about a vehicle maybe you're looking at, maybe a car problem or just shooting the breeze on something, 770-5633. Eric, we'll continue. I want to dig into the insurfment story because we're looking at rising insurance rates in Southern Oregon from the homeowner's side of things with great alarm. And we're kind of wondering the same thing about the automobile world, too. We'll talk about that along with your calls.

Wheels Up Wednesday with Eric Peters, epautos.com. More on that next on KMED. Ready to upgrade your roof to a durable, sleek metal option? Look no further than Stephen Westfall Roofing, Inc. With our state-of-the-art snap lock machines, we bring precision and efficiency right to your doorstep. No need to worry about transporting materials. We come directly to your doorstep. No need to worry about transporting materials. We come directly to your project property. Visit StephenWestfallRoofingInc.com

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All of it in there. Eric, some of the ugly side of what's going on in the transportation world has to do with the rising cost of liability and collisions insurance and we've been talking about insurance around here a lot i ended up getting a insane pop in my insurance rates and i got together with steve yancey he's one of my sponsors here and he found a different company was able to make this happen and i could make it affordable you know i'm doing like three cars and two drivers for you know what is it 850 a year which is not bad you know in my opinion you got off easy yeah got off easy but a lot of other people are being screwed big time and the challenge you get into is that you are required to deal with the insurance mafia because of the state, the state's involvement here.

And you raise a really interesting question. What happens? You call it the insurfment picks up speed. And what are you finding out here? I'd love to get your take on that. Yeah, well, let's start by putting forth the premise that insurance, particularly liability insurance, is not a bad idea as such. There's nothing wrong with that because accidents happen. The problem is when they use the government to force you to buy it, what happens is that the cost of this insurance gets to the point where it really isn't worth it anymore against the putative risk.

It gets to a point where it's no longer affordable. You're placed in the position of, well, I can either continue to drive legally with insurance or I can eat, you know, or pay the rent. Yeah, but I'm going to drive to get to my job or wherever it is. And so you end up choosing to be an outlaw at some level, I guess, right? Yeah. Over the past two years, the cost of the typical liability-only policy has jumped by 25%. Mine has doubled for absolutely no reason relative to anything that I've done. And the reason for that, there are a number of reasons, but one is that they can make you fundamentally. And the second reason is that the repair costs of cars have just skyrocketed because of the cost of vehicles, which are now on average selling for

about $50,000. And they're all made out of plastic. Some of them have $500 headlamp assembly. So you get into a tiny little bump with one of these things, and instead of what would have been in the past a $500 repair, now it's a $3,000 repair. So you had nothing to do with it. Somebody else did, and the insurance mafia is paying out a claim. Well, who's going to pay for that? And the answer is you and me, even if we didn't file the claim.

And when you think about it, okay, so I only have liability. Let's say you only have liability for this. You're still liable. It's liability for the other person's collision damage, right? Right. So because of the insane cost to repair these vehicles, your liability is going to soaring costs because of the payout, right? That's where you're getting at. One of the things about it that I think is really obnoxious is that some people will choose to go out and buy themselves a $50,000 vehicle. And that's fine. They have every right to do that. But their choice ends up having consequences for you and I. You know, I drive a 23-year-old truck that's worth maybe $4,000 because I choose not to buy a $50,000 brand new vehicle. Well, why do I have to pay? Because some other person chose to buy this $50,000 vehicle. Well, why do I have to pay because some other person chose to buy this

$50,000 vehicle? Shouldn't they have to absorb the higher cost of repairing their vehicle? I think that that's not an unreasonable position to take. I wonder if we're in this situation too, where at some point the cost of liability gets so high that you start seeing even more people running without it, even though I know the state of Oregon would even ask, OK, what's your insurance mafia policy number? You know, that kind of thing. Oh, and they do electronic checks now, too. And, you know, you get conspiratorial here, which means to get truthful here.

I do think that this is part of their Pinscher plan, their movement. They're going to use insurance costs to make driving so unaffordable as to push people out of their cars they've even been explicit about this that is a concern and you know for the longest time i recall they were pushing for a long time to make car insurance something that you paid for at the pump whatever happened to that because that i mean not that i'm a fan of it but at least you couldn't then say that you're not covered you know what i'm getting in that sort of thing yeah i don't know i think part of it has to do with the difficulty and you know again trying to come to defense of the insurance mafia um correlating the the person's risk with what they pay you know know, they would just sort of generalize it.

That was probably part of the problem. Well, all you have to do is just make it Obamacare for the car, right? Sure, exactly. And if they do that, then just like Obamacare and everything else the government makes mandatory, everybody will just pay a whole lot more. Of course, that's exactly what's happening. So I revert back to the only way to solve this problem, in my opinion, is to make insurance something that you can say no to, you know, just like any other service or product out

there. If you couldn't say no to buying a cup of coffee every week, what do you suppose a cup of coffee would cost you? Now, I suppose that if someone is loaning you money to enable you to buy a car, then there's certainly a right to enforce, to force you then to have collision coverage, that kind of thing, right? That makes sense. That's reasonable because it's not your property yet, and the person that's loaning you the money on it has a right to protect basically their investment until you pay it off. You know, it really is shocking, too. I would also add, you talked in there how it's sort of a ticking time bomb out there in the used car market

is how just an airbag set off or two can total a vehicle, an old vehicle, that is perfectly fine. But you'd like to keep this old vehicle, but they'll say, hey, one or two airbags, that's it, huh? Of course, absolutely. And, you know, we're now well past the point of one or two airbags. Most cars have at least six now, and it's very common for vehicles to have as many as eight. Well, I'll be curious to see how Orange Man is dealing with all of these various issues. I would just, for one, like to see him get the regulatory boot off of the neck of the car industry right now. Just let everybody breathe a little bit.

Hey, I know you've got to talk to some other people here before we take off here, Eric. So next week, what do you think you're going to have in the driveway? Any ideas? Well, I know for once, I actually did check before we got on the radio today, and they're bringing me a Subaru WRX, which I'm really looking forward to because it's snowing right now as we're talking. Here in southwest Virginia, of course, the WRX is renowned for being a street-legal rally car,

which means it's set up to deal with slippery surfaces, including snow. So I imagine I'm going to have some fun, and we're going to have some fun talking about that. That is going to be a lot of fun. That's a great, fun vehicle that they are sending them to you. Now, by the way, does it have the really loud muffler stalker? Because every time I see a WRX, the kid that's driving it always has it hopped up. It's really loud.

Oh, yeah, that's the first thing that they do. So from the factory, they have to be relatively demure. There are federal drive-by noise standards that all the manufacturers have to abide by, but that doesn't mean you have to abide by it when you buy one. Okay, good. Hey, tell us all about it next Wednesday, Eric, okay? Thanks a bunch, all right? Thanks, Bill. Eric Peters, epautos.com, epautos.com, support the site. Great stuff going on there. Great journalism going on. This is the Bill Myers Show on KMED and 99.3 KPXG. 770-5633 if you wanted to join in.

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I'm Nicole Murray with your Money Now. Stocks are slightly lower. Dow Industrials down by 159. The NASDAQ down by 69. The S&P 500 down by 16. HSBC's headcount fell 3% last year, and its staff bonus pool hardly changed as a new CEO sharpened focus on costs and initiated sweeping restructuring of the Asia-focused lender. The bank's bonus cash pool reached $3.8 billion in 2024. This compares to the $3.77 billion a year earlier. Some middle managers at Ford Motor will not get stock bonuses this year in what is seen internally as CEO Jim

Farley's latest attempt to cut the automaker's bloated costs. Ford said the change is meant to incentivize an improvement in employee performance. Apple has told Britain's competition regulator that some of the remedy options proposed by the watchdog to address concerns in the mobile browser market would impact the iPhone maker's incentive to innovate. That's your money now. It's the Bill Myers Show on KMED Southern Oregon's's place to talk by the way this is kmed and kmed hd1 eagle point mepper kbxg grants pass shade before seven o'clock we're gonna toss a couple of emails of the day out there sponsored by dr steve nelson and central point family dentistry central point

family dentistry.com hey if you don't have a dental insurance they have a dental plan which works a lot like insurance better better benefits, lower costs. We think you'd really like that. Find out more at CentralPointFamilyDentistry.com. And I wanted to give one to John. John talking about the natural gas infrastructure. We talked about it yesterday with Glenn R. Shambo and the pipelines and more. And John says, hey, Bill, worked on a lot of pipelines in Medford.

Did a lot of gas line maintenance and installs, believe it or not. Medford has some pretty old gas pipe in Old Town. They call it Shipmast, which is exactly what it is. Metal pipe for ship sales. Really? Ship? That is great. What a great story, then.

So Shipmast, a lot of these old pipes are starting to leak because they're the original pipe, but these pipes are tapered, so they just turned one over to meet the big and the big and small into the small, and they got this pipe really cheap, like Army surplus. That's how they did it back in the early days of that, right, John? I appreciate you writing me about that. Bob McAllister says, hey, Bill hey bill careful don't give the city of medford any ideas about rogue x uh they because i was talking about how everything's out there in the northwest side of town right now and there's really nothing over there on the east side and

and what bob is saying is that they will double up and put Rogue X2 on the east side. After all, it's a real moneymaker, question mark, he says. For safety reasons, we wouldn't want the east side having to drive very far for their fun, and I would dare say their birthday parties, right? Remember, that's the big crowing financial accomplishment at Rogue X, more than 200 birthday parties. Yay! I love paying my park fees so that people can have taxpayer-subsidized birthday parties. But anyway, they have no more problems drowning us in more illegal fees, Bob says. I will never visit this abuse of tax stealing, all right?

We also had Russ write me this morning. Bill, something has been bothering me when you announced Wheels Up Wednesday. Isn't that a phrase used in aircraft transportation rather than ground transportation? Any chance of changing the title to something more appropriate? Wild Wheels Wednesday, for example? I don't know. I kind of like Wheels Up because

what I'm thinking of Wheels Up here, Russ, is kind of the equivalent of Smokey and the Bandit. Keep on trucking, and you hit the peak on the road, the wavy road and you and you grab a little air that's the way i kind of look at it but i appreciate your point yeah you're not the first person that has mentioned this but i kind of like the name and the name will stay but appreciate your writing anyway betty writes from josephine county about the

snap benefit situation usda head is now talking about getting together with Bobby Kennedy and maybe changing the rules on SNAP benefits, so the days of just buying tons of junk food at taxpayer expense ends up going away. And I would agree with that, wouldn't you? I think most people would. But Betty says, Bill, hopefully my prayers have been answered. I've complained for years about the SNAP plan. It's very easy to look at a basket and see who is on the program.

They have all of the chips, candies, cookies, ice cream, high-dollar cuts of meats, soda, sugar, cold cereal. They have very few baking supplies for making things from scratch. Actually, nothing wrong with high-dollar cuts of meat there. At least you know that there's good protein involved in something like that, Betty. I don't begrudge people some meat. In fact, if anything, I think we should be eating more good, high-quality meat. And high-quality meat just is not cheap. It just isn't.

So I'll agree with you and disagree just a little bit. But still, I would dare say uh that stamp benefits should be taking care of the basics and not taking care of the industrial food chain okay all right a couple minutes after seven let's check town hall news and then we're going to catch up with state representative dwayne yunker where i think they're going to be celebrating what is it black drag queens in the state of oregon they hit the vaunted history of black drag queens. This is something that apparently the legislature is really paying close attention to. No, I'm not kidding.