Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 04-02-25_WEDNESDAY _6AM

Episode Date: April 3, 2025

Morning news, how will the Liberation Day work out. Tariffs causing problems for auto trades, I talk about that and more with Eric Peters at EP autos

The Bill Myers Show podcast is sponsored by Clauser Drilling. They've been leading the way in Southern Oregon well drilling for over 50 years. Find out more about them at clauserdrilling.com. Here's Bill Myers. Happy Wheels up Wednesday. Wait a minute, it's Liberation Day, right? Liberation Day. We'll have to talk a little bit about that this morning.

Join the conversation at 770-5633-770KMED. Email Bill at BillMyersShow.com. Read them all all and quite a few people write me off the show. I don't always have time to get into a lot of back and forth but hey thank you and a lot of good emails of the day today. We'll get into some of those also. But yeah today is liberation day. Liberation day is what is what President Trump has been terming this in which he's going to announce a

whole bunch of reciprocal tariffs. The markets are on tenterhooks today. Futures are lower. Everyone's been concerned about this because of the uncertainty. So I guess some of that uncertainty will be removed today after the markets close, which is one o'clock our time. There's going to be a big get-together over in the Rose Garden and President Trump will be talking about who's going to get thumped and you know who's been naughty and who's been nice, you know all these kind of things and it is a big deal. I'm hoping that he is careful about such things because I'm kind of looking at Liberation Day as economic demolition derby day. I think this is it may turn out unless you're careful. But I'll be guardedly optimistic. We'll see what happens.

Unfortunately though, I have yet to have seen any country in a later era that has managed to tariff itself into prosperity, essentially taxing the imports. There are some other issues involved here and maybe we'll talk about that. But needless to say, the Liberation Day tariffs, even APOC Times here reporting on it this morning, it's going to impact all countries. And Trump telling reporters over the weekend that some countries will be more vulnerable due to high trade imbalances with the United States, including significant trade barriers against American goods, including China, India, European Union, Canada, Mexico, United Kingdom,

Vietnam, Japan, and South Korea. And it's interesting, there was some drama over on Capitol Hill because some people in the Senate, like Rand Paul and a few others, are trying to get rid of the emergency power that President Trump seized in order to tariff Canadians. Because remember, we had that USMCA bill, or that deal that President Trump negotiated in the first time.

These are the trade agreements that have been agreed upon between Canada, United States, and Mexico. And President Trump is claiming emergency powers because of fentanyl, because of fentanyl crossing the Canadian border. Now David Stockman, who was Reagan's old budget guy, or in the Office in Management and Budget back in the 1980s, he still writes a lot. I think he has a blog called Contra Corner, and it's on lewrockwell.com today. And he didn't realize, I didn't realize this until I read Stockman's piece there, that the so-called fentanyl emergency that President Trump is using

to claim tariff power over Canada is for on average $400,000 a year of fentanyl crossing the US-Canadian border. It does sound that to call that bad is a good thing, to call that emergency it sounds like the president may be using and grasping at straws, trying to claim an emergency power for what is not really an emergency and otherwise he'd have to go to Congress then for permission to do the tariffing. And there's a lot of, there are a number of senators, I know the president was saying, I was talking about that, Rand Paul, McConnell, Susan Collins, and a lot of uh... there there are a number of uh... senators and the president was saying it was talking about the ran paul

mcconnell susan collins and much of others that are trying to knock down that emergency power hey listen you know it is not a dictatorship it is not as much as that might i would like to see a lot of these things there have to be some agreements on uh... limits to power there are three supposedly co-equal yes i know the judiciary seems to be the most superior limits to power. There are three supposedly co-equal. Yes, I know the

judiciary seems to be the most superior power right now in the United States, but hey, no Senate and the House count too. All right, so how is this going to play out? I don't know, but looking at history, it's not generally really good. Maybe Trump will find a way to thread that needle I will be guardedly optimistic but we will see I don't think though that making a Toyota Camry 25% more expensive is all of a sudden going to mean that more Chevy tracks will be sold in Southern Oregon I just it's hard for me to see yeah how that would end up happening or more Cadillacs would be purchased. Of course, half the time our Cadillacs

and stuff we're making here. Supposedly here are across the border. Parts are made in Canada. It'll go over to Canada. It comes back over from Canada, goes to Mexico. My PT Cruiser, let's see, if I recall correctly, the engine, when I bought my PT Cruiser back in 2010, it's 16 years old this year, I was looking at the label in the engine compartment,

and I guess the body was made in the United States, and a lot of the interior parts sourced in the United States. The engine came from Canada and it was assembled in Mexico. So even that wasn't a purely American made car. In fact, the only, I don't know if it's the only, but it could be the only one. And this is the part that kind of gives me a little bit of that Elon Musk grifty feeling again. The one car that magically would escape no trade problems whatsoever or having any trade problems is the Tesla. 100% made in America. Of course it's very expensive and you know it has been grifted to the top of the EV world because of hot checks from the federal government and many state governments

over a number of years. That's the whole problem I've had with Tesla. Not the problem with a Tesla in essence. You want a Tesla, I think it's great. But essentially, everybody driving a Tesla has been a welfare queen to a certain extent, wealthy welfare queens given that they were such expensive cars. That's just my opinion about it. But that's the part that's irritated me for you know, for the, you know, for the longest time,

is that it was a politically favored deal and Elon's continuing to worm his way in for political favors. I don't know. I don't know. But we're not supposed to talk about those things, right? Because MAGA, sorry, I'm not going to be one of those talk show guys that is just going to say that everything that happens out of Washington, DC is okay and there couldn't be appearances of those talk show guys that is just going to say that everything that happens out of Washington DC is okay and there couldn't be appearances of impropriety.

I will give you a straight take on it as far as I'm concerned. All right. All right. So we'll see how Liberation Day, the more the details will be coming out this afternoon after one o'clock. So we'll have to wait and see. Another interesting story. This one just cracked me up.

I didn't know about this one, but I guess this is one of those stories. Kind of got lost in the shuffle. It was first reported in Daily Mail. Now Daily Mail is a very interesting, well edited. They're calling it, in the United States, they call it a right-wing paper. I don't see that whatsoever. I don't see it as a right-wing paper. I just don't see it as a hissy-fitting left-wing paper. But the CIA, according to Daily Mail, used experimental intelligence methods, remote viewing, to try to locate the Ark of the Covenant. In recently resurfaced documents, as reported by the Daily Mail, CIA outlines how it used

a remote viewer to mentally locate the site of the artifact, which has remained a mystery for centuries. I guess this topic is trending right now over on the socials. It was the CIA Project Sun Streak, and it took place in the 1980s and sought to establish remote viewing, the ability to see areas remotely or conceal data via unknown mental processes, in other words, psychic process. And they were using this as an intelligence tool. And some are saying that it actually worked out really well.

And others are saying, no, it's just nonsense pseudoscience. The reports were unclassified, released in 2000, but now they're starting to look at this more as the conflict between Israel and Hamas carries on. And according to one of the psychics that was supposedly working in the program, the way he saw it is that you opened the lid and the people who looked inside the lid were destroyed, kind of like in the Indiana Jones movie, I guess. So I don't know what to think about that. It is interesting if nothing else. No wonder the CIA doesn't want Doge going through it, because Elon would say, I want

the Ark of the Covenant. And how was your day? This is the Bill Meyer Show, 770-5633. Some interesting local headlines. We'll go over some of those here in a bit. To Eric Peters joins me, epautos.com. Also going to talk to a former school librarian talking about her experience when she was choosing books, given we've been having such a talk lately about the hissy-fitting over

the fact that there's just a shortage of pornography in Oregon school libraries for the kids. And a bunch of Democrats, including one senator, one Senate Republican, are thinking, you know, there, there is a shortage. There's a shortage of smutty pornography, LGBTQ, along with other, just, just plain old sex scenes. There's not enough sex in the school books and we need to fix that. I might be engaging in a little bit of hyperbole but just a little bit if you've ever read any of these books but we'll talk with this with this person coming up okay. Your smile is the key to your health and confidence.

Tony Dusty with Dusty's transmissions and I'm on KMED. 21 after 6. Some more of the headlines here. We had some good news nationally as far as the special elections and some bad news too, or at least not the way I would have wanted it. So let's see, the good news first off, we had the Republicans clinching a couple of special election seats, Florida's first and sixth congressional district seats. Those ended up going pretty well here. Randy Fine ended up winning the sixth congressional election and against Democrat Josh Wheal. And who else? Who's the other one? So Randy Fine has won and oh Jimmy Petronas has won on the first congressional

district too. So that ends up helping the Republican, the Republican advantage, the majority in the House. That helps. Now, what was not so great is that, remember I was talking to you about this special election in Wisconsin, and this was the battle essentially between the billionaires, the battles between George Soros pushing the left-wing liberal and Elon Musk pushing the right-wing guy, the conservative guy, and Judge Janet Protasewicz ended up getting this one back by the Democrats and most importantly of all backed by George Soros. So between the battle of the

Emperor's, Emperor Soros ended up getting that one instead. And that's kind of sad. I knew that was sort of... Essentially what's happening though is that Wisconsin will be keeping its 4-3 Supreme Court liberal majority, and this means that some redistricting could be going in. So that's the bad news, but there's two pieces of good news versus one piece of bad news, so we'll call that plus one on the good pieces of good news. So we'll take that as we can find it. Now Luigi Mangione, the guy accused of shooting the health care executive to death in streets of New York, is going to be facing the death penalty. It'll be interesting to see if that ends up happening. And how many women will be writing him with marriage proposals?

I don't know. Speaking of health though, Wall Street Journal reporting that leaders across health and human services being reassigned to the Indian Health Service as part of a move to reorganize and shrink the nation's health agencies, including the Food and Drug Administration, National Institutes of Health, and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said the agency would cut more than 10,000 federal workers' emails notifying employees of the cuts flooding the inboxes earlier this week, and so they're working on trying to resign. And that would be interesting. Native American health out on the reservations, sometimes a little bit

sketchy, so maybe some of those people will be reassigned. There's another interesting story. I think I'm going to talk with Eric about this, since we're going to be digging into transportation. This was out of Fox News in San Francisco. I have mixed emotions about this. I can see the point, but I don't know. I wanted to ask your opinion on this one. San Francisco launching a new program, and it's backed by Anytusen Newsom, Governor Gavin Newsom, that will issue speeding tickets based on income.

Hmm. A speeding ticket based on income. The Speed Safety System Pilot Program, signed by Newsom October of a couple of years ago, allows cities across California to use speeding cameras to find drivers. Okay fine, yeah we do that here in Oregon. But if you are lower income you're eligible for a steep discount. Violations from fifty to five hundred dollars but individuals with a household income at or below 200% of the federal poverty level are eligible for a 50% discount. Indigent or people who are homeless, oh, okay, this is the get out of homeless jail free,

eligible for an 80% discount on the speeding ticket. Huh. I'm kind of curious how Californians feel about this. But you know there are some other countries that have tried this. I forget which ones, but we've discussed this in the past in which the fines applied are a sliding scale based on your income. It's not a discount for being poor, but as you get wealthier, your fine goes up. So let's say it would be a certain percentage of your income.

All right, let's say you get popped for the downtown Medford Speed camera. Is that $165 or more? Yeah, a lot of people have been telling me $165 at the minimum. So maybe it's $165 for someone of the average income. It's $80 for the homeless person. And then maybe, you know, Sid DeBoer speeds in downtown Metford and he pays $10,000. Now, I'm not advocating this, all right, but that's kind of where they want to take this. What do you think about that possibility now they're just talking about

discounting in california now if fines are there to deter you from doing something wrong a bad policy right if the fines are are supposed to do this, does it deter you if you're a wealthy person? I'm dead serious. Now, just hear me out here. I'm just talking about if it actually deter...

Now, I'm going to pick on Sid DeBoer, because he's one of the wealthiest guys here in southern Oregon of Lithia, right? So Sid DeBoer is heading over to the Lithia towers and he goes through downtown Medford at 45 miles an hour and so he gets popped a certain amount. And so Sid could more or less say, yeah, $500, just write the check, pay it. He didn't care, right? How much deterrent, deterrence is it? Now a $500 fine or something like that for for someone like me or you probably. Different story right? 500 bucks? Man that's a lot of money or even a thousand dollars or something. I think this is where where they're kind of taking these equity arguments but with fines I don't know maybe maybe they have a point.

I might talk with Eric about that. What would you think about that too if there were fines, you know, bad behavior fines are based on your income, a sliding percentage of your income? Well, I'll tell you that means the city of Medford would really love for a multi-billionaire then to speed through downtown Medford. They could charge that person $100,000. We can now re-stripe the streets. We don't have to worry about the grand stream. I'm just having a little bit of fun. By the way, Sid, I'm apologizing, but I just had to pick on you because you're the one that everybody knows about.

Big guy here in southern Oregon and I'm not claiming that you would speed on your way to the Lithia Towers okay 7705633 770 KMED 629 hi good morning caller who's this? Good morning Bill this is Vicki from the Apple game. Hey Vicki what are you thinking this morning? Well I have two thoughts actually you just made me think of something when you said the homeless would have to pay $80. Most homeless people don't have cars, so what are they running to the intersection at, you know? Well, there are some people. They're talking about people who are poor or indigent. There are people who drive around in cars and drive around in vehicles, likely without insurance too, you know, for that matter.

And maybe not even registering in some cases and doing a lot of things and speeding. They still do bad things on the road like everybody else does. What do you think about that? What do you think about a sliding scale, which is what California is looking to do based on income? Well, I think, you know, like you said, the rich people can afford to pay it, and people like us have a more difficult time. So they seem to do the sliding scale on everything now like medical and stuff. So I mean, I don't have a problem with that. But I understand the principle though. I can see the appeal of a sliding scale because yeah, you know, someone of greater

means then is able... it's kind of like, yeah, the fine is irrelevant. It's like it's a rounding error and that sort of thing, but at the same time it can be life-destroying for other people who are very poor for certain crimes, you know? Well, and I don't see somebody who has means, it's not going to stop them from driving 45 in a 20. So my second point, Bill, was, you know, I don't know if I'm ignorant or it's because I don't have TV, but you were talking about Canada and the fentanyl. Yes. You know, everybody talks about Mexico and the fentanyl. Yes. You know everybody

talks about Mexico and the fentanyl and we're putting a border wall up. Where is the fentanyl? Are they making it in Canada and what is the border situation between America and Canada? Well we don't have, I mean there's certainly illegal crossing going on. It's not to the same level, I think, of what we're seeing in Mexico. Okay? Right. But if there's an issue with more fentanyl coming through, shouldn't there be an issue with the border between us?

Well, if there was, except that $400,000 of fentanyl on average coming over the border from Canada to the United States, as bad as that is, is a rounding error in the overall fentanyl situation. Are they making it in Canada and bringing it over? It could be. It could be. They're making it in Mexico. Precursors come in out of China into Canada, most likely, and there must be some people. Or of course, maybe it's coming in pure from from China I can't really tell you you know

at this point. Okay because I'm thinking God that's a long ways for Mexico to you know muddle it all the way up to Canada. Yeah but Rand Paul is you know pretty smart guy and he's trying to nip President Trump's emergency powers he says this is not an emergency and when you look at the actual stats it would appear that President Trump is doing a power grab under the guise that he really wants to tariff Canada. And he probably couldn't do it otherwise because of the USMCA deal, which also President Trump negotiated a few years ago in the first administration. And so, well, they're not doing anything about fentanyl. How much is the fentanyl? On average, about $400,000 a year. That's not very much, okay?

But I'm not saying it's not bad, okay? But does that rise to the level of an emergency, and then you grab Canada and tariff it to 25%, that kind of thing? So, yeah, I think it should go through the process. And I know that President Trump really wants to make America great again, but you don't want to make issues or enemies on that path to righteousness and greatness. You know what I mean? You need to do it in a way where other people think it's an emergency.

And if they don't think it's an emergency, you know, and if it's and if they don't think it's an emergency Well, it's a problem Definitely, but he should have to go through the proper Yeah, another is going for to through Congress on the tariffing. Okay. All right. I appreciate the call there Vicki We'll talk with Eric about that and a whole bunch more on the way here on liberation Tuesday, well liberation Wednesday not wheels up Wednesday more on the way here on Liberation Tuesday, well, Liberation Wednesday, not Wheels Up Wednesday. Okay.

Eric Peters joins me in just a bit after news. The oh, the IRS-backed taxes you can't afford? Are your finances underwater? First Response Resolution in Eagle Point. 27cash.com. Good morning. This is News Talk 1063 KMED. And you're waking up with the Bill Meyers show.

Wheels Up Wednesday has been renamed Wheels Up Liberation Wednesday for today. Eric Peters joins me from eputts.com. How you doing, Eric? Welcome back to Devion. Well, I'm pretty good, Bill. We want to talk about how Orange Pierre doesn't care. Orange Pierre, is that, now that's an old book, right? An old children's book or a French children's now that's an old book right an old

children's book or a French children's book that you wrote about right? Yeah, yeah, I just it popped into my head because I thought it might be a good way to riff on current events but yeah it's a kid's book and it's about a little kid who says constantly that he doesn't care and you know it's it's about his parent trying to show him why it's important to care and I think perhaps that Orange Pierre, the orange man, might want to stop and think a little bit, not just in terms of the optics and how it looks, but also what it means when he says, and I quote, I couldn't of surprised to see that, or he doesn't really care about that. He did say that out loud, out loud. It wasn't just something that we are inferring. He was asked by a reporter about that, about the effect of his quote-unquote tariffs, which are taxes,

the taxes that are going to be applied to vehicles not manufactured in this country. And he said, I couldn't care less. And I just just was bored by that because gosh where you can begin in the first place the the vehicles that are the best selling vehicles in this country right now which are half-ton trucks uh... made by american manufacturers released american branded manufacturers most of those are made across the border of mexico so technically you know there are they too are going to be subjected to this

terror and so the very people who tend to be the most avid supporters of trump are the ones who are going to be paying this tax and let's also not forget to that a lot of the more affordable cars that people might want to buy like the key a k-4 that we talked about a few weeks ago that i test drove a car like that is going to go from costing potentially or from starting around twenty two thousand to potentially going up to about twenty seven and something like a toyota camry or honda accord might end up costing close to $35,000. And I don't understand how that's

going to make America great again. Yeah, we don't have the full details. It's not going to be until after the markets close that details are released on this. Now, from what I understand as far as the Kia goes, given that it's the Hyundai Kia company like we were talking about. I believe that that one is going to be left alone for now because they are going to be constructing plants in the United States. We talked about that last week right? Well yeah but it's going to take a while for those plants to be in operation and so you know the vehicles right now that are available or will be say you know this coming year or next year they're still being imported a

lot of them. Yeah but I was under the impression that Trump had mentioned that because they were, that they had solid plans to build in Louisiana that they were going to let the tariff boot off of Hyundai Kia. Well, they may, but here's a fallacy I think people ought to take into account too, which is essentially this. So he's going to use the tariffs to make vehicles that are made outside of the United States more expensive. What do you think the reaction of the American brands will be or the brands that are not subjected to this tariff? Instead of their cars going up by 20% or 25%, they'll only go up by 15%. You think they're just going to sit there and not increase their profit? No, they would find there would be room then to increase their profit margin is what they

would do. Right. Okay. that's what would happen. The other aspect of this that I think is very important. No, before you even go there though what is the definition though of an American-made car? What percentage? Because almost nothing is 100% either foreign and or American as the case might be. You're absolutely right particularly with regard to major components things like engines and transmissions and so on. You know if you look at the window sticker of any new car typically will break down that you know the the quote unquote foreign and domestic content and uh... there's a formula determining which one is technically american-made

but it doesn't mean it's a hundred percent made in this country it's just you know within a certain standard it's considered to be american but the take-home point is that these components the bits and pieces all of the things that go into manufacturing vehicles a lot of that comes from outside the united states point is that these components, these bits and pieces, all of the things that go into manufacturing vehicles, a lot of that comes from outside the United States. And is that going to also result in an increase in costs? I think that it will. And the thing that the thing I wanted to get into, but I think is the fundamental point here,

is that Trump appears not to understand that the reason why all these manufacturing operations left this country is because of the compliance costs in this country, and tariffs are not going to address that. It's interesting you bring this up. I don't know if you read Lou Rockwell, but did you catch David Stockman's piece there this morning? Oh, yeah. I mean, I know Lou, and I know David, so yeah, I'm familiar with that. Yup.

Do you know Lou? Because I've been trying to get some information out of him for some reason. He hasn't been returning my calls for whatever reason. I'll talk with you about that later. But David Stockman wrote a piece this morning and naturally, you know, Stockman having been Reagan's supply side guy back in the 1980s in the Office of Management and Budget, he is not a fan of what is going on. But and what he's essentially saying is that this is going to be an economic bumper car kind of situation. And I don't know if that's not

necessarily what is wanted though. I mean maybe this is what is wanted Eric, seriously. Well I agree with you and it really has me creeped out because as I see it there are only two binary options here. One, Trump is in ignorance. Two, he is malicious and that this is some sort of controlled demolition that was planned all along. And maybe, you know, whoever is behind all of this wanted him to be the front man for this economic demolition that seems to be underway. Now we don't know that that's going to be the case. Now it's funny that you bring this up because I spent almost an hour yesterday and I never spend an hour watching videos.

I don't know if you know me, but people are always sending me hours or hour long videos to check. But I ended up getting a note from Porter Stansberry. You know Porter Stansberry? Have you ever heard of him? Yeah, big finance guy. Yeah, big finance guy. And he was doing a long interview with Brad something something I should have written down in his last name,

but he was someone that is a friend of President Trump, knows President Trump, has been within the inner circles and is even now within the inner circles. What they talked about over the 45-50 minutes that I was watching this was they both agreed that essentially President Trump is intentionally doing a destruction of the current economic model and they say it's because it must be done because of the debt because of the rot within the system not just the federal government and that if he had told his supporters he was going to do this he never would have been elected in the first place, but they had come to no other conclusion that this is actually a planned

controlled demolition rather than waiting for a big forest fire. In fact, they were using the forest fire analogy through this. And it was like I said, it was really interesting. Now, to be fair, also, they had a dog in the fight because they're selling a service for a couple hundred bucks, which I did not bite on, which was, here are the Trump stocks, because they're essentially saying there are a handful of companies that are going to explode in value after the controlled demolition of the current system, so to speak. And that's what they were... Like I said, it's not me saying it.

It's these two big financiers and also friends of Trump and friends of the agenda. So, I don't know, maybe that's what we're looking at here and we'll find out, won't we? Well, we will and I don't think it's going to go well if it winds up redounding to the benefit of a handful of oligarchal big corporations and finance interests, which I imagine is going to be the result. And what will end up happening, in my opinion, is a practical matter,

is that the average people, the people who by and large supported Trump because they hoped that things were going to get better rather than worse, will out of desperation vote for an outright communist. You know, I think we'll end up potentially with something far worse than Kamala Harris four years from now. Oh yeah, you'll have Bernie on steroids most likely, that kind of thing. All right, we'll see. We'll just have to see. But it could be a liberation day. Maybe we'll look back at this day and laugh at concerns about it. But I know markets are not real happy about it. But of course, markets are also addicted to the heroin supply of big money. No, I know markets are not real happy about it. But of course markets are also

Addicted to the heroin supply of big money No, I know what I was going to tell you though about stockmen what stockman's article on the Rockwell Yes talking about though Is that if president Trump wants to really get to the bottom of why it is that it cost five bucks an hour to build? A car in China and it cost $27 an hour to build something in the United States. Look at the Eccles Building, which is the Federal Reserve. In other words, it is the inflation which has been baked into our economy for decades now. Well, that's part of it.

But look at the fact that Toyota can manufacture and sell for $13,000 a basic pickup, the Hilux Champ that you and I have talked about before. This isn't like vaporware. It's a real vehicle. You just can't buy it in this country. Well, why is that? And why doesn't Trump open the floodgates, so to speak, and let vehicles like that become available? How would it not benefit Americans to be able to buy a $13,000 vehicle rather than a $35,000 vehicle? Yeah, I know. There's a lot to be said for having some more freedom in the automotive world. And I think what terrorists will do is actually tighten this up, if anything else. Now, I had a friend of the show, Michael, who wrote me last night on Facebook, that

said that he and his wife were ready to go out and buy another Mini Cooper. And now they are going to delay this purchase because, you know, unless it's in stock at the dealership right now, it goes up another $6,000, $7,000. And he says he can't do this. And I would imagine many other people are doing the same thing. Now, also, now you can also see there's been a lot of tariff worry going in here because car sales were actually quite good in February and March because they figured that a lot of demand was brought forward because of fear of tariffing. And so they got the cars that they wanted rather than the cars that, let's say,

Washington DC wants you to buy. Sure. And there's another thing people should take into consideration here. It's not just that the new cars are going to become more expensive. You know, you don't necessarily have to buy a new car, but you do have to pay insurance, don't you? And do you expect that car insurance premiums are going to increase when the replacement cost of vehicles goes up by $4,000 or $5,000? I didn't think about that. You're right. It's not just the cost of the car, but when the cost of the car goes up 25%, the cost to replace it in a collision also goes up commiserately.

So people can expect that to happen. You know, that's just wonderful. You know, we're all struggling to pay for groceries and our car insurance has gone up by 25% or even 50% typically over the last year. So now, you know next year it's gonna go up probably another 20% thanks to all of this. All right. Well, maybe this is the year I should try to sell the van again. Used cars will probably go up again, won't they? I imagine that they will, yeah. And I think the more basic the car, the idea of getting a vehicle that limits your exposure to all of these costs to the extent possible is going to become increasingly popular. All right, Eric Peters with me, epautos.com. Question, comment? Yeah, we're talking a lot

about tariffs because this is the big thing and of all the industries Automotive is probably going to be affected almost top of the list. Wouldn't you say really? Well, yeah And you know again, it's important to bear in mind that this isn't something that can be considered in isolation the automotive industry Affects the entire economy think about all the parts manufacturers think about everything that's associated with vehicles all of that It's going to be affected by this. Don't you find it interesting that of all the American manufacturers Tesla is held harmless on this? Hmm. Yeah, despite the fact that what is it I think it's the figure is 29 or 30 something percent of the the average Tesla's parts come from China. It's not considered that way

though. It's considered the American-made cart. When you've got the ear of the orange man, right? I mean he's right there at the orange man's elbow. Okay. By the way, did you catch that Trump egregiously, in my opinion, pardoned the grifter who ran that Nikola scam, the heavy truck EV thing? Oh, that was the truck that had the video out and it was getting people to invest in it, the Nikola, like Nikola Tesla, but it was the big heavy freight truck that they showed it running on the highway except it was being pushed downhill, right? Yes, it rolled downhill. It was gravity-powered. They should have called it the Newton. Okay. Now, the thing is though, why did President Trump pardon him? Because he was busted good and hard for having defrauded investors. It wasn't like there was any question.

He was getting people to invest millions upon millions of dollars into a non-existent product. Yep. Well, I've read, I've heard that the guy, Milton something I think is his name, had given generously to Trump's 24 campaign. And so that may be a factor. I just, other than that, I don't get it because supposedly Trump, at least during the campaign, claimed that he was opposed to all this green grift. And this guy's a criminal, you know? I mean, he's literally a criminal.

And we complained about how Biden pardoned all these criminals, including his son. And now we've got Trump pardoning a criminal, a green grifting criminal. Okay, how much incoming do you have on epodos.com now that you've been talking about these kind of things? I'm getting a lot of pointed comments about how I am now manifesting Trump derangement system because I dare to criticize anything that Trump does. Okay it's gonna be a long four years I guess huh? At this point. Yes. All right. If you have a question about cars, automotive stuff and anything else you're thinking about talk to Eric 7705633. We'll kick some

things around, some great reviews we'll be digging into yet, assuming of course I don't know if the cars you've reviewed have been, are going to be tariffed or not. We'll find out, but this is the Bill Meyer Show. Ready to upgrade your roof to a durable, sleek metal option? Look no further than Stephen Westfall Roofing Ink. With our state-of-the-art SnapLock machines, we bring precision and efficiency right to your doorstep. No need to worry about transporting materials.

We come directly to your project property. Visit StephenWestfallRoofingInk.com and discover the ease and quality of metal roofing done right. Transform your home with Steven Westfall Roofing Inc. Call today to get an estimate tomorrow. 541-941-3736, CCP number 250730. Is your business or personal tax return under IRS audit? Tell the IRS First Response Resolution has got it.

First Response Resolution in Eagle Point, your local tax resolution experts. Visit first response IRS dot com and talk to Zach in Eagle Point. He'll defend your rights as a taxpayer and splash down crew nine back on earth. The news cycle, the Dragon spacecraft splash down in the Gulf of America is on high speed lately. I think you and nine other Democrats cave in. I'm the best leader for the Senate. We're moving forward. And it's even more important to keep up.

I think we found out 14 magic money computers, which can just make money out of thin air. The gunshot that was fired into one of the Tesla vehicles. Trump spent two hours on the phone with Vlad. Weather on the radio, social media, streaming. The president will then determine what the next steps are. Keep it on News Talk 106.3 KMED. This is The Bill Ma Keep it on News Talk 1063 KMED. This is the Bill Meyers Show on 1063 KMED.

Call Bill now. 541-770-5633. That's 770 KMED. Back with Eric Peters, EPautos.com, automotive journalist and genius, and of course libertarian car guide. You can kind of see where his politics are coming from on this one. You know, I'm wondering how successful... We'll get to some calls here in just a moment here, but Eric, I'm hoping that President Trump is successful at what he's hoping to do. If it is going to re-engineer more manufacturing, that's a good thing. I'm not going to complain

about that. And maybe I just don't understand the chess play right now and I'm going to try to hold back a little bit. The one thing though that is not getting talked about enough though is just the very nature of us having the reserve currency means that we're going to run trade deficits. It is part of the, well, it's the nature of the beast. When you have the nation's reserve currency or the world's reserve currency, you have to send lots of dollars. That's our number one export. I mean, we talk about exporting, Boeings and everything else. Our number one export is really dollars. Are you familiar with that kind of tape on it? Oh, yeah, sure.

Yeah. And we have to do this. And because of the reserve currency and also now that it's untethered to gold, you can just print as much as you want, you're able to run lots of deficits at home. And we have since 1971, 72 when Nixon ended up, you know, severing the dollar's convertibility to gold. And so we've exported our inflation and there's a cost to exporting the inflation is that it makes your manufacturing, your domestic manufacturing, non-competitive because your wage rates are going to go up. It's contrasted with the rest of the world and that's what President Trump I think is fighting in this battle right now.

Well, I hope so. But again, to reiterate, I wish that he would do something about the compliance costs, which would greatly mitigate that factor. I mean, hugely. You do. Imagine if it were feasible for a legal, for a car manufacturer to build a vehicle like the Hilux here that didn't have to have six airbags and all the structure and all the other stuff that has bloated the price and the weight of new cars to just such an absurd degree. Everybody else in the world can get the Hilux, but we can't. There are also very inexpensive, high-mileage diesel cars that are also available. Not available here, are they? Absolutely. And many of these vehicles are literally available just right across the border in Mexico. Similar to the models that we have right here, they just have a different

drivetrain that we're not allowed to have here because of the arbitrary fiat issued by the EPA. That's what Trump needs to deal with. That's what he needs to address. That will also then make American cars much more competitive with the rest of the world. Sure. Okay. Makes sense. 656, I'm talking with Eric Peters.

Happy to take your calls. Let me grab line one. Hi, good morning. Who's this? Welcome. Hey, it's Peter. I have a different question, but on that, does anybody have the ear of the orange man that you know of on the car front? Unfortunately, not that I know of. I wish I were like five degrees from

Kevin Bacon from the orange man so that I knew somebody who knew somebody who might be able to get to him, but I don't. Yeah, yeah. I don't think of him as being a car guy. Well, he's not. You know, he said something interesting the other day when he was talking about the Tesla that he promised to buy to show how much he supports Elon Musk. He doesn't drive. He doesn't know anything about cars.

Right. Yeah. All right. So he knows many things about many things, but not about the cars, I don't think, but quite well taken. My question is, I have a fleet of geriatric vehicles and one of them is an 86 Toyota Camper that I really like the Camper and I've only got about five grand into it and I've wondered it's totally gutless so I'm not willing to drive it across the country or something to take Colorado

where I need to go and I'm wondering is it ever worth like replacing the engine? I don't know how much that would cost. I think so and I'll give you a parallel example. I have an O2 Nissan Frontier. It doesn't need one, but let's say hypothetically I needed to put a new engine in it and a new engine for that truck would probably cost me somewhere between 3,500 to 5,000 bucks. Absolutely it's worth it. You know, I mean a new Frontier starts at around $30,000 and that doesn't count the sales tax and the insurance that goes along for the ride plus the higher repair and maintenance costs because of all the stuff, the tech that they have

now embedded in these vehicles. So absolutely it's worth it, particularly if you factor it out over time. You factor it out over time. Let's say you spend, say, $5,000, one hit $5,000. How much does that work out to per month over, say, 10 years? Essentially nothing. Right, right. Would you be inclined towards a different engine rebuilt or I guess that a new engine is just a rebuilt old engine?

Is that correct? Well, new means it's new. It doesn't mean it hasn't been rebuilt. So there's a distinction there and rebuilds are not bad if they've been done correctly. Now, I think what he's talking about though, though Eric and Caller correct me if I'm wrong, isn't this about maybe putting in a later model more powerful engine? Is that kind of what you were looking at? Because I know which Toyotas you're talking about.

Those were gutless, those four cylinders with the big heavy camper on it, right? Yeah, I was going to address that. It's entirely possible. I don't know off the top of my head. I'd have to go back and look, but my Frontier frontier similar to that truck and it was available with the v six so it's just a a matter of physically installing it and it will fit you just might have to have some of the peripherals you have to look into it and see what

will fit and then it depends on how much work you're you're willing to do yourself for can do or pay for you know if it entails a lot of modifications the good thing about you something from the eighties you know you don't have to worry about all this computer stuff. You know the drivetrain is much simpler You don't have all these electronic harnesses very straightforward So more than likely you could put a little v6 in that thing I would imagine yeah That would be interesting now is the is it rusty or is in pretty good shape body wise. Oh, it's in great shape

Oh, well worth it well worth it in my opinion, okay? Hey, appreciate the call. Let me go to the next line here. You're with Eric Peters. Hi, good morning. Wheels up Wednesday. Who's this? Yeah, Vicki, go ahead. What's your question? I'm not going to be a radio hog, but I did have a question for Eric this morning. Go ahead. Okay, Eric, my daughter got in an accident about a month. Well, maybe it's been about a month, and the person that hit her had insurance but the insurance is totally ghosting her and her insurance.

So she had a $2,000 deductible. They towed it to a shop. The shop's original without actually getting into it was like $2,100. So she does not have experience in looking at the vehicle before she took it off from the shop. And she drove it home and when she got in the wreck, one of her, she has dual pipe exhaust. You know, exhaust. Dual exhaust. And one of them was pushed up under the bumper during the accident. Well, she noticed that it was still underneath the bumper and they charged like $2,100 to

do what they were doing. Well, she called them and they said, oh, we didn't even notice that. Well, red flag. And so she took it back in. And they said, oh, well, we're in her tire pressure monitor system was on. So her front tire had no damage at all, but it was low. And it wasn't when she brought it in.

And now she brought it back to the shop. And their estimate, I mean, their prices went from $21,000, then it went up to $41,000, and now it's over $7,000. When she blue booked the car, it was worth between $5,000 and $7,000, and it's in excellent condition. It's beautiful inside. My question is, who has the last say about whether it's totaled or not and why didn't they total it if it was over the amount it was worth? Well

yeah, Bill do you know if your state a no-fault state? I don't know. That's something I haven't had any claims here for the longest time. Do you know Vicki, is it no-fault? I don't think it's no fault. I've never been knocked on wood in an accident. So in all the times that I've driven, I've never been in an accident, although my husband's been in a lot. So I don't know if it's no fault or not. His insurance company, it was a young kid, 19. And just, they just totally ghost her and her insurance. So she had to pay the deductible. And hopefully, when they do get his insurance, she'll get that back. But I don't know if it is or not, Bill. Okay. So it sounds like her insurance is essentially on the hook for this and is assuming responsibility

for either cutting her a check. Yeah, I did look it up. Oregon is not a no-fault state. Okay? Okay. You may have to contact an attorney and pursue this in small claims court, depending on the circumstances. But as far as the totaling, if what you say is factually accurate, they're going to total

the car, no doubt. And then you're going to have to wrangle over the amount that they're gonna give you which you know sometimes gets contentious Yeah, they take it back and they're fixing it and my daughter's like well I don't understand why they're fixing it if it's more than what the cars worth because well that that would be up to I think it's usually up to the Insurance adjuster to figure that out. Right. Yeah, typically though when a car, when the repairs, or the estimated repairs approach 50% of the average retail value of the car at that point, they will typically total it.

So it's odd to me that they would consider putting, you know, a sum that's equivalent to two thirds or even the full retail value of the car into fixing it. I don't know. Yeah, but if they're willing to pay for it and it's going to come back to you and it's a good car, I don't know where you go unless you want to hire an attorney on that. Okay. Hey, Vicki, I got... She's going to call her adjuster this morning. Okay. That's the way to do, toss it into that. Okay. All right. Thank you. All right. Hey, thanks, Vicki. Let me go to the next line. We've got a lot of people want to talk to Eric. Hi, good morning. Who's this? Welcome. Hello. Hi, you're on. Yeah, it's you. Go ahead.

Oh, sorry. I didn't hear the thing. It's all right. Back in the day, Californians, and maybe they still do it, used to come up to Oregon to buy cars all the time because of tax purposes. Can we go into Mexico and buy a car and bring it back to America? That's a great question. Get away with it. It's illegal. It's extremely illegal. But if you can get away with it, sure. I've talked to people. Volkswagen still made the old Beetle, the old one, the air-cooled rear engine one, all the way up through, I think, 2002. And they look exactly like American Beetles. And somehow, if you could get one back over the border, and do a little bit of skullduggery with shifting around of numbers and so on, you could probably get away with it, but it is illegal. Yeah, most people would not, I guess a lot of states would not look too

closely at the VIN number. Yeah. And so someone would get, I remember reading someone would get a title to an old Volkswagen that looked the same and nobody would look, right? That kind of thing. The one thing you can do, and we've talked about this before, Bill, you can get these grandfathered vehicles, the JDM, the right-hand drive vehicles that were made in export markets and sold in export markets that are allowed in. They have to be 25 years old though or older, and there are some JDM between Japanese domestic market vehicles that some specialty dealers traffic in, and that's totally

legal. All right one more call for Eric. Hi good morning who's this? Good morning Bill, it's Francine. Francine you're with Eric go ahead. Hi hello Eric. Hi Francine. I have a 1990 Ford F-150 XLT Lariat with four-wheel drive and five-speed manual and it's got, you know, the AC work. I mean, it actually all works pretty good. And I had this home mechanic guy who I had do some work for me and we've parted ways since, because he's kind of crazy. But anyway, he's telling me this vehicle is worth, he said between 10, 15, maybe even more, $1,000

to the right people. Is that realistic or is he pulling my leg? No, he's absolutely realistic, especially if it's in very nice condition, as you say. Those things are increasingly more... Well, it's not shiny and beautiful. It's not pretty, but I think it's the original old root beer brown color, and there's no tears in the seats and beautiful. It's not pretty, but I think it's the original old root beer brown color,

and there's no tears in the seats and stuff. I mean, it's functional. Okay. What did you say, Eric? Here, I know you're kind of talking to each other. The frame isn't rusted and the body is solid. That is a highly desirable, highly valuable vehicle. Okay. There's your retirement plan there. Where's the best place to advertise this though? Well, any number of places. You can put pads up locally in things like Craigslist. There are, you know, Old Truck Trader is another one, like Old Car Trader, things like that. You could put it on eBay if you're willing to deal with the hassle of eBay. There are a variety of options.

Okay, how many miles are on your Ford? Well, the odometer has been replaced with another one that says 60, but so I don't, we didn't put 60 on it. The other one turned over, it says 10. And since they're five digits, I'd say it's probably, you know, somewhere between 150 to 200 maybe. And that's an easy to rebuild vehicle, isn't it Eric? Completely easy. That's one of the reasons why it's valuable. You could just put a for sale sign in it, get a fair value, talk to somebody in your area who knows those vehicles, there are value guides that can help you determine it, and you

could just throw a for sale sign in it, put it out in your front yard or in your driveway and see what happens. All right. Thank you. right. Thank you. Thank you, Francine. Eric, it's great having you on here. Before we take off, I wanted to grab one quick talk on your latest review and it has to do with the new Prius. Yeah, new Prius. We have some good news, don't we? Yeah, actually it is really good news because everybody used to make fun of the Prius because not only did it look like a sal bug, you know, the design of it, you know, that sort of thing, but it was kind of a doggy performer. That's not the case any longer. Not the case any longer, right? No, that's the miracle. It really is almost a biblical

miracle in that this thing now is quicker, if you can believe it, this is a Prius, quicker, accelerating than most of the V8 muscle cars of the 60s and the 70s it'll get to 60 in about six seconds but it can also average 57 miles per gallon which is just a phenomenal achievement. All right now is it made in the United States though? I don't think so I think it's made in Japan which is actually a good thing because what I gather you know the the vehicles that are made in Japan tend to be of higher quality but there's an important caveat I'm going to have an article that gets into this at greater depth on the site tomorrow.

If you opt for the optional wheels, and I like to call them rims because it's a derisive term, there are 19 inches on the thing. 19 inches on the Prius? The little tiny Prius. Yeah, on the Prius. Okay. If you go from the 17-inch wheels that are standard to the 19-inch wheels, you lose five miles per gallon, which gives you an idea of just how much mileage we're losing as a

result of these stupid rims that are heavy and increase the rolling resistance of the vehicle. Now you have to pronounce it correctly though, it's re-um-s. Yeah, it's probably one of the stupidest and yet least understood trends of the last 25-30 years. Skinny tires, low rolling resistance, big fat tires, forget about it. Right? Remember the Honda CRX from back in the 80s? I do. It had 13-inch wheels and it got 50 miles per gallon. Yeah. Vanigan camper that I have right now, big heavy Vanigan, like 3,200 pounds, whatever it is. It is, actually I think it's like 2,800 pounds,00 pounds 3200 loaded but it is

14 inches 14 inch to 195 or 14 is what the stock is on those on those vehicles, right? Yep Lower rolling resistance and yet everything now do they even make 15 inch tires any longer? These are a handful of cars that still have them as the standard wheel But no generally speaking at least 16 is more commonly 17 and a lot of SUVs and crossovers have 21 and 22 inch rims. Alright, get away from that. The smaller tire will save you a lot in fuel costs that's just the bottom line okay. That's the sort of stuff you'll find out at epautos.com. Eric Peters it's a great talking with you we'll kick it around next week and see how Liberation Day plays out. We'll have some more details after one today alright. See you then. Take care.