Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 04-03-25_THURSDAY _8AM

Episode Date: April 4, 2025

04-03-25_THURSDAY _8AM

The Bill Myer 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. Shiny, happy people, unless you're watching the stock market today, but you know, it was kind of expected with the announcement of reciprocal tariffs. I want to talk more about this with Kenneth Raposa. Big career as a staff reporter for the Wall Street Journal in Brazil. More than five years, five, six years, you were out there reporting on the

markets at that point. How are you doing this morning, Ken? Welcome back. I'm doing great. Thanks for having me on. And it's C. And then you move back to the U.S. You're coming to Brazil, Russia, India, and it's C. And currently you analyze or are an analyst for Coalition for a Prosperous America. What do you focus on over there at Coalition? All right. So the Coalition for a Prosperous America is a member-driven organization and our members

are manufacturers in the United States or producers, including people who work in the ag business. They're ranchers, for example, and they're interested in making sure that their investments in producing goods in the United States is made whole and they're not being overwhelmed by import penetration. Because as you know, now that you've probably paid attention to the liberation day and all that was leading up to liberation day yesterday, and I hope you had a good liberation day and you didn't have to fire off the fireworks and all that good stuff. But that the world treats the United States or thinks of the United States as their market.

And so if you and I have a business, which is like the members of my group coalition, if you're one of them, you're competing with the world. And that's fine, but you're competing with the world that has different wages than you, different environmental rules than you. You're competing with the behemoth called China and that's really changed everything and that's what's led to inevitably where we are today in the remapping of global supply change and rethinking of global trade. All right it's really interesting because as a broadcast engineer also here Ken, I've had the interesting

experience of trying to find vacuum tubes for replacement costs. And you know, America, and I know it's not as big of an industry as it used to be, but you can almost buy nothing in the United States at this point. And if you do, it's about three times the cost of what it is to buy the equivalent to about of a Chinese source, right? You know, that's just, that's realistically where it has been. But here is my question is how will putting a 35% sales tax,

essentially it's what's going to happen on Chinese goods as an example. And I understand that you want to have more of it here. How is that going to get the American price down? I'm just having a difficult time figuring this out. Right. Yeah, I understand. Well, we have to start off with a disclaimer whenever you're talking about global trade. This is rocket science. Okay? It's very complicated.

There's a lot of moving parts. Beyond the moving parts, there's also political parts that are included in the moving parts. And those political parts are humans who have changes of allegiances in short periods of time. And so they can change their mind. They think all of a sudden a tap is here and then it's gone. Now look, you mentioned the audiovisual equipment market. Most of that is all made overseas, probably all of it in Asia.

I don't know what percentage of it is made in China. A lot of it is also made in Mexico. That's been gone for a while ago. That's maybe some of the American companies either considered it a commodity item and they didn't wanna do it anymore, or they were just beat out by low cost imports. And they couldn't compete and they stopped making it or they went on a higher end, as

you said, a higher end product. And then you'll say, well, I don't want to spend that kind of money. I want to buy the Chinese one. And now the Chinese one might cost you, let's say 20% more. Right? Okay. Now, and again, that's not really leading to a, so the theory there is that's not really leading to, you would say that's not leading to reshoring.

That company's not going to say, let me make that in the United States, because again, they don't have the facts. We don't even have the products here. Maybe the guys can make the more expensive item. Can they make that item on the whole? Yeah. I guess that's what I was getting at, Ken, is that I understand putting tariffs on stuff we actually make and have the great potential

to make. I do question when we put big tariffs on stuff that we're realistically not going to do. It's not in our comparative advantage to do so. But maybe we're talking about changing that comparative advantage over the years. I think we are talking about changing the comparative advantage. That's one. But another thing too is that tariffs are also going to be used, and again, some of these tariffs that were announced yesterday that look really high, think of them, think of the tariffs right now that are coming out right now as sort of like, there's sort of, it's the seed and the apple.

So the seed is this 10% tariff. That seed is never going to change. The apple. So everyone pays 10%, right? That's the rule. If you import anything, you're going to pay 10%, right? Yes. Yes.

That's what we're hearing. That's what we're hearing. And of course, Trump being Trump, that could change by the time this conversation is over. And hopefully, it does not change, because the market and businesses need certainty. So the reciprocal aspect of this, of the 30, 40% above, that could possibly be negotiated down.

And again, it might be for things like you say, hey, look, we don't import a lot of audio visual equipment. No one even makes that in this country. And six months later, the tariff is back to the most favored nation tariff. Oh okay I see so so this is kind of like though but but it can also be used as a negotiating uh well as a baseball bet then to negotiate with people and one example I saw this morning was in Alberta uh Doug Ford talking about in Canada saying hey you know uh if we were to drop bars and treat you better, would you go easy on Canada? Would you eliminate those extra tariffs? So this is what you're talking

about then. A game of chicken of sorts, right? A game of chicken. A game of chicken on some of the high-end reciprocal tariffs. But I want to make something very clear. There has to be a baseline tariff. You can't be saying, okay, I'm going to put global steel tariffs on the world because we want steel and aluminum produced here because this is an important industry to make other things. And it's disappearing. And we already had tariffs, but we exempt a lot of countries from these tariffs. And so import penetration meant that our steel makers weren't producing at capacity, not even close. Okay?

Right. So we can't say now, okay, well, you guys, because you let us import, because you let us export more beef, and you guys, because you're not gonna tax Amazon and Meta, we're gonna give you the no tariff on steel. That's not gonna work. And the reason that's not gonna work

is because we already saw that it didn't work, number one. The steel industry is now asking for more tariffs, and they got them. Okay? And it's not going to work is because we already saw that it didn't work, number one. The steel industry is now asking for more tariffs and they got them. Okay? And it's not going to work because now the market is going to say, we can't trust this whole narrative of tariffs to reshore, tariffs to re-industrialize, because it's not going to make me want to either A, invest in a company thinking that they're going to have a bigger market and get more customers because it's an America first agenda. I'm not going to be a Wall Street guy investing in that company thinking that they're going to have a bigger market and get more customers because it's an America first agenda. I'm not going to be a Wall Street guy investing in that company.

Why? Because the tariffs are here Monday and they're off the following Monday. That's not a steady ship. So Trump needs to signal that these tariffs, and again, I mentioned that 10% base price are here to stay, is non-negotiable. And again, another reason for the tariff is revenue. As you know, I'm sure your listeners know, the government of the United States, like all Western governments, have a penchant for spending money. They don't like to not spend

money and they don't like to cut things. You see what happens now, even with Elon Musk and Doge, anything you cut, even things that Americans don't even care about realistically, or even heard of. Oh, people are going to die, Kenneth. People are going to die if we don't keep spending that money, right? It's what you hear every time. Everybody's going to die. So because the government doesn't like to cut spending, then how are they going to fund themselves? Well, you have to raise taxes. If you're going to raise taxes, like the Tax Cut and Jobs Act, which expires next year, and you're going to raise taxes like the Tax Cut and Jobs Act, which expires next year, and you're going to raise them on corporations, large and small, mind you, the big companies, the ones who the small widget

makers sell to, the big guys like Walmart and Boeing and Ford are going to say, well, my taxes just went from 20% to 35%. Yeah, I get all these write-offs and yada, yada, yada, and all this fun stuff, too. So it's not really that. And Ford are gonna say, well, my taxes just went from 20% to 35%. Yeah, I get all these write-offs and yada, yada, yada, and all this fun stuff too, so it's not really that. But it still, it went up 15 percentage points. Why am I making anything?

Why am I doing business? I'm gonna go somewhere else. Because tax arbitrage and labor arbitrage are two of the things that give a company a reason to outsource or manufacture elsewhere. So you have to have revenue from tariffs. That has to be a core part of this entire tariff strategy if Trump wants to fund tax cuts.

If he's going to just erase tariffs, I'm going to go to 3.5%, which is the WTO tariff, any member of WTO, Access United States, 3.5%. That's the tariff rate. If we're going to go back down to that in a few, in a few months because some companies says, yeah, you can, some countries says, yeah, you could, you know, we'll take more of your chickens. That's not, that's not going to work. That doesn't send a signal to the market that this stuff is permanent.

And it also tells other countries, including China to say, all I'm going to do is tell Trump that I'm going to import more. What product does he like? Okay, let me check. He likes LNG. He doesn't want us to do XYZ. Okay, we're not going to do XYZ and we're going to import more LNG. Wonderful. Next week, tasks are off. In other words, you need to keep the... Okay, so Ken, you're saying keep the baseball bat in place and make sure that people understand that there is not going to be that much finagling with it. So if I understand correctly then, you look at now Hyundai, as an example, Hyundai Kia is building a steel plant and an assembly plant in the United States of America, reportedly

in Louisiana. Now I had heard talk that there was not going to be tariffs placed on Hyundai for that reason. Is that a good reason not to? When they say, hey, we're building the plant and we got the assembly plant, or would you only do it after they get it done? No. Look, the reason why Hyundai is a great company, Trump said this, and the South Koreans are our friends.

And Hyundai makes a lot of cars in Georgia and Alabama. Okay, they already do. Right? Yes, they already do. But our trade deficit in passenger cars with South Korea, of which we have a free trade agreement, mind you, is around 30 billion dollars. But the thing is we don't even build passenger cars half the time now. In fact, I think Chevy Malibu is the last one we got right now in the United States. That's correct. Well, that's because Americans like the SUVs and F1 in the big trucks.

Exactly. That's what American car companies focus on now, apparently. But again, let's pretend you said, hey, look, you know what? Because essentially right now, the Korean Free Trade Agreement is dead because their face was 25% tax. But let's say you say to them, and it was a huge gesture of goodwill, mind you, when Hyundai said they're going to invest $21 billion in the United States over the next few years.

Huge gesture of goodwill. Hoping probably being a giant conglomerate in Hyundai, probably being almost as powerful as the Korean government, that they would hold some sway there, right? They would be exempt from tariffs. I guarantee you that if all of a sudden Trump said, hey, you know, Korea, there are friends, we have a free trade agreement with them, let's go back to what it was. Let's say you did that even six months from now. The Hyundai guys that are just saying, I'm going to invest 21 billion, that 21 billion becomes 10 billion. Maybe it just becomes, I don't know,

5 billion. Because they're just going to say, well, I'm just going to stick with the status quo. I'm just going to keep importing. So what you're saying though, if Trump is smart about this, then he can't buckle just because they've made a pledge and a promise to invest here, right? Because in his mind, I would guess, the reason why they decided to invest here is because of the tariff and the threat of the tariff. If Korea can just export cars and car parts to make those cars to the United States almost duty free, I mean, they can have some vehicles here, maybe the cars that Americans love to buy or big SUV or whatever, they could do that.

But the Kia, the Kia K5, whatever it's called, the Kia sedan, why? Why make it over here? If they just make it in Korea, it'll be cheaper. The Korean won is cheaper. They'll have a bigger profit margin for a car made in Korea. I mean, granted, they got to pay Maersk and all these international shipping companies a fortune to get it over here. But still, they're going to make that calculus.

Whatever that calculus is, I don't know. But I mean, if there was no TAF threat, Korea would not have made that announcement. I mean, that was a big, big investment announcement. I mean, even a steel mill. Korea is not in the business of producing steel. That is a new thing for them. I mean mean Hyundai, at least not in the United States, right? They might do it in Korea, but they do not do that in the United States. They're starting a Greenfield project and that's a big commitment. So you believe then that we should be getting used to

these and my next question will be Kenneth, should Congress, and I'm speaking about the Senate, I think the Senate would have to negotiate this, should the Senate codify what Trump has done with his with his tariff plan? And the reason I say this is that otherwise people will just think I'll just wait out the orange man until you know everybody's all P.O.'d at him and then we'll vote in a communist. What are you saying? Well you're speaking you're speaking our language. We should hire you as our auxiliary trade council at coalition for a process. So yes, they should do those things.

And you know, it's funny because Congress talks about, and even if you pay attention to the news, you've been hearing members of Congress saying, Trump shouldn't be doing this on tariffs. It's a congressional act. And they're right a it's a congressional act and they're right It's a threshold act to sign, you know free trade deals and any kind of trade deal, right? The Congress has to you know weigh in on those things, but the powers that Trump's enacting, you know Not to get into insider baseball. That's that's the You know, that's the executive branch that could do those things. Anyway, Congress is saying we should be doing this stuff

Well, there's nothing stopping them from doing it. Nothing's gonna stop them for years, but they haven't put forth any bills. You are right, they should codify that. Say, let's at least have a 10% revenue tariff at a minimum so the market knows this is the price and we're gonna collect at least $380 billion based on what we import in terms of goods,

at least $380 billion every on what we import in terms of goods, at least $380 billion every year in revenue from tariffs. So in essence, it's kind of a value added tax through the back door, right? That kind of thing. Well, it's different than the traditional value added tax, and that's really one of the biggest gripes of the Trump administration and many American businesses. So let's say you and I have a business. We make beautiful leather office chairs, gamer chairs.

That's an idea for the young generation. We make gamer chairs, okay? Beautiful leather gamer chairs, high-end. And we sell those to Europe. And it's only a 4% tax, that's not bad. But now there's a value added tax. The value added tax is 20%. We're not in Europe.

So we have to pay that tax. Just like the Europeans, they also gotta pay it. But the Europeans get to write that tax off. They get a credit. But I'm not a European. I'm an American company. We're making game of chairs here in, where are you, Oregon, right?

Yeah. In Oregon. Yeah. And we don't get the money back we don't get that money back so these are this is this is different right so it's different than a traditional value added tax okay one of the big gripes of American companies and the company administration on the VAT all right now Ken Raposa once again and he is with you know prosperous America dot org is the website here, okay, and Coalition for a Prosperous America. Let me, now I know that you're all about local factories and I think that's great. Here's the one question I have. Is there a danger, any danger at all, that this ends up freeing up

or freezing up world economic activity, much like what we did with Smoot Harley back in the 1930s during the Great Depression. Any danger there? Okay, look, I want to say two things on that. One, Trump is the disruptor in chief. The American economy is the great disruptor economy, number one, and number two. Okay? That's what we are.

We're disrupting things right now. Okay, that's scary things things sometimes Don't go according to plan and sometimes industries and ways of doing things fall apart. I'm talking to you right now on a cell phone 20 years ago, I'd be standing in my in an office glued to a landline Now I'm doing on a cell phone. No one buys a landline phone anymore. It's out of business, it's gone. Okay, so I mean, you know, things change. Could there be a problem? Yes, there could be a problem.

We have to not worry about the short term and worry about GM stocks being down 2%. We have to worry about the long term. You know who thinks about the long term? It's a country that everybody complains about and cries about and yet cheers about also at the same time. It's a country called China, right about and cries about and yet cheers about also at the same time. It's a country called China, right?

Everybody talks about China. China doesn't think about quarter to quarter. China doesn't care if the Shanghai Stock Exchange is down 10%. They care about that they're gonna have the companies and the industries of the future. That not only the Chinese want, and believe me, the Chinese consumers aren't shopaholics

like we are, so they're not supporting the Chinese economy. They wanna build the industries of the future that the world wants. Okay? And so we have to understand and other countries have to understand that we're not doing this because we're mad or we hate Germany or we're saying, hey, the hell with the Chinese and the hell with the Viet. We're saying, look, we are not going to be the consumer of first and last resort for you guys. We are more than happy buying your Jaguars. We are more than happy buying the new Vietnamese SUV made by a company called Vinfast, which

you've never heard of probably, but you will see them on the roads in the South, United States if you're ever there. We're more than happy to take them in, and maybe it's going to cost a little bit more money for an American to import one. That might be the case. But if American really wants a Jaguar, he's going to buy a Jaguar. And it's not going to... And just because the tariff is 10% on the UK, I'm going to use that as an example, that

doesn't mean that a $100,000 Jaguar is all of a sudden $110,000. That's not how it works. Companies can rearrange prices and figure out how they're going to do things and to get that to be lower. Of course, currencies fluctuate. We are the country of the strongest currency in the world. That's one of the reasons why we have a huge import market, because it's easier for us to buy furniture imported and made from Vietnam than it is to buy nice, you know,

nice furniture made in South Carolina. Nice furniture made in South Carolina doesn't price it. But here is my question because here you are, Coalition for a Prosperous America. What is it in the, in the tariffing world, in all of these plans for it, to get rid of the main anti-competitive aspect of America. Basically the fact that we have been inflating and inflating and inflating our currency for a long time. It cost $27 an hour to build a car here,

cost five bucks an hour to build it in China. And we had this huge regulatory state too, that I don't see anything being done about. And it just seems like we're throwing up barriers, but we're not fixing what really hurts the United States. What would you say? Oh, right, I agree with you. I agree with you, tariffs are one part of a tool.

And so it would be very bearish for the market if you want to talk stock market, for example, if tariffs are there, but deregulation doesn't get caught as Trump said he wants to do. Taxes don't get caught as Trump said he wants to do. And actually, they end up going up. Negative, negative for the market. But if you have tariffs and you have, and they're steady and we understand that this

is the price, this is what it's going to be. This is what it's going to be if you want to make steel and aluminum. If Alcoa wants to make aluminum in Canada and send it to the United this is what it's going to be this is what it's going to be if you want to make steel and aluminum if Alcoa wants to make aluminum in Canada and send it to the United States then it's going to cost them their you know their shop in the United States 25% or whatever it may be because again you have loan terms you can buy bigger shop and buy bigger volumes which the company will lower the price. So things are always changed. It's never $100, 20% is automatically $120. That's definitely not how it works. But if the United States does not do those things,

does not cut taxes, does not do a deregulation and just has tariffs, that would be... Especially if tariffs come on. Okay, that's just putting lipstick on the American pig and the American pig is still there. Okay, yeah. All right. Yeah, exactly. You can't, again, thinking of tariff as a tool, right?

You and I- One of many tools from what I'm hearing from you, right? One of many tools that need to be used, okay, because- Absolutely. You can't build a house with just a hammer. That's the simplest way to say it, okay? Tariffs are a hammer, but there's other things that you need to be used. Okay, because- Absolutely. You can't build a house with just a hammer. That's the simplest way to say it. Okay, tariffs are a hammer, but there's other things that you need to build it. And that's the same thing with the economy. You know, if we've had, we've had low tariff, we have the lowest tariff rates in the world. No one has low tariffs like on maybe Singapore, but

come on, that's not, that's not a huge- Not a big trader. No. Yeah. That's not talked about. Yeah. Hong Kong, right? So no one has low rates as low rates as we do, okay? And there's been many studies by the government under both administrations, Democrat and Republican, that talks about the wonders of free trade. Everybody on Capitol Hill talks about free trade. Everybody talks about the wonders of free trade.

And who is it wonderful for? Well, it's wonderful for Walmart. And maybe some people can say that it's great because you and I can buy the gamer chair for a hundred dollars. And that's great. But you know, something that we're not calculating in that greatness that you could buy a gamer chair for a hundred dollars is that me and you, our gamer

chair business is done and we had a hundred people that worked for us in a small town in Oregon who had a great little life. It is over and it's over. And maybe two of those people are now working in a rehab center that got built down the street. And that's the story of the United States. That is everywhere. So we can talk about all the wonders of this and the wonders of cheap goods. But it's like everything has a price. I think the United States recognized this, and Americans have recognized this, probably going back to the days of Ross Perot in the 90s when he warmed up the great stuffing sound and after it became a law. Remember it well.

And by the way, he was prescient about that. He was right. He was. And let me tell you one more thing. And by the way, I voted for him back in the day as a kid. He was a character. He was a character. And I remember that.

That was my intro to politics in the early 1990s. I remember Dana Carvey had the greatest Ross Perot invitation. It was the best. I get it. I'm going to link to your article up there. You have it. It's called Happy Liberation Day America because I'll tell you, we're dealing with the great disruptor.

All hail the great disruptor. I'm just going to hold back and I guess get the popcorn and let's watch. Is that all we can do with this? Okay. All right. Kenneth, I really appreciate your take. He's a reporter columnist for Coalition for a Prosperous America. Prosperous America dot o-r-g. And of course you have that Happy Liberation Day America up there too. Thanks for the talk. All right. Be well. It is 839 at KMED and 99.3 KBXG. Thanks Jan. News Talk 1063, KMED.

You're waking up with the Bill Myers show. Open phones on Conspiracy Theory Thursday, a very dangerous time. 770-5633. 770 KMED. We've got Richard. We also have Deployable Patrick standing by. Hey, first, before we wanted to go to the phones, I wanted to make sure and know that everyone knows

about this. Daily Caller reporting this morning, Christine Grady, a top bioethicist at the National Institutes of Health and the wife of the science, former top NIH official Anthony Fauci, the science, was among the health bureaucrats fired on Tuesday according to news reports. You will recall that Christine never probed the ethics of the Wuhan research lab, okay, just to know that. And don't feel too badly about the Fauci family still at last count worth about

eleven and a half million dollars. Isn't that great? Let me go to Richard. Hello, Richard. Good to have you on. What are you thinking? Hey, good morning, Bill. You know, we talked last week about the gas tax and stuff for our roads. Yeah. So I have a delivery job where I'm out doing deliveries and I cannot tell you the number of Amazon vans I see with Washington state license plates out of our Amazon delivery center here in Medford, Central Point area. I wonder why that would be. Yeah. I mean, and I've just, I try to be a

little observant when I'm driving, but I mean there are a ton of vehicles that are in the state of Oregon that are company type vehicles that have out-of-state plates. So they're not paying registration in Oregon to have those vehicles. Are they titled in Washington because of the corporate ownership or the head of Amazon being in Washington? I wonder and is there some kind of... because usually if you are an Oregon resident or you have a vehicle here, you have just a month or so, you're supposed to retitle it and do it here. Very true and it's just, I mean, some of the vans are titled or registered in Oregon, but some are a plethora or not.

And it's not just them. It's, I mean, I've seen a couple of rental agencies that has, you know, rent equipment stuff, and their truck is from Indiana. I wonder if there is a special deal or an exception to the titling rule when you are engaged in commercial activity. Maybe there is a tax benefit or some other fee that is paid to make up for the fact

that they're not buying the tabs here. I don't, I think it's really interesting. I hadn't thought about that. Yeah, but it's just a regular plate. It's not a commercial plate. Oh, just a regular plate, not a, but it's just a regular plate. It's not a commercial plate. Oh, just a regular plate, not at all. It's just a regular Washington plate. Maybe this is one of those things where the state of Oregon bends over and says, that's

okay, have your way with us when it comes to the registration as long as you put your Amazon. You know, as long as people are able to get their cheap Chinese stuff, you know, delivered out of Southern Oregon, that's all that matters, man. That's all we need, buddy. Okay, so when you do the Highway 62, my answer is B. So if I win on B, would you just call me back? Okay. Oh, you got it.

No problem. Okay. I wish I could. We go to the deplorable Patrick. Hey, Patrick. How you doing? Well, good morning, Bill. Doing all right here.

It's great to talk with you and be on the show with... Deplorable Patrick. Hey Patrick, how you doing? Well good morning Bill, doing all right here. It's great to talk with you and be on the show. This story is about the steel industry and this goes back probably 25 years ago. I was driving truck all over the country, like 48 states, like 48 states, and I got a load of big old big insulating panels, industrial panels for insulation, and they were to go to Bethlehem Steel in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. So I took this load in there and when I pulled in there I was looking around and my jaw dropped. It was like this I'd always heard of when they talked about Bethlehem Steel they would always say the giant Bethlehem Steel. So I get there and it's like a city. I mean multiple buildings with streets between

the buildings and... Hey, I remember those days my grandfather working at the Clareton mill for US Steel and it was like. All the streets are full of crap. They're basically being used as staging areas for storage and junk. Oh, that's the way it is now? How long ago was this? 25 or so years ago. Oh, this was after American Steel was starting to take it in the shorts at that time, right? I don't know about American Steel. Just this experience at Bethlehem Steel. So it's abandoned. Nobody's there except this one small department that was experimenting with heat treat. That's what the panels were for. And I'm unloading and there's a whole big plant around and one building is functioning. And the place was just heartbreaking

to look at everything. In other words, this was a ghost town of what used to be a vibrant place. That's right. Okay. And so I unloaded the panels and on the way out of town before leaving town, I stopped like truck drivers do to get some breakfast and some coffee at a coffee shop there. And I asked the waitress, I said, I said, I've always heard about the giant Bethlehem Steel, and it's just a ghost town over there. What happened? And she said, you see that big hill out there, out the window,

with all those big houses on it? Yeah, look out, there's a nice big hill outside of town. She said, they have big driveways, they're all full of Corvettes and Ferraris. That's where the former management of Bethlehem Steel all live up there. They were paid in bonuses, high pay in bonuses, according to the bottom line. So they caught on to the idea of don't reinvest, don't put in improvements, just go for the immediate profit in the bottom line. And now they've made their money and they're sitting up there on that hill and the plant is completely unable to compete and it's abandoned. So what I'm talking about is not just tariffs I'm talking

about management. All right point well taken and that is the American style for sure. Appreciate it. Let's do a Diner 62 quiz after all that. I mean, you know, after a little bit of a depressing talk there with, you know, I'll look back there with Patrick. How about you jump on here and we'll get you a $20 gift certificate for some real food at a real restaurant. Diner 62 just south of White City. Great question today about the founding of Microsoft. Still going strong by the way too. Stock may be looking a little embarrassing at the moment but who knows. 770-5633-770KMED. If you haven't played and won this

in the last 60 days go ahead play it next. This is 7KMED. By the way tomorrow at diner 62 Clam Chowder Friday delicious homemade all your hearty breakfast favorites, omelets, skillets, waffles, biscuits and gravy. Diner 62 burger, oh my goodness, hamburger with a sliced ham on it. Oh, it is so good. Get it with the onion rings or the sweet potato fries. Those are kind of my favorite over at Diner 62.

Let me go to line one. Hello, who is this? Welcome. Joyce. Joyce. who is this? Welcome. Joyce. Joyce. For the contest. Great. Now tomorrow, 1975, Microsoft was founded at a time when most of us were using typewriters. Joyce, Bill Gates, and Paul Allen, childhood friends, founded Microsoft, a company that makes computer software. Allen quit his job as a programmer in Boston. Gates left Harvard, where he was a student, to focus on the company. Now, in 1987, the year after Microsoft went public, Bill Gates became the world's youngest billionaire.

The question for the win here, Joyce, where was Microsoft originally based? Was it A. San Jose, B. Tacoma, C. Albuquerque,, D Cambridge, Massachusetts, or E New York City. What was the original corporate home? What do you say? Tacoma. Tacoma, you're thinking, yeah, south of the Narrows. No, it's not that. Thank you, Joyce.

Let me go to the next call. Hi, good morning. Who's this? It's Logan, Bill. Oh, great. What is original home for Microsoft? San Jose, Albuquerque, Cambridge or New York City? Oh, I'll guess Cambridge. Cambridge, yeah. It would make a lot of sense. Unfortunately, you know it didn't make sense. Let me go to the next call. Hi, good morning. Who's this? Hello? Hi. Jerry. Jerry. San Jose,

Albuquerque, or New York City? What say you, Jerry the Bull? Albuquerque. Albuquerque. Point me in the direction of Albuquerque. It's an old Park Ridge family song when I was a little kid. Yes, you're absolutely right. Absolutely right. Originally based in Albuquerque, Microsoft relocated to Washington State, grew into a major multinational. By the way, interesting thing that, you know how much Bill Gates is leaving his kids, Jerry the Bull? I have no idea. 10 million dollars, which is like 0.01% of Bill Gates' fortune. Apparently he doesn't want them growing up with too much of a silver spoon. He wants them to work a little bit.

I thought that was kind of interesting. So, he probably still has things to fund, Bill. Well, yeah, there are vaccines and nuclear weapons or nuclear reactors to fund. Okay. You know, my cynicism is always deeply rewarded when we're talking about Bill Gates. All right, hang on here, Jerry the Bull. We're going to send you to diner 62. Good stuff.

AI can't get your cell phone up and running. A chatbot can't install your new car battery and no streaming tutorial can shoot the breeze like your go-to guy at your local batteries plus store. 734400. You're hearing the Bill Meyers Show on 1063 KMED. Keith writes me this morning, Bill, about pollution. Hey, Bill, what is this we're hearing about no more swimming on Crater Lake? Oh, this is the last summer to swim there right now, Keith, because they're going to be rebuilding a trail and it's a government contract.

It will take three years to rebuild a trail. You won't be able to swim there again until 2029. I think it's because too many people urinated in the pool of Crater Lake. Just kidding, all right? Let me go to Randy. Randy says, hey Bill, I was surprised this morning to hear you talk about sewage sludge being poisonous. When I lived in Florida many years ago, a common thing to put on your lawn, it's called Mylar granite and is

sold as a biosolids fertilizer. It is the brainchild of folks in Milwaukee, Wisconsin back in 1926. I do believe that Milwaukee has gotten rich over the years marketing this available just about anywhere I do know it'll turn your lawn green. You wouldn't believe it. Yeah well what I was talking about though is the fact that Oregon is now going to be monitoring PFAs and PFAs are known to be in bio sludge and we'll have to stay tuned on that one Randy okay we'll talk more email Bill at BillMeyersShow.com