Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 06-04-25_WEDNESDAY_6AM

Episode Date: June 4, 2025

06-04-25_WEDNESDAY_6AM

The Bill Meyer Show podcast is sponsored by Clouser Drilling. They've been leading the way in southern Oregon well drilling for over 50 years. Find out more about them at Clouser Drilling.com. Servative talk. Mornings on KMED at 99.3 KBXG. Call Bill at 770-5633. That's 770-KMED. Here's Bill Meyer. Good morning and welcome to Wheels Up Wednesday here on the Bill Meyer Show, 770-5633-770KMED. My email is bill at billmeyershow.com.

The facebook.com slash billmeyershow is up. Yep, unfortunately it's my face on it. But you know these days you have to be a multimedia star. You know how that goes. Maybe I could become an Instagram, what do you call them? No, TikTok influencer. That's the number one career choice, everyone. What could go wrong with such a society? Anyway, I hope you're doing well. Had a great time at the coast. Linda and I often blew the

stink off ourselves, so to speak, and had a couple of days over in the Smith River in Brookings area, went out for an overly expensive meal, still overall just enjoyed ourselves and saw the ocean and plowed through a couple of, well actually just one antique store this time around, but I found not one but two vintage radios to play with on the workbench. So you know, that's kind of, you know, to me that's a great vacation. It really is. And by the way, the old radio is what was an old True Tone, what was an old True Tone, and a vintage Sony AM shortwave radio. And I know that may mean absolutely

nothing to you, but I found a couple of treasures and they were actually cheap. I couldn't believe it. I mean, normally when I go out to some coastal antique or secondhand store, everybody checks on eBay how much the stuff is worth. And so I'm looking at this Sony radio, it's going for about 60, 70 bucks and I paid 15 bucks for it. Works just fine. It just needs cleaned up and tweaked. I love that kind of stuff.

It was a great time. It really did. And just kind of did a whole lot of nothing, which is some of the best vacations that I've ever had, really, doing a whole lot of nothing. And sleeping up, by the way, I only had one person text message me during the morning show, thank you, thank you very much. And that person that was text messaging me really early during the time that I was trying to get a little bit of sleep was someone I was booking a guest through.

So I forgave her. That's okay. You actually, it was great. So now I'm back and now it's like, you know, the world of course, I swear every time I go on vacation, there is some kind of major terror attack or something. Of course, we had the Boulder situation. By the way, that family, by the way, has been taken into custody

in Sunday's terror attack in Boulder, Colorado. And Mohammed's wife, five kids, all in jail. Of course, they're illegal aliens at this point, overstaying the visa just like dad did. And that was just a horrendous, horrendous story. And now we have the Elon Musk deal today. Elon Musk, Trump mega donor, self-proclaimed efficiency czar,

the founder of Doge, all the rest of it, of course, is left. And his tweet yesterday, I know it's an ex post, but I still call it the tweeting. He says, I'm sorry, but I just can't stand it anymore. This massive, outrageous, pork-filled congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination. Shame on those who voted for it. You know you did wrong. You know it. And of course then the the hardcore usual suspects that would be in support of something like that Rand Paul he ends up posting right by it. I agree with Elon we have both seen the massive waste in

government spending and we know another five trillion dollars in debt is a huge mistake. We can and we must do better and of course Senator Tom or Representative Thomas Massey who didn't vote for this anyway, ended up saying he's right. Just kept it simple. And what? And you know we have to be honest with ourselves. We knew this right from the beginning. I was talking about this right from the beginning of it. Big beautiful. You can have a big bill, you can have a beautiful bill, but you probably can't have both. But you agree with me on that much this morning.

It can't be big and beautiful at the same time because a big bill means that there's going to be lots of pork in it and a beautiful bill would have been something that actually put a lot in there. Now remember, we have to be fair. We have to be fair about these things and if anything, as disgusted as I was with a lot of what we found in the big beautiful bill, including hands-off AI for 10 years, which I mean what could possibly go wrong with saying that don't do anything to protect your people for 10 years? What could go wrong with something like that, right? We talked about that before and so

you know that the tech bros probably got that in there. Tech bros, of course, have a lot of influence right now in the current situation, including Vice President JD Vance, who is an ex-tech bro. Well, that's how he made his bones. He made his money. Hedge fund, everything else. But anyway, we'll kind of set that aside. I can't say he's a tech bro,

more of a hedge fund guy, but that's all right. Nothing wrong with that. But let's be real, people are gathering that big, beautiful pile of money. And what did you really expect? That, you know, in conversations with Congressman Cliff Benz, especially off air talking to other people in the know, that they're all surprised that they were able to get anything past at all, 215 to 214. And I heard something on the Chris DeGaul show they were telling me, well you know, someone, Trump needs to go in there and just tell Congress this is the way it's gonna be and da-da-da. The president doesn't control the Congress.

I mean, yeah, he can sit there and threaten and cajole and say, hey, well, I will fund a primary challenge to you or something like that, but your vote is your vote. And think about it if you had, let's see, what was the vote, 215 to 214? Yeah, 215 to 214 by one vote. How do you think they got that one vote over the line just enough to squeak it in? By the whisker on your chinny chin chin. That's all while Washington could do it. 215 to 214, of course, almost all the Democrats voted against it. And how would you get all 215 of the available Republicans, for

the most part, except I think Massie voted against it, didn't someone else vote again? But whatever. It was barely enough, barely enough to squeeze by. Did you honestly think there was going to be a lot of big cuts in something like that with a 215 to 214 vote? We all knew it wasn't going to be that way. Now how did they get some cuts? Well yeah they're going to enforce the Medicaid laws and they're talking about, well they're gutting Medicaid. Now they're not gutting Medicaid but they are taking people off of it that shouldn't have been involved in it in the first place.

And that would be, of course, assumed to be a cut. And of course, this also means tightening down on entitlements. The real honest truth of the whole thing is that we could talk about waste, fraud, and abuse. But our automatic entitlement system is where all the fat is. I shouldn't say fat. Because one person's fat is another person's lifeline, whether it's food stamps or Oregon Trail Network

or Oregon Trail Card, or being on the Oregon Health Plan, whatever the case might be. The fact of the matter is, all of that, all of it, yes, including Social Security and Medicare, and all the other things that so many of us are very dependent upon, that's where the real money is. That's where the real money is. That's where the real spending goes in. And of course, by the way, they put in more than a trillion dollars for the military spending. That's where a lot of it went too. The fact of the matter is, is that it is still a spending problem. And I know that people will say, Bill, these are not entitlements. Yes, they are entitlements. And we're all pretty much

dependent on taking them too. They're all, it's all discretionary spending, but you know what happens if you do anything on Medicare or Social Security. Because Social Security and Medicare, well, Social Security is an example for many people is not all that generous to start with. But this is what happens that a lot of people are just at the point. You take 15% of their income for a lot of years and you say, hey, there's going to be a lifetime pension of sorts. This is a safety net or things. And by the way, I'm going to be doing the same thing,

hopefully assuming that they haven't gutted it by the time I retire. If I ever do retire someday, I don't know what's going to happen with me. But the fact of the matter is, is that the system was pay as you go, was a Ponzi right from the beginning. And then we all started living longer and living longer. Remember, I'm just

gonna say it again, Social Security, I think you know this, we all know this, if you're on Social Security, I get it. You know, my mom's on it. I hope to be on it. Everybody else, I got my Social Security statement there and I'm looking at the couple hundred thousand dollars or so that ended up being put in that on my behalf. But even I know that the couple hundred thousand dollars that I put into it way back over my career, my 45, 50 years of working, when did I first start working? I think it was 14. So yeah, 50 years. I ended up putting in all that money and all that money got spent and sent to somebody else on social security as I was earning it. That's the way it always was. Now there was a

surplus for a while going into government bonds, but of course what is that government bond? All it is is another call on current tax revenue. We're just at the point where we're getting to on current tax revenue. We're just at the point where getting to the daily reckoning, that you know the reckoning. We're at this point and Trump is doing the two-step, Congress is doing the two-step, when Trump says that we're not going to do anything to cut Social Security and Medicare and all the rest and I'll take him at his word. And so you have to cut Medicaid, the Oregon health plan, because Oregon expanded it hugely the last few years, including illegal aliens. And so they're kicking off those sort of people.

In other words, just going back to enforcing the law. So what do we expect, right? What do you expect about, you know, what did you think was going to happen? We all knew it was ugly. It's not a big beautiful bill. It's an ugly, it's big, but it's a big ugly. But that's all right. We knew that right from the beginning. All you had to do was read it. All we conservatives have been talking about it. We all know it. But given the rules of reconciliation, it's about as good as it could have been. Now what's going to happen with the Senate?

I don't know. But to get senators to vote for it, will it probably be even less spending? I have my doubts. What about you? So this is what they're going to make it all about. Oh, Elon Musk comes out there and is going to... Of course. Of course Elon Musk is going to come out and say it's a bad bill. He wasn't going to say while he's inside the Doge thing, but I don't know,

maybe Doge was just a way to let us know what was going on behind the scenes and it really wasn't going to do much to change it. I don't know. So we could have a little conversation about it if you wish to flesh it out. You can be pebbling your shoe Wednesday along with Tuesday, since I wasn't here Tuesday or Monday for that matter. But it's great to be back and I'm happy to take your call. 770-563-3770-KMED. So we have a couple of choices I guess ahead of us. We either find some way to pull the rabbit out of the hat

and grow the economy bigly, which is what President Trump is hoping to do, or at some point, the reckoning in which you can't sell bonds. And you either are going to have to rein in Medicare and the other entitlements or not. Insolvency may have a way of sharpening our focus over time. I don't know It's a 24 minutes after 6. What do I know though? I just talk show host but I can't add and subtract in that the numbers are big. They're huge and it's beyond our pay grade

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Check in with us for monthly incentives to save on suppressors too. Come see the suppressor experts. Wellburn's Weapons on Crater Lake Highway, just south of White City. I'm Mark with Oregon Truck and Auto Authority and I'm on KMED. 626-7705-633. Hey Herman, we didn't get a chance to talk yesterday but you're up early this morning. How are things on the ranch, Mr. Bert Sugar? Good to have you on. Oh, it's heaven. It's absolute heaven. Is it now at this point of the year in which you get a lot of the cleanup done in the early spring

and then you almost have a little bit of a break for a little bit and then before you have? Well, no. June is probably your busiest month, but we are a little bit ahead of schedule and all the hain is completed. So, you know, it's kind of nice. We're actually got a little bit of a break. Oh, glad to hear that. So you wanted to comment on the big, beautiful bill 215 to 214. There's a part of me was thinking like, well, what did we expect? You know, it's like if you had 429 people at your dinner table here, Herman, just imagine trying to get, you know, more than half of them to agree on an 11, 1200 page spending bill.

That's the way I kind of look at it. What about you? Well, I knew it was going to still be deficit spending because you're not going to unwind it this quick. My problem was how much. I mean, I guess it's the same old thing. And so I'm a little disappointed. I know the Trump administration realizes that we have to wind back deficit spending,

but it simply didn't happen. And the reason it didn't happen was Congress. What everybody has to realize And the reason it didn't happen was Congress. You know what? Everybody has to realize that when they do this type of deficit spending, it's a tax on all the dollars you possess because it creates inflation and that inflation makes your dollar worth less that you possess. And you have to look at gold and silver right now as, and looking at the bond market, those are the canaries in the coal mine because they don't care.

They're not going to lie about it. They're just looking at what's being done. And when you see another four or five trillion going to be added to it at some point, right, there's that tax, right? The government's going to have to, when I speak about the government, the federal government is going to have to roll over several trillion dollars in debt and it's going to be at higher interest rates. There's that tax that we're talking about. And just the interest on the government debt right now is going to be more

than the military budget for a year or two. So that's serious stuff, really, when it comes right down to it. Bill, it's very serious. And you know, people just need to realize that the dollars you possess, it's a tax. And it's a tax that every congressman can say, oh, I didn't vote for a tax. But they did vote for a tax by voting for the deficit spending. But the other aspect of this, to get someone's vote, is there has to be some goody in there. Whether it's in New Jersey or maybe a congressman in Oregon that says, hey, listen, we want those state and local taxes deductible more up to a certain point or else there's no vote from us. Even if you sell yourself a conservative Republican, right? Because there is always someone in support of the spending.

There always is. It's a lot harder to get the cuts through. We've talked about it before. So from a a congressman or a senator's perspective, they'll all say, oh, we need to quit deficit spending and we need to quit all these programs except the program in my district. Can we kind of keep that? Yeah, the one in my the one in my district is perfectly fine is quite good, etc Etc the one over in the other guys the other person's a district. That's waste fraud and abuse That's just the way it goes. It's human human nature

Yeah, so So we're still marching down this path You know and it's attack The deficit spending is we're borrowing on our kids and grandkids' futures. So... Well, you know what I'm waiting for is for the grandkids in the future to say, no, we're not going to pay it. We're just going to default on it.

It could get to that point someday. You never know. Yeah, but then that's when you have restructuring of countries. Well, you know, maybe that's a little bit of what's going on right now with what Trump's trying to do with the tariffs, because it strikes me that this is part of the, I don't want to say, it's kind of a restructure of sorts, wouldn't you say, the attempt to do this? You're doing it with the creditors in many ways?

The overall plan, you know, I think with the Trump administration was to come in, cut some spending, increase some income through tariffs, and keep heading in that trajectory and then over a period of time that will reduce the deficit spending and stuff like that. But I don't think it really happened with this bill. No, it doesn't look that way. And we don't even know how the piece of sausage, once it gets worked over by the Senate boys and girls, How that's gonna end up looking after that. I doubt it'll be more moderate to you. Well, you know, a Republican's in the Senate

can stop this a lot easier than Republicans in the House. And I'll tell you why. Senators are elected for five years. So, depending where they are in their election cycle... I mean, you mean six years, right? Is it six years? Yeah, six years. Six years, I'm sorry. Depending where they are in their election cycle, they can weather these kind of storms. So, say you're in year two, you got four more years. So, in four more years, so in four more years everybody forgets what you did. Everyone in the House though, the

moment they're elected, they're running for re-election. Exactly. Yeah. So it's a little different. Plus there's only a hundred people in the Senate and of course we know how many, it's just a gaggle of folks in Congress. It's unbelievable. I couldn't imagine going to a caucus meeting in Congress. As a caucus leader, when you have 16 people, that's not that big of a deal. Yeah. How'd you like to be a caucus?

How'd you like to be a whip? Yeah. Right. Try to get them all together. Hey, Herman, thanks. It's great hearing from you. Glad things are good on the ranch. But yeah, I think you're right. I'm amazed that they got something through in the first place, really. Well, let's see what the Senate does. When you just told me what Rand Paul said, there's a few senators like, and a few senators can do it. Yeah, you're right. So thanks, Herman. You take

care now. Former state senator Herman Baer-Schiger. Dave is here. Hey, Dave, how about a quick one before news and then we're going to get the, I'm going to say Elon Musk, I'm sorry, Eric Peters on. Got the wrong E on my mind. What's on your mind? One is I never expected to ever collect social security. I thought it'd be bankrupt before I, but here I am. I'm in social security. I don't get very much and I go on Medicare. I'm now on Medicare and so I don't know what all that means. And then so what I like to talk about is the wild horse brigade. Why is that? On that day is the 14th and I'd like to see people donate to that so that we could have the horses fighting fires and they really that'd be my biggest birthday wish ever

ever that anybody could do. So you're saying to honor your birthday on the 14th and send some money to Captain Bill? Really? Yeah, send some money to Captain Bill because I can't donate. I don't have the money. But I think it's important that the community come behind Captain Bill and it'd be my best birthday wish. And you know, it's Betsy Ross Day because it's flag day also. Yeah. Oh, by the way, I'm going to send you a letter for your pardon. Okay. I'm going to do that. Okay. All right. That's great. So, so you need three letters I know to,

to get on the pardon list there over your, uh, living on your mining claim, all that stuff that they put you in solitary for a while ago, a little bit of lawfare against minor Dave. Dave, appreciate the call. You take care. It's 635. This is KMED 993KBXG. This is the Bill Myers Show and Eric Peters with Wheels Up Wednesday Talk. We'll kick that up next. It's heating up outside. Hi, this is Lisa from Kelly's Automotive Service and Grants Pass in Medford. This is News Talk 1063 KMED and you're waking up with the Bill Myers show. Yep, Crazy Train Wednesday, also known as Wheels Up Wednesday. Eric Peters, automotive journalist at epautos.com. Eric, just got back from the coast here about a day or so ago just to try to find my sea

legs here this morning and you one of your articles is something that I even saw out on the coast. The amazing thing I think you call this article they built it and no one comes. And I forget there was a big was it Fred Meyer that I saw it at over in Brookings? It was somewhere out on the coast as we were we went to a lot of places over the weekend and it was just There's tons of Tesla chargers and electric car chargers and no one plugged in. It's amazing. But there they are Well, it reminded me of that Kevin Costner movie from I think the late 80s Where there's a corn farmer and he decides that if he builds a ball field in his cornfield that the legends of baseball will come. Yeah, the field of dreams. That was the one. If they build it,

they will come. What about these EV things? They build them and no one comes. And almost every day, I drive by a supermarket in my area where the county had erected about eight of these EV fast charging kiosks several years ago, and nobody ever used them. And I would drive by there and see, you know, maybe once in a blue moon, there would be one EV parked there. Well, about six months ago, the county ripped up the ones that had been there, and I thought, wow, that's great. They finally recognized that nobody uses these things, and this is a colossal waste of money. But when you have unlimited access to other people's money, what do you do? They put up a whole new array of brand new EV chargers to replace the old ones that nobody uses. Okay, I want to make sure that I hear

this correctly. So they had charges there, no one was using them, so the county then rips out more and rips them out and puts newer ones. Now, is it a faster charger? You know, one of those higher level chargers? And I'm wondering if that's kind of the justification being used. And probably in the inflation, well the so-called Inflation Reduction Act from Biden, right? Well, yeah, I think it arises from the green grift. The federal government puts forward these grants, and some company comes in and snatches up the grant, which means they snatch your money and mine, and they use that money to

put up these totem poles for which there is no market, but it doesn't matter because they've got money to put up these these totem poles you know that for which there is no market but it doesn't matter because they've got access to your money doesn't matter whether they're faster slower whatever they are the thing is people don't use them uh... you know the e d market in this country so-called is cratering because of the realization that these things are a massive inconvenience i've been saying you and i've been talking about for years how delusional it is to think

that people who will not wait 10 minutes in a line at a fast food place to get a burger are gonna sit in a parking lot somewhere for a half hour to partially charge their EV a couple of times a week. Now, maybe if they work there at the place, I know that the Fred Meyer in Medford has a bunch, I forget if they're Tesla chargers,

I didn't really look all that deeply into them, but there's at least a half dozen, maybe more there, and I don't think I've ever seen more than one vehicle at a time using them. Well, how much do people earn working there? I mean, I don't think supermarket checkout people make what, probably $100,000 a year at least, which is what you'd need to be able to even consider affording something like a Tesla 3, which is about a $50,000 car. Yeah, I don't know for sure if it's maybe it's just upper management, I don't know, but that's where they they located. Meanwhile, the

Friday's gas station there, which has conventional gas and diesel, is always stuffed with people going in and out very quickly. Yeah, because they've got skin in the game. This is such a stark example of the free market versus the government market. People have skin in the game. They think, hmm, do you think there's enough traffic here to sustain a gas station? They study it, they think about it, and they think, yeah, it looks like we could probably make a profit here. So we'll build a gas station using our money. So they're actually very careful about whether they're going to spend it in the first place. But when you're spending other people's money, who cares? It doesn't matter. You're not the one who's going to get left with the bill.

I can't help but wonder if over time, if within the next 10 years, maybe it'll take about 10 years, but I wonder if we'll see within 10 years or so that the electric charging, which has been put up mostly with government money up to this point, okay? Most of this will end up just being vandalized and ill-used and just taken out over a decade or so. Maybe it'll take less, I don't know. But I know that in some of the urban areas right now, the electric charging stations are rife with copper theft and vandalism and all sorts of things,

and they're not always located in the best of the neighborhoods, which doesn't help either, I would guess. I think you're absolutely right and I think a parallel example are these massive housing complexes that have been built in China that nobody lives in. Yeah, that's what I was thinking of. It was going to be that our version of that in the coming years. This is what central planning does. You know, there's no real need but there are some people who think that there is a need or rather they want whatever it is. Stalin's Volga Canal for example. Just build the thing. Doesn't matter. I can make people build it. I can enslave them. I can take their

money because it's my vanity project and it doesn't matter whether there's any natural demand for the thing. Yeah, it's Eric Peters with me this morning, epautos.com. We're talking about they built it and no one comes. Now I'm not saying that no one comes, you know, here because, you know, we have more electric car penetration out here on the West Coast, I think, than you do in Virginia, especially rural Virginia where you live, but yet even in the rural areas, you know, you'll see some of these totem poles, the electric totem poles. Maybe we'll just

call them the electric totem poles from now on. Yeah, you know, and again, I don't begrudge people who want to buy an EV with their own money their right to buy an EV. And if there is enough demand, I certainly don't object to a company saying, you know what, let's build us an EV charge station. You know, we feel that there's enough demand and we're going to make some money, so let's do it. But what I deeply resent is my pocket's being picked, your pocket's being picked, to pay for these white elephant projects that are grotesquely underused because, again, there is no real demand to support what's being done. We were talking earlier, I was talking with a former state senator about the big, beautiful bill, which even Elon is now saying what we all knew in the beginning. It's not, well, it's big,

but it's not necessarily beautiful when it comes to the spending. That's what you're going to get when it comes to getting 215 votes, 215 and 214. I guess my question is have they stripped out all of the Tesla kind of chargers out of that? Do you know, have you kept up on this? I don't know but I highly doubt it. You know, Musk is nothing if not a self-interested and smart businessman even if he is a grifter and I don't think he even cares frankly at the end of the day. I think he's moved on to another grift, which is the Rocket Man grift. Well, the other thing though is the people are demanding his attention over at Tesla,

right? They actually get Tesla back working better than it has been. Have the vandalism acts against Tesla's... has that finally kind of died off a bit? What do you think? Well, I don't know whether it's died off. I haven't heard any flashy news stories about it, of course. What does that mean, given that there are a handful of media conglomerates that determine what we're allowed to find out about?

So I don't know. But you know, again, I think it's such a trivial matter in the grand context of things. You know, somebody keys a car, smashes a windshield. Well, call the local cops and deal with it at the local level. And this idea that it's some kind of a federal thing, an act of terrorism is just preposterous. Yeah, now I will say that what happened over in Boulder, that's real terrorism the other day.

Yeah, but that's totally different, I agree. 647, and we'll have a little more conversation on that. Happy to take your calls if you wanted to talk with Eric about what we've been discussing or something else on your mind. Transportation related 770-5633 and we'll be right back as Wheels Up Wednesday continues. Rock this is the Bill Myers show on 1063 KMED. Got something on your mind? Give Bill a shout at 541-770-5633. Give Bill a shout at 541-770-5633. 770-KMED. Back with Eric Peters on Wheels Up Wednesday. Happy to take your calls and questions on transportation-related info.

DP, Deplorable Patrick, you're on live and off-color with Eric. Go ahead. Wonderful. Well, I'm regretting I didn't probe in deeper a couple days ago. I saw this, maybe a thumbnail on YouTube. I didn't go in and look at the video, but it may have been an article or something, but it was talking about something that I had been a little worried about for years now, and that they're saying that they're going to overcome these problems and have cars with 600 mile electric car range and a 10 minute charge time. I don't know if that'll happen,

but I was always somewhat comforted in the idea that these electric cars are such a problem that they won't be able to force us out of our diesel and gas cars. But if the electric cars do get good enough, then maybe it's going to be tougher for us to hang on to what we got. What do you think about that, Eric? Well, I've got good news. Let's start. Ten minutes is still not

acceptable. You're talking about doubling, for most people, more than doubling the amount of time that you have to spend to get back on the road again. But what the caller is referring to, Patrick is referring to something that came out of China, where they figured out a way indeed to fully charge a battery in that amount of time. The problem is that the voltages required and the infrastructure required to do that does not exist and is unlikely to exist at any reasonable time in the foreseeable future. So it's theoretical in the lab, not in the real world at this point, is that what I'm hearing then?

That's right. Okay. How about that, Patrick? That helps a little in the range. What about if they get to a 600-mile range, that would equal a gas car. Well, if it's honestly, first of all, they do this all the time. They'll tout some elaborate number, and it ends up being a lot less than that, and then ends up being even less than that out in the real world. There's always multiple asterisks behind every EV range that's outed. You know, if you're on a flat surface and it's 70 degrees outside and you don't use the air conditioning or the heat too much, sure, then maybe you're going to get that mileage, but if it's 15 degrees outside

and you're driving uphill or pulling a trailer, probably you're going to get about 40% less than that. All right. Eric, I thank you so much for that answer and DP, good having you on. Before we go to the next call here, I want to ask you, what ever happened to the super capacitor rather than the lithium ion or the potassium ion battery, etc.? Do you know, because there was a while that, for a while that the super capacitor, something which is just designed to accept charge, but it's not a battery per se, it's accepting a charge between the plates. And there was discussion about that for years, and then it kind of disappeared. Do you know? Yeah, as far as I know, nothing. Maybe it's an issue of scaling up to the voltages that would be required. I don't know. I mean it might be something that works on a small scale in an electronic appliance let's say but not perhaps in a 5,000 pound vehicle. I don't know. All right very good. Let me go to Vicki next. Vicki

you had a question out of the Apple gate. You're with Eric. Go ahead. Good morning guys. Yeah I just had two quick points. As far as the EV cars, you know when they first, when the Democrats were in office and was really pushing the electric vehicles, you saw all the charging stations and you saw lots of people waiting in line and honestly, they did not have happy faces on. It was more annoying than happy. And I just feel like the... Oh crap. Now don't hang up on me, Bill.

Okay. You'll come back. Let me have a sip of coffee. All right. Hey, listen, I'm feeling kind of the same way. I'm out a couple of days and I'm still trying to figure out how to push the buttons again. Did you get your thought back? Okay. Okay. I got it. I had my sip. it came back to me.

Good. So now what I'm noticing when I go to town once or twice a month, thank God that's all I have to do, is car washes. There are so many car washes popping up now. I don't know if you've noticed that. Oh yeah, we have. Oh yeah, here too.

Yeah, it's crazy. It's like, and the way they look at first, I thought the vacuum cleaner parts were charging stations. And then I realized, oh, it's a car wash. Second, you know, the Democrats were really, really hating on Musk and didn't like what he was doing. And him leaving, do you guys think that that is giving them the false sense of security? Right.

Okay. They were the ones that actually pushed him out. All right. Let's see what Eric thinks. What do you think about your inside context on that, Eric? You know, I don't know, but I would like to offer up a thought about the car washes. You know, it's interesting. People are willing to wait in line for a car wash because they want that. And so there's demand for it, and that is why you see all these car wash places popping up all over the

place. And as far as the other thing, not even Rich Leftists like to wait. You know, there's a reason why people pay top dollar two or three times as much to fly first or business class than they do in coach, because they don't want to stand in the line. They want to get on the plane quickly, and they want to get off the plane quickly. This is a universal thing, irrespective of whether you're affluent or not. But affluent people in particular, they've got the money to avoid the hassle, and there you go. You know, so EVs are expensive, only affluent

people for the most part can afford them and affluent people don't want to sit around waiting at a Sheetz gas station for a half hour to get a partial charge. Okay. All right. As far as the car wash though, I do find, you've seen a trend on this too. I'm just wondering if there's been some venture capital out there to get everybody into a new car wash or five new car washes added to your area. It seems that way. Well, probably, but there is demand for it. I think everybody's busy.

Nobody has time. People don't want to wash their cars anymore because it is kind of a laborious thing and we don't live in the 50s or the 60s or the 70s anymore when it was sort of a ritual that people did in the driveway on Saturdays. Everybody's running here and running there. So it's easy enough to drive through the car wash and get your car cleaned up that way. All right good point. Eric Peters with me this morning. 770-5633 happy to take your calls. Good morning caller. Who's this? Hi this is Diana from City Cove. Hello Diana great to hear from you.

You're with Eric Peters. I just wanted to make mention that Rogue Valley Transportation District is, you know, our total demand management organization. In fact, they have all the strategies listed on documents on their website. And you know, the climate friendly areas are positioned in the future for either no driving by residents at all or just restricted to residents in our neighborhood. Yes, we have noticed that the climate friendly equitable communities, which at this point are being defined in Medford at least as that downtown core area, right? Right. You know the RV Cogs, they signed an agreement with every city in southern Oregon in order to bring all this about.

But you go on their website and you can type in climate, you can type in climate-friendly area and any of their websites, web pages, and nothing comes up. Well, needless to say, I have no doubt RV Cog is happy to hide that climate-friendly, equitable community. In other words, 15-minute prison city. I have no doubt they're hiding that salami big time. I know. At the beginning.

They're going to start... And I have to tell you though, with former Governor Brown having done the executive order, they have the cities over a barrel because it's like you get nothing as far as being able to build people's homes that they actually want if you don't bring the prison city into your community. I understand that. That's why people need to stand up and organizations, especially our local city, county, representatives down here, need to stand up and say no to a digital dictatorship, smart growth strategies from the United

Nations. I mean, smart growth is listed as one of the transportation demand management movement strategies. And the demand management is around here though is to block off the ability to use streets like they had in Medford over the weekend. They call it open streets and they have their little festival to get you used to that. Oh, we're going to all be... Eric, I don't know if you have this over in rural Virginia, but yeah, they want to block off the streets and turn them into little parks so we can all be, you know, good little Europeans, you know, in our downtown cities.

They're definitely doing things in my area such as winnowing roads down, for example, instead of two lanes one lane or three lanes two, and putting up bicycle paths that like the EV kiosks almost nobody uses. I think the most worrisome thing here though is that as long as there is an alternative to all of this stuff, it's not going to succeed because people are going to choose the alternative that makes more sense to them, which isn't the one that's being pushed on them. So that kind of begs a question, doesn't it? I think these people aren't dumb and they understand that in order for this to

work, from their point of view, they have got to eliminate the alternative. So I anticipate them doing something really egregious, like for example, imposing a massive annual registration fee on vehicles that aren't EVs. So in other words, you can keep driving your car with an engine, but you're going to have to pay $5,000 a year for polluter pays, something like that. I think they're going to try something like that. Yeah, and they brought back the carbon tax idea from its grave here in Oregon, too. This. This is you know another issue. And just remember a tax on carbon is a tax on life essentially. Okay let me go to

next call here for Eric Peters at EP Autos. Good morning caller, who's this? Good morning Bill and welcome back. Good morning Eric, this is Bob Shandon-Medford. Hello Bob. On a fun note with capacitors, my Norton motorcycle has a capacitor about the size of a diesel battery that if the battery is dead, you can bypass that and start the bike through the capacitor and it will run and then the lights will come on when the engine is running and the stator is spinning. So that's kind of a nice feature on that old motorcycle. I didn't know that. Very interesting. Yeah, sure. And it doesn't take that much energy

and certainly because it's just intermittent to turn a starter motor. You know, quickly turn the starter motor, the thing catches and that's it. That's the only demand load. But if you're talking about something that has to maintain continuous operation that requires a lot of power to do it, then you've got a problem. All right, Bob, appreciate your call so much. Good hearing from you again. Eric, I was just kind of curious, speaking of Bob's motorcycle, in his case a Norton, and I'm kind of curious, what is the level of regulation on the motorcycle? And I can't help but wonder if the last remaining truly freedom machine

may be the motorcycle and I know that you're a big motorcycle fan. Well, you know, it's not as good as it used to be. I would say that the regulatory regime as regards motorcycles is probably analogous to what it was in around 2010 for vehicles. So right now, you can't really find a motorcycle any longer that still has a carburetor. They're all fuel injected now. They're all computer controlled. The larger CC ones all have catalytic converters, oxygen sensors.

A lot of them have a drive-by wire throttle and various other electronics. And yeah, so we're getting there. We're getting to the point of these things no longer being a machine that the owner can practically service himself. Harleys are egregious in this example. You're happy in this case. Boy, I mean, Harleys were famous for people getting

all greasy and dirty and getting in them themselves, but I guess not for the new ones, huh? No, not anymore. You wanna do even something very basic. If you wanna put on a custom headlight, I understand, you have to take the thing to the Harley store. Just like if you do any kind of modification whatsoever on a car, it has to be hooked up to the dealership computer in order for the parts to be synced together. Oh, okay. This is with everything being by wire, so to speak, and computer control of

that. And software driven. And you don't have any ownership rights over the software that controls your vehicle. What is that sweet spot? You always talk about the sweet spot for used cars for people being what up to the late 90s, maybe early 2000s for less intrusiveness and less software driven kind of vehicles. How is that for motorcycles? It's different because you can still buy brand new models that are a little archaic in a good way. less software-driven kind of vehicles. How is that for motorcycles? It's different because you can still buy brand new models that are a little archaic in a

good way. For example, the Kawasaki KLR650 is still available and it's still fundamentally the same bike that it was 25 years ago. It is fuel injected now, but other than that, it's very much the same bike that it was roughly around the year 2000. But fuel injection is not a deal breaker. A fuel injection really is truly an improvement in the engine world, is it not? Well yeah, it can be. Now with regard to motorcycles, I don't know that it necessarily is because they have simple carburetors that are very easy to tune if you know what you're doing.

And the electronic stuff does work great. On the other hand, when it fails, it fails. You know, I mean, and it can fail completely instantly and then you're stuck. Carburetors, that tends not to happen. The thing might run rough, might not run exactly well, but you're probably going to be able to ride the thing home and deal with it when you get there. All right. Had a listener question here sent to me from Todd. Todd writes, Bill, you have raised the question why people lift their trucks and install the large offset wheels.

You and I were talking about that recently. Of course, this puts added leverage on the spindles and axle bearings, causing them to break off at inconvenient times while traveling down the road. But the new question is, why do people take perfectly good DOT approved red reflective tail lenses and replace them with blacked out ones that don't show when the brakes are being applied. This should automatically cancel their insurance anyway curious minds wants to know Todd writes what do you say? It's just a fad you know why do you see barbed wire tattoos on pretty

much every guy under 30 now it's a fad. Okay just a fad that's all it is no point to it got it one more call and then we're going to do the review of the week before Eric goes back to his day job working on it. Hi, good morning. Who's this? Good morning. This is Bear from the Applegate. Hi, Bear. What are you thinking? I'm thinking, well, I've got a, I don't know if Eric has heard about this problem with the older diesel pickups. I've got a 2002 F-350 and four-wheel drive in the multifunction gem module. The multifunction gem module. Okay, this must be the computer that controls everything. It's God

within the F-350, right? Yeah, and you can't find them. You can't get them. Nobody, they don't make them anymore. Nobody seems to be remanufacturing them. I mean, this is like an eight month adventure I've been having with this truck. And the last thing to go out was my four wheel drive. Wow. Yeah, that sort of thing is terrible.

And it's a problem that besets pretty much all modern vehicles on a sliding scale. But the good news is I might be able to help. Hang on a minute. There is a site, and this was given to me by one of my buddies who's a professional mechanic and has access to some good information. It's www.car-part.com.

Oh, car-part. Yeah, car-part. Have you tried that place? No, I haven't. No. Yeah car part. Have you tried that place? No I haven't. Car-part.com. Yeah car-part.com. Great site and it's an amalgam of like thousands of junkyards and wrecking yards around the country. Yeah it's basically a national parts search engine so you know if you can't find it there, then you're probably,

the only other place you might be able to find it is eBay Motors. The problem that I'm having is, they may be there, I don't know, for some reason, my module seems to be like a hen's teeth. But they may have it, but they don't guarantee it. And it's pulled out of an over rig. Yeah. And it has the same weakness then

that maybe yours has, boy. Right. Eric, I know this is something that could get people, you know, in trouble ultimately, but you know, you have a vehicle as old as his, you're getting to that point where it's close to not being smogged any longer, or they're not really checking that kind of

stuff. Do you still have to get the I&M a caller? Oh not here not in my county no. No, mine's a diesel so I don't have to. Oh okay I thought maybe they did that they still had to check that. Could you see maybe some people try to keep people like him on the road by reconverting maybe to a mechanical pump or some other way of metering diesel Sure, if it's feasible, you know, it comes down to whether It makes economic sense whether it's practical to retrofit an older style mechanical injection system onto the vehicle And I don't know that's something for somebody who has more particular

Experience and expertise with that model to answer. Yeah Yeah which engine is on that by the way? It's a 7.3 liter. 7.3? Okay all right. It's like the gold standard of diesel motors in these trucks. Well I'll tell you what we'll put it out there and find out if anybody has that. What did you call it again? The God module's it called yeah it's a multifunction gem GEM module all right yeah because it's not exactly that old of a truck in the grand scheme of things a lot of life left in that if you could get that and we'll put the call about if anybody can help us maybe they can write or email me or just call me a favor and repeat that that website that I need to go to yes sure it is hang on I got to go to? Yes. Oh sure, it is, hang on I got to

go back over to where I kept it down, it is www.car-part.com. Okay. All right. Perfect. All right. Hey, good luck on your search there. Feel your pain. Of course I have a vintage diesel that is sometimes a little harder to get, but you know mine is all mechanical. You know it's an old Bosch pump on it that I had rebuilt 15 years ago. It still hums like a top or spins like a top. It's great, still going. All right, now... The thing that has these electronic parts, you know, from vehicles that were made from roughly the late 80s through now that has a lot of electronic stuff in it, you know, these vehicles are now pushing 40 years old in

some cases and, you know, their electronic parts, they don't make them anymore. There's just a limited supply of them and so if something goes out you pretty much have to scrounge around out there to try to find a decent good used part to replace the one that went out on you. And finally the review for today, the 2025 Subaru Forester. What's your overall take on it and And it's probably what, triple turbocharged 1.2 liter three-cylinder or what? What's the motor? No, actually, you know, this is a nice departure from the routine. It comes with a four-cylinder engine, but it's a an adequately sized one. It's 2.5 rather than 1.5 liters. So it doesn't need a

turbo. So it has adequate power and acceptable performance without having to boost the thing with a turbocharger. Unfortunately, the price has been boosted by almost $3,000. And I get into this at greater depth in an article that I've got up on the site about how what used to be economy cars have transitioned into what we now call entry-level cars. Those entry-level cars are effectively entry luxury standard like entry luxury cars by historical standards the thing costs about $30,000 and this is typical because even the cheapest thing now well even the cheapest car out right now has come standard with air conditioning right

well not just air conditioning typically climate control air conditioning a big touchscreen power windows power locks LED, 18-inch wheels, all that stuff. Oh, and don't forget... Five years ago... And don't forget driver assistance features. You've got to have that. Well, to give you some sense of things, five years ago, not that long ago, this same vehicle, you could buy this Forester for about $24,000.

So it's jumped $6,000 in price over five years. That's real for sure. You can read that on epautos.com. What you going to review for next week though? What do you think? Tomorrow they're dropping off a Ford Explorer which thank God is an SUV as opposed to a crossover that looks like an SUV. All right got it. Looking forward to hearing more and reading on epautos.com. Thanks Eric. We'll see you then. Thank you Bill. Nine minutes after

seven we ran a little bit long but always good conversation here on Wheels Up Wednesday. KMED, KMED HD1, Eagle Point, Medford, KPXG, Grants Pass.