Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 06-13-25_FRIDAY_6AM

Episode Date: June 13, 2025

Morning news, the No King stuff, Economist Todd Sheets author of the Newsletter, On Wealth and Progress talks the Trump plan and challenges, China, rare earths, its all in there.

The Bill Meyer 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 Meyer. Good morning. 11 minutes after six. Find your phone Friday at 770-563-3770K or email bill at billmeyershow.com. Some good people writing me some good stuff over the last day or two and I'll share some

of those in a bit of a longer segment about it. Father's Day weekend, but it's also no King's weekend, no King's weekend. And so I'm thinking about all the places where the protests will be going. In Josephine County, you'll be naturally in front of the courthouse. That's where the Marxists and the people that are in favor of the Reconquistas and the Aslan map, you know, the revised map of the United States with Mexico controlling the southern half, you know, that sort of thing. They'll all be out there. I'm sure it's going to be perfectly peaceful protesting.

It's going to be Biddle and McAndrews in Medford is where that is supposed to be. Fortunately, the Medford cruise is not there and will be, well of course there will be what's showing shine over at Hawthorne and other stuff downtown. No, is it Fitchner main wearing? I think it's where the main show is going to be. So yeah, the dads don't have to go by the Marxists and the the great ponytail hissy fitters crowd there. So I don't know, you think there's going to be some counter protesting to it? I think that we have better things to do this weekend, don't you? We'll certainly talk about that and more. 7705633, counter protest or not?

To me, I think the less attention paid, the better. Now you know that the local media, the local TV stations will be all over it because it's designed for television. I was out in the shopping center over there, the Biomark Shopping Center over there at Biddle and McAnders the other day. It was interesting that there was somebody that had their video camera and they were just setting things up. I wonder if it was someone either from... I couldn't tell if it was someone from a local TV station.

I didn't recognize them, if they were, but they were setting up cameras on the sidewalk and then like pointing it towards the intersection. I don't know if there's another story going on or if someone is like doing some pre-planning, like where am I gonna be here to get the best shot of these thousands of people in Oregon that are gonna to be protesting

as they talk about. And of course, the whole thing is that it's a no-kings. In other words, Trump is not a king. It's funny because he was asked about that. The press asked him about that yesterday. No-kings protests planned across the country on Saturday as well. What are your thoughts on those? What are they going to do?

No-kings? No-kings. I don't feel like a king. I have to go through hell to get stuff approved. A king would say, I'm not going to get this. A king would have never had the California mandate to even be talking to him. He wouldn't have to call up Mike Johnson and Thune and say, fellas, you got to pull this off and after years we get it done. No, no, we're not a king. We're not a king at all. Thank you very much. President Trump, charming as always. Gotta love that. Now, yesterday there was some breaking news and then the story flipped and flopped a bit about this and a

federal judge in San Francisco, I think this was Judge Breyer, Breyer rather, it was related to the former Supreme Court justice, right? But anyway, a federal judge San Francisco ordered the Trump administration to return control of the California National Guard to Governor Gavin Newsom because he had it under such great control that it was doing, you know, so well. After the president issued that order deploying them to Los Angeles over the weekend, Judge Charles Breyer presiding over the case granted the temporary restraining order and then late last night the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ended up blocking that order

instructing President Donald Trump to return control of the 4,000 California National Guard troops that had been federalized to give it back. So the Ninth Circuit schedules a hearing for Tuesday and to give it back. So the Ninth Circuit schedules a hearing for Tuesday and there will be a three-judge panel that will consider arguments then on whether to extend the stay of Breyer's order to allow or to allow his ruling to take effect. So they're going to decide this on Tuesday but for the time being the status quo President Trump is still in control of that. Alright so

the other big news here is what ended up happening in Iran. Iran ended up getting popped by Israel, getting popped quite severely here yesterday. They ended up having more than 300 planes and craft attacking that. They ended up hitting Iran's primary uranium enrichment site, a couple of secondary strategically crucial nuclear facilities. I'm getting a lot of this from Sean Ring. Sean Ring, financial guy over daily reckoning, but he's big on the foreign policy thing. Missile plants, IRGC barracks, even the homes of top Iranian officials in central Tehran. Over 200 aircraft taking part. That's 330 munitions that were dropped, at least in

the opening salvo here. And very much a decapitation strike. Some of the people that were killed here, Iran's top military chief, the top IRGC commander, the head of Iran's central military headquarters, a nuclear physicist, and a bunch of others, people from Iran's senior leadership. And Sean says rightly, for context, this would be like a foreign power wiping out the US Joint Chiefs of Staff and half the Department of Energy in one night. And Iran, of course, ended up responding. Over 100 of their drones ended up going toward Israel. Israel intercepted some of them.

Jordanian and Saudi defenses intercepted some others. Iron Dome lighting up pretty big. But Iran can retaliate and can reach beyond Israel if needed. Iran also shut down major airports, closing its airspace, and began prepping for further escalations. Iraq and Jordan following suit, regional ripple could become a tidal wave. Israel, meanwhile, shut down the Ben Gurion airport, mobilized tens of thousands of troops bracing for a potential multi-front war. Now when it comes to the markets, markets are looking lower today and it ended up popping

because gold ended up popping more than $100. I think it was like $34.30 last time I had checked it this morning. A percent might have pulled back a little bit. Futures down, gold rose over 1%. Oil prices spiking 6%. So today is going to be the fear trade rather than the greed trade. That's the overall look so far. We'll take a look at the 6.30 after the markets end up opening. But yeah, oil spiking 8%. And Marco Rubio, Secretary of State, ended up saying that, no, we were

not involved in this one. Probably the wise thing to do at the moment, but needless to say, is this going to be a spread of a larger war action? Don't know. Just keep an eye on that for sure. 18 Minutes After 6. Crazy headline here in Southern Oregon. Some crazy cop stories that are going on in other news, and we'll share some of that coming up.

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Coastal farm and ranch, we're just what the country needs. Find even more data-approved deals only at your local Coastal. Brainstorming continues at the offices of Fontana Roofing in their quest to promote. way we're gonna have a pair of tickets for a river run. Hellgate jet boat excursion. It's gonna be a great weekend to be out on the river for sure. Father's Day weekend. And I thought we'd have a little bit of fun. Off and on we'll just take calls and just tell me about a time that dad caught you. Okay. I think everybody has some point in their life in which their father caught them doing something that they weren't supposed to be doing. And it wasn't fun at the time, but I laugh about it now. I'll tell you the one that

always comes up. In fact, I told this story when I ended up giving a eulogy for my father when he passed away a number of years ago. I wasn't able to attend the funeral, but I sent it off in a presentation, a tape to it. They played it at the funeral. But it had to do with how my father, like many fathers, like many mothers too for that matter, almost have a psychic approach to child raising. They know. They just look at you and even if everything looks okay, they know if you've done something. I think you know that. And I was a pretty good kid. I didn't cause too much trouble. They just look at you and even if everything looks okay, they know if you've done something. I think you know that. And I was a pretty good kid.

I didn't cause too much trouble. But you know the things that I did do as a teenager, drove way too fast, 120 mile per hour routine trips. I mean that's what I would do all the time and I finally got out of that after almost getting killed once or twice or just narrowly escaping and realizing you had to change things. But when I was dating in high school, I had a girlfriend in high school that I was dating, and it was summertime. In fact, I think it was about this time of year, so like right after graduation, right

after graduation. At that point, I think it was maybe it was my junior year, I don't know, it could have been my junior year, either junior or senior year. So I'm dating my girlfriend and there was this fishing hole, this fishing pond behind the house we used to live in in Milan. Now we weren't living in that house, we were living in a different house at that point, second time we had moved back to the city.

And so, but I knew there was this fishing hole back there and it was kind of a nice private place, you know, middle of the night, great place to go out and, well, you know, do what boyfriends and girlfriends do, hug and kiss and all that other kind of stuff. So we're out there that late night. Well, unbeknownst to me, that fishing hole, there had been so much rain over the winter that the fishing hole got high and there was a little dip in the road, the dirt road going to it, and it was filled with mud. And I didn't know that at that point. I'm driving into it and the girlfriend's with me.

And this is a 71 Pinto I'm driving at that point. Yeah, it was a great car. 71 Pinto, driving the car through the mud. And it's, oh, I'm in trouble. I'm thinking, oh my gosh, I'm going to get stuck. And I do not want to call my dad saying I'm stuck here with my girlfriend out by the fishing hole. Right. And made it through, came out the other side and it was the dead end street. So I had to then know I had to turn around and then take that pinto and power it through the mud bog again.

So we made it out. So we're both both the girlfriend and I go, whoo, you made it. All right. So went home, dropped her off at her parents early in the evening, and then went over to the 25 cent car wash, which is still there. And I, when I went back from my high school reunion, I looked at that. I have great memories. So that night I probably put in about $4 worth of quarters into that 25 cent car wash

middle of the night and I'm trying to get rid of all the evidence that there is mud and rocks and Grass and everything all over this I'm spraying it and spraying it and I'm cleaning it down I'm cleaning it down and I'm cleaning off the undercarriage and I'm thinking that I got everything okay, and I'm Whoo, all right Pinto looks great Bring it home, park it, park it under the oak tree in the front yard and then Saturday morning comes. Saturday morning and I'm out mowing the lawn and dad ends up coming out he's drinking a cup of coffee or whatever it is and he's just looking at the Pinto

and like I said, everything looks looks fine you can't tell anything is going on with the pinto for whatever reason I'm mowing the lawn and I'm watching him and I'm looking at him doing this okay what's he's looking underneath the pinto. And apparently there was a little clump of mud and grass or something that I had missed at the 25 cent car wash. And for some reason, my father's looking at that and he says, Billy. Of course, I was always Billy at that point. I shut off the lawnmower and I'm thinking, okay, what is going on? How can he possibly be looking

at the pinto? Everything's fine with his pinto. He comes over to me and he says, Billy, what's that grass doing on the bottom of the Pinto undercarriage? What were you doing?" I said, and I instantly made up some BS story on the spot. Something about, oh, I was over by Bob's and there, my friend Bob, Bob Werbman, I'm over by Bob's and he's out there and he had some mud over there and I kind of got a little stuck over there and I'm going on and on. And then my father threw up his hands.

I don't want to hear anything more. I don't want to hear anything more. I don't want to hear anything more. I just know I don't want to hear it and he walked away. I was astounded by that when he did this because my father never walked away. In fact, he like me, my children nickname me old yeller sometimes. Well, that's the way My children nicknamed me Old Yeller sometimes. Well, that's the way my father was too. Old Yeller. It's like, I was expecting to get the full force, the full force of, and just, you know,

kind of like that old tape, that old tape cassette tape ad back in the 1980s or whatever it is with the hair being blown back, you know, on the guy, right? I was totally expecting that treatment, but my dad was having a good day. And it's like, you know, I'm just not, I'm just not gonna go there, I don't wanna know.

I think he realized that I was BSing him, but. Yeah, so that's my story. That's my story about when dad caught me. And I tell that in honor of Father's Day weekend. And so if you have a story like that off and on, go ahead and let me know. And we'll put you on a list and then we'll draw at the end of the show and someone's going to get the Hellgate jet boat excursion. So that's a long way around. So I told you my story. So what is your best memory of being caught? Maybe it didn't end as well as mine did.

I'll tell you, I was sweating bullets over on that one. It's just like, gosh darn it, how did he know? How did he? It's like he could like look at me and just knew. I love you, Junior, because of course I'm a Junior right you know and and they knew that I was pretty good for the most part I didn't cause a lot of problems but I had my moments and the women's that was always the weakness all right so that was my story there it's a 28 minutes after six all right so now we go to the daddy of United States another story I think which is quite interesting because all the people that are going to be out protesting Trump this weekend, daddy and mommy issues, I think.

They don't like any of all tech. But someone who I'm not a huge fan of and that would be labor secretary Lori Chavez de Remer. I wasn't a fan of her when she was, you know, in Congress here out of Oregon because because liberal, Republican, and I think that her appointment was kind of a sop to the unions. But it was interesting. She was on Newsmax the other day, and Labor Secretary telling Newsmax that, liberal governors who circumvent immigration policies will see the Trump administration cut federal funding.

Chavez-Durim are telling Newsmax Newsline this week that rioting in Los Angeles over immigration enforcement is not acceptable, and there's a price to pay. The Labor Department ends up sending governors a letter. If they continue to incentivize illegal immigration, and for the Department of Labor, unemployment insurance, et cetera, we will cut federal funding. She said, all federal departments are taking steps to ramp up the protection of Labor, unemployment insurance, etc. We will cut federal funding." She said, all federal departments are taking steps to ramp up the protection of America

and I think that that's all hands on deck from the federal government that we can do to assist in protecting, again, not only the American worker but our American businesses as well. And she said, the line has been drawn, lawlessness will not be tolerated by this administration." It's interesting how that ends up being reported in other things. You know, the intercept, which used to be Glenn Greenwald's magazine or his online website reporting Trump's dangerous decision to suppress anti-ICE protests with troops. Even the headlines are a lie.

Putting troops to protect protesters from defacing and messing with ICE agents and messing with the building and doing that other thing is perfectly constitutional. It's not about suppressing the anti-ice protest, it's about protecting federal property. It's what the National Guard troops were going to be doing. That's really what this was all about. But that's the way the story is being told. I'm sure you're going to hear a lot of that this weekend on No King's Weekend. So I don't know if you're planning on going to attend any of those.

I'm not. But if you are, God bless you. You can tell me about it on Monday, I suppose. I prefer not. If you are, God bless you. You can tell me about it on Monday I suppose. I prefer not to give him much more oxygen. 630 at KMED, 99.3 KBXG. This is the Bill Meyers Show. Joel here from Motherfuckers. Keep to yourself and say. Good morning. This is News Talk 1063 KMED. You're waking up with the Bill Meyers Show. Pardon me. Interesting times here. I want to bring on Todd Sheets.

Todd Sheets is the author of a newsletter on wealth and progress. And you can currently get that free on Substack. I'll put all that up on KMED.com today. And he also wrote the book, 2008, What Really Happened. Interesting times this morning here, Todd. Welcome. Great time to have you on Yeah, Bill delighted to be with you again. Yes. There's a lot going on here domestically and in the world around us No question about that now

A little more than a week ago You ended up putting out a piece talking about this Israeli Iran conflict and where this was probably going to go and the part that I appreciate about it is that You weren't what I can't tell you how many right-wing pundits was probably going to go. And the part that I appreciate about it is that you weren't what I can't tell you how many right-wing pundits I've noticed out there are calling out there and say, see I told you this was going to happen. You know, did you really have to... only a blind man couldn't have seen this one coming, right? I mean, they've been telegraphing this for quite some time,

wouldn't you say? This was on the way. Yeah, yes, I definitely think so. In fact, I think that this goes all the way back to the trip to the Middle East that Trump took and meeting with the various Arab countries over there, which further aligned our interests with them, I think sent a clear message to Iran, which they obviously didn't pay much attention to, as to just how isolated they potentially are within the region. And I think, although I didn't see any discussion about this, I'm sure that Trump had very serious behind the scenes conversations with the various Arab leaders to sense their level of support for a strike like this, should Iran prove unwilling to negotiate and reach a peaceful resolution to all of this. And I get the impression now, I'm no expert on this region of the world, I don't pretend to be,

okay? But even after the Trump visits to the Middle East, to the various countries there, I got the impression that maybe Iran, the other countries aren't as big of a fan of Iran as one might think. Would that be fair? I think that that is definitely true. And I think one of the really brilliant things that Trump did in this area, and I don't think everything, I don't agree with necessarily everything they've done in this foreign policy area in general, but I think in this particular area of the world and this particular situation and dealing

with Iran, going back to Trump 1.0 and the Abraham Accords started to kind of, in my mind, totally change the dynamic of that region, which for a long time had essentially been Israel against the Arab world. And it started to shift it towards the idea that, no, there are some traditional allies of the United States who could also become aligned with Israel in that region against overtly aggressive and hostile forces like Iran. And I think that really started to shift the dynamic in that region. And I think this recent trip will help move things along further in that direction over time.

Not right now necessarily necessarily because of how aggressive Israel's having to be in terms of going after Iran, Hezbollah, the other terrorist regimes over there, but over time I think that there's a really big chance that that continues to move in that direction. Now you were talking in a recent piece here that a simple framework for a system based on putting your money where your mouth is, is kind of in play right now. And this has a lot to do with recent developments with what Russia, Iran, and China, for that

matter. Essentially what the Trump administration is doing at this point? Yeah, I think that like a little bit, I mean, a little bit of what they're doing, but what I was really getting at, and a lot of this comes from moves that the Trump administration has made in watching them, but we've gone for just so long here, for decades, where like with NATO, we have these agreements and we argue all, and we spend all this time negotiating how much everybody's going to spend as a percentage of defense. And then nobody does it.

And there are no consequences. And then we get frustrated, but nothing happens. And so what I was arguing for there was that we go to kind of a simple definition of enemies and allies where it's not based even on the form of government or your stated intentions about what you're going to do. And of course, this is not with our allied countries. Here I'm referring mostly to Iran, Russia, China, and North Korea. But it's based on what your demonstrated actions have been over the last 20 years. And if you engage in attacking other countries, building nuclear weapons, assisting in hostile

attacks like Russia's against Ukraine the way China has. All these things basically put you into the enemy's camp. And then with our allies, instead of negotiating these agreements and spending all this time on these lengthy documents, which then don't get enforced, we should move to a model where what I argued for was something like in the case of the Ukraine war, Europe would form what I've called a special purpose entity. That's a term from business. And that entity would then be the vehicle that the European leaders, which would be

the largest countries, peaceful countries in Europe, would raise funds in to support Ukraine in the war against Russia. And then after they had taken the leadership role in what there is primarily a regional conflict. You know, Russia's GDP today is a fraction of what it was during the old Soviet Union and a little bit below like where Canada and Italy is. But you're right though, if there is any fight in Ukraine there, that's really a European interest more than the United States interest. Is that kind of where you're going from? I mean,

it's where they are. Exactly. And so if we went to this model, I moved away from these negotiated NATO arrangements on defense spending and said, okay, a conflict comes up like this one. This is primary regional. It's not a direct threat up like this one. This is primary regional. It's not a direct threat to the United States. Europe is responsible for it. You guys put together a fund to support the Ukrainian mission and then come to the United States and say, hey, would you guys consider contributing to this? And we would make a contribution based on a percentage of the money that they have committed.

Instead of, you know, what happens now is, you know, everybody deals with this on an ad hoc basis. And some countries in Europe are doing something, other ones aren't. We're doing something independently. Nobody knows if anybody's contributions are getting treated fairly relative to the others, or if ours are proportional to our risks, or what the people bearing primary responsibility are doing to defend themselves. And so you know that's where I was going with the putting your money where your mouth is. You guys in the region that's most directly affected you take primary

responsibility, you put up the money, you come to us and then we'll consider making a matching contribution based on how directly affected we are, how much risk there is that this could spread into an international conflict, which I just don't think Russia has the resources to do that, aside from nuclear issues, and other factors like that. Economist Todd sheets with me, and his newsletter is on wealth and progress. And like I mentioned, you can get that free right now on Substack, and I'll put the information up here. It would be the equivalent of, let's say,

an analogy of this could be if China decides that it wishes to invade Mexico and take Mexico over on our border, we would not appreciate something like that. Not then go hat in hand with NATO as an example and go over to the European Union and say, hey, help us here on this, unless we really needed it, right? Or else we could ask them, but give us a percentage rather than this automatically all in, and the United States is always all in, and the American taxpayer is always all in matter you know where these conflicts occur. Is that kind of what you're getting at? Yeah exactly. I mean I think what you're saying is the same thing is we cannot

continue to play the leading line of defense in every conflict and every region of the world no matter how regional in nature it is or whatever. And so we've got to focus our resources and other parts of the world have to step up like we would here if it was in the Americas. Or another example would be what's happening with Israel over in the Middle East right now. You know, where they're not sitting around waiting for the United States to come in and lead all of this, I think they're coordinating everything with us as they well should be.

But you know, they're playing the primary line and taking the lead role in defending their interests. And in doing so, I think, you know, promoting the interests that are much broader than just what's happening in the region over there. And we need people in Europe to do that and in Asia to do that as well. You think that it was pretty wise the way Secretary of State Marco Rubio comes out and says, no, we didn't really have anything to do with this, kind of like stepping this one out, waiting this one out. Is that kind of going to your point? Yeah, a little bit, although, Trump was a little bit less clear on that. From the comments that I've seen, Trump acknowledged that we've been a part of these discussions. And so I think Rubio was trying to distance us from the idea that we are going to interject

troops unless we absolutely need to, which I think is a good message because, you know, I think one of the lessons we've learned as I talked about in one of these sub-stack pieces was, you know, in the Iraq war in the early 2000s, you know, we got drawn into a conflict that went on a long time. There were enormous human consequences for our soldiers and fighting men and women who had to go over there. And absolutely miserable. And the other thing, Todd, though, absolutely miserable outcomes. And I remember everything we were told. Who was the Scott

Studd, the Secretary of Defense at that time? Donald Rumsfeld. Yeah, remember all the talk about Rumsfeld. Oh, they'll be welcoming us with with flowers and throwing, hey this is wonderful and yada yada. And in almost every prediction that came out of the lead-up to all of those conflicts ended up being not just wrong, but absolutely wrong every time. And it seemed like there was no penalty being paid for being wrong all those years. But oh well. No, I think you're right. I mean, a couple of weeks ago I wrote that, you know, I think You're right. I mean, a couple of weeks ago I wrote that, you know, I think we had a consensus about

foreign policy in this country on both the left and the right, Democrats and Republicans, that lasted up until the Vietnam War, which is when the left kind of started to fracture in terms of its view of America as a, you know, unbridled force for good in the world. And then the Iraq War was kind of like the conservatives or the rights version of what happened with Vietnam, where then, you know, it kind of opened up the eyes of the Republican Party and the conservative side, and it fractured the support.

And I think that's where we've been left with a lot of confusion about what we should be doing in these international relationships right now, which is part of what Trump is trying to tackle with all these issues he's facing. Although there is one aspect of the Iraq War and what happened afterwards that I wouldn't mind us duplicating,

and that is the purple finger. Everybody votes, but we dip your finger in ink, and so we know. But that's a conversation for another time. Hey, what do you think after what you've heard about this week? There was a conversation, negotiation between President Trump and China about rare earths and tariffs and various other issues. Do you think that China will take a 50% tariff?

Will be okay with that on rare earths? They are talking about opening up the access to it again, but only for six months, I believe, right? Isn't that it? Six months at a time? That's the latest that I've seen also. Yeah, I think there's a lot of people spinning this as if China's playing hardball and they're winning these negotiations.

And to some extent, I think Trump's, you know, happy to let them run with that. But if what he has said and what we've, you know, seen come out of this most recent round of negotiations, if we end up anywhere in the range of 30, 40, 50% tariffs on China, generally speaking, I think that's a huge step in the right direction in terms of helping us continue to decouple from China, which we absolutely need to do because we've been funding the rise and aggression of the Chinese Communist Party over the last 20 or 30 years. And instead of them, we've like offered them an olive branch and instead of them taking it, they've kind of slapped us in the face with us around the globe in terms of the exploitation of their labor markets, our labor markets, all these different areas, you know, economic

espionage and so forth. And so I think it's essential that we continue to decouple and move away from them. Ideally, it happens in a kind of gradual way, which seems to be exactly where we're headed, which gives American businesses and workers time to adjust, and in a way that lets us move some of these strategically important industries, things like the rare earth minerals, into areas of the world or back home where we have more control over them. And I even think like, you know, their movement to say, okay, this is going to be a six month deal.

You know, I think they think they're taking a hard line. I actually think that's a good thing because that just sends an even more powerful message to everybody who is dependent in the United States, dependent on those things. Look, keep accessing the Chinese markets to the extent that these agreements allow us to, but everybody needs to be finding alternative sources for those materials. Economist Todd Sheets with me.

Todd, how long though does it take to get an up and running rare earth processing facility to come online. And we only have one functioning rare earth mine that I'm aware of in the United States. Even though rare earths are not rare, the federal government policy has just made them rare, or the ability to get them rare here. So it's kind of a two-pronged question, mines and the processing. Because right now, even when we mine our own rare earths, we send them to China to process them for us. Yeah, well, I think the good

news is it's not going to take as long as it would have a few years ago to get those things going, because this administration has a very different view of this than the last one did. So you don't think we're going to take 15, 16, 17 years to get a mine open on any particular property the way it's been going for a long time really? And the investors go away and it's in, you know, the investors dry up when you have to wait 15, 16, 17 years. There's no capital. There's no way to make any money, you know, on these kinds of situations. Is there? No, I mean, there's no way to do business under those scenarios, which is why there's no way to do business under those scenarios, which is why there hasn't been any business done under those scenarios

for a long time. And so, you know, I think there's clearly this administration's intention is to totally change that dynamic, and I think they are in the process of doing it, and hopefully that can be sustained going forward, you know, beyond the term of this administration. And I think it will be. I mean, I do think that for all the fighting and blustering internally that goes on, just like with the first Trump tariffs against China, you know, the Biden administration kept those in place for the most part.

And I do think there is a growing consensus, even though it's not openly admitted, you know, that we've got to move in this direction strategically and militarily, and we've got to open up our own access and control our own destiny with respect to these issues. So I think I'm pretty optimistic directionally about these things. Not necessarily that it's all going to happen in 18 or 24 months, but at least directionally. Yeah, I'm curious how they plan on dealing with it environmentally because one of the reasons I think that we send it to rare earths to China right now is that China pretty much just says, hey, we don't worry too much about the pollution and it can be pretty dirty stuff

from what I understand. Am I right about that from what I've read? I'm just kind of getting that interpretation of it. Yeah, not just about this, but just about energy and all of these raw materials and natural resource-based areas in general. I mean, I think we've made a huge mistake here in shutting things down in the United States where the mining, to the extent that it is needed and that kind of thing, is going to be done under the most environmentally conscious way in the world, or at least comparable to the best practices around the world.

And instead we've outsourced it to places like China, or countries like Iran or Russia, you know, who have virtually no concern about these issues and that are the major source, you know, of, you know, the greenhouse gas emissions and all of those kinds of things. So I think bringing these back here in an environmentally conscious way, but one that doesn't ignore the fact that if we offshore this stuff, we are funding hostile regimes that have little concern about the environmental impact of these things. It's much better to do it here to the extent that it's necessary to be done.

Todd, earlier in the Trump administration, the second Trump administration, they had the Treasury Secretary up there along with the tech bros, and I'll always remember this, and there was talk of a sovereign wealth fund. How would that work? Is this part of when you're hearing the Trump administration saying, hey, we're going to open up the mines, we're going to start using these forests? In other words, is this really about unlocking the wealth of the nation which has been locked up for so long away from any kind

of touching? Or is there something else going on about this to try to maybe tamp down the worries about the 37, 38 trillion dollar national debt? What is that all purpose you think as an economist? Yeah, I think it's not clear where exactly they're going with that. I think one route would be the one that you're mentioning where there's a lot of these assets that could get placed in a sovereign wealth fund. We see this happening in other countries around the world. Usually it's very small countries like Norway you know, like Norway or something like that, with very large natural resources.

And instead of privatizing them, you know, they're maintained in one of these funds. And you know, my perspective on that approach to it is that can work somewhat well in these kinds of situations like we've just talked about for a time. It also does create problems in that those countries tend to stay very small because they don't have the kind of dynamic growth that allows them to grow and allow other people into the country, and immigration and that kind of thing to take place. And it's also very limiting in terms of, you know, not developing diversity within the country. And I don't think it's the best way to develop those resources.

I think by far the best thing to do is to privatize them, keep the government out of that business or those businesses, let that thing happen in the competitive private markets, and then the government can collect its share of the taxes from the profits. Taking a revenue or a royalty as an example. I know the announcement made yesterday that the Trump administration here in Oregon, we have so much of the state of Oregon, public lands, federal land is just off limits to a lot of stuff and there's talk about selling off much of this, much of this timberland and I guess that's part of that process, right? Not only getting economic activity but getting money into the US Treasury, fair enough?

Right, what that's all about. Yeah, and I would hope what they would do with that is then they would take those funds and use it to pay down the debt and not put it into like a sovereign wealth fund that then they would try and invest for the betterment of the country, which then just starts to create all kinds of issues about the government has a stake in this company, but not in that one, and you get political favoritism. And look, the history of the last 200 years

is that this separation, as much as we can possibly achieve between government and the economy, is the greatest approach to creating wealth and upward mobility and the resources that are needed to help the less fortunate in a financially sustainable way. And so I hope that that's the model that we follow over time here. Todd Schatz is an economist and the author of the newsletter on wealth and progress and you can pick it up free, or at least for the time being, you can get it free for now on Substack. It's one of those things where you know you get us all hooked Todd and then we'll see where that goes. It's not going to be like Israel where all of a

sudden this comes out of nowhere. No, my plan is to keep that free for a very long time and just use it as a way to kind of get the word out. Maybe at some point way down the road if you know if it grows to a big enough point I'd consider doing something else but not in anywhere in the near future. Hey I appreciate the talk. By the way the thing we didn't get a chance to talk much about right now is 2008 what really happened. That was your latest book that you wrote recently and I want you to give me a 30-second Elevator pitch of that one because you're you're digging into the financial crisis and we're still living with the fallout of it Even today aren't we?

Yeah, the short version is that it was not caused by gradual deregulation Which is what most people still think but was instead caused by a change in housing policy at the government-sponsored entities our, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, who in 1998 doubled their rate of growth, which then pushed housing appreciation way above the long-term trend line. And then the second major problem was the Federal Reserve, after the collapse of the tech stock bubble in 2000, drove short-term interest rates down in the collapse of the tech stock bubble in two thousand. Drove short term interest rates down in the

midst of this accelerated housing appreciation. Which created a huge incentive for people to buy homes with short term adjustable rate mortgages. And that's exactly what happened from you know the early two thousands to the

mid two thousands when the fed started raising rates again. And all of a sudden all these people who have bought with these adjustable rate mortgages and little money down in many cases couldn't afford to keep paying the interest on their loans and everything went into a collapse. Final question though. Do you think there's any way to definancialize the United States economy to some extent because

one of the challenges that even you're describing here is that everything has been turned into, you know, instead of doing things and doing productive things, we have taken so much of our economy these days and turned it into moving money around or, you know, making financial items out of commodities, you know, things like that. Any thoughts on that trend? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, this is a direct result of the continued unsuccessful attempts by the Federal Reserve primarily to manipulate interest rates, to try and solve either short-term issues that they thought

needed a bailout or the bigger issues like the collapse of the tech stock bubble. And they returned to this same model after the great financial crisis. And we have these incredibly low interest rates throughout the 2010s that they manipulated. And that, when you run interest rates that low, there's an old saying, if you subsidize something, you'll get more of it. So if you subsidize borrowing, you get more of it. And we have got a lot more of it now.

We've got debt to GDP that's 100% or higher, depending on which measure you look at as a country. And if you subsidize financial... Financial shenanigans. Let's just call it that, okay? You're going to get more of it. And that's what happens when you run these extraordinarily low interest rate policies. And we also have very high stock prices, very high housing prices, and very high bond prices

as a consequence of all that. And those high prices that develop over time all that. And, you know, those high prices that develop over time, that also sucks people into the financial sector. So if you want to go back to the source of all of it, it is these historic and extraordinarily low interest rate policies that the Federal Reserve has maintained starting in the early 2000s and running up until, you know, basically the Biden inflation. All right now I know that President Trump being a real estate guy always wants a low interest rate. He's demanding low interest rates. That's really what he would like. I have to tell you under free

market looking at the federal government's current balance sheet interest rates would actually be higher in a free market, wouldn't they? Would they be sending that message? What do you think? I'll give you the final say. Yeah, then I've got to drop off too. Yes, I think they would be and I think that that's not the direction we should go with things. We need to get back to more market-based normalized interest rates that don't encourage all of this financial speculation and debt accumulation. All right, sorry I kept you over time, but thank you very much Todd. We'll have you back. Be well.

Take care. Good talk. Sounds great. Thanks. Once again, Todd Sheets on Wealth and Progress. Get it free on Substack. A couple minutes after 7, this is KMED, KMED HD1, Eagle Point, Medford, KPXG, Grants Pass. Is your parking lot...

Hockinson Realty. This is the Bill Meyers Show on 1063 KMED. Call Bill now. 541-770-5633. That's 770- KMED. Call Bill now, 541-770-5633. That's 770 KMED. Just came into my email this morning from Senator Adam Schiff, which of course makes me throw up in my mouth a little bit just to say this. Bill, he must think I'm a supporter. Bill, by now you have probably seen the pictures and videos of my fellow Senator from California and friend Alex Padilla getting forcefully removed from and handcuffed at a DHS press

conference. The actions of Christine Noem security detail were shocking and disgraceful. I watched this video with horror, seeing agents grab Alex Padilla, pushing him out of the public press conference after he had identified himself as a US Senator, dragging him into the hallway, bringing him down to the ground, putting his arms behind his back, and placing him in handcuffs. Well, Senator Schiffhead, I would dare say even senators have to behave themselves at a press conference. You don't have the right to go in there and disrupt that. Sorry. We go to Cherry.

Hello Cherry. Good to have you on. Welcome to the show. Hey Bill. Yeah I have a dad story that happened 58 years ago when I was 15. Okay. Alright. Now just so you know we're putting everybody that has a dad story into the pot here for a pair of Hellgate jet boat excursion tickets, River Run tickets, and we'll just draw randomly for this at the end of it. So I told you my story about my psychic father figuring out that I was doing something funny with my girlfriend back in the day, but oh well. What about yours? So a long time ago, 58 years ago when I was 15, my atheist parents

wouldn't let me go to church with a boy. So for some reason, I don't know, I was soaking in my room in my dad's pajamas, striped pajamas, and all of a sudden this other boy came down the driveway on a motorcycle. I don't know why. He was not my boyfriend. And I was so... I don't know. I was just angry. So I ran out the door, barefoot, in my pajamas and hopped on the back of the motorcycle. And you weren't even his boyfriend, his girlfriend, right? foot in my pajamas and hopped on the back of the motorcycle. And you weren't even his boyfriend, his girlfriend, right? No, not even.

And I don't to this day, I don't even understand it. But he took off and he rode down to the quarry. And it was all muddy and weird. And I got full of mud and dirt. And all of a sudden, after like 10 minutes, I said, oh my I think I think I better go home. I think my parents so all of a sudden we turn around we go up and I see my dad coming down the road and he stopped he screeches and he goes get in this car you little. And I hadn't done anything.

Oh my gosh. Now, I just want to be clear. You grew up with atheist parents, and they wouldn't let you go to church with a boy, right? That's right. Now, I'm kind of curious. After you jumped on the hot dude with the motorcycle and got all muddy up in the quarry, did they ever change their mind and say maybe you... No!

No? I was grounded until I was 30. Oh, okay. That's a great story though. Great story though. I just can't believe though... Well, I guess that they didn't want you infected with J-Z's, right? That's that!

Oh boy. Did that change or... I don't want you infected with J-Z's, right? That's that. Oh boy. Did that change or? I don't know. Oh, I got saved when I was about 52. All right. And I've been a follower ever since. I appreciate the story. We'll put you in there.

You're the first dad story. That's a good dad story, by the way. Really is. Oh, thanks. Okay. Thanks, Jerrick. Wow. I didn't see that too. Just the motorcycle. Oh my gosh. Oh my

gosh. See, I would have thought even the atheist parents would have been thinking, you know, the kid in church, you know, maybe, okay, what could it hurt, right?