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

Episode Date: June 25, 2025

Morning news and commentary, into Wheels Up Wednesday with Eric Peters at Ep Autos, we talk the Ram 2500 pickup, pricey but good, Telematics in Washington state from a caller, What about re-testing for a drivers license?

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 Clauser Drilling.com. Here's Bill Meyer. 11 minutes after his six wheels up Wednesday, Eric Peters will be calling me. We'll be talking with him about 20 minutes from now. Always one of my favorite times of the week as we talk about the open road, the politics and everything else that's all affecting and more likely afflicting

afflicting the right to travel, that kind of thing. But still got to keep you up on it. And that'll be coming up here just a bit. He has some great articles we'll be discussing. Okay. Join in here. 770-563-3770-KMED. And, you know, before we go any further, you know, it's like, we just don't do

enough honoring of, well, the truly talented politicians that we have in our world. And I was thinking about this is another one of those for great moments in congressional oratory history. And we just have to honor this morning, Jasmine Crockett. Money. Let me tell you, just dropping those few bombs in one day, that was the beginning of what is going to be a very long bill for us as they talk about being efficient.

There was nothing efficient about doing it. And maybe if there was some consultation, maybe with those that say have constitutional authority since we care about the constitution, then maybe we could have saved the American people not only money But the lives that are now at risk as we have to put out warnings for American citizens in this country and abroad Maybe we need to start leading with the people at the the middle of what it is that is guiding us What was that again? I want to hear that last part.

And abroad. Maybe we need to start leading with the people at the middle of what it is that is guiding us. Oh, okay. Yeah, it's like Kamala Harris never left, huh? What else is going on this morning here? Yeah, the lawmakers. All of the Republicans ended up going back into the House yesterday, except for Duane Younger. Duane Younger is the smart one. State Representative Duane Younger said, there's nothing positive, or almost nothing positive that we can do to accomplish anything here.

We should all be gone. He's more or less talking. He's one of these guys that said we should be denying quorum at this point, so he's gone. Everybody else apparently walked back in then. And they ended up moving Senate Bill 243. This is the gun control bill, the big one. It's going to be heard today and I would imagine all of our good Republicans will be there providing the no vote and doing their job and fighting for you and fighting for our

rights. And it'll be just fine. Never want to deny quorum. Denying quorum is a loser's game. Except for Herman Baerchiger. Herman Baerchiger is able to pull it off. We can't do those kind of things these days because of reasons, I guess. But there was a teeny bit of good news out of the legislature yesterday. They repealed the controversial wildfire hazard map.

That was Senate Bill 83, believe what it was. And the thing is, even if they had walked out, it could have passed. Even with them having, well, not if they had denied quorum. They denied quorum. But it went, it was like unanimous, except for one vote. There is one Democratic firefighter from the Portland area who wanted to keep the wildfire hazard map. But everybody else, yep, they didn't want it, people didn't want it, went down in flames. No pun intended here. Is that going to help

pay for fighting wildfire? No. They have been holding it hostage. I'm not exactly sure what they ended up doing to find a way to pay for wildfire because the whole idea is that they don't want to pay for wildfire fighting, which they've always done out of the general fund. They want to pay for it some other way so that they have more ways to pay for transgender surgeries and all the other nonsense that, well, you know, drag queen, drag queen storytime hours and honoring on the Capitol floor, you know, that kind of stuff. So there we go. But the wildfire map is gone. Does that mean all of a sudden you have great affordable insurance?

I don't know, you tell me. 770-563-3770 KMED. All right. Now there is another little bit of interesting one. This one came out of the Capital Chronicle. The Oregon Senate rejected a bill making big tech pay for local journalism. We were talking about this a while back. It would have mandated that the companies like Facebook and X and everybody else, that they pay the local, the newspapers, the other journalism outlets for using their news content. And it didn't work. It went to its first floor vote in the Oregon Senate and it was 15 to 14

against. That's pretty close. Yeah. So Google, Meta, anybody that aggregates, publishes and uses news content for their feeds is not going to have to pay them yet. Well, you know what this is all going about. Here's just the sad fact is that our local news sources don't have a monopoly on this. I mean, all you have to do is just, well, I mean, look at what you could do on your Facebook feed right now or on your Instagram feed or whatever it is. You know, you see a fire, you throw do on your Facebook feed right now, or on your Instagram feed, or whatever it is. You see a fire, you throw it on your phone, boom, out it goes, that kind of thing. And yeah, now I know that when Google does it,

and when Facebook does it, and everyone else, they tend to actually put a portion of the story there. The real challenge I think has been that people think that good quality journalism is free. I think we've been convinced and conditioned. I understand why the news outlets feel that way. I can understand why they're going out there and paying people to go out there and do some reporting. And you've noticed how fewer people are subscribing. Yeah, I know you could talk about the bias and everything else. I get that. I understand it.

I understand it. But I think that most people have been conditioned to think that, well, it's on the internet. Everything is free. Right? Or else it could be paid for by clickbait ads, which nobody clicks on. Yeah, that kind of thing. But nope, we're not going to be paying the failing newspapers in any way or at least Google and Facebook are not going to have to Pay for that. Okay. All right Now, I don't know if we can do anything about getting Journalists paid one way or the other. I'm just kind of hoping that I'm looking out of the in the future here I was just I was just thinking about that story the other day about how

They're restarting some of that Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania because Microsoft wants it for their data center. Do you think there's any way that any of us here in Oregon could be declared data centers? You know, I mean, I put out a lot of data, you probably put a lot of data too. Maybe everybody else, you know, everybody we know puts out a lot of data. Could we all be declared legislatively data centers so that way maybe we can get good, cheap power? Because the way they work it is that

the big boys, they want their nuclear power plant opened up, right? Because, wow, we know we want something that works 24-7. You regular people, you're on that green sustainable power, right? That kind of thing. Yeah, yeah, you know how that goes. The sun goes away, it gets hot, it's not windy, boom, no power for you and then they have to crank up the peaker plant, the natural gas deal and then charge you 30 cents a kilowatt hour. That's why they want those smart meters ultimately, so it's going to be time of use, you know, that kind of thing. But yeah, they want the big boys though.

The big boys have their data centers up in Prineville and everything else like that. Could we all be declared a data center? Yeah. I know that the state legislature was also looking at a law to say well you know we're gonna make sure that the data centers don't hurt the power bills of law people. The people. I would like to shake my hand like Yosemite Sam in Ballot Box Money. Yeah. We're here to help all the little people. It really comes down to, you know, you little people don't get us elected.

But the big power high tech generator people do. Or the big data center people, they do. They send lots of political. Hey, I'm just asking, I mean, a fella can dream, can't we? Can we all get declared data centers, our own little individual data centers, and then we can get cheap power from the hydro system, guaranteed, like the data centers in Oregon? What do you think? This is the Bill Meyer Show. Joel here at Mother Ford and Truck Center, and I've got four money saving deals good now through 4th of July weekend.

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All financing are approved credit, interest accrues from data purchase. The following preview has been rated immature for all audiences, except metal roof enthusiasts and small children. In the not too distant Sunbaked future, in a world where leafy debris and pine needles collect on unsuspecting homeowners roofs, where just one seemingly harmless airborne ember

could cause a catastrophic fire, two unassuming technicians He's talking about us. embark on an epic journey to fabricate and install fire resistant metal roofs on southern Oregon buildings heroes will rise Fire hazards will fall. This is awesome This summer call the metal roofing division at Fontana roofing and witness the sheer So, what do you think? So what's it like where superhero firefighters accept without the supernatural powers form-fitting costumes in an inherent

danger? Exactly! Can we drive big shiny red trucks? Eh, maybe in the sequel. For an epic fire resistant roof, call Fontana Roofing's Metal Roof Division. Visit Fontanaroofingservices.com Hi, I'm Michael with Gage of Construction and I'm on KMED. Now they're arguing about how much the big beautiful bombs damaged. It's reading John Sexton of Hot Air had this here. The Defense Intelligence Agency has produced a five-page preliminary report

on the strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities. It concludes the strikes were partially successful but failed to destroy the underground sites. That report seems to have leaked instantly to every major news agency starting with CNN. And then we have Pete Hexeth, then, Defense Secretary, saying, based on everything we've seen and I've seen it all,

our bombing campaign obliterated Iran's ability to create nuclear weapons. Anyone who says the bombs were not devastating is just trying to undermine the president and the successful mission. Okay. I might be between the two extremes here, because there's a part of me that's saying that, you know, say what you will about the mullahs, about the m The Islay, Toll, and Errol, the rest of them. They've never struck me as particularly stupid people. I think they know kind of how the game gets played.

And wasn't there enough telegraphing over the last few months to let people know that there was something coming? I'm just, you know, raising the possibility. Or would they have placed all their chips into waiting for the big beautiful negotiation to come before the big beautiful bombs came? I'm just, you know, I'm just raising, is there a possibility that maybe they didn't go, they didn't go deep enough, you know? They talked about having to go, what, the Bunk bunker buster can go at 80 meters, what 240, 250 feet, they're talking 300 feet or more. There's a possibility and I remember when they talked about no radiation

being released and of course that's very comforting to the people. People, oh I'm glad that no radiation released and then I'm thinking well wait a minute it would seem to me that if there was a lot of nuclear material there there'd be radiation released. Just saying, you you know but who knows so they're arguing in DC about was it a big beautiful bomb or was it a big beautiful bust according to CNN and so they're gonna be arguing about that today no doubt too. Vicki's in the Applegate Vicki you want to talk about that big beautiful repeal of the big ugly wildlife or not wildlife, a wildfire risk map that happened yesterday. How are you doing this morning?

Hey, well, for one, I'm glad that they repealed it only because as you know, Bill, I don't have cell service or internet. Thank God my neighbors have Wi-Fi that they let us use when we need to. Thank God my neighbors have Wi-Fi that they let us use when we need to. I think when they passed it, they should have put paper in your mailbox to let you know what... Like, I was in JAC 436, and that's the only one that had the evacuation three. But the fire actually was like two or three miles from my house. OK, OK. I'm really...

I'm confused here. What does this have to do with the repealing of the wildfire bill or does it not have anything to do with it? Well, I think that yes it does. Okay. I think they should be, I'm glad because it should have been more specific. It's a big broad circle kind of of your fire zone. Yeah, it definitely tended to not pay attention to real facts on the ground. I'll agree with you on that. Okay? Right. And they were evacuating a bunch of people that maybe wasn't in immediate danger. So we're running around like chickens with our heads cut off trying to grab important stuff,

get our animals. I have livestock. It's like, what am I going to do with my goat? Oh, yeah, but that doesn't...that wildfire map has nothing to do with how Jackson County divvies up those evacuation zones, though. I don't think it does, does it? Well, I guess the forestry department's more responsible for that, but they should be more address specific. The fire was miles from my house, but I had to evacuate because I'm in that zone. Yeah, so you're in the zone of the upper Applegate. Okay.

All right, I get it. Well, this is something that I have talked about, and I will agree with you and concede your point. There is nothing about, and I don't know where this came from, where this idea that there's going to be Jack 436 or Joe 22 or in my particular case, you know, I'm 007. I finally found out that my, yeah, so I'm like, you know, yeah, exactly, exactly. So I'm in the James Bond fire zone out in East Medford,

007. The part that I wondered though is that there's nothing about these kind of zones that the Oregon Emergency Management System, I think this may be actually from the Oregon Emergency Management folks that ended up doing something like this. Nothing about it is intuitive. You're right. When you talk about addresses or an address range, that gives you a much more granular sort of thing. It's like, someone tells me Jack 436, I couldn't tell you Jack about that, right? I had no idea where, I mean,

I didn't even know what zone I was in. And maybe that's because I'm ignorant and I just didn't, I don't have the internet at my fingertips. You know, sometimes my neighbors don't even have their thing on. And so it's like, I'm, you know, I'm five or six miles from, you know, Jackson, I mean, Roosh, and, you know,

I have to drive my daughter all the way into Jacksonville so she can get service on her cell phone. So honestly, I just feel like it made a lot of people have to leave when they really weren't in immediate danger. Well, I think they're always going to expand it beyond what they would see as the immediate threat. Because you're thinking of liability. You don't tell people and then the wind blows up a little bit and then you and your family get

toasted. Bad things happen, Vicki. So I don't know if I want to get be too hard on the emergency management for that. Well, I agree that the Sheriff's Department, they did keep updates on my phone. I have a landline, so they did keep us updated on the phone, which I appreciated and I think that was important to let people know, hey you know. Yeah but I'm with you though. I'm with you though that they that as far as the announcements on zones and things I think zones are a big failure and it because it has nothing to do with the real world on how we divide ourselves up out there. Nobody thinks of themselves as... And even then, if I had to tell you, okay, zone 007 in my Eastside neighborhood, okay,

what's the limit of that neighborhood? No, I couldn't tell you. If I'm driving some place and I'm going from zone 007 into zone 666 where the hellfire is. What does it mean? How broad is it? Is it five miles? Is it 10 miles? I mean, you don't know. Yeah, I know that. Well, this is something that you and I... You know, you're under evacuation too. And it's, like I said, two or three miles from your house, which really isn't that far when it's fast moving. Still, it could be five miles from your house, which really isn't that far when it's fast moving, still it could be five miles from your house. Okay, yeah, I'm with you on that. So I think we can agree that I think just having...

Well, in fact, this is one thing I'm actually really happy that Jackson County did with that last fire, with the Upper Applegate fire, which is what we're talking about here, is that for the first time in a long time as far as I can recall they they used the broadcast EAS now maybe it's because of their new emergency manager and they're deciding that everybody needs to know not just someone who has plugged into their shiny you know cell phone at all times and even then out in your particular area cell reception could be real crap at times like you have mentioned right oh yeah. So I do applaud our firefighters. Thank God for

them. And I do appreciate the phone calls keeping us updated. I just think they need to... I'm just glad they don't have widespread zones for everybody when it's not. Yeah, emergency management needs to be, you know, instead of zones, there just needs to be clear human scale kind of instructions rather than zones. I'm not a big fan of the zones because they mean nothing to most people, okay? Unless we tattoo it onto it. Well, make sure and put a sticker, we're in zone this, okay?

All right, Vicki, appreciate it. We agree on where we disagree on that. Fortunately, that has nothing to do with the wildfire map. The repealing of the wildfire risk map may or may have some differences. I don't know. I don't know. Is it going to make insurance a little easier to get? I don't know. But if you are having trouble getting that insurance, you know who to talk to. It's Steve Yancey at Skypark Insurance. He's been helping out a lot of people that have had cancellations or they get their premium doubled because of whatever reason or their insurance company just decided, you know, we're having to pay for a lot of stuff going on in California.

So guess what? You rubes, you gap-toothed hillbillies in southern Oregon are going to have to pay more! Now I say that affectionately, but you know, you know I'm getting at it. Call Steve today, 261-5444-261-5444, skyparkins.com. I don't know if Steve can give you a quote. Give you a quote and do a good job on that. And if you're turning 65 and you have questions about Medicare, boy can that be complex. Call 499-0958. Lynn Barton is over at Sky Park now too. Skyparkins.com. At Sky Park we make insurance easy. From the KMED News Center here's what's going on. Oregon lawmakers have overwhelmingly

voted to repeal the wildfire hazard map which was created under a bill passed by the legislature just four years ago. The map was the brainchild of local senator Jeff Goldin and was largely unpopular and inaccurately portrayed true risks. The bill now goes to the governor. A southern Oregon transient is believed to be responsible for a brush fire in Jackson County last week while responding to the fire an Oregon Department of Forestry firefighter reported seeing the man acting suspiciously in the area. 51 year old Alan Bicknell was arrested the next day. He was indicted by a grand jury this week. Oregon's Department of

Emergency Management is encouraging people to be alert following a U.S. Department of Homeland Security terrorism bulletin. It says there's heightened risk environments through September 22nd due to geopolitical tensions over the conflict involving Iran. The concerns include cyber attacks, religious and political violence, and threats to government personnel and infrastructure. Bill Lunnen, KMED. If you really want to enjoy your open air spaces, talk to American Industrial Door. They're an authorized dealer for Jira Screen Systems. From porches, patios, and gazebos to restaurant seating areas to warehouses,

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Hi, this is Lisa from Kelly's Automotive Service in Grounds Pass in Medford. We love it when small businesses step up and help out local nonprofits. And right now the food banks need our help. That's why we're excited to tell you about Dr. Jacob Lair at Lair Dental. His clinic is collecting $20 in non-perishable food

and exchanging that for teeth whitening kits valued at $40 until June 26. All food will be donated to the Salvation Army Food Bank. Bright smiles and full plates from Laird Dental on McAnders Road in Menford. Hurry and while supplies last. Good Guys Guns is gearing up for a big move and that means a massive store wide sale.

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4934 Crater Lake Avenue, Medford. Good Guys Guns. Good Guys Guns. It's the Bill Meyers Show on KMED. Southern Oregon's Place to Talk. Now I know I'm not using crazy trade from Ozzy this week because frankly, I'm not going to be able to get a good shot of Ozzy. I'm going to be able to get a good shot of Ozzy.

I'm going to be able to get a good shot of Ozzy. I'm going to be able to get a good shot of Ozzy. I'm going to be able to get a good shot of Ozzy. I'm going to be able to get a good shot of Ozzy. I'm going to be able to get a good shot of Ozzy. I'm going to be able to get a good shot of Ozzy. I'm going to be able to get a good shot of Ozzy. I'm going to be able to get a good shot of Ozzy.

I'm going to be able to get a good shot of Ozzy. I'm going to be able to get a good shot of Ozzy. I'm going to be able to get a good shot of Ozzy. I'm going to be able to get a good shot of Ozzy. I'm going to be able to get a good shot of Ozzy. I'm going to be able to get a good shot of Ozzy. It's the Bill Meyers Show on KMED, Southern Oregon's Place to Talk. Now I know I'm not using crazy train from Aussie this week because, frankly, it's just kind of piling on. I mean, it's been so crazy for so many months. What's the point, Eric? Eric Peters, he was the automotive trouble. Yeah, but finally, crew.

That helped get me up in the morning, too. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Now listen up. Listen up. It's Eric Peters here, EPautos.com. I wanted to talk to you first off about the Ram, the Ram 2500. It's not very often that I talk about the review first, but I was so impressed with

what you did with the Ram 2500 because you talk about it as trucks the way they used to be built and and of course this this may be a unicorn as time goes on the way things have been because the compliance laws have not really been repealed yet have they no but they are less for vehicles in the so-called heavy-duty segment which encompasses you know anything that's a 2500 and up uh... and up to the twenty five hundreds thirty five hundreds and so on so they're still allowed to come standard with the attention and you know you can still get them to do real work in the sense that the thing is available with a two-door regular cab and an

eight-foot bed which interestingly enough you can't get anymore in a half ton ram they only sell that thing as a four-door either a crew cab or a quad cab and with a little ridiculous vestigial bed. But it's really not ridiculous because the majority of people who buy half tons now don't buy them for the purposes people used to buy trucks for. They buy them for the purposes people used to buy big sedans for. Well, you talked about how the ride on your typical big truck now, in fact I think you said that the ride on the Ram truck was actually better than a 1979 Cadillac of its day, right? It is. They've refined it to the nth degree. Most

of the current half-tons now have fully independent suspensions, and the chief benefit of that is that you get a better ride on rough roads. And they've put in all sorts of things like adaptive suspensions and this and that, make them really quiet, really comfortable. They have massaging seats, some of them, you know, and they are even more luxurious than the big land yacht boats that you and I got to drive back when we were kids. And, you know, that was pretty luxurious stuff back in the day, but it pales by comparison. You were telling me that the Ram has this, right, maybe it's an option, I guess, on the four-wheel drive thing in which it will actually Disconnect the sway bar so that the tires can bounce up and down more in rough terrain

Oh, yeah Well, that's it's not unique to that particular model the power wagon version of the 2500 has a an electrically Disconnecting front sway bar link which allows for wheel articulation You know otherwise, you know the two front wheels would be more tied together You're gonna take the thing off-road for rock crawling and stuff like that, you can do it at the touch of a button. A number of other hardcore 4x4s offer that feature as well. Oh, okay. I didn't realize that was all that unique because my Chrysler PT Cruiser would have inadvertent disconnection of the sway bars when the link would break.

And then, you know... My Trans Am did that too. It wasn't handling really well, and I threw it up on the lift into my great shock and horror and dismay saw that the end link had just broken off. Yeah. I wanted to ask you about that. One of your articles today, like I said, back on the 2,500 before we do this, and you really liked it from the sounds of it.

And all I guess is that if you want a real truck though, I mean a real truck that can do real grunt work though, you're going to have to spend 50, 60, 70 grand, right? Well that's just it. It's like they're pushing people, you know, people who used to be what let's call them tradesmen, you know, people who worked for a living, people who bought a truck because they needed to haul a big load of gravel or stacks of sheetrock and stuff like that. They're pricing them out of the market.

You know, you're going to have, you have to enter into the twenty five hundred market to get into something that's capable of doing that half-tones really no longer are and the main reason for that is that the compliance pressures on the uh... on the on the lighter duty trucks are so severe now uh... that that most of them don't even offer v eights anymore most of them come standard with a little v six engines are hybrid type powerins and those are fine maybe for pulling the thing down the road but they're not real good for pulling a heavy load or doing doing

real work at least not long term. But as you have mentioned though the role of the half-ton truck has really been to replace the the big land yachts you know big big they're just big passenger vehicles now with a vestigial vestigial bed you know on the back of the fourth-floor bed. Yeah, it's another market distortion that most people aren't aware of, but if you think about it, it's pretty much obvious, isn't it? We used to be able to buy these big six-passenger full-size rear-wheel drive cars. They were affordable. I mean, until relatively recently, you could still buy something like a Ford Crown Victoria V8

rear-wheel drive, six-passenger cable for under $30,000. They don't exist anymore. They've been pushed off the market because of the cafe regs, chiefly. And what you had mentioned is that the Ram 2500 is not all that more expensive in the grand scheme of things than the Halftone, right? No, that was actually the plus point right there. I looked into it and found that you can get into a 2500, which mind you, comes standard with the V8, really important, comes standard with the 8-foot bed for about $4,000 more than what you would spend to get into a base trim half-ton ram with, you know, the four-door cab and the much less useful

small 5 or 6-foot bed. I can't remember the exact dimensions of it. But culturally, does this pickup truck fit? Because I can't tell you how many times, Eric, I go into a parking lot and the moment you're next to a pickup truck, they might as well park across two spaces these days, the way it's turning into. It can be done, but it does take a little bit more skill. And it used to take skill to drive a truck too. Remember back when trucks had three on the trees and you know and they were just difficult to drive relative to a car. So it took a bit more skill to handle one. The same thing is true today. If you know what you're doing, you can

maneuver the thing around. But yeah, it does take a little bit more effort and skill to do it. Hey, you just put something up on the site this morning, Eric. It says seven years for 85%. And what is that all about? I haven't had a chance to read it yet. I read everything else last night. Yeah, well, it actually ties into the Ram 2500 in that Tim Koniscus, who's back as the head of Ram Trucks now,

he used to be the head of Dodge Cars, was talking about their new, and you and I talked about this a little last week, the new standard 10-year powertrain coverage that they're going to be offering on vehicles beginning with 2026. And I caught something very interesting in the comments that he made, which is that the 85% of the people who buy their vehicles have a loan that is seven years or longer. And I got to thinking about that. And of course, yeah, it's understandable given that, for example, this $2,500 that I've got is $90,000.

That's the model you were driving, the $90,000 model? Top of the line, and it's got all the things. But even on the lower end, you're still looking at $50,000. And so you look at what the payments would be, say, over five years, and it's a second mortgage. You know, it's $1,500 a month. And that's not counting what you're gonna end up paying for insurance. So that's the thing that I thought was the most interesting about what Koniski's had to say in that it just clearly indicates people are getting to the point where they,

they can afford to rent these things basically. You're gonna be paying forever. And then, you know, great. We're around the time that the warranty runs out. That's when the vehicle starts to fall apart. And that's when it's hardly worth anything. So rinse and repeat, it's time to do it all over again I'm wondering if if commit if caniscus rather over it that Ram realized you

also couldn't have you know a 50,000 mile truck when you're talking about seven eight nine-year loans in some cases right right exactly you know that's the dilemma that they're in they're in a mess over there I also in the context of his comments, discovered that overall RAM sales are down nearly 40% over the past couple of years, which coincides with their dropping of the Hemi V8 from the half-ton RAM 1500.

But they brought the Hemi back though, right? Well, it's coming back as an available option. And per our discussion of last week, while yeah, it's gonna be on the table, and yeah, you know, the advertising that they have featuring Kineska showing a couple of good old boys, yeah, it's got a Hemi in it. Problem is, I bet you it's going to wind up, I haven't got the pricing on them yet, but I bet you to get a Ram with the Hemi is probably going to cost you $55,000, $60,000 at least. Wow.

You know, it just astounds me to hear $55,000, $60,000, $70,000, $90,000 being just tossed out there as normal pricing for a lot of vehicles because the very first home that I bought in Metford, which was in West Metford, was a nice little two-bedroom place. It had been nicely redone and it was in 1993 was $56,000. Yeah. And that was the mortgage. They wonder why we're bouncing toward socialism and why the youth are upset. You know, back in the mid 1990s when I was a young single guy, I bought my first house for $155,000 in a suburb of DC near Dulles Airport. Oh my gosh, DC near Dulles. Oh my gosh. Yeah, I used to live up there. You know, I used to live near Dulles. And that house, $155,000 in the mid 90s, that same house, my same old house, is something that would sell for more than $600,000 today.

And it was just a little rickety-tickety starter house. And the other thing about this is that labor wage rates have not kept pace with that kind of inflation. No, even adjusted for inflation, I did this. I was just interested and curious, so I dug into it a little bit. And even as they say adjusted for inflation, my old house has increased in real cost by about $300,000. Wow. I wonder if, and of course what they're trying to do right now is to keep, either re-blow the financial bubbles of the past, because essentially what happened after the

2008 financial crisis is that they blew another bubble, this time in housing is what they did. Or they re-blew it, I guess I should say, and also blew a bubble in financial assets, the financialization of the situation. This is fine if you have a lot of Apple stock, things like that. You have defense stocks and all the rest of it. That's the problem, isn't it? You probably heard this stat as well. What do you guess the age of the average first-time homebuyer is now? I would say given the demographic issues with the Gen Z

and even some of the younger Millennials, I don't know, 38? 56. What? Yeah, it blew me away too, exactly. And if you think about it, it makes sense. The average price of a new home is about $400,000, which would mean that you'd have to typically come up with 10% of that or $40,000 in cash to be able to get a mortgage on a typical new home right now. So it's no wonder young people can't afford a house anymore. But I also understand why young people are PO'd, you know, about that situation. Sure, but they're blaming all the wrong things. You know, they're just, they're creating a crop

of useful idiots who are going to vote for socialism, like in New York. Yeah, I was just thinking about that, dude. Hey, let's bring in the Muslim Indian socialist, the democratic socialist, and say, we're gonna make the buses run on time, a chicken in every pot, and a free house, I guess. Okay.

Oh boy. Talk over there. I know that's not car stuff. I'm sorry we got sidetracked onto those things. Oh, that's okay. You can't help because the car stuff and the crazy politics and the finance are all sort of intertwined. But I'll tell you what, we will do some more of this in just a moment. Hey, if you have a question for Eric, maybe a car you're looking at, maybe an issue or something, I wanted to talk about driver drivers licensing with you and ask an opinion

on some of my... Okay, on drivers licensing. There's a part of me that is not... I understand, gosh, the right to drive, should we have to get a license? A license is otherwise illegal. But then, I have to tell you a criticism I have of the current system. We'll talk about that here coming up. And if you want to talk with Eric, 770-5633, it is Wheels Up Wednesday on KMED. Hi, this is Glory from Eagle Point. My dad asked me to get a quote from my own auto insurance and suggested I call Steve at Skypark Insurance. Steve said in my situation it would be best to stay on my parents policy due to my age. Steve did quote my parents including me in my car and saved us big time. Great advice, excellent savings. Thanks Mr. Steve.

Hi, this is Steve at Skypark Insurance. Every situation is unique. Feel free to call me for a quote or if you just need a little advice. Remember, at Skypark, we make insurance easy. 23772 MSRP 28575 tell you right then 649956 MSRP 43 155 59 99 do 10k miles per year zero security deposit all incentives and discounts to dealer plus tax title license 150 registration processing fee trading in a vehicle will not eliminate your debt negative equity applied to new loan balance and 6 3025. From $1.59 a month, let's trade keys at Kia Medford. Rush in today during the Kia Summer Sticker Sales Event. Then trade keys and pay less on a huge selection of new Kias, like a new 2025 Kia Seltos S, only $1.59 a month lease, or a new 2025 Kia Telluride S, now $2.29 a month lease, both for 24 months.

Need credits? Go to kiamedford.com to get pre-approved in less than 30 seconds, with no effect on your credit score. Hi, this is Bill Meyer. Always appreciate you listening no matter the time. Live 6 to 9 weekdays on 106.3 KMED and 99.3 KBXG. I'm here for you. But life has a way of getting busy, so if you miss a show and you want to catch up or you just have a different schedule, well, that's what my podcasts are for. The last three months or so of my show is available for free download and sharing on KMED.com or BillMeyersShow.com. Podcasts are sponsored by Clauser Drilling.

They're helping keep you current. Find out about their services on ClauserDrilling.com. This is News Talk, and I'm Bill Meyershow. I'm here for you. or Bill Meyers show.com podcasts are sponsored by Clauser drilling. They're helping keep you current. Find out about their services on Clauser drilling.com. This is News Talk one oh six three KMED and you're waking up with the Bill Meyers show. Now, before I get to my topic with Eric, I wanted to get to a topic of a listener

that is Tracy. Tracy's calling from Washington state. Hey, Tracy, you're on with Eric Peters at EP Autos and you wrote me about this. It is fascinating. It has to do with the telematics being used in your state now. Can you break that down please? Yes, Washington State has purchased historic data from a telematics company which tracks the use of cellular phones and also of course highway speed. And particularly they're looking at areas

where they believe that handheld use on the highways, on the interstate, particular I-5, is an excessive amount. Now how do they know when somebody is using a handheld, when they're texting, whether that person is the driver or a passenger in the vehicle is beyond me. I do know that there are signals that are sent out on a typical cell phone that every 10 seconds say adjust the power of the signal. But now they're looking at being able to distinguish between handheld use, texting, and regular, say, Bluetooth through the

driver or through the console use. And so Washington State has purchased this massive amount of telematics data and they're using it to the target areas. Are they issuing tickets with it yet? That's what I was going to ask Eric about. And if you... what do you know? No, this is historic data. What's that? Yeah. This is historic data. Okay, I'm sorry. You're talking over each other. Okay, Tracy, close the thought,

then I'll ask Eric's take on that. Okay? Yeah. Yeah. This is historic data. And so they're targeting four zones on interstate five, particularly one when I drive through frequently, to capture, they believe, high use of violating cell phone users. Go ahead, Eric. Yeah, none of this surprises me. It's part of this ever-ratcheting-up panopticon. Thank you, Palantir, right?

They're seeking to erect, and I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if there is some capability within smartphones such as pressure sensors to be able to determine whether you're holding the thing or not. They probably have some ability to do that and I wouldn't be surprised in the least if they shared, to use one of their lovely words, this information, this data with the insurance mafia so as to charge you accordingly. Well, it apparently is happening. Mm-hmm. Oh, I'm not surprised at all. Yeah, it's going to happen all over the country. That's part of the reason why they're embedding all of this technology, including the telematics, specifically

into the vehicles. And what is Washington State saying they're going to do with it other than saying, hey, okay, we know we get a lot of people that are touching their sale phone when they're on Interstate 5, but you know, have they said what they're going to do with it though? There's a very detailed article, the KING Channel 5 website, but also the Washington State says they're using it mainly at this point to target critical zones on the interstate where traffic violations are known to occur where there are so many excessive accidents, accidents, excessive speeding, etc. They believe they can ratchet up the enforcement on these zones, but who

knows what's going to happen. It's not real-time data, mind you. Oh, it's not. So it's historical data. And it claims to be sanitized. The thing I object to the most about all of this sort of stuff is the ham-fisted, one-size-fits-all approach. The presumption that because some people can't handle multitasking or doing some particular thing, everybody's got to be presumed to be incompetent. There are a lot of people who are competent drivers with both hands on the wheel, and

there are people who are fine drivers who are able to make a call while they're driving at the same time. I prefer a standard that holds people accountable when they actually cause harm. If you lose control of your car and wreck, by all means, hold that person accountable. But if a person is controlling their car and they're driving as such is unobjectionable,

leave them alone. All right. Hey Tracy, thanks for that. And I'm going to send that article over to Eric so we can take a look at that. Okay. Thank you, Bill. All right.

Wonderful. Hey, thanks Tracy. Eric, I wanted to go off into something that I've been wondering about. Now I'm gonna be 64 here in a short time and I feel like singing the Beatles song, you know, that kind of thing. And I always try to put myself into the shoes of other people, that kind of thing.

And I was thinking about driver's licenses, because I'm going to have to go get my driver's license renewed and all the rest. My concern about the way we license drivers here is that there seems to be so little, little emphasis on competency. All you have to do is just look at what's out on the road on a daily basis. And then I was thinking, gee, I haven't had a road test since I was 15 and a half in California. We're going on like 50 years since I've had to actually prove my competency as a driver. And I'm thinking, well, should we be

tougher on this and should it be tougher to get a driver's license? And I know that it is a necessity in order to, you you know get around for a lot of people in many cases but I just see more corrosion of the actual ability to drive now as part of this maybe due to the... Because there is no meaningful test any longer of competence as a driver. There really isn't in any state in this country that I'm aware of. It's fundamentally an ID. It's fundamentally a state permission slip that has no correlation with your ability to competently handle a car. I think if we're going to have driver's licenses and use that word, perhaps they should be more like a pilot's

license. Not just anybody can go in and get a pilot's license. You have to actually demonstrate that you're competent to fly the airplane. And I realized that I could be actually talking against myself at some point because after 50 years on the road Yeah, I have cheap insurance and all the rest of it I have a good good driving record because I'm well, I also drive slow cars which helps I don't have a lot of a lot of temptation any longer But I'm sure I probably have picked up some bad habits over the years, things that might actually compromise at such things.

I'm thinking if I'm like this, maybe other people are. Maybe if you're a professional driver, it's a different story, but I'm just a regular Joe, right? Well, actually, I think that your years of experience have helped to make you a better driver. I understand that people age. I understand that, for example, their vision perhaps deteriorates and their reflexes aren't as good as they used to be.

We all get to that point probably at some point, but you know I think having established competence once, it's not necessarily important to reestablish it again. Now maybe at a certain age, I don't know 70, 75 or whatever, maybe you ought to have to come in for at least a vision test. Well that's what I was wondering. Now you have to do a vision test even when you do a renewal, even the state of Oregon. They'll do that. But I remember the challenge that we ended up going with my late father-in-law. Loved Wabbie. Great guy. But trying to take the keys was a tough thing. And he died at the age of 90. And we finally got him off the road maybe eight, nine years prior to that.

But it took actually smacking a few cars up. See, that's the thing, isn't it though, Bill? This isn't an age thing. If you're somebody who has a lot of accidents, that's kind of a clue, isn't it? Maybe you're probably somebody who ought to let somebody else drive. Okay. I was just wondering if maybe there should be an age limit, kind of like what they do with airline pilots that at a certain point they well I don't want to say airline

pilots they'll actually cut you off and force retire you you know in many cases if you're a commercial airline pilot but I'm thinking I think you know as much as I rail against the insurance mafia I think that people who actually do demonstrable objective things to indicate that they are poor drivers meaning they cause accidents they lose control of their cars they wreck their insurance rates ought to be high, right? That's reasonable. You've wrecked a car. I mean somebody's got to pay for that. It should be you. I just resent being made to pay when I didn't do anything. Well, that's just it.

That's just it. And when you're looking at now, now we understand that even cheap insurance is not so cheap because you have to pay to be able to repair the $70,000 ram truck that you ran into, right? Well sure, and what about, you know, something like you said, some old coot who can't see goes out and buys one of these $50,000, $80,000 vehicles and wrecks it and we're paying for that. Yeah, and the thing is I'm frankly becoming an old coot, so I'm seeing both sides of this thing and realizing that there's just a lot of bad driving and it's not just all young people doing bad driving.

Oh, terrible. I don't know whether you've noticed, I've begun doing that literally daily clover feature. Because every single time that I go anywhere nowadays, I encounter one of these people. They're wandering all over the road. They're doing 37 miles an hour on a road with a 55 mile an hour speed limit oblivious to the 10 cars that are stacking up behind them. They're in the left lane, they won't move over. I mean it's just it's easy pickings. It's shooting fish in a barrel, but it's also really depressing and aggravating at the same time. And I can't help but think that the technology in a lot of these cars is not necessarily helping because it's helping people too much. And you know frankly if you need lane assist you probably shouldn't be on the road. I agree.

This is a thesis, a hypothesis of mine that we're, the system, not you and me, but the system has been encouraging passivity behind the wheel for generations now. It's just gotten much, much worse over the last several years. And people are being told essentially, look, you don't have to worry about driving because you've got all this assistance technology. Why try to learn how to walk when you've got a walker or a wheelchair? It's actually that kind of a thing. And then we're going to graduate from all this assistance technology to the, you know, you're really not qualified to drive any

longer. You have to have the Internet of Things connected car Johnny Cab. In fact, you don't even need your car. We only let you have a car. The Johnny Cab can just come and pick you up when you want. That's a bingo as Hans Landis said in Inglorious Basterds. Exactly right. They're convincing the populace to get ready for being meat sacks who are driven provided they have a good Palantir social credit score. Oh boy, Palantir is something we need to talk about another week, all right. Hey, let me grab another one here. Hi, good morning. You're on with KMED and Eric Peters. Who's this? Morning, Bill.

This is Steve in Cine Valley. Hi, Steve. I am a private pilot and a commercial truck driver. And I have a little bit of experience with when the government gets involved. You don't want the government involved like they are with pilots. You don't want the government involved like they are with pilots. You don't, huh? Yeah. There is a YouTuber who, young engineer, pilot, changed her birth control and got depressed. And she told her psychiatrist, her psychiatrist told the FAA, and now she can't fly anymore.

And this is after changing her birth control, you're saying? Right. So it was a medical induced depression, right? Right. And there was an end to it. So she's fine now. She didn't kill herself, but she still can't fly. So you really don't want the government involved because it's just more intrusion and they're not the ones who know what is safe. And then there's Art Scholl who flew aerobatics in a P-51 until he was 91 years old. And they tried to take his medical away, even though he was more competent than 99.9% of all pilots out there. Are you then saying, Steve Steve that we just need to accept the fact that there is going to be some bad drivers and this is the price of the

freedom to move I guess is that where you're going I think people need to be responsible for their actions and held responsible so that it meant something no bill okay the fact is that just like with gun control these things are all just sort of psychological palliatives do you think having drivers licenses whether they test for competence or not are preventing the incompetent drivers from driving? It doesn't appear to be that way. No, no, of course not, you know Just like these mandatory insurance laws don't do anything to prevent, you know The the refugees and illegals from driving around drunk mind you You know terribly and then t-boning you and saying, I have no insurance,

senor, see you later. Point taken on that for sure. Steve, I appreciate the point of view, but I was just noticing that it's getting worse, not better. Have you noticed that too? It is, and that's because nobody's held accountable. People are off the hook. Okay. All right. I totally agree with the caller, 100%. Exactly right. All right, Steve. Thank you very hook. Okay, all right. I totally agree with the caller 100% exactly right. All right, Steve, thank you very much. Eric, I appreciate your take on it too, but you can understand what I'm thinking like, you know, here it is, I'm going to be 64, 65 soon. Maybe we should all be retested automatically just because, hey, we're getting there, you know, I start wondering, start wondering if we should do that. I mean, I understand the argument, sure. Okay, all right. Now then, before we take off, what are you going to have next week, huh?

Well the Ram goes back tomorrow and they're bringing me the Lincoln Nautilus. Lincoln has decided that it's going to have a nautical theme for all of its vehicles. So it's a crossover, very, very fancy, high-tech thing. It has a, wait for it, 48-inch screen. A 48-inch TV, okay. a high-tech thing it has a wait for it 48 inch 48 inch TV yeah before you know the whole interior of these vehicles are just going to be one gigantic holograph okay all right I can't wait to hear about that but the Lincoln Nautilus it'll be the Nautilus just it has a 2.0 liter 4. What? A Lincoln! The luxurious Lincoln with a 2.0L 4-cylinder engine. Yeah, and it

starts around $60,000. Can't wait to talk to you about that on next week's review, okay? Thanks, Eric. Will do, Bill. epautos.com. Great site, great commentary at 2, and great journalism. Eric, thank you very much. We'll see you then. Thanks, Bill. This is KMED and KMED HD1 Eagle Point Medford. KBXG Grants Pass. Stephen Westfall roofing.