Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 12-03-25_WEDNESDAY_6AM

Episode Date: December 3, 2025

12-03-25_WEDNESDAY_6AM

The Bill Myers Show podcast is sponsored by Klausur drilling. They've been leading the way in southern Oregon well drilling for over 50 years. Find out more about them at Klausor drilling.com. And it is a chilly 28 right now. Six minutes after six on the Bill Myers show. We'll catch up with the money news here in just a moment. And then I go over some of the news and your calls and more. And by the way, I just wanted to issue a correction yesterday and fall on my sword for something.

I was talking about Lynn Barton over at Sky Park and how we're into. to what, the last four days of Medicare open enrollment. So if you're in Medicare, every year, you know, you have a chance to change your supplemental, your drug plan, all these other sort of things because they always raise the rates and maybe you're getting hosed and you don't know it. And you can just talk with Lynn.

Yesterday at about this time, I gave the wrong phone number. I can't believe this because, you know, I've been doing it off of memory and sometimes I don't always get off my notes because I know what's going on over at Sky Park, good people over there. Her number, if you want to call her because it doesn't cost any more, to have Lynn help you out and make sure that you have the best deal. And if you can get a better deal, she'll help you make that.

It doesn't cost you any more to do this, okay? In other words, her services, like free for you. Okay, so call her at 541-49-09-0-958. 4-9-0-9-8. Again, 4-9-0-9-8. You can also find out more about Lynn at Skypark.ins.com, okay? All right, the rest of the news is coming up. always happy to take your calls, too, at 770, 5633.

Alex Fabricating has a great selection of work trailers. 993 KBXG. Call Bill at 770-5633 at 770 KMED. Here's Bill Meyer. Morning, 7705633 on Wheels Up Wednesday. Love to get your calls, whatever happens to be on your mind. Mine are Dave standing by. I'll talk with him in a minute.

I'll tell you more about what we're trying to work up here. and try to help someone who has been, well, who really does deserve a pardon. I mean, if Kim Kardashian's drug-dealing buddies can get a pardon, Kent, Minor Dave. We'll talk more about that here in just a second, all right? But Republicans in the Congress, rather, ended up dodging a bullet yesterday, special election. The vote was close, though, and this is kind of setting off some warning bills. Tennessee's seventh congressional seat vacated by Republican Mark Green in July.

So Matt Van Epps carried 54% of the vote yesterday. The real hard progressive Afton Ben came in with 45%. This was the person that said that Tennessee is just incredibly racist, and I hate this. I hate country music and all the rest of it, but still 45%. And this is a district that Trump won by 22% in 2024. So I would imagine the political analysts are going to have, A lot to say about this over time.

And, of course, I think the Republicans are figuring out that they've got to go to work. If you're going to do anything after 20, 26, you know, 2026. Well, really, when it comes right down to it, we're already in the midterm election cycle when it comes right down to it. You get the big stuff done either right now between now and maybe February or March, right? And then nothing else happens until the election. It could be. It could be. All right.

Now then, I talk with Minor Day of all the time, calls the show frequently. We talk various issues along with other listeners to call in, one of our regulars here. Dave, I want to bring you on because we talked a little bit about this yesterday, and I ended up doing a big Facebook post on you, and the push is to really work at getting a pardon for David Everest, Minor Day. And I didn't get a chance to really talk a whole lot about what actually happened. And many people may not know the whole story. But tell us a little bit about how you actually got to the point where you spent what?

Now, I said 30 days in the hole yesterday, right? Like they put you in solitary or something like that. I was actually in the dorm where it was that they split one side of the dorm that has about 20 beds. Yeah. And they put all the skinhead white people in there that are, They're actually racist. I mean, they wanted to beat the Mexicans out. Hardcore.

I told them. Hardcore. Yeah. Right. And the Mexicans were illegal, but they're nice people. So I told them, put me in with the Mexicans, because I said, you'll, you'll have a bunch of skinheads needing surgery. and I pointed out that they may not like the kind of surgery they have to have.

Yeah, I get that. So, in other words, so you weren't in solitary, but you were with the Mexicans. Okay, good. We got that straight. So I'm sorry that I overplayed that hand yesterday. I thought you were in the hole for that time. Actually, actually, I was on a federal felony hole for a misdemeanor. When I asked a guard what I was in there for, just to see if they didn't.

know, and they said I was in on an immigration hold, which was the Mexicans right away like me. Oh, that's funny. I never heard that story about this. But what got this all started was that you were charged by the feds for, what, illegally living on your mining claim? Was that what happened? Well, I was, I sent you an email, but it's for not having a plan of operations, and it's It's for service disturbance because I had a rock bar, a shovel, a bucket, a gold pin, and a sluice. And they called that, you know, regular prospecting tools. They called that a service disturbance. What is it service disturbance?

It's curious. You know, the four service and the BLM managed the surface. Oh. Oh, surface. disturbance. Okay. Right. All right. I thought you said service disperance. Okay, so surface. In other words, all right,

so you were out touching the sacred Mother Nature's soil controlled by the BLM and the Forest Service. Got it. Okay. All right. Now, you had a mining claim, though, right? You did have a mining claim. What's compared to the real surface disturbance with the

removal of the dams. Well, that's different because that is that is a cartel operated, cartel government authorized disturbance of services. That's okay in surfaces. But I digress. All right. So Dave, I mean, I got convicted of cutting down. I was removing alder trees and I was burning it for firewood. But I was clearing around a protected tree called the Pacific U-Wood to keep it from being choked out. And they didn't like, I guess they'd rather lose the protected tree. No, no, no, you have to understand the reason why you, that you can't protect that tree. You have to have some sort of collaborative being paid hundreds of thousands

of dollars a year to go out from the taxpayer to protect the Pacific you. Okay. Well, you know, there was a fire later on after they forced me out, and my claim was the only one that didn't burn. No kidding. Well, right. So this was all about mining and living on it. And, you know, and this was the big thing. And was it the BLM or the Forest Service that ended up charging? What happened? Forest Service. Forest Service.

Okay. All right. What happened to that claim? Is it still exist or is it gone? No. Well, a tree that I was protecting that I named the claim after, twin cedars were spiked probably by an environmental group because they knew that was my favorite tree. They spiked it?

Really? They spiked it. Oh. And it's dead now. All right. It was a really old tree. Well, what I did yesterday was that I put up a post about your plea because I figure if Kim Kardashian's buddies can get the pardoned, you know, the drug dealers and everything else that she used to know, right? All that kind of stuff.

Certainly, you are deserving of clemency, and the feds are still garnishing your rather meager social security check, aren't they? Right. They're taking out $111 a month out of my social security. And you don't have a huge Social Security check, from what I understand. No, I've got, they don't touch my SSI down here in California, pays me like $194, from, you know, they cover a lot of things that in Oregon you don't have. but uh so uh because i get a small union pension of 256 a month so uh i'm i'm well if you count what they're taking out for the uh the finer 111 a month i make about 1200 a month but you know

they're taking 110 of that so uh-huh and you know and you know that there was an there was a uh CEO a billionaire CEO of nikolai remember that electric truck company The fraud. It went belly up. Yeah, it went belly up. $30 billion lost to investors. And he actually towed the electric truck down the hill to film the electric truck so that investors would keep piling in. And the Trump administration gave him a pardon.

Yeah, well, you know, I don't know all the circumstances of other people's pardon. Yeah, no, I get that. But if the billionaire part, if the billionaire fraudster, can get a pardon from the Trump administration. Here it is you're trying, you were living on a mining claim, small fry when it comes right down to it in the grand scheme of things, and we ought to get you pardoned, okay? Yeah, I'd like that.

You know, if you think about it, I probably shouldn't argue the mining law. I should argue the homeless law. Well, yeah, arguing the homeless law back in 2009 or whatever it was might have been a tough one. I'll tell you what, Dave, I put your information up on my Facebook post yesterday. If someone wants to look this up, I also put your information on KMED.com on my show blog. All righty. And what you can do is what you're looking for is for people just to

plead clemency and your case numbers are on it and your name. And there's kind of a template that we put up there to help people, but you don't have to use the exact wording. The main thing is to get this to Washington, D.C. and see if... You give a recommendation for pardon. Yeah. You know, if drug dealers and corrupt CEOs can get a pardon from the administration, I think more deserving is someone who was just trying to live on a mining claim and do the right thing and be independent.

And that's what you were trying to do back in the day. I think it's certainly well worth trying to, doing our best to get you pardon. Well, you know, it worked for the Hammons when we did a petition for them. Yes. And they were in prison. They deserved that pardon they got. And this is what the pardon power is all about writing a wrong. And I think this is a wrong.

This is, I mean, listen, the feds back then, boy, do they have a beat on you. They were not, they were not your fans. I found out why my surname Everest. There's a big company called LG Everest that's from, I think South Dakota, that sued the Forest Service and won multi-million dollar judgments against him for violating mining laws. And I think they might have thought I was related to them, which I'm probably in, but it's a different side of the family. Exactly. Those guys are richer than there's a lot of rich people that, because they're private companies, you know, they don't own stock.

nobody can figure how much they're worth. And so these guys make Elon Musk look like a piker. Boy, that's something you can do that, all right? All right, Dave. So I'm just going to ask that people, I'm just going to ask people, go to KMEDE.com. I have the, on my show blog for this week, it's right there at the very top of it, about Minor Dave's information. If you can, you know, write a request for clemency for Dave,

and there's the addresses that you can send it to in Washington. Washington, D.C., and you ask for the pardon attorney, et cetera, et cetera, and we're going to keep working it, all right? Right, and they can go to whitehouse.gov. If they want to mail that, they can, it just takes weeks to get there. There is an email on the Office of Pardons at the DOJ where you can email them. All right, very good. I'll get that information up to. Dave, take care, and, you know, you can't save all the starfish that are stranded on the beach.

Maybe we can save your starfish, okay? Maybe we can do that. That'd be appreciated. I've already done all the time I have, and I finished my bench probation. So the only thing left is the monies are taken from me. All right. Very good. Dave, thanks for the call.

All right. Be well. Be well. 623 at KM.A.D. 993KBXG. Good morning. Hi, this is Bill. Hi, Bill.

This is Vicki from the Applegate. Vicki. How are things out in the A.G, huh? Well, they're okay. I just wanted to, like, well, I've called my neighbors, but I just wanted to let people know out here where I live a couple miles from Funkum that my goat two nights ago was attacked by two wolves. Really? And how is your goat, first off, all right? Well, he's not out of the woods, but we've patched him up and we're giving him antibiotics and pain meds and changing.

changing his dressing. My husband, we lock him up at night and it was just right after dark and my husband went out to put him in his house and he heard him gasping. So he grabbed the flashlight and he went up and a wolf was on top of him and the other wolf had him by the throat. Wow. And my husband yelled at him and they took off and jumped. We have a five foot fence, the pen that... Oh, I'm sure that five-foot fence is nothing to a good strong wolf, right? Oh, God, my husband said they leaped over it like gazelles, and they were bigger than a large, like a big German Shepherd.

So I called the state police. This was about, I would say probably, well, by the time we didn't know what to do if he was going to make it or not, he was a bloody mess, and we thought We were going to have to put him down, and then we went back up there, and he was standing, staring at us, and it's like, well, we can't put him down if he's staring at it. Yeah, he's obviously doing okay to at least stand and stare at you, I guess. So he's slowly recovering from the sounds of it then. Yeah, it's only been two days, but I called the state police and wanted them to come out

and document it. I stayed up until midnight. They were supposed to call me back. They were supposed to send somebody out, and they never called. They never sent anybody out. Did you take pictures, though? Did you take pictures in an attempt to document this? I have, well, I didn't take pictures of him on the ground,

but we're going to be changing this dressing and stuff today, so I'll be taking pictures of that. And my brother-in-law was here, my son was here when it happened, and so it's not like we don't have witnesses. My husband's seen two wolves on Grouse Creek. I believe it was the spring or last fall, and I know that wolves have about a hundred-mile range. My other neighbor, a couple houses from me, lost chickens.

And we do have stray dogs that run periodically, you know, out here. And the dispatch lady was like, well, are you sure it wasn't dogs? and what kind of dogs, what were they? It was almost like they didn't want to deal with them being wolves. They'd rather have them be stray dogs attacked. Oh, that's interesting. So I'm very, very, like, obviously upset about my goat. Now, did you get in touch with the county?

No, but I'm going to make some phone calls. Yeah, make some phone calls because, you know, there's the wolf committee, and, of course, there is that fund, which, of course, pays for damages. thing. Now, fortunately, your goat is not dead, though, but it sounds like there would be some kind of claim that you could file on its behalf. And I just, you know, I'm worried about a lot of my neighbors are older like me, and they have pets, dogs, you know, and you got to take them out to go potty at night before you go to bed. And last night, actually about 2.30, my husband went up to just check because

a friend of ours who's been helping us take care of him said they'll be back and so that's really worried just to know that they're going to come back. Yeah, the other thing, do you have a wildlife cam out there? No, I don't. I would get

one because this would also help I think with documenting the claim you know, have the wildlife camera, you know, go and, you know, get them from the blackbirds, the by-marts, the coastals, you know, the world, and do that. Right. Well, like, Minor Dave, I'm on a very, like, limited income, and so I don't know how much they are, but I, you know, I, like, we barely are able to pay our bills, so I don't

know if that's something that we can invest in, but... I'll tell you what, you know, I'll reach out to Greg Roberts over at the Rogue Weather, of course, you used to be on the Road Committee, and I'll ask him about that if he has maybe an insider on that, and then we'll see. And then I'll get back to you on that, and And could you hang on so I get your phone number, all right? Yeah, and last night about 2.30, my husband went up to check, and they were back in my goat's pen. But he's locked up in his house, so they did come back. Yeah.

So active wolf depredation going on down there in the bunkum area. That's what you're warning people about. It could be a lot of places here in Southern Oregon. Vicki, hang on. I wanted to get your number so I could maybe make a couple of inquiries. 629, KM.E.D. and KBXG. Rewarded with Riley with Rotary Drilling Company, and I'm on KMED. 6.30.

We've got a break for Eric Peters, wheels up Wednesday. We jumping on here just a minute or so. Hi, good morning. This is Bill. Who's this? Hi, Bill. Hey, Chris. Let's talk about that, uh, minor Dave.

Yeah. I get it now. I know this, I run around, uh, grand staff. I know another guy that's got a, a mining camp, you know, in Happy Valley. And he just runs, he lives on the, on the, on the, outskirts of grants pass in the winter and goes the happy camp and lives on the 20 acres and you know wink wink nudge nudge yeah you know people i feel for them that people get themselves they live on the fringes of society they they get themselves in trouble yeah i get that but um

you know a lot of these people that are like this and i know there's also a lot of veterans that are kind of in that situation if you know what i'm getting at here uh Yes, I do. They just, they want to live on their own, not particularly good with people, you know, all the rest of it. And what's the harm, I guess, is what I would be asking. There's no, there's no harm. Yeah. No, I got a friend in Washington County, like 70-something.

He's a Vietnam vet. And Washington County is getting old un-specable on his eight, almost nine acres near Intel. Yep. I know what you're saying. Yeah, yeah. I appreciate the call. I'm running behind with Eric, but I'll get to him. We'll probably hit that topic a little bit later, all right. Thanks, Chris. We appreciate that. 632 at KMED, and we'll check the rest of the news here with Bill London. A little bit of Fox News, too, for that matter. And then wheels up Wednesday. What's going on with the latest reviews?

And, of course, your call is an opinion while we're doing it all. 7705-633. Attention, realtors. When selling a home with a well, accurate, you're waking up with the Bill Myers show. Mike Peters, Automotive Journalist, and Genius E.P.O.O.S.com. He joins the show this morning with Wheels Up Wednesday, 635, Eric. It is great to have you back on. Man, there is so much going on. So much going on. Hey, let's start with the review first off. One of the latest reviews here of the new BMW, a two series. Is the two series, Eric, a new one, or is that an older series? I'd never heard of the two series before. Well, it's the two series grand coup. And you may have heard this terminology before. I think it was Mercedes that did it first. They take a four-door sedan and they give it a more raked windshield and a lower roof line. And they call it a coop. But what they mean is it looks more like a coop. They're trying to sort of sex up what is generally speaking, you know, you're a sedan. It's considered to be kind of frumpy. So they're trying to make it look better. And the interesting thing about this, this particular one, it is being a BMW's most affordable model to begin with. You can actually still buy a BMW for less than $40,000, just barely, but you can. And that's one thing about it that's kind of interesting, because if you were to look at the market

that's otherwise comparable, if you looked at subcompact, compact, regular brand cars, you can pay $35,000 for a loaded up Honda Civic. And I'm not slamming the Honda Civic by any means. I'm just pointing out that it creeps awfully close to luxury car pricing territory. So, you know, it's not that much of a lift if you want to get something that's a little bit nicer than a Honda Civic to be able to do that. And I think that's nice. The other thing is that even though this is BMW's least expensive model, it actually looks more expensive than it is for once. You know, generally speaking in the past, you can remember when a luxury brand's entry-level car kind of looked a little bit on the chintzy side.

And, you know, remember when Mercedes came out with the 190 a long time ago? The 190 looked like a cracker box compared to. what we thought of as a Mercedes, right? Yeah, it was the consolation. It was the Mercedes for people who couldn't really afford a Mercedes. You know, well, in this case, now this is subjective. I grant you, you know, everybody's mileage may vary. You'll have to look at the car for yourself.

But I think that this two series grand coupe is a more elegant and more expensive looking car in many ways than the three series, which is a little bit bigger and, of course, considerably more expensive up the BMW food chain. Now, you don't get the two series, though, if you're looking for a big trunk. right? No, but it's not got an entirely ridiculous trunk either. It's about 12 cubic feet. And that's substantially more than one of its main rivals, which is the Audi A3 that has something like an eight cubic foot trunk, which is getting close to what you get in a Miata. I mean, it's really small. The Mercedes-CLA 250, which is the other car in the class, has a slightly smaller trunk,

but a much bigger price tag and a lot less horsepower. So, you know, this one's kind of the pick of the litter in the class. And I think if you're potentially interested in something like it, that I would recommend having a look at it. I wanted to talk with you about Jaguar. Have you kept up on that Jaguar story here? What's left of Jaguar, you mean? Yeah. You tell me. Go ahead. Okay, because it just came out this morning

that, remember there was the guy that that did that woke ad series that had you know, like men in skirts. And it was like that rebrand of Jaguar. Yeah, and no car in the commercial, just kind of a freak show of trannies with nothing about it had had anything to do with a car. Yeah. Well, that person who ended up pushing that rebrand has now been fired.

He's now unemployed. Yeah. Because Jaguar sales in Europe plunged almost 98% during that period. Who would have thunk it? You know, I really, isn't this interesting that this is such of a piece with the trend? These people who are running these car companies into the ground seem to have absolutely no, no understanding at all of their market. and of what the buyers are actually interested in. You know, you and I have talked about what happened over at Dodge when they decided to

just completely destroy the brand, basically, by taking the charger and the challenger off the market and trying to cram an electric vehicle and not only an electric vehicle that costs $20,000 more down the throats of people who like the charger and the challenger. Do you think that maybe what happened with the people at Jaguar may be a wake-up call to the other car companies that are thinking, okay, we actually have to concentrate on making cars again, rather than having dancing trannies in our ads and going with these LGBTQ-style marketing campaigns, except for Subaru or maybe, I don't know, but, you know, whatever. I certainly hope so.

You know, again, you mentioned Subaru, and there is a niche for that. You know, there's been this joke going around for probably 25 years about, you know, how Subaru is the car of, you know, of lesbians, basically. Yeah, women in comfortable shoes, if you want to call it that. Right. And, you know, okay, so what? You know, there's a market for everything. The problem is when they try to make everything the same on the premise that there is this, the niche market is somehow the mass market.

EVs are a very good example of that. There is something of a market, a small one for EVs in certain niches. The thing is these vehicles don't fit the needs of most people. And yet they're trying to cram it down everybody's throat. And that's the problem. And it's a general problem in the industry. It's 20 before 7. It's wheels up Wednesday.

We're talking cars and politics and so much more with Eric Peters, the automotive journalist and genius. at epiottos.com. And Eric, be right back. I want to talk about the Miata next because that's one which it looks like. And I love the Mazda Miata. I've always loved the Mazda Miata. And I've only had one as a rental car and it was a great rental car.

But tell me what is going on with that. Let's hope that let's say that Mazda doesn't do what Jaguar did. All right. Right, exactly. We'll talk about that coming up. You want to talk with Eric, too. 770 5633-3-7-0 KMED. Right back. Get rewarded when you shop Grange Co-op.

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Getting ready to refinance or sell your property? Once you get the process started, there'll be appraisals and inspections and, yes, well-tests. So get ahead of the game and get your water tested now. You'll get the immediate peace of mind that comes with knowing what's in your water, plus you'll be able to close the deal faster. The team at Grants Pass Water Lab are ready to help. Look us up online at thewaterlab.com or GPWaterlab.com. You're hearing the Bill Myers Show on 1063 KMED.

Now Bill wants to hear from you. 541-770-5633. That's 770 KMED. Back with Eric Peters, EPATOs. Are they going to cancel or ruin the Miata? I was reading that this morning when I was getting ready. And Eric, why don't we talk a bit about what's happening with Miata? and a big challenge, I guess, is because the sales have been wilting or withering away a bit here,

but I can understand that. It could be pricing, maybe something else going on. What's up? Well, yeah, you know, this is an alarming rumor. It hasn't necessarily been confirmed yet, but the scuttlebutt is that Mazda is considering retiring the Miata. Now, the Miata's been around since 89. It was introduced as a 90 model, and it has been, for many years, one of Mazda's most successful models. People love the car. I love the car. You know, I'm a huge fan of it. driven it who has any interest in driving will tell you that the meata is one of well some of the most fun i've had on four wheels and i had a rental car in hawaii a few years ago and yeah it is an automatic not a stick at that point that's what happens in the rental car market but that car was so much

fun not amazingly powerful but fun and stick to the road and you know you drop the top and it just reminded me of what a fun was all about in a car really yeah it wasn't about power it was was about the involvement in the act of driving. Yes. It was very much a driver's car, which was sports cars used to be, as opposed to grand touring cars and muscle cars. And I, you know, those are different types of cars. They have their virtues. The Miata was the, the incarnation, the apopiosus of what a sports car ought to be. Light, nimble, flickable, all of those things. What's happened, though, unfortunately, is that it's gotten to be a pretty expensive car. The base price for the 25 model is nearly $30,000 now. And that's getting to be a bit of a reach, you know, especially

since everything else has gotten so expensive. When the Miata came out back in 90, most people, most regular Americans, I'm not talking about rich people, just people like you and me, ordinary people, could afford more than one car. So, you know, they got the Miata as the fun car, but they still had another car to haul the kids around and get groceries and do all the things that you need an appliance for, you know, something that just fills the bill for transportation. But now people, most people are in the position of having to pick one. They can't have both. They have to pick one. So what are they going to pick? Obviously, you're not going to pick the Miata, which is how you'd love to have one. You've got kids, you know, you've got to be able to carry more than one person. So what do you do? You end up getting an appliance. You end up getting something like a crossover SUV. And again, I'm not slamming them. I'm just pointing out people have a limited amount of money. And so they're having to decide practical versus fun. And that is what's causing the Miata to kind of wilt a little bit in terms of sales. It's as appealing as it ever was. The problem is it's less affordable overall. than it ever has been. Now, what I'm curious about, why would it cost $30,000? Because we're talking

about, you know, a basic four cylinder. Now, is it turbocharged now? Do they turbocharge that four? No, no, not at all. I mean, it has some mechanical upgrades. It now comes standard with the six speed. Okay. And, yeah, and the engine is a little bit stronger, but it's not that that has driven up the cost. Two things have driven up the cost. One is inflation, obviously. The other one is that it now has at least four airbags. it may have more than that standard. Whereas when the model originally came out, I don't think it had any. It might have had a driver's side airbag. I can't remember for sure, but no more than two when it initially came out.

Now it's got side impact airbags, and I think it even has airbags in the seats also. And of course, it has an LCD touchscreen, and it has a lot of other things that would have been considered luxury options back in the day. So that has added to the price. But I think the key point here is, you know, when people talk about inflation, what they're not taking into account is that our earning have not, to use the word, inflated in accordance. So that's the problem. You know, people just don't have enough money to bridge that gap any longer. So I think that Maz has got to figure out a way to make the car less expensive in order for it to survive. And I think that it could be done. There are things that could be done such as eliminating some of the airbags. The federal government

says you have to have a driver and front seat passenger bag. But I don't think you have to have airbags in the doors and seats. Well, I'm sure this is about looking for better. crash test rating, you know, from NHTSA, right? Yeah, but you know, who cares? I think that the people who buy that car don't particularly care about that. I think they would much more care about being able to buy one for, say, $25,000 than for $30,000. But unfortunately, this is the second part of the story. What it looks like Mazda is contemplating doing is to put a hybrid augmented drive train

in the thing. In other words, a compliance drive train to try to make it more agreeable. the site of Uncle Sam. And of course, that's going to make the price even higher because you can't just add components to a car for free. They've got to recover their costs. So, you know, if they, if they do that to this car and they wind up trying to sell it for $32,000 or $33,000, it's over. That's going to be it for the Miata. Yeah, because it's difficult to have that be your only car. I remember the one that I was driving a tiny trunk. In fact, I think it's almost vestigial. Yeah. It's about nine cubic feet. Yeah. It's about nine cubic feet.

Yeah, you might get a golf club in it. I don't think you get the whole golf club club bag in for whatever reason. But yeah, just a great car. And that would be sad to see that go away on the altar of compliance once again, all right? Yeah, by the way, I don't know whether you caught this news. It's related. BMW has canceled the Z4. And that means that the Toyota Supra, which is a BMW, Z4 with a different skin, they're both going away also. Now, the Supra, oh, I didn't realize that the Supra was actually a BMW with a different skin. Yeah, it's identical mechanically. It just has, it has different skin on the top, kind of like the Subaru BRZ and the Toyota 86. That's a super. Both of those are Subaru's. Hey, a couple of questions on my mind.

We had mentioned briefly Chrysler a little bit earlier. What situation is Chrysler in at this point? Because I know that I have a sister-in-law who has been having great deal. difficulty getting recall service done on an old Chrysler, well, not an old Chrysler man, but a recent vintage Chrysler van. And there was talk about the availability of parts and things like that. And is that starting to, is it really getting to the panic time over in the Chrysler world or not?

What do you think? Well, I think it's getting to the panic time if you're a Chrysler dealer, of which I don't think there are any anymore. What they've done is to take the remainder of that and incorporate it into multi-brand dealers. So typically you'll see the Chrysler nameplate in front of a dollar. Dodge Jeep RAM store. And they have one product left in their lineup now, which is the minivan. That's it.

They don't sell anything else. Now, as far as parts availability, you know, the 300 sedan is basically a charger. And, you know, they discontinued both of those after 2023. So I would imagine it's still going to be feasible to get parts, both mechanical and cosmetic parts for those vehicles for a number of years. But I think Chrysler is not long for this world. You know, they had planned to bring out a whole lineup of Chrysler-badged electric vehicles. You may have seen the article I wrote a few months ago about this, but obviously they're not going to do that.

So they have absolutely nothing now that they're going to be able to put into the breach to keep Chrysler afloat. So I think Chrysler's done. I think 2026 will probably be the last year and it'll be over. Okay. I know that I've been reading more and more articles everywhere that electric vehicle adaptation, if you want to call it, that has just been plummeting, right? Ever since the tax credits expired, that's gone? It's over now. Yeah, the tax credits didn't help. But, you know, again, to get back to this point, you know, that Trump wants us to, I'm sorry to get political, wants us to not notice. The economy is not doing great for most people. Most people do not have the extra coin to spend extravagantly on things like electric vehicles. You know, electric vehicles can best be understood in the sense of they're being essentially exotic because they're expensive. You know, just set aside the fact that they're electric. You're looking at spending on the low end for, you know, something like a Nissan leave, $33,000. $33,000 for us.

For a Nissan leaf, they'll go, what, maybe 110 miles, 120 miles for the basic? Yeah, I mean, the range is an issue, but the cost, I think, is much more of a fundamental issue. People can't afford them. Bottom line, you know, and you move up the food chain, and now you're talking about 40, 50, 60, 70,000. People don't have the money for this anymore. I still wonder what could be done to make some of those more affordable because I think there is a, there's a place for a Nissan leave. I also think there's a place in the mix of availability for cars, depending on your situation. situation. Like, well, I told you about the, oh, gosh, what was it, the Chevy Spark EV that I

test. I'll raise you. Did you catch my article about the micro-micil liner? No, I didn't catch it. Tell me about that. Please. Yeah, that's a little EV that's available in Europe. It's made by a Swiss company. It looks exactly like the old BMW I set it. Do you remember that? Oh, yes, with a clamshell front kind of thing. Yep, clamshell front. And it's super cheap. You know, it's not ludicrously fast. It doesn't go ludicrously far, but it's very inexpensive. It costs about $16,000, which would undercut the price of anything you can get in this country right now by about $7,000. Perfect for, you know, like a little urban, suburban runabout. But we can't have it. We are not allowed to have it because it's not safe and otherwise compliant. And it's, it's outrageous. You know, they tell us.

Yeah, but the Europeans can have a $16,000, perfectly decent commuter car EV, right? The Europeans going to. They keep telling us that this transition to electricity, electric powered cars is necessary because we're facing an imminent climate catastrophe, which you would think would prompt them to do everything possible to promote these low-cost EVs so as to get more people in them so as to save the planet. But clearly, that's not their agenda. Their agenda is something else. And it's absolutely outrageous. It's not just on the new car market. If vehicles like that were available, $16,000 little EVs, you know, after two or three years, that thing would be, you know, or 8,000 on the used market. And a kid could buy that. The first time car could buy that.

Yeah, that becomes your first time car. And you're not driving huge long distances and you can actually afford it. And you'd think that that would be something that would be encouraged, if nothing else. Now, I think back to that Chevy Spark EV, they were practically giving it away because it was all about the compliance at that point. They needed to get rid of those at the time for the CAFE fuel standards. Another state compliance kind of thing. Most of these challenges that we're talking about are all at the feet of state compliance, government compliance there. I mean, we want to make sure that we, that people understand that more than just about anything else. But the Chevy Spark EV, I thought, would have been a great car at about

17 or 18 grand, you know, but not, but not at 35, which is what I think it cost at that time, and that was five, six years ago. Right. And the reason why it cost so much, among other things, is it had to have multiple airbags to, you know, to comply with the federal standards with regard to that. And then there are also these, you know, this kind of catch-22 paradoxical demands that it's got to be able to go on the highway at 70 or 75 miles an hour for, you know, 100 miles. Where the micro doesn't try to do that. Its top speed is about 55 miles an hour. So what? That's more than enough for knocking around in an urban, suburban kind of environment. And because of that, it has a small battery. Oh, by the way, it can be fully charged in four hours

on any household current. You don't have to go to a fast charger. You don't have to spend two grand having an electrician come to upgrade your panel at home. It's a totally practical little car, but we can't have it. That's an example like in my particular situation or a lot of people here in Southern Oregon. All right, I drive six, seven miles a day to working back. It's not very far, right? Not very far. Perfect for something like that. And then you have your other vehicle for when you're talking about, you know, longer trips? And that would be the ideal way to do this, but no, can't have it, huh? Wow. Yeah, I mean, the irritating thing about the way things are in this country is we're denied alternatives. You know, we can't have things that meet our particular needs

and the market isn't allowed to respond to our needs. We have to have this top-down, one-size-fits-all regime that's imposed on us by these arrogant busy bodies in Washington and also at the state level, too. Yeah, state of Oregon, of course, is big on this, too. Hey, one more thing I wanted to talk about, And this has to do with traffic planning. I love the article. It's on E.P.onos.com, folks. It's a solution for a created problem, and it has to do with the traffic flow or the lack of good traffic flow. And, you know, I swear, you know, even when I'm going through downtown Medford and other places,

as soon as your light turns green, the one right up ahead seems to turn red. You know, that kind of thing. And wait a minute, I thought that the whole idea of traffic control was to smooth your way. and so you're not idling and creating more carbon, you know, all that kind of stuff, and wasting fuel and time. But it doesn't seem to work out that way. What are they proposing? Well, I knew when I decided to write another article about urban planning that I would punch your buttons.

These guys, they create a problem, and then they offer their solution. Now, the problem is simply that in many areas, lights aren't timed. You'll be sitting at a light. It goes green. As soon as you get moving, the one that's just down the road from you, you know, 50, feet sometimes, it turns red. And traffic is horrible as a result of that. So instead of the obvious fixes, which would be just time of lights so that they generally go green at about the same time and they go red at the same time, the technocratic tech bros want to call our GPS data

and put us into the penopticon of things so that they can time the lights in that manner. In other words, data mine us and monitor us in order to allow us to have somewhat smoothly flowing traffic. So all the newer cars that have that are connected, right, that have the data coming out of it, the traffic planners would then have that and they would have an idea since they probably know what your car is from your other travels. They have a database on your travels and they're kind of know where you're going and how fast you're going. What could go wrong with such a traffic planning plan? Oh, right. And, you know, they assure us it's all anonymized. The data is anonymized. But they don't say, look, you have no choice. Like they're simply extracting this stuff from you.

It's really outrageous, at least to my way of thinking, you know, you buy this car and somehow these external entities have access to data about you and your comings and goings. I just astounds me that more people aren't infuriated about that. Yeah, it's a great article, solution for a created problem. There's a whole lot more going on there. Hey, Eric, I really appreciate your time this morning. And if there is anything else going on, hey, let me know. But other than that, what are you going to review for next week?

because that BMW review is really interesting. Well, thank you. Yeah, I've got a Lincoln Navigator, which is, of course, their big, huge SUV that's a competitor of the Cadillac Escalade. I posted a little video the other day. I don't know if you had a chance to see it. It's got one of the biggest LCD touchscreens you'll find in a new vehicle, and it's enormous. It's this whole curb thing. It looks, you feel like Mr. Data from Star Trek, the next generation, you know, sitting in front of your display.

And the thought that struck me was, you know, this is kind of the blind alley that they've, they've, painted themselves into corner, I should say. It used to be that only the high-end cars had the touchscreen, but now every car has a touchscreen. So now the luxury brands, Lincoln is one, they're making them even bigger. So how big can they get? You know, eventually, what are we going to have? Like the whole windshield's probably going to be some gigantic holograph display. It's just going to be a headset or a heads-up display, like a fighter jet, that sort of thing. And then it'll be, Mr. Data, apply forward thruster, some kind of command. I posted a video on the site. It's up there right now. If people are interested, they can take a look at it. Now, whether this is a good thing,

I'll leave that up to you. Okay. Eric Peters, E.Piados.com. Hey, call, are you even there a little bit? Hi, who's this? Do you want to talk to Eric or something else on your mind? Yeah, it's about your traffic, like, timing thing. Sure. I got a real good question for that one. Okay, go ahead. Fire away. Oh, okay. In Grants Pass, on six and seven streets, which are all one way. You know, if you catch a light and it turns green, if you go to the speed limit, you'll catch every single light

all the way through 6th and or 7th Street. Yeah, yeah, you're right about that. I know parts of Medford are that way too. I think the challenge is that a traffic planner explained it to me one time, and Eric, I don't know if you can confirm this or not, but that they can only really time it for one direction. So if you don't happen to be going on that street,

then everybody else gets screwed trying to cross. Did that be fair to say? Oh, I guess it only works on one-way streets. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Eric, any thoughts on that? Yeah, that's true. You know, you introduce these other variable, side streets and other lights that have to be timed accordingly. And, you know, sometimes something will glitch and go wrong.

And once one goes wrong, then you've got the systemic problem. So unless they're monitoring this and correcting it in real times, you end up with the awful situation that most of us have to deal with every time we go out and drive. All right. Appreciate your call there. Shade before 7, KMED, KMED, H.D1, Eagle Point, Medford, KBXG, Grants, Pass. Hey, we've been talking about a lot of stuff. Now everybody's calling.

So we'll grab a couple more calls before you take off. I thought you were going to just cut out. Hi, calling. You're on with Eric. Who's this? Morning. Yeah, good morning. This is Terry.

Hey, Terry. Yeah, I wonder if Eric's heard about where I guess they're switching the signals from the magnetic strips in the road to cameras. Is there any truth to that? I've seen the cameras and in this case I kind of understand why they're doing it if you ride motorcycles you probably experience the frustration of coming up to a light and you roll up to you know the line but the light doesn't change because it doesn't sense the bike and so they put the cameras in there so they can sense bikes so you know the bike doesn't have to run the light

and risk the hut hut hut yeah I know that what happens a lot of times though what we see cameras on top of those are actually sensors now. They're starting to use more of those as sensors. I don't know if it's actually part of a greater surveillance tech. It wouldn't surprise me, but I couldn't confirm one way or the other, Eric. Yep. Appreciate the call, as always. We will see you next Wednesday, okay?

Thanks again. Sounds great, Bill. Thank you much. E.P.O.O.S.com. Great journalism there. A lot of great politics. Good comments, too, for that matter. KM.ED.

KM.E.D. H.1. Eagle Point, Medford. Grants Pass.