Speaker 1: Well, the city council might only give you sixty seconds
Speaker 1: to where your grievance is.
Speaker 2: Oh hi, i'd like to start go to the first
Speaker 2: caller on the phone.
Speaker 1: Well, if you're lucky, now we're giving you a full
Speaker 1: sixty minutes. It's a KABC News Blitz with Randy Wang
Speaker 1: and our long recap of the day's top local stories
Speaker 1: on your drive home. And unlike the city Council, we're
Speaker 1: the perfect vehicle to actually.
Speaker 2: Get your voice heard.
Speaker 1: The KADC News Blitz with Randy Wang starts no, No, No.
Speaker 3: It is the News Blitz with Randy Wang on Talk
Speaker 3: radio seven ninety KABC. This is your daily rundown of
Speaker 3: everything you need to know that's going on in southern
Speaker 3: California as well as the Bay Area, Sacramento, and San Diego.
Speaker 3: I compile a list every single day of all the
Speaker 3: stories that you may have missed that are important to
Speaker 3: you and that are locally focused at Randy Wangradio dot
Speaker 3: substack dot com. You can follow me on x and
Speaker 3: Instagram at Randy Wang Radio, send me an email at
Speaker 3: Randywang Radio at gmail dot com, and subscribe to the
Speaker 3: YouTube channel YouTube dot com, Slash at Randywang Radio. We
Speaker 3: are thirteen subs away from twenty five hundred subscribers. That's
Speaker 3: where you can watch the John Phillips Show every single
Speaker 3: day from noon to three. And he also has videos
Speaker 3: of this show and videos of the John Phillips Show,
Speaker 3: so check it out YouTube dot com slash at Randywang Radio.
Speaker 3: If you have any trouble finding that, send me an email.
Speaker 3: I'll get you in there directly. Programming note before we
Speaker 3: get into today's report, i am on our five of
Speaker 3: broadcasting today, but I'm doing a sixth hour of broadcasting today.
Speaker 3: So I started this morning recording the Accountability Podcast with
Speaker 3: John Phillips that premieres at midnight tonight. You can go
Speaker 3: to that channel YouTube dot com slash at Accountability Podcast.
Speaker 2: That was one hour.
Speaker 3: Then I did three hours of the John Phillipshow, so
Speaker 3: that's four hours.
Speaker 2: We're starting the news blitz right now.
Speaker 3: That's our five and at eight o'clock tonight, I'm going
Speaker 3: to be a guest on the California Underground podcast with
Speaker 3: our buddy Phil Moroelo. I've been invited to hang out
Speaker 3: for his live stream at eight o'clock tonight. It goes
Speaker 3: live on YouTube at California Underground as well as Instagram
Speaker 3: at California Underground, so check me out. I'll be on
Speaker 3: there tonight at eight o'clock, so I will be having
Speaker 3: dinner probably around seven. Let's get into today's stories, and
Speaker 3: our first story considers our Attorney General Bob Bonta Rob Bonta,
Speaker 3: but we like to call him Bob Bonta because LeeAnne
Speaker 3: Melendez said that once and I can't get over it.
Speaker 3: Bob Bonta made big headlines when he and eleven other
Speaker 3: attorneys general made a big lawsuit trying to halt the
Speaker 3: mega merger between Paramount Sky Dance and Warner Brothers Discovery, which,
Speaker 3: by the way, just the name of those comempanies tells
Speaker 3: you how out of control some of these mergers have gotten,
Speaker 3: because both of these companies recently did their own mergers
Speaker 3: and takeovers, and it's just it is a constant industry
Speaker 3: of everyone eating each other up. I have conflicting thoughts
Speaker 3: on this. For one, I love Bob Bonta making the
Speaker 3: backdrop of the Hollywood Sign as he's trying to obviously
Speaker 3: get some attention for himself. But what's interesting about this lawsuit?
Speaker 3: And I just listened to an interview that Bonta did
Speaker 3: the day he dropped the lawsuit with Kara Swisher on
Speaker 3: Pivot with Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway, which I listened
Speaker 3: to and I enjoy And if you ever listen to
Speaker 3: Scott Galloway, who I'm a big fan of. I like
Speaker 3: a lot of his stuff. But if you know me,
Speaker 3: and you know my obsession when it comes to phraseology
Speaker 3: and my obsession with certain word crutches that people can't
Speaker 3: seem to realize that they keep doing, specifically quite frankly,
Speaker 3: quite frankly, quite frankly, quite frankly, that if you ever
Speaker 3: listen to Scott Galloway, you will realize that he says
Speaker 3: that phrase over and over and over again. But one
Speaker 3: of the things about this lawsuit is that the scope
Speaker 3: is specifically going after the film distribution and the film
Speaker 3: studio part of this, because if you're Paramount sky Dance
Speaker 3: and you're looking to gobble up Warner Brothers Discovery, you
Speaker 3: can look at this at the lens of you're just
Speaker 3: trying to become a bigger competitor in the streaming market
Speaker 3: because the market share of Warner Brothers, which is HBO
Speaker 3: Max and Paramount which is paramount plus combined, isn't even
Speaker 3: a fraction of what Netflix does or what YouTube does,
Speaker 3: which I am recording to and I'm going to post
Speaker 3: a video of right now I somebody being four twenty
Speaker 3: one years old.
Speaker 2: Well, I'll be forty one in a couple of weeks.
Speaker 3: I consume the vast majority of my content on YouTube,
Speaker 3: and in fact, with my wife being out of town
Speaker 3: for the summer, I don't think outside of watching John Oliver,
Speaker 3: I have watched anything on any of my streaming services
Speaker 3: for the past six weeks, and I pay for all
Speaker 3: of them.
Speaker 2: So this lawsuit is not about that.
Speaker 3: This lawsuit is about the consolidation of the film studios
Speaker 3: and how there is an argument that that's going to
Speaker 3: lead to job losses when it comes to redundancy, when
Speaker 3: you're talking about some of the office people, HR, accounting,
Speaker 3: what have you. We've seen this over and over and
Speaker 3: over again, and the people that are going to be
Speaker 3: there are going to have to do a lot more
Speaker 3: with a lot less. Look, I'm no stranger to market consolidation. Famously,
Speaker 3: in the late nineties, then President Bill Clinton helped rein
Speaker 3: through so the deregulation of the radio industry where companies
Speaker 3: can only own a certain amount of stations, and then
Speaker 3: we said, screw it, they can own as many as
Speaker 3: eight in every market. And that's when you saw the
Speaker 3: behemoths of clear Channel and later what became to be
Speaker 3: known as Cumulus buying up every single thing. Odyssey just
Speaker 3: did this recently, and buying all these stations and also
Speaker 3: buying all the debt, and not exactly becoming profitable. And
Speaker 3: for the most part, you ask anybody that's worked in
Speaker 3: the radio industry in the last thirty years, they'll tell
Speaker 3: you the product has gotten worse.
Speaker 2: So is this better for consumers?
Speaker 3: Probably not accepted one specific instance. And again, the lawsuit
Speaker 3: is not about the streamers. The lawsuit is about the
Speaker 3: film studios, which is interesting because you know, there's so
Speaker 3: many things that get made now. They get a lot
Speaker 3: of attention that are being done by the independent studios,
Speaker 3: whether it be your obsession, whether it be your back rooms,
Speaker 3: or the Oscar Anora, which.
Speaker 2: Is a fantastic movie and.
Speaker 3: Worth all of it, and she deserved the Oscar too, Like, Okay,
Speaker 3: let's make the argument that these studios are too big
Speaker 3: and too powerful. Well, okay, on the streamer side of it.
Speaker 3: There is one benefit to the consumer. Now there could
Speaker 3: be an issue with well that means if they're buying
Speaker 3: up all these services, there's going to be less content.
Speaker 3: For one, there's a lot of content out there, and
Speaker 3: one of the issues with having so much different content
Speaker 3: on so many different streamers is that it's impossible to
Speaker 3: watch everything, and if you're paying for every single one,
Speaker 3: you're probably wasting a ridiculous amount of money.
Speaker 2: I don't even want to add it up now.
Speaker 3: Caveat certain streamers I get with a benefit to my
Speaker 3: credit card. So Apple TV Plus, which I think Apple
Speaker 3: puts out incredible content. You're talking Ted Last, so you're
Speaker 3: talking shrinking great shows. They don't really care about how
Speaker 3: many people watch them. They're just doing it for the awards.
Speaker 3: But I think they put out really really quality content
Speaker 3: and not enough people talk about them.
Speaker 2: But they're in one category.
Speaker 3: You've got your Peacock, which I think puts out great stuff.
Speaker 3: That Reggie Dinkins show is great. It's very reminiscent of
Speaker 3: the thirty Rock days. But I mean, how much business
Speaker 3: are they really doing. All of these companies have a
Speaker 3: fraction of the business that Netflix is doing, and even
Speaker 3: all that pales in comparison to what YouTube is doing.
Speaker 3: But if you're paying for all of them, you're not
Speaker 3: watching them. Anyway, I do pay for all of them.
Speaker 3: Probably shouldn't, but I do have a deal going. So
Speaker 3: the Apple one I get with my Chase cards, that
Speaker 3: one's free, I can watch all I want. My Chase
Speaker 3: Reserve is paying for that, and I already get enough
Speaker 3: benefits where the annual fee makes sense. My MX Platinum,
Speaker 3: I get a twenty five dollars streaming credit which I
Speaker 3: have bundled together HBO and Disney and Hulu, which I
Speaker 3: don't know how that works because Disney and Hulu are
Speaker 3: about to merge, but anyway, that's like twenty eight dollars
Speaker 3: a month, and I get twenty five dollars a month,
Speaker 3: So I'm getting those for three dollars. Then you get
Speaker 3: your peacock and then you get your paramount. But one
Speaker 3: of the benefits to the consumer if all of these
Speaker 3: companies merge is there will be less.
Speaker 2: Of these streaming services to subscribe to.
Speaker 3: But it is very interesting to me that six years ago,
Speaker 3: when everyone decided they were gonna come out with their
Speaker 3: own Netflix, we're talking Disney Plus, we're talking paramount, plus
Speaker 3: we're talking peacock.
Speaker 2: HBO had.
Speaker 3: HBO has gone through so many name changes over the
Speaker 3: last ten years. First they had HBO Go, then it
Speaker 3: became HBO Now, then it became HBO Max, then it
Speaker 3: became Max, and then it became HBO Max again. I'm
Speaker 3: pretty sure I got all of those, but that's always
Speaker 3: been a in some capacity. But you you have so
Speaker 3: many others at that point. If there's less of them,
Speaker 3: then you'll be paying less to watch all of this stuff,
Speaker 3: unless they decide, Okay, now we've merged these services, we
Speaker 3: need to increase the price to Netflix levels. Because Netflix
Speaker 3: got really expensive. I hope you enjoy it because you're
Speaker 3: paying If you're paying for four K on multiple screens,
Speaker 3: you're paying what twenty six twenty seven dollars a month
Speaker 3: just for that, and it goes up like every year.
Speaker 3: That being said, regardless of the streaming aspect of us. Oh,
Speaker 3: let me get to the point I was making so
Speaker 3: all these companies put forth all this money to create
Speaker 3: all this original content and stop doing what they were
Speaker 3: doing selling it to Netflix. And Netflix was taking on
Speaker 3: a ridiculous amount of debt, but they were growing a
Speaker 3: huge subscriber base. All of these streamers immediately start losing money.
Speaker 3: They start cutting the amount of content they're doing, they
Speaker 3: start cutting how much money they're putting into these shows.
Speaker 2: Season one of.
Speaker 3: How the Dragon had lots of battles and lots of dragons.
Speaker 3: Season two had a lot of talking. Now I haven't
Speaker 3: seen season three yet, but I hear they brought a
Speaker 3: lot of the fighting and the dragons back. So maybe
Speaker 3: they've realized their mistake or they pissed off George R. R.
Speaker 2: Martin.
Speaker 3: But ultimately a lot of these companies decided, you know what,
Speaker 3: why don't we just go ahead and start selling our
Speaker 3: back catalogs to Netflix again anyway, because that was working
Speaker 3: out really well. It's a giant, convoluted mess. And one
Speaker 3: of the things that is interesting is the younger generation doesn't.
Speaker 2: Pay attention to almost any of this stuff.
Speaker 3: They're watching YouTube, they're watching videos of other people play
Speaker 3: video games, they're watching short form content on TikTok, they're
Speaker 3: watching the instagrams, and they're watching podcasts.
Speaker 2: That is a huge growth industry.
Speaker 3: In fact, Netflix is so into this now and they're
Speaker 3: seeing how many people are watching podcasts on YouTube, something
Speaker 3: that we're now doing that. They're actually buying podcasts, the
Speaker 3: Breakfast Club, you can Netflix's. It's having all of this
Speaker 3: content that costs so little to produce. I can now
Speaker 3: put on a cable news level of quality talk show
Speaker 3: from one computer.
Speaker 2: It's crazy, but.
Speaker 3: Ultimately it means the way that this industry is going
Speaker 3: is that there will be fewer jobs. And these mergers
Speaker 3: are whether they happen or not, there's going to be
Speaker 3: a lot of the industry is going to be more
Speaker 3: spread out than it ever has been and I don't
Speaker 3: see that changing anytime soon. And sure, we could talk
Speaker 3: about the tax credits issue, including apparently a piece of
Speaker 3: legislation that might handicap California trying to claw back some
Speaker 3: of the productions that have left and the more attractive
Speaker 3: tax credits in other states, because we decided to put
Speaker 3: forth a part in the budget that says no company
Speaker 3: can get more than five million dollars in these tax credits,
Speaker 3: which pretty much wipes out all the big studios from
Speaker 3: coming back here anytime soon. And don't worry, they're not
Speaker 3: going to Atlanta anymore. They're fleeing to Ireland or the
Speaker 3: UK or Canada. And yeah, I'm gonna say this as
Speaker 3: a union guy, it's the unions that are definitely helping
Speaker 3: accelerate that push. It would be nice if everyone could
Speaker 3: sit down and find a happy medium to keep production here,
Speaker 3: but I don't see that happening anytime soon. In Culver City,
Speaker 3: there is a backlash two more proposed bike lanes, this
Speaker 3: time protected bike lanes on Overland Boulevard, taking away parking
Speaker 3: and taking away lanes of traffic on a very busy
Speaker 3: street that connects to the freeway. And one of the
Speaker 3: arguments that a lot of people that showed up at
Speaker 3: the council meeting have as to why they're opposed to
Speaker 3: this is they don't see anybody in these bike lanes anyway.
Speaker 3: It's this whole idea, if you build it, they will come. Well,
Speaker 3: I live in parts of the San Fernando Valley where
Speaker 3: we have turned entire thoroughfares. Receive a boulevard in the
Speaker 3: Northridge area into bike lane, and you think, oh, that
Speaker 3: would be a place with a lot of bikes. You're
Speaker 3: right next to seasun You will never see a bicycle
Speaker 3: going through Receipt a boulevard. They've got the protected bike
Speaker 3: lanes on White Oak I've seen maybe one, maybe two.
Speaker 3: I have seen a lot of dented ballards that I
Speaker 3: have seen plenty of, but I have not seen people
Speaker 3: using these bike lanes because for the most part, outside
Speaker 3: of the recreation of it, which you're probably better off
Speaker 3: going to the trails or the bike paths, except for
Speaker 3: the La River bike path, because you will probably pop
Speaker 3: your tires unbroken glass. I speak from experience, but it's
Speaker 3: still not necessarily safe and it's not really convenient, and
Speaker 3: so we're building a bunch of infrastructure that nobody's really using.
Speaker 3: So I understand the concern over there. Squatters are taking
Speaker 3: over more homes in Los Angeles. This is a fantastic
Speaker 3: report from our friend Matthew Seedorf at Fox eleven, and
Speaker 3: it is We told you about this story four months
Speaker 3: ago where a family lost their home because the house
Speaker 3: next door burned down thanks to squatters, and this family
Speaker 3: lost their home and their three dogs passed away. Awful,
Speaker 3: awful story. Four months later, their house is still burned
Speaker 3: down and now it's a giant pile of trash. Squatters
Speaker 3: have invaded, which means there is more fires, there is garbage,
Speaker 3: and there is condoms everywhere. Because one of the factors
Speaker 3: of squatters is it's also dens for prostitution. I don't
Speaker 3: know why that's your thing where you need to do
Speaker 3: that situation on top of a burned out building, But
Speaker 3: creepy dudes gonna creepy dudes. Speaking of creepy dudes, there
Speaker 3: is a crazy story coming out of Long Beach where
Speaker 3: locals are very upset about all of these vans parking saying, hey,
Speaker 3: check out Pinky's Girls in this big pink font advertising
Speaker 3: adult services and hookups. We're not really sure what it's for,
Speaker 3: and people are like, why is this allowed, especially outside
Speaker 3: of school, and how are you making any money on this? Well,
Speaker 3: great piece from NBCLA. It's one of my favorite pieces
Speaker 3: of the day because here's the issue. You have all
Speaker 3: of these ced trailers and vans being parked all over
Speaker 3: the place. How much could they possibly be making from it?
Speaker 3: What if the whole plan is not to make any
Speaker 3: money from Pinky's Girls. What if the idea here is
Speaker 3: to actually trick cities like Long Beach into a big, fat,
Speaker 3: expensive lawsuit. So when the city of Long Beach tried
Speaker 3: to shut down these trailers advertising Pinky's Girls whatever CD
Speaker 3: service they were actually advertising. They got sued over First
Speaker 3: Amendment violations by the owner of said trailers, and the
Speaker 3: owner got three hundred dollars. So is this a situation
Speaker 3: where someone really is advertising prostitutes on the back of
Speaker 3: a van, or is this a free speech First amendmenttrol
Speaker 3: who has figured out the perfect scam to sue cities.
Speaker 3: It's definitely possible. It's the News Blitz with Randy Wang
Speaker 3: on KABC. It's the News Blitz with Randy Wang on
Speaker 3: talk radio seven ninety KABC. You know what, let's get
Speaker 3: this out of the way, because I'm totally going to forget.
Speaker 3: I've got something nice for you. Seven ninety KABC welcomes
Speaker 3: Nelly with special guests Too Short at the Pacific Amphitheater
Speaker 3: at the OC Fair on August second. Tickets are on
Speaker 3: sale now at pacamp dot com, but right now calling
Speaker 3: number nine at one eight at eight seven ninety five
Speaker 3: two two two gets a pair of tickets to the show.
Speaker 3: All concert tickets included mission to the OC Fair. Tickets
Speaker 3: furnished by the Pacific Amphitheater. Good luck dialing. I am
Speaker 3: going to be a guest on the California Underground podcast
Speaker 3: today at eight o'clock at night. They stream live at
Speaker 3: eight o'clock on Tuesdays on YouTube at YouTube dot com,
Speaker 3: slash at California Underground, and on Instagram at California Underground.
Speaker 3: So I'm very excited. I need to reach out more
Speaker 3: to different kinds of shows because I'd love to do
Speaker 3: guest spots, especially now that i have the video setup
Speaker 3: all ready to go. So I'm excited to see how
Speaker 3: this goes. We've had Phil Marielo, the host of California Underground,
Speaker 3: on the show many times, and I think he does
Speaker 3: a great show, and I'm very excited to be a
Speaker 3: part of it. Let me remind you that at midnight tonight,
Speaker 3: the Accountability Podcast with John Phillips and Randy Wang, episode
Speaker 3: three drops and this one. As soon as I saw
Speaker 3: this thing happen, I was like, Oh, we're covering this
Speaker 3: on the podcast. Karen Bass and Barbara Ferrera getting cussed
Speaker 3: out in English and Spanish and getting booed in boil Heights.
Speaker 3: I'm like, yes, I could cut clips of that and
Speaker 3: cut around all the screaming and the cussin, or we
Speaker 3: can do. What we could do is play it all
Speaker 3: uncensored on an uncensored podcast, so that show goes live
Speaker 3: at midnight. You can subscribe on audio a couple of
Speaker 3: different ways, Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, but we really encourage you
Speaker 3: to get us on YouTube, YouTube dot com slash at
Speaker 3: Accountability Podcast. If you cannot find it, email us and
Speaker 3: we'll send you the link because you can watch us
Speaker 3: react to all the madness in real time.
Speaker 2: It is fantastic.
Speaker 3: And as an added bonus, we're trying to get to
Speaker 3: one thousand subscribers by the end of the week and
Speaker 3: if we do, I have a very special video gift
Speaker 3: for you. We are going to put out a very
Speaker 3: special produced video, a visual representation of the famous caller
Speaker 3: Kathy from Malibu who wanted to talk to John Phillips
Speaker 3: about Madonna and Martha Stewart. It's a blast, but I
Speaker 3: can't release it until we get to one thousand subs.
Speaker 3: So that's YouTube dot com slash at Accountability Podcast. It's
Speaker 3: the News Blitz with Randy Wang on KABC.
Speaker 1: He's half past five in LA. That means you're either
Speaker 1: sitting at a bar or sitting in transfer well. Wherever
Speaker 1: you are sitting, get comfortable because the KADC News Blitz
Speaker 1: with Randy Wang continues.
Speaker 3: No, it is the News Blitz with Randy Wang on
Speaker 3: Talk Radio seven ninety KABC. This is your daily rundown
Speaker 3: of everything you need to know that's going on in
Speaker 3: southern California as well as the Bay Area, Sacramento, and
Speaker 3: San Diego. I compile a list every single day of
Speaker 3: all the stories that are important to Californians that you
Speaker 3: may have missed at Randy Wang Radio dot so dot com.
Speaker 3: You and also follow me on x and Instagram at
Speaker 3: Randy Wang Radio, send me an email at Randywang Radio
Speaker 3: at gmail dot com, and subscribe to our YouTube channels.
Speaker 3: You can get the John Phillips Show and this show
Speaker 3: on video every single day at YouTube dot com slash
Speaker 3: at Randy Wang Radio. I post the video after the
Speaker 3: show airs, and there's clips from the John Phillipshow and
Speaker 3: you can watch live from noon to three. Participate in
Speaker 3: the chatroom that's YouTube dot com slash at Randywang Radio.
Speaker 3: And the podcast The Accountability Podcast, which the new episode
Speaker 3: drops tomorrow is YouTube dot com slash at Accountability Podcast.
Speaker 3: If you cannot find either of those, do what Ed
Speaker 3: just did and ask me for the links. I will
Speaker 3: send them to you via email. Also just a reminder.
Speaker 3: I'm going to be on the California Underground podcast tonight
Speaker 3: at eight o'clock at YouTube dot com, slash at California Underground,
Speaker 3: and Instagram at California Underground. Gavin Newsom has done a
Speaker 3: lot of things to make it easier to build housing
Speaker 3: in California, and most of them have not moved the
Speaker 3: needle at all. But this last one, including a bill
Speaker 3: signing that he did just today, may have a little
Speaker 3: bigger impact than most of the things that he says
Speaker 3: are game changers, because there's a lot of things that
Speaker 3: go into why it's so expensive to build in California.
Speaker 3: Could be the cost of materials, could be you know,
Speaker 3: minimum labor standards and union workers, what have you. But
Speaker 3: one of the things that truly drives up the cost,
Speaker 3: and it's something that Matt Mayhan talked about a lot
Speaker 3: on the campaign trail when he was running for governor
Speaker 3: as mayor of San Jose and got four percent of
Speaker 3: the vote.
Speaker 2: Was impact fees. What are impact fees?
Speaker 3: Impact fees are fees placed by cities and counties to
Speaker 3: peace people building homes, whether that's single family homes or
Speaker 3: multifamily homes. It is an essential tax before a shovel
Speaker 3: is even put into the ground, and it can drive
Speaker 3: up the cost of a home by twenty to thirty
Speaker 3: percent because the developer's got to make that money back somewhere,
Speaker 3: which means the home's going to have to cost a
Speaker 3: lot more because we're paying a ridiculous tax to even
Speaker 3: build a house while we say we're in the middle
Speaker 3: of a housing crisis. Now, cities and counties depend on
Speaker 3: all of this money because it's what fills their budgets.
Speaker 3: They want to approve certain kinds of housing because they
Speaker 3: can get taxes and fees from it. And you know what,
Speaker 3: that system has not worked. So what is Gavin doing?
Speaker 3: And again we'll see if this actually turns out the
Speaker 3: way he says it is because Gavin makes a lot
Speaker 3: of big promises with very little follow through.
Speaker 2: But at least it face value.
Speaker 3: The idea of the state putting out an incentive structure
Speaker 3: with a carrot and a stick to say goodbye to
Speaker 3: impact fees by saying that you will not get any
Speaker 3: state money for any project if you're collecting impact fees.
Speaker 3: That's the stick, and the carrot is if you do that,
Speaker 3: the state will help whatever invest in that project, whatever
Speaker 3: funds that they have. If the cities and counties can
Speaker 3: stop this nonsensical things with the impact fees, maybe maybe,
Speaker 3: just maybe it'll be cheaper to build here. But will
Speaker 3: that actually mean that housing gets cheaper? You know, It's
Speaker 3: an issue that I wanted to talk about for quite
Speaker 3: some time, and it's usually like at the bottom of
Speaker 3: the list, and so I never.
Speaker 2: Get to it.
Speaker 3: But San Diego is a perfect example of a place
Speaker 3: that has built and built and built and said yes
Speaker 3: to everything. They have built more housing than the rest
Speaker 3: of the state.
Speaker 2: That is true.
Speaker 3: They have built more apartments, they have built more single
Speaker 3: family homes, and yes, they have built lots and lots
Speaker 3: and lots of ADUs. They had that ADU density bonus
Speaker 3: law where you could build an ADU giant tower in
Speaker 3: the backyard of somebody's house and you don't even need
Speaker 3: to have any parking. The latest studies have shown while
Speaker 3: they did increase supply, it did not really buy any
Speaker 3: noticeable margin lower the cost of getting into the market.
Speaker 3: Like the average price of a home is still pretty
Speaker 3: much the same than it was. There are more of them,
Speaker 3: but they still all cost the same. The rents for
Speaker 3: a I remember very specifically Todd Glawyer, the mayor of
Speaker 3: San Diego, doing a ribbon cutting ceremony, taking a victory
Speaker 3: lab talking about how San Diego says yes, and we're
Speaker 3: here to build everything. And then he was cutting the
Speaker 3: ribbon for an apartment building where a one bedroom is
Speaker 3: going for four thousand dollars.
Speaker 2: So my simple question.
Speaker 3: Is, at what point do you build enough housing that
Speaker 3: the price goes down? And if you are somebody who
Speaker 3: owns real estate, is that something you even want? Like
Speaker 3: you know, we all think about well, yes, of course
Speaker 3: we want to have more people be able to get
Speaker 3: into the market, but I also don't want my home
Speaker 3: values going down. I mean, currently I'm in a situation
Speaker 3: where this house is worth about two hundred and fifty
Speaker 3: thousand dollars more, if you believe Zillah, more than we
Speaker 3: paid for it. Not that we could ever sell. We're
Speaker 3: locked in at a two percent rate. I can't get
Speaker 3: rid of that. But if we build so much housing,
Speaker 3: let's say SB seventy nine just takes off and we
Speaker 3: built out so much housing and because of population loss,
Speaker 3: all all of a sudden, there is actually a demand problem,
Speaker 3: and a place like the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles, Like,
Speaker 3: what happens if my home value goes down to below
Speaker 3: what I paid for it? I mean, I don't think
Speaker 3: that's going to happen anytime soon. And I'm sure you
Speaker 3: have plenty of people that bought in at a very
Speaker 3: low price, Like I have friends that bought it in
Speaker 3: twenty twelve at the bottom of the market and then
Speaker 3: sold for triple what.
Speaker 2: They paid for it.
Speaker 3: But there is definitely an incentive to, well, we don't
Speaker 3: want the prices to really go down. A lot of people,
Speaker 3: that is the that's their nest egg, that's their equity,
Speaker 3: that's their livelihood, that's their retirement fund right there.
Speaker 2: So, like a lot of things with this show, I
Speaker 2: don't know what.
Speaker 3: The answer is, but what I do know is impact
Speaker 3: fees are foolish, and counties and cities got to find
Speaker 3: better ways to shore up the holes in their budget
Speaker 3: or I don't know, cut all the waste, but stop
Speaker 3: charging right before a sh shovel even gets into the ground.
Speaker 2: On Impact VS.
Speaker 3: We'll see if that has any changes, if that actually
Speaker 3: moves the needle. With Gavin, you can never be sure,
Speaker 3: but it sure sounds like the right idea. The City
Speaker 3: of Oakland has gone through the first hurdle of trying
Speaker 3: to sell the Colisseum. And if it feels like we've
Speaker 3: been talking about this story for over two years, it's
Speaker 3: because yes, we've been talking about this story for over
Speaker 3: two years, Shangy, and.
Speaker 2: We still got our Oakland A's no, you don't. This time.
Speaker 3: The City of Oakland is selling to a different group.
Speaker 3: The county is selling to AASEEG, which was Shang's Buddies
Speaker 3: that she kept promoting but saying that she wasn't a
Speaker 3: spokesperson for that didn't really have the money. The group
Speaker 3: that's buying from the city says they have the money,
Speaker 3: although part of the deal is that if for some
Speaker 3: reason they can't pay, the city's on the hook for it.
Speaker 3: But there's a lot of excitement and how this is
Speaker 3: going to transform Oakland and how there's going to be
Speaker 3: so much investment in this area. And they're not going
Speaker 3: to tear down the arena or the stadium. So it's
Speaker 3: not only they're going to put a bunch of housing
Speaker 3: in there, but what are they going to put in there?
Speaker 3: You have no sports teams. The soccer team was playing
Speaker 3: at the coliseum they're leaving, So what exactly is there
Speaker 3: to do. Maybe they've got some idea. Maybe they're going
Speaker 3: to attract teams come out there, maybe an expansion team
Speaker 3: for come out there, or maybe this Vegas thing will
Speaker 3: implode in the A's.
Speaker 2: Will come back to Oakland.
Speaker 3: No, that's not happening. But we want the best for
Speaker 3: the city of Oakland. I really do you know. I
Speaker 3: know that city of Oakland becomes the butt of a
Speaker 3: lot of jokes because we have had a lot of
Speaker 3: fun at Shang Tao's expense.
Speaker 2: Absolutely absolutely, but.
Speaker 3: It should be a jewel of a city. It should
Speaker 3: be because of where it is, right on the Bay,
Speaker 3: right next to San Francisco, regarded in the same light
Speaker 3: as San Francisco. Because I have heard so many things
Speaker 3: about the food scene in Oakland that I want to try,
Speaker 3: that I want to be able to enjoy. I follow
Speaker 3: all this like Mez Cowbar up there that I really
Speaker 3: want to experience. But Oakland's got to deal with their
Speaker 3: image problem, and that includes public safety, and that includes
Speaker 3: the doom loop of all the businesses and all the
Speaker 3: sports teams going bye bye. As we're in the middle
Speaker 3: of summer travel season, ABC seven in the Bay has
Speaker 3: put out a handy little guide of travel scams to
Speaker 3: watch out for. Notably, if you're shopping for airline tickets
Speaker 3: on a search engine like a Google, just be careful
Speaker 3: of what search results you're actually clicking on. I find
Speaker 3: it you're better off to know what the real price
Speaker 3: for anything is when you're dealing directly with the airline
Speaker 3: and you're dealing directly with their apps. Also, make sure
Speaker 3: you pay for any of this stuff with a credit cards,
Speaker 3: you are secured. And if you are a master of points,
Speaker 3: which I consider myself an emerging master of Points, well
Speaker 3: then you probably have tons and tons and tons of
Speaker 3: ways to fly for free wherever you want to, unless
Speaker 3: you're trying to fight business class, because those can get
Speaker 3: real expensive. Unless you're willing to fly last minute, which
Speaker 3: is what we did last Christmas, and we might do
Speaker 3: this Christmas. I don't care where the flight starts. As
Speaker 3: long as Spain's in there somewhere, we can get on
Speaker 3: a plane last minute for seventy five thousand points business class.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna do it every single time. It's the news
Speaker 3: Blitz with Randy Wang on Talk Radio seven ninety kab C.
Speaker 3: It's the news Blitz with Randy Wang on Talk Radio
Speaker 3: seven ninety KABC. Just a reminder as I wrap up
Speaker 3: our five of broadcasting today, because I did the Accountability
Speaker 3: podcast this morning, that I did three hours of the
Speaker 3: John Phillips that I'm doing this show, I'm doing a
Speaker 3: sixth hour. I'll be a guest on the California Underground
Speaker 3: podcast tonight at eight o'clock.
Speaker 2: Our buddy Phil Melroyelo.
Speaker 3: Does a stream on Tuesdays at eight o'clock at YouTube
Speaker 3: dot com, slash at California Underground and on Instagram at
Speaker 3: California Underground, So I will be hanging out there tonight
Speaker 3: at eight. First time I've been asked to be a
Speaker 3: guest on somebody else's podcast to promote our stuff.
Speaker 2: So that is very very exciting.
Speaker 3: Get to use my little home setup and show it
Speaker 3: to other people that don't know what we're doing, and
Speaker 3: promote the station, promote the show, promote the brand. All right,
Speaker 3: here's the dumbest thing you're going to hear today. The
Speaker 3: state of California is actively working to put goat herders
Speaker 3: out of business. The state of California has put a
Speaker 3: new minimum wage law focused on go goat herders because
Speaker 3: they believe goat herders should be paid the same as
Speaker 3: sheep herders, even though goat herders and sheep herders do
Speaker 3: very different things. Goat herders very specifically are used in
Speaker 3: a very essential task, and that is clearing out brush
Speaker 3: in wildfire prone zones. It is one of the most
Speaker 3: effective things that we can do. The goats eat all
Speaker 3: the brush, they eat all of the fuel, and then
Speaker 3: we don't have these destructive wildfires that get out of control. Notably,
Speaker 3: the Ronald Reagan Library pays goats to clear out all
Speaker 3: the brush around there, so even when there have been
Speaker 3: destructive fires in Siami Valley, well, the Reagan's been protected.
Speaker 3: It is a wonderful thing and it is like such
Speaker 3: old school technology that really works to our benefit. But
Speaker 3: the state of California has decided that while they should
Speaker 3: make as much as people raising sheep for wool shearing,
Speaker 3: and I guess sheep make a lot more than goat herders.
Speaker 3: And if this law went into effect, nobody would be
Speaker 3: able to afford to pay the goat herders to chew
Speaker 3: up the brush. Based on how much they want to
Speaker 3: charge the minimum wage for somebody being a goat herder,
Speaker 3: which means that in order to deal with that, and
Speaker 3: now people are not working, they're gonna have to sell
Speaker 3: their goats and they're probably gonna have to sell them
Speaker 3: to slaughter.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 3: The California bill to protect goat herders might actually end
Speaker 3: up killing a bunch of goats. You can't make this
Speaker 3: bleep up. Here's a story that won't surprise you. PG
Speaker 3: and E is to get to blame for another fire,
Speaker 3: this time the Mosquito fire. And yes, these fires have
Speaker 3: really silly named this whole concept of naming it after
Speaker 3: the street they started on, including what was it in
Speaker 3: Marietta the other day, the volcano fire. Oh boy, well,
Speaker 3: P is once again to blame for this, although they
Speaker 3: say they're not. They're just settling because it makes everyone's
Speaker 3: lives a lot simpler. But here's the thing that bothers me.
Speaker 3: You hear that Pacific Gas and Electric is paying a
Speaker 3: twenty two million dollar settlement, and you might think, okay, well,
Speaker 3: at least some of the people whose lives burned down,
Speaker 3: whose homes burned down, they're going to get made whole
Speaker 3: by the derelict electric monopoly. That wasn't paying attention to
Speaker 3: their equipment, and you would be wrong because the money's
Speaker 3: going to like the state of California, or it's going
Speaker 3: to a certain nonprofit. Here, none of the money is
Speaker 3: actually going to the victims. And boy, doesn't that sound familiar.
Speaker 3: And finally, another thing that Gavin Newsom is doing. And
Speaker 3: I'm conflicted on this one because I'm a big supporter
Speaker 3: of the product, but I don't think in twenty twenty
Speaker 3: six we necessarily should need to subsidize it. California is
Speaker 3: going to be doing its own electric vehicle incentives this
Speaker 3: after the federal government ended the ones that were going
Speaker 3: on during the Biden administration. It's going to be like
Speaker 3: three thirty seven hundred dollars for a new EV or
Speaker 3: seventeen hundred dollars for a used EV, which there are
Speaker 3: some pretty good deals right now on some used evs,
Speaker 3: but as soon as word gets out then the price.
Speaker 2: Goes way up.
Speaker 3: Here's what I will say. I am the proud owner
Speaker 3: of an electric car. I have had my Chevy Bolt
Speaker 3: for over three years. Actually now it's four years. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and I just hit forty thousand miles, so I hit
Speaker 3: about ten thousand miles a year, so don't charge me
Speaker 3: too much for insurance.
Speaker 2: Triple A. Okay, it's got all the safety features. Please please.
Speaker 2: I'm in that.
Speaker 3: Couple of months where I don't have to pay because
Speaker 3: with Triple A you pay like for nine months for
Speaker 3: the year.
Speaker 2: It's kind of nice, but it's about to be not nice. Anyway.
Speaker 3: I bought my car well, okay, let's be completely honest.
Speaker 3: My wife held me buy my car back in twenty
Speaker 3: twenty two, and at the time I knew what I wanted.
Speaker 2: I wanted the Chevy Bolt. I wanted the one.
Speaker 3: That had the super CRUs so I could deal with
Speaker 3: the four h five, And we bought it knowing that
Speaker 3: it did not qualify for any incentives, didn't qualify any
Speaker 3: state incentives, didn't qualify for any federal incentives, because one
Speaker 3: of the things that these incentive programs were doing is like, well,
Speaker 3: if it's already a popular car, then we're not going
Speaker 3: to give you any money. But if you're going to
Speaker 3: spend money on one of these experimental companies that's definitely
Speaker 3: going to go out of business. Okay, we'll give you
Speaker 3: a tax credit for that, which is a little weird.
Speaker 3: And the Biden tax credits notably cut out. Elon is
Speaker 3: some kind of fu I wonder if that motivated him
Speaker 3: to do the things that he did in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 3: He does seem kind of petty, and that seem kind
Speaker 3: of foolish because that is the most popular electric car.
Speaker 3: But I guess you want to bring some equity to
Speaker 3: the market regardless. I bought my car with no incentive
Speaker 3: and I love it. And as someone that had to
Speaker 3: pump gas for the first time in a long time
Speaker 3: last week because my wife is out of town and
Speaker 3: I had to fill her car up, I really don't
Speaker 3: miss that crap, especially with how expensive gas is. So
Speaker 3: if you have the right situation for an ev like
Speaker 3: you have a place to charge it, and you know,
Speaker 3: if you're in a single family home, it'll cost you
Speaker 3: maybe five hundred one thousand dollars to get a level
Speaker 3: two charger in front of your house, that'll pay for
Speaker 3: itself in just a couple of weeks. With how expensive
Speaker 3: gas prices are. I charge at night because I don't
Speaker 3: and I don't really see any kind of increase in
Speaker 3: my electric bill.
Speaker 2: It's worked out great for me.
Speaker 3: But I think the product at this point should sell itself,
Speaker 3: and I think there's a lot of people probably looking
Speaker 3: at evs just based on the uncertainty with the war
Speaker 3: that was over, but then it's not over and the
Speaker 3: blockades back on, and who knows.
Speaker 2: I can't even pay attention do it anymore.
Speaker 3: But I feel like that at this point, the product
Speaker 3: sells itself, and if the cars are too expensive, well
Speaker 3: then the manufacturer's got to figure out how to compete better,
Speaker 3: because in this country it might seem like the best
Speaker 3: you can do for an EV is like thirty five
Speaker 3: thousand dollars. China's killing us right now. In the markets
Speaker 3: where you can buy the byds, you can get the
Speaker 3: byds for ten twenty thousand dollars, and apparently they're performing
Speaker 3: better than the Tesla's at this point. So unless we
Speaker 3: start really drilling down on how to make these more
Speaker 3: affordable at the manufacturer's side without subsidizing them, we're going
Speaker 3: to run into all kinds of problems. That being said,
Speaker 3: I'm a big fan of the product. I love my
Speaker 3: electric car, but it has limits. It's great for commuting,
Speaker 3: it is insane to road trip with, and I do
Speaker 3: not recommend it even if you have a Tesla. We're
Speaker 3: not there yet. When charging can be as fast as
Speaker 3: filling up a tank, then we'll talk.
Speaker 2: But I'll tell you right now now.
Speaker 3: If you drive to a place like Wine Country where
Speaker 3: there's no cell reception and you're trying to download the
Speaker 3: apps to use all these chargers, you're gonna rip.
Speaker 2: Your hair out.
Speaker 3: Hey, catch me on the California Underground podcast Tonight to ey,
Speaker 3: It's the News Blitz with Randy Wang on KABC