Latest / The Bill Handel Show / AI Researchers Warn of ‘Extinction’ Threat | Pensions Making a Comeback
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: You're listening to Bill Handel On Demand from KFI AM 640.
- 0:04Speaker 1: KFI AM 640.
- 0:10Speaker 2: Bill Handel on a Thursday morning, September the 10th. Last night,
- 0:18Speaker 2: in a very strange political atmosphere, the president called for
- 0:23Speaker 2: midterms during off years. midterm a midterm convention which has
- 0:29Speaker 2: ever been done among republicans uh kind of strange and
- 0:32Speaker 2: of course he was the keynote uh what almost two
- 0:35Speaker 2: hours that he spoke an hour and a half and
- 0:38Speaker 2: uh issued a free uh a couple of statements which
- 0:41Speaker 2: everybody's shaking their heads at one of being if the
- 0:43Speaker 2: republicans maintain the power in congress uh everybody gets a
- 0:48Speaker 2: five thousand dollar check it's only going to cost 1.2
- 0:52Speaker 2: trillion dollars and okay everybody go yeah yeah we want
- 0:55Speaker 2: the money okay uh And I've shared this one with
- 1:00Speaker 2: you before. And this is a history, the history of mankind.
- 1:05Speaker 2: And there are a few things that literally have changed
- 1:09Speaker 2: the world completely. A couple of natural things, for example,
- 1:12Speaker 2: opposable thumbs, which changed the way we dealt with. So,
- 1:18Speaker 2: for example, hitchhiking. The world didn't exist in terms of
- 1:21Speaker 2: hitchhiking until we got the thumb.
- 1:23Speaker 1: All right, maybe not that important. Standing up.
- 1:27Speaker 2: Which changed humanity completely instead of all fours. Okay, that
- 1:31Speaker 2: changed the world. But those are, that's evolution.
- 1:34Speaker 1: Now let's talk about technology that has changed the world.
- 1:38Speaker 2: Control of fire. Man control of fire turned humanity on
- 1:44Speaker 2: its head. One of the great, great movements in the
- 1:48Speaker 2: history or moments in the history of mankind.
- 1:52Speaker 1: The discovery of the wheel. changed the world completely.
- 1:57Speaker 2: And then you have other arguments like flight, but I
- 2:00Speaker 2: don't think it changed the world because we still would
- 2:02Speaker 2: have gone ahead. And, you know, life could continue on.
- 2:07Speaker 2: Wouldn't be as much fun, but it would have. Now
- 2:10Speaker 2: a few things that have changed the world completely on
- 2:14Speaker 2: its head, and it's happened the last 50 years. One,
- 2:18Speaker 2: the introduction of the computer completely changed the world. The
- 2:24Speaker 2: other one, the introduction of the internet, changed how we live,
- 2:30Speaker 2: how we shop, how we communicate. And that's connected, of course,
- 2:34Speaker 2: to the world of computers. And now the scary one,
- 2:40Speaker 2: that is flipping people out, including not only governmental officials,
- 2:45Speaker 2: but the very inventors of AI. And AI is really
- 2:52Speaker 2: scaring people like crazy. When computers were introduced, there was
- 2:56Speaker 2: nothing scary about computers. Everybody thought they were great. You
- 3:00Speaker 2: had a few young people who created computers that created
- 3:04Speaker 2: the early computer, Apple being the first computer that really worked.
- 3:09Speaker 2: The personal computer, HP, was there. And, you know, no
- 3:13Speaker 2: one was frightened of computers. I mean, there were a
- 3:15Speaker 2: few Luddites there. who said, oh my God, computers are
- 3:17Speaker 2: going to take over the business and people will lose
- 3:19Speaker 2: their jobs. Yeah, same thing with manufacturing, the same thing with,
- 3:23Speaker 2: you know.
- 3:24Speaker 1: Any kind of new technology. The internet, people weren't really
- 3:28Speaker 1: frightened of the internet.
- 3:30Speaker 2: I mean, not even close. I mean, people thought the
- 3:33Speaker 2: internet was kind of neat. I mean, there were a
- 3:35Speaker 2: few people that were not happy with the internet, but
- 3:39Speaker 2: the manufacturers, the people that invented it, the people that
- 3:41Speaker 2: started using it, the companies started using it. It was,
- 3:46Speaker 2: for the most part, positive stuff. Now comes AI. And
- 3:52Speaker 2: this is a different animal. Because when we talk about
- 3:56Speaker 2: the science fiction of computers taking over the world, robots
- 4:01Speaker 2: taking over the world, what's the first.
- 4:04Speaker 1: Rule of robots?
- 4:07Speaker 2: Do not harm humans. And what's the second rule? Well,
- 4:12Speaker 2: you can do anything that you're asked to do except
- 4:14Speaker 2: for violating the first rule.
- 4:17Speaker 1: And what is the third rule? I don't know what
- 4:21Speaker 1: the third rule was.
- 4:22Speaker 2: I just you can't violate rule number two or violate
- 4:26Speaker 2: number rule number three. Amy is laughing at me because
- 4:32Speaker 2: I'm making a very important point.
- 4:33Speaker 1: I'm laughing at you because. You were saying, what's the
- 4:37Speaker 1: third rule? And Anne said, what happens in Vegas stays
- 4:40Speaker 1: in Vegas. Oh, that's very strong. I like that. That's
- 4:43Speaker 1: very good. It's like Hamas.
- 4:45Speaker 2: If you look at the Constitution of Hamas, right, the
- 4:53Speaker 2: first chapter is, let's destroy Israel. Number two is look
- 4:58Speaker 2: at number one, and number three is look at number
- 5:00Speaker 2: two and look at number one. It's along those lines.
- 5:03Speaker 2: But this is really scary stuff, AI. And I'll tell
- 5:08Speaker 2: you why it's so frightening. Because the very people who
- 5:11Speaker 2: are involved in the creation and the furtherance of this
- 5:15Speaker 2: technology are looking at AI as an existential threat to humanity. Now,
- 5:23Speaker 2: usually that's a science fiction movie. Usually it's crackpots that
- 5:29Speaker 2: are saying, ah, come on. You know, are robots really
- 5:33Speaker 2: going to take over? Well, it's not going to be
- 5:35Speaker 2: robots that are going to take over. It's going to
- 5:37Speaker 2: be AI, the very intelligence that creates those robots. For example,
- 5:43Speaker 2: you know, Japanese blow-up dolls that really look and do
- 5:48Speaker 2: the job they're supposed to do. Okay, I had to
- 5:50Speaker 2: go off on a tangent on that one, and Kono
- 5:52Speaker 2: didn't even laugh. That was for the purposes of Kono,
- 5:55Speaker 2: by the way.
- 5:55Speaker 1: Yeah. You've done better. I have done better. Thank you
- 6:00Speaker 1: very much. Okay, finishing up or continuing the story about
- 6:05Speaker 1: AI as one of the biggest, hugest changes in the
- 6:11Speaker 1: world of mankind, literally. Fire was one. The wheel was another.
- 6:17Speaker 2: The internet, the computers, I mean, changing everything. AI may
- 6:23Speaker 2: literally be the most life-changing, mankind-changing item that exists today.
- 6:29Speaker 2: And as the companies like ChatGP, OpenAI, and Anthropic, and Google,
- 6:36Speaker 2: and all the other big ones, big companies, Amazon, moving
- 6:39Speaker 2: balls to the wall to get AI going, a lot
- 6:42Speaker 2: of people within the AI world are saying, wait a minute,
- 6:46Speaker 2: we're talking about people that are part of the world
- 6:49Speaker 2: of AI.
- 6:50Speaker 1: There's a researcher at.
- 6:52Speaker 2: Anthropic, and he just said, that the systems that his
- 6:58Speaker 2: company is racing to build carries the risk, and this
- 7:01Speaker 2: is all AI companies, carries the risk of causing human extinction.
- 7:07Speaker 1: Wow.
- 7:09Speaker 2: Evan Humbinger, who wrote in responding to this researcher who
- 7:16Speaker 2: has resigned, we really do earnestly believe AI could kill
- 7:20Speaker 2: all humans. I personally think 10% or so within the
- 7:24Speaker 2: next decade.
- 7:25Speaker 1: He put that on X. He was part of Anthropic.
- 7:28Speaker 2: I believe Anthropic is trying its best, but we don't
- 7:31Speaker 2: have a plan to solve alignment for superintelligence, and we're
- 7:35Speaker 2: not clearly on track to. And he was responding to
- 7:39Speaker 2: a resignation of one of his colleagues in Anthropic. Now,
- 7:43Speaker 2: this actually is a long-held position from the time AI started,
- 7:49Speaker 2: because there are people, and they're growing in the industry now,
- 7:54Speaker 2: saying that the technology is going to pose an existential
- 7:59Speaker 2: risk to the human race. Now, on the other side,
- 8:02Speaker 2: that's sharply contested in the field, and they see this
- 8:08Speaker 2: as science fiction inflected doom-mongering, but it's gaining greater toehold,
- 8:14Speaker 2: more traction.
- 8:15Speaker 3: Why?
- 8:16Speaker 2: Because the latest versions of anthropic and open AI systems
- 8:20Speaker 2: have been able to, on their own, without being told to,
- 8:25Speaker 2: hack into computer networks, escaping restrictions, escaping guardrails that were
- 8:31Speaker 2: put in by their creators and on their own hacking. Now,
- 8:37Speaker 2: that is scary stuff. I mean, really scary stuff. And
- 8:42Speaker 2: that's just the start of what AI is able to
- 8:45Speaker 2: do because it learns. I just read yesterday that AI
- 8:50Speaker 2: was able to answer a couple of mathematical problems that
- 8:55Speaker 2: have been impossible for humans to answer, even though they've
- 8:58Speaker 2: been going after it for, I mean, dozens and dozens
- 9:02Speaker 2: of years. And the AI program was able to do
- 9:04Speaker 2: it in 88 hours, where humans, it would have taken
- 9:08Speaker 2: thousands of years. Some Democrats, lawmakers have seized on this
- 9:13Speaker 2: resignation to call for new restrictions on technology. Bernie Sanders, Greg.
- 9:18Speaker 1: Cesar, a.
- 9:21Speaker 2: Republican, I'm sorry, Representative Cesar, a Democrat out of Texas,
- 9:27Speaker 2: they both announced legislation last week that would ban the
- 9:30Speaker 2: production of AI and create a new federal agency to
- 9:34Speaker 2: oversee any technology.
- 9:38Speaker 1: You know who's also on that side? Senator Ted Cruz. Agreed.
- 9:42Speaker 1: You don't often see Ted Cruz agreeing with Bernie Sanders.
- 9:47Speaker 2: He is the chair of a committee that oversees AI,
- 9:49Speaker 2: and he is working on legislation to tackle what is
- 9:53Speaker 2: being considered catastrophic risks. We can't stick our heads in
- 9:57Speaker 2: the sand and pretend this technology isn't happening, Cruz.
- 10:00Speaker 1: Said.
- 10:00Speaker 2: We need guardrails, but America needs to lead. And here
- 10:06Speaker 2: is the problem. Here's what the fear is. The collision
- 10:10Speaker 2: between the capabilities of AI models and especially future versions
- 10:15Speaker 2: that are being called super intelligence, able to do super intelligent,
- 10:19Speaker 2: able to do stuff that humans can and on their own,
- 10:22Speaker 2: on its own doing it, and the ability of their
- 10:26Speaker 2: creators to keep them linked to human goals.
- 10:29Speaker 1: This is alignment.
- 10:32Speaker 2: And AI agents, AI programs are blowing past alignment for sure.
- 10:38Speaker 2: And here is the contradiction here. Because the various leaders,
- 10:46Speaker 2: the very leaders of AI, head of these programs, head
- 10:50Speaker 2: of these companies, are saying, we need government to control
- 10:56Speaker 2: where we're going. We need safeguards, desperately. And as they're
- 11:02Speaker 2: saying that, what is their company doing? going balls to
- 11:07Speaker 2: the wall to create AI and to make it more effective,
- 11:13Speaker 2: to make it more influential, to speed ahead, spending billions
- 11:20Speaker 2: of dollars to advance AI as quickly as possible, and
- 11:25Speaker 2: raising tons of money, and of course, building these data centers,
- 11:29Speaker 2: which are controversial in and of themselves. And where is
- 11:34Speaker 2: the threat? Is it robots? Is it people being killed off? No,
- 11:40Speaker 2: not really. But I, you know what, I can't even
- 11:44Speaker 2: see where it's going. Now, I told you that a
- 11:49Speaker 2: big part of our program years ago, and I did
- 11:52Speaker 2: commercials for a gentleman named Corey Hong, who was one
- 11:55Speaker 2: of the early, early developers of software, who became a
- 12:00Speaker 2: billionaire in his own right. And he pitched his company,
- 12:04Speaker 2: not because he was trying to sell anything. He just
- 12:06Speaker 2: wanted to pitch his company. And I once asked him,
- 12:10Speaker 2: now that the Internet is here, this was the Internet,
- 12:13Speaker 2: not AI, because this was before AI. And I asked him,
- 12:17Speaker 2: where do you think the Internet is going? Now, this
- 12:21Speaker 2: is a man who was a creator of early software
- 12:24Speaker 2: who knew this stuff more than anybody I knew and
- 12:28Speaker 2: was one of the true experts in the field. And
- 12:34Speaker 2: he said to me in reference to that question, where
- 12:36Speaker 2: is the internet going?
- 12:39Speaker 1: And he said, in your wildest imagination... You will not
- 12:45Speaker 1: be able to guess where it's going. I have no idea.
- 12:49Speaker 2: What I do know is no matter what I think
- 12:52Speaker 2: is going to happen, it's going to go way beyond that.
- 12:56Speaker 2: Now let's multiply that. Let's extrapolate that in an order
- 13:02Speaker 2: of magnitude. And now we have AI. Man, the world
- 13:06Speaker 2: is changing. Big time. Let's go back to inventing fires. Oh,
- 13:12Speaker 2: we are inventing fires again or controlling fires. Just look
- 13:16Speaker 2: at the wildfires that are going on.
- 13:18Speaker 1: Okay. Pensions.
- 13:20Speaker 2: Now I've been saying that pensions were a thing of
- 13:22Speaker 2: the past. For those people that are working, let's go
- 13:25Speaker 2: back a few years, a couple of decades actually. And
- 13:30Speaker 2: we would be talking about number one, working for the
- 13:32Speaker 2: same company, graduating college, or let's say you're finishing high
- 13:37Speaker 2: school and you start working for a major company. And
- 13:40Speaker 2: chances are you would stay at that company until you retire.
- 13:43Speaker 2: A whole lot of people would. And part and parcel
- 13:47Speaker 2: of your retirement, in addition to Social Security and saving
- 13:50Speaker 2: money up, were pensions. Pensions that were paid outside of
- 13:57Speaker 2: all of the other savings. And people had pensions, and
- 14:00Speaker 2: some are great. For example, governmental patients.
- 14:03Speaker 1: Oh, pensions.
- 14:05Speaker 2: Oh, that's a good thing. You work for the county.
- 14:08Speaker 2: You work for the city, depending on the city. You
- 14:10Speaker 2: work for the state. You're in good shape if you
- 14:13Speaker 2: work there for 30 years. So those pensions have remained.
- 14:18Speaker 2: How about in private business? Those pensions have disappeared. I wonder,
- 14:25Speaker 2: did iHeart ever have a pension? Before iHeart, when it
- 14:28Speaker 2: was Clear Channel. I don't remember if they, I think
- 14:30Speaker 2: they did. They never had a pension, this company?
- 14:33Speaker 3: The last pensions were when we were owned by Cox.
- 14:36Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. Maybe
- 14:38Speaker 1: in the world when we were at Cox. Before iHeart,
- 14:41Speaker 1: we were Clear Channel, right?
- 14:42Speaker 3: Right.
- 14:43Speaker 1: And then I said, and before that, I think there
- 14:46Speaker 1: was a pension.
- 14:47Speaker 2: Cox, yes.
- 14:48Speaker 1: I know that for sure. That was Cox.
- 14:49Speaker 2: And then they got rid of it because, frankly, pensions
- 14:51Speaker 2: are expensive. And are paid for by the employer. Now,
- 14:56Speaker 2: some unions have a pension. For example, our union, AFTRA,
- 15:00Speaker 2: American Federation of Television and Radio Artists.
- 15:05Speaker 1: They actually call us artists. That's so bizarre. And they
- 15:08Speaker 1: call us talent, too. Yeah, I mean, crazy.
- 15:13Speaker 2: I once was talking to a director of major films,
- 15:16Speaker 2: and I said, how difficult is it to direct these
- 15:20Speaker 2: high-end actors?
- 15:21Speaker 1: And he said, Bill, here's what a director does.
- 15:24Speaker 2: He tells the actors to walk around the furniture instead
- 15:27Speaker 2: of through the furniture. That is the job of a director.
- 15:32Speaker 2: He was a little cynical about it, to say the least. Now,
- 15:35Speaker 2: our union has a pretty good pension, and it is
- 15:38Speaker 2: funded pretty well. the problem is pensions disappeared because they
- 15:43Speaker 2: are expensive and it's been a fight like crazy. And pensions,
- 15:47Speaker 2: by the way, are coming back a lot because the
- 15:51Speaker 2: union is fighting for them. Unions are having a difficult
- 15:56Speaker 2: time just getting more money and more benefits when benefits
- 15:59Speaker 2: are going south. So part of the union negotiations is
- 16:03Speaker 2: tell you what, give us a pension or increase our
- 16:07Speaker 2: pension and, And that is easier for companies to deal
- 16:10Speaker 2: with because it's very little money stretched over a bunch
- 16:14Speaker 2: of years as opposed to here is a raise right now.
- 16:20Speaker 2: The other reason pensions are being given out more and
- 16:24Speaker 2: more is to win over employees in fields where recruiting
- 16:29Speaker 2: and retaining workers is especially competitive. For example, in the
- 16:34Speaker 2: world of computers, right? You know, there really are hiring
- 16:40Speaker 2: and there are entry-level jobs. Assuming you're going to an
- 16:44Speaker 2: Ivy League school and you're in the top 10% getting out.
- 16:48Speaker 2: There you get your job. Same thing with law schools.
- 16:51Speaker 2: You know, you can graduate and get a job as
- 16:53Speaker 2: a lawyer at $ 180, 000.
- 16:55Speaker 1: A year starting. Yeah.
- 16:57Speaker 2: What school do you have to go to and where
- 16:59Speaker 2: in the top percentage you have to be? The point
- 17:02Speaker 2: is things have been much, much more difficult. So 401ks,
- 17:07Speaker 2: by the way, which are different than pensions, 401ks, you
- 17:11Speaker 2: put the money in and there is a match by
- 17:15Speaker 2: the company, up to 3% usually or 2%, and some
- 17:19Speaker 2: companies very generous, up to 5%.
- 17:22Speaker 1: And there used to be a time when it was 100%.
- 17:25Speaker 2: They would match dollar per dollar what you put in
- 17:30Speaker 2: in the 401k plans. Incidentally, even if it is a 3% match,
- 17:35Speaker 2: So let's say you make $ 50, 000 a year or $ 70, 000
- 17:37Speaker 2: a year, and it's a 3% match. That's what, $ 2, 100,
- 17:38Speaker 2: which over the course of your working lifetime is serious money.
- 17:40Speaker 2: And keep in mind, you put in that 3% and
- 17:41Speaker 2: there's matching money. That's 100% return on that money, assuming
- 17:44Speaker 2: that it doesn't grow at all. So pensions are coming
- 18:06Speaker 2: back and there are pensions that are not funded that
- 18:10Speaker 2: are going to disappear. There are pensions that are fully
- 18:15Speaker 2: funded and run by administrators. If a company runs its
- 18:18Speaker 2: own pension and it goes bankrupt, child, baby, you're done.
- 18:21Speaker 2: If a company is if the pension is run by
- 18:24Speaker 2: an outside administrator and the money is already put in,
- 18:27Speaker 2: you're in pretty good shape. So. number of companies that
- 18:32Speaker 2: are increasing pensions or getting pensions back or instituting pensions
- 18:39Speaker 2: pretty small.
- 18:41Speaker 1: And the reason you were looking at it is because
- 18:44Speaker 1: they are growing. Those companies are growing.
- 18:47Speaker 2: So that's one of the things you look at, you know,
- 18:49Speaker 2: depending on how desperate it is for you to find
- 18:52Speaker 2: a job and what industry you're in. that pensions are
- 18:57Speaker 2: a good thing. I just kept on bitching and moaning
- 18:59Speaker 2: that pensions have disappeared.
- 19:02Speaker 1: Not so much anymore. Not so much. Okay, a story
- 19:07Speaker 1: about homelessness.
- 19:08Speaker 2: Which does a week go past where we don't do
- 19:11Speaker 2: a story once at least?
- 19:13Speaker 1: About homeless, if not more.
- 19:15Speaker 2: So this is a story that we have covered before
- 19:18Speaker 2: of LASA, the LA Homeless Service Authority.
- 19:22Speaker 1: And it's the main homeless.
- 19:24Speaker 2: Agency, homelessness agency here, certainly in LA County or Los Angeles,
- 19:29Speaker 2: because they do it together. And LASA has been told,
- 19:33Speaker 2: you know what? You no longer automatically get money. You
- 19:36Speaker 2: now have to compete with against other agencies, other organizations
- 19:42Speaker 2: to retain federal role and money. And all of a sudden,
- 19:48Speaker 2: the prospect of this city-county partnership, decades old, could be undone, over, goodbye.
- 19:56Speaker 2: And county leaders are planning, the county is planning to.
- 19:59Speaker 1: Bid for control of the systems. L.A.
- 20:02Speaker 2: City is considering building its own city-led response. All of
- 20:08Speaker 2: it in frustration with LASA's performance. Federal auditors, court rulings
- 20:13Speaker 2: against LASA has spotlighted data weaknesses and just how horribly
- 20:19Speaker 2: it's run.
- 20:20Speaker 1: And now there's a nationwide.
- 20:22Speaker 2: Search for new overseers of the region's federal homeless funding
- 20:27Speaker 2: and data systems and housing placements. And this has to
- 20:31Speaker 2: do with a whole lot of money being given to LASA.
- 20:35Speaker 2: And I mean a whole lot of money. There is
- 20:38Speaker 2: a board that no one really pays attention to that
- 20:42Speaker 2: oversees L.A.
- 20:43Speaker 1: 's federal homelessness funds.
- 20:46Speaker 2: And they published a request for new applicants for the
- 20:51Speaker 2: four federally mandated functions, core functions that make up LASA's work.
- 20:56Speaker 2: And this is a really strange little agency, the Los
- 21:01Speaker 2: Angeles Continuum of Care Agency. And it actually can and
- 21:06Speaker 2: does control what happens with homelessness.
- 21:10Speaker 1: And on Wednesday, they were going to vote.
- 21:12Speaker 2: Last Wednesday, didn't have a quorum, but they have to
- 21:15Speaker 2: have a vote before October 13th to formally.
- 21:17Speaker 1: Issue their request for applicants.
- 21:21Speaker 2: And the bottom line is that the way L.A., the
- 21:24Speaker 2: way LASA has performed is miserable. The argument that it
- 21:29Speaker 2: is full of corruption, don't know that if money has
- 21:32Speaker 2: been stolen. Certainly mismanagement, that there's no issue. And so
- 21:38Speaker 2: the mayor, Karen Bass, who is actually head of LASA,
- 21:43Speaker 2: the commission, who has overseen the last, what, four years,
- 21:50Speaker 2: almost four years of this miserable, miserably run organization that
- 21:54Speaker 2: is not doing a good job with homelessness issues. here's
- 21:59Speaker 2: her statement from her office. The mayor's firsthand experience at
- 22:03Speaker 2: Lhasa reinforced her understanding that our current system is broken
- 22:08Speaker 2: and in need of a major overhaul. She now has
- 22:12Speaker 2: a better understanding of how horrible she was. Huh. Okay.
- 22:18Speaker 1: A lot of, a lot of mirrors in that office
- 22:20Speaker 1: for sure.
- 22:21Speaker 2: Now, to be fair, And I've mentioned this before, the
- 22:25Speaker 2: issue of homelessness in Southern California, I think is so difficult.
- 22:32Speaker 2: It is so, it's impossible to actually deal with it.
- 22:35Speaker 2: And it will be dealt with incrementally, but to deal
- 22:37Speaker 2: with it in any major way, much like housing, takes
- 22:42Speaker 2: so much money, takes so many resources. $ 2 billion in
- 22:49Speaker 2: homeless spending with LASA that is unaccounted for?
- 22:53Speaker 3: Like, they don't have verification, tracking, another over $ 500 million
- 23:00Speaker 3: that went unspent?
- 23:02Speaker 1: It's insane.
- 23:03Speaker 2: How much more do you need? And we don't know. Now,
- 23:07Speaker 2: the argument, there's been lots of corruption. I don't think
- 23:09Speaker 2: anybody has been charged with corruption with LASA, if I'm
- 23:12Speaker 2: not mistaken. It's because, you know, as I said before,
- 23:17Speaker 2: I don't know how much actual corruption is there.
- 23:20Speaker 1: There's been a.
- 23:20Speaker 2: Lot of conflicts where you have city people, you've got administrators,
- 23:26Speaker 2: you've got elected officials whose wives, sons, friends were.
- 23:32Speaker 1: Were involved with LASA. They had contracts.
- 23:35Speaker 2: Now, did they steal money or is just the conflict
- 23:38Speaker 2: of interest there? Well, I believe there's a conflict of interest.
- 23:42Speaker 2: I don't know if there was out and out corruption.
- 23:45Speaker 2: I do know per your statement that this is one
- 23:48Speaker 2: of those agencies that have been so horribly mismanaged. So
- 23:53Speaker 2: God awful in the amount of money that it's spent
- 23:57Speaker 2: and what it has done. that we're going to see
- 24:01Speaker 2: there's bids to override LASA, saying let's get rid of LASA.
- 24:07Speaker 2: City wants to set up its own. County wants to
- 24:09Speaker 2: set up its own. You've got private organizations want to
- 24:12Speaker 2: set up their own. And all of them going in
- 24:15Speaker 2: front of this Los Angeles continuum.
- 24:19Speaker 1: Of care, this board. All right. Coming up.
- 24:26Speaker 2: Talking about a billion dollars, the Lucas Museum is about
- 24:30Speaker 2: to open and there are lawsuits aplenty.
- 24:34Speaker 1: And there's also a fair amount of controversy. And the
- 24:37Speaker 1: question is, is it public? Is it private?
- 24:41Speaker 2: And why that's important, at least to the city and
- 24:44Speaker 2: to a couple of people that are suing because they
- 24:48Speaker 2: haven't gotten paid or so they say from the museum.
- 24:51Speaker 2: This is KFI AM 640.
- 24:54Speaker 1: You've been listening to The Bill Handel Show. Catch my
- 24:56Speaker 1: show Monday through Friday, 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. and
- 25:00Speaker 1: anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.