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America’s Self-Storage Craze | Age Verification for Internet Use · The Bill Handel Show

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from KFI AM
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  Speaker 1: six forty.
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  Speaker 2: KFI AM six forty Bill Handle. It is a Thursday morning,
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  Speaker 2: April sixteenth. Oh, here's some news that has just come
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  Speaker 2: out this morning, is that Virginia's former lieutenant governor has
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  Speaker 2: killed his wife and then himself. Well, okay, I guess
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  Speaker 2: that's how you make the news, is you do a
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  Speaker 2: murder suicide and you're a former elected official. You don't
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  Speaker 2: usually see that happening, certainly not too often. Now, I
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  Speaker 2: want to move into something I've been complaining about for
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  Speaker 2: a very long time, and that is conflicts of interest
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  Speaker 2: at the very highest level. Normally, when anybody's elected president
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  Speaker 2: or actually cabinet secretary is appointed, assets go into a
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  Speaker 2: blind trust where the owner of the assets takes it,
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  Speaker 2: gives it to a trustee and says, I don't want
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  Speaker 2: to know anything about this. A firewall is set up,
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  Speaker 2: and that has been historically the case with this president.
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  Speaker 2: Not so much with this president. There is no blind trust.
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  Speaker 2: The assets of the Trump organization, which is enormous, are
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  Speaker 2: run by his two sons, of which he has I
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  Speaker 2: guess turned over the presidency of the organization to his
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  Speaker 2: two sons they run it and are they reporting to him?
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  Speaker 2: I don't know. Is it in a blind trust? We
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  Speaker 2: know that it's not. And then you have Jared Kushner.
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  Speaker 2: In twenty twenty one, he left his role as a
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  Speaker 2: senior White House advisor and let it be known he
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  Speaker 2: loved his job, but he's done with the scrutiny and
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  Speaker 2: disclosure that came with being a top US government official.
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  Speaker 2: So he leaves and he sets up a private equity firm,
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  Speaker 2: takes two billion dollars from Asaudi fund led by Crown
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  Speaker 2: Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and he said I'm an investor
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  Speaker 2: now in a twenty twenty four interview, and the interviewer said, so,
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  Speaker 2: if the President calls you on November whatever and says
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  Speaker 2: I'd like you to come back to DC, you say thanks,
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  Speaker 2: I'm good. Yeah, it's exactly what would happen. Well, he
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  Speaker 2: did come back two days before the US and Israel
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  Speaker 2: attacked Iran. In February, he was in Geneva in negotiation
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  Speaker 2: with the very highest folks in the highest possible stakes.
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  Speaker 2: So over this past weekend he traveled with Vice President
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  Speaker 2: Vance to Islamabad to participate in the peace talks with
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  Speaker 2: Iran that failed. And he has no title. He has
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  Speaker 2: no official designation. He is considered and is titled sort
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  Speaker 2: of not officially as the presidential son in law, which
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  Speaker 2: he is, but that's his title. The first fourteen months
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  Speaker 2: of the second Trump administration, he has sat down with
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  Speaker 2: Vladimir Putin, Benjamin Natanyahu, Zelenski, Saudi's leaders from all over
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  Speaker 2: the Middle East. And while that's going on, right he
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  Speaker 2: continues to pursue his private interests. And let me tell
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  Speaker 2: you how many countries line up to invest with Kushner
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  Speaker 2: because of his connection to the president. It is good
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  Speaker 2: to be connected to the president, especially with a president
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  Speaker 2: that likes to be connected to Listen, if you're on
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  Speaker 2: his side, whether it's politically or financially economically, you're in
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  Speaker 2: good shape. It's that simple. So here, he is a
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  Speaker 2: how old is he now? In his late thirties maybe
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  Speaker 2: mid thirties. I mean he is I think a billionaire
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  Speaker 2: on his own forming this Affinity Partners. And Steve Whitcoff,
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  Speaker 2: who is his buddy in terms of the negotiations all
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  Speaker 2: over the world, is sort of a dual hit with you.
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  Speaker 2: It's a two man team. Whitcoff has created a crypto
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  Speaker 2: company with his two sons and Trump and the Trump organization,
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  Speaker 2: and everybody's making money and lots of it. I mean,
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  Speaker 2: if that's not conflict, but it doesn't matter. Conflicts don't matter.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, this is the reality of what happens, and
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  Speaker 2: we are now getting a good, good idea of how
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  Speaker 2: it works. When you are or when anybody is president,
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  Speaker 2: there is almost no one that can stop you or
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  Speaker 2: hold you back to do whatever you want. For example,
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  Speaker 2: can the president simply ignore a Supreme Court decision absolutely?
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  Speaker 2: What is the fallout? Well, Supreme Court doesn't have any
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  Speaker 2: enforcement abilities. They don't you know. There is no Supreme
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  Speaker 2: Court police, there's no Supreme Court army, there are no
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  Speaker 2: Supreme Court enforcement lawyers. So the only people that are
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  Speaker 2: able to enforce decisions is the Department of Justice. But
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  Speaker 2: wait a minute. The Department of Justice is an executive
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  Speaker 2: branch under the executive branch, which means president controls that. Now,
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  Speaker 2: so far, Trump, and I'm going to say, to his credit,
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  Speaker 2: has not ignored court orders. He has appealed tons of him.
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  Speaker 2: But when he loses, he has followed the order and
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  Speaker 2: either gone ahead with some order or stopped something that
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  Speaker 2: he was ordered to stop. But you know, look at
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  Speaker 2: the conflicts. I mean, you know, I look at this
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  Speaker 2: and I go, this is crazy. This really is. You know,
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  Speaker 2: there are laws that say that the president can't cannot
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  Speaker 2: receive any gifts whatsoever while he is president because of
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  Speaker 2: a from a foreign company or for a foreign government
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  Speaker 2: or a foreign agency because of the conflict. Is the
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  Speaker 2: Emollian's clause. So is the president in the president in
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  Speaker 2: conflict when his son in law is involved in a
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  Speaker 2: business that the Trump organization is involved in that gets
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  Speaker 2: billions of dollars of investment from the Saudist for example.
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  Speaker 2: I'd argue that's a little bit of a conflict, and
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  Speaker 2: the scary parties can do it all. I don't understand
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  Speaker 2: why he doesn't go to Congress. He can do it
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  Speaker 2: with Congress's approval, And he has Congress's approval for anything
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  Speaker 2: he wants to do. You know, Mike Johnson, you know
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  Speaker 2: the in JD. Vance's fight with the Pope based on
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  Speaker 2: Trump's fight with the Pope, and everybody lines up to
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  Speaker 2: kiss Trump's butt. Yep, Pope is wrong. Pope had better
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  Speaker 2: be careful about his religion business. There's JD. Vance, Mike
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  Speaker 2: Johnson comes out, all right, a story that out of
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  Speaker 2: the Wall Street Journal. I was looking at and go,
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  Speaker 2: whoa this is It makes sense and it has to
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  Speaker 2: do with the cell storage units. And I didn't know
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  Speaker 2: it was this big business. It is sixty billion dollars
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  Speaker 2: a year that people rent these cell storage units. Neil
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  Speaker 2: renting two of them. And well here's a stat. I
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  Speaker 2: was going, wait a minute, this doesn't make sense. More
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  Speaker 2: than twelve percent of American household stash their overflow into
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  Speaker 2: these rented storage spaces. This is according to the founder
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  Speaker 2: and CEO of tracked Iq, a market data provider, and
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  Speaker 2: he says there's never been a period with more people
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  Speaker 2: using cell storage than today. And as we're speaking, the
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  Speaker 2: End of Tree is developing another one hundred and sixty
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  Speaker 2: four million square feet of storage space. And there's some backlash.
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  Speaker 2: And why is that? Because they're hideous looking, that's why.
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  Speaker 2: And they are. I think they're a blight. And a
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  Speaker 2: lot of communities do some local government or urban planning circles.
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  Speaker 2: They are seen as hogging land. I mean, to both
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  Speaker 2: of us, creating dead zones where there should be street life.
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  Speaker 2: It's especially true because those cell storage units maybe go
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  Speaker 2: back thirty years they were mom and pop operations with
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  Speaker 2: mom and pop living at the facility. Well, today it's
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  Speaker 2: huge corporations like anything else. Consolidation like crazy, and you
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  Speaker 2: have these massive corporations that own them and they are
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  Speaker 2: they're pretty bad looking, to say the least. And you
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  Speaker 2: see people driving in twenty four hours a day. There
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  Speaker 2: is a Providence Road Rhode Island City council member Miguel Sanchez,
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  Speaker 2: and he pushed for a ban, and a lot of
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  Speaker 2: communities are banning these things, saying storage facilities are taking
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  Speaker 2: up a lot of land should be used for other purposes.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, basically, you have communities that are looking at
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  Speaker 2: areas that should be parks or even there are residential
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  Speaker 2: areas that have these. I see those all over town.
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  Speaker 2: And it's a question of getting zoning. It's a question
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  Speaker 2: of you have enough money, you have lobbyists, you can
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  Speaker 2: get zoning through. There was an eleven acre plot and
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  Speaker 2: this is Miguel Sanchez is the city council member's story.
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  Speaker 2: It was on a residential street and it became a
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  Speaker 2: single story self storage facility, long rows of garage doors,
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  Speaker 2: and he said it was no problem in acting the ban.
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  Speaker 2: We already prohibit building of prisons, incinerator, incinerator, slaughterhouses. We
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  Speaker 2: just added sell storage units to that list, so it
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  Speaker 2: wasn't a problem at all. So when you look at why,
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  Speaker 2: what the industry will tell you. According to the president
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  Speaker 2: of Self Storage Association, a national trade group that interestingly enough,
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  Speaker 2: has its headquarters in a cell storage unit, which of
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  Speaker 2: course at least that's credibility, he says that the what
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  Speaker 2: drives customers to storage are the four d's, downsizing, decluttering, divorce, death.
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  Speaker 2: I don't know how many people actually die in those units,
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  Speaker 2: but I guess enough. And the biggest factor may be
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  Speaker 2: another D disease. And that never occurred to me because well,
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  Speaker 2: think of it. We go back to twenty twenty. The
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  Speaker 2: demand for these units spike because the pandemic came in.
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  Speaker 2: What does that have to do with cell storage units, Well,
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  Speaker 2: millions of Americans now had to work at home. They
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  Speaker 2: had to convert spacements and garages either into living quarters
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  Speaker 2: or homes or offices, and so or more home people
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  Speaker 2: wanted to because of the pandemic, you spent more time
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  Speaker 2: at home, so therefore you wanted to make more room
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  Speaker 2: at home. So therefore all the junk you have in
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  Speaker 2: a room or in the basement goes to a cell
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  Speaker 2: storage unit. And a couple of things about self storage unit,
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  Speaker 2: just as an aside. They get you with introductory prices, right,
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  Speaker 2: and then you're there and you're stuck. Hey kid, want
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  Speaker 2: a cookie? Here you go, all right, that's heroin addicts
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  Speaker 2: do that. And the average price, which you know, not
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  Speaker 2: in southern California, that's for sure, ten by ten foot
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  Speaker 2: space about one hundred and twenty five dollars without climate control,
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  Speaker 2: one hundred and fifty with climate control. But on the
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  Speaker 2: West Coast and the East Coast, particularly the West Coast,
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  Speaker 2: it's a whole lot more than that. I mean a
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  Speaker 2: whole lot more than that. Okay, moving on to a
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  Speaker 2: Gallup poll that's has been released, and the premise, the
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  Speaker 2: bottom line is more young men are attending churches or
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  Speaker 2: other houses of worship at least monthly, than they have
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  Speaker 2: been in years. As a matter of fact, let's look
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  Speaker 2: at some of the stats. This group of young men
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  Speaker 2: look like they're bucking the trends of religiosity among people
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  Speaker 2: in the United States, which is already very low. That's
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  Speaker 2: going down of men ages eighteen to twenty nine attend
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  Speaker 2: religious service regularly at least monthly, And that's a seven
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  Speaker 2: percentage point increase from twenty twenty two to twenty twenty three.
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  Speaker 2: So that's a big, big increase. And it's the highest
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  Speaker 2: percentage of those who have been reported doing so since
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  Speaker 2: twenty twelve twenty thirteen. So what is going on? By
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  Speaker 2: the way, this is no small survey either. Gallup survey
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  Speaker 2: twenty six thousand American adults on this question from twenty
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  Speaker 2: twenty four to twenty twenty five, including two thousand men
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  Speaker 2: younger than thirty. So this is more than statistically significant.
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  Speaker 2: This is a big hit, all right. So here's what
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  Speaker 2: the study seems to reflect and observed by some religious
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  Speaker 2: leaders as they look at this. Pockets of young Americans,
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  Speaker 2: especially men, are joining faith communities, driving increased attendance at
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  Speaker 2: churches and religious gatherings. Now, wait a minute, I thought
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  Speaker 2: people going to church was going way down because organized
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  Speaker 2: religion is not is not making any friends in this country.
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  Speaker 2: As a matter of fact, I know people that are religious,
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  Speaker 2: and I ask, I mean truly religious people. Do you
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  Speaker 2: go to church? No? Now, I don't go to church.
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  Speaker 2: I have my own concept of God. I even have
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  Speaker 2: my own concept of Jesus, and I don't need a priest.
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  Speaker 2: I don't need a pastor. I don't need someone to
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  Speaker 2: tell me. I just do it either on my own
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  Speaker 2: or with a group of people in a non organized sense.
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  Speaker 2: So you've got young men that are bucking that trend completely,
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  Speaker 2: and that is interesting stuff. And there's a reason for this,
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  Speaker 2: by the way, which I'm going to get into in
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  Speaker 2: a minute. There's a very big reason for it that
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  Speaker 2: I'm going to share with you. Young women have become less
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  Speaker 2: religious over the past decade, but that has evened oubt
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  Speaker 2: young women. The numbers have not increased or decrease. Now,
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  Speaker 2: older Americans, as you would guess, are more religious than
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  Speaker 2: younger Americans because they grew up with church. Church is
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  Speaker 2: part of their lives. They do the sewing circles in church,
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  Speaker 2: and I don't even know what else church does. Neil,
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  Speaker 2: you know, I mean, Neil, you're fairly religious.
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  Speaker 1: I mean you're I'm not religious. I'm faithful.
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  Speaker 3: I see them different and I'm not one of the
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  Speaker 3: people that say, oh, I'm spiritual, and they kind of
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  Speaker 3: just make a ball of their own hogwash. I do
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  Speaker 3: have mission statements and things that I believe and that
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  Speaker 3: are structured, but religious to me is a whole different structure.
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  Speaker 3: My focus is on a relationship with God, understanding, praying,
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  Speaker 3: connecting that type of thing. Oh look at your face.
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  Speaker 3: You look like you just ate a lemon.
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  Speaker 2: I was about to make fun of you, but you
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  Speaker 2: know I'm not going to. Instead, I'll make fun of Lindsay,
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  Speaker 2: who is very spiritual, and her idea of going to
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  Speaker 2: a religious organization is she goes with the group people.
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  Speaker 2: They all hold hands and they circle a bush and
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  Speaker 2: it's Mother Nature talking to them.
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  Speaker 1: It's Mother Nature's bush.
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  Speaker 2: It Mother.
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  Speaker 1: I didn't understand what you're saying.
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  Speaker 2: You should No, no, no, no, we are oh neil
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  Speaker 2: you we are not gonna go there. We will not.
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  Speaker 2: You've been listening to The Bill Handle Show. Catch My
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