Latest / The Bill Handel Show / States Sue Paramount | Large Scale Job Displacement
Transcript
- 0:01Speaker 1: You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from KFI AM
- 0:05Speaker 1: six forty AM.
- 0:13Speaker 2: Six forty Bill Handhold. Good morning. It is a Tuesday morning,
- 0:17Speaker 2: July fourteenth. The price of oil jumped ten percent yesterday
- 0:23Speaker 2: because the President, well, the United States in Iran are
- 0:27Speaker 2: sort of back to war. That ceasefire has sort of ceased,
- 0:32Speaker 2: and so we'll see what happens. And the President has said,
- 0:36Speaker 2: we will guard the strait of horror moves, and we
- 0:40Speaker 2: will charge twenty percent of the value basically anything going
- 0:44Speaker 2: through the strait to pay for the guardianship. Now there
- 0:49Speaker 2: is a lawsuit. I love talking about lawsuits. Well, because
- 0:52Speaker 2: I love talking about lawsuits. Twelve Democratic states, including California,
- 0:57Speaker 2: New York, and Washington, Blue states, have filed a lawsuit
- 1:01Speaker 2: to block Paramounts one hundred and eleven billion dollar acquisition
- 1:05Speaker 2: of Warner Brothers Discovery. This is one of the biggest
- 1:09Speaker 2: media deals in the history of media deals or any deal,
- 1:14Speaker 2: and the states are arguing that this deal would harm
- 1:16Speaker 2: movie theaters by damaging the competitive market for distributing films,
- 1:21Speaker 2: particularly those blockbusters that make a large portion of studio revenues.
- 1:27Speaker 2: And the lawsuit says that this deal would give this
- 1:30Speaker 2: combined company anti competitive power over the market for basic
- 1:36Speaker 2: cable TV channels like CNN plus movies. That goes on
- 1:40Speaker 2: and on. So what the States are doing is trying
- 1:42Speaker 2: to freeze the deal at least temporarily.
- 1:45Speaker 3: Until it's adjudicated.
- 1:47Speaker 2: And the deal was scheduled to close in the third
- 1:50Speaker 2: quarter of this year. And if it doesn't close or
- 1:53Speaker 2: it's delayed, Paramount has agreed to pay Warner Brothers shareholders
- 1:57Speaker 2: six hundred and fifty million dollars for each order the
- 2:01Speaker 2: deal doesn't close.
- 2:04Speaker 3: That's a lot of money.
- 2:07Speaker 2: So on Monday, that was yesterday, the States filed a
- 2:10Speaker 2: temporary restraining order asking the court to stop the acquisition.
- 2:15Speaker 2: In the filing, the States said that Paramount told California
- 2:20Speaker 2: it may close the deal as soon as July twenty two,
- 2:26Speaker 2: and the States requested a response from the court by
- 2:29Speaker 2: the end of the day July twenty one. And the
- 2:34Speaker 2: argument is that the merger would harm movie theaters, basic
- 2:38Speaker 2: cable distributors, and ultimately, and this is Rob Bonna, the
- 2:42Speaker 2: California Attorney General, and ultimately audiences on every sofa and
- 2:47Speaker 2: movie theater seat in the US. Paramount responds with the
- 2:54Speaker 2: lawsuit is wrong on both the facts.
- 2:56Speaker 3: And the law. And this is I love this.
- 3:00Speaker 2: We will continue to fight against any attempt to derail
- 3:03Speaker 2: a deal that strengthens competition, expands opportunity and positions that
- 3:09Speaker 2: the competitive that combined company is.
- 3:13Speaker 3: Going to have.
- 3:14Speaker 2: So explain to me how a merger with two companies
- 3:17Speaker 2: increases competition. I don't quite get that. You know, for example,
- 3:24Speaker 2: as Google buying very Bing for example, and buying Boom
- 3:33Speaker 2: and Bang, so they buy Bing, Bang, Boom, all tiny
- 3:39Speaker 2: you know, Neill, stop shaking your head, all tiny little browsers,
- 3:44Speaker 2: and that increases competition. Who are we kidding? I don't
- 3:48Speaker 2: know how they do that? I really don't. The deal
- 3:51Speaker 2: is going to close. If it does, David Ellison, the
- 3:53Speaker 2: grand vizier of the new company, well, he owns Paramount,
- 3:59Speaker 2: he will controlled. The company will control two news networks,
- 4:02Speaker 2: CBS News and CNN, two major studios, Paramount and Warner Brothers.
- 4:08Speaker 2: Two subscription streaming services, Paramount and HBO Max. Now, the
- 4:14Speaker 2: Justice Department said it's not challenging the acquisition because it's
- 4:18Speaker 2: not likely to harm competition or American consumers. How is
- 4:22Speaker 2: that possible? How does a merger create more competition? A
- 4:29Speaker 2: merger consolidates. Well, do you have a major merger, The
- 4:34Speaker 2: first thing that happens is the top management instantly disappears
- 4:40Speaker 2: because it's going to be one of the companies that
- 4:42Speaker 2: has a top management, usually the company that acquires the
- 4:45Speaker 2: other company. And since you have two companies that are
- 4:49Speaker 2: basically doing and they are competitive with each other, now
- 4:53Speaker 2: combining them now makes it less competitive. Explain that one
- 4:57Speaker 2: to me. I don't get that now. I don't know
- 5:00Speaker 2: if this has anything to do with it. But David
- 5:03Speaker 2: Ellison and Larry Ellison, father and son, have a warm
- 5:07Speaker 2: relationship with the president. Paramount hosted a dinner honoring the
- 5:11Speaker 2: Trump White House in Washington this year. The dinner was
- 5:17Speaker 2: attended by David Ellison, Todd Blanche, the acting US Attorney General,
- 5:22Speaker 2: and was taking place while the Justice Department was still
- 5:25Speaker 2: reviewing the deal.
- 5:28Speaker 3: Conflict, of course not. There's no such thing.
- 5:30Speaker 2: As conflict with this administration doesn't exist. So you've got
- 5:35Speaker 2: two guys that control a company that are close to
- 5:38Speaker 2: the president, and the Justice Department said, nah, you're fine,
- 5:42Speaker 2: no question about it.
- 5:44Speaker 3: And there we go again.
- 5:46Speaker 2: Anybody close to the president or is on the president's
- 5:48Speaker 2: side gets free rein to do whatever, and any blue
- 5:52Speaker 2: company is nailed, just completely nailed, and stop.
- 6:00Speaker 3: Does it all? Right? Now? AI?
- 6:03Speaker 2: We know how it's going to effect it sort of.
- 6:07Speaker 2: I mean everybody has a visceral reaction to AI. Our
- 6:12Speaker 2: jobs going to disappear. Particularly I have a personal story.
- 6:16Speaker 2: My daughter Pamela, who's working on her master's degree in
- 6:19Speaker 2: computer science, can't get a job because the job she
- 6:22Speaker 2: would have gone has disappeared.
- 6:24Speaker 3: All of them because of AI.
- 6:26Speaker 2: So more than two hundred economists, researchers, tech leaders got
- 6:31Speaker 2: together and said Number one, AI could transform, will transform
- 6:36Speaker 2: the economy for better and for worse, and fuel risks,
- 6:44Speaker 2: including large scale job displacement. That's the fear. The group said.
- 6:49Speaker 2: AI could become more powerful over a decade, which it will.
- 6:53Speaker 2: It's going to drive unprecedented economic transformation which it will bring.
- 7:00Speaker 2: Downsides which it will, but also opportunities such as major
- 7:06Speaker 2: gains and living standards which it will. So Standard University
- 7:11Speaker 2: professor and director of the Stanford Digital Economy Lab said
- 7:15Speaker 2: we must act now to guide AI to complement humans
- 7:19Speaker 2: rather than simply imitate them, and to generate prosperity for
- 7:25Speaker 2: the many, not just the few. Yeah, my question is
- 7:28Speaker 2: how you plan on doing this. And this is Eric Binnjolfsen,
- 7:37Speaker 2: And not only is he one of the chief economists,
- 7:40Speaker 2: he is one of the economists that you can't possibly
- 7:42Speaker 2: spell his name. He is among the most prominent individuals
- 7:47Speaker 2: who signed the statement, which is titled we must act
- 7:51Speaker 2: now and try to understand how AI is going to
- 7:55Speaker 2: transform the economy and what the group is pushing for.
- 8:00Speaker 2: More guardrails incentives institutions to steer AI in a direction
- 8:06Speaker 2: that complements humans and benefits society.
- 8:11Speaker 3: So those who signed the statement were.
- 8:13Speaker 2: Nobel Prize laureates, laureates, AI researchers, tech leaders from California
- 8:19Speaker 2: venture capital firms, companies Anthropic, Open, AI, Google, the Big Three,
- 8:26Speaker 2: and even they are saying we need some guardrails, while
- 8:30Speaker 2: at the same time saying and their activities are we
- 8:35Speaker 2: don't want guard rails. There's a lot of anxiety surrounding
- 8:40Speaker 2: the latest developments in technology. We don't even know what
- 8:43Speaker 2: AI is going to bring to the table, no idea
- 8:47Speaker 2: which jobs are going to be eliminated. Well, jobs that
- 8:52Speaker 2: for example, deal with research are going to disappear because
- 8:56Speaker 2: AI is going to do research much better. I asked
- 9:00Speaker 2: to write a letter of recommendation from someone I know,
- 9:05Speaker 2: and I said, you know, write it up. Tell me,
- 9:07Speaker 2: you know, give me a template, because you know who
- 9:11Speaker 2: you're applying or what you're applying, what job you're applying for.
- 9:15Speaker 3: So give me an idea which you what you think
- 9:18Speaker 3: is going to work.
- 9:19Speaker 2: And back came a letter of recommendation that I said
- 9:22Speaker 2: was pretty good. I'm telling you it's not bad. And
- 9:27Speaker 2: then I asked, was Ai involved in writing this? One
- 9:31Speaker 2: hundred percent? AI wrote the letter, and I'm thinking, you know, writers, now,
- 9:44Speaker 2: is AI going to create the motivation, the feelings, the
- 9:49Speaker 2: nuances of what a human being does or doesn't do well?
- 9:53Speaker 2: We don't know. It's getting closer and closer AI is learning.
- 9:57Speaker 2: One of the things I'm working on I've asked Neil
- 10:01Speaker 2: to do and we've done this once, create a segment
- 10:05Speaker 2: using my voice and it actually came up with a
- 10:09Speaker 2: pretty good job. And as I said, Will's job with
- 10:14Speaker 2: traffic that's going to disappear easily, where AI can look
- 10:18Speaker 2: at traffic patterns and amy with the news, where AI
- 10:25Speaker 2: she's sticking her tongue out, where AI is going to
- 10:28Speaker 2: produce the news and determine which news is more important
- 10:32Speaker 2: less important simply by looking at news outlets and.
- 10:36Speaker 3: Stories throughout the world.
- 10:40Speaker 2: Neil's job looking at food for example, Well, you know,
- 10:46Speaker 2: I think it's a little harder for AI, and probably
- 10:50Speaker 2: the toughest one is my job at this point. Why
- 10:55Speaker 2: because it's not easy to get a combination of fabulous analysis,
- 11:01Speaker 2: brilliant points, complete depravity, which you combine all of that,
- 11:07Speaker 2: and you know, I'd say, and how.
- 11:10Speaker 4: Do you get a machine to chew and spit while
- 11:13Speaker 4: they're talking?
- 11:14Speaker 3: Well, that's tough, I'll tell you. Hold on.
- 11:18Speaker 2: You can saying, for example, do a segment about Bill handle? Okay,
- 11:22Speaker 2: that that handle would do?
- 11:24Speaker 3: Do you not.
- 11:25Speaker 2: Think the sound effects of chewing and spitting and crunching
- 11:32Speaker 2: and flying off on tangents can't be replicated.
- 11:37Speaker 4: I could if I had a camel, I'd have the
- 11:40Speaker 4: camel chewing and then I would, okay, put it.
- 11:44Speaker 3: In a But AI can do that. AI can do that.
- 11:48Speaker 4: You know, I was reading last night Bill. There's an
- 11:51Speaker 4: entire restaurant. It looks about the size gosh, that the
- 11:57Speaker 4: size of a small not an RV per se. But anyways,
- 12:05Speaker 4: it's not that big. They have them in Germany now.
- 12:07Speaker 4: The entire restaurant, zero humans. The food is all prepped,
- 12:16Speaker 4: it is made, it is served, and the dishes washed.
- 12:21Speaker 3: All in this box. Okay, get a controlled AI, all right.
- 12:27Speaker 2: So the people that worked at that restaurant, or would
- 12:30Speaker 2: have worked at that restaurant, are history. That is one
- 12:33Speaker 2: of the issues with a I okay, getting married a
- 12:38Speaker 2: personal story too. I'm gonna share with you. Getting married
- 12:42Speaker 2: is really expensive. Getting married at venues is really expensive.
- 12:48Speaker 3: So you know what's going on. Where do you think
- 12:50Speaker 3: people are getting married.
- 12:51Speaker 2: They're getting married at county courthouses and public buildings, stairways
- 13:00Speaker 2: to these magnificent structures, a lot of them built during
- 13:03Speaker 2: the depression to keep people working, a lot of them
- 13:07Speaker 2: built in the eighteen hundreds or early twenties or early
- 13:10Speaker 2: of the teens of last century. And they are magnificent
- 13:15Speaker 2: municipal buildings, particularly Santa Barbara, San Francisco, Beverly Hills, really
- 13:20Speaker 2: popular and to give you an idea of how popular
- 13:23Speaker 2: they are, and this one kind of yeah, it's.
- 13:29Speaker 3: Really really interesting.
- 13:31Speaker 2: One photographer who specializes in these courthouse weddings. I'm not
- 13:36Speaker 2: talking about the efficient I am talking about on the courthouse.
- 13:40Speaker 2: In front of the courthouse, the Pictures photographer who specialized
- 13:46Speaker 2: in this says, these venues book up so fast you
- 13:49Speaker 2: have to be online at the exact time you plan
- 13:52Speaker 2: on having your appointment. It's like trying to get tickets
- 13:55Speaker 2: to the Super Bowl or Taylor Swift concerts. Santa Barbara
- 14:00Speaker 2: is a Moorish revival Hall of Justice. That's the most
- 14:04Speaker 2: coveted civil marriage spot. This is where Kamala Harris and
- 14:07Speaker 2: Doug Imlov got married. This is where Courtney Kardationan Kardashian
- 14:11Speaker 2: got married. This is where Blink two drummer got married.
- 14:16Speaker 2: And the county supervisor who happens to be efficient for
- 14:19Speaker 2: the day. We see dozens of these people today starting
- 14:22Speaker 2: at eight o'clock in the morning, and you have to.
- 14:25Speaker 3: Book because they book instantly.
- 14:29Speaker 2: As soon as they open up the booking computer. They
- 14:33Speaker 2: opened up the program, it fills up instantly, so you
- 14:37Speaker 2: know what ends up happening. Thousands of these weddings are
- 14:41Speaker 2: done per year, and they go through like an assembly line.
- 14:47Speaker 2: I mean, it is crazy. For example, probably the most
- 14:53Speaker 2: coveted one is San Francisco City Hall. This is where
- 14:58Speaker 2: Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio got married. Today that building
- 15:03Speaker 2: sees seven thousand marriage ceremonies a year, seven thousand a year.
- 15:11Speaker 2: So you have these couples lined up to have their
- 15:15Speaker 2: picture taken in front of the courthouse or on the steps.
- 15:20Speaker 2: I mean, that's the where it's going. And why is
- 15:22Speaker 2: this happening?
- 15:23Speaker 3: Money? Money, You get dressed up, You don't have to
- 15:26Speaker 3: pay for a venue.
- 15:28Speaker 2: You just do the courthouse and then the catering is
- 15:31Speaker 2: across the street at the Chick fil A, and by
- 15:34Speaker 2: you get a cheap wedding. How expensive are weddings? Average cost?
- 15:38Speaker 2: Thirty six thousand dollars?
- 15:42Speaker 4: Now, Bill, My wife Tracy and I when we were
- 15:45Speaker 4: going to get married, we were just going to go
- 15:47Speaker 4: to the Hall of Justice or whatever and get married,
- 15:50Speaker 4: and our mothers kind of were disappointed, so we very
- 15:54Speaker 4: quickly just booked the little brown chapel on Cold Water.
- 15:59Speaker 4: No cameras, no flowers, no music, no nothing. They married
- 16:03Speaker 4: us there. I took them down the street to a
- 16:05Speaker 4: restaurant and paid for lunch for everybody. That was it
- 16:09Speaker 4: one yeah, yeah, and you were out of town, you
- 16:11Speaker 4: were in London. And we gave out shirts that said
- 16:14Speaker 4: I went to Neil and Tracy's wedding and all I
- 16:16Speaker 4: got was this crumy shirt.
- 16:18Speaker 2: Excellent cheap And isn't that where Ronald Reagan got married? Yeah,
- 16:25Speaker 2: and my wedding and I ended up doing the well,
- 16:30Speaker 2: the castle was not the wedding.
- 16:32Speaker 3: Wedding. I didn't know this.
- 16:33Speaker 2: I got married in Italy and I didn't know this
- 16:36Speaker 2: and you probably don't know this, but in Italy there's
- 16:38Speaker 2: no such thing as a religious wedding, the most Catholic
- 16:41Speaker 2: country probably in the world. And the priest or, the
- 16:46Speaker 2: pastor or whoever, usually the priest who then officiates at
- 16:49Speaker 2: the wedding had no legal that has no legal ability
- 16:54Speaker 2: to be law. In other words, that was badly said,
- 16:58Speaker 2: but has it's not the find Legally you have to
- 17:01Speaker 2: get married civilly, and so Lindsey and I had to
- 17:05Speaker 2: get married civilly before the wedding. So we went to
- 17:10Speaker 2: We did it in I think uh Laguna, and we
- 17:13Speaker 2: went into.
- 17:15Speaker 3: The office, the clerk's office.
- 17:17Speaker 2: We got married in the office right there, and it
- 17:20Speaker 2: was just a cheap od, creep o city office, and
- 17:24Speaker 2: the clerk went ahead and married us and then said,
- 17:26Speaker 2: excuse me, I got some emails to read. Get out
- 17:29Speaker 2: and that was my official marriage.
- 17:31Speaker 3: And then all weddings are civil I mean you have the.
- 17:35Speaker 2: Real No, not at all, not at all. No, you
- 17:38Speaker 2: can have religious weddings. Here a rabbi or priest officiating
- 17:42Speaker 2: signing off. That is a legal marriage. You don't need
- 17:46Speaker 2: the city, you need a city, you need a license
- 17:48Speaker 2: to get married. But the official wedding is the officiant,
- 17:53Speaker 2: is the priest, is the rabbi. That's the official document
- 18:00Speaker 2: in Italy. So what we did is, effectively we did
- 18:05Speaker 2: a Druid wedding, you know, dancing around a tree, holding
- 18:08Speaker 2: each other's hands and dancing.
- 18:10Speaker 3: Effectively what it was. Okay, we're done. Okay.
- 18:13Speaker 2: Thresholds are really important. This is studies that are done.
- 18:17Speaker 2: I like studies as supposed to anecdotal stories, and so
- 18:21Speaker 2: there have been a bunch of studies, and there is
- 18:25Speaker 2: a threshold. Psychologically, nine ninety nine. It's not ten dollars,
- 18:30Speaker 2: it's nine ninety nine a penny more. It's ten dollars.
- 18:36Speaker 2: You buy gas, and it's for eighty nine. It's actually
- 18:40Speaker 2: for eighty nine and ninety nine cents, but it's for
- 18:45Speaker 2: eighty nine.
- 18:46Speaker 3: A penny more. I mean, who doesn't round up a penny?
- 18:52Speaker 3: We don't.
- 18:53Speaker 2: Psychologically, we don't how many things you see nine ninety nine,
- 18:57Speaker 2: nineteen ninety nine, forty nine ninety nine. The big one
- 19:01Speaker 2: is nine ninety nine, and that's the magic number. And
- 19:07Speaker 2: that has been a strategy long used by US retailers.
- 19:10Speaker 3: Why is that Well, because it works, that's why.
- 19:16Speaker 2: And to keep prices under nine ninety nine or thirty
- 19:21Speaker 2: nine ninety nine when you look at higher fuel prices, tariffs,
- 19:26Speaker 2: everything driving up costs. Now you have companies that are
- 19:31Speaker 2: either cutting profits, which they do, and or redesigning packaging
- 19:37Speaker 2: or lowering the lowering the amount that is being produced
- 19:44Speaker 2: and consumed. Chris Cox, who is the chief executive Hasbro,
- 19:50Speaker 2: says nine ninety nine is the retail price point that
- 19:54Speaker 2: drives a lot of consumer behavior.
- 19:58Speaker 3: Yep.
- 19:59Speaker 2: And so Hasbro is redoubled efforts to meet that nine
- 20:01Speaker 2: ninety nine price point, and so so many companies are
- 20:06Speaker 2: ninety nine cents and psychologically, we just do it.
- 20:11Speaker 3: That's all.
- 20:13Speaker 2: There's a professor of marketing at Columbia Business School in
- 20:16Speaker 2: New York and he's done a study on this. Consumers
- 20:19Speaker 2: tend to categorize prices and to rage in ranges. Excuse me,
- 20:25Speaker 2: So having a price under ten dollars is different than
- 20:29Speaker 2: a price that is ten dollars one penny difference. Who
- 20:38Speaker 2: doesn't round up? We don't. The fact that psychologically we
- 20:45Speaker 2: figure that nine nine nine somehow is worth is a
- 20:51Speaker 2: different mindset. It is so much cheaper than something that's
- 20:56Speaker 2: ten dollars. I mean, scientists have looked at this, and
- 21:01Speaker 2: you know, it's just an interesting view of life.
- 21:05Speaker 3: Is what human beings do.
- 21:07Speaker 2: The other day, I was buying something that was I
- 21:10Speaker 2: think ten oh one, and they give me a nickel
- 21:16Speaker 2: because pennies aren't gonna be used. I don't know how
- 21:18Speaker 2: that connects. I just thought i'd share that with you.
- 21:21Speaker 2: But look at everything you see on TV when you're
- 21:25Speaker 2: buying a product, when they're doing a commercial, when they
- 21:27Speaker 2: do an infomercial. Is there any such thing as a
- 21:31Speaker 2: set price ten bucks five dollars.
- 21:36Speaker 3: Nope, you don't see it.
- 21:38Speaker 2: The other thing is five equal payments of forty nine
- 21:41Speaker 2: to ninety nine.
- 21:43Speaker 3: That's two hundred and fifty bucks. Folks. You don't think
- 21:47Speaker 3: of that. What do you think of.
- 21:49Speaker 2: Well, the price is forty nine ninety nine. First of all,
- 21:53Speaker 2: it's under fifty dollars, and then equal payments over the
- 21:58Speaker 2: course of five months. Somehow, makes us buy more, and
- 22:03Speaker 2: you want to know something we buy more. It's psychologically
- 22:09Speaker 2: fascinating how that works.
- 22:12Speaker 3: Now, I am above the fray.
- 22:15Speaker 2: I have the ability to look and determine that really
- 22:20Speaker 2: isn't the case.
- 22:21Speaker 3: Do you know what meany ninety nine cents stuff I buy?
- 22:23Speaker 2: I cannot tell you how much stuff I buy that
- 22:26Speaker 2: ends in ninety nine cents. I dive right into that,
- 22:31Speaker 2: as most of us do.
- 22:35Speaker 3: Ninety nine cents.
- 22:38Speaker 2: You know we should be KFI AM sixty and ninety nine.
- 22:46Speaker 3: Yeah, that would work for sure. All right, coming up
- 22:49Speaker 3: Tech Tuesday, Mike Debuski.
- 22:51Speaker 2: This week, we'll be right back with that KFI AM sixty.
- 22:56Speaker 3: You've been listening to The Bill Handle Show. Catch My
- 22:58Speaker 3: Show Monday through Friday at six am to
- 23:01Speaker 2: Nine am, and any time on demand on the iHeartRadio
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