Latest / The Bill Handel Show / Lake America | AI is Setting Your Prices Accordingly
Transcript
- 0:01Speaker 1: You're listening to Bill Handel On Demand from KFI AM 640.
- 0:05Speaker 2: KFI AM 640, Bill Handel here. Tuesday morning, September 1.
- 0:15Speaker 2: A quick reminder that September 4th is the last show
- 0:20Speaker 2: of the Pageant of the Masters in Laguna Beach. And
- 0:24Speaker 2: it's so worth going. It's a unique program and performance
- 0:28Speaker 2: that doesn't happen anywhere else on the planet. It's real-life
- 0:32Speaker 2: people being part and parcel of great works of art.
- 0:35Speaker 2: I'm talking about inside the great works of art. I
- 0:38Speaker 2: know that sounds unusual, but if you've been there, you
- 0:40Speaker 2: know what I'm talking about. And if you haven't been there, man,
- 0:42Speaker 2: are you in for a treat. And tickets are still
- 0:45Speaker 2: available until the 4th of September. So just go to
- 0:50Speaker 2: Google Pageant of the Masters Laguna Beach. That'll explain all
- 0:53Speaker 2: of it, and tickets are available. Pageantofthemasters.com. Laguna Beach. Every
- 1:00Speaker 2: seat in the house is great. $ 42, it starts a ticket. Now,
- 1:06Speaker 2: as we, of course, know, the Trump administration and the
- 1:11Speaker 2: state of Canada, the country of Canada, are now in
- 1:14Speaker 2: a pissing match on the tariffs business. Trump has evoked 50%
- 1:19Speaker 2: tariffs on certain products, $ 20 billion worth of products sold
- 1:24Speaker 2: in the United States from Canada. And Canada's gone back
- 1:27Speaker 2: tit for tat. Well, they're hitting the U.S. with the
- 1:33Speaker 2: same kind of tariff, dollar per dollar. Okay, so with
- 1:37Speaker 2: that being done, part of the fight is the president
- 1:41Speaker 2: renaming Lake Ontario to Lake America. Can the president rename
- 1:47Speaker 2: Lake Ontario? Lake Ontario has been Lake Ontario for 400 years.
- 1:54Speaker 2: Ontario is named after Lake Ontario, the entire province. So
- 2:02Speaker 2: can the government, can the president do that? Well, he
- 2:05Speaker 2: can as far as the United States is concerned. He
- 2:10Speaker 2: can legally change the name. And he has ordered Interior
- 2:14Speaker 2: Secretary Doug Burgum and the board, quote, on geographical names
- 2:20Speaker 2: to rename Lake Ontario Ontario. Lake America, within 30 days,
- 2:25Speaker 2: by the way. That updates the geographic names information system,
- 2:30Speaker 2: and it will remove all references to Lake Ontario.
- 2:33Speaker 1: 30 days to do all of it.
- 2:35Speaker 2: So what does that mean, actual, actually? Well, agency maps, contracts, documents,
- 2:42Speaker 2: communications will say Lake America instead. We haven't even seen
- 2:48Speaker 2: how Gulf of America has been tested yet instead of
- 2:51Speaker 2: Gulf of Mexico.
- 2:53Speaker 1: But the bottom line is the president can do this.
- 2:56Speaker 2: And then the question is, does Republican-controlled Congress support the
- 3:00Speaker 2: name change? Well, yeah, they're going to. And here is
- 3:05Speaker 2: why it's kind of dumb for the president to do
- 3:08Speaker 2: this on a political level. I mean, this is a
- 3:11Speaker 2: personal fight. You know, my dad is bigger than your dad.
- 3:14Speaker 2: My schwanze is bigger than your schwanze. That's basically what
- 3:17Speaker 2: this is with the president and the prime minister of Canada.
- 3:24Speaker 2: But here is the political fallout, and that is with
- 3:28Speaker 2: inflation hitting us pretty hard, with entire industries just being
- 3:35Speaker 2: wiped out, not only from AI, but also from the policy,
- 3:40Speaker 2: for example, the beef industry. The president wants to lift
- 3:45Speaker 2: all tariffs from beef products coming to the United States.
- 3:49Speaker 1: Well, the U.S.
- 3:50Speaker 2: Cattle producers are saying, wait a minute, you're going to
- 3:53Speaker 2: wipe us out. I mean, there's a lot of politics
- 3:55Speaker 2: going on. I mean, there's a lot of fallout going on.
- 3:59Speaker 2: And what are the Democrats going to say when going
- 4:02Speaker 2: for the midterms? Here's what they're going to say. Hey,
- 4:07Speaker 2: the president, what he has done is he's focused on
- 4:10Speaker 2: his big, beautiful ballroom. He is focused on changing the
- 4:15Speaker 2: names of the Gulf of Mexico, Lake America. Hey, why
- 4:21Speaker 2: don't you deal with the problems that we have instead
- 4:25Speaker 2: of being obsessed with this stupid stuff? bringing reporters out
- 4:30Speaker 2: to show them the half-completed, big, beautiful ballroom.
- 4:35Speaker 1: Look what I'm doing.
- 4:36Speaker 2: I mean, he is personally involved in a big, big
- 4:40Speaker 2: way at every point of that ballroom, the construction. And
- 4:46Speaker 2: so the argument's going to be, and it's going to
- 4:47Speaker 2: be a good argument, what are you doing? Why don't
- 4:51Speaker 2: you pay attention to the stuff that's happening to us
- 4:54Speaker 2: every day?
- 4:54Speaker 1: You know, where's your focus?
- 4:59Speaker 2: Well, and Canada said don't be ridiculous, and the rest
- 5:02Speaker 2: of the world is going to say don't be ridiculous
- 5:04Speaker 2: because the president can only refer to Ontario Lake as
- 5:10Speaker 2: Lake America within the U.S.
- 5:12Speaker 1: Government. That's all. Nothing more, nothing less.
- 5:18Speaker 2: Yet at the same time, look at the political fallout.
- 5:20Speaker 1: It's just dumb. It just doesn't make any sense. Democrats
- 5:23Speaker 1: are saying, look at this.
- 5:25Speaker 2: Republicans have to be, even they're shaking their heads. Although
- 5:28Speaker 2: a Republican can't say that's a huge mistake. Actually, a
- 5:32Speaker 2: couple have gone forward. Big Trump supporters have come forward
- 5:36Speaker 2: and said, this is just stupid. This just makes absolutely
- 5:40Speaker 2: no sense. Now, the big story or some of the
- 5:43Speaker 2: big stories we're covering is, well, first of all, the
- 5:47Speaker 2: Lindsay Clancy case for murder. Jury is deadlocked. And the judge,
- 5:51Speaker 2: as I said earlier, they don't like deadlocks. So the
- 5:55Speaker 2: judges get– they get pretty animated and tell the jury,
- 5:59Speaker 2: you go back in there and you make a decision.
- 6:01Speaker 1: And you would think.
- 6:02Speaker 2: That they would have made some kind of a decision
- 6:06Speaker 2: because the jury had five different choices, murder, manslaughter, not
- 6:12Speaker 2: guilty by reason of insanity. I mean not guilty is
- 6:15Speaker 2: not going to happen because she's already admitted it. But it's–
- 6:19Speaker 2: and this is a unanimous decision. So usually a compromise
- 6:23Speaker 2: is going to be reached.
- 6:24Speaker 1: Nope. deadlocked completely.
- 6:27Speaker 2: There are a juror or some jurors that want to
- 6:30Speaker 2: go one way and the other jurors want to go
- 6:32Speaker 2: another way. And there's just a deadlock. So we'll see
- 6:36Speaker 2: if they came back or if they do come back
- 6:38Speaker 2: with a verdict. Now, let me tell you what companies
- 6:41Speaker 2: are doing. Of course they use AI tools, but here's
- 6:45Speaker 2: what they're also doing is shifting, sifting through your personal
- 6:51Speaker 2: data and tailor prices in real times to I mean,
- 6:55Speaker 2: that's alarming for a lot of people because you have
- 6:58Speaker 2: the hidden algorithms that exploit desperation, income, location. This is
- 7:04Speaker 2: called surveillance pricing. And the feds and states are saying, no,
- 7:10Speaker 2: we want to curb this. It's discrimination and it undermines
- 7:14Speaker 2: basic expectations of fairness. Now, there are a lot of
- 7:18Speaker 2: people who disagree with that and agree with that. And
- 7:21Speaker 2: that is, is it unfair for a company to, or
- 7:25Speaker 2: an algorithm to read what you shop, what you like.
- 7:29Speaker 1: Or let me give you an example.
- 7:30Speaker 2: Let's say you have a family member who's died and
- 7:32Speaker 2: they can figure that out sifting through everything that the
- 7:37Speaker 2: internet has, right? You have an algorithm. So someone's died.
- 7:40Speaker 2: You are now, you are now buying a plane ticket
- 7:42Speaker 2: because they figured out you're related and you're buying it
- 7:45Speaker 2: really quickly and you have to leave tomorrow. And they figured, okay,
- 7:49Speaker 2: it's bereavement. which means we can charge these people anything
- 7:52Speaker 2: you want, anything we want, because they have to show up.
- 7:57Speaker 1: Is that fair? Well, let's talk about history for a moment.
- 8:01Speaker 2: It was always the case because people used to buy
- 8:05Speaker 2: directly with sellers and the sellers would look at your clothes,
- 8:09Speaker 2: look at your shoes, negotiate with you. That's been the
- 8:14Speaker 2: case in history. It's actually the Quakers who started it.
- 8:18Speaker 2: It should be fair for everybody. So we have this
- 8:21Speaker 2: concept is it should be fair. Well, we already have
- 8:24Speaker 2: not discrimination, but we also have dynamic pricing. I get
- 8:28Speaker 2: an airplane ticket. It's going to be different today than tomorrow.
- 8:32Speaker 2: They have certain numbers that are on sale.
- 8:34Speaker 1: Sale is over. You're buying, you're going to pay $ 200 more.
- 8:38Speaker 1: That's allowed.
- 8:39Speaker 2: Disneyland has a dynamic pricing. Certain days they charge you less.
- 8:44Speaker 2: But this has to do with individual surveillance, right? grabbing
- 8:50Speaker 2: you when you are about to buy something and then
- 8:54Speaker 2: giving you the price. There's a lawsuit against JetBlue for
- 8:57Speaker 2: doing exactly that. It was a bereavement case. And now
- 9:03Speaker 2: there are laws that are being considered, certainly the lawsuit.
- 9:09Speaker 2: And the issue is, do we allow this to happen?
- 9:13Speaker 2: The technology is already there. How often have I told
- 9:15Speaker 2: you that the law follows technology because it's much more
- 9:21Speaker 2: difficult to deal with the law, the ethics of it,
- 9:25Speaker 2: where we go, how we want society to deal with it.
- 9:29Speaker 2: The science, that's done. The algorithms are there. They figured
- 9:33Speaker 2: that one out. So they know. And so I walk
- 9:37Speaker 2: in there and they, Costco knows that I buy bagels.
- 9:45Speaker 2: Do they raise the price when I buy? Not so
- 9:47Speaker 2: much when I walk in the door, but let's say
- 9:49Speaker 2: I'm going on the internet and I'm buying something and
- 9:52Speaker 2: they can figure out who I am, what I want.
- 9:54Speaker 2: Is it time for me to buy a new vacuum cleaner?
- 9:58Speaker 2: And let's say I do it. uh every two years
- 10:01Speaker 2: because they figure that out and all of a sudden
- 10:04Speaker 2: i'm buying one six months after i bought the previous
- 10:09Speaker 2: one oh bill's vacuum cleaner is probably.
- 10:13Speaker 1: Broken down So normally I.
- 10:17Speaker 2: Would pay $ 150, but let's charge $ 170 because he's probably
- 10:25Speaker 2: going to want that and we have him. Now that
- 10:30Speaker 2: of course has to do with internet shopping. I can't
- 10:34Speaker 2: wait to see it if it's at the counter where
- 10:37Speaker 2: someone pays one price and for the same product, the
- 10:40Speaker 2: next person pays $ 10 more or less. But again, this
- 10:44Speaker 2: is just another story of how we're dealing with technology
- 10:49Speaker 2: and we really don't know where we're going with this.
- 10:52Speaker 1: This is fascinating stuff.
- 10:54Speaker 2: Now, a couple of things about getting old, an aging population.
- 11:00Speaker 1: First of all, it's no fun getting old.
- 11:01Speaker 2: In the US, we don't do getting old very well
- 11:04Speaker 2: and we are getting older.
- 11:07Speaker 1: There's no question about that. So that's on a personal level.
- 11:10Speaker 2: Now on a big picture macro level, You've got societies
- 11:16Speaker 2: around the world, particularly industrialized society, where more people are
- 11:21Speaker 2: getting older than people are being born or coming into
- 11:25Speaker 2: the country. Bottom line, populations are declining. And that doesn't
- 11:31Speaker 2: bode well because you need young people to.
- 11:35Speaker 1: Support old people.
- 11:38Speaker 2: An economy does not do well when you have old
- 11:42Speaker 2: people that are not working.
- 11:44Speaker 1: They're not producing anything, nor should they.
- 11:47Speaker 2: I mean, they spend a lifetime working and putting money away,
- 11:51Speaker 2: and you got Social Security, and you have pensions, etc.
- 11:54Speaker 2: And it's a good thing. I mean, that is an
- 11:56Speaker 2: advanced society. But you have to have young workers support that.
- 12:02Speaker 2: You have to have an economy that works. For example,
- 12:06Speaker 2: Social Security. When Social Security was passed, I think it
- 12:10Speaker 2: was 1936, FDR passed Social Security. because we were in
- 12:12Speaker 2: the middle of a depression and people just starved when
- 12:15Speaker 2: they weren't working. So he passed the Social Security. And
- 12:19Speaker 2: at that time, when Social Security was passed, first of all,
- 12:24Speaker 2: the age of Social Security was 65, because people died
- 12:27Speaker 2: at 66, 67, 68. And so Social Security taxes were
- 12:33Speaker 2: virtually nothing, and people didn't last long. And you had
- 12:37Speaker 2: plenty of workers. There were like five or seven workers
- 12:41Speaker 2: for every person retired. And then the retired person would die. Well, today,
- 12:47Speaker 2: there are two workers for every retiree. And that doesn't work.
- 12:52Speaker 2: That's unsustainable. And Social Security has already said, and this
- 12:56Speaker 2: happened a bunch of times, that we are going to,
- 12:59Speaker 2: the Social Security fund is going to go broke by
- 13:04Speaker 2: 2035 unless two things happen. And both things will happen. One,
- 13:08Speaker 2: you raise the timeline, you raise the limit, or when
- 13:14Speaker 2: you can apply for Social Security, it used to be 65,
- 13:17Speaker 2: now I think it's 67, 67 and change, which saves
- 13:20Speaker 2: Social Security a pile of money. And at the same time,
- 13:23Speaker 2: benefits may be cut. And man, that is the third
- 13:26Speaker 2: rail of politics. You cannot cut benefits. And the United States, well,
- 13:32Speaker 2: Italy has a huge problem.
- 13:34Speaker 1: A big problem.
- 13:35Speaker 2: The United States is a huge problem and you're seeing
- 13:38Speaker 2: social security taxes. Well, if you've been working for any
- 13:42Speaker 2: length of time and I look at my paycheck and
- 13:45Speaker 2: the amount of taxes that are being taken out for
- 13:49Speaker 2: social security is, uh, absolutely nuts.
- 13:55Speaker 1: And that's going to go up and up.
- 13:57Speaker 2: So that's the macro story of what is happening, uh, with, um, populations.
- 14:05Speaker 2: And Amy had talked about the populations, why in only
- 14:08Speaker 2: industrial countries and the world population is increasing because you
- 14:11Speaker 2: have the third world countries that are having kids like crazy.
- 14:17Speaker 2: And as far as paying for all the kids, it
- 14:19Speaker 2: doesn't matter because no one pays for anything.
- 14:21Speaker 1: There's no money there. It doesn't matter what, it doesn't
- 14:23Speaker 1: matter how many kids you have. It's you're broke.
- 14:26Speaker 2: And what happens when you're, you know, in the sub-Saharan countries,
- 14:30Speaker 2: they eat sand for dinner.
- 14:32Speaker 1: And they wake up in the morning and eat sand
- 14:34Speaker 1: for lunch.
- 14:37Speaker 2: And when they go to the doctor, it's a guy
- 14:39Speaker 2: with a bone through his nose with a chicken head dancing.
- 14:42Speaker 1: Around the room. Not really advanced. We, on the other hand,
- 14:47Speaker 1: are advanced.
- 14:49Speaker 2: And we certainly are in terms of the medical care
- 14:53Speaker 2: for some people and certainly dealing as a first world country.
- 14:58Speaker 1: So that's the big picture. We're in trouble there.
- 15:03Speaker 2: And the only thing that keeps us going a little
- 15:05Speaker 2: bit in the United States is immigration.
- 15:08Speaker 1: That's it.
- 15:09Speaker 2: It's immigration, not birth rate. And the birth rate itself
- 15:14Speaker 2: is among ethnic citizens or ethnic residents. If you're talking
- 15:19Speaker 2: about people that are not either super religious, Catholic, Jewish,
- 15:24Speaker 2: that have as many kids as they can, But if
- 15:27Speaker 2: you're talking about just people being born here that have
- 15:30Speaker 2: not come in from another country, do not have the
- 15:32Speaker 2: culture of having only one or two kids. I mean,
- 15:36Speaker 2: when my children were born, there was no way I
- 15:38Speaker 2: was going to have more than two kids.
- 15:39Speaker 1: That's it.
- 15:41Speaker 2: I didn't want to spend the money. That's the way
- 15:46Speaker 2: most of us think.
- 15:47Speaker 1: Well, okay. So that's that story.
- 15:50Speaker 2: Let's end the show with you getting older and falling
- 15:54Speaker 2: apart and probably dying. And that's what happens when you
- 15:58Speaker 2: listen to this show. You know, people come up to
- 16:00Speaker 2: me and say, I've been listening to you for, and
- 16:02Speaker 2: I just tell them, shut up. I don't want to
- 16:03Speaker 2: hear it. I do not want to hear how long
- 16:05Speaker 2: you've been listening to us. The point is, is getting
- 16:08Speaker 2: old in America is no fun. As I explained in
- 16:12Speaker 2: the previous segment, getting old in China is no fun.
- 16:17Speaker 2: Now comes the government having to deal with an aging population.
- 16:20Speaker 2: And as I explained, aging population is not good for
- 16:23Speaker 2: a country. Why? Because people that are on Social Security
- 16:28Speaker 2: and get.
- 16:29Speaker 1: Pensions, etc., do not produce anything.
- 16:33Speaker 2: They are not working. They are not manufacturing. They're basically
- 16:37Speaker 2: sucking it up, as they should, by the way, after
- 16:39Speaker 2: a lifetime of work.
- 16:40Speaker 1: Don't misunderstand.
- 16:42Speaker 2: People deserve to be taken care of financially, but the
- 16:45Speaker 2: country doesn't do well. It needs younger people to sustain
- 16:50Speaker 2: the economy. And like many countries, China... is running out
- 16:55Speaker 2: of young people. It's an aging population. So here's what
- 16:59Speaker 2: China has done. First of all, some stats. Number of
- 17:04Speaker 2: people in China over 60 is going to increase 402
- 17:07Speaker 2: million by 2040. It's growing up to 28% of the
- 17:13Speaker 2: total population that cannot be sustained. And so being old
- 17:18Speaker 2: not only isn't an economic issue, it's also being old
- 17:21Speaker 2: and lonely. Because people are busy. You know, kids are busy.
- 17:25Speaker 2: Grandkids are busy. So there is a new business in China.
- 17:33Speaker 2: And what it is, is surrogacy children. Old people pay
- 17:39Speaker 2: for someone to come around, not for medical purposes, not
- 17:42Speaker 2: to clean them and bathe them and cook, shop for them.
- 17:46Speaker 1: No, no, just to be there. Just to hang out.
- 17:51Speaker 1: and be there.
- 17:52Speaker 2: Now, if there are some issues because old people rely on,
- 17:56Speaker 2: let's say, in this case, a surrogate.
- 17:58Speaker 1: Well, they're pretty vulnerable.
- 18:00Speaker 2: Bank accounts, property ownership, theft of property is a big deal.
- 18:06Speaker 1: I mean, can you get around it? Yeah, probably.
- 18:08Speaker 2: A couple of companies in China have already started, and
- 18:12Speaker 2: they are doing really well because the number of old
- 18:15Speaker 2: people is not going to decrease. It's only going to increase.
- 18:19Speaker 2: And so people tend to be lonely. I don't know
- 18:22Speaker 2: if you're frightened of being lonely. You know, I kind
- 18:25Speaker 2: of am if I like people, which I don't. But
- 18:30Speaker 2: I have kids who hate me and I hate them.
- 18:32Speaker 2: And I have family members that I never want to
- 18:36Speaker 2: talk to. And so I'm going to be pretty lonely.
- 18:41Speaker 1: Right, Neil? No way you're outliving your wife. You're fine. Okay,
- 18:46Speaker 1: I feel better. Although I'm probably going to be lonely
- 18:48Speaker 1: there too. You're weird, though. You don't like being around people,
- 18:52Speaker 1: and then you say you're lonely.
- 18:54Speaker 2: I am.
- 18:54Speaker 1: That's true.
- 18:55Speaker 2: I am lonely, and I don't like being around people.
- 18:59Speaker 2: It's a little bit of a contradiction. It's a lot
- 19:01Speaker 2: of a contradiction. I have a hard time understanding it.
- 19:03Speaker 2: My shrink has a hard time understanding it.
- 19:06Speaker 1: And I hate her.
- 19:06Speaker 2: Matter of fact, I pay money to hate her.
- 19:14Speaker 1: In China, they have this.
- 19:17Speaker 2: New phenomena where older people are being paid or younger
- 19:20Speaker 2: people being paid to deal with older people. By the way,
- 19:23Speaker 2: it's not bad money either. They get paid, I think, what,
- 19:31Speaker 2: $ 15 an hour for China. That is a good deal.
- 19:35Speaker 2: And this is all going to take time right now.
- 19:38Speaker 2: We have a lot of us. We're called the sandwich generation.
- 19:42Speaker 2: We've talked about this before. Middle-aged adults raising kids and
- 19:46Speaker 2: supporting aging parents.
- 19:49Speaker 1: And that's a phenomenon.
- 19:50Speaker 2: That is not fun for anybody, especially those kids. And
- 19:53Speaker 2: it definitely gets around. It certainly gets involved and interferes
- 19:59Speaker 2: with life. So what is the answer? Well, is technology
- 20:03Speaker 2: the answer? Where is China ahead of the United States
- 20:07Speaker 2: in what field?
- 20:08Speaker 1: Robotics.
- 20:10Speaker 2: Humanoid robots that are going to take care of you
- 20:16Speaker 2: and that seems to be the wave of the future
- 20:18Speaker 2: where robots will be able to pretend they like you
- 20:22Speaker 2: they can be programmed to like you wow now if
- 20:28Speaker 2: I had a humanoid robot that was programmed to like
- 20:31Speaker 2: me I would know that's a hoax I would absolutely
- 20:35Speaker 2: know none of that is real all right we're done
- 20:38Speaker 2: I just thought I'd throw that at you I don't
- 20:40Speaker 2: know if that segment made any sense whatsoever, but somewhere
- 20:43Speaker 2: it made sense to me.
- 20:46Speaker 1: Okay, everybody's nodding. That's all that matters. That's all that matters.
- 20:49Speaker 1: That's so true.
- 20:50Speaker 2: We're back again tomorrow. Gary and Shannon are up next.
- 20:54Speaker 2: Wake Up Call from 5 to 6 with Amy and Will.
- 20:58Speaker 2: Neil and I from 6 to 9 with everybody else.
- 21:02Speaker 2: And then Ann and Kono, always here, making life hilarious
- 21:07Speaker 2: for us.
- 21:08Speaker 1: And by the way.
- 21:10Speaker 2: Kono, and I hate you guys too, just to make
- 21:15Speaker 2: you part of the family.
- 21:17Speaker 1: It's National Forgiveness Day, and I forgive you. Is it really?
- 21:21Speaker 1: It really is National Forgiveness Day? I forgive you. You've
- 21:24Speaker 1: been listening to The Bill Handel Show. Catch my show
- 21:27Speaker 1: Monday through Friday, 6 a.m.
- 21:28Speaker 2: To 9 a.m., and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.