Latest / The SEANC View / Winter weather is here, but COLAs are not

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Winter weather is here, but COLAs are not · The SEANC View

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If you're hearing the sound of my voice, that means you survived the winter
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storm and are listening to another edition of the Scenic View podcast.
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I'm your host, Jonathan Owens, along with Artis Watkins and Suzanne Beasley
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and Sammy Klein, the podcast producer.
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We've got lots to talk about, so let's get to it.
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All right. First off, winter storm. Was it a dud or what's the take on it? Was it bad or was it a dud?
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I'm hearing people say there was an overreaction, especially my kids who are
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upset that there was no snow. I kind of feel that way.
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I mean, it was still, you know, roads were dangerous and but we didn't lose
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power. So there's the. Yeah.
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Yeah. I mean, it's a timing issue. But for the grace of God,
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we could be Mississippi or Tennessee, and it looked like bombs went off there.
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So just grateful and warm. Or you could be in Michigan where trees are exploding.
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Yeah, I saw that too. That's crazy.
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But have no fear because another storm is approaching.
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So I told my daughter this morning about that, and she was like,
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ah, it won't do anything. You
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know, like last week, they were like all excited. This is going to happen.
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And then this week, they're like, oh, no, nothing's going to happen.
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I think that happens to us every year, and then when we think it's not going
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to happen, then we get a big old snow, right?
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We haven't had a good snow in a long time. It has been a long time.
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We always get messy snow. But that was a good sledding snow we had.
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Oh, yeah. I saw your video.
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We've not gotten a good sledding snow in years.
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That was a good one. I'm in Garner, so we didn't get anything but ice.
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Yeah, your road that we talked about last week was pretty slick. It's a fun road.
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Artis shared a video of her going down the hill with us.
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Speed of light. Yeah, it was fun. You were like on National Lampoos.
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Did you spray the stuff on the bottom of your sled?
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No, but you know, I wasn't prepared. You need to put, at least take a candle
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and rub it on those rudders for the flexible flyer.
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But anyway, it's been a while. I was glad to see it.
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But when I wasn't outside, I was enjoying the Louisville Metropolitan Police
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Department Twitter site. Have y'all seen that? No.
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Oh, my goodness. Anybody who doesn't follow LMPD, that's their X handle,
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at LMPD, they're hysterical.
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They're the ones that, like, we weren't, you know, if you're out and you crash,
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we're not coming to you. Yeah. You're hired.
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Yeah, they were great. And they kept entertainment going, and they reminded
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me, we have some great state government websites.
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You know, some of the agencies' communication shops are very,
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very good and funny. Especially the wildlife, and I love them.
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Yes, but they took it to the next level at the Louisville Metropolitan Police
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Department. So check that out, y'all.
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I didn't have as much fun as I thought. What did you do, Sammy?
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I mean, what does a Zen Zee do during the storm?
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Well, when you live alone, you get stuck inside and you just sit there with your dog.
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It's sad. Because it wasn't fun snow. It was just me being concerned about,
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I'm going to slip and fall. My dog, he's going to slip and fall.
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He went to the dog park and had fun about it. But other than that, I was.
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Yeah, my dog, my dog is like part Bernese mountain dog.
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So he's obsessed with the ice and snow. So he wants to go out like every five
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minutes. Yeah. He's so annoying during the snow.
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And then we have another dog who's like a golden doodle, and he's like,
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No thanks. Whatever. I don't want to be out there.
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And so he stays in most of the time. But Louie gets very annoying during snow.
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Because I know a lot of the main roads are clear. My apartment complex still
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have black ice all over the roads in our apartment complex.
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So I can't walk, really, without possibly falling.
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So how are y'all's snowman-making abilities? Because it seems like this might
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be a real snow. Good if we get some snow, man. I can roll a snowball.
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They're saying it's going to be a real snow this week. We'll see.
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Look forward to the pictures on our Facebook page of Susan Makin's snow.
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And I want to say, speaking of the LMPDX site, I saw a lot of comments about
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folks who are essential and have to work during this time.
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We talked about them on the last podcast.
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You know, we've got people who have to go to hospitals. And I was even noticing
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some of the people reporting that some of these hospitals were having to pay
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for their own accommodations and crazy stuff.
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And by the way, shame on y'all. Y'all got plenty of money.
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Pay your people and take care of them. But we had, you know,
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a lot of people were recognized by public officials and so forth. That's great.
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And it's the right thing to do. Linemen, people who do essential services in
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the worst of times. I was a little bummed that the state employees weren't recognized
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by as many state officials because that's your workforce.
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So it's great to notice all the other folks, but don't forget they're out there
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quietly doing their job.
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I know one piece of equipment for DOT turned over in the office.
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Yeah, I saw that. A couple of them. I saw another one in Raleigh.
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There was one in Moore County, and then there was another one in Raleigh.
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And everybody was okay, is my understanding, but it's a dangerous job.
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And when everybody else wants to, at the point in the storm where everybody
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else would do anything but go outside in that mess.
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And like we've said, it's not just folks who work on the road and the situation.
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They also have people who have to go to prisons and facilities.
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Yeah, DHHS facilities, and they have to go stay. Yeah.
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And universities who have dining halls and things like that,
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or folks keeping facility services running at universities.
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There were some parents complaining on a chat thing that I'm a part of about dining hall,
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Cutting back the type of food they had during the storm, forgetting that these
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universities are relying on employees to get there and risk their lives to come over there.
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So adjusting the menu a bit is something. Yeah, come on, people.
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So just remember. At least your kid's getting fed. Right.
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So good luck this weekend. And let's go to our first major topic of the discussion.
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I guess the Retirement System Board of Trustees meet tomorrow.
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To this? What are they discussing?
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They will go over the experience study by Gallagher, the actuaries.
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So we're always going to be focused on, you know, getting a COLA.
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We're also going to do some work on increasing the formula that,
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you know, determines how much you'll get and benefit when you retire.
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But a COLA is a cost of living adjustment. It is not something that automatically happens.
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The retirement system is built to provide money from investment gains to,
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you know, pay for that COLA.
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And that has not happened in a very long time.
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Treasurer Reiner, you know, a few months ago, he did a video and,
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you know, shared that his new team had realized $14 billion in investment gains.
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And, you know, that's great.
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That money didn't automatically go to the retirement system to pay for a COLA.
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Folks got excited. We got excited.
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But that money has been steered to the unfunded liability.
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The unfunded liability of the plan means that the plan actually owes pensioners
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more money than the plan has to pay out.
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Now, that being said, everybody's not going to retire on the same day,
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so the sky's not falling, but it is an issue, and Treasurer Briner,
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you know, moved that money, directed that money to pay towards the unfunded liability.
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I don't know if you guys Remember when we reported on the last Board of Trustees
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meeting that former House Representative Pat Hurley Thornburg had made a motion
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for a three and a half percent COLA.
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Everybody got really excited to hear that.
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The board asked her to hang on to that until the January meeting.
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So we'll see if she puts the motion out there again tomorrow and go from there.
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However, that is an incredible amount of money to ask for in an appropriation.
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So stay tuned for more information on that. What I will say is,
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you know, looking at some states around us, Tennessee has a defined benefit
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plan like North Carolina does, not on the same scale as ours,
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but they have more state employees.
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And they also got a COLA of 3 percent. Georgia, one and a half percent COLA.
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They also have a defined benefit.
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There are some tiers in their plan that differs a little bit than North Carolina.
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But still, these states are giving COLAs and they also have more state employees.
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Do they have more, or have they just commensurate to their population added,
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whereas we did not add commensurate? Exactly. Okay. Exactly. And—
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You know, we often say that retirees, it's important for you to speak up for
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employees that are still working.
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And that is even more important. I mean, just look at it this way.
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Active employees are what's paying retirees benefits.
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Active employees, their 6% is what's paying for retiree pension benefits. So if we and we are.
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And sometimes what the state kicks in as well. True.
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But there have but the state's not required. The employees are required by law.
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That's right. So you're right. The only thing you can count on is the 6% from
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those employee paychecks.
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Yeah. So kind of my point there is, retirees, it is super important for you
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to speak up for active employees, for filling vacant positions,
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for, you know, increasing the number of employees we have to provide services.
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And, yes, we're speaking against cutting positions. We need to fill those positions
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for so many reasons, the retirement system being one of them.
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I did a little amateur research in preparing for the old podcast here,
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and I was just looking at colas, just how other states do it.
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And I noticed that some states have automatics, the statutory colas that have
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to come every year. Yeah, we do not.
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So my question is, like, it says New York, Missouri, and Washington are three
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that have statutory colas.
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And our plan is always known as, like, one of the most well-funded plans.
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That just means you're holding on to the money. You're not giving it.
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Exactly. So how are these places who are lower on the funding list than we are?
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How are they able to, by law, give colas like this?
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They plan accordingly. They make it one of the priorities in their budget.
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I was going to say they make it an investment.
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Okay. So why couldn't we do that here, I guess, is the question.
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Well, there's not the political will.
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There hasn't been. We even tried years ago a bill that would require a mandatory
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COLA, and that went over like a fart in church because nobody wants to pay for retirees.
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They want to have them clear the roads after snowstorms and hurricanes and have
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them provide that law enforcement to you and do all of these things and then
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kind of set them aside and forget about them when they retire.
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And particularly the North Carolina Senate has a philosophy of,
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you know, they don't want to fund COLAs because they don't believe that you
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get, you know, a raise after you've retired. And I think that would work.
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Honestly, if you had good investment gains, which we had this year.
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The plan had money. If you had a normal amount of employees for your population, it would work.
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But what happened is in 23 or 24, Treasurer Falwell announced that for the first
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time, we had more retirees than we had people putting into the system.
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And folks are living longer, too. Folks are living longer, yeah.
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Well, not if they work in corrections.
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That's true. Which, by the way, if you don't know, the average age nationally
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for a correctional officer to die is 59.
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So if you're listening to this and you didn't already have extra appreciation
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for folks who do not get law enforcement benefits, but have one of the most
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dangerous jobs mentally, emotionally, physically, there's that tidbit for you.
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But anyway, the main thing is that we've said it multiple times now in the last week.
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Almost 20 years, over 15, our population has soared by 18 percent.
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But the number of state employees is literally about the same as it was more than 15 years ago.
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And that's the people putting into this system.
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So, of course, at some point, if you're not adding employees to your population,
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then you're going to go backwards.
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That's an aspect that I don't think even our retirees think about,
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that when one side is adamant about cutting jobs and about cutting state services,
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a byproduct of that is less for the retirement system and therefore no cola for you.
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So that's something that you really need to think about. Well,
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it's playing chess and not checkers.
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You got to realize there's why that money that does, you know,
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happen in returns has to go back into the unfunded liability because sustainability
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will be... Explain unfunded liability for a second.
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So the unfunded liability is the amount of money that the retirement system
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owes to every person who will be qualified to retire.
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So future retirees are included in the amount of the unfunded liability,
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which at the end of December 2024, which is what, you know, all of the numbers
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will be based on, the last full year of business was $12 billion.
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It's a lot of money. Yeah.
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So here's what's interesting to me. We talked just now about how the 6% from
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employees is the only thing legally that has to be done.
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And that what the state's putting in every year is up to them. It's been zero.
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It's been just barely above zero.
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And in recent years, it's been extraordinarily high, 18%. And that's kind of
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the hole we've dug. I don't understand.
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Again, it's part of the whole pennywise pound foolish to me to have to pay that
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much just to keep the system right rather than taking a fraction of that,
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adding it to salary so you can recruit for these positions and then get the
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6% out of the paycheck every month of each of those people who are A,
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providing services and keeping up with your population growth demand for services,
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but B, putting their money in every month.
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So it seems pennywise pound foolish to have to put this employer contribution
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in there, still leave these retirees treated like dirt, you're not getting anywhere.
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And your state is left with less services than ever before.
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Well, and I know, I know, Treasurer Reiner, I read in an article,
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he said, you know, this is a, this should make taxpayers happy,
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paying down the unfunded liability.
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And, well, yeah, because you're paying down the unfunded liability.
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However, on the other side, taxpayers are not getting the services that their
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tax dollars go to. Right.
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But a mortgage is an unfunded liability, right? You don't know you're going to have that job.
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So if you're trying to pay your mortgage down instead of pay your electricity
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bill and your family's freezing, you could tell your family till you're blue
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in the face, you should be happy because we're paying the mortgage down.
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If they're freezing, they don't feel that way. Right.
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It seems like that's always thrown out as a boogeyman. It does.
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Well, and it is. It is kind of the boogeyman thing. The bigger issue here is
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decreasing the number of active state employees and how that's going to affect
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the sustainability of the pension fund. Well, you can do more than one thing.
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You can pay the unfunded liability down at a pace maybe less than you would love to.
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And you can do something to, again, fix the situation you have where less people
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are paying in than are taken out by being able to fill those jobs because you give competitive pay.
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You can do things like Georgia, who's kept up with their population in terms
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of adding employees to keep up with it, but also outpaces per capita the growth
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in their gross state product compared to us.
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So they're winning, winning, winning and we're losing, losing, losing on that.
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You can do more than one thing. You can walk and chew gum at the same time, right?
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I guess this is a broader point, but it gets me that we always love to talk
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about how great North Carolina's economy is for business.
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And then we say we can't afford public services. We can't afford to have employees. But I digress.
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Well, I mean, we deserve the number one for business and that's great.
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You have to have business.
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You have to have industry brought in. But if having the industry here isn't
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bringing in enough money that you can afford to at least keep up with the kind
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of services you were providing 15 years ago, what are you doing for the public?
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Well, when your services start suffering, the less businesses are going to want to come.
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And then there's financial consequences of that.
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So that's kind of...
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It's always like a huge tangled web once we get through a topic.
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Well, there's so many. Everything is attached to everything. Yeah.
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Another topic that came up this week, the show State Lines on PBS North Carolina
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featured a segment on the SNAP benefits and possible federal penalties that
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might come because of error reporting or errors in. Yeah.
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So the one big, beautiful bill had a provision in it, apparently,
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that would say, on SNAP benefits, if your error rate for your state was above
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a certain percentage, you would be given less from the federal government.
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That would be your penalty.
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And so in North Carolina, our error rate was high enough that this would mean
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hundreds of millions of dollars.
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So when we talk about not having enough people resulting in Pennywise pound
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foolish results, this is one of those things.
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So on state lines, they talked about the fact that 20 states are in the situation
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North Carolina is in where our error reporting exceeded the acceptable error
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report by the federal government.
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And therefore they would claw back some of the dollars that they were giving
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our program for people who need food.
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And so some things, it said, we're gonna need more staffing to pay for that
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to enforce the work requirements affiliated with the SNAP benefits.
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And so we have to add staffing, so that's an unfunded mandate.
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And we talked about unfunded mandates with Deputy Secretary Lasseter on this
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podcast a few weeks ago in terms of juvenile justice.
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And, well, his unfunded mandate he talked about was the gun safety,
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which was passed with no money.
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So he's been using lapsed salary to pay for that because he had to figure out a way to pay for it.
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And then he also talked about the fact that we can get federal penalties if
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we don't properly staff these facilities.
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We don't pay enough to be competitive in those facilities.
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So he's used lapsed salary to get some temps in there. You know,
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lap salaries have been a real buzzword as though they're some kind of bad thing.
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They're being used to fill gaps where we are not adequately funding our state government.
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So these SNAP benefits that were discussed and this massive penalty we will
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acquire because we don't have enough folks to do that work, it seems,
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is the latest of many instances we're hearing where we are losing so much money
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because we won't invest.
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So we're right back to the pension situation.
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So this story by WRAL says that the plan to cut SNAP funding by 20 percent is
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the largest cut to the program ever.
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And it's part of the one big, beautiful bill.
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And county and state officials are struggling to implement the requirements for it.
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Oh, yeah. So it's not just state. I mean, it's... Oh, yeah. We're not in this boat alone.
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But, you know, when you cut, it's the risk you take to a degree.
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When you cut and want to operate your state government or your public,
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your local government on the razor's edge, let's cut it down as far as we can
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cut it down and still kind of get by and then only address things when the public's in a clamor.
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You're in a position where if a federal law changes, you may be really in a fix there.
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There are not enough people that you can go fill gaps. And so,
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again, when people say, well, if we've cut all these employees and state's still
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operating, we must have had too many in the first place.
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No, this is a great example of
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why we, in fact, did not. We don't have any room for error. Mind of mind.
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And so to bring it full circle here, starting next year, the new law will require
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states to pay up to 15 percent of SNAP benefits costs if errors are more than 6 percent of cases.
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And I guess what you're arguing is if you don't have the people to make sure
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those errors don't happen, then there's no way you can prevent those cuts.
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Yeah, and I mean, and again, we've said this before because she did such a great
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job making the case, but Secretary of State Elaine Marshall also explained to
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a legislative committee how we're leaving money on the table.
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First of all, we're not serving business as well right now, according to Secretary Marshall.
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In terms of when they file essential documents, they have to, to run a business.
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We're not able to be really fast about our response, which delays people's business
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endeavors. That's a huge thing.
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And then on top of that, she says the state's losing income that they receive
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because, you know, you pay a fee when you're starting a business.
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Well, I mean, it's back to not being able to You provide services,
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so, you know, businesses are going to... And it costs.
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Not being able to provide services always seems like it's just a savings.
21:51
Great. We're spending less.
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But when you're facing federal penalties if your juvenile justice centers are
21:58
not properly staffed, if you're not bringing in money that Secretary of State's office,
22:04
Department of Insurance also brings in money not just for the state,
22:08
But for individual taxpayers who believe they've been wronged by the insurance industry,
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there are so many examples where more money would be coming in if we had more people to do it.
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So it's not a savings.
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It's easy to look like that from 30,000 feet. But when you drill down,
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it is absolutely not a savings.
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And it's a huge risk. So just reading through this story and the others that
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have been like it about the Medicaid issue, it just seems like it's going to
22:37
be a huge, like we just talked about, a big web.
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There's a lot of aspects that need to be addressed, and the legislature hasn't done that yet.
22:45
And they have to now, right? Yeah.
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And do you see that coming in April? We think that'll be the main topic.
22:52
April 21. Oh, I'm sure that's up there at the top of the list. Yeah.
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And the people that are disproportionately affected almost every time,
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I know in the discussion on state lines it was brought up, rural communities
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will be hit the most by that.
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Almost every time, if you underfund something, our rural areas in North Carolina
23:11
are going to take a much bigger hit than anywhere else. It's certainly true in state services.
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The state, as it used to grow according to population, would make a huge effort
23:22
to put locations for state services that made sense in certain rural areas.
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And then that would kind of be the linchpin from which other economic growth,
23:33
private economic growth, would have this base to build around.
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And look at the city of Morganton to this day in the county of Burke County. It's a...
23:43
Sam Irvin, right? Yeah. I mean, down in Goldsboro, similar.
23:47
Similar stuff happened in Wayne County and down in Goldsboro.
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And our university, it's out across the state. Absolutely, yeah.
23:53
That is the first step to building, to beefing up a local economy and having
23:59
the community be stronger.
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I don't think you have many legislators that would tell you,
24:03
especially ones from rural areas, hey, everybody's living high on the hog where I'm from.
24:09
This change alone could cost $69 million to counties.
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So, I mean, it's definitely something we're going to be watching.
24:15
We need to have Stephanie Maschie on the old podcast because she works in Medicaid.
24:20
I didn't know that. Yeah. Yeah. Stephanie is the chairwoman of the Scenic DHHS Study Committee.
24:27
Yeah. And I was just talking to her the other day because she graciously accepted
24:32
an interview with a media person I was working with.
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And she brought up that she works, you know, she's right in the thick of the Medicaid issue.
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So I didn't know that.
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But I'm not sure if she would be comfortable enough to talk about it,
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but maybe we can coax her, too. Well, we can try.
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Yeah, she joined us at the legislature a couple of weeks ago,
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and I learned quite a bit just sitting beside of her during the committee meeting.
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Listen to your fellow state employees. You all have a story for us,
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so you all know what's going on at your work site. So let us know if you know something.
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I'm starting a new segment, y'all. Now this is going to be a new segment.
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It's called Stuff I Stole from
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Other Podcasts. We're not making a theme song for that. Oh, we have to.
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Yeah, this is items that I or we have heard throughout the week on other podcasts
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that we thought would be nice to bring to you guys.
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And this one I stole from the News and Observers Under the Dome podcast,
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which is a staple for everyone in state government or state politics.
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This week, they talked about the UNC Chapel Hill Board of Trustees surprise
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resolution to cut $17 million in administrative costs at their last meeting.
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It kind of came out of nowhere at the end of the meeting. Looks like that could
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possibly result in some layoffs. I think without question.
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UNC Chancellor Lee Roberts told the News and Observer layoffs are always a last resort.
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Most of our operating budget is salaries and benefits. So as soon as you start
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talking about savings, you very quickly get to headcount.
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But we can do a lot through attrition and through slowing down our hiring.
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So, so far this fiscal year, we've already saved about $8 million without layoffs,
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just in slowing down hiring and through attrition.
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I think that's how we think about it. Your thoughts?
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Well, I don't know if there's enough attrition for that much money.
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But I mean, you've already got people overworked doing, you know,
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the jobs of more than one employee and.
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Is this something that's going to, you know, this is UNC Chapel Hill specifically.
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Is this something that's maybe system-wide that they're going to be thinking
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about? I would anticipate that, yeah.
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Yeah. I mean, do we know what the programs are that are being?
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The story says that Chapel Hill's pocketbook has felt worryingly light to leadership
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as of late because of a lack of a state budget, federal funding pressure,
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and a new method for funding campus performance.
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And the university would rely heavily on centralizing administrative functions,
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reducing duplication and standardizing process through an initiative they've titled Service First.
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Oh, this is all the Service First stuff. Okay. Yeah.
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So what do you think, Artis? Is this going to come to other campuses?
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Is this something trending that way?
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Or is this? I think that talking about stealing from other podcasts and the
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NNO, Under the Dome podcast that you started this with, in that discussion,
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it was said, you know, the Board of Trustees, Carolina is kind of like the Board
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of Governors overall for the university system.
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They're going to kind of follow the lead of the General Assembly.
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So if you see the idea of a lot of cuts coming, that's going to definitely creep
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and crawl through anything the state, you know, tax dollars touch.
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I think the question is, when you say administrative folks.
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Are you talking about the people, the lower level people, or are you talking
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about having less layers of big wheels, your top administrative folks? It matters.
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Yeah. It matters very much because it matters in terms of how much is going
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to fall on the shoulders of other low-paid administrative individuals versus
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falling on the shoulders of the highly compensated, big title folks.
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And I think we need more information on that, for sure.
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It's sad. I do think the university system is one where a lot of us have grave
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concerns and being alums from Carolina.
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I know that folks who are alums from Carolina, there's a lot of talk about what's
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happening over there, what's going on.
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And we hope that things are going to be for the best, but we're not so sure.
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There's a lot of things like that, like the whole logo change they made.
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Why did we spend 600 grand for a logo we already have? Yeah.
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You didn't mind spending that much money, but you want to cut you off.
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Right. It's very hard to explain.
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I don't get, just an aside, as an alum, I don't get moving to the athletic logo
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and away from the academic whale logo.
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Right. But because it said, you know, they're going to go to more of a,
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what is it, an interlocking approach to the marketing of the university.
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If we're going to do that, let's interlock the money, the money from athletics
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with the money for academics, because the money for academics has been quite
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skimpy compared to what the money for athletics has been.
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And the university got to where it was because of the academics, the strong academics.
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And that's, yes, we're all super fans.
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Especially of UNC basketball But why are we most proud of that UNC degree?
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It's not the basketball team Right Yeah,
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And the whale logo was cool. I liked it. So when you think of the academic side
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of the school, you think of the whale or South building.
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Maybe even they could use South. Yeah. So, I mean, you worry about the future.
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Yeah. This is a huge topic. Like, what is the future of athletics at state universities like UNC?
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And what is the purpose of UNC? It's just a huge, broad topic, you know?
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Like, should they be pretty much a professional athlete? The university system
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is there to have affordable access to education for a strong workforce that
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you talk about wanting to stay number one in business.
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You want to stay strong in terms of your university system.
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I think our university system has survived as well as it has against the odds.
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Because it's been strong leadership at these individual constituent universities
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that has made us stay viable with a funding stream that has,
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like everything else, has just not met what we needed to be.
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But I do worry for students, if you talk about cutting administrative positions,
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that if they are lower level administrative positions, those are the folks who
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do things the students need.
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Exactly. And you're already, yeah, Yeah. If you're a parent of somebody in a
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public university in North Carolina,
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you already have seen and hear a lot about how there's less and less availability
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of people for students compared to five years ago, certainly compared to 10 and 15,
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where we could get tremendously quick.
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Extensive help from admin staff. It's just they're not able to do it now.
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There's not as many of them per capita.
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It comes right back around to that. So if you're adding provosts,
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you're adding big wheels, you're not helping students in the same way.
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And don't take this the wrong way,
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scenic listeners. I am a huge Carolina basketball fan and football game.
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I mean, I'm not saying that you're a super fan. I'm not saying that athletics
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should be cut, but it should be a secondary thing to the academic side. But I digress.
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Also, another debate on campus, since this is Carolina time,
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we could splice in the fight song or something, but move in the Dean Dome.
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Do y'all have any opinions about that?
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I thought we should get a current student in here to talk about this.
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Yeah, that'd be awesome. I got one.
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Oh, really? Well, bring them in. I mean, what I would have to say about that
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is I don't think anybody cares of poop what we have to say, maybe a student,
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but not what we have to say. Roy Williams has weighed in, and I don't think
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any of us are going to try to compete with Roy's opinion.
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That's kind of my take. I got, you know, I have opinions on both sides.
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I think either one is probably doable.
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I don't really care either way. But if Roy and Dean Smith care,
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then that's probably what we should do.
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So another topic that came up on the Under the Dome, this won't be part of our
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official segment, but just a reminder that early voting starts on February 12th
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and runs through February 28th, which is a couple weeks from now.
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We got some sad news this week.
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Kim Delaney, a candidate for NC House 73 from Cabarrus County,
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unexpectedly passed away.
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So regards to her family, I didn't really see any specifics beyond that about the.
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Yeah. Had you guys dealt with her at all? Just that it was unexpected, so.
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Had you guys dealt with her at all or anything? No. But it's early in the impact process.
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Did see, you know, she leaves behind two children, so.
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That's really sad. That's super hard to hear and, you know.
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Especially about someone who's willing to step up and run for office.
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Just a little tidbit on that. I don't think people realize a lot of times that
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North Carolina actually has a citizen legislature.
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So you have to be in a special predicament to be able to serve in our General Assembly.
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And we've talked about it several times, you know, how everyone gets up in arms
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when we talk about raises for them.
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But if you did pay them a full-time salary, you would probably get entirely
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different cast of characters.
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You know, really only retirees can be in the legislature. Or independently wealthy.
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Independently wealthy. Yeah. So that's something to think about North Carolina.
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Maybe, I mean, it's a very important job.
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Well, I mean, we're never off. The legislature goes year-round now. Yeah.
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You get what you pay for, just like state services, right? That could be like
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another state service, right? There you go.
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Anyway, we'll get off of that topic. Do we have any Gen Z discussion this week?
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Sammy, you said that the Gen Z is kind of up in arms about what's going on in
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Minneapolis. Is there any lighter topics to discuss? or...
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Not really. I mean, people are upset about that. People are upset about TikTok has new partial. Yeah.
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Quarter of it is owned by a company called Oracle now. Owned by Larry Ellison, right?
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So, yeah, it's different now. TikTok is seeming a little more.
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It might just be some bugs that they're currently trying to work out with someone
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having new quarter ownership that
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they're trying to figure out what's changing. Or it could not be that.
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I mean, when Vine transferred ownership, that's when it started to deteriorate
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and no one really used it anymore. So who knows?
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Aside, I think Vine is a fascinating thing.
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Like it was huge for like three minutes and then it disappeared. I know. What happened?
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The people who owned it shut it down. And that's partially because the people
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who were influencers and who were getting big on there, they weren't getting paid.
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I think there's like a huge. So they stopped posting because they're like,
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we're not getting any money for this.
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Why are we entertaining people? And they all went to Instagram.
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They all went to YouTube and Instagram because those were platforms that were
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paying them for their content.
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OK, so maybe it's not that complicated. Maybe it's just mismanagement.
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Yeah. But yeah, but I've always thought Vine was like an interesting thing about
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social media. Let's go to the question of the week.
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All right, so my question of the week is very quick, and I think I know the
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answer from everyone, but I wanted to bring it up just to maybe incite a little more discussion.
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But would you rather watch a TV show, like, binge watch it straight through,
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or do you like watching it week to week, like, episodically?
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Well, it depends. If I can sit down and binge it, I'm going to binge it,
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but, you know, sometimes you can't. This comes up with us because we're big
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fans of The Pit. Have you seen The Pit?
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Oh, my gosh. I heard it was good. It's the best show ever. It's on HBO.
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But it's a great show. It's like hour by hour.
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Each episode is an hour at an emergency room in Pittsburgh. And it's amazing.
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Like, the acting is amazing. But you have to watch it every week.
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Like, HBO, their shows come out every week.
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So we got to a topic like, you know, every week you're like, oh, no, what happened?
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And then it ends. and you have to wait a whole nother week.
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It's so frustrating. We've gotten so used to binging. Yeah, we really have.
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When it's just a weekly episode. So we're debating on whether to not watch it
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and then wait and then binge it all at the end or not.
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But I think that's funny that we've kind of changed to that because back in
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the day, everything was episodic like that.
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What about you, Artis? Do you like watching it all at once? I binge because
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we did grow up having to wait.
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Yeah. I'm not good at having to wait for anything, so.
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I like the wait. Oh, do you? I do. I do. I grew up watching a show,
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well, everyone probably knows this, Big Brother.
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Yeah. I love watching Big Brother, and that's like three episodes a week,
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and it's real time because they're actively trapped in this house.
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And so you're watching it, and you're like, oh, yeah, well.
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That person's gone this week. Let's see who goes next week. And I don't know. I like real-time stuff.
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Right now, I'm watching A Night of the Seven Kingdoms, a new Game of Thrones
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series, and it comes out on HBO Max as well. It's week by week.
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And I kind of like it because it's something to look forward to.
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That's true. We do get excited every time we see a new pit pop up. Yeah.
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Yeah. So you're kind of an old soul there, Sammy. Well, it's also because when
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I was growing up, I loved, like, my family, we had shows that we watched every week.
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We had like Mom came out every week or Brooklyn Nine-Nine, a new episode would
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come out every week. And that was family time.
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Yeah, so it was family time. So it's basically a time for me to actually sit
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down and like watch something.
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Of course, there are shows that like are older shows that I'll go back and be
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like, ah, I just want to binge something that I don't want to pay attention to.
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I just want to mindlessly have something on in the background.
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Yeah, I get that. Like Friends or The Nanny.
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Those are kind of things that I throw on mindlessly in the background.
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But yeah, Parks and Rec, right?
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Well, sure, there's a lot of shows for you to binge this weekend as you are
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braving another winter storm snap.
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But enjoy the snow cream and we'll see you next week.