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SoCal Needs More Water Locally| Summer Teen Jobs · The Bill Handel Show

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from KFI AM
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: sixty contessation. They pretend job Bill Handle here in the
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: morning through a Tuesday morning, May twenty six, the unofficial
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  Speaker 1: start of summer. Yesterday, I was watching a documentary about
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  Speaker 1: Machu Pichu in Peru and how the might watchu Peachu hydrologists.
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  Speaker 1: This is this village way up in the hills and
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  Speaker 1: they don't have any source of water except rainwater coming in,
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  Speaker 1: and they were able to figure out how to keep
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  Speaker 1: an entire community going just with rainwater. And we're not
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  Speaker 1: talking about you know, you're in the middle of the
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  Speaker 1: jungle where you have rainwater every day. And so that
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  Speaker 1: leads right into this story where Southern Californian's environmental groups
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  Speaker 1: calling for a water renaissance, saying that we in the
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  Speaker 1: region need to invest in getting more of our water locally.
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  Speaker 1: And that's important because Southern California depends on water imported
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  Speaker 1: from northern California the Colorado River. What this group wants
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  Speaker 1: to do is get Southern California to get eighty five
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  Speaker 1: percent of its water locally. Right now is fifty percent,
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  Speaker 1: and they want to do this by twenty forty five.
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  Speaker 1: And so this coalition that's surging, state leaders scrapping the
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  Speaker 1: plans for this forty five mile tunnel beneath the Sacramento
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  Speaker 1: of San Joaquin River delta and saying instead of that,
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  Speaker 1: approve a bond measure to fund local water solutions, which
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  Speaker 1: sort of has to be done. And over the last century,
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  Speaker 1: Southern California, remember that we're a semi desert. Southern California
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  Speaker 1: is not known for tons of water, and so these
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  Speaker 1: giant aqueducts were built to bring in water from hundreds
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  Speaker 1: of miles away. You've seen the California Aqueduct that brings people.
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  Speaker 1: You drive on the five and you see it right
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  Speaker 1: there coming down. It's bringing water from the northern part
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  Speaker 1: of bringing water from the Sacramento area. So water costs
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  Speaker 1: arising climate change, by the way, you're not hearing much
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  Speaker 1: about how climate change the hoax anymore, are you. These
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  Speaker 1: sources are being challenged, and so there's a growing interest
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  Speaker 1: how do we get more water locally? And so here
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  Speaker 1: are the ways of doing it. Recycling more wastewater, you know,
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  Speaker 1: using gray water for example, that's being used not toilet water,
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  Speaker 1: but everything other than that, you know, sink water, and
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  Speaker 1: water that's used to irrigate, using that for drinking water,
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  Speaker 1: capturing more storm water, improving efficiency, cleaning up contaminated groundwater. Also,
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  Speaker 1: we're talking about desalination plants that are going up, the
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  Speaker 1: biggest one going up I think near San die Go.
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  Speaker 1: You put all of that together, and all of a sudden,
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  Speaker 1: you have some real advantage here. The coalition, by the way,
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  Speaker 1: includes fishing groups, environmental organizations, and that world famous northern
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  Speaker 1: California Indian tribe, the winnim m Winto tribe, which of
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  Speaker 1: course everybody knows about. Yeah, and the plan calls for
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  Speaker 1: this new urban water renaissance that prioritizes local water. And
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  Speaker 1: the argument is, is going to give us more water
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  Speaker 1: for less money than Newsom's proposed Delta conveyance project beneath
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  Speaker 1: the delta and bringing water down here because the state
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  Speaker 1: estimated in twenty twenty four the tunnel project would cost
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  Speaker 1: twenty point one billion dollars. But hey, look at the
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  Speaker 1: bullet train right when you have a major state project. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: look at that. So, according to a water expert and consultant,
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  Speaker 1: local water is reliable, it's more affordable, it's more flexible.
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  Speaker 1: And the coalition says we can get up to two
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  Speaker 1: million acre feet of local water per year. An acre
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  Speaker 1: foot is an acre of water one feet deep. That's
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  Speaker 1: I don't know why they that's the how they measure it,
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  Speaker 1: I guess. And what they're saying is that over the
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  Speaker 1: next two decades more conservation efficiency, storm water, groundwater cleaning,
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  Speaker 1: water recycling is going to cost forty four billion dollars
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  Speaker 1: the tunnel, and contrast is looking at sixty billion to
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  Speaker 1: probably one hundred billion dollars because that's the way it
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  Speaker 1: works with these projects, so effectively, they're saying, let's take
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  Speaker 1: it away from the state and move it locally and
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  Speaker 1: start working on a new facility in Carson to transform
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  Speaker 1: wastewater into purified drinking water. LA and San Diego also
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  Speaker 1: building water recycling plants, and it actually works. As a
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  Speaker 1: matter of fact, at the Metroproblem Water Distinct has already
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  Speaker 1: invested in water efficiency and capturing storm water, and it
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  Speaker 1: has helped reduce per person water use by more than
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  Speaker 1: forty percent since nineteen ninety I mean, we do a
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  Speaker 1: good job. As a matter of fact, under Governor Brown,
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  Speaker 1: it called for water reduction and the met certain criterion
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  Speaker 1: we beat that. We beat the request to reduce our
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  Speaker 1: water and so the bottom line, of course is climate change.
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  Speaker 1: It's exacerbating the challenge in these ecosystems. So what they're saying,
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  Speaker 1: let's do it locally and yet more efficient storm drains,
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  Speaker 1: I mean all of it, water retention, put all that
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  Speaker 1: together and it works. So this is going to be incremental.
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  Speaker 1: All right. Now, let me put it this way. That's
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  Speaker 1: down or the number of jobs available. That's thirty percent
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  Speaker 1: from last year. So it looks like this summer is
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  Speaker 1: gonna be the worst for teen employment since nineteen forty
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  Speaker 1: eight when the federal government started tracking this data and
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  Speaker 1: rising inflation and higher fuel prices. Wait a second, but
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  Speaker 1: look at big business, how well it's doing well. The
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  Speaker 1: small businesses are getting squeezed. Restaurants are getting squeezed. And
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  Speaker 1: this is where teenagers normally get their summer jobs. Resorts, hotels,
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  Speaker 1: amusement parks. They give jobs to young workers. And this
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  Speaker 1: year seventy percent fewer roles than last year. I mean,
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  Speaker 1: the numbers are horrific. It's the lowest summer hiring total
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  Speaker 1: for teens and nearly eighty years. Because last summer teen
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  Speaker 1: jobs plunged by more than twenty five percent from a
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  Speaker 1: year earlier, and then that's down from twenty twenty two,
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  Speaker 1: and then twenty twenty three it was down, the twenty
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  Speaker 1: twenty four was down, and it just keeps on dropping precipitously.
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  Speaker 1: And last summer was the weakest summer for teen hiring
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  Speaker 1: we've ever recorded. And what's striking about this is there's
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  Speaker 1: no recession happening here. That's really weird that you don't
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  Speaker 1: usually see. Now, there is one job that you have
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  Speaker 1: a lot of people up seventy eight percent from last year,
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  Speaker 1: and that's lifeguards. Now, looking at some of these facilities,
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  Speaker 1: there is a family owned holiday World and Splash and Safari,
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  Speaker 1: and they're saying we're going to do better business, and
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  Speaker 1: the theme parks may end up doing better business. And
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  Speaker 1: why is that, Well, think of this and it makes
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  Speaker 1: a lot of sense when you go just beyond the surface,
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  Speaker 1: and that is people can't afford vacations anymore, big vacation.
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  Speaker 1: So what they're doing is they're doing staycations. And virtually
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  Speaker 1: every community has an amusement park near it, and even
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  Speaker 1: going to expensive places universal Disneyland, for example, it's a
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  Speaker 1: lot cheaper to jump in the car and drive out
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  Speaker 1: to Anaheim or Buena Park and go to Disneyland or
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  Speaker 1: not Sperry Farm. That it is jumping on an airplane
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  Speaker 1: and going to a vacation spot because it's just way
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  Speaker 1: too expensive. Also, if you're driving, look at the gas prices.
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  Speaker 1: So people are thinking, how about some fun activities closer
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  Speaker 1: to home. Here's another weird one that I don't understand,
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  Speaker 1: because you've got this Memorial Day weekend and the number
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  Speaker 1: of drivers will or have broken every record, more drivers
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  Speaker 1: on the road than ever before, with gas being forty
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  Speaker 1: percent higher, and people are driving and I mean for hundreds,
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  Speaker 1: if not thousands of miles, So who the hell knows.
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  Speaker 1: If you go to the seventies and the eighties, teen
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  Speaker 1: employment was over fifty percent bagging groceries. I had one
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  Speaker 1: of those jobs, flipping burgers. Never did lifeguarding. How many
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  Speaker 1: of us are lifeguards? Now? That was a right of
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  Speaker 1: passage for young Americans. So that was fifty percent of
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  Speaker 1: those jobs went to teenagers. Now teen employment is around
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  Speaker 1: thirty five percent instead of fifty percent. And so how
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  Speaker 1: do you get these kids jobs? Where do they go? Well,
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  Speaker 1: parents who want their teens to work have made all
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  Speaker 1: kinds of appeals to friends, family followers on social media,
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  Speaker 1: please please hire my child. What it takes to find
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  Speaker 1: a job if you're a teenager is so much difficult.
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  Speaker 1: You know, when I had these job in the world,
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  Speaker 1: I mean, to get a job, I went down to
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  Speaker 1: the local supermarket near my house when I was a
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  Speaker 1: teenager and applied and got a job as a box boy.
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  Speaker 1: Now it's I think a box person is what they
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  Speaker 1: call those box people. I think it's you know, you've
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  Speaker 1: got to be can't be misogynistic and you can't be racist.
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  Speaker 1: So that's the new way of dealing with them. But
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  Speaker 1: jobs were easy to get and not anymore. Well, first
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  Speaker 1: of all, they don't have many baggers anyway anymore. So
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  Speaker 1: that used to be a job that was available at
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  Speaker 1: every supermarket. Those days were gone. And did I tell
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  Speaker 1: you I got my broadcast start at a supermarket. That
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  Speaker 1: was my first job in broadcasting where the chickens, the
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  Speaker 1: rotisserie chickens, would go on sale. I had the late
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  Speaker 1: shift and they would go on sale an hour before
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  Speaker 1: the store closed, and they let me make the announcement.
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  Speaker 1: This was at Alpha Beta, which was a door that's
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  Speaker 1: since been picked up by Kroger or whatever. And here
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  Speaker 1: I would go, attention, alphabator shoppers, chickens are now on
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  Speaker 1: sale at half price. You'll see them dancing in the aisles,
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  Speaker 1: and I would I got fired for that stuff, by
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  Speaker 1: the way, But that was the beginning of my broadcast career.
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  Speaker 1: I'm pleased to say. At that point I knew I
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  Speaker 1: was going to be a radio talk show host. So
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  Speaker 1: there you go. Teenagers and jobs and the good news
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  Speaker 1: my kids as teenagers, they didn't get jobs. They should
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  Speaker 1: have gotten jobs, but they didn't get jobs. And all
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  Speaker 1: of us had jobs. I mean, who didn't have a
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  Speaker 1: job as a teenager? Neil, you had a job as
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  Speaker 1: a teenager. We've never talked about it. Oh, absolutely, of course.
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  Speaker 1: And will you will? You had a job as a teenager?
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  Speaker 1: Will did? Right? Yep, Cono, you had a job? I did.
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  Speaker 1: I was a bat boy, Okay, Oh cool? Cool? So
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  Speaker 1: you what collected bats? Yeah, for the sixty six ers
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  Speaker 1: shut Island. Oh all right, that's funny. And and what
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  Speaker 1: kind of job did you have? I worked at a
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  Speaker 1: frozen yogurt place and a tanning salon. Okay, at the
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  Speaker 1: same place, right, the with the with the yogurt with
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  Speaker 1: melth wouldn't it exactly very quickly, Amy your job as
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  Speaker 1: a teenager receptionist at an insurance agency, and welcome to Wendy's.
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  Speaker 1: May I take your order? See? Look at every one
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  Speaker 1: of us had jobs. And now the number if I
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  Speaker 1: were to ask this, if we had teenagers working here
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  Speaker 1: or people in their twenties, they're guess what we half
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  Speaker 1: of you would say Nope, didn't didn't get a job.
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  Speaker 1: All right? Now an article in the Atlantic that an
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  Speaker 1: showed me when I went okay, and it's entitled the
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  Speaker 1: vibe session is over, The perma session is here. What
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  Speaker 1: does that mean? Well, it means we are very unhappy Americans.
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  Speaker 1: It's bad out there, It's really bad. This month, the
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  Speaker 1: University of Michigan's Index of consumer sentiment dropped to its
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  Speaker 1: lowest points since nineteen fifty two, when the survey started.
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  Speaker 1: Potential Republican voters found that just forty three percent rated
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  Speaker 1: the economy is excellent good, fifty five percent as fair
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  Speaker 1: or poor. And if you're a Democrat, that's five percent
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  Speaker 1: good and ninety four percent really bad. Oh look at politics.
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  Speaker 1: So low income families are nervous, sore, high income families, students,
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  Speaker 1: and retirees. Nervous rural and urban voters, dissatisfied people all
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  Speaker 1: of us worried about the present and the future, and
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  Speaker 1: for us and our neighbors and households are feeling worse
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  Speaker 1: about their personal finances than the broader state of the economy.
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  Speaker 1: Even during the great inflation of the nineteen seventies, which
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  Speaker 1: it really was bad, the cost of groceries doubled during
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  Speaker 1: that time. The government was forced to ration gasoline. From
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  Speaker 1: ninety seventy nine to nineteen eighty two, the average interest
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: rate on a thirty or mortgage hit eighteen port six percent.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, I remember those days, and we went into back,
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  Speaker 1: back to back recessions. The early months of the coronavirus,
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: two hundred thousand firms collapsed. Unemployment hit almost fifteen percent
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  Speaker 1: baby formula. Remember that you couldn't get and then you
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: had the Great Recession. Stock market lost half of its value,
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: the banking system was on the brink of implosion. Lenders
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: foreclosed on six million homes, and we were more upset
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  Speaker 1: now than we were then. Okay, so right now, families
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  Speaker 1: are struggling to afford childcare and healthcare fair enough. Housing
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  Speaker 1: shortage is absolutely there. Eating in the incomes. Inflation is
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  Speaker 1: really pissing us off. And we're talking about inflation of
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  Speaker 1: three percent, three and a half, three point eight percent,
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  Speaker 1: not fifteen percent. Well, a lot of it has to
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: do with the inequality, the haves and the have nots,
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: and how we're hearing about the inequality. See, it's in
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  Speaker 1: our faces all day long, because you have social media,
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: the Internet, and we're being told constantly that life is
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: not very good. Matter of fact, you have me telling
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: you life is not very good. Actually it's fine for me,
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  Speaker 1: but it's miserable for you. Young people. Was hiring freeze.
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  Speaker 1: Young people can't embark on a chosen career. And we
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  Speaker 1: are expressing some of the deepest, broadest stubbornness, stubborness, economic
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  Speaker 1: pessimism every ever ever recorded. Okay, we are pessimistic as hell. Now,
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  Speaker 1: University of Michigan has a consumer sentiment index. It's dropped
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: to the lowest points since nineteen fifty two when the
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: survey started. Now keep in mind, we had higher during
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: the Great Recession. We had more optimism. We thought the
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  Speaker 1: economy was doing better. Life was better during the Great Recession,
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  Speaker 1: during the pandemic, we didn't think it was this bad.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, this is some of the deepest, broadest and
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: stubbornness economic pessimism ever recorded. Now, let's look at reality.
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  Speaker 1: Nearly every American who wants a job has a job.
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  Speaker 1: If you look at the stats, how many people do
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  Speaker 1: you know that are unemployed? Frankly, I don't know many
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  Speaker 1: other my kids they don't want jobs. How many people
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  Speaker 1: do you know that are unemployed. I don't know anybody
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: who's unemployeed, certainly in my circle. The stock market is
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: at its highest level it has ever been. This economy
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: has produced significant improvements in living standards across the income spectrum.
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: The economy is doing well. The rate of underemployment, unemployment
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: is low. There is no pool of discouraged workers behind
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: these job statistics. Now, AI is really affecting people, but
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  Speaker 1: jobs are coming in faster than AI is losing them.
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: Look at the stats of unemployment filings, they go low, low,
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: There's a tight labor market. Actually, wage gains of swell.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: Family budgets even accounting for inflation. Personal income, real personal
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: income actually is a record high. I mean it is well.
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: Look what people are spending their money on healthcare, of course,
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: but door dash growing restaurants vacation, cars, pets, clothing, and wellness.
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: Now some restaurants are in real trouble, and Neil and
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: I have talked about it, but plenty are doing well.
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: A few years ago, even a year ago, we had
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: more reason to worry. In twenty twenty two, prices jumped
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: to eight percent. The Fed had to actually increase interest rates.
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: Where are we going to go into a recession? Were
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: we going to go into the nineteen seventy style stagflation
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: stagflationary cycle. Everybody thought we'd go into a downturn. Businesses
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: and household shrugged it off. Companies kept hiring, investors kept investing,
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: families kept spending. Resilience, that's the word has been the
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: hallmark of this post COVID economy. We have plowed through
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: a change of power in Washington, a trade war, a
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: war with I Run, monetary tightening, extended government shutdown, and
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: the economic engine still goes on. That is so weird.
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: The point is we're blowing off everything, all the negatives.
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: We are literally blowing off. We talk about how horrible
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: is the problem is. It's not that horrible for the
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: vast majority of people. Yet, why is pessimism so high?
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: Because the perception when something goes south, we look at it.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: Bad news is always more news than good news. No
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: one ever talks about I love this phrase of news.
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: No one ever talks about the cat that has not
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: run up the tree. All right, we're done, guys. Is
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: that it? Yeah? Pretty close? Leo, LII good Leo and Shannon.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: Why would I call Gary Leo? Explain that one to me? Pope? Yeah?
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: Maybe Gary is the Pope, although he did play the
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: pope on one of our shows once, didn't he. I
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: think so, If that's how you want to tie this together, sure, yeah,
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: I'm trying. I don't know how. You know what I did.
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: I'll talk about Pope Leo and then Gary coming up aboard,
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: and I obviously can be Yeah with Leo Laporte my father,
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: my father being a Leo. Not only was he Leo,
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: he was also in terms of never mind, I'm not
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: even gonna go there. Okay, that's it. We're done, guys.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: Coming up tomorrow, it's we do this all over again.
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: This will be for a while when Neil is off
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: next week starting Tuesday, because he's going to have his
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: circumcision redone, and it'll be a little bit of surgery's
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: going to have I understand that. Yeah, no, I get that.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: And so he'll be gone for a few days doing
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: his little procedure, very little procedure. So usually you make
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: fun of me in those regards. I'm making fun of
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: you anyway, Amy, And will start tomorrow at five am
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: with wake up call Neil and I jump aboard at
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: six to write about now Cono and and of course
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: always here doing what they do. And that's it for today.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: It's a Tuesday, May twenty six, the official, well the
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: unofficial start of summer. This is KFI AM sixty. You've
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: been listening to the Bill Handle Show Catch my Show
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: Monday through Friday, six am to nine am, and anytime
• 21:39
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