8/20/26 $40 Trillion, Job Fears & Beware the Carpetbaggers

The Moneywise Radio Show and Podcast Thursday, August 20th BE MONEYWISE. Moneywise Wealth Management I "The Moneywise Radio Show & Podcast" call: 661-847-1000 text in anytime: 661-396-1000 website: www. MoneywiseGuys.com https://www.moneywiseguys.com/ facebook: Moneywise_Wealth_Management https://www.facebook.com/moneywiseguys/ LinkedIn: Moneywise_Wealth_Management https://www.linkedin.com/company/moneywise-wealth-management-bakersfield/ Guests: Matt Clark & Chris Hagan, Partners & Trial Attorneys at Chain, Cohn, Clark website: https://www.chainlaw.com/ The opinions voiced in this podcast are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. To determine which strategies or investments may be suitable for you, consult the appropriate qualified professional prior to making a decision. Matthew Clark, Chris Hagan & Chain, Cohn Clark Law are not affiliated with nor endorsed by LPL Financial or Moneywise Wealth Management].

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Live from the basement inside the historic Woolworths Building in downtown Bakersfield. Call or text in at 661-396-1000.

• 0:29Speaker 01

  Securities offered through LPL Financial, member FINRA/SIPC. Investment advisory services offered through LPL Financial. LPL Financial and MoneyWise Wealth Management are independently owned and operated.

• 0:37Speaker 00

  Now, let's start the MoneyWise Show.

• 0:40Speaker 02

  And welcome to the MoneyWise Show. We're live from the basement of the historic Woolworths Building in downtown Bakersfield. For the next hour, you're on News Talk 96.1 and 1230 a.m. KERN, streaming live at MoneyWiseGuys.com. You can call or text into the show 24 hours a day at 661-396-1000. We are your hosts, I'm Jared Wait and...

• 1:02Speaker 03

  Emily's back.

• 1:03Speaker 02

  Emily's back. Hey, we're both back. We've had a little bit of a hiatus, both you and I. So appreciate all of our listeners tuning in and we really appreciate the questions and comments. We encourage you to keep them coming our way, 661-396-1000. That's the number that you can text. We've got a few of them over and I want to talk about one of them. It says, I'll go ahead and read it, it says, "Great chat with Cyrus." This was Cyrus Mujeeb was on yesterday, or day before yesterday. "I knew his father and did some work with him in the 90s. But what is going to replace all the oil jobs and tax money in Kern County? It's sad to see all the rig workers looking for work." This is a common...

• 1:46Speaker 03

  Common, this is the topic.

• 1:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, and it's, it sort of strikes a nerve that is, you know, nation, on a broader scale, a lot of people are concerned about their industry or their career for one reason or another. Right now, the big fear is technology and AI displacing a lot of these industries. But we've been dealing with this for over a decade in California, where essentially the regulations and the controls that have been put in place are dramatically hurting the oil and gas industry.

• 2:25Speaker 03

  Right.

• 2:25Speaker 02

  And so what happens? What is going to happen? Let's assume that this trend continues. We've seen a little bit of a reversal, at least from Sacramento, in terms of them allowing, you know, permits and at least here in Kern County and some oil and gas activity. But what, you know, let's look back on history and look back on other industries that have gone through a similar metamorphosis.

• 2:57Speaker 03

  Okay, metamorphosis. I was gonna say, gone to the wayside, but that's not what we're talking about here.

• 3:02Speaker 02

  Well, yeah, I mean, it's, well, let me preface by saying, my prediction is that oil and gas is not, it won't go away immediately. It can't. We would have complete chaos in California. There is a mandate in the state of California by 2045? I think it's 2045, that we're carbon neutral? That the state of California is carbon neutral? I mean, which also is a very ambitious goal, but even if, that is a very, that's a stretch because of the several areas that we lack the ability to replace oil and gas,

• 3:45Speaker 02

  like transportation and mostly energy. Even though California produces at times more than enough green energy or solar energy, it's, we don't have enough consistent energy.

• 3:59Speaker 03

  Right.

• 3:59Speaker 02

  So we still rely on coal, or not coal necessarily, but natural gas, power plants that can, you know, come on and off very easily and add that supply. So we don't have the technology, for example, for batteries to be able to go completely off of gas-powered power generation in California. It's just a ways down the road. So if, you know, there's, I don't see a scenario where it's gonna go away overnight. It's gonna be a slow death in that industry. And then what will happen is it will consolidate to just a few. So a good, I think, good example would be the Appalachian coal and the evolution of the coal industry in the Appalachian Mountains and the Appalachia area.

• 4:42Speaker 02

  There was, you know, what we had is essentially automation and then natural gas coming on and then regulatory issues with coal. And we saw that workforce essentially forced to move to other areas. A lot of those workers moved to construction and trucking, manufacturing. Some people just had to leave the region altogether. And many of those people were earning less money. And this is the big issue with oil and gas, I think, is because a lot of these workers, especially you're working on a rig, you're making six figures.

• 5:20Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 5:20Speaker 02

  And now you're gonna go work a green job where you're gonna be making maybe half that, you know, $60,000 to $80,000. So while some of these jobs might be replaced, there's going to be a drop in income because these were good-paying jobs in oil and gas. So, so we don't, you know, we look at, we look at the other examples of things that have happened in the country, in the history of our country. You have the Appalachian coal, you have Detroit and the Great Lakes manufacturing era that was, again, automation, foreign competition, offshoring, these manufacturing

• 6:04Speaker 02

  completely changed that industry, completely displaced those workers over a few decades. And so I think that the, you know, I hate to, I hate to just, you know, talk about doom and gloom and not give some sort of, you know, way through this or way, a positive way through this, but I would recommend that if anybody was in an industry, and I'm not necessarily, it's oil and gas, because I think that there's still some legs there. But if you're in an industry or you're in a job where you feel like it's dying, you don't want to delay too long figuring out what you're gonna do next. You know, you want to try to look at other areas that you can either improve your own skillset,

• 6:45Speaker 02

  find a different way, a different industry or a different job, or become very specialized in the industry that you're in. And that is going to require change and adaptation.

• 7:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, certainly, like those for the individuals, right? That are, that are potentially like the rig workers looking for jobs like the caller asked about. But what about, do you have any idea or any input on the replacement of those oil jobs and the tax money in Kern County specifically?

• 7:18Speaker 02

  We're already seeing it. I think it's devastating. I can't remember...

• 7:22Speaker 03

  Replacement.

• 7:23Speaker 02

  Replacement.

• 7:24Speaker 03

  You're seeing replacement.

• 7:24Speaker 02

  No.

• 7:25Speaker 03

  That's what the question is. Do you have any idea?

• 7:27Speaker 02

  No. No.

• 7:29Speaker 03

  I mean, it's hard to predict. I was just curious if you, yeah. Do you see where, you know, the transition's happening? In the Appalachian area, it was transitioning out of coal into other industries, correct?

• 7:41Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah, and I know that there's efforts made here, at least in Kern County, to go into green jobs, for example. And I know that those are there, but they're not as well-paying. And where it's really hurting all of us is in the tax revenues.

• 7:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 7:58Speaker 02

  That were, that they used to be the biggest, oil and gas was the biggest contributor to our local tax base, and now that's continuing to shrink. So it's hurting all of us. And certainly it's hurting those families that are in the industry and working in that. So, yeah, you know, that's...

• 8:19Speaker 03

  So unknown is the answer.

• 8:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, so unknown. Why don't we bring in our guests?

• 8:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, they might have something to say about this.

• 8:24Speaker 02

  We have Chris Hagan and Matt Clark here, trial attorneys. Hey, guys. Hey, Jared.

• 8:29Speaker 03

  Love them.

• 8:30Speaker 04

  Thank you for having us back.

• 8:31Speaker 02

  I know last time we were on, we talked about this with you guys because in your field even in the legal field, there is a shift happening. There's a move happening towards AI.

• 8:40Speaker 03

  I have so many industries.

• 8:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 8:42Speaker 04

  Well, it's an uneasy time to be in, you know, unless you're an HVAC repairman in the summer in Bakersfield, right? It's an uneasy time to be in just about any industry. I mean, I will tell you on the more macro level, you know, we have people in our office who are affected by this, the, you know, there's not any real oil drilling happening in our community. There's not near as much maintenance of work as there used to be. You know, folks who were welders or technicians or operators who had those, those specific skills are having to go look for work elsewhere, whether it be Utah, Wyoming, you know, North Dakota, Texas, a lot of people from Kern County have, have

• 9:23Speaker 04

  left because of that. And, um, you know, you, you make this comparison to Appalachia, right? That happened. A lot of those coal communities ended up becoming ghost towns when those coal jobs dried up. And so I think it's something, you know, we're a little more insulated here because of the ag community and those jobs. But the notion that somehow the green jobs are going to replace the, the really high paying technical jobs in the oil fields. I don't see that.

• 9:52Speaker 02

  Yeah. What are you, what are you thinking, Chris?

• 9:54Speaker 05

  Well, I wanted to make an observation, okay, as a trial lawyer. So Emily asked you a question.

• 9:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:01Speaker 05

  And you were being, you were, you didn't respond to her question and she went after you like a lawyer cross-examining a witness on the witness.

• 10:08Speaker 04

  This is my life.

• 10:10Speaker 03

  This is our relationship.

• 10:12Speaker 04

  When you're home later, the objection is non-responsive. Okay? Non-responsive. I move to strike that answer. Please answer my question.

• 10:20Speaker 03

  I'm here to represent the layperson, right? The person who's listening from home who's like, wait a second.

• 10:25Speaker 05

  I just wanted to give Emily some.

• 10:27Speaker 03

  Oh, thank you, thank you.

• 10:28Speaker 05

  She didn't give up and she got, she kept going and kept going until she got the answer.

• 10:32Speaker 04

  We'll, we'll send you a cheat sheet of objections later.

• 10:35Speaker 03

  Please do, yes.

• 10:37Speaker 04

  No, I feel, look, I, you know, our, our firm, um, you know, given the, the longevity of our firm, you know, what are we, 92 years?

• 10:46Speaker 05

  92 years now.

• 10:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, you gotta be one of the oldest, if not the, the oldest.

• 10:50Speaker 04

  I, I think we're the oldest in the Central Valley.

• 10:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:53Speaker 04

  At this point, continuously operating personal injury firm for sure. Um, but given that longevity, right? Um, I mean, our firm really cut its teeth in, in the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, early 2000s in oil and gas cases. I mean, we represented countless folks who sustained injuries in the, in the oil and gas industry. And, um, you just don't see those cases anymore, you know, and so.

• 11:20Speaker 05

  Yeah, but don't, don't you think that's, that's partly because of our industry, right? And we've caused.

• 11:26Speaker 04

  I see where you're going with it.

• 11:26Speaker 05

  So many changes to be made with respect to safety protocols and procedures and requirements in the industry.

• 11:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, regulations.

• 11:34Speaker 04

  Sure, sure. I mean, you know, personal injury lawyers like to think of it in terms of they made companies when they, they put their budget together at the end of the year or at the beginning of the year, um, you know, safety is now an actual line item in the budget, whereas before it may not have been even something that you considered. And so you're hiring HSE people and you have safety meetings, et cetera, et cetera. Yes, that's made a difference. But I also think you just don't see the amount of work.

• 12:01Speaker 05

  Well, I agree with that. I mean, look at just around town and we've noticed it if you drive down trucks and extension, all of the wells that were abandoned there. They're gone.

• 12:10Speaker 04

  Drive down Fruitvale and look at the number of buildings that are abandoned now.

• 12:13Speaker 05

  Yeah, right.

• 12:14Speaker 04

  Um, you know, drive out towards Lost Hills or drive through, uh, on Highway 33, go, go near the Bell Ridge lease.

• 12:21Speaker 05

  Well, gosh, drive through, drive through Maricopa.

• 12:24Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 12:24Speaker 05

  I mean, it's turning into one of those ghost towns like you referenced in Appalachia.

• 12:29Speaker 04

  Well, your tax. Emily's tax question about, you know, how, how important it is to the overall tax base, you know, you can't understate that. I mean, you look at a community like Taft, right? And you look at, I, I don't know that you've ever had the opportunity to go to Taft College, but if you ever have and you go out there.

• 12:43Speaker 03

  Our son went there.

• 12:44Speaker 04

  Okay, so, I mean, they had, at one point, they had a great football team and, you know, they had dormitories for a junior college, right? They had this amazing swimming facility. They, they had all of these facilities. Why? Because of the tax base from the oil work in that community. And, um, you know, that, that just doesn't exist anymore.

• 13:03Speaker 02

  You know, there's, US manufacturing, I'll ask you this question. When do you think the manufacturing industry, the United States peaked? What, what year or what decade did we peak in manufacturing?

• 13:19Speaker 04

  And this is just in general?

• 13:20Speaker 02

  In general.

• 13:21Speaker 05

  I would guess around the Second World War.

• 13:23Speaker 02

  No, no, no, no, no. I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go 1988. You got close. 1979 was the year that we peaked as a country in manufacturing and we were the world leader in manufacturing. Of course, this is the, what, what changed at that time was China really started to, that's when the China took over and started taking over and we, we haven't looked back. We essentially lost 81% of our manufacturing jobs between 1979 and 2019.

• 13:59Speaker 03

  You said 80%?

• 14:00Speaker 02

  80%, 81%.

• 14:02Speaker 04

  So, so let me ask you this then. Uh, knowing that and, you know, understanding like right now the political environment is such where at least there's some, some, uh, airtime given to bringing those manufacturing jobs back. Do you think that'll happen?

• 14:16Speaker 02

  No.

• 14:16Speaker 04

  Or do you think economically it's not possible?

• 14:18Speaker 02

  I don't think it's possible. I, I think it's, I've, I've always been against this, um, idea of let's make everything here in America.

• 14:25Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 14:26Speaker 02

  Because I, I, I mean, in a, in a fairy tale land, that would be great, but that's not the world we live in. There are always going to be countries that make something better and cheaper than we can. So why are we trying to do that? I've given the example before of like Switzerland and Italy. So Italy doesn't, doesn't try to make watches because Switzerland's got it. They do it better. They're cheaper, you know, and Switzerland isn't trying to make pizzas or, you know, whatever it is or, or whatever it is.

• 14:55Speaker 04

  Let's use cars, cars.

• 14:57Speaker 02

  Okay, cars. And, and it's because there is a, there is a mutual relationship there where they say, hey, you, you, you continue to do your watch thing because it's great. We'll could do our thing and then let's buy each other stuff. You take that and you multiply it by a thousand different products and, and you get a much better market. You get a much more efficient market and you get something that helps all of us better. And the other statistics I give out, I give out is the fact that there's not a single country in the world that can make an iPhone all by itself. It's impossible.

• 15:30Speaker 03

  Really good point.

• 15:31Speaker 02

  It, it takes 20 or 30 different countries that have specialization in whatever chip or whatever lens, whatever raw material that takes. And those specialists who know this manufacturing process say it, it's going to take at least 10 years for any country to get to the point where they could do that. And there's only a couple of them in the world, the United States, China, so on, that could even do that. But why would they do that? Why would, why would you invest 10, you know, billions and billions of dollars over 10 years? That money could be put somewhere else in something that can make us unique.

• 16:07Speaker 04

  And thinking of it in terms of you're trying, so assume you're Apple for the moment and you want to make that investment, you know, you, the political environment now is such where it would be, uh, maybe advantageous to them to make that investment in the United States, but it's going to take a decade to get it up and running. Well, you're going to have two additional administrations in that time and you have no idea where the political football may be at that particular moment. So, so why make that what could be, I don't know, trillion dollar investment?

• 16:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 16:36Speaker 04

  To bring that type of manufacturing to the United States? I just don't see it happening.

• 16:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, I, yeah, especially now with the, just kind of the political environment that we see here in the United States where there is a, it's sort of more, I guess, isolating.

• 16:52Speaker 04

  Well, and it just swings back and forth, right?

• 16:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 16:54Speaker 04

  It swings to one extreme and then, you know, four years later it's another extreme. And I think that from a business perspective, why would you, why would you invest all of that money when you, you really can't predict, you know, things are so inconsistent, right? You can't predict where we're going to be in a decade.

• 17:10Speaker 02

  The, it's, the consistency aspect is where, what I think has made the United States the, the, wealthiest country in the world is the fact that we've had a stable economy.

• 17:20Speaker 04

  Right.

• 17:20Speaker 02

  And we've had a place where multinational corporations feel safe that they can come in here and invest and, and develop.

• 17:27Speaker 04

  How about multinational individuals, right?

• 17:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 17:30Speaker 04

  I mean, you go to communities like New York, Beverly Hills. I mean, you talk to real estate people in those communities and you see these like, you know, I don't know, $50 million condos in New York that change hands. And more often than not, that is not a US citizen buying that condo. That is some, you know, foreign national that sees the United States as a safe place to park.

• 17:50Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 17:50Speaker 04

  Their $50 million in a condo that they'll never see.

• 17:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 17:54Speaker 04

  Just because it's safe here. There's consistency.

• 17:57Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 17:57Speaker 04

  Yeah, so.

• 17:58Speaker 02

  And it's our currency, you know, we have the world's currency still, uh, and that gives us a huge economic premium.

• 18:05Speaker 04

  Bitcoin?

• 18:05Speaker 02

  It's not, not even close.

• 18:07Speaker 03

  Breaking news.

• 18:08Speaker 02

  Uh, and then I'm sure you guys saw the headlines yesterday where our national debt reached 40 trillion.

• 18:14Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 18:15Speaker 02

  40 trillion. So we're about 25%, we're 125% of our GDP.

• 18:20Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 18:21Speaker 02

  Is.

• 18:21Speaker 04

  The, the number I saw was if, if every person, this includes retired folks, infants, uh, were to put up $116,000 in change, we could pay off the national debt today.

• 18:33Speaker 03

  Wow, wow, wow, wow.

• 18:34Speaker 02

  That's a good way to look at it because you have to look at the GDP and we have our GDP per capita. So each person per capita, and this has exceeded that by at least 25%, meaning every asset and, and wealth that every individual owns would have to put that plus 25% in for us to pay the debt.

• 18:54Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 18:54Speaker 02

  And it's our, it's our, um, most expensive bill that we pay, or, or at least it's this, we pay now more towards our debt than we do towards Medicare and, um, our defense spending. So we're. We're paying more for our debt and interest on our debt than we are paying for our national defense budget.

• 19:14Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, I think-

• 19:15Speaker 03

  Hey, Mr. Financial Advisor, how does that look?

• 19:17Speaker 02

  It's not sustainable.

• 19:18Speaker 03

  In the broad diverse portfolio.

• 19:19Speaker 02

  It just seems not sustainable.

• 19:22Speaker 04

  I, I, I think that you have to look at it, you know, let's bring that down to like the family level. That would be like the interest on your credit card exceeds your annual earnings by 25%. The interest, right?

• 19:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 19:33Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 19:33Speaker 02

  Right.

• 19:33Speaker 04

  Uh, I mean, that's, that's crazy.

• 19:35Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, I, I understand the comparison to a household, the household can't print money. So there is a difference there. The household can't borrow it's from itself. Uh, whereas our, our national government can, but that's been the political-

• 19:50Speaker 04

  That's the problem, right?

• 19:51Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 19:51Speaker 04

  Then it devalues the dollar.

• 19:52Speaker 02

  That's it. Yeah. Yeah. Which isn't necessarily all bad because people buy our stuff and it's cheaper for people to buy American stuff when they pay in a stronger currency. But it, it, it also brings to what I, what I was going to say about our national debt, 125% of our GDP. We're, we're not even in the top 10 though, in the world that has a higher debt ratio.

• 20:19Speaker 03

  Really?

• 20:20Speaker 04

  Well, okay, we'll go down. I assume the list is coming.

• 20:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, here's the list. Japan, Japan's number one. They have 204% of debt to GDP. Singapore is 172%. Sudan, Bahrain, Italy, again, talking about Italy, 138%.

• 20:36Speaker 03

  Get those pizzas going, I guess.

• 20:38Speaker 02

  Greece, uh, Senegal, Maldives. So I know a lot of these are really small, you know, small countries, but Greece is an interesting one because you guys remember the big Greece scare?

• 20:48Speaker 04

  Greece was like bankrupt a decade ago.

• 20:50Speaker 02

  Completely. They had to be bailed out by the EU. There was all this austerity issues and there was a huge impact on the stock market at that time because there was thought was this was going to be a contagious, uh, uh, activity was going to spread to all these countries and now we're going to have all these defaults on bonds and, but now Greece is, you know, they've really sort of bounced back and, and I mean, we're, we're getting to the point where we're going to have worse economic, worse, worse debt numbers than Greece. Uh, so all this is like, all this seems pretty dire.

• 21:20Speaker 04

  And I don't, I mean, look, you, you guys do this for a living, but, uh, from my perspective, it doesn't appear that either political party has any appetite to do anything about the debt.

• 21:30Speaker 02

  Right.

• 21:31Speaker 04

  Let's just print more money.

• 21:32Speaker 02

  That's it. That's it. And, and I argue, and I, I see it on both sides.

• 21:36Speaker 04

  No, it's totally on both sides.

• 21:37Speaker 02

  Both sides of the political spectrum have been playing us taxpayers for decades and decades. And I, I'd like to simplify it to the fact that most people do not know the difference between a billion and a trillion.

• 21:54Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 21:55Speaker 03

  Even a million and a billion.

• 21:56Speaker 02

  Or a million and a billion. They just think, oh, it's just a few extra zeros.

• 22:00Speaker 03

  Right.

• 22:01Speaker 02

  Or even, then you take the leap from a million to a trillion, like you talk about a 40 trillion. Nobody, including myself, has any, can wrap their head around how big that is. And so politicians can easily just say something like, well, we're saving millions of dollars by doing XYZ, when the problem is in the trillions.

• 22:22Speaker 04

  That's probably the equivalent to me saving like a, a, a fraction of a penny.

• 22:27Speaker 02

  Yes. Like, like the Doge, even, even the best estimates, even those who were the most optimistic in saying how much money was saved by cutting out programs through the Doge program is nothing. Hundreds of billions of dollars, big whoop. Big freaking whoop. How does that compare to a trillion? It's nothing. It's, it's nothing. It's pennies. And yeah, we're, we're working in the trillions now. And the same thing's happened in the stock market. Like you have companies now that are worth $5 trillion. $5 trillion.

• 23:01Speaker 04

  Right. Well, then they should pay off the debt.

• 23:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:04Speaker 03

  That's a good point.

• 23:06Speaker 02

  Easy. But you got, I'm sure you guys have seen some of the proposals coming out because with AI, for example, and robotics, it's, and them displacing jobs, it's a, well, what do you do? Do you, you know, there's talk of maybe a robot tax. Right? You do tax the robots somehow.

• 23:23Speaker 04

  I, I don't know. I mean, every so often you'll hear some politician bring up like universal minimum income, right? As a, as an answer to some of these things.

• 23:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:30Speaker 04

  And then you get somebody like me that goes, well, wait a second. Uh, doesn't that mean, you know, I've already seen, we, we raised minimum wage, which I, I think needed to be raised. Okay. But we've raised it to the extent where now, uh, the, the value meal at McDonald's is 20 bucks or 18 bucks or 16 bucks, whatever it is. So if you had universal minimum income, wouldn't it just be, wouldn't that become the zero, right? Like universal minimum income would become the zero and everything else would go up so much that you'd still be in the same position where you can't buy anything anyway?

• 24:03Speaker 02

  Well, uh, my guess is that they would just increase that, that, um, they would just increase that stipend, you know, whatever that, whatever that basic income is.

• 24:14Speaker 04

  But, but once you increase that stipend, doesn't all the prices follow? Doesn't everything else go up in, in value or in cost?

• 24:19Speaker 02

  Not necessarily. Not necessarily.

• 24:21Speaker 03

  Doesn't one lever pull the next to the next?

• 24:22Speaker 02

  Yeah. I, I mean, that, yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah, I guess so. But then you're, you're looking at, if we get to the universal basic income, you're looking at, um, uh, other global like economic problems and, and, and possible solutions. And it's complicated. We're going to take a quick break. We come back, we got more to go over. Matt and Chris, don't go anywhere. Welcome to Money Wise. Thanks for tuning in. We're your hosts today. I'm Sherrod, that's Emily.

• 24:55Speaker 03

  Yeah. We, we got a couple of messages that came in about the stuff we're talking about. You guys want to try to hit this?

• 25:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, let's hear it.

• 25:01Speaker 03

  All right. Um, exactly. Your guest just nailed it. Minimum wage goes up, everything else followed. It's insane how much some things are costing these days. My daughter works it in and out and her best friend makes more at McDonald's. Do you want to try to explain what you were trying to explain before we went to the break about how that works?

• 25:18Speaker 02

  No. Well, I mean, if, if we, if we're at a point where there are, our, our jobs have been overtaken by technology. And so now we have just, let's call it a handful of companies that are making all of the goods and services. Um, then, um, you're, you will have to have a way to, um, the government, I guess, or the, the society will have to have a way to sustain itself and to keep people going and fed. So this universal basic income idea would be essentially there have, there would have

• 25:57Speaker 02

  to be some mechanism in place to take the continued growth of wealth that we have and, um, and, but still be able to provide some sort of income to its citizens. So I, I believe that we're heading in a direction where the, the world is going to become more and more wealthy. We're going to become more and more efficient and we're, we're going to do things much quicker at a lot lower cost. And so if we have technology, it's sort of taking over all of these jobs, then that there, there will be no other option than, but to be able to provide some sort of safety net for, for us.

• 26:41Speaker 04

  Sherrod's such an optimist.

• 26:42Speaker 03

  See, I was just going to say, this is where his positivity comes in.

• 26:45Speaker 04

  So, so let me give you my negativity, right?

• 26:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 26:47Speaker 04

  Where I see it is, yes, the world will generate more wealth. It becomes more efficient, but more of that wealth becomes concentrated amongst fewer and fewer people.

• 26:57Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 26:58Speaker 04

  And that's the fear.

• 26:59Speaker 02

  That's the fear.

• 26:59Speaker 04

  And that's happening right now.

• 27:01Speaker 02

  Because then the, the, the poor start to eat the rich. And that's what we've seen happen, you know, historically.

• 27:08Speaker 04

  You can only say let them eat cake for so long, right?

• 27:11Speaker 02

  That's right. That's right. And so I don't know that that transition is going to be really smooth. I, I, I'm not saying that it's going to be a smooth transition away, but there have to be some sort of adjustment period for the world. Uh, what do you guys, so you guys have children?

• 27:27Speaker 04

  Oh, it's, it's like existential dread. What are you talking about?

• 27:31Speaker 03

  There was like a silent pause.

• 27:33Speaker 04

  Yeah, I know. It's a, it's a serious concern.

• 27:36Speaker 02

  Emily and I talk about this all the time. We have three boys. Um, we have one that's just finishing college. The other two are out of college. They're on their career path, but, and, and they've chosen great career paths and, and fields that I think they're going to be around for a while. But e, but even then it's like, after 10 years, you're sort of unsure.

• 27:53Speaker 04

  Look, I, I read this piece and I can't remember where I found it, but it was just within the last week on just declining birth rate, birth rates.

• 28:01Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 28:02Speaker 04

  In the United States, but also basically every Western country, right? And I think it's because of conversation. I mean, there's a lot of factors, but conversations like this are not helping, right? Because you, you look at it from the perspective of, well, wait a second, you know, uh, if I have two or three children, one, it's unbelievably expensive. I mean, what's the cost now to raise a child in the United States? Something like 300,000 to age 18.

• 28:26Speaker 02

  Yes. Yeah, it's something like that.

• 28:27Speaker 04

  And, and so you multiply that by two or three children, then you add to that, you know, what are they going to do once they turn 18? And are there going to be jobs and is there going to be an economy that can support them? And so, you know, the birth rate is way, way down. I, the, the, the piece I read said, in order to keep the population steady, every woman in the United States needs to have 2.1 children.

• 28:49Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 28:49Speaker 04

  And currently it's down to like 1.4, I believe. I'm going to get that a little off, but it's basically 1.4, which puts us at one of the lowest rates in the Western world. I think Spain is lower than us.

• 29:01Speaker 02

  Yeah. I think- South Korea is the worst.

• 29:03Speaker 04

  Yeah. But it's, it's, it's a problem.

• 29:06Speaker 02

  Yeah. That's, that's one of the biggest problems I think we have demographically is the fact that we're not having as many kids and, um-

• 29:14Speaker 04

  At some point I'm going to get old, Sherrod. Somebody's got to like, take care of me.

• 29:17Speaker 02

  Somebody's got to contribute to your pension.

• 29:19Speaker 04

  Right, right. Exactly.

• 29:20Speaker 02

  And this is an issue for social security for sure. And all pension plans across the world. Uh, South Korea has been trying to tackle this problem for, for a long time and have had very little success because how does a government incentivize people to have babies?

• 29:35Speaker 04

  Well, I think that they, they, they did actually.

• 29:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:37Speaker 04

  And then South Korea was brought up in this piece and there was an uptick in the number of children born in South Korea that, you know, they did some things with taxation and incentives to have children.

• 29:47Speaker 02

  Credits and things.

• 29:47Speaker 04

  Correct. And then it went up for, I, I don't know, like two tenths of a, of a child per person kind of, per, per female kind of thing. And then it just dove back down.

• 29:57Speaker 02

  Right.

• 29:58Speaker 04

  And now it's back down to, I believe it's lowest level ever.

• 30:00Speaker 02

  Yeah. And I think they're probably fighting against what you just said, which is this, this overall sense of pessimism about the future.

• 30:07Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 30:08Speaker 03

  I know our kids question bringing children to the world now. Like they're like, I'm not going to be able to, but when am I going to buy a house and, and have kids? How am I going to afford that?

• 30:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:18Speaker 04

  Well, therefore they, mine are just like, uh, what's for breakfast?

• 30:23Speaker 02

  I was so waiting for Chris's wisdom. I was like, Chris, Dad Chris over here. Dad Hagan will tell us what's going on.

• 30:29Speaker 04

  Our son's 20 and he's just loving college. He's, I mean, he's just enjoying life as a 20 year old and a 16 year old.

• 30:35Speaker 03

  That's great.

• 30:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:36Speaker 03

  Good. Let him, let him enjoy it.

• 30:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, seriously. We have another comment. Do you want to read that?

• 30:40Speaker 03

  Yeah. You, you mentioned earlier about, you know, the ag sort of buffering our, our county, but this message says, "I thought my coworkers in oil out on Seventh Standard that headed out to Texas 10 years ago to follow better jobs, "thought we would be safe in this oil town and even my ag friends are now getting pushed out. And I told them, "Don't be like me and wait it out. I can see the similarities of what's happening to oil happening with local farmers."

• 31:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, like how do you, how do you get out? When do you get out?

• 31:09Speaker 03

  When do you decide to pull the trigger, I guess, for your life?

• 31:13Speaker 04

  Yeah, I certainly don't have the expertise to offer any recommendations in that.

• 31:18Speaker 04

  You know, just as a passive observer, you know, there seems to be quite a bit of agricultural activity in our area. It doesn't seem to have gone, you know, it doesn't seem to have disappeared the way the oil work has disappeared. That being said, I don't know, you know, automation, other things, maybe taking jobs. I don't know.

• 31:34Speaker 05

  They're all looking at automation in the ag industry, right? To the extent that they can cut labor costs, doing that improves, improves profitability.

• 31:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 31:43Speaker 05

  And they're a, let's not get ourselves, they're for-profit businesses, right?

• 31:46Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah. And ag is of course dealing with SIGMA, which is the Sustainable Groundwater Act, which is estimates, say a fifth to a quarter of all farmland is going to be fallowed, which is staggering to me. It doesn't necessarily mean we're going to have that loss of production because things like technology and efficiencies will likely step in. But you're going to see a massive shift also in the ag community of just a way of life. And you also have all now private equity buying up these properties.

• 32:18Speaker 04

  Everything. I wouldn't say private.

• 32:20Speaker 05

  Well, just get to it. I know what you're going to talk about.

• 32:23Speaker 04

  They're now, they're now getting into the legal field and buying law firms. And I don't want to get into the, the nuts and bolts of it because it's prohibited, right? Somebody who's not a lawyer cannot have an ownership interest in a law firm, but there's always ways to get around it.

• 32:39Speaker 05

  We're going to write you a big loan. You'll still own the law firm on paper, but you owe us $700 million.

• 32:48Speaker 02

  I'm guessing these are the same people that are putting up the most obnoxious billboards ever.

• 32:53Speaker 05

  Yes. Well, where do you think they're getting the money to do it?

• 32:55Speaker 04

  That's 100% correct.

• 32:57Speaker 05

  They're getting the money from PE to, to, to carpet bomb us with advertising.

• 33:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 33:02Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 33:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 33:03Speaker 05

  None of them are in town, by the way.

• 33:05Speaker 02

  None of them. No way. No. And this is, you know, we're not here to promote your guys' firm, but you guys have a great firm.

• 33:13Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 33:13Speaker 02

  But your ads are, are exceptional. The way that you, it's just, it's classy. It's not, but it's still entertaining.

• 33:22Speaker 04

  And we try to be a little playful.

• 33:24Speaker 02

  Yeah. You're just playful enough. I've always just thought, whoever's doing your guys' marketing is doing the same thing.

• 33:31Speaker 03

  There's a lot of bad ones. A lot of really bad ones.

• 33:33Speaker 02

  So terrible.

• 33:34Speaker 04

  Yeah, like just cheesy, cringe-worthy, really, is what we're seeing. And it's, it's a pockmark on our industry, frankly. And it's something that embarrassed, I know Chris and I are embarrassed by it. And, and our firm is embarrassed when we see these, these, as I like to call them, the carpetbagger firms. And they're just cringey, cheesy advertising, but it's PE money that's allowing them to do that.

• 33:57Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah. Because it definitely looks like national advertising.

• 34:00Speaker 04

  It's not just on the plaintiff's side of personal injury. I mean, literally yesterday, there was an announcement on the defense side, a large California-based insurance defense firm looks like they're going to take on about 700 million in PE debt.

• 34:14Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 34:15Speaker 04

  And I mean, you know this from your industry, once you're into the PE money, I mean, it's a bit of a deal with the devil, right?

• 34:22Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 34:22Speaker 04

  I mean, you, you know where that's going to, I've mentioned in a text to Chris last night. So if you're in the insurance defense side of the legal practice, you're billing by the hour. You're usually billing an insurance company. I mean, Chris did this for a living, so he can speak to it. But now you've got PE pressure to increase your margin. Well, how are you going to increase your margin? You're going to raise your billables, right? You know, you gotta either bill more hours or you gotta raise your price per hour. I don't think the insurance company is going to put up with that.

• 34:48Speaker 05

  Listen, they're not, I don't think they're going to put up with it, but from my perspective, it puts the lawyer in a position of conflict, right? Because now they've got PE to answer to and they owe PE 700 grand.

• 35:01Speaker 02

  Right.

• 35:01Speaker 05

  But their actual fiduciary responsibilities to the client and to do what is in the best interest of the client. But now they're going to begin to make decisions based upon this money.

• 35:10Speaker 04

  If you only owe the PE 700 grand, you might not feel that beholden to them, but when it's 700 million, you feel pretty beholden to it.

• 35:17Speaker 02

  Did I say 700?

• 35:18Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry. I mean, it's a ton of money and it's, it's now, who's your boss, right? Because as a lawyer, in our firm, we have one boss. That's our client, right? The client is the boss. And, you know, ultimately it's our job to make recommendations to the client, to do the best legal work that we can for them, but the client is the person who makes the decisions in regards to the ultimate outcome of their case. Now, all of a sudden, you have, you're wedded to, you know, a private equity lender who's loaned you hundreds of millions of dollars. I'm not quite sure where your loyalties lie at that point.

• 35:55Speaker 02

  Yeah. Why, why is it that these, you call them carpetbagger attorneys?

• 36:02Speaker 02

  They, everybody's just pushing.

• 36:04Speaker 05

  Cease and desist will be in the office this afternoon.

• 36:07Speaker 02

  Whatever. You, you have, you know, this, the push is always the same. It's a very simple toll-free number that is one number of all the same, or it's 12345, you know, that's, and so the, the goal is to get anybody who has maybe any potential lawsuit on their mind to call that number.

• 36:26Speaker 04

  Correct.

• 36:26Speaker 02

  What, when they call that number, what are, how are they, obviously it's effective. So they're hooking these people right away somehow. My suspicion is that whoever's answering that toll-free number is talking about, oh yeah, oh yeah, we, oh yes. Yeah. No, you definitely have a case. This is, this is a, what happens?

• 36:50Speaker 05

  Yeah, listen, I mean, they're making a big sales pitch to them about, you know, what they're going to get them at the end of the day, right? And listen, if you have a lawyer that's telling you or making any guarantees to you about what they're going to get for you, I'll just tell you, they're lying to you. They're lying to you.

• 37:05Speaker 04

  So first of all, the person answering that phone will never be a lawyer, right? That's answering that number on that 1-800 billboard or whatever it is. That is, you are never talking to a lawyer under that circumstance. So understand that immediately. Two, whomever is talking to you is being incentivized. They're probably under some sort of bonus structure or their compensation is based on, how many people can they get to sign on the dotted line, right? And that's all they care about. They want you to sign a retainer agreement and, and they're going to say the things that they think they have to say to sell you to sign that retainer agreement. Here's a little fact about us. In fact, literally today, we're running something on social media about this. Out of every 10 people that call our office, about eight, we tell them they don't need us.

• 37:48Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 37:49Speaker 04

  They don't need us. You can do this yourself. You'll put more money in your pocket. Don't pay me. You don't need us, right? At those firms that have the 800 number on a billboard, they're taking every single case that calls, right? Every single thing, they're signing it up. And their, their objective isn't maximizing the recovery for the client or making sure that the client's taken care of. The person on the other end of that phone has one objective. Get the client to sign on the dotted line. That's it.

• 38:16Speaker 05

  Well, we know that, right? Because we have somebody that works in our office that used to work for one of these firms. And in fact, Sherrod, I mean, these firms have people in our community, so Matt just talked about it, right?

• 38:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:27Speaker 05

  That get paid a flat fee to get a case signed up for the firm.

• 38:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:32Speaker 05

  And in fact, I was talking to one of the lawyers in our office, I think it was earlier this week or last week, about a new case that the lawyer signed up. And the client shared with them that the client was at the accident scene and there was somebody who showed up and told the person, "I work for," whatever law firm it was, "go ahead and sign these documents and I can get the lawyer for you." At the accident scene.

• 38:57Speaker 03

  Wow. Wow, wow, wow.

• 38:59Speaker 04

  The other thing that's shocking to me is, so generally speaking, people who come to our firm, and this is not the shocking part, but generally speaking, people who come to our firm, they're, they've done their research. They've read reviews. They, they know who we are. And that's generally the folks that reach out to us. We get a lot of calls from people who have hired these other firms, right?

• 39:19Speaker 05

  Every week.

• 39:20Speaker 04

  Every week.

• 39:21Speaker 05

  Every week.

• 39:21Speaker 04

  And they're, now they're dissatisfied, you know, and they said, "Oh my gosh, I wish we had known when we, when we called them initially." It's like, "Look, folks, do your research. Go online. Look at some reviews." I mean, people will review where they're going for dinner in more detail than they're reviewing the lawyer they're hiring to handle their case. Do your research because if you did it, you would know that these, you know, sort of billboard jockeys, they, they aren't going to take care of you, you know, they're, they're, they're not going to return your phone call. I mean, just basics.

• 39:50Speaker 05

  Can I add a hot tip there?

• 39:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:52Speaker 05

  Like if, if there's no Google review, it's because they haven't claimed a location.

• 39:56Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 39:56Speaker 05

  Red flag.

• 39:58Speaker 02

  I wonder about that location. Are there also some of these firms, out of law, out of town law firms, that just have a storefront, but it's just, it's?

• 40:07Speaker 05

  I wouldn't, I wouldn't even call it a storefront.

• 40:09Speaker 04

  They have a PO box, like a UPS store box.

• 40:11Speaker 02

  Oh, so it looks like it's there here, but also like a physical, like I'm thinking of one that's right over here, not too far away. And I'm like, they're not, they're not there.

• 40:19Speaker 04

  I know the one you're talking about because we actually did a social media piece at one point where we, we physically went to these offices, like we're knocking on the door. We're like, "Hey, we're here, you know, where are you at?" And it's like, you know, Tuesday at 1:00 in the afternoon and it's boarded up, not a soul in it. All it is, is it's a, it's a physical front so that they can advertise the fact that they're located in Bakersfield. They are not staffing a Bakersfield office.

• 40:46Speaker 05

  We walk over to your building, Sherrod, about once a week as the lawyers, we typically go grab coffee. Typically on a Tuesday, we come over to Reverb.

• 40:53Speaker 02

  Nice.

• 40:53Speaker 04

  Plug for Reverb coffee.

• 40:56Speaker 05

  We walk by one every single time and it's on, it's on the east side of Truck Stop, between your building and our building. And if you happen to walk by it and actually look through the glass, you will see that it, it's empty. It's totally vacant.

• 41:08Speaker 02

  I've never gone up and looked because it's kind of tinted. I'm like that. There's no attorney in there.

• 41:12Speaker 04

  It's got the limo tint for a reason, right?

• 41:15Speaker 05

  There's like an office chair tipped over like in the lobby and.

• 41:18Speaker 04

  Look, another hot tip, you know, for going down that road is

• 41:24Speaker 04

  98% of the people who come and hire us physically come into the office. Like, you know, they call, they make an appointment, but then they physically come into the office then, and they meet with Chris or me or one of the other lawyers. And it's always a lawyer, by the way.

• 41:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:40Speaker 04

  We don't really engage in this practice where we're sending an investigator to your house or to an accident scene or whatever. I mean, I just don't think that that's a good practice. People have legal questions at that initial meeting, as you would, right? You've just had something bad happen to you. You're gonna have a legal question. You know, folks, it's illegal for a non-lawyer to dispense legal advice. And I will tell you, there are a lot of firms out there violating that policy.

• 42:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:06Speaker 04

  But if you're not getting the legal advice from a lawyer, you're making a mistake.

• 42:11Speaker 05

  Well, listen, I mean, they're hiring the lawyer, right? I mean, they're not hiring the investigator. And so, for example, Jared, if I were to come to Money Wise and wanted to have you guys do some investment work for me, which you do.

• 42:22Speaker 02

  And I met with Steven.

• 42:25Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 42:26Speaker 02

  It'd be a great meeting.

• 42:27Speaker 05

  Sorry, sorry, Steven. I mean, we love you to death, but I want to meet with Jared. I want to meet with Justin. I want to meet with one of the other advisors.

• 42:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 42:34Speaker 05

  Because that's who I'm hiring.

• 42:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. But I think that it, that scenario is preying on people that maybe have never had any interaction with an attorney before.

• 42:45Speaker 05

  Well, listen, oftentimes, they're, I don't want to, oftentimes, they're in dire need, right? And they're not sure what to do.

• 42:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:54Speaker 05

  And sometimes they're not incredibly sophisticated.

• 42:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:58Speaker 05

  And unfortunately, they just get taken advantage of.

• 43:01Speaker 02

  Yeah. We got a listener message here you guys can help us with. It says, a little off topic, but what are the attorney's thoughts of these flock cameras in town? You guys taking a stance on flock cameras?

• 43:11Speaker 05

  We talked about those recently on a podcast.

• 43:13Speaker 04

  We talked about them recently.

• 43:14Speaker 02

  Yeah. On your podcast?

• 43:16Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 43:17Speaker 02

  Oh, nice.

• 43:18Speaker 04

  I understand the, I understand why law enforcement is using them and how it could lead to, and I think it has led to a reduction in crime or catching criminals.

• 43:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 43:34Speaker 04

  Okay, I get it. It reminds, personally, it reminds me too much of a movie called Minority Report.

• 43:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 43:42Speaker 04

  If you remember that movie with Tom Cruise. And I think we're, it's like, it's like we're chipping away at this like granite stone of privacy rights in this country, right? And we just keep chipping away at it, little bits at a time. And at some point, we're gonna be left with no stone at all. And I don't know that flock is, you know, the biggest issue, but it certainly, it certainly is a privacy concern.

• 44:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:06Speaker 04

  And I question, you know, this is a private company that's providing, allegedly providing all this information to law enforcement only. Are they really?

• 44:16Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 44:17Speaker 04

  Right?

• 44:18Speaker 02

  Right.

• 44:19Speaker 04

  At what point are they, you know, are they providing it to businesses?

• 44:23Speaker 02

  Right.

• 44:24Speaker 04

  Oh, hey, hey, hey, we just saw Matt Clark drove into such and such a neighborhood. You know, he must be on his way to, you know, Lowe's. You know, let's bombard his phone with a Lowe's ad.

• 44:33Speaker 02

  Right.

• 44:34Speaker 04

  Because he's on his way to Lowe's, right?

• 44:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:36Speaker 04

  I mean, how far are we, I mean, the phone's listening to me anyways, so it knows I'm going to Lowe's. But it's like, how far are we from, from that? I don't think, we're probably there and we just don't know it.

• 44:47Speaker 02

  Oh, I think so. I think privacy is an illusion now, at this point. There are some shows out there that are, that we're fans of, that we've heard are proper representation of that field. Take, for example, The Bear. Have you guys heard of The Bear?

• 45:04Speaker 05

  Yeah, sure, The Bear.

• 45:05Speaker 02

  So anybody who's like in the restaurant.

• 45:07Speaker 04

  The first season was excellent.

• 45:08Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. But anybody who's in the restaurant world is like, it hits home, right? They're like, oh, man, they're nailing it. The Pit is another one. Emily, you've watched this, you know, where it's like, if you've ever worked in an emergency room, it's like, oh, they are nailing it. Like, emergency room doctors will watch it and they're like, yeah, that's real.

• 45:24Speaker 03

  That's the real.

• 45:25Speaker 02

  Is there anything like that in the legal world?

• 45:27Speaker 03

  That's a very good question.

• 45:28Speaker 05

  I can assure you, Ally McBeal is not one.

• 45:30Speaker 04

  If there were, I probably wouldn't watch it.

• 45:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:34Speaker 04

  I don't know that there is. I, everybody wants it so, you know, we'll go out to lunch or whatever, and, you know, we're wearing our suits. And every so often, you'll have somebody come up and be like, oh, I love that show Suits, right?

• 45:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:46Speaker 04

  Oh, gosh.

• 45:47Speaker 05

  It's not representative in any way, right?

• 45:50Speaker 04

  No way.

• 45:51Speaker 05

  You know, Better Call Saul is no way representative of what the legal process is like.

• 45:55Speaker 04

  It's just not that exciting.

• 45:57Speaker 02

  I mean, I don't think you could really.

• 45:58Speaker 05

  For you guys, it's not, obviously for the world it is. That's why there's so many of these shows. Yeah, but to actually portray it in the way that it actually is, for example, within our office, you know, you talked about The Bear and it being a very exciting environment. There's always something going on and very dramatic. Just doesn't happen in our office. I don't know, Matt, what do you think?

• 46:16Speaker 04

  Well, look, okay.

• 46:17Speaker 03

  Maybe those 1-800 numbers.

• 46:19Speaker 04

  As an old film major, I'm gonna put on my hat here for a second. Look, what makes The Bear, a show like The Bear, exciting? Yes, the sort of behind the scenes of the restaurant stuff is exciting for a few minutes. I think that would get really boring. What makes The Bear exciting is the characters and the interplay between those characters, their relationships with one another, you know, their, their, their struggles in life, their successes in life. That's what makes the show interesting.

• 46:44Speaker 02

  Well.

• 46:45Speaker 04

  And I think that the legal shows are kind of the same way, right?

• 46:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:49Speaker 04

  Like, the actual nuts and bolts of the law, I think it would put a lot of people to sleep if you had to watch that.

• 46:55Speaker 02

  Well, I, I don't know. I think if done right, if it's written, if it's written properly, really good writing can overcome that.

• 47:04Speaker 04

  I don't think watching me read a US Supreme Court decision while I'm highlighting for an hour and a half or whatever it may be, it's gonna be all that entertaining, Jared.

• 47:14Speaker 05

  Yeah, Jared, I just.

• 47:15Speaker 04

  I think people be like, what, this is boring. Like, what am I doing?

• 47:18Speaker 02

  There was a movie that we saw recently that I, just a little legal stuff that I know. I was like, this is so far off. Like, this is not how it would ever happen. What was that movie where?

• 47:28Speaker 03

  I have no idea what you're talking about.

• 47:30Speaker 02

  It was, it was, or it was a show. Oh, I know what it is. It's that Margot has money problems.

• 47:36Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 47:37Speaker 02

  And, and it's, I think it's an Apple, is it an Apple show?

• 47:40Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 47:41Speaker 02

  Okay, yeah. And anyways, it's, it's this, it's like a custody, part of the show is talking about this custody battle between the, the father of the child and the, and the mother of the child. And they're having these mediation meetings where they're all in the same room, you know, the, the client with the attorney, the client and the attorney, and it's a mediation. And it's like, that is definite, that is not how mediation goes ever, ever. And the whole, the whole premise of this part of the show is this, this one aspect. And it threw me off so much that I, it kind of turned me off a little bit.

• 48:15Speaker 04

  Okay, okay. So let me give you the one, right?

• 48:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, okay.

• 48:17Speaker 04

  If you really want to watch a movie that I think does an excellent job of portraying what really happens in like a case. Now, mind you, this is a criminal case in the movie, not a civil case. But it's an older movie, black and white, so half of your listeners were just tuning me out. It's, it's Jimmy Stewart and it's called Anatomy of a Murder.

• 48:37Speaker 02

  Oh, okay.

• 48:38Speaker 04

  And if you haven't seen it, it's definitely worth a watch and it's accurate. I mean, to the point, like, the courtroom scenes especially are more reflective of what really happens in court. Now, had he done those things in a real courtroom that he does in the movie, the judge would have sanctioned him and there'd been all sorts of, you know. But, but it's close. And so, you should watch it.

• 49:00Speaker 03

  Oh, very cool. Anatomy of a Murder.

• 49:01Speaker 04

  Anatomy of a Murder. I think it came out in, I'm gonna get this wrong, it's either 58 or 59.

• 49:05Speaker 02

  There you go, Jimmy Stewart. Well, thank you guys so much. Really appreciate the time.

• 49:10Speaker 05

  Thank you.

• 49:11Speaker 02

  That's Matt Clark and Chris Hagan. They're partners and trial attorneys at Chain Cone Clark. So check them out. Great guys and great information. Thank you guys so much. Want to remind all of our listeners that if you've missed this or any of our past programs, go subscribe to the Money Wise Podcast. It's commercial free and on all major podcast platforms like iTunes, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. And also remember these three things: be smart, be safe, and always be money wise.

• 49:36Speaker 01

  Securities offered through LPL Financial, member FINRA/SIPC. Investment advisory services offered through LPL Financial. LPL Financial and Money Wise Wealth Management are independently owned and operated.