8/28/26 From Wall Street to Main Street: Fed Reaction, Fraud & BPAL

The Moneywise Radio Show and Podcast Friday, August 28th 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/ Guest: Bakersfield Police Department Officer, Jose Lara website: https://www.bakersfieldpal.org/ 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. Casey Schaubschlager, Wendy Porter & The Wounded Heroes Fund 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.

• 0:05Speaker 01

  Call or text in at 661-396-1000.

• 0:09Speaker 02

  I need a dollar, dollar, dollar, that's what I need. Hey, hey. Well, I need a dollar, dollar, dollar, that's what I need. Hey, hey. Said I need a dollar, dollar, dollar, that's what I need. And if I share with you my story, would you share your dollar with me? Security is 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 03

  Hey, welcome to Friday. You made it. The weekend is here, unless you work on the weekend, then. Sorry. I'm out of here after the.

• 0:53Speaker 03

  Friday is here. Looking forward to the weekend. You made it to the weekend. Welcome to the MoneyWise Show. We are live from the basement of the historic Woolworths Building in downtown Bakersfield. For the next hour, you're here on News Talk 96.1 and 1230 AM KERN, streaming live at MoneyWiseGuys.com. Or. Yeah, just MoneyWiseGuys.com. Just go to our website, right there. You can call or text into the show anytime, 24 hours a day, 661-396-1000, 661-396-1000. We did get a couple of questions that came in over the past 23 hours that we were off the air, so we'll get to those here in just a quick moment. But first, I'm your host, Justin Leland, here with.

• 1:35Speaker 04

  Frank Lee.

• 1:36Speaker 03

  Frank, how are you?

• 1:38Speaker 04

  I'm doing great.

• 1:39Speaker 03

  You made it to the weekend.

• 1:40Speaker 04

  I did, but.

• 1:41Speaker 03

  Well, you're at least, you're one hour away from the weekend.

• 1:43Speaker 04

  I am one hour away, but unfortunately, I still have work to do over the weekend. Thank you, thank you, Justin, sir, for that.

• 1:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, you know.

• 1:52Speaker 04

  Giving me work.

• 1:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's the, that's the, that's the perks of, the perks of being the boss, right? You can, you can delegate. Right, Steven?

• 2:01Speaker 00

  Yeah, he called you the protege last week, so.

• 2:04Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:05Speaker 00

  I guess that means we can work.

• 2:07Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's what it comes with.

• 2:10Speaker 03

  That's, that's, those are the perks. That's the perks of working for MoneyWise.

• 2:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, no, it's, it's gonna be a great weekend, might be a little, little warm, but.

• 2:19Speaker 04

  It's cooler.

• 2:20Speaker 03

  It's cooling down.

• 2:21Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:22Speaker 03

  Earlier this week was a little, little toasty. But anyhow, we're gonna do what we do, and we're gonna get down to some numbers here.

• 2:31Speaker 03

  Markets today, a bit down. Do we know why? What's going on there, Frank?

• 2:35Speaker 04

  Yeah, some pullback after the, the week itself. I mean, markets are still up for the week.

• 2:41Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:42Speaker 04

  So, news topics, some headwinds about Wors and the Fed continuing to fight the inflation. I know PPI results came out, so there's some speculations there. But quick rundown of the, the numbers here, Dow Jones down about six basis, S and P 30-ish, NASDAQ 58, and Russell 2K about 128 basis points.

• 3:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, so, yeah, small caps are down a little over 1%. Yeah, so, I mean, it's, it's an interesting day. I was looking at this and I said, okay, wait a minute, the, the producer price index came out, you know, I think it was last week or something like that, basically showed producer prices flat, didn't move at all.

• 3:25Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:26Speaker 03

  And in fact, there was a revision for the June numbers where the producer price index actually fell by 0.1%. So, while you and I and everybody who goes to the grocery store, we feel what's known as the CPI, that's the Consumer Price Index, the producers, the people that are, you know, making the widgets and buying and selling, you know, the businesses themselves, their, their inflation is known as the PPI, that's the producer's price index. And that has been unchanged and actually flat for the last two months. So, the, the question when that number came out, and what you probably saw was the markets

• 4:07Speaker 03

  had quite a, quite a good couple of days, was that was, that was deemed as, oh, Federal Reserve's gonna stay put in September, they're not gonna move. In fact, the, the, the betting markets, the policy markets, were saying, you know, oh, that drops it from being a 50-50 shot to basically being like a, a 30% shot that they're gonna raise interest rates in September. Well, here we are, you know, a week later or a couple of days later, and there's news out of Jackson Hole, where the Fed is meeting this week, they have their annual meeting in Jackson Hole, and if you've never been to Jackson Hole, it's absolutely stunning and beautiful, you need to go, go see the Grand Tetons, it's beautiful.

• 4:51Speaker 03

  Go to Jenny Lake, go, go hike, do some stuff, but don't go during the time when the Fed's there, cuz it's just a madhouse. Anyhow, they just finished up their meeting in Jackson Hole, and the notes that came out of that, the minutes that came out of that, people are reading that as where the, the Fed is being a bit hawkish, that they're going to fight inflation, which obviously, we all want them to fight inflation, but what does that mean? And this is, this is where I'm, I'm having a hard time gauging Kevin, Wors against Jerome Powell and other previous Fed chairs. Now, Frank's too young to remember Alan Greenspan.

• 5:36Speaker 03

  He's, he was probably born after Greenspan was, was a thing, but Alan Greenspan was a Fed chair back in the late 90s and early 2000s, and the, the notes and the minutes that came out of the Fed meetings, everybody would have to like, try to read the tea leaves because it was, it was kinda coded language and, you know, what is he thinking, what is he saying? And, and markets would move violently based upon whatever it was that Greenspan said. In fact, Garo, right, Steven, Garo would say Greenspan got next to the microphone again, and the markets moved.

• 6:15Speaker 03

  And so that, so, but every successive Fed chair since Greenspan has relaxed their language a little bit more and released more of the minutes and made it a lot more understandable for investors like you and I to kind of, instead of having to infer what the Federal Reserve is thinking, they would come out and say it, right? It was, it was a little bit of coded language, but then you get to Jerome Powell, and it's like, this is what we're thinking, this is where inflation is at, these, these are our numbers, and this is, they were very, you know, as clear as they could be, and I think it did a really good job to keep the markets kind of in line. Kevin Wors has come in, and now he's the, the Fed chair, and he's removed a lot of

• 7:00Speaker 03

  that, and he's kinda gone back to the old ways of Alan Greenspan, of being a bit more close to the vest on that, on those notes. This is why people are now kinda having to go in and like, guess, and I feel myself actually kinda having to be in a position of guessing. But the numbers don't say that they're gonna raise interest rates in September because the PPI is flat, CPI is still kind of rising a little bit, we're kind of, what, 3.7, 3.8, we're kinda closing in on 4% CPI inflation. And so, there's, there's a, there's an argument to be made to raise interest rates to tamp down that piece, but there's also the case to be said of not raising rates because inflation

• 7:45Speaker 03

  is still, you know, temperate, it's, it's higher than we want it to be, but if we raise interest rates, does that create negative influence on the labor market, which is the second, the second pedestal that the Fed has to go after?

• 7:57Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 7:57Speaker 03

  And so, they're walking a real tight rope right now between labor market and inflation, and if we do too much to battle inflation, does that then create unemployment that would then create other issues? So, it's hard to read the, between the lines here, and it's, I, I honestly wish we would go back to having the really clear, here's, here's what we're thinking, this is the direction we're going. I don't know, I mean, I guess it makes it interesting, it gives us something to talk about, right? So, we'll just see what, what happens, but right now, the policy markets are out there saying that there's like a 60% chance that the Fed raises rates after this, literally

• 8:40Speaker 03

  just a week ago, we were talking about, it was like a 1 in 3 chance, to now a 2 in 3 chance, literally in, in six days.

• 8:48Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 8:49Speaker 03

  You know, because of some coded language that came out of Jackson Hole, so it's.

• 8:54Speaker 00

  Tell me there's a chance.

• 8:57Speaker 03

  There is a chance. You know what else there's a chance of, Steven?

• 9:01Speaker 00

  The Dolphins winning a Super Bowl before I die.

• 9:05Speaker 03

  I'm not gonna go that far.

• 9:06Speaker 00

  Slim chance.

• 9:07Speaker 03

  Slim and none.

• 9:08Speaker 00

  1 out of 32 chance.

• 9:09Speaker 03

  Slim and none, and Slim's lacing up his boots.

• 9:12Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. What do you got for me, Justin?

• 9:14Speaker 03

  Uh, Mark Walter, the former owner of the Lakers, current owner of, majority owner of the Dodgers, and Chelsea, and Cadillac of the F1, and the Women's Professional Hockey League, I mean, he's, he's, he's all over the place, right? I wanna talk about this in the next segment, but he's under SEC investigation, so remember, what was it, two weeks ago, when we were on the show, and it would, like, the news had just come out that the Lakers had sold for 12 and a half billion?

• 9:44Speaker 03

  He had just bought the Lakers, literally 10 months before, for 10 million, so he got a 25% premium on the purchase, literally after 10 months.

• 9:54Speaker 03

  I guess it's what happens when you lose LeBron, the value of the franchise goes up.

• 9:57Speaker 00

  100%.

• 9:58Speaker 03

  100%, maybe 25% if we look at the numbers. But, he's under SEC investigation, I did not know this going into the sale of the Lakers. Since that day, I've actually gone down the rabbit hole a little bit on some of this stuff, and I do wanna talk about it in the next segment because it's, it is fascinating the world of, of private equity, private credit, insurers, you know, the, the, the shell game that's being played, and it's really interesting to see, like, this guy, who's gonna be, I personally believe Mark Walter is gonna be the single reason why we, that, why the Major League Baseball has a salary cap going forward.

• 10:40Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 10:41Speaker 03

  Like, because of all of this stuff that's going on.

• 10:43Speaker 00

  My question is, how much of this, I mean, will he still be involved with the Dodgers?

• 10:48Speaker 03

  I, everything it says, he's not selling the Dodgers, but after you've been investigated by the SEC, I think there might be a forced sale. We'll talk about that when we come back from break, but we also have a great guest coming in here, we're gonna be sitting down with Jose Lara from the BPD, a police officer, and we're gonna be talking to him about BPAL, the Bakersfield Police Activities League, all the wonderful things that are going on with that organization at the bottom of the hour. But, we'll be right back after these messages.

• 11:29Speaker 03

  Welcome back.

• 11:32Speaker 03

  Which one's, who's this one?

• 11:34Speaker 00

  Stapleton.

• 11:35Speaker 03

  Oh, nice.

• 11:39Speaker 03

  I didn't know anybody had made a cover of this. Is this new?

• 11:42Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think it's new for the Tom Petty Foundation.

• 11:45Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 11:47Speaker 03

  Cause he's, he's, he's got his estate and all that stuff and they're doing, uh, his, uh, late, his, um, you know, his wife, his family, they're selling a lot of his, uh,

• 11:59Speaker 00

  Is that why a lot of his memorabilia and guitars and all that stuff is, is being auctioned off?

• 12:04Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 12:04Speaker 04

  That makes sense.

• 12:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, it stinks. I mean, it's like, you know, but, yeah, when you find out, it's like, man, the guy was, uh, his last show, Tom Petty's last show, um, in LA, uh, before he passed away, um, for the last week that he was doing that tour, he was working and playing on a broken hip. He had actually a fractured hip and the commensurate, you know, this, the, the, the professional that he was, was gonna play all of those concerts. Um, and then after, this was the last concert of the show of the, of the tour, he was gonna go and get with his dog and do whatever surgery or whatever to get fixed up or whatever, but he, he was not gonna cancel those concerts.

• 12:49Speaker 03

  And unfortunately he didn't make it because he, you know, the painkillers and the, you know, the, the cocktail that he was taking.

• 12:54Speaker 00

  I saw his, his road manager was saying that the, a lot of that was legal stuff that the doctors were just, you know, trying to numb the, the pain.

• 13:03Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 13:03Speaker 00

  But that's, that's sad stuff. And, uh, something positive, I mean, your girl's birthday is today.

• 13:09Speaker 03

  Yeah, I was gonna say that. Like, why would you do that to me?

• 13:12Speaker 00

  I just was prepping for this. I was like, oh, Justin's gonna love this.

• 13:15Speaker 03

  Oh, man. So, yeah.

• 13:19Speaker 03

  We were like, we're looking at this and I'm like, okay, the birthdays for the day. Okay. Jack Black, Shania Twain, LeAnn Rimes, Daniel Stern. Okay. Jennifer Coolidge.

• 13:27Speaker 05

  Jennifer Coolidge.

• 13:29Speaker 03

  Stifler's mom.

• 13:33Speaker 00

  Well, if you don't know, Justin's got a major crush on Jennifer Coolidge.

• 13:37Speaker 04

  Oh, we know, we know.

• 13:39Speaker 03

  Oh, my goodness. No, that is my, my least favorite person, I think, you know, uh, on, on the planet, uh, you know.

• 13:48Speaker 00

  I'm saying that with you.

• 13:49Speaker 03

  It's.

• 13:50Speaker 00

  She, her.

• 13:51Speaker 03

  Nails on a chalkboard.

• 13:52Speaker 00

  Exactly. The most annoying sound of the world.

• 13:55Speaker 03

  I told you, I, when we took, we took Brandon to go watch the, the Minecraft movie and I didn't know. And I'm like, I show, I show up, we're watching the movie and all of a sudden she pops up and I'm like, I look at my wife, I can't do this.

• 14:07Speaker 00

  I gotta go.

• 14:09Speaker 03

  I'm gonna.

• 14:09Speaker 00

  Get me out of here.

• 14:10Speaker 03

  Basically, I just put on the earplugs and I sat back in the nice reclining chair and I just, uh, I took a nap.

• 14:16Speaker 00

  Yeah, wake me up when it's over.

• 14:17Speaker 03

  Wake me up when it's over. Cause I'm, I can't, nope, can't do it.

• 14:21Speaker 04

  Turn off your hearing aids.

• 14:22Speaker 03

  Exactly what I did. Turned them off, put in the earplugs, put a little, a little mask over my face and, uh, I took a siesta for an hour and a half.

• 14:32Speaker 00

  You didn't miss much. I went and watched that same movie with my son and, yeah. And, and she's popping up in everything.

• 14:40Speaker 03

  It's, yeah, whenever I see one of those stupid credit card discover commercials, I turn the channel. I just, I can't do it. It's just, oh my goodness. Anyway, getting back to good news, uh, fraud.

• 14:54Speaker 00

  Unless you're a Dodger fan, cause I, I've been hearing a lot from Dodger fans. A lot of them are just saying he, he's not the, uh, the big owner guy. He's just the face and.

• 15:04Speaker 03

  Oh, come on. No, no, no, no. So, here's the deal. So Mark Walter, um, if you don't know, Mark Walter is one of the majority owners of the Dodgers. He was, up until recently, one of the majority owners of the Lakers. Um, he owns, uh, a portion of Chelsea, um, the, you know, football club. Um, has a major stake in the women's professional hockey league. He also has, uh, a stake in, uh, the Cadillac team for F1. Um, and multiple other things that were probably missing, right? These are like the, the big ones that he's a part of. He is also, um,

• 15:52Speaker 03

  basically the owner of TWG Global,

• 15:57Speaker 03

  which owns Walter's insurance company. So he owns a lot of assets. And so he has these insurance companies that are tied to him. Delaware Life is one of them. Um, I believe Security Benefit is one of them as well. Um, or is that maybe one of his other partners? Yeah.

• 16:17Speaker 04

  Clearspring's life and annuity, yeah.

• 16:19Speaker 03

  Right. And so, so, he's under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

• 16:27Speaker 03

  And it's not necessarily him particularly, but TWG Global, who basically is Mark Walter.

• 16:35Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 16:36Speaker 03

  Um,

• 16:39Speaker 03

  the SEC is investigating the entities that are tied to TWG and the other entities that are linked to Walter, uh, including two different insurers that he can, so, so in essence, he owns these insurance companies. The insurance companies are lending him, basically investing in these assets for Mark Walter. And

• 17:05Speaker 03

  let's kind of follow the money trail here. Many of these insurance companies, like a Delaware Life or whatever, they have these mutual funds or annuities and things like that, that are in, included in private, you know, uh, pensions and things like that for like teachers pensions and things like that, that are invested in these assets. Now, the premiums that are paid into that and the mutual funds that are built by that, all of that money goes into Delaware Life, uh, or whatever insurer that he's got. And then just like a bank, these insurance companies have the ability and the duty to invest those funds, lend it out to other, uh, lenders or to buy stock or index funds or what, they're supposed to invest those funds for future return because,

• 17:47Speaker 03

  hey, if I have to pay out that life insurance policy, I, it's, it's 20 years down the road that this person may pass away, but we have a face value of a million dollars. I gotta pay that million dollars. So I have to make sure I have enough liquidity to be able to do that. And I have to be able to grow my assets at a level to be able to do that. Now, those companies are allowed to own a certain piece of, uh, private companies, private, what we call private equity, not publicly traded companies. They're an accredited investor and they can go out and buy these things. The issue is, and what's, what's the problem is that TWG, Delaware Life, Security Benefit, all these other outfits that are tied to Mark Walter,

• 18:30Speaker 03

  did not disclose the potential conflict of interest because it's borrowing money from these, uh, assets and then purchasing sports teams, which is private equity, that he controls.

• 18:48Speaker 03

  There's nothing necessarily wrong with Delaware Life or any of these other companies buying private equity. In fact, that's, that's perfectly normal and legal up to a certain, like your asset allocation can be up to a certain amount. So they're staying within these, these guide rules of like, hey, I can, we can be as, as much as a 12% private equity or private credit. The problem is when you're investing in another company that your president and board chair

• 19:13Speaker 04

  Part owner.

• 19:13Speaker 03

  is part owner of, and then you're lending money to his own other interest, that's where the problem lies.

• 19:20Speaker 04

  Yeah. And, and in a nutshell, this is what we categorize as self-dealing type of investment characterization.

• 19:27Speaker 03

  Right.

• 19:28Speaker 04

  Yeah. You, you can't take funds from one hand and then give it to the other.

• 19:33Speaker 03

  He's taking money from his right pocket and sticking it in his left.

• 19:36Speaker 00

  So is that why he sold or they're saying he sold the Lakers?

• 19:40Speaker 03

  He's, you know, he's claiming that there's no fraud and everything's on the up and up.

• 19:44Speaker 00

  He just saw, hey, I can make a joint something billion.

• 19:47Speaker 03

  OJ Simpson said he was innocent as well.

• 19:49Speaker 00

  Of course.

• 19:49Speaker 03

  Right? So the guy who's under investigation saying there's no fraud, I take that with a huge, I take that with a salt like a salt. There's like,

• 19:59Speaker 03

  there's, you know, but if the SEC is investigating you, nine times out of 10, there's a reason that they're investigating you. There's, not to say that there's, they're not coming out and saying there's something wrong necessarily, but there's enough of a red flag that says, hey, wait a minute, we gotta look at this. So he's claiming, oh, there's no fraud, there's no this. Here's the problem. So the US Attorney's Office in Southern District of New York has revealed that they had, uh, that these companies that were connected to Walter had misclassified more than $20 billion worth of investments, failing to report it to regulators, and these were tied to other parts of Walter's sprawling investment empire.

• 20:43Speaker 03

  That's from the US District Court.

• 20:45Speaker 00

  Is that what, I, I heard something on the Jim Rome show that it was almost to the penny on how much he had spent on these Dodger contracts.

• 20:54Speaker 03

  Bingo. So, yeah, no, seriously. He's, so he's under investigation. It's like, well, if the Southern District of New York is, and that's, those are the, those are the big dogs. When you're talking about the use of the US Attorney's Office and the financial crimes is in New York. I mean, that's, that's what they do. But to say that they, they have revealed that there was a misclassification of more than 20 billion in investments, why do you think he sold the, the Lakers for 12 and a half? There's, there's a, there's, I think there's gonna be a fire sale of some things because he's gotta make right on this $20 billion.

• 21:24Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's interesting.

• 21:26Speaker 03

  More to come from that, man. We will be right back with Jose Lara from the BPD.

• 21:46Speaker 03

  Going into the weekend with some metal, was that Sepultura?

• 21:50Speaker 00

  Slipknot.

• 21:51Speaker 03

  Slipknot.

• 21:52Speaker 04

  Slipknot.

• 21:57Speaker 00

  I had Bad Boys from Cops playing.

• 21:59Speaker 03

  I don't know if you could do that.

• 22:01Speaker 04

  Not this one, yeah.

• 22:02Speaker 03

  No.

• 22:04Speaker 04

  Maybe a different time.

• 22:05Speaker 03

  Maybe.

• 22:05Speaker 00

  Maybe after he leaves.

• 22:06Speaker 03

  Maybe when Sammy's down here.

• 22:11Speaker 03

  Welcome back to the Money Wise Show. I'm your host, Justin Leland, here with Frank Lee. We're being joined here today. We're actually very happy to have this officer join us. Jose Lara from BPD, liaison with the Bakersfield Police Activities League.

• 22:28Speaker 03

  Jose, thank you for joining us today.

• 22:29Speaker 06

  Thanks for having me.

• 22:30Speaker 03

  Absolutely. It's great to have you. So tell us, I mean, you know, you're obviously, you're a BPD officer. You're the liaison for the Police Activities League. What got you engaged, first off? What got you engaged to be an officer in the first place? Like, tell us a little bit about yourself, kind of your history.

• 22:52Speaker 06

  I'm 27 years old. I've been an officer now for going on four years. Take it back to this little kid, about nine years old. I grew up on South Owens and Ralston, so not very far from MLK, not very far from the PAL Center there, it's down the street. And it was just a place that my parents could drop me off there after school and get my work done, kind of hang out, play some sports and all that good stuff.

• 23:13Speaker 03

  Make sure you got your homework done.

• 23:15Speaker 06

  Yeah, they got out of work. So that's kind of how I started going to the PAL Center and moving forward, fast forward to, you know, college time for me. It was a decision to either be an officer or a fireman.

• 23:28Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 23:29Speaker 06

  The college that I went to down in Nebraska.

• 23:30Speaker 03

  Blue or red?

• 23:31Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 23:32Speaker 03

  Which way do we go? Blue or red?

• 23:34Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 23:35Speaker 03

  He chose the blue.

• 23:35Speaker 06

  Yep. But essentially, you just took it as a sign, as God telling me that, you know, I want you to go the officer route because they didn't offer any fire classes. My freshman year of college, so I just went that route. But yeah.

• 23:48Speaker 03

  Nice, nice. So you're growing up in the neighborhood. You know, it's, you know, right down the street from BPAL. I think I know right where it is. I think it's on Second Street or like somewhere in there.

• 24:00Speaker 06

  Yep, Fourth and Union.

• 24:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, Fourth and Union. And so, you know, it's the neighborhood there, obviously, it's, you know, a bit underserved and that's kind of one of the reasons of being there. But it's a fantastic organization because, you know, kids like you could go there and go do their homework. Have some social, you know, get in, you know, get with other kids their age and, like you said, play sports, basketball, football, whatever, you know, that kind of a thing.

• 24:29Speaker 04

  Could you actually tell us for, because for some of our listeners that aren't really known about, that don't know about these types of organizations? Give us a little rundown about what BPAL is.

• 24:40Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 24:40Speaker 04

  And what it does for the community.

• 24:43Speaker 06

  Yeah, BPAL is a nonprofit. It's a free after-school program. We're located at 301 East Fourth Street. Our hours are Monday through Thursday from 2:00 to 5:30. And it being a nonprofit, you know, it's my job and the director's job to host these fundraisers and chase grants and get donations to keep the lights on for the kids.

• 25:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 25:00Speaker 06

  Because we like to have all our programs there absolutely free or literally no cost. So we have tons of programs there from after-school programs such as tutoring, open gym, so that includes all recreational sports. Boxing, basketball, soccer. We recently just redid our softball field, so we're trying to bring that back in.

• 25:21Speaker 03

  Okay, okay.

• 25:21Speaker 06

  A full game room. We have free jiu-jitsu. There's an equestrian program. There's a T-shirt screen printing program now.

• 25:29Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 25:29Speaker 06

  So, Boys and Girls Leadership Program, so there's tons of opportunities.

• 25:33Speaker 03

  Doing all those things to, you know, and, you know, the reason, I guess, I mean, explain to me maybe the reason why this is such a major initiative for the Bakersfield Police Department. You know, I mean, obviously, you know, we're wanting to reach kids before they reach the age of maybe getting into, you know, bad habits or anything like that. But, you know, when did the BPAL start? And, you know, can you speak to that a little bit?

• 26:00Speaker 06

  It goes back to, you know, the mid-1990s, 1994, but we were at a different location. We were able to get the land that we are on now through Jim Burke and Bob Carby. They actually purchased and gave us all the funds to pretty much pay off our loan for that land there.

• 26:18Speaker 03

  Right, right.

• 26:19Speaker 06

  And that was there in 2001.

• 26:20Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 26:21Speaker 06

  So we've been located at that location since 2001.

• 26:23Speaker 03

  So for the last 25 years, been in that same location. And the initiative is obviously, you know, outreach to the community and stuff like that. So is it just for kids? Is it just for, you know, what's the age groups that you kind of see kind of going through the facility?

• 26:38Speaker 06

  Yeah, so we open our doors to kids between the ages of six to 17 years of age. If we get interest, like right now, our boxing program is huge. So we get a lot of kids that start very young and then they go on to be pros and post, you know, them turning 18.

• 26:52Speaker 03

  Golden Gloves or whatever, yeah, that kind of stuff.

• 26:54Speaker 06

  So when it comes to kids that turn 18, they want to come back, they just fill out a volunteer application and they're able to give back to the kids along with continuing our programs that we offer there.

• 27:04Speaker 03

  Oh, so they come back and they can actually volunteer as, okay, cool.

• 27:08Speaker 06

  Yeah, so majority of our age that we have there is six to 17, but then if they've been with the program prior to, then we allow them to come back and still continue with our program, but also giving back to the kids that are younger as well.

• 27:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, okay. That's really nice. And so, you know, I'm kind of a metrics guy and maybe you can answer this and maybe you can't.

• 27:29Speaker 03

  But are there any studies or anything like that that have

• 27:35Speaker 03

  kind of proven out the model for like a BPAL kind of a situation? Do you have statistics that can kind of show the reduction, maybe reduction in crime or graduating from high school or higher education or any of those types of things where it's a positive benefit to have these types of organizations in the community that can actually enhance, you know, somebody's

• 28:03Speaker 03

  prospects of graduating college or something like that?

• 28:06Speaker 06

  I can't give you a, you know.

• 28:08Speaker 03

  Direct statistic.

• 28:08Speaker 06

  A direct statistic, but I know multiple people, even people past me, you know, before me, my time, but down to, you know, when I was a kid. Many of us have used that opportunity to grow, whether they're now business owners, whether they've now just gone to college and started their life, their career.

• 28:24Speaker 03

  Right.

• 28:25Speaker 06

  Or become officers like myself.

• 28:27Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 28:27Speaker 06

  I'm not the only one. There's three, four others that we went through the program as kids and we're all very close in age, so we were with each other if not.

• 28:35Speaker 03

  You all grew up together, right? Yeah.

• 28:37Speaker 06

  Kind of went off to the same high school, shout out to Dr.

• 28:39Speaker 03

  Who knows, you were playing basketball against the other guys, right?

• 28:42Speaker 06

  So it just, it takes us back to those moments and the people before me. But, but yeah, there's many, many, many kids that, you know, they grow up and they use the opportunity to just grow. And, you know, from the tuning room to learning what they know there to the sports side of things. That was actually the first place that I actually kicked the ball.

• 29:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 29:01Speaker 06

  And use that and started.

• 29:03Speaker 03

  Learned how to play soccer and.

• 29:04Speaker 06

  Started growing and it got me through college. I got a full ride and I was great for the opportunity.

• 29:08Speaker 03

  Wow, there you go.

• 29:09Speaker 06

  Yeah, but, you know, Miguel Contreras, he's now an officer, but prior to that, he was a pro boxer and he started there at, you know, at the PAL Center with me. You know, we both started very similar in age.

• 29:19Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 29:20Speaker 06

  And kind of grew up together and we just had different routes and when it comes to the sports side, but.

• 29:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, you went the soccer route and he wound up going the boxing route.

• 29:26Speaker 06

  Yeah, but there's many successful stories and it's just a great opportunity to just, for these kids to just kind of, you know, we like to say we plant the seed and they'll blossom, they'll grow.

• 29:35Speaker 03

  Right.

• 29:35Speaker 06

  And they'll take from, you know, what they want to take from and, you know, they're going in their own direction, but.

• 29:39Speaker 04

  Yeah. Are there any other programs that you guys are looking to expand on, on top of what you guys have?

• 29:48Speaker 06

  Yeah, right now, we're, it's, we live in an age where right now the mental side of things is very huge. So we're trying to network and partner with other organizations that can provide that to those families of our, not only our kids, but kids in the community. You'd be surprised that if, BPAL is open to anybody in the public, right? We obviously get a lot of those kids that live in the area because we're right there.

• 30:10Speaker 03

  Right.

• 30:11Speaker 06

  But we do get a lot of the kids that go to Frontier, that live on the west side of town, because we offer programs that at a very low cost, a penny, right? And they're going to take advantage of it, which they should, right? So we're trying to partner with organizations that can help us bring, like, I guess, just help families with the mental health side of things.

• 30:32Speaker 03

  Right.

• 30:33Speaker 06

  And kind of offer that stuff. And we currently recently partnered with Care Medical, so they're out there every other Thursday. And people in that neighborhood can use that as their primary doctor. And so they're out there every other Thursday. They were there yesterday, giving kids physicals or for follow-up appointments or.

• 30:50Speaker 04

  Oh, wow.

• 30:50Speaker 03

  Sports, physicals and stuff like that for kids that are maybe needing it for sports.

• 30:54Speaker 06

  For sports and all that good stuff. So that's kind of where we want to, want to grow in that aspect. Other resources outside of what we offer, such as like anything medical related or the mental health side, counseling, therapy, all that good stuff.

• 31:08Speaker 03

  Now, is this funded entirely through the Bakersfield Police Department or is it based on grants and donations and on all of that? How is it structured?

• 31:18Speaker 06

  Yeah, it's a partnership with the Bakersfield Police Department, so they actually pay, cover my salary and the director's salary. But everybody else that works there, it's all funded through BPAL, so it runs off grants, fundraisers, donations and all that good stuff.

• 31:32Speaker 03

  Which leads me to my next question. Do you have an event that's coming up in the not-too-distant future for people that might want to be able to get involved?

• 31:41Speaker 06

  Yeah, we have our 23rd Annual Hometown Heroes Benefit Dinner. This year, we're going to be honoring AJ Anon, so the Anon Legacy Foundation, as the honoree for the Hometown Hero of the Year.

• 31:51Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 31:51Speaker 06

  He came in, I want to say last year, a little later, a year and a half ago, and his idea was to donate a computer lab. But he walked our facility and he saw our fields and said, I need that up and running again.

• 32:05Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 32:05Speaker 06

  And so he's put a lot of time and just given back to the community and giving back to our program and our kids.

• 32:11Speaker 03

  Right.

• 32:11Speaker 06

  So he's our honoree this year.

• 32:13Speaker 03

  Nice.

• 32:13Speaker 06

  There's still seats available, there's still tables available, so if anybody's out there willing to sponsor.

• 32:17Speaker 03

  And how would they reach?

• 32:18Speaker 06

  They can call our office at 661-283-8880 or email us at [email protected].

• 32:25Speaker 03

  Bakersfieldpal.org. We'll make sure that that is actually on our podcast notes, Stephen. Now, beyond the monetary and everything else, it seems like there's volunteer opportunities for folks that maybe are, you know.

• 32:40Speaker 03

  High school, you know, softball coach or whatever that wants to also do something to give back to some is how would somebody get involved in in volunteering their time to to help these kids?

• 32:51Speaker 04

  They can call us at that same exact number or email us and we'll we'll connect with them. We've worked with B C Athletics, their their boys and girls soccer team have came out and put on free soccer clinics for our our kids or just kids in the community that want to come out.

• 33:04Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 33:05Speaker 04

  And then same thing with the the C S U B on the men's basketball side and their soccer team, they've they've came back. So now with our softball, we're we're looking at to kind of get, you know, those teams involved as well. But yeah, anybody out there that's willing to volunteer or sponsor or just give back.

• 33:20Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 33:21Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's.

• 33:22Speaker 03

  Now, do you have a fencing program? Because if you do, then then Frank would be all over that.

• 33:27Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah, because I'm all about fencing. No, I'm not. Do I look like a guy that would that?

• 33:34Speaker 03

  Oh, I think you do. I think I could see that hood.

• 33:36Speaker 04

  I can. I've thought about it. Very, very, very briefly, but.

• 33:41Speaker 03

  Uh, Jose, thank Officer Lara, thank you so much for joining us today. You know, get involved with the the youth. If you're listening in and you have, uh, the this is pulling at your heartstrings a little bit. Go to the website, uh, check it out, call and or email. There's still tickets available for their hometown heroes dinner and we'll be right back after this. Welcome back. Thank you very much to Officer Jose Lara from the Bakersfield Police Activities League. Go get involved. Yeah, get, uh, those kids deserve it, man.

• 34:23Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 34:24Speaker 03

  Good organization, good, good group.

• 34:26Speaker 04

  I I kind of want to say that I think one of my good friends volunteered there for like their boxing.

• 34:31Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 34:32Speaker 04

  Because he he was a huge boxer.

• 34:34Speaker 03

  Right.

• 34:35Speaker 04

  All the way through through college and everything, so.

• 34:37Speaker 03

  So here's the funny thing, though, is you have the B Pal, which there has their boxing program, but then the Kern County Sheriff's Department has their own boxing program, right? So then you have the B P D and the sheriffs, they have their kids that.

• 34:47Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 34:48Speaker 03

  They'll compete against each other and box. It's actually kind of kind of cool.

• 34:52Speaker 04

  Isn't that the whole boxing competition, the sheriffs against?

• 34:54Speaker 03

  Well, I think they also have the, you know, the, what is it, the Battle of the Badges or whatever, and they'll have like the firefighters fighting against the B P D or whoever.

• 35:02Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 35:03Speaker 03

  Interesting.

• 35:04Speaker 07

  We got John on line one for you.

• 35:06Speaker 03

  John on line one. John, you there?

• 35:09Speaker 07

  I have a question.

• 35:11Speaker 03

  Yes, sir.

• 35:12Speaker 07

  This is John. Um, question on crypto.

• 35:15Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 35:16Speaker 07

  I don't I don't get it, okay?

• 35:18Speaker 03

  Nor do I.

• 35:19Speaker 07

  In that, well, that's a good answer. Because like just recently, you know, I just saw that crypto had no traction until Trump changed his thing and they have this, what was it, the Equality or the?

• 35:36Speaker 04

  Clarity Act.

• 35:37Speaker 07

  This whole bill. Yeah, clarity, thank you. Anyway, and now you have, and and that Trump and family has made something like two billion off this this whole crypto deal.

• 35:48Speaker 03

  Right.

• 35:49Speaker 07

  And I cannot, it seems to me that if anything, crypto undermines that of the dollar as the reserve currency. And that's in a very broad spectrum because they say it's becoming global currency.

• 36:05Speaker 03

  Right.

• 36:06Speaker 07

  But there's zero that I can ever, I, nobody can ever identify that there's anything backing it. And I say, well, the dollar is a, you know, is whatever, but it has the backing of the U S economy behind it and and and the ability of the U S Treasury to be able to raise funds, et cetera. Crypto is 100% speculative.

• 36:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, I would say, and then, John, I I completely agree with you on a couple of points, and I would disagree on another one. So the the thought process that the United States dollar is no longer going to be the the reserve currency. Now, what does that mean? Basically, the reserve currency winds up being that that is the currency that most other, uh, global currencies will peg their their value to. And it's also what oil is traded in. So you don't hear oil being traded in British pounds or euros. You hear that it's traded in dollars. That is why we are the reserve currency and it's based upon the size of our overall economy. Now, crypto, you're absolutely right.

• 37:10Speaker 03

  It's 100% speculative. Um, now, and and and quite frankly, uh, very loosely regulated. Uh, and when I say loosely, I mean, not regulated. Uh, it's it's just simply not. There are, Frank, how many, how many different coins would you say are out there?

• 37:31Speaker 04

  Hundreds.

• 37:32Speaker 03

  I would say thousands.

• 37:33Speaker 04

  Hundreds of thousands of different coins.

• 37:35Speaker 03

  Of different coins. Which one is the, you know, the valuable ones? It's Bitcoin, Ethereum, Cardano, there's a couple of others.

• 37:42Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 37:43Speaker 03

  But for the most part, what is a Bitcoin worth? It's whatever I say it's worth or you say it's worth when we trade that.

• 37:50Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 37:51Speaker 03

  Right.

• 37:52Speaker 04

  So to to his point, there is no actual backing, uh, like that of the U S dollar.

• 37:57Speaker 03

  Right.

• 37:58Speaker 04

  It is backed by the other person's goodwill and faith.

• 38:02Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 38:03Speaker 04

  That they're going to hold that that crypto.

• 38:06Speaker 03

  Now, let's like, let's kind of really kind of dive into it. Crypto, what is it based on? And it is based on the technology of the blockchain. Now, what is blockchain? It is the ability to pass data packets across the internet, um, very, very quickly, shave off processes, um, and, you know, those packets of information have a value to them as far as data is concerned, correct? What that then means is, okay, well, we're going to assign a value to it and we're going to, we're going to issue these coins that can then be traded in in terms of what the, so really it's backed on data packets.

• 38:50Speaker 03

  It's not, it's not backed on a quote, a quote, a currency. It's it's data. It's, um, ones and zeros being passed back and forth, right? And so the value of it is completely and totally arbitrary, um, until there's some form of regulation that kind of follows, uh, follows suit.

• 39:11Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 39:12Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 39:13Speaker 04

  So, I mean, the main, the benefit of of what crypto came out of is is that blockchain technology because you're seeing it implemented across different industries, not just the financial sector now.

• 39:25Speaker 03

  Right. Whether it be real estate industry, medical industry, uh, there's all sorts of different things where data is being passed back and forth on this blockchain that is, um, uh, faster, easier, you know, more secure, whatever. But when you're talking about the actual currency itself, um, I I hearken it back to the way that, uh, you know, the bad actors like Al Qaeda would use diamonds to pay for their, uh, you know, uh, for their terroristic acts. You know, uh, blockchain, Bitcoin, Ethereum, these these coins that are not intraceable and you can transfer them back and forth.

• 40:06Speaker 03

  It gives, it gives rise to things that are unsavory, um, and illegal activities, uh, more so than anything else is is my thought. Um, and it's just, um.

• 40:17Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 40:18Speaker 03

  The value of it is, it, I I don't see it.

• 40:20Speaker 04

  Yeah, but going back to that whole cryptocurrency and and everything, uh, the the main, um, push right now, I I guess what you're seeing in a lot of the financial sectors is the tokenization. You you've been hearing that everywhere.

• 40:35Speaker 03

  Right.

• 40:36Speaker 04

  Robin Hood, even in the major banks, uh, but also stable coins. Uh, but that is backed on the the idea that this blockchain technology helps with the peer to peer transactions.

• 40:47Speaker 03

  Correct.

• 40:48Speaker 04

  Because it's not something where if you send money to someone, it's, oh, you know, sure, the fastest way is a wire, but then that's still within a couple, like, days, a day or so. Uh, but with the technology of the the blockchain, you can send it within seconds, minutes, just like that.

• 41:04Speaker 03

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 41:05Speaker 04

  So that's, that's what you're starting to see out of this.

• 41:08Speaker 03

  Right, and I think it's just, um, you know, buyer beware. I mean, if you go back to like Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett, you know, when you, when you look at, uh, cryptocurrencies, every single one of them said, if you're, if you want to go to Vegas and lose your money, at least you get some entertainment in Vegas.

• 41:25Speaker 04

  And a free drink?

• 41:27Speaker 03

  And maybe a free drink. You don't get that with crypto. Uh, the money's just gone. Um, and it's it's ripe with like scams and all these other things. I I I stay as far away from crypto as I could possibly get because it's just, it is, it is completely speculative.

• 41:44Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 41:45Speaker 03

  It's gambling.

• 41:46Speaker 04

  It has, yeah, it has been the centerpiece of a lot of scams, even recently too, um, as far as like taking the money out, putting it into Bitcoin.

• 41:56Speaker 03

  Crypto, yeah.

• 41:57Speaker 04

  Right. ATM, like those cryptos, ATMs and everything and.

• 42:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 42:01Speaker 04

  Especially with, uh, AI in itself, because you can, I I've I've seen, I've heard that people, these scammers will create fake portals, websites where, you know, you're, you've contributed this money and invested into that Bitcoin and then they see the value.

• 42:17Speaker 03

  It looks exactly like another website.

• 42:18Speaker 04

  Right, right, right.

• 42:19Speaker 03

  It's totally, totally fictitious, right? Oh, your, your $10,000 investment is now 1.7 million dollars. No, it's not. No, it's not.

• 42:28Speaker 04

  That's.

• 42:29Speaker 03

  And it's, it's fake and it's, um, yeah, it's just not good. Um, stay away if you can, um, unless you're willing to lose the money, really what it comes down to. Frank, thank you for joining today. It's a good show. Thank you to Officer Lara from the B Pal. Um, have a wonderful weekend. It's going to be warm and it'll cool down a little bit, but it's going to be, you know, still, it's August, you know, coming into September, still a little warm out there.

• 42:54Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 42:55Speaker 03

  But be smart, be safe, be money wise, stick around for J R. Don't give him too much crap. He's a good guy.

• 43:03Speaker 02

  Securities offered through L P L Financial, member FINRA, S I P C. Investment advisory services offered through L P L Financial. L P L Financial and Money Wise Wealth Management are independently owned and operated.