7/28/25 California's Economic Crossroads: Oil Jobs, Crime Trends, and Gas Prices

The Moneywise Radio Show and Podcast Monday, July 28th BE MONEYWISE. Moneywise Wealth Management I "The Moneywise Guys" podcast call: 661-847-1000 text in anytime: 661-396-1000 website: www. MoneywiseGuys.com facebook: Moneywise_Wealth_Management LinkedIn: Moneywise_Wealth_Management Guest: John Cox, Business Editor for the Bakersfield Californian website: www. Bakersfield.com

• 0:00Speaker 00

  From the Garo Ellis padded radio room off Stockdale Highway, here is Money Wise. Call or text into the show 24/7 at 396-1000.

• 0:39Speaker 00

  Here is Money Wise. Money, money, money, money.

• 0:43Speaker 01

  Welcome to the Money Wise Show. We are live from the Garo Ellis padded radio room off Stockdale Highway on ESPN Bakersfield, 1230 AM, 101.1 FM, and always streaming at MoneyWiseGuys.com. You can call or text into the show 24 hours a day at 661-396-1000. Today, we are your hosts. I'm Sharad Waite and... Sammy Abiyawi. Sammy A. Sammy A. Happy, happy day, Sammy. Great, uh, great day? Yeah, very good day. Weather is nice. It's not that hot. It's not. Everybody is saying that here in town. Yeah. I had lunch today and I walked around the office. I did 10 minutes. Uh huh. It feels really good.

• 1:24Speaker 01

  Yeah. It, I, it's been, I need to look at the statistics, because I saw an infographic here a few weeks ago, maybe a week ago, that compared this July, the number of, of days over 100 degrees this July versus last year's July, which last year had like... All of July. Many, many days. It was like, almost most of July was over 100 degrees. And this year, we've just had, just a few days in July was over 100 degrees. And anytime below 100 degrees here, yeah, it's so nice. It's nice. It's very nice. It's in the 90s, you're... Don't jinx it. I know. I know. That's what, that's like, all of us locals here are just like, hey, let's not talk about this, but isn't this nice? Yeah. Super nice. Uh, also, what's nice, Sammy is...

• 2:10Speaker 01

  The comments and questions we get from listeners.

• 2:12Speaker 02

  We do. We have a lot of comments, actually. I'll start with the first one. I'm a business owner downtown and hearing that Woolworths is close to opening the doors, I'm very excited to have a classic building like this one reopen. I moved down here from Seattle about four years ago and have never had the pleasure to go inside the building. Good luck and excited to check it out. Marlene.

• 2:31Speaker 01

  Hey, thanks, Marlene.

• 2:32Speaker 02

  Thanks, Marlene.

• 2:33Speaker 01

  We'll be excited to have you.

• 2:34Speaker 02

  Definitely.

• 2:35Speaker 01

  We are, what, Sammy, five weeks away from the lunch counter opening up?

• 2:39Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 2:39Speaker 01

  Five or six weeks? So, and, you know, this is a good example. Marlene just moved here right when we probably started construction.

• 2:47Speaker 02

  Started the project, that's right.

• 2:47Speaker 01

  And the remodel. And so, yeah, a lot of people haven't seen the inside. You can, you can get a lot of information on the social, social media, the Historic Woolworths on Instagram or Facebook. And, you know, I have to say that our marketing team has done a good job. There's a lot of information there. And the website, historicwoolworths.com, you can, you can see the history of the building. There's a lot of renderings. And so if you're interested in finding out more.

• 3:15Speaker 02

  Believe me, Marlene, we cannot wait to show it, too.

• 3:19Speaker 01

  Yes. Yeah, we can't wait. They're starting to, well, we were just in there a couple of days ago, Sammy. They're putting up light, the light fixtures and the paint on the inside and the...

• 3:28Speaker 02

  It's coming together. It's so fun to see it.

• 3:30Speaker 01

  Super fun. Yeah, it's at that fun stage where, you know, we've moved beyond just...

• 3:35Speaker 02

  One week passes by and you cannot wait for the following week to go and see, oh, what else?

• 3:40Speaker 01

  I know, I know. Super excited. Very nice. Thank you, Marlene. How about the next one?

• 3:46Speaker 02

  Hey, this is Mark. I've worked in Ag my whole life, not Wall Street, but hearing that a robot can turn 1,000 into 5,000 without me having to lift a finger sounds wild. Is this really something someone like me can trust with part of my savings? Or is this just another slick Silicon Valley sales pitch? Have a good day. Have a good week, guys.

• 4:05Speaker 01

  Thank you. That's an interesting question, Sammy. I'm not sure what the reference is because I have not yet seen a robot that's like available commercially for

• 4:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, so you can you can buy or lease or rent for your house chores, you mean?

• 4:23Speaker 01

  Right, yeah. Or in this case, I'm assuming this would be like maybe for the ag business. You know, the robot that would somehow come in and do this and, you know, turn a thousand dollars into five thousand dollars. I'm not aware of that yet. However, it does certainly seem like we're headed in the direction where these robots are going to be able to do a lot more. I mean, right now, they're all they seem to be mostly in, what do they call it, like beta testing?

• 4:53Speaker 02

  I shared with you last week, I saw a video on YouTube about some influencer visiting the BYD manufacturing facilities.

• 5:04Speaker 01

  With the robots walking around?

• 5:05Speaker 02

  Yes. Just this this stuff was mind boggling, really. It was amazing. The advances and where they are and how their movement.

• 5:16Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 5:17Speaker 02

  And what they can do. It's crazy.

• 5:20Speaker 01

  I saw a TED Talk that the TED I think the TED Talk was from either this year or last year, but I saw it here just a couple of months ago. And it was the speaker was on the stage and then it was all about AI and robot robot technology and the advancement. And they had the robot come walk out on stage and on stage they had set up like a living room. And they did a demo where they showed how this robot could vacuum, it could water the plants. And it did it like right there on stage, like this autonomous robot was walking around watering the plants in this little like, you know, set.

• 6:00Speaker 01

  And it's like, what? What is happening? It's so freaking cool. And also it's a little terrifying because we don't know.

• 6:10Speaker 01

  We're just guessing what the impact is going to be on the economy, on people's jobs.

• 6:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, which I think I read somewhere today that the largest job loss, maybe John later can can fill in this for us, was into in the white collar industries for the AI.

• 6:30Speaker 01

  Oh, for AI.

• 6:31Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 6:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, that would make sense.

• 6:33Speaker 02

  Analysts.

• 6:34Speaker 01

  Yep. Marketing.

• 6:36Speaker 02

  Marketing.

• 6:38Speaker 01

  Software engineers.

• 6:40Speaker 02

  Yes, but those are moving into like AI specific jobs. There's certain certifications and things you could do, but you could pivot.

• 6:48Speaker 01

  Right.

• 6:49Speaker 02

  A prompt engineer, they call them.

• 6:51Speaker 01

  Right. Oh, yes. Yeah, right. A prompt engineer. Isn't that something? It's probably going to be called something later, but it's similar to like when the internet came out. You had internet special, internet researchers. They were the people, they were essentially people that knew how to get, use a web browser.

• 7:07Speaker 02

  How to type, how to type WWW.

• 7:09Speaker 01

  Yes, that's right. How to find, how to find web browsers to do some search, search engines, basically. They understood what a search engine was and they had a job.

• 7:18Speaker 02

  And that was amazing.

• 7:19Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 7:20Speaker 02

  Because me coming here in America in 2001, internet was here a couple of years already. But coming from Morocco, I mean, I had to learn a lot.

• 7:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:29Speaker 02

  To catch up, especially going through an MBA program here at Cal State.

• 7:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:33Speaker 02

  People were so like, hey, let me Google this.

• 7:36Speaker 01

  What? Google?

• 7:37Speaker 02

  What is, what is that?

• 7:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:38Speaker 02

  It was, it was a culture shock.

• 7:41Speaker 01

  At the same thing is happening now. There's a, there's a culture shock happening with AI, particularly the chatbots, the large language models that, you know. I think the kids, younger people seem to probably be catching on quicker because they can write their essay for them. You know, it can do all their.

• 7:56Speaker 02

  That's scary. I told you I was doing shopping yesterday with my kid for school stuff. And he's like, I need a calculator. A calculator? For what? You're in seventh grade.

• 8:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:06Speaker 02

  Need a calculator for? You guys need to do stuff by hand so you can learn math.

• 8:09Speaker 01

  Oh, boy.

• 8:10Speaker 02

  Oh, no, we need the calculator.

• 8:11Speaker 01

  You're really dating yourself.

• 8:12Speaker 02

  His voice is getting deep.

• 8:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:14Speaker 02

  We need a calculator.

• 8:18Speaker 01

  But when the calc- when calculators came out, which were not that long ago. I mean, we were probably young kids, maybe in elementary school, and you know, it was like affordable to get, you know. I guess I'm thinking more like, yeah, I'm thinking more of like the scientific calculators. I guess they had like, you know, normal, more simple calculator. But there was the same societal outcry of, oh, people's brains are gonna melt and like nobody's gonna learn real math because now you just have this machine. What it turns out that people did just fine. And you still have to understand mathematical concepts and the calculator becomes an assistant, like a tool.

• 9:03Speaker 01

  But you know, and I see that happening with AI also and these large language models. It's like, well, you're going to, you're gonna, you're gonna have to teach people how to critically think. And those tools, those methods involve using tools like AI.

• 9:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 9:23Speaker 01

  Just like.

• 9:24Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 9:25Speaker 01

  Teaching math involves using tools like a calculator.

• 9:27Speaker 02

  That's true.

• 9:28Speaker 01

  It's not like it's gonna do the thinking for you, it's gonna do some of the work for you, but.

• 9:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 9:33Speaker 01

  I'm optimistic. We had a, Richard, I think it was Dr. Gerhart, The Economist, that we were talking about the displacement of jobs. Economists are predicting there's actually gonna be a net gain job of jobs overall from AI.

• 9:46Speaker 02

  After the, after all the pivoting and all that.

• 9:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 9:52Speaker 01

  Over, I don't know, most of five or a 10-year period, most of the experts are predicting actually a job increase. However, it's this shift where, like you said, a lot of the white collar jobs might go away and, or become something else, transition into these other things like a prompt engineer.

• 10:12Speaker 02

  Prompt engineer.

• 10:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:14Speaker 02

  We have a third message. Going back to the best burger question, there used to be a car wash on 34th Street across from Jolly Cone or Buckles?

• 10:24Speaker 02

  That's awesome burgers. They moved over here on 24th at the Chevron Gas Station Car Wash. Half pound patties. We make it a cheeseburger and add some jalapenos to it. The ladies that work there have been there for years. Their lead is Dolores. Try one. Also make great breakfast burritos.

• 10:43Speaker 01

  I, did I not mention the 24th Street? I think I did, because that is a good burger.

• 10:47Speaker 02

  You, you mentioned it multiple times.

• 10:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:50Speaker 02

  Both when they were at 34th and then after they moved.

• 10:53Speaker 01

  And did you go, do you go there too? Is that a place that?

• 10:56Speaker 02

  No, I go to 24th Street Cafe.

• 10:58Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's right. That's where you.

• 11:00Speaker 02

  That's my, that's my zen place, early morning.

• 11:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, I mean, I'd echo this on that, and it's a good deal. You can get a combo meal for 14.99.

• 11:12Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 11:12Speaker 01

  Like 15 bucks, you get a, I think it's a quarter pound, or maybe a half pound burger.

• 11:17Speaker 02

  With fries and a drink.

• 11:18Speaker 01

  Fries and a drink. Like, come on.

• 11:20Speaker 02

  14.99.

• 11:22Speaker 01

  As we know, Sammy, getting ready to open up a burger joint, restaurant, that is a good deal.

• 11:30Speaker 02

  That's a very good deal.

• 11:31Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 11:31Speaker 02

  I mean, it's a very good deal.

• 11:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, because we know what that stuff costs.

• 11:35Speaker 02

  Yes. Yes.

• 11:37Speaker 01

  What it takes to make it.

• 11:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, great, great suggestion for the 24th Street, uh, place now. So, yeah.

• 11:44Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, why don't we do this, Sammy? Why don't we take a first break? And when we come back, I want to get John Cox on the mic. He's here. We're gonna talk all of the Bakersfield Californian stories that he's been working on and much more.

• 12:00Speaker 02

  Sounds good.

• 12:00Speaker 01

  I don't want to miss it. We'll be right back.

• 12:33Speaker 01

  That's right. That there's the theme song for our current guest, regular guest now for nearly 10 years or more, 15?

• 12:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think I started around 2010 at the latest.

• 12:45Speaker 01

  There you go. Oh, my gosh. 15 years. John Cox from the Bakersfield Californian, does everything over there. Editor, journalist, uh...

• 12:55Speaker 03

  That's about it.

• 12:56Speaker 01

  Phone answer, receptionist.

• 12:58Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 12:59Speaker 01

  Doing it all. Uh, John, uh, once again, great stories. Um, I want to start maybe with uh, something that you've been following now for many, many years here in Bakersfield, and that is Sacramento's crackdown on oil and gas exploration in California, or at least in Kern County.

• 13:16Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 13:17Speaker 01

  But certainly Kern County, where the, we're the producers here in California. And there seems to be a shift. There seems to be a, a shift on the, at least from the Newsom administration. And I'm going to read directly from, uh, from the first line of your article titled "Proposed Bill Would Protect Kern's Oil Permitting System From Sequoia Lawsuits." This came out on July 24th. It was just four days ago. Kern County's 13-year campaign to streamline local oil and gas permitting would be given 10 years of protection from California Environmental Quality Act lawsuits under a draft state bill supported by, get ready, get ready, the Newsom administration.

• 14:02Speaker 03

  You sure you got that right?

• 14:03Speaker 01

  Did you write this right? Did you, did this go through copy?

• 14:07Speaker 02

  I struggle reading this. I mean, I, it was, it's I.

• 14:11Speaker 03

  Almost incredible.

• 14:12Speaker 01

  I, I'm guessing this, this, the skeptics, the cynics will immediately go, oh, this is, this is Gavin Newsom gearing up for his presidential campaign, you know, in, what is it, 2029 or 2028?

• 14:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:28Speaker 01

  Whenever the next presidential campaign is. Um, but what, so this is happening.

• 14:33Speaker 03

  Well, I think that there's a little truth to what you're saying, because what would really mar any such presidential, presidential campaign?

• 14:41Speaker 03

  A catastrophe in the oil markets, right? I mean, you could, you could use, if, if it's true what, what they're worried about, which is $8 a gallon gasoline. If that happens, then he doesn't stand a chance, you know? They don't want, nobody wants to elect some guy who's gonna run up their thing. He needs to show, I'm not a political reporter, sometimes I am. But I think that if he wants a chance, he's gonna have to show that he can make things happen and that his headlong pursuit of climate action, responsible, you know, stewardship of, of the economy and the planet, does not bankrupt everyone. Because right now, you know, our, part of the reason we pay such high electric rates is because we are being very active as a state. Yeah. And that costs money. Yes.

• 15:26Speaker 03

  And, and if there's anyone following us, you know, I, I'm not aware of it, maybe eventually, but if we succeed, then he can stand up there and at these presidential debates and say, "Look what I did." Right. "Look at California's record." Right. But if, in doing that, he, uh, he over-regulates oil to the point that production's not happening and we rely entirely, and already we rely heavily on imports. Yeah. If we rely entirely on those, and it doesn't, uh, something goes wrong, you know, something at the ports or international oil prices, and we're no longer producing any oil, that's gonna mar his record. Yeah. It's, that is gonna open him up to all kinds of criticism. Yeah.

• 16:09Speaker 03

  So, um, he, in April, he asked the California Energy Commission, "Come up with a plan, uh, because these, if you've got two big refineries you're closing, this, this does not look good for California's future. We don't have a big margin, a lot of, you know, leeway in case, uh, we lose another refinery. We're gonna have to import more gasoline, that's gonna be expensive and it, and it exposes us to a lot of risk." Yeah. And so, he asked, "What can we do?" And, and the Cifagunda, the vice chairman of the commission, said, "Well, one thing you need to do is, um, protect Kern County's oil and gas permitting system from these sequel lawsuits, which are just, you know, very effective way to stop a..."

• 16:50Speaker 03

  And it has stopped. I mean, Kern County's been able to permit oil a few times over, you know, I guess, years, but it keeps on getting stopped in court because CECO is very hard to live up to if you've got someone who knows what they're doing and is going to attack your, you know, 30,000-page environmental review.

• 17:10Speaker 01

  Right.

• 17:11Speaker 03

  30,000 pages.

• 17:11Speaker 01

  They can almost always find some problem. We're talking about environmentalist groups, generally speaking.

• 17:16Speaker 03

  Right. Generally, so it's, you know, sort of the coalition of California. You've got the environmental justice groups and the conservation groups. They kind of have a lot of overlap there. And they, and a local farmer, they have teamed up to stop this thing because they want to stop oil, you know, really, that's part of what he's doing. And Newsom, too, to a degree, wants to phase out oil, but not prematurely because then you expose yourself to the market and the downsides.

• 17:48Speaker 01

  That's what this feels like, is that there is now some backtracking on the tide has changed a little bit, where the Sacramento's maybe recognizing that they need to do something here to not just totally kill it.

• 18:01Speaker 03

  Right.

• 18:02Speaker 01

  And so it looks like as part of this draft state bill, which Newsom administration supports, it's requiring the oil and gas companies to plug and abandon two wells for every one that they drill.

• 18:17Speaker 03

  Right, but not in Kern County.

• 18:19Speaker 01

  Here, they don't have to do that.

• 18:20Speaker 03

  Not in Kern County because that is for the places that don't have CECO coverage. The proposed bill, which is not even a bill yet, would say Kern County has an environmentally valid review. And, you know, it's extensive. Sure, they've been able to poke a lot of holes through it. They've been pushed for, pushed, excuse me, for better and better mitigations, they're called, to sort of make up for the impact. And the industry gave a lot this time. When I say the industry, this whole thing by the county is funded by industry. The oil industry, Sipa and Wispah, two big oil groups, they paid for all the work that normally, well, that does go into this.

• 19:05Speaker 03

  The ordinance relies upon this environmental review. And that's been all the extensive work has been paid for by the industry. And so they made some big concessions most recently. And we'll see if they hold up in court. Because if this bill does not go through, if it becomes a bill, then you've still got a year and a half to go through the courts and say, you know, we think we fixed all the things that have been found. And then it's still a long process. However, if this bill does go forward, then within like a month, you can start permitting. Now, it hasn't gone forward. It would have to happen sometime between the 24th, what is it, before the 24th of August

• 19:47Speaker 03

  and then have to be signed before the 24th or, I'm not sure if I have that date right, of September. Now, another question-

• 19:55Speaker 01

  The legislation will have to sign the bill, you're saying?

• 19:57Speaker 03

  Right. Legislature would have to approve of it. Governor would have to sign it at the end of the period. If Kern County's going to get that protection this year. And then it would be very quick. You wouldn't have the year and a half of just answering the last lawsuit and going through to the appellate court and then back to the Kern County Superior Court and, you know, get everything finalized. But by 5 o'clock today, we're going to find out-

• 20:22Speaker 01

  Today?

• 20:23Speaker 03

  Today, today.

• 20:24Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 20:25Speaker 03

  Today's the deadline. If you're going to sue and say, even though all these latest change, this newest draft of the Kern County Oil and Gas EIR-

• 20:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:34Speaker 03

  If you're going to say there's a problem with it, you have to have it filed in court by 5 o'clock today.

• 20:39Speaker 01

  By the end of work today.

• 20:40Speaker 03

  Right. And if that doesn't happen, it's still a year and a half. But who knows how much longer than that year and a half, right? And we expect, because that has been the playbook for these 10 years this thing's been in court, you expect the environmentalists are going to challenge it. But they have not as of a couple hours ago.

• 20:59Speaker 01

  No kidding.

• 21:00Speaker 03

  As of a couple hours ago. It is fully expected they would unless, unless they've been brought in to this petroleum task force where they've, you know, been saying, listen, we need to protect California against market shock. It could certainly happen.

• 21:15Speaker 01

  Maybe they've also have seen the potential dangers of just cutting off the industry for so long.

• 21:22Speaker 03

  I don't know. I haven't heard that. I have not heard anyone say that, that they've, that they've sort of seen like, you know, there is some danger here, maybe we shouldn't push too hard. I hear them saying they want to protect the frontline communities and, and that's really what their main thing is about, but also, you know, climate change and oil. So we'll find out. Uh, read tomorrow's paper?

• 21:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:41Speaker 03

  Yeah. Tomorrow's paper will be in the mail.

• 21:43Speaker 01

  Tomorrow will be tomorrow. There will be a paper tomorrow.

• 21:45Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah. None today. You're not going to get one in your mailbox today. We don't publish on Sunday or Monday.

• 21:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:51Speaker 03

  So I get the weekend off. Thank you.

• 21:53Speaker 02

  Going back to the refineries, we heard and we read that two of them are closing. Governor came out and said, well, no, my task force is doing this. We're reaching out. It's not a done deal yet. We're trying to save it. Any progress made there with, with the closing? Are we going to try to avoid it?

• 22:13Speaker 03

  I heard that, uh, the California Energy Commission, ones that provided that advice to, uh, Governor Newsom, they are negotiating or helping to find a buyer for one of them. I'm not even sure which one of them, but one of them, they are interceding in normal market maneuvers to go say, uh, and the state's done this before with the one in, uh, Rosedale, trying to find, you know, what are we going to do about this? You know, we've got a lot of power. We can't necessarily buy the thing, but we could find someone who might be a good match. That's happening, as I understand. I read a report about this.

• 22:46Speaker 03

  You know, one of the, the, the impacts of all this, you know, why, why is oil, California or Kern County oil such a big player in all of this? You know, we don't, we're not the ports. We don't have any very significant refineries, but we supply those refineries. And California refineries largely need Kern County oil. They, they're geared, they're engineered to take the, the

• 23:06Speaker 01

  The heavier

• 23:07Speaker 03

  heavier, thicker crude that we have here. And with such, uh, production so down, so much diminished from where it was a few years ago, uh, cause you, it's hard to get a permit to, to, to work on your well, let alone drill a new one.

• 23:24Speaker 03

  There's not enough oil flowing to, south to the refineries or north to refineries in the Bay Area. And so, they're intermittent. Instead of going every day, they're only every once in a while.

• 23:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, because my understanding, there has to be a certain amount of capacity in the, at least in the pipelines, because, or they can't, they don't function.

• 23:43Speaker 03

  Right. There was talk of closing some. That was a rumor that I heard.

• 23:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:47Speaker 03

  There was one company that was planning on shutting down. Well, that would be very difficult. Not only for Kern County oil production, but for the refineries.

• 23:55Speaker 01

  Right.

• 23:55Speaker 03

  And then we'd have to be pulling in a lot more through the ports. And so, this is really all of this, the protection for the Kern County oil and gas is to protect all of these things. It's not just about Kern County. This is about the entire state.

• 24:08Speaker 01

  Right.

• 24:09Speaker 03

  And, you know, finally, there's this recognition by the Newsom administration that we may have gone too far. Kern County oil production is critical to California. It is like, you know, the admission that Kern County oil has been waiting for all this time. Yes, we're important, we told you.

• 24:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:24Speaker 03

  And I think that's probably what's going on in the minds of these associations of oil producers.

• 24:30Speaker 02

  I was just gonna say, why is it so difficult for politicians to just admit? You made a mistake.

• 24:35Speaker 03

  Well, they're not not saying that. They're not stepping up. I think that the fact that they are entertaining this idea is essentially saying that. I mean, Gavin Newsom thought-

• 24:47Speaker 02

  That's why we're not politicians, Sharon and I, because we could have come out and just like, "I'm sorry, I made a mistake."

• 24:51Speaker 01

  That's why we wouldn't-

• 24:52Speaker 02

  Let's recalculate and let's, that's why we're not politicians.

• 24:54Speaker 01

  That's why we'd never get elected. No way. You know, it's, do you get it? I know in your, in your article, John, you quote from the, the CEO of SIPA?

• 25:11Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 25:11Speaker 01

  California Independent Petroleum Association?

• 25:14Speaker 03

  Rock's here, man.

• 25:15Speaker 01

  That's right. Rock, yeah. And obviously, he's very happy about this.

• 25:18Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 25:19Speaker 01

  The trades.

• 25:20Speaker 03

  He's been warning him for a long time that this needs to happen, that, you know, if you're gonna push so hard, regulate oil out of business, which is the goal still, I believe.

• 25:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:31Speaker 03

  But, but be realistic about your timetable for doing that. That's what they've been asking for. You're gonna run into problems. You are gonna run up the cost. And finally, it looks like the governor's agreed. Now, he supports it, but we don't have a bill yet. And then he would have to, you know, when the governor puts his force behind something to pass, it often does. And then he would sign it, and then, you know, Kern County Oil would be back in business.

• 25:56Speaker 01

  Yeah. And do you get a sense from other producers, oil producers, like, you know, the Chevrons?

• 26:05Speaker 03

  No, they're watching this. I haven't heard from them directly. They tend to, on these things, they tend to prefer that we get our comments from the trade associations. They will refer us to those sort of things. You know, there's another question that comes up here. If you did give the full green light to local oil production, now, go ahead, you guys can drill, you know, obviously, the mitigations need to remain in place, and a lot of that money goes toward air quality programs and all that. Okay, if they, you know, it's more expensive than it was. But if you give us a certainty, there's some question about how quickly they could ramp up. Now, during, when there were no permits for years, no drilling permits, companies left. They closed, they left, their people went into other lines of business, or left the state to go work in Texas, for example, where there

• 26:50Speaker 03

  are not these things. And so, would we, Kern County Oil, be able to pick right up again? I didn't mean to say that I'm part of oil. I'm not. But I wonder if, how soon that would happen, that they would be able to return, you know, start drilling. My understanding is a lot of drigs, the drilling rigs have left.

• 27:11Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 27:12Speaker 03

  Bakers Hughes does not even count California rigs anymore. That used to be part of them. They don't even bother now. Will that change? You know, is that, are we gonna see a bunch? I'm sure people would like that, you know, to see it pick back up.

• 27:26Speaker 02

  I, as a banker, I used to bank a lot of oil industry, or we call them the patch, industries of the patch, oil service and servicers that have rigs, or welders, or a lot of them, one large company had about 1,200 employees at one time. And during the COVID, COVID kind of like precipitated or sped up the process of them exiting California. From 1,200, they went to 60 employees.

• 27:58Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 27:59Speaker 02

  All their rigs were either sold or left the state.

• 28:05Speaker 02

  And and I think to your point, a bit difficult, it would be great to see the oil back because it supports so much, you know, high paying jobs that translate into buying power, not just at Walmarts and Targets, but also the houses.

• 28:24Speaker 03

  Yeah, right.

• 28:25Speaker 02

  Our office buildings here in Bakersfield are suffering from vacancy, a lot of it because oil companies left.

• 28:33Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 28:34Speaker 02

  So if that if that comes back, we'll see a revival of not just one industry, but a lot of other industries.

• 28:41Speaker 03

  Residential could help too. There's some worry that if if indeed oil suddenly were shut down, a lot of a lot of the folks who've worked in the oil patch would sell and move and you know, all these homes come on the market at once. That would not be good for the Bakersfield housing market.

• 28:58Speaker 02

  That's true.

• 28:59Speaker 03

  But you know, it's a it's a good question. What would happen if suddenly things turn back up again? In fact, maybe I should start asking that question, do a story about that. Do we have the capacity or what capacity would we have to ramp buck back up in a short time? If everybody got the permits they wanted?

• 29:16Speaker 01

  Right.

• 29:17Speaker 03

  Could you meet them?

• 29:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, what would that mean? What would that look like? And yeah, what would impact would that have? How long would it take? My guess is it would just take take it a long time, but I might be just thinking of like offshore, I might be thinking of refineries or offshore drilling, not more of these types of drilling or rigs that they can, you know, once they get the permit, they can they can start, you know, shovels in the ground. It would be interesting to know how long it will take, what, you know, what's a what's a best case scenario.

• 29:49Speaker 03

  Right. And if it is a year and a half before if, you know, this bill does not take shape and and get passed, how soon, if there are no challenges coming before 5pm today?

• 30:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:02Speaker 03

  How soon could you ramp up the industry? Because because Lorelei is worried that even if there is no challenge today. That still it would take too long for the industry to get back up to full strength so that she could start handing out permits again. Who's left? Now, I know that there are some oil field service companies out there. Not as many as there used to be.

• 30:23Speaker 01

  Yep. Yeah. And so many of them, some of that I've spoken to are just sick of the roller coaster ride. You know, they're so sick of these ups and downs or these dry spells. And so it's hard for these employers that, you know, lose these employees that...

• 30:40Speaker 02

  Yeah. And I've attended, I've attended some, some, some conferences for oil companies. I'm talking about like Tesoro and others when I was a banker. And, and the thing is, again, I'm not a supporter of the oil industry by any means. But...

• 30:58Speaker 01

  Yes, you are. You fill up your tank. You fill up your tank like the rest of us.

• 31:02Speaker 02

  That's true. Diesel, by the way, big truck.

• 31:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:05Speaker 02

  They were saying, "Look, we know that EVs are coming and the change has to happen, but let's do it over time."

• 31:14Speaker 01

  Right.

• 31:15Speaker 02

  So we can also change our infrastructure ourselves, retrain our people, rebrand our stores. Like instead of having ten pumps and two charging stations, let's flip that and do something else so we can still accommodate for the travelers, for people to use our stores and everything. I mean, there are a couple of people that we know here in this community that have gas stations. They employ a large number of employees. A friend of mine has 350 employees with all his gas. That's, those are jobs. These are families that are being fed through these jobs. So music to my ear when I hear that, "Hey, there's a chance of ramping up. Yeah, let's do it." I said, "Let's do it with a conscious approach to things I might change in the future."

• 32:01Speaker 03

  In addition to all this, the property tax revenues of Kern County government would increase. They've been decreasing and decreasing. So in addition to, you know, employment and local economy, you would also see public services finally, you know, finally increasing some. You know, we had a lot of money during the pandemic. You know, everyone was getting money for almost whatever. But since then, it's been hard and Kern County could use the bump.

• 32:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, they could, for sure.

• 32:33Speaker 02

  So I don't know if this statistic is right or wrong, but currently we have six drilling rigs, which is, which in California versus in 2020 before the pandemic, we were, we had them in the hundreds, 300. The rig count is

• 32:47Speaker 01

  Statewide?

• 32:47Speaker 02

  Yeah. The rig count is, is how they, you can, you can basically assess how much drilling activity do you have?

• 32:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:55Speaker 02

  And we have very minimal drilling activity right now.

• 32:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's been like that for several years, I think.

• 33:00Speaker 02

  Yes. Yeah, for quite some time, since before 2020, before the pandemic.

• 33:03Speaker 01

  Jeez.

• 33:04Speaker 02

  The pandemic kind of like, really kind of like put the hammer on this.

• 33:07Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah. It was 19, excuse me, 2019 that Newsom came into office and it was a few months after that, that he saw what he viewed as problems within the industry and he started regulating, changed out the, some leadership in the state oil regulation department. And ever since then, it's been, it's been down. But that's where you compare to really early 2019 and you can see just a big jump. His predecessor in that position was much more accommodating of oil. Newsom has been much more progressive about it, moving quickly. But yeah, it looks like it's given him pause a little bit.

• 33:49Speaker 01

  Well, you also wrote last week, John Cox from the Bakersfield Californian, an article where the CHP is giving credit to Governor Newsom as well for the 28% drop in vehicle thefts?

• 34:01Speaker 03

  How about that?

• 34:02Speaker 01

  Unbelievable. Yeah. Like a third?

• 34:05Speaker 03

  We saw that. We thought, we have got to do a story about this. 28% one year to the next. Again, with credit going to Governor Newsom.

• 34:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:15Speaker 03

  That he announced, I believe it was in April of last year. That he was going to be putting resources toward Kern County, especially the CHP, working more closely with local law enforcement. Apparently, KCSO was not involved in the Kern County Auto Theft Task Force.

• 34:35Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 34:35Speaker 03

  But now they are, in BPD too, and there's a lot of cooperation that goes on. They have, the governor has done similar work now with San Bernardino and Alameda County, specifically Oakland, I guess, where they are putting CHP in closer coordination with local law enforcement. And gosh, you know, so the, Alameda County and San Bernardino County, they also had impressive numbers, but nowhere near the 28%. And I've talked to someone on this, and he said it's working really well. This, this, you know, having law enforcement across different counties or different agencies working together is a real benefit. They also have these things,

• 35:19Speaker 03

  apparently part of this is these automated driver's license readers.

• 35:23Speaker 01

  They're, not driver's license, but

• 35:25Speaker 03

  License plate.

• 35:26Speaker 01

  License plate readers, yeah.

• 35:27Speaker 03

  Thank you, yes.

• 35:27Speaker 01

  You have this in your article, where this was, this was supported by the CHP, where they were able to have unmarked cars that had license plate readers scanning, looking for stolen, I'm assuming looking for stolen vehicles

• 35:41Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 35:41Speaker 01

  that come up on the thing, and then they can immediately get, you report it and get them, you know, get the car.

• 35:47Speaker 03

  As part of this, everybody who's on four wheels, and maybe even the motorcycle officers, they might immediately get a, a notification, "We have a sighting of a stolen car at this area, and here's the description."

• 36:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:02Speaker 03

  And so it's not just the, you know, part of the task force, but it's everyone in the area can now look for it. And so it's been just a big success.

• 36:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:11Speaker 03

  You know, maybe, maybe now we know how to do this. Still, 6,000 thefts. I mean, you don't want to overplay it, right?

• 36:17Speaker 01

  No kidding.

• 36:18Speaker 03

  It was definitely like 8,000 something to like 6,000.

• 36:20Speaker 01

  6,200 cars and trucks were stolen in Kern County last year in 2024.

• 36:26Speaker 03

  Right. So it's still, we still have a problem.

• 36:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:28Speaker 03

  But it looks like there's a lot of progress being made. And I asked these folks, "Are we going to see similar numbers next year?" And they said, "Oh yeah, we think so."

• 36:35Speaker 01

  Wow. Well, good. I mean, I just, it's just shocking that people are stealing cars. And, you know, just the

• 36:48Speaker 01

  Even if you have insurance, it's still financially devastating for a lot of people. They lose their car.

• 36:54Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 36:54Speaker 02

  And it's, it's, it's the fact that you wake up, you walk out and you don't find your car. Now the headache.

• 37:01Speaker 01

  So disturbing.

• 37:02Speaker 02

  It is, it is. I mean, it's your, it's, I mean, you got violated, your privacy got violated, your, your, your security, your, your peace of mind. It's not a, no, I'm sorry. It's just.

• 37:13Speaker 01

  And I just, I think that's just the nerve that anybody would have to just go and steal a car.

• 37:19Speaker 02

  And they pick, there are certain ones that are very popular.

• 37:21Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yep. Uh, and there were, there were also a big increase in theft in the catalytic converters. I wonder if that's come down.

• 37:29Speaker 03

  You know, I think it has. We don't hear very much about it. I think that, uh, eventually they were able to, to get at the problem here, which I, I don't know, but I'm thinking that the, uh, unscrupulous scrap dealers, um, may have been found out.

• 37:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, right.

• 37:45Speaker 03

  I hope so.

• 37:46Speaker 01

  That would be the way, like one way I guess to stop that is finding out where these are ending up.

• 37:50Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 37:50Speaker 01

  Who's buying these used catalytic converters? Uh, real quick before we take a break, I just kind of going back to the refinery and the oil stuff. Is there any update on the Rosedale refinery?

• 38:03Speaker 03

  Well, yeah. So they're going through, um, they're going through bankruptcy and we had actually a story, not just about the bankruptcy, but, uh, last week, I think, or maybe it was the week before that, we had a story about, uh, concerns that have arisen in court. Uh, actually the trustee on the case, the UX bankruptcy trustee, he raised an objection that would have, um, the, the proposal out of the company was that first of all, the ownership was going to end up in the bigger, you know, investors, uh, lenders, uh, and the everyday investors in the stock are all going to lose everything, which is not that surprising, unfortunately.

• 38:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:39Speaker 03

  But, uh, the proposal from the company was also to, um, to hold harmless all of the officers and directors of the company. And the trustee said, "No, I don't think that that's really the way to go," which was kind of interesting.

• 38:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:55Speaker 03

  You know, I mean, is it that important to find fault? Well, they lost a lot of money. Or at least they spent way more, way more than this project was post-cost and take a long time. It's been a problem. And the proposal is, "Well, let's just do a reset and let's not ask who's to blame and start to open people up."

• 39:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:13Speaker 03

  So the trustee says no, and I think a decision's coming later this month. No, maybe next month, I think it is, on whether they're going to exempt these guys from any legal actions.

• 39:25Speaker 01

  Which could be just gross mismanagement or...

• 39:28Speaker 03

  Well, I mean, I guess you could allege that. It seems like the problem has always been in the engineering side. There were different companies that were involved in that. And that's really when things started to go wrong.

• 39:45Speaker 01

  Do you know if it's functioning?

• 39:47Speaker 03

  Oh, it's running.

• 39:48Speaker 01

  It's running?

• 39:48Speaker 03

  Well, last we heard in December, right? So now it's, you know, they're not reporting anything. I think that we would have known if they were not producing. But last we heard, it was 6,000 barrels a day. Now, you know, designed for 15,000, but not surprising they would be doing only 6,000 at that point. You know, so soon after they officially, you know, began operation, commercial operation. But the idea is that over time it's going to increase. They would like to bring in some of this Camelina, the grain, instead of using the, you know, sort of the low-hanging fruit. The less profitable feedstock, which is what you turn in, you fill those barrels with.

• 40:28Speaker 03

  But they were using, we believe they're using or have been using the rendered fats and the used cooking oil. It's kind of the main things that you would do if you're going to produce renewable diesel.

• 40:41Speaker 03

  So eventually, the plan is to start using grain, which would be great. That would be truly cutting edge innovation happening right here.

• 40:47Speaker 01

  Using Camelina.

• 40:48Speaker 03

  Camelina.

• 40:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:49Speaker 03

  That is brought in from out of state.

• 40:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:51Speaker 03

  But I have no reason to think that's happening now. Maybe it is. They have not reported because, you know, it's in this limbo. And I don't know whether you're going to get that information. If it's no longer a publicly traded company, they don't have to tell the public anything.

• 41:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, right. It'd have to be some regulatory agency or something that they'd have to report to or whatever.

• 41:11Speaker 03

  Right.

• 41:11Speaker 01

  Interesting. And we're going to take a break right now. We're Money Wise. We'll be right back.

• 41:15Speaker 00

  Have you been putting off your finances? Seize the day. Call the Money Wise office at 661-847-1000, or email [email protected] for more information.

• 41:28Speaker 01

  Welcome back to Money Wise. We're your hosts. I'm Sharad here with Sammy. Got a message here, Sammy, from a listener. I'll go ahead and read it.

• 41:34Speaker 02

  Yes, please.

• 41:35Speaker 01

  Says, "Some people aren't digging these AI things." As I read over the weekend, LeBron James' legal team warned that some AI company, warned some AI companies that they will pursue legal actions if they continue to use him in their AI imagery. So this is something, actually, we didn't, we didn't mention, we're talking about the, the, the good things about AI. But there is definitely a downside to the way that they could generate video and

• 42:01Speaker 02

  My god.

• 42:01Speaker 01

  Pictures.

• 42:02Speaker 02

  It's amazing, some of these videos and some of these, like, you, you, these jokes and stuff using AI now with some of these videos. It's funny.

• 42:11Speaker 01

  It is so funny.

• 42:12Speaker 02

  It's funny. It's, I mean, I don't think it's politically correct, but.

• 42:16Speaker 01

  But when somebody's making their living off of their, off of their imagery and their, you know, who they are.

• 42:25Speaker 02

  Likeness.

• 42:25Speaker 01

  Their likeness, yeah. And then you just have a bot that can just spit this out. They are, it's gonna, there's gonna, some rules need to be set.

• 42:33Speaker 02

  There's this video I watched where they have a look alike LeBron. They call them LeBron made, Timo LeBron and made in the USA LeBron.

• 42:42Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 42:42Speaker 02

  Because the one, the one is very small and does, his jump shot is not the best.

• 42:50Speaker 03

  That's funny. You had a question for John?

• 42:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, I was just curious about the almond production, the projections versus what's been seen on the trees, prices, international demand. I know growers have been struggling with this in the last couple of years, with some growers even going out of business because they could not service their debt. What are you seeing in that world?

• 43:11Speaker 03

  Well, the latest estimate is that 3 billion pounds is going to be produced in California this year. We haven't seen more than that since, I think the record year was 2021, 3.12 billion, if I'm recalling correctly. So, you know, but it's supply and demand is always a balance. Having a lot of supply is good in some respects. I mean, obviously, it's been a problem in years past, but we need to match that with demand. And so the California Almond Board,

• 43:44Speaker 03

  it has been working on initiatives to increase demand domestically and internationally. The latest report that we got from the Almond Board was that shipments are up, which is, you know, sales are up. They didn't say up, they said strong. And I could look a little closer than that, but they also said that they're getting more uses for almonds. Well, that can be a lot of things, not just talking almond milk and stuff. But, you know, your favorite, you know, snack bar might now contain almonds. Who knows? Maybe there'll be, uh, Almond Joy will have two almonds instead of one.

• 44:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, get a little bigger almond on the Almond Joy.

• 44:20Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 44:21Speaker 00

  That's what we need. Americans getting fatter.

• 44:24Speaker 02

  Almonds will not do that to you. Peanuts would.

• 44:26Speaker 03

  Peanuts would, a lot of fat in peanuts.

• 44:28Speaker 02

  But almonds, almonds, almond is just good for you, I hear.

• 44:31Speaker 03

  They are.

• 44:32Speaker 02

  My heart doctor was a good friend of mine.

• 44:33Speaker 00

  Wrapped with chocolate.

• 44:35Speaker 03

  Yeah, especially when they're wrapped in chocolate. I'm okay with that.

• 44:40Speaker 01

  This is good news for Kern County.

• 44:42Speaker 03

  Well, the fact that the demand is, that there's hope that demand is going to be strong. Overall, we are seeing a decline in acreage. Eventually, that's going to mean substantial reductions in supply. But to this point, it has not meant a lot. You know, you see these guys be all excited that they thought that the April subjective forecast was going to be, was too big, although it was, it was smaller than what the objective was. And so this has sort of turned the whole thing on its head. People were thinking it was going to be a low supply year, and that's going to be good for prices because it has been so hard for years now. People are going out of business. They're not making money. And then, you know, all the, the cost of everything is going up. The inputs, as they call it. Everything costs more money. And so it's been

• 45:26Speaker 03

  a hard time. We thought we were going to see a diminished supply this year. Did not happen, or at least according to this latest estimate. But I think that's going to return focus, and has returned focus, to the demand side. We need to, you know, there's these trade missions that go out, where they go and they teach countries, here, here, have some almonds. Here's how you cook with almonds. Here's different things you can use them for. And they're, you know, try to start a relationship with these folks. And instead of focusing on the tariffs, like in China, and, and all, India lifted its tariffs, or substantially lifted them. It's very much about opening markets for, to countries that don't already consume a lot of almonds, if any. So that's kind of where the hope is. The Almond Board

• 46:09Speaker 03

  of California, a lot of smart people, this is what they're looking at now. You can't do anything about the supply at this point, but we can bring up demand.

• 46:17Speaker 01

  Yeah. And the, the fact that, you know, this is one of, I mean, we export to the world. We export food all over the world. Almonds is one of those things that can be exported, and has to be exported all over the world, because it's only grown in a few places in the world, including here in the Central Valley. So it's one of those really cool commodities that we own here in, in, in the valley, that has incredibly good, positive economic impacts because it's, it's, it's outside money coming in for a resource that's from here. So it's really cool. And it's tasty.

• 46:51Speaker 02

  The input, I mean, going back to your point about expenses going up. Bees.

• 46:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. Oh, yes.

• 46:58Speaker 02

  Going up. Uh, chemicals after the war in Ukraine went up.

• 47:02Speaker 01

  Fertilizers.

• 47:03Speaker 02

  And it's staying up because it did not, it did not go down since the war started. And, and in some instances, the last numbers I saw when I was still consulting for, for, for, for a friend of mine, it's almost double, if not triple, the price of chemicals.

• 47:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 47:20Speaker 02

  That's what I think is putting the dent. Coupled with also the demand or the low demand from the overseas markets.

• 47:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:27Speaker 02

  So if you can pierce that, Trump can play his magic and do something about that. That'd be great for the Central Valley growers.

• 47:33Speaker 01

  Give people a deadline. You need to eat more by within 10 days. Uh huh. You know, do the, do the Trump, uh, negotiation tactic. You've got 10, 10 days to buy the most almonds you've ever bought in your life. Go.

• 47:47Speaker 01

  Well, John Cox, thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show. Really, really appreciate it. Thank you. Love to do it. Want to encourage everybody to go read John Cox's articles. Go subscribe to the Bakersfield Californian. You can have it now delivered directly to your mailbox. You don't even have to get out and pick it up off your front porch anymore. It comes right to your mailbox. Bakersfield Californian. That's John Cox. Thank you again so much. Want to remind all our listeners, these three things. Be smart, be safe, and always be money wise.

• 48:17Speaker 04

  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.