8/25/25 Thinking Critically: From AI to Oil & Energy

The Moneywise Radio Show and Podcast Monday, August 25th 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 a.m., 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're your hosts. I'm Sharad Waite and...

• 1:03Speaker 02

  Sammy Abiyawi.

• 1:05Speaker 01

  Sammy, how you doing?

• 1:07Speaker 02

  I'm good. I had a good weekend.

• 1:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, you did.

• 1:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:10Speaker 01

  You caught me up a little bit.

• 1:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, I went to Costa Mesa. Weather was much nicer than here. It was humid.

• 1:16Speaker 01

  It was humid. It was like the...

• 1:17Speaker 02

  And it rained.

• 1:18Speaker 01

  Yeah. Did you hear about the mudslide in the canyon?

• 1:21Speaker 02

  No, I did not.

• 1:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, they even shut down the canyon yesterday.

• 1:24Speaker 02

  Where in the canyon?

• 1:24Speaker 01

  In the... It's up in the canyon between here and Isabella.

• 1:28Speaker 02

  Oh, that canyon.

• 1:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, that. Kern River Canyon. Yeah.

• 1:32Speaker 02

  Was it Tremors? Rain?

• 1:34Speaker 01

  It was rain. I think it was rain and mud.

• 1:37Speaker 02

  Just the heat cracking the rocks down?

• 1:39Speaker 01

  It's wild. Hopefully, this is... I mean, we get this every year in Bakersfield, the end of August and through September, where it's like you get these little fits and spurts of heat, of like...

• 1:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:50Speaker 01

  Death heat.

• 1:51Speaker 02

  I wonder if... I wonder if they just tunnel through the mountain versus having the road in the canyon, like the Swiss do. They just go...

• 2:01Speaker 01

  Just put a hole through it?

• 2:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:04Speaker 01

  Probably not gonna happen.

• 2:06Speaker 02

  Well, I think they can... In this state, they will start with a budget of 10 billion, but it might end up being 100 billion.

• 2:10Speaker 01

  At least 100 billion. Uh, speaking of, uh, issues, we have some listener questions.

• 2:18Speaker 02

  Yes, yes.

• 2:19Speaker 01

  And comments. Let's get right to it.

• 2:20Speaker 02

  Hello, Money Wise. This is Rosa in Rich Crest, longtime listener. Thank you. Thank you for that. I'm forty five and work in administrative support at China Lake. My teenage daughter constantly uses ChatGPT for her homework. And honestly, I've started using AI tools at work too. But I'm worried, are we making ourselves lazy? Am I setting a bad example? And speaking of the future, my husband and I have been thinking about buying our first home. But we keep hearing conflicting things about whether now is a good time or if we should wait. What does Alan think about our local market?

• 2:55Speaker 01

  All right. So there's two separate questions in this one question. And by the way, thank you so much for sending them our way. We really love hearing from our listeners. The first part of the question is the, um, um, disruption that ChatGPT and those types of technologies are bringing. And we've talked about this many times on the, on this show, what our opinions are about what this is going to mean. I, I think there's a couple of parallels. The first, one of the first parallels is the internet and the advent of the internet. What I guess, like the consumer internet that we all use today. That was something, when it first came out, was, you know, was, uh, was changing so many things.

• 3:39Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 3:39Speaker 01

  Immediately. And there was, I remember hearing at that time, oh, well, this is gonna make us, this is gonna make us lazy, or this is gonna, this is gonna, you know, be a problem. If all you have to do is Google something or type it into your web browser. And all of a sudden, you've got all this information at your fingertips. All of a sudden, you can start to see all of these jobs that were gonna start going away. And certainly, the, the schools were concerned about the, the ability for people to be able to, you know, do research and write papers and shortcut and cheat, basically. Because now you have all this information, you know, at the, at the tip of your fingers. And the other, the other example that I give is the

• 4:22Speaker 01

  Digital calculator and the invention of that where you know you had this. It was a slow evolution of the development of the calculator. It started out with this, you know, computer bigger than the size of this room and.

• 4:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:34Speaker 01

  You know, and.

• 4:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, my son asked me for to buy a calculator at the beginning of the year for his math. I'm like. Twelve? They ask you like, are you guys using calculators?

• 4:42Speaker 01

  I could.

• 4:42Speaker 02

  To solve what problems? He said, well, equations and stuff like that. I'm like, so you mean you don't do it manually? You don't do X, Z and all A, B times the square? No, no, no, we use the calculator for that. I'm like, I must be old.

• 4:56Speaker 01

  And that was my, I mean, that this was my, not, not necessarily elementary school. We didn't use calculators. Well, maybe we did. Uh, high school, maybe. Yeah, we certainly did it in high school and then, and in college we had.

• 5:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:10Speaker 01

  Calculators that we used. And what happened with calculators, I think is maybe something that's going to happen. Or could happen with technologies like chat G P T where it doesn't, it doesn't necessarily with math. Students didn't necessarily become mentally lazy. You know, the fears were that they would stop learning math. They'd get lazy. They'd lose their ability to do basic math in their heads and that there'd be some sort of over reliance on these technologies. And so a lot of schools at the time banned calculators at first, at least. I've got no calculators allowed in school. Educators started debating whether or not they're going to allow, you know, calculators. And of course, eventually they all, they all made their way in.

• 5:55Speaker 01

  And now calculators are just part of math. So what happened though, instead of it really making people lazy. Mathematically lazy, it just, the calculators allowed students to spend less time on mechanical computation. And more time on actual problem solving or modeling or kind of that higher level of reasoning. And I would argue that is a much more important skill than your mechanical computational skills. I, I, I've been a big advocate for there being lessons on critical, critical thinking lessons or over.

• 6:35Speaker 02

  I think so too.

• 6:36Speaker 01

  These, these sort of things. And if you look into what jobs are going to be eliminated, it's going to be those jobs that are those manually. The, the.

• 6:45Speaker 02

  Repetitive.

• 6:45Speaker 01

  Repetitive, mentally repetitive.

• 6:47Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 6:48Speaker 01

  It doesn't take. Critical thinking or modeling, it doesn't take problem solving, you know, those are the jobs that are gonna go away.

• 6:56Speaker 02

  I think you're identifying a segment of the population that have jobs today, and I've I've managed people for twenty five years. The challenge has always been for me, finding people with critical thinking skills. From there, that's those are the people I believe have the abilities or the desire to keep growing within the position and eventually become managers of managers and leaders. Not not to discount that people, hey, just wanna do a certain job. There's there's room for that. I always say that pros and positions are always welcome in any industry, in my opinion. They just they know what they wanna do, they wanna do it best, and they wanna go to their house at night and not learn anything else.

• 7:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:41Speaker 02

  That's fine, too.

• 7:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:42Speaker 02

  As long as that person knows that that's what's gonna happen.

• 7:46Speaker 01

  Right.

• 7:48Speaker 02

  But critical thinking, definitely, and I think, in my opinion, chat G P T and A I in in in could free up room for us, teaching our kids and the next generation, more of that.

• 8:00Speaker 01

  I I I, yes, I agree, and I think also you have to be careful about going against new technologies like this, like you're fighting against forces that are are out of our control. It's like the genie is out of the bag, like the internet, after it was out, how are you ever gonna like not have the internet? You're gonna now tell the population that there's not this magic tool that you can just type your question into and get an immediate answer, and they're gonna, wait, what happened to that thing? You know, it's like it's out and it's here. We have to learn how to how to how to evolve with it, just like with the calculator. We learned new skills emerged when the calculator came out. Now you can check your results.

• 8:41Speaker 01

  And now it sort of raised the bar for students that they had to understand concepts behind the numbers rather than what I did in math class, which was just memorizing arithmetic drills.

• 8:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, I I I agree. I think for me personally, like this person, like Rosa in Richcrest, I use A I to speed up. My projects and with the speed with which I'm gonna present you a recommendation, for instance, as as my boss or as the owner of the company.

• 9:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:10Speaker 02

  Or something I'm not very skilled at, like PDF professional, for instance, creating tables that expand and all that. I I'm not an expert in that. Guess what? I go to my chat G P T and I prompt it to do certain things and within twenty minutes, I have the form that I need with expanding fields and like a professional has done it. Maybe I can have to tweak it here and there. But that would have taken me a couple more hours.

• 9:37Speaker 01

  Right.

• 9:38Speaker 02

  Because I need to learn this or I need to research this. Now I I was able to do it within twenty minutes.

• 9:43Speaker 01

  Just this morning, you and I were talking about in a meeting, we were talking about consolidating notes together to do a presentation.

• 9:50Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 9:51Speaker 01

  And and we immediately were like, oh, we're gonna, you know, or you mentioned chat G P T does, you know, that that right there would, you know, save us an hour's work.

• 10:00Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 10:00Speaker 01

  Doesn't really take a high level of intelligence. You it is gonna take a a lot of time because you're looking at ten different people's notes and you're trying to find, you know, your your your copy and pasting or you're consolidating these notes.

• 10:13Speaker 02

  Creating a grid with the re- repeating ideas or things that they brought back.

• 10:17Speaker 01

  Right.

• 10:18Speaker 02

  Well, now the A I could do it for me.

• 10:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, and that what that frees up now our time. Now we can just have chat G P T consolidate the notes, weed out the repetitive stuff and format it in a way that we can analyze it so much quicker. We're spending time that's gonna be a lot more productive.

• 10:33Speaker 02

  That's correct.

• 10:34Speaker 01

  Then, you know, what we would have to do or what one of our assistants would have to do. And so, you know.

• 10:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, I agree. I I I don't think you're cheating personally. I mean, to answer Rosa, I think you're just evolving with the times and good for you for doing that. I give you the example of the company C E O that that laid off eighty percent of his of his staff, of his labor force, because they they just did not want to adapt.

• 10:58Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 10:59Speaker 02

  They did not want to make the change and he kept, you know, banging his head against the wall. Finally, he was like, you know what? I'm just gonna go and find people that wanna. Embrace AI in the future.

• 11:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:10Speaker 02

  And he did not, like it took him a little bit of time, but he did not lose profit margins. Eventually they got a little bit better because of the use of AI.

• 11:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:20Speaker 02

  Made him more competitive.

• 11:22Speaker 01

  So the other part of Rosa's question is asking about the potential of buying a home. This would be their first home, gonna get married. And they're hearing conflicting things about whether now is a good time to buy or whether they should wait. So rather, before I jump in Sammy, I want to hear your thoughts.

• 11:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, so Rosa is in Richcrest and Richcrest uh uh market. Um according to what I, to what I read, median price between two hundred sixty five, two hundred eighty thousand dollars for startup uh uh homes.

• 11:56Speaker 01

  Oh, cheaper than Bakersfield.

• 11:57Speaker 02

  It is. It is. Uh though it's closer to, to LA, it is, it is cheaper. Now, you have to remember, it's Richcrest.

• 12:06Speaker 01

  Hmm, what are you saying Sammy?

• 12:09Speaker 02

  It's not a lot, it's not a lot happening in Richcrest. You know, we have, we have the, the, of course, the base, that's the number one employer, I believe, in that area. We have a bunch of hotels being built in Richcrest to accommodate all the PhDs that are traveling from all around the world to come and work.

• 12:26Speaker 01

  There's a reason, there's a reason why real estate's maybe a little cheaper.

• 12:29Speaker 02

  Correct, correct, and it's hot.

• 12:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, it's hot here too.

• 12:33Speaker 02

  It's hot with not a lot of stuff to do, not a lot of rest, a good restaurant. Now, things have been changing. A lot of builders have gone to Richcrest because the demand has been outpacing what the construction or the pace of the construction. But it is still a affordable market. Takes about forty six days for a house to be sold in Richcrest.

• 12:57Speaker 01

  Richcrest has about thirty thousand people.

• 13:00Speaker 02

  It's not a big town.

• 13:01Speaker 01

  No, I didn't realize it was that small. I mean.

• 13:04Speaker 02

  Those are the residents, but if you look at the hotels, almost running at hundred percent capacity. There's a bunch of hotels being built right. I financed a bunch of hotels in Richcrest. A lot of people will argue, ask, ask, wow, Richcrest gonna build a twelve, finance a twelve, fifteen million dollar hotel in Richcrest? I'm like, yes, because the projections show that this thing is gonna get, be occupied at ninety-nine hundred percent.

• 13:31Speaker 02

  And I don't, there are some risk there because they were thinking about moving the base from here, from Richcrest to somewhere else. Eventually, that did not take place. They committed to where the base is at, and you could see that from the investments.

• 13:49Speaker 01

  Huge investments.

• 13:50Speaker 02

  That came in after the earthquake.

• 13:52Speaker 01

  Wasn't it like five billion? I think it was around five billion that went in.

• 13:56Speaker 02

  Into billions, definitely into billions.

• 13:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, from that earthquake.

• 13:59Speaker 02

  Yes, and it's been, been poured in the, the reconstruction and some other projects within the base, so. Uh, high, the highest PhD per capita is in Richcrest because of all the visitors that are coming and working on the base.

• 14:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, so, so, let's say.

• 14:16Speaker 02

  So, pros and cons is what I think you were asking me, and I went into this.

• 14:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, let's, let's assume that, you know, we're not talking about a place, even within Richcrest. Maybe there would be a place where it's like, I don't know, don't buy a house there, you know, just, just like in any town, maybe, you know, the. The likelihood isn't, the prospects aren't great for that home. Maybe it's right in the path of a, of a, of a rail station or an airport or something, right? Because you wanna, you wanna be careful about that. But, other than that, I would say, the biggest, the biggest factor in deciding whether or not you should buy a home. Should be whether or not you can afford it.

• 14:57Speaker 02

  That's right. Affordability is number one criteria.

• 14:59Speaker 01

  Yes, it it not what the interest rate is. It's not what you think the market is going to do. It it's whether or not you can pay for that home. And so you want to get a home at a good price, but you're not married to the interest rate.

• 15:15Speaker 02

  That's correct.

• 15:16Speaker 01

  You're you're married to the home, but you're not married to that interest rate.

• 15:19Speaker 02

  That's correct.

• 15:19Speaker 01

  You might have a higher interest rate for a little while, but as rates if rates go down.

• 15:24Speaker 02

  You can refinance.

• 15:25Speaker 01

  So you know, there there's a cost involved with that. I guess it's not the perfect scenario. But the the biggest benefit to owning a home is that you were paying your own rent through yourself. You're building equity and you're not paying rent to somebody else that is helping them build their equity. It's not going to your landlord. And if you're going to have to pay to live somewhere, pay where you can own it. But you don't want to do that if you can't afford it because you don't have the flexibility like you would if you're renting. Maybe your job isn't secure. You don't have a a secure income, then don't buy a house. But if you have the income and you're and financially you can qualify for it, the banks are all going to have the same standard

• 16:10Speaker 01

  of what you can qualify for or not.

• 16:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, the debt to income ratio that they all abide by because that's what the FDIC and the regulators, whenever they examine them, that's what they look at.

• 16:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I would say the other factor is, you know, besides being able to qualify for the home, I would I would recommend to not buy a home if you're not going to be in that home for at least the next few years. Three to five years. I used to say five, five years, but I think, um, you know, there there's a rule of thumb there. There's some leeway, but if you know that you're not going to be there, you're potentially going to have a job change. You're going to have to move within three to five years. I would be very concerned about buying a home because you don't want to be stuck in a position like we were in 2008 where, you know, you're losing 20 or 30% of the home value and now you have to.

• 17:08Speaker 01

  Have a short sale or, you know.

• 17:10Speaker 02

  Correct, affects your credit or whatever, yeah.

• 17:12Speaker 01

  But, you know, generally speaking, if you look back on history, if you own that home for at least a few years, three to five years, you're generally in the clear. But there are times where that wasn't the case. If you bought a home and if you bought a, a, a home at the, when prices peaked, let's say in two thousand, uh, what, two thousand five or two thousand four, and then you needed to sell in two thousand eighteen or two thousand, or, or two thousand eight or two thousand and nine, you probably are gonna have a loss.

• 17:45Speaker 02

  That's correct.

• 17:45Speaker 01

  And then, and some of those homes took another five years to come back to get to what the price was when they originally played, paid for it at its peak in two thousand and five. So there are times in history where you could find yourself in trouble, and we saw it all over here during the financial crisis in two thousand eight where people had to move because of their job, but now they're forced to sell their home that's underwater.

• 18:08Speaker 02

  But, see, going back, I mean, you're giving the example of, of two thousand eight and the crisis we had, and you started with saying affordability. Number one item is affordability. A lot of the, the people that lost homes, I'm gonna say a big percentage,

• 18:25Speaker 02

  did not qualify to start with.

• 18:28Speaker 01

  Yes, yeah, back then.

• 18:29Speaker 02

  You know what I'm saying? What, what, what they qualified for is some type of a credit or loan, a hundred percent financing on a stated income.

• 18:39Speaker 01

  Right.

• 18:39Speaker 02

  And guess what? A lot of these people went straight into that dream house versus a started home.

• 18:43Speaker 01

  Yep, yeah.

• 18:45Speaker 02

  And all of a sudden, you're making seventy-five thousand dollars, but you're buying a house for five, six hundred thousand dollars.

• 18:52Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 18:53Speaker 02

  Your payment is a lot, you know, interest only for the first five years with an arm, and then it adjusts, and then guess what? At the end of those five years, the rubber meat met, met the road or hit the road or whatever, and people just, ooh, what do you mean? My payment went up from fifteen hundred dollars to now thirty-five hundred bucks.

• 19:13Speaker 01

  Right.

• 19:14Speaker 02

  Well, yeah, that principal has to be repaid somehow. Right? That's affordability has always been the problem in that crisis. And if, if, if, if somebody is wanting to buy a house, they need to use that as criteria. Number one, in order for them to get into a home following, but followed by, you gotta stay in the house for a little bit.

• 19:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, there was, there was a lot of people that got themselves in trouble because back in, in the early two thousands, home prices were going up at such a rate that all of a sudden, people couldn't keep their hands off of that equity.

• 19:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, so there's, there are builders that started the house, sold the house with a $5,000 down payment for, for, for, for a buyer. Then within three months, the price increased and they went back to the buyer and says, hey, the price just went up. There's during the construction phase, a lot of people were building on a spec versus pre-sold because they could make a lot of money. Now, a lot of people got in trouble as buyers, but also developers got in trouble.

• 20:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:17Speaker 02

  Because, you know, when the prices started going down, they had all this inventory of lots and homes that are half built that they could not sell anymore because people were like, oh my God, no, no, no, I'm holding off, I'm not buying.

• 20:31Speaker 01

  Right.

• 20:32Speaker 02

  That's what got a lot of people into trouble is that.

• 20:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:35Speaker 02

  Both on the buyer's side and the seller's side.

• 20:37Speaker 01

  People were in, in homes that they couldn't afford if they were to pay for them at that time.

• 20:42Speaker 02

  That's correct.

• 20:43Speaker 01

  And, and yet they were pulling the equity out of that home to buy a jet ski or something.

• 20:49Speaker 02

  Toys, man. Oh, the toys. I, I, I've seen people buying 200, $300,000 motorhome.

• 20:56Speaker 01

  Right, right. Out of the equity of their home.

• 20:59Speaker 02

  My, my business doing so good, I don't pay the taxes.

• 21:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:03Speaker 02

  I'm gonna buy this instead.

• 21:04Speaker 01

  Right.

• 21:05Speaker 02

  And guess what? I'm financing it.

• 21:07Speaker 01

  Right. At the bank.

• 21:09Speaker 02

  Yes, so you take the depreciation year, year one, but then next year, things, the market doesn't give you what they give you the year before.

• 21:16Speaker 01

  Right.

• 21:17Speaker 02

  All of a sudden, you're stuck. Affordability shared.

• 21:20Speaker 01

  Yes, that's the key affordability. And then, uh, that's it. I mean, the affordability, how long you're gonna stay in that home? That's when you decide, that's when you make that decision. The other question here, Sammy?

• 21:31Speaker 02

  Yeah. Does Jerome Powell term end in 2026 or 2028? It ends in 2026.

• 21:38Speaker 01

  That's right. The.

• 21:40Speaker 02

  Unless, unless he's, um.

• 21:44Speaker 02

  Reaffirmed, or what's the word?

• 21:47Speaker 01

  Stays in term, renewed?

• 21:49Speaker 02

  Renewed.

• 21:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:50Speaker 02

  Uh, which if, the president has shown multiple times that he does, he wants him out of the office. In fact, he asked him to resign, or he, he was at risk of being fired.

• 22:01Speaker 01

  Right.

• 22:03Speaker 02

  So I don't think he's gonna get, uh, be assigned to his post.

• 22:07Speaker 01

  He probably won't. He, you know, so that means Jerome Powell's term, his second four-year term ends May 23rd of 2026. He may resign before then, but the Chair of the Federal Reserve is appointed by the President and the Senate for a four-year renewable term. Um, but the Chair also is a member of the Board of Governors.

• 22:30Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 22:31Speaker 01

  And so that means, which is a 14-year term, that means Powell could...

• 22:35Speaker 02

  Remain.

• 22:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:36Speaker 02

  As a board member until 2020, I think his term ends in 2028.

• 22:40Speaker 01

  2028, so he could stick around for a little bit longer. This question made me look into the history a little bit of the, of past Fed Chairs. Which Fed Chairs have quit or President has, you know, fired them? Much more common than I had thought. There were several Presidents. For example, there was, uh, G. William Miller was the Fed Chair under Nixon, and he, Carter removed him, and as Chair, just about a year into his presidency, into Carter's first term.

• 23:20Speaker 02

  Did you, did he figure out he was involved in the Watergate, or what happened?

• 23:23Speaker 01

  Uh, I don't know. I don't know if think it was scandalous, because what he did was he appointed him as Treasury Secretary instead, so he kind of moved him from the Fed, and then replaced him with Paul Volcker. And Paul Volcker did, did a job. Did, I think, did some really good things.

• 23:40Speaker 02

  Is that what we have, like, we have a rule under his?

• 23:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, the Volcker Rule.

• 23:43Speaker 02

  Right?

• 23:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, the Volcker Rule, which was the, uh... Being able to trade and what you could trade on the bank's balance sheet.

• 23:52Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 23:52Speaker 01

  Right. Paul Volcker served two terms and then Reagan chose not to reappoint him. So Volcker served two terms, just like Jerome Powell served two terms. Reagan got rid of Volcker, just like Trump is getting, potentially getting rid of Powell.

• 24:07Speaker 02

  Replaced him with Greenspan?

• 24:09Speaker 01

  Greenspan.

• 24:10Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 24:10Speaker 01

  And Greenspan served five terms and retired at the end of his fifth term in 2006.

• 24:16Speaker 02

  Is he still alive?

• 24:18Speaker 01

  Good question. I doubt it.

• 24:20Speaker 02

  Cause he was, he was pretty, pretty old at the end of the last term he had.

• 24:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, he was up there.

• 24:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, right?

• 24:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, for sure. So yeah, there's kind of a history. It's not just, you know, it's not just Trump and Powell.

• 24:33Speaker 02

  Talk about fitness test. I think they should have a fitness test, a mental one for that position.

• 24:38Speaker 01

  Well, they do have to go through the senate hearing.

• 24:41Speaker 02

  That's true.

• 24:42Speaker 01

  I mean, not that that's like the, the biggest thing. How old is he? 99?

• 24:46Speaker 02

  99 years old.

• 24:47Speaker 01

  Holy cow.

• 24:49Speaker 02

  Oh my God. He, he, he lived through the second war and the boom after the war.

• 24:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, he did.

• 24:56Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 24:56Speaker 01

  He made it. Yeah.

• 24:58Speaker 02

  99 years old.

• 24:59Speaker 01

  During the first war.

• 25:00Speaker 02

  And some, some, some turbulent times as far as markets.

• 25:05Speaker 01

  Big time.

• 25:05Speaker 02

  Eighties, nineties, they were not easy years to manage the stock market and the bond market and interest rates.

• 25:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, I went through Black Friday. That was in 88, wasn't it? Greenspan went, served from 87 to 2006. Really interesting. Yeah. Some say the most powerful person in the planet, even more powerful than the President of the United States.

• 25:28Speaker 02

  I, I would, I would agree with that because of the power they have on the stock market. One word can shoot that thing up or down.

• 25:34Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 25:35Speaker 02

  Just one comment.

• 25:36Speaker 01

  One, one interest rate change could, you know, change trillions of dollars across the world.

• 25:42Speaker 02

  I, I think when I first came to America, I learned the power of, of the federal chairman, the Fed chairman and what he can do to the economy or not do. To the economy.

• 25:52Speaker 01

  Yep, that's right. Well, great questions. Thank you so much, listeners. We really appreciate it. Keep them coming our way. 661-396-1000 is the number you can text or call 24 hours a day. We're Money Wise. We'll be right back.

• 26:04Speaker 00

  If you're a business owner who provides a retirement plan for your employees, contact Money Wise Wealth Management to see if you're maximizing your options and minimizing your liabilities. Money Wise 401K plans are customized to you and your company's needs. 661-847-1000. That's 661-847-1000.

• 26:27Speaker 03

  John Cox. He's a man of a million words. John Cox. He's the king of the business nerds. He looks like Jimmy Elson from Superman, but a little bit taller and a bit of a tan. John Cox. He's from Bakersfield Californian. John Cox. Makes the reason credit unions. It's a good thing that he's only on the radio air. For us, you'd be distracted by his dark flowing hair. John Cox.

• 26:56Speaker 01

  We're joined by John Cox here at the Money Wise Show. John, thanks for being here.

• 27:00Speaker 04

  Thanks for having me.

• 27:02Speaker 01

  Your articles in the Bakersfield Californian are many, but there is a lot that you've written on in the last few weeks regarding oil and energy. And I think we talked about this last time you were on, there seems to be a shift and a change in Sacramento.

• 27:22Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 27:23Speaker 01

  A tone, a change in the tone against or for oil and gas. So what can you bring? What can you tell us about some updates with this?

• 27:35Speaker 04

  Well, things have changed quite drastically, I'd say, because of the outlook for refining. I think that people have seen that if we're going to be able to keep up with our demand for gasoline, which has not declined as quickly as the state would have liked, we still have a lot of internal combustion vehicles out there. And if you get ahead of that and you start pulling down supply ahead of Pulling down demand, different possibilities are there, and I think we were looking those straight in the face, and it scared Gavin Newsom with the news from, I think it was April, that two more refineries announced they were going to close.

• 28:20Speaker 04

  If you do that, you just might have to import a lot more gasoline. Well, you certainly would have to. I mean, if you get any beyond those two, because that's 20% of the capacity for refining in this state. But if you start bringing it all overseas, you subject yourself to the risks of the global markets. Things can change, and suddenly you don't have any control over that. And so the governor did ask the vice chairman of the California Energy Commission, Seva Gunda, what can you do to save us from $8 a gallon gasoline? Which was one prediction that came out from one of the universities. And the conclusion was, we need to make sure we're producing enough oil.

• 29:02Speaker 04

  We've got to make sure that those pipelines that are carrying crude oil from Kern County, south to Southern California, north to Northern California, to the refineries there, they need to stay open enough that we can still afford to be sending gasoline, or oil.

• 29:19Speaker 01

  Well, so there needs to be enough oil. My understanding is that if it doesn't have enough of the physical oil in the pipeline, it doesn't function.

• 29:27Speaker 04

  Correct.

• 29:28Speaker 01

  Like, you could get to the point where it doesn't matter if you want to get that oil up there, if there's not enough of it, we can't push it through the pipeline. Is that right?

• 29:34Speaker 04

  Well, so there was an intermittent scheduling of that. So now they don't run all the time the way they used to. Now they run intermittently. But even so, there was talk of maybe closing them all together, which would be, first of all, very bad for Kern County, but it would be bad for the refineries that still rely upon California oil. They are geared toward our oil right here. And you can buy some of that overseas, but you don't want to be so dependent upon it. That's massive quantities coming in. I believe that they're looking already to make the ports...

• 30:09Speaker 04

  Better equipped to handle incoming gasoline, but we're not there yet. And besides, we got a lot of productive oil fields right here. And so the part of the suggestions were that Kern County's oil and gas permitting system, which relies on this environmental review, be declared compliant with the California Environmental Quality Act. So that would say basically Kern County, you're good. You can issue your own permits. This would take the burden off the state, which is found to have a questionably compliant review system. And so we would now start supplying in a much greater quantity. Now, you can't do that overnight. The idea is that we need some drilling permits.

• 30:51Speaker 04

  That is what this whole proposal came to. But we also don't have anybody sponsoring that legislation yet. I think there's apparently not much question that someone's going to step up, but no one has yet. And we are coming forward to the end of the legislative session. Somebody's going to need to say, I will sponsor that bill and let's get it going. You know, and who's going to take that hit?

• 31:16Speaker 01

  You're saying the bill to be, to make that easier to drill?

• 31:20Speaker 04

  Right.

• 31:21Speaker 01

  To get, to issue permits?

• 31:22Speaker 04

  Right. And, you know, there's other things to it that don't necessarily apply to Kern County. Kern County's big benefit is we're compliant on the permitting system. But elsewhere, it would imply things like two to one. You close two wells, we'll let you drill one new one. So not the case here, by the way, because it's been reported differently, but I am assured that Kern County would not have to do that because we would be declared compliant with the California Environmental Quality Act.

• 31:54Speaker 01

  That's because we got our own thing going on.

• 31:56Speaker 04

  We have, you know, we have an extensive 30,000-page environmental review. And it's gone through the courts. It was found efficient twice. There were some major changes this time, some big concessions, and also far higher standards here in Kern County than even anywhere else in the state, which is supposedly the strictest in the nation.

• 32:16Speaker 01

  Right.

• 32:18Speaker 04

  You're paying into air mitigation, air quality things. Anyway, so all this going forward would mean that there could be a lot more oil activity in Kern County. Not really happening yet. We have looked at some of the data. Certainly, you can get a plugging and abandonment permit fairly easily anywhere in this state. We got some sidetracking, some reworking permits, but not so much drilling, and drilling is ultimately what's required. So that might happen if the political stars align. Certainly, the government is pushing, the governor is pushing for it. So, things could really change in, in oil and gas. There's a lot of optimism in the industry. On the other hand, you've got the environmental justice and the conservation

• 33:01Speaker 04

  groups that are really not happy about this. They see this as a very big jump backward.

• 33:06Speaker 01

  They're, they're, the environmental groups, that the ones that are very active and that are constantly throwing lawsuits at the oil and gas industry, it appears they'd only be happy if this had all went away. If there was just no oil or gas at all.

• 33:20Speaker 04

  Yes, that is correct. They would much rather see big investments in electrical vehicles. And I don't even hear groups like that embracing the renewable diesel.

• 33:32Speaker 01

  Right.

• 33:33Speaker 04

  You know, there were no

• 33:34Speaker 01

  It's too close to, it's too close to the real, the real stuff.

• 33:37Speaker 04

  It's emissions. At the end of the day, it may be environmentally, you know, negative, carbon negative, but that's still putting pollution into the atmosphere, from their perspective.

• 33:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, and the, the complaint that I've heard against environmentalist groups is that they don't have any plan. There's no, and this was the complaint against Newsom, there's no plan for the transition. It's like, oh, we're just gonna get rid of oil and gas, and we're all gonna go to electrical, and it appears it's gonna happen overnight.

• 34:03Speaker 04

  Well,

• 34:04Speaker 01

  It's impossible.

• 34:05Speaker 04

  A lot of that is, it's balancing. We're now supposedly at mid-transition, right? And, and the governor had decided he was gonna pull back supply in order to help push, push forward demand. Well, if you, you know, I mean, what really are you looking at? Gas prices going up so that you don't wanna have to buy gas anymore, and you get electrical.

• 34:27Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 34:28Speaker 04

  So He's trying to time this. He has been explicit that he has tried to increase regulations to decrease production and have that line up with decreased demand, but it hasn't worked out that way.

• 34:41Speaker 01

  Right, demand just keeps going.

• 34:42Speaker 04

  And it's at least steady. We're not going backward much. I think there has been actually some decline.

• 34:49Speaker 02

  In gas-powered cars?

• 34:50Speaker 04

  Right. Well, and I mean, I mean in total gasoline usage in California. I think there's been some decline, but it's not nearly what they would like to see. And the reality is if we go too quickly on curtailing supply and we still need that gasoline, that's going to be very politically unpopular.

• 35:12Speaker 01

  Yeah. Eight dollars a gallon will make a lot of people very upset. Again, we're joined by John Cox from the Bakersfield Californian. John, you've written an article on August 21st in The Californian titled "Virtual Power Plants Could Go From Emergency to Everyday Power Source." This was really fascinating to me and somehow I had no idea that this was a thing. I guess it's a pilot program, but maybe, can you explain what these virtual power plants are?

• 35:41Speaker 04

  Yes. So we all can sort of, there's two classes here. Folks who have the solar on their rooftop and they have a battery. And then you've got people like me who don't have the solar or the battery, but I have a thermostat. I don't have a remotely controlled thermostat, but if I did, I would be possibly helping to meet the power grid's need for dialing back on those really hot days when everyone's turning up the AC.

• 36:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:14Speaker 04

  And so the idea is, you know, you can get, if you sign up for a program that lets someone remotely take control of your assets just a little bit, you can get a little money back at the end of the year, not a lot.

• 36:26Speaker 01

  Right.

• 36:26Speaker 04

  Some, maybe a few hundred dollars, maybe at the end of the year. But what they'd be doing is tapping your battery. If you've got the rooftop solar and you've got like one of those home batteries by Tesla, whatever, they can go in and say, well, we're just going to take... 5% of everything the share it's got.

• 36:44Speaker 01

  Take some of your juice.

• 36:45Speaker 04

  Yeah, we're gonna take some of your juice.

• 36:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:47Speaker 04

  Um, thank you, and we'll get you back at the end of the year. And that would be wonderful that way. Uh, and it's usually, you know, the seven to nine. In fact, there was an experiment that happened between seven and nine. The sun's no longer shining on, you know, eastern Kern County solar things. But also, in, in my case, if I had, you know, one of those remote thermostats, they could say, okay, well, John, me doesn't really need to have the house at, you know, 83 degrees. We're gonna bump it up to 85.

• 37:18Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 37:19Speaker 04

  And so it's gonna, that's, I'm not spending as much money cooling the house, and therefore, uh, that's helping the state. Uh, and in both of these, in, in your situation with the battery and mine with the remote thermostat, in both cases, we are, uh, lowering the need for additional power plants. Cause we have these peakers right now. They generally run on natural gas, and they're extremely expensive. Something like a billion dollars a year, I guess.

• 37:45Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 37:46Speaker 04

  That are spent on these things. Cause you gotta have them ready. You don't wanna ever use them, but you need them ready just in case suddenly things get hot. Because you're not relying on the, the sun shining. And so the idea is, the real value in this VPP, virtual power plant, there's not an actual power plant. But if they're dialing you back and they're dialing me back, then they don't have to invest in these actual peaker plants that have to go on in times of emergency. You're saving a lot of money. Um, I, I talked to someone who's a little skeptical of this. Says, well, I wanna make sure I have my battery ready, and I don't want my house warming up. It's a balance. They're, they're saying that, you know, you're probably not gonna notice it, hopefully. Hopefully, you're not gonna need it that much.

• 38:30Speaker 04

  We don't have to like take your battery down 40%, let's say. And, and I'm going up to 90 degrees, right? So that's how it's supposed to work.

• 38:39Speaker 01

  Uh, I, I, I love the idea. I think that it, it seems like that's the future, is being able to tap into the batteries, which are now the state of California, because of net metering three. Basically forced solar, residential solar to have a battery for it to make any sense. So if you're not going to be using all of that battery, why not? And now that you have these cars, electric vehicles that have the, the, the power that can go either way. You can power the house or it can go back onto the grid. Pretty soon, a lot of people are going to have a battery parked in their house or parked in their garage. That they could use to sell.

• 39:14Speaker 02

  It's a requirement now for residential, any residential house that, that is putting solar in the state of California. You have to have a battery. You cannot have.

• 39:22Speaker 01

  Oh, you can't even without it?

• 39:24Speaker 02

  No, not, not residential. Now, commercial projects are different. But residential projects, you have to have a battery in order for you to have a solar on your roof. The, the NEM 3 requires a battery.

• 39:36Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, it, it, yeah, I mean, financially it just wouldn't make sense to not have a battery anyway. Even if it wasn't required because you're not going to be getting your, you won't get your money back for just having solar panels.

• 39:48Speaker 02

  It's, it's, it's the way they pay back now. It's, it's, it's just not conducive of having a solar really. Like it, it takes you about 11 and a half years to break even versus the regular or the typical or the former seven and a half years.

• 40:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, it's like twice that now.

• 40:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:06Speaker 04

  Well, I'm glad you brought up the, the electric vehicles because those are also part of the, um, the, the list of options. We, we talked about the battery, the home battery. We talked about the remotely controlled thermostats, but vehicles ought to work the same way. However, they don't necessarily work that way. For example, I am informed that Tesla chargers, like the one you might have in your home, in your garage. It doesn't go both ways, meaning it'll give you electricity. But you'd have to invest in a whole new system if you want it to feed back into the grid, which would be nice in this case. To have them be able to, you know, put in.

• 40:43Speaker 02

  Give the extra.

• 40:43Speaker 04

  Yeah, and extract it, but that's not necessarily the case. And in fact, because people don't always leave their vehicles charged in, like when you go to work or whatever and you've got a charger and you plug in there, great. But doesn't always allow people to tap into your battery. So that's sort of a, a shortcoming, but there's, you know, long-term potential. We're all driving around on batteries, right? You know, if, if we all get these electric cars, then we can better, we have another tool to balance, uh, the demand with the supply.

• 41:12Speaker 01

  And California is still reeling from the blackouts, the rolling blackouts that we had. Gosh, when was that? Ten years ago? It's been a while, but they're still on a lot of people's minds, this idea that California could just roll out these blackouts. And PG&E also had a program, I don't know if they still do, where you could volunteer in and then they would, they would just shut, you could be shut off and be chosen to be shut off in the event that, you know, that the system is being overdrawn.

• 41:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, they, you, they still have the program, you have to sign up for it. And, and I think what, what they do is like, for instance, I work out of the, I don't work, I'm not at home all day. And they are, they have these peak hours between noon and like 6:00 PM, 7:00. A lot of people, a lot of elderly are staying in those houses and they use electricity, a lot of electricity, because that's the peak heat of the day. So they, they, they allow you to, allow them to control your outside unit where they decrease the usage.

• 42:17Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 42:18Speaker 02

  Right?

• 42:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:20Speaker 02

  And then, and then they give it to somebody else.

• 42:21Speaker 01

  Right.

• 42:22Speaker 02

  That is using it for a discount, eventually you get some type of a discount.

• 42:25Speaker 01

  It doesn't seem like, they don't pay very well, though, John.

• 42:27Speaker 04

  Yeah, that, that is one of the criticisms, too. It's like, really, why am I, why am I not getting more? So the, the early version of this program, DSGS, I think it's called, entirely taxpayer subsidized, which I was surprised, I heard that like late in the day, I'm working on this, I'm gathering information, getting ready, right? And, oh, by the way, yes, this is being paid by taxpayers. Well, well, where's the savings? Where's the money? It all seems to make so much sense on paper. Why are taxpayers doing this?

• 42:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:57Speaker 04

  Well, that was emergency only. So we'd like to, or the, the industry would like to make this a regular part of the energy portfolio in California. So it's not just on those days, but overall, we're lowering, you know, costs every day, diverting the energy where it's needed and not where it isn't as much needed. So they're trying to, to do that, there would be less need for taxpayer investment in this and actual savings that you can extract from doing what seems like a logical system.

• 43:26Speaker 02

  I, I think we can get away with the tax credit for EVs.

• 43:32Speaker 01

  It's already going away.

• 43:33Speaker 02

  No, I think so. I mean, just, just, just let BYD come in. So you can buy cheap cars.

• 43:38Speaker 01

  Now, now you're talking about some disruption, right? Yeah. So you had a $10,000 car.

• 43:43Speaker 02

  Correct. Let people buy. I mean, we're, we're in the capitalistic system. Let people buy cheap stuff. So.

• 43:50Speaker 01

  And let GM die?

• 43:52Speaker 02

  Hey.

• 43:54Speaker 02

  You know, I mean, if, if we're the consumers is, is what we want to protect. I mean, BYD, they produce, what I've been reading, some good products.

• 44:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm sure they're great.

• 44:06Speaker 02

  They almost killed the auto industry in Germany.

• 44:09Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, that's why, that's why America hasn't allowed them in yet. I think they're just worried about how much it's going to disrupt. But there, there's a couple of companies that are on their heels like Hyundai and Kia. They're, they're bringing the, I mean, they continue to get cheaper and cheaper, these EVs. John, you wrote also about a conference that's coming up. Speaking of tech, there's a conference coming up at Cal State Bakersfield on October 2nd. It's free and it's really going to be focusing on artificial intelligence and some of these areas.

• 44:38Speaker 04

  Technologia. Technologia.

• 44:45Speaker 02

  I'm telling you, this Middle Eastern guy came up with this word is just.

• 44:53Speaker 01

  Sounds like your cousin, Sammy.

• 44:54Speaker 02

  It, it sounds like it. I'm going to check with my cousins. Make sure I do a voice test when I go to Morocco next. Technologia.

• 45:03Speaker 01

  But Cal State's having their inaugural Next Tech Kern that where they're going to be dumping it. They're going to be diving into some of these AI aspects. This is interesting. It's a good thing.

• 45:14Speaker 04

  Yeah. First one that they've had at Next Tech. Um, this will be the inaugural thing. So I, I'm going to admit, I was a little disappointed because what I want to know as a parent of two kids in, uh, college and as someone who works in legacy news media. Um, so what's the answer, right? I mean, where should, what should my kids be studying now? Should they be, one of them is in, is a computer science major and he's. A coder, but he also is doing networking. Is that a job that's going away?

• 45:45Speaker 01

  Right.

• 45:46Speaker 04

  In two years, right? And another of my sons is into psychology. Well, is that going to be taken over by, you know, AI too? Within a couple of years, what kind of decisions if I'm a student at Cal State? That's what I want to know. However, also very helpful stuff. This is, this is going to be a very practical as opposed to a, you know, conceptual theoretical conference. They're going to be talking about how AI is already affecting education, higher education, but also high school. They're going to have K through 12 kids at this conference. So they're going to be talking about practical, practical aspects in education and in security. You know, how to prepare yourself for the inevitable, you know, disruptions?

• 46:31Speaker 04

  When we've got quantum computing and AI and what good are your passwords anymore? How to protect yourself? That's going to come up. By the way, this is a free conference they're going to be doing.

• 46:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:43Speaker 04

  And then the other one is business, you know, what can you do in your business? To make the best of what's already available in AI. So those, those are really the three prongs of, of this thing. I was hoping that someone can tell me what my kids major really ought to be.

• 47:00Speaker 01

  That's a, it's a good question.

• 47:01Speaker 02

  It is. We had some questions actually from listeners asking us exactly that same question. Was it you, John?

• 47:09Speaker 04

  No, no, but I want to know the answer.

• 47:11Speaker 01

  I mean, we have our opinions and Sammy and I aren't experts on AI and, you know, what's going to happen. But we did have a listener ask specifically about computer science. I think their, their kid was considering going into computer science or starting to study it. And I've seen a lot of articles since then about computer science and.

• 47:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, he asked the question about that or trade schools, which we've been, we're talking about trades and plumbers, electricity.

• 47:33Speaker 01

  Welding, electrician, yeah.

• 47:35Speaker 02

  Yeah. So a lot of, lot of that's, and I'm interested in.

• 47:38Speaker 00

  We get that question a lot lately of whether it's the younger people or even older people that are changing their job fields and are worried on, if they're picking the right one because of, you know, AI or, or computers.

• 47:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I mean, John, you can speak from this, but when the internet came out, I keep saying, it's so funny when I say that, the internet came out.

• 48:03Speaker 02

  You make us sound really old, man.

• 48:04Speaker 01

  I know, I know. It wasn't that long ago, I guess 25, oh, man, it's been like 30 years.

• 48:11Speaker 02

  I got a lot of whites, but I'm not that old, Jared.

• 48:14Speaker 01

  But you saw firsthand what it did to the newspaper industry. I mean, like, right away Craigslist came out and...

• 48:23Speaker 04

  There were some bad decisions made in the, in the early days of online news. First of all, hey, I know what we'll do, we'll give away all of our news for free.

• 48:32Speaker 01

  For free.

• 48:33Speaker 04

  And maybe they'll keep coming back to us because it's free. That was a bad choice, thinking, well, we're just running on advertising, not the same rates in print as they are online. And yes, you know, you've got, Craigslist was devastating.

• 48:45Speaker 01

  Yep, for newspapers, yeah.

• 48:47Speaker 04

  Yeah, we've really had to address, adjust to that. But I, I sometimes say that this is the best time and the worst time to be a reporter. All the information is available. I can, there's so much information I can get just in moments that used to take a long time in journalism. I can communicate with people so fast, I can send an email and a text, and it's so fast.

• 49:10Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 49:11Speaker 04

  As opposed to the old days when I had to look through a phone book to find out who to call or a business that I could call. No, it's all right in front of us. So, it's, it's the best times. I think the journalism is getting better, or, well, or would be if our resources hadn't been cut off because we're, we're now competing against everyone else for advertising. We compete with, you know, Facebook, obviously.

• 49:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:34Speaker 04

  And we can't win against Facebook.

• 49:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, but it, it can evolve and it can change into, into something else that is, it is important and it is productive. Like, local journalism, I think, is still very important, and there's still the things you can't chat GPT.

• 49:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's right. That's right. I think good journalism in general, in my opinion, is still needed. And I think now more than ever.

• 50:01Speaker 04

  Thank you. I am entirely with you on that. As far as advertising, that's what I meant when I said you can't, you can't uh, out raise money for advertising. But as far as journalism itself, uh, I, I don't think that we're even close to replacing journalists. Example, um, you know, I call people up all the time, or reaching out all the time. I don't see uh, AI interviewing people, going out to scenes and observing what's going on and bringing it together in a concise, focused piece of information that's timely this moment. You know, you can give me a lot of information, but you know, I need the human.

• 50:39Speaker 02

  But I think the reason I like John on the show, and I read John's stuff, is John does his research, then he puts his own spin on, on things. And to me, AI is not going to be able to do that. It can mine a lot of information on your behalf even. But it's not gonna give an opinion like you would. And I respect that opinion because of your years of experience. That's why I mean journalism today is, in my opinion, more needed than ever. Good one. Good journalism. Not, not, you know, not TikTok stuff, not, which I think that's the other competition. There's so much fake stuff outside

• 51:19Speaker 02

  that people keep scrolling, and they think that's news or that's journalism. It is not. You're filling up your mind and your brain with junk, in my opinion.

• 51:30Speaker 04

  I'm with you.

• 51:30Speaker 01

  You, John, you interviewed the county planning director.

• 51:35Speaker 04

  Yeah, Laura Lai.

• 51:36Speaker 01

  Laura Lai Oviat, who's retiring, or is retired.

• 51:39Speaker 04

  She retired. I, I went to go deliver copies of the paper to her. It's like, oh, she took off Sunday.

• 51:44Speaker 01

  Oh, she's gone. She's gone. She did a nice write-up, though, you know, talking about her and her, her background and, and her accomplishments, and a good example of, you know, local journalism.

• 51:55Speaker 04

  Yeah, AI is gonna do that. There's not going to be, one thing that, that the hardest lesson I got in journalism was, well, there's been a lot of them, but one of them is engage with the reader. You know, don't just spout a bunch of information and leave it to them to figure out what it is. No, you gotta, you gotta connect somehow. And, and that is, is what I tried to do in that story. Here's an example of, of, you know, why Lorelei is who she is, what she's accomplished. And, um, yeah, that, that was a fun story when you get time to do it like that. And, and, you know, she, she let me do a lengthy interview. It was super helpful.

• 52:29Speaker 01

  Very helpful. And it's nice to have this now, you know, when anybody, you know, this, this is now published and it's out there. And she did a lot for this county. Whether you like her or not, or like what she did, she, she brought a lot of change and, and accomplished quite a bit.

• 52:47Speaker 04

  Current county is the leader in conventional and renewable energies.

• 52:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, in the country, in the country.

• 52:54Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 52:55Speaker 01

  Right?

• 52:55Speaker 04

  Well, I don't, I don't know. I think certainly in renewable, I don't, I'm not aware of anyone, any county that's more, but I don't think we're the leading oil producer.

• 53:04Speaker 01

  No, not, not, you're right, not in that, but in renewables, we are.

• 53:08Speaker 04

  I believe so.

• 53:08Speaker 01

  Uh, and that, you know, that's a huge accomplishment. We're, we do, we do a lot in the state of California in terms of oil and gas, but the renewables are phenomenal. And, um, you know, it's, we're in a, we're in a changing environment with all of these major sectors of the economy that we have, oil and ag. And we need, we need good people like that in the county and in the city that can make these kinds of decisions. So, John, thank you so much. Thank you for coming. Yes. Back on the show. Really appreciate it. Want to encourage all of our listeners, go read John Cox articles, subscribe to the Bakersfield Californian, support your local

• 53:49Speaker 01

  journalism. It's really, really needed. But now, if you missed this show or would like to listen to any of our past programs, go subscribe to the Money Wise Podcast. You can find it commercial free on all podcast platforms like iTunes, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. We will be back tomorrow, but before we leave, remember these three things. Be smart, be safe, and always be money wise.

• 54:19Speaker 05

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