HR2 Rush To Reason March 20, 2025 by John Rush
SPEAKER 20 :
This is Rush to Reason.
SPEAKER 10 :
You are going to shut your damn yapper and listen for a change because I got you pegged, sweetheart. You want to take the easy way out because you’re scared. And you’re scared because if you try and fail, there’s only you to blame. Let me break this down for you. Life is scary. Get used to it. There are no magical fixes.
SPEAKER 20 :
With your host, John Rush.
SPEAKER 15 :
My advice to you is to do what your parents did. Get a job first.
SPEAKER 09 :
You haven’t made everybody equal. You’ve made them the same and there’s a big difference.
SPEAKER 18 :
Let me tell you why you’re here. You’re here because you know something. What you know you can’t explain, but you feel it. You’ve felt it your entire life. That there’s something wrong with the world. You don’t know what it is, but it’s there. It is this feeling that has brought you to me.
SPEAKER 09 :
Are you crazy? Am I? Or am I so sane that you just blew your mind?
SPEAKER 21 :
It’s Rush to Reason with your host, John Rush. Presented by Cub Creek Heating and Air Conditioning.
SPEAKER 20 :
All right, we are back. Hour number two, Rush to Reason, Denver’s Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560. Back with us again today is Adrian Gray. Adrian, welcome. How are you?
SPEAKER 06 :
Hi, John. Thanks. I’m great. How are you?
SPEAKER 20 :
Very well. Thank you for joining us. Parler brand voice and a pop culture host of Daily Pop or of Daily Pop, I should say. All right. Talk to us about a lot of what’s going on in the world of not only Tesla. And by the way, it can be pretty much any Tesla. Cybertrucks, of course, are being targeted probably more so because they just stick out like a sore thumb. And that’s, you know, some guys love them, some guys hate them, but they definitely do stick out. But it’s happening on a lot of Teslas, not just Cybertruck.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, so I first want to start off and just say, you know, Elon Musk and SpaceX completed a mission that NASA failed. You know, these astronauts came home via SpaceX. The left does not want to admit, like the private sector, a company led by Elon, you know, that he could solve a problem that Biden’s administration could not. If this happened under a Trump administration, it would be a humanitarian crisis. That’s right. And a demonstration of failed leadership. But because it happens, you know, under Biden, they don’t want to admit it. They want to go silent.
SPEAKER 20 :
You are 100% correct, and it’s interesting even that originally that was a Boeing mission, as you know, and they had issues even getting them back out and so on. And, you know, long story short, they could never complete the mission. So Elon basically said, you know, we can do that. We can make that happen, and frankly did. And to your point, we now have an entire – political side, if you would, that is against the man, even though he’s literally saving lives. And ironically, it wasn’t but just, oh, not even a year ago that everybody out there on that side was talking about buying EVs, Teslas, and so on. He was the darling of the left, and now he’s hated by them.
SPEAKER 06 :
Oh, listen, he was the space cowboy, okay? And now he’s Hitler. So I guess Hitler went and saved the astronauts. You know, John, but I will say, you know, blowing up EV batteries has to be one of the dumbest things that I have ever heard. You know, those EV cargo ships that caught fire and they were sinking and all the toxic chemicals. You know why? I think we should be skipping the Tesla bonfires. OK, because it’s an interesting version yet again, John, of saving the planet. Right. Interesting version that they have to fit their narrative of what this climate change is, because blowing up EV batteries is one of the most toxic things you can do for the environment.
SPEAKER 20 :
That’s exactly right. And I was thinking the exact same thing. It’s funny you mentioned that. I’m like, okay, wait a minute. The same people that claim to love Mother Earth, that are out to save the planet, so on and so forth, wanted EVs, all this other stuff, are the very same people that are now defacing them, burning them to the ground, smearing their own feces on them, by the way. I mean, just utterly disastrous people. decrepit things Adrian it’s like wait a minute you people are supposed to be lovers of earth and yet you’re doing nothing but destroying it with your actions
SPEAKER 06 :
Absolutely. And to bring up something that may be a little controversial, John, is I do want to discuss this whole, you know, Elon having all these children because that’s another one of their favorite things right now. You just go ballistic over. And I have to say, whether I agree with someone or not, I always respect somebody who does what they say. This man for the last decade has been saying the birth rate is going down. Though I don’t agree with how he is populating the world, this man hasn’t changed his views on much. But now all of a sudden they have a problem. Listen, to get to 14 kids, you had to have started a while back.
SPEAKER 20 :
Right. Right. No, you’re right. And I like you. It is a little controversial. And, you know, would that be the way that I would go about doing what he’s done? Of course not. That’s not really my my value system, Adrian. And no, that’s not the direction that that I would head on the same token. I’m also a conservative that, you know, I would rather show someone the right way than condemn them for not doing it the correct way. So while I don’t agree with what he’s doing, I’m not going to condemn him either. I will say this and I’ve always said this. Anybody that’s actually. Populating the earth, keeping those babies, not aborting them. I’ll still be on their side, even though they may not be doing it the way I would.
SPEAKER 06 :
Exactly. And it boils down to that for me as well. I’m going to always choose life. And what I just mean by bringing this up in general is to not ruffle feathers, but to just call out the at odds. Okay. It is always the opposition. And now it’s a problem. Now we hate EVs. Now we hate Tesla. Now we hate these population. Now, A lot of the issue we have right in our culture from the left is they don’t want to have kids.
SPEAKER 20 :
OK, true.
SPEAKER 06 :
We’re not going to know, John, because you and I are not going to be here to know about the birth weight birth rate. But I can tell you the kids are probably going to be on Mars by then because who the heck would want to live here with these crazy people?
SPEAKER 20 :
Well, you know, I can’t argue that. And Adrian, you’re right. And I say this all the time on the program. I’m glad you brought that up because I’ve been saying now for, I’ve been on air for over a decade. And I’ve been saying since the day I came on at that time, 10 years ago plus, our birth rate was already starting to drop. I believe when I came on air, I’d have to go back and look at stats. We were around 2.1 or so. You need 2.3 to have a healthy economy. We’re all the way down now hovering between one six and one seven. It just continues to drop. And that’s not good for a country, not good for an economy, not good for a nation.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yes. And, you know, I put a funny tweet out there the other day. I said, without the Catholics, Mormons and Elon, we might not have any children.
SPEAKER 20 :
Boy, that is a fact. And you are you are you are 100 percent. And part of that is and I’ve said this for years and years, even before coming on air. For the longest time, all you heard was overpopulation, overpopulation, overpopulation. Even as a young person, that was a big deal. I never believed it. I just always looked at that poo-pooed. It’s like, wait a minute. You guys haven’t driven through eastern Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas. I can keep going, by the way. The reality is there is more than enough place on this earth for a lot more people than we have right now. So I’ve never believed in overpopulation. But what I did believe in, and I read a book. Oh, in my late teens, I want to say, Adrienne, where this lady basically said, listen, as countries become more wealthy, as they become more rich, the population will automatically decrease anyway. So this worry about world population getting overboard, the reality is it’s quite the opposite of that, because as nations get richer, the population decreases anyways. And guess what? She was right.
SPEAKER 06 :
Absolutely. Yeah, that’s a fabulous point to bring up. And, you know, I do have to say, you know, you’ll see all these clips of little X running around and Trump with his grandkids and Vance has his kids kind of around and around. And the left will be like, this is just a mess. They shouldn’t have these kids in the spotlight. What I’m saying, John, is they are normalizing family life, American values and showing people you can be successful and you can have your children running around. And that’s OK, because they’re learning the coolest things that they could be learning.
SPEAKER 20 :
And I will tell you what, and somebody else just said, by the way, I need to double-check the news cycle because today I believe Pam Bondi issued a federal offense for destroying Tesla property. And, yes, she did. So thank you, by the way, for reminding me of that. Yes, that, in fact, is the case. To your point, though, Adrienne, and I’ve been self-employed since I was 22, raised kids throughout that entire time. And I will tell you that as a self-employed individual, much like Elon Musk and the Trumps and so on, yeah, guess what? My kids were always around the things that we were doing.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 20 :
My kids knew how to work at a very early age because of that, by the way. They were always involved in the businesses that we had going on. And the reality is that was our normal life. Yeah, what they’re displaying right now is exactly that. It is a normal life for self-employed individuals.
SPEAKER 06 :
Absolutely. And I love it because, again, it bothers the left so much that we love family. Family life. They absolutely hate it. They do. I love that.
SPEAKER 20 :
I sure appreciate you coming on. How do folks find you, Adrienne?
SPEAKER 06 :
I am on Parler. My show is on Play TV, a daily pop. You can find me, Adrienne Nicole Gray, on Instagram, pretty much everywhere. But thank you so much, John, for having me. This is honestly one of my new favorite things to do.
SPEAKER 20 :
Well, it’s a joy having you. You’re welcome anytime, and I appreciate it greatly. Thank you, thank you.
SPEAKER 06 :
Absolutely.
SPEAKER 20 :
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31%.
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SPEAKER 03 :
Putting reason into your afternoon drive, this is John Rush.
SPEAKER 20 :
All right, we are back. Rush to Reason, Denver’s Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560. Bill, what can I do for you?
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay, I wouldn’t call now if it wasn’t important. It’s a car question. I sent you the email last night about the tire that blew out.
SPEAKER 20 :
Yes, yes, yes, yes. Okay, because my son’s going to— So really quick, do you know what the other three are measuring at, Bill, or do you have the measurements on them or not?
SPEAKER 04 :
I have no idea. No, it’s a brand-new truck. It’s probably got less than 100 miles on it.
SPEAKER 20 :
If it’s less than that, yeah, just put another tire on it. You’d be fine. You wouldn’t have any issues with that.
SPEAKER 04 :
I’m sure they’re going to do, because I know on my wife’s Trailblazer or something, when she got a blowout, we had to change all four tires on that.
SPEAKER 20 :
If it’s that new, trust me, you won’t have any issues. If it’s getting miles on it, in fact, if that tire has 10,000 miles or more on it and or severe wear, yeah, you’d have to put all four on. In this case, no, you’d be fine just putting one tire on it.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, I called a discount. They said the same thing, too.
SPEAKER 20 :
Yeah, you’d be fine.
SPEAKER 04 :
I’m just double-checking because I don’t want them to get burned.
SPEAKER 20 :
No, you’d be all right. You’d be fine with that, Bill. Not a problem. No, you’re very welcome. That was kind of an emergency call, but any of you that have any questions like that along those lines, absolutely. So somebody texted me just to get back to the text line. Do I ever eat a Twinkie or Froot Loops? You know, I’ve never allowed to have much of Froot Loops when we were kids. That was a real treat if we got them. So I haven’t had Froot Loops since I was a kid, and I’m not exaggerating. Literally, I haven’t had any for a long, long time. Still can remember the taste. But it’s been forever since I had any. And, you know, I was never a huge Twinkie fan because I’m not a huge sweet tooth guy. I just don’t have – I’m more of a salt guy. I’m not a sweet tooth guy. So Twinkies, would I eat one on a rare occasion? You might if it got thrown in the lunchbox or something. Even then, my folks didn’t – my mom didn’t put much of that into – you know, our lunch pail and stuff anyway. So, no, I will say that, you know, Twinkies have never really been a big, you know, a big food of mine. I don’t have any in our pantry. You know, my, yeah, there’s none in our pantry right now. Those, yeah, they just wouldn’t happen, so. Charlie said, what would I say made me heavy back in the day? I’ll be the first to admit it. So I was fine all the way through high school, even getting out of high school. I played sports and played football and did all of that, and I was in pretty good shape with all of that. And then as a technician, did really well as far as you’re on your feet, you’re turning a wrench, you’re doing all that, and all that’s great. And that keeps your weight down as well. Being self-employed, that’s a whole other story. Between your schedule… your stress the amount of non-home-cooked food that you eat to actually keep up with what’s going on and i know that’s not an excuse i know that now and i’ll be the first to admit that but i’m just telling you charlie asked so i’m telling you what what gain you know what made me gain all of that weight at that time i already have uh slower metabolism than most anyway so it’s something i really have to watch but when you’re stressed and i’m a stress eater So when you’re stressed and you’re on the run and you’re constantly making sure that everything’s going well in the business and you almost live there minus going home and sleeping, and I’m not exaggerating. That’s what happens when you have a new business. All of that combined with not eating right, which is what you do because you go get the – You know, the Wendy’s double with cheese and fries and maybe even get a Frosty along with it and throw a Coke into that in the mix. No, I’ve never been a big diet Coke guy. I’ve always drinking the real stuff. I’ve never been a diet soda person much per se. Maybe some of the clear diet sodas I might drink occasionally, but that’s about it. Might have a Diet Dr. Pepper occasionally. That’s kind of a treat for me because I actually do like Dr. Pepper. But outside of that, don’t drink much soda. period since then. But yeah, I would say for me, my demise was owning my own business, not taking the time to really look back and sit back and say, okay, what am I eating and why? And you’re just on the run. So you’re literally eating whatever you can stuff in your mouth quickly to keep things moving. I mean, I can remember to this day having, you know, somebody would go, you’d send somebody out or somebody would bring something in or whatever. We didn’t have DoorDash or anything back then, but somebody would go pick up whatever. And literally, you know, you’d put your sandwich and fries on the toolbox. And I literally would be, you know, rebuilding a transmission, taking a bite out of the sandwich while you’re doing all of that at the same time. It’s like if you’re eating and working at the same time, that’s literally what you’re doing. And, you People would even look at you like you’re eating that with those greasy hands and so on. Yeah, you just did what you did. And you probably even ate some things you probably shouldn’t have along the way, but that’s what you did. And yeah, that’s how I ended up as heavy as I was because I lost over 100 pounds back in 2010. And it is still a constant chore of mine. And you can ask my wife and family. It’s something I constantly am working at on an ongoing basis. And the older that I’ve gotten, the harder that becomes. And had I known the right way to do that back when I was in my, you know, 20s, 30s, and even 40s, you know what? Early 40s, I should say, I would have been much better with all of that. But, you know, again, not making excuses, but things happen. Life happens. Business happens. And, you know, even throwing in then raising kids and the schedules that they’re on and you’re trying to keep up with all of that and trying to keep all of them going and so on. And, yeah, it’s just I’ll be the first to admit it. It gets away from you. And here’s what happens. And I think a lot of you can relate to this. I would think, oh, you know, I only gained five pounds this year. Well, do five pounds for 10 years. Guess what? After a decade, you’re 50 pounds up. Now, keep that going and do that for two decades, which is essentially what I did. So you do that for two decades, five pounds a year becomes 100 pounds. And you don’t think about it at the times you think, oh, you know, I’m only like five pounds up from where I was last year. Clothes fit the same, really, you know, I’m doing okay. It’s only five pounds. Well, 5 becomes 10, 10 becomes 15, 15 becomes 20, you get the drift. And pretty soon, even after five years, it’s 25 pounds. After 10 years, it’s 50 pounds. And you get where I’m – just gave you the explanation there. For me, literally, it wasn’t 100 pounds in a year. No, it’s 5 pounds a year. Over the course of a couple of decades, pretty soon you’re 100 pounds overweight, and it sneaks up on you that fast. And that’s why, for me, it’s such a burden on not only Wednesdays, but then Thursdays again with Dr. Kelly and Steve to teach people how to do these things correctly. So just like I coach businesses – I like coaching people along those lines so you don’t make the same mistakes that I did, whether it be on the health side or the business side. Because trust me, I made a lot of mistakes on that side of things as well. Believe me, I learned the hard way how to do certain things business-wise. Because back then when I was starting out, we really didn’t have coaches. There were coaches in big business, big industry, and things like that. But small businesses, we didn’t have anybody to turn to. You might have been able to find a mentor or somebody that you could talk to or somebody else that might have been in your business that might help. And remember, they’re your competition. They’re not going to help you out a whole lot. So you learn by the school of hard knocks. And fortunately today, there are people like myself that go around and they do help other businesses learn how to do things correctly. And you learn from some of those mistakes. And frankly, for me, I’d rather learn from somebody that made them. and is teaching me how to not make them than just somebody who learned it out of a book. So that’s just me. But anyways, we’ll be back. I’ve got more to talk about here in a moment. I’m going to go back to the Buc-ee’s situation from yesterday because I’ve got a little bit of follow-up on that, and I’ve had some good conversations via text message from several people, which, by the way, I always appreciate. I appreciate the text messages that come and go, even if we don’t agree. And I’m just going to share a couple of those for you as soon as we come back. Golden Eagle Financial up next, though. Al Smith, he wants to help you with your financial future. Make sure you’re dialed in today. Call Al. Find him at klzradio.com.
SPEAKER 16 :
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SPEAKER 20 :
All right, we are back. Rush to Reason, Denver’s Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560. Yesterday afternoon, by the way, towards the end of the program, we got on to the whole Buc-ee’s situation down in Palmer Lake and the fact that Buc-ee’s is withdrawing their proposal to put a Buc-ee’s down there. And honestly, I didn’t think I would get as much of a response from something that I’ve ever talked about as I did that, especially not being really, I mean, I guess you could say it’s political, but it’s not. It’s a retail establishment wanting to put in their product, and that’s really all it is at the end of the day. So, needless to say, had a lot of conversation from folk last night. Now, I will also say this. Thank you to those of you that maybe didn’t even agree with me. You were very respectful in what you said and why you didn’t agree and so on, and we can still agree to disagree at the end of the day. You can keep listening, and we’ll agree on certain things, and I appreciate that greatly. And even one of you said that while… You don’t always agree with me and even didn’t agree with me on that one by the time we were done talking. You actually did see things differently after it was all said and done. And by the way, I think this particular comment got a couple of people that I was texting back and forth to rethink. their position on Buc-ee’s. And this is the text I’ve got. And I’ll read this because I don’t know this person’s last name. But in fact, I’m going to leave the first name out just to protect this particular young man. And to me, he’s a young man. Now, he’s a man, but he’s a young man to me. Good evening, Mr. Rush. I’m a full-time student at CSU, and I work full-time Thursday nights to Sunday at Buc-ee’s in Johnstown. I have a set school schedule, yet they still bend over backwards to accommodate my CSU schedule. There have been more than a few times that CSU and UNC students also pulling full-time hours at Buc-ee’s. It’s truly a company that encourages hard work and that wants people to succeed. The Lord blessed me with the job at Buc-ee’s. When I graduate next year, I won’t be buried in debt. Yes, Buc-ee’s sells a ton of barbecue sandwiches, and I laughed out loud at the person who wanted solar and a farmer’s market. To call Buc-ee’s a trash company really is an insult. Buc-ee’s was built from the ground up. I doubt that that caller has done anything in life other than criticize others who have. And I don’t know. That’s his words, not mine. But I did send that to some folks that we were texting back and forth to let those folk know that at least this young man, and by the way, I gave you an example of somebody else I know personally that worked at Buc-ee’s that has a whole different feeling on Buc-ee’s than maybe some in the general public have. And I will tell you that from what I understand and the people that I have talked to, it’s a great place to work. They pay way above average. They look for people that really want to stay with the company long term. Some of their people have been there for decades. As I said yesterday, it is the 25th largest private-owned company in America with sales of $14.5 billion a year. So they must be doing something right, or they wouldn’t be doing what they’re doing. And I had some other conversations with folks that even somebody responded and said, well, why is it that somebody needs to work full-time while also going to college? And my answer back was, so when they graduate, they don’t have that debt burden that a lot of others out there are carrying and don’t even have to have some of the loans that you would normally have. And remember, folks, that not everybody out there is independently wealthy and has the ability to go to college by writing a check. Some parents save. Some parents have savings accounts. Some parents are independently wealthy and they can afford to send their kid to school. Some, by the way, have money to send their kid to school but want their kid to understand the education they’re getting and make them pay all or a portion of said schooling. I was one of those. because that’s how you teach kids the importance of that education they’re receiving. So I’m not against kids working while going through college. In fact, I’ll be the first to tell you, I think it should be a requirement. I think they should have to. In fact, I think they should have to do something that coincides with the actual degree they’re getting. Now, I know that’s not always possible. If you’re studying biology or something along those lines, it might be difficult to actually find a job that coincides with what you’re doing, and I understand that. But if you’re, for example, studying to be a lawyer, you should go intern or at least work part-time at a lawyer’s office. If you’re studying engineering, you should actually go find an engineering firm, try to get on board, try to start working some while you’re in school. And again, applying those things that you’re learning right off the bat. And oh, by the way, part of what I just said, you would be surprised the amount of companies that if you’re yearning to do just that, how many of them will actually help you along the way. That even includes the trades. automotive carpentry and so on you’d be surprised how many companies will help you with your schooling costs knowing that you’ll be an employee of theirs when you’re done and this is something by the way that i don’t feel we teach enough young people how the system works we don’t advertise and promote what i just said near enough now maybe that’s because some people just think well that’s a given you should already know that well here’s the problem though folks I think there are some parochial and private schools that might teach some of that. But I’ll be the first to tell you, most guidance counselors in the public end of things, if there even is any, are not teaching that. They are not telling these young people what I just said. That, hey, if you’re going to go study mechanical engineering while you’re doing that, try to find a job someplace close where you can go work at that, even if it’s on the weekends, nights, evenings, whatever it happens to be, and coincide that with your studies. Most don’t do that. Most don’t say that. Most aren’t informed of that. Here’s the other problem that I think happens with a lot of young people. They watch too much social media, and let me explain. There are a ton of people on social media. You’ll have the, you know, in the fall when school is starting, you’ll have the whatever they call it, Charlie, the the rush or whatever they call it, where all these girls are going back to sorority and they’re touting the clothes that they’re wearing and the rings they have on and this, that and the other. And, yeah, these kids are all on a free ride. And mom and dad are paying for this entire luxury life that they’re living. And who knows if they’ll amount to anything when it’s all said and done. I don’t know. And I’m not trying to criticize. But believe you me, they are not learning the value of a dollar doing that. My point is far too many kids look at that and think that’s the norm. I’ll be the first to bring it to everybody’s attention. That’s not normal. That is a very small percentage of the population that send their kids to school that have that ability. That’s the one percenters or even less. Might even be the half a percenters. And I’m not exaggerating in what I’m saying there. That’s not the norm. So point being, we should do a better job of teaching kids as they’re going to college and what they’re doing and so on, how they can actually participate in the field that they’re going to be involved in. And I’ll just keep saying this because I really have a passion for this. We don’t even teach kids what they should be studying. We have this tendency to, number one, every kid’s a winner going through elementary, junior high, and high school, which they’re not. Some kids excel at certain things better than others. You know, I was the the Husky kid running the mile. And was I ever going to run track and be successful and be a front runner when it came to running anything track related? I was more of a discus and shot put kid than I was somebody that would be running track. My body wasn’t built for it. I was built to be a linebacker. or a lineman, something along those lines, which is what I played in football. I was not a running back. I was not a quarterback. I was not a tight end. I wasn’t any of those things. I was a linebacker, and I played the line. And that’s what I did. It’s the way my body type was. And we all have different ones. And by the way, that’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with that. Not everybody can run track and be, you know, whoever the fastest guy in the world is right now. I don’t even know who that is. I was one of those kids that, by the way, hated track. Kind of still do. I know a lot of people are really into that. They love it. They watch it. When I heard, I’ll just be straight up honest, any time I heard that one of our kids was going to run track, I’m just like, oh, geez, really? No, please. That means I’ve got to go watch these things. And for those of you that have kids that run track and you run track, you know what? God bless you. Love you. That’s great. I’m glad you all found your niche. That’s fine. Not my department. Not something I even enjoy. Now, watching track to me is cars going around as fast as they can, not somebody running. So that’s just me, my body type, and so on. But I think what we’ve done, getting back to my point, we’ve let everybody be a winner. And in turn, our young people have no ability to really learn what are they good at. What are they good at? I’ll be straight up honest. They don’t know. In a lot of cases, these young kids have never been challenged to even know what am I good at or not at. Instead, we teach these kids, follow your passion. Go do what you love. Well, that’s all fine and dandy unless you suck at it. You could love something but not be very good at it. And by the way, you’ll never make any money doing it. You have to be good at what you’re doing even if you don’t like it. And that’s just the nature of how things work. We do kids too much of a disservice by saying, go follow your heart. Go do what you love. If you do what you love, you’ll always make money. By the way, there isn’t anything that’s more of a lie in life than that, if you ask me. Joe, you’re next.
SPEAKER 11 :
John, we’ve made a bad situation even worse. Back when I was going to school, when I went to school, the only government-guaranteed loans you could get were for science, technology, engineering, and math. And I qualified because I was going to an engineering school. But despite that, I still wanted to minimize my borrowing. So I worked during school, you know, during the school year, you know, close to the college. And then in the summers, I worked on my grandparents’ cattle ranch, you know, baling hay. And, you know, and I get made good money doing that. And then somewhere around 1980, Congress said, you know, we ought to make those student loans available to everybody. Well, John, you know, because I live near the Jersey Shore, you will see college kids spending the entire summer at the beach. And why don’t they get a job? Because they can just borrow more money. They don’t have to work.
SPEAKER 20 :
Good point. Joe, for a lot of people that may not understand this, I do, because I raised kids that went to college and so on. Explain what you mean by that, because I’m not sure everybody really understands what you mean.
SPEAKER 11 :
Well, now regardless of your course of study and regardless of the school you go to, You can borrow virtually unlimited amounts of money because it’s all guaranteed by the government. The bank doesn’t care about your ability to pay because if you can’t pay, the government will make good on the loan. There is no underwriting criteria. So the access to government-guaranteed loans is no longer limited to those pursuing science, technology, engineering, math.
SPEAKER 20 :
And really quick, on top of that, Joe, you can also borrow money to live on, right? Yes.
SPEAKER 11 :
Right. You can cover your food, tuition, room and board. It’s not just tuition. It’s room, board, housing, whatever. So you’re a 19-, 20-year-old college kid, and you have a choice. Do I want to work this summer waiting tables or whatever it is I do or work in construction, roofing, landscaping? Or do I want to borrow an extra $15,000, which is the money I could probably make working through the summer?
SPEAKER 14 :
Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER 11 :
and spend the next 10 weeks on the beach or at some lake.
SPEAKER 20 :
Or traveling Europe or doing whatever, Joe.
SPEAKER 11 :
Going to Europe, whatever, backpacking, going to Yellowstone. And tens of thousands, if not millions, of young college kids today Choose the latter. They choose not to work because they don’t have to work.
SPEAKER 20 :
Well, really quick, Joe, and I can sum this up also. Here’s the other thing they haven’t been taught, and this is a law of life, and it’s called pay first, play later or play first and pay later but either way you pay so the reality is it’s always easier and cheaper to pay on the front side than it is on the back side but unfortunately joe a lot of these kids are choosing to play first and pay second and what they’re now learning through student loans and everything else is man it’s a lot more costly to do that yeah and john when i graduated because i worked i didn’t borrow the max that i could borrow but when i graduated i
SPEAKER 11 :
I still had student loan debt that was about 110% of my first year’s salary. I went to work for Carrier as an engineer right out of school, making good money, but I still owed slightly more than my first year’s salary. You got kids graduating today, John. They’re going to work for four. They’ve got debt that is equal to four times their starting salary. Let’s assume they get a good job. John, there’s a Starbucks on Arapahoe and near Peoria, and I got to know the manager down there one time, and I said, you know, I said, Frank, how many people here have a college degree? And I think he told me like 13 out of the 19 people working as baristas were college graduates, and they’re working in Starbucks.
SPEAKER 20 :
Mm-hmm. Joe, I have met some doctors firsthand. I’m not exaggerating, folks, when I say this. I have met some doctors firsthand that with what it took to get their medical degree and what they’re actually making now by the time they pay all the admin and everything else that they have to do when it’s all said and done will take some of them several decades, and I’m not exaggerating, to get all their student loans paid off.
SPEAKER 11 :
Yep. And, John, if you get a degree in art history from some third-rate college that nobody ever heard of, First of all, you’re not going to get a job in your field. If you’re going to get a job in art history working for some museum, you better be getting it from Yale or Harvard or some school like that. Those institutions that hire art history majors don’t get them from third rate. They don’t hire from third. They get the cream of the crop.
SPEAKER 20 :
That’s right.
SPEAKER 11 :
So if you’re going to pursue a worthless degree, what I mean worthless, that has no market value, if you get a liberal arts degree, gender studies, art history… you know, English lit from a third rate school that nobody ever heard of, you are not going to get employed in your field. You’re going to do, you’re going to wind up being a clerk at Cracker Barrel or, you know, or, or Walmart.
SPEAKER 20 :
And Joe, you know, why I get, you know, dumb question on my part, but you know, why are we not informing these kids of this on the front side? Is it because we want to loan the money to them and we want to make all the money and the schools don’t care because they’re making a boatload of money as well. And it’s just a big scheme.
SPEAKER 11 :
John, the schools don’t care. If you look at the cost of a college education versus inflation and versus, you know, starting salaries, have you seen the graph? It’s like a hockey stick. And just like in basically when demand for the supply, when demand exceeds the supply, prices go up. Well, colleges and universities just kept jacking the prices up and up and up and up because there was a greater demand.
SPEAKER 20 :
And the money became freer.
SPEAKER 11 :
And the demand was there because the money became available. You know, when I was going to school, there’s a lot of schools that, you know, I didn’t apply to MIT because I couldn’t afford MIT. Today, I could afford MIT.
SPEAKER 20 :
Right.
SPEAKER 11 :
Because I could borrow.
SPEAKER 20 :
Because you didn’t go to MIT in the first place. I’m sorry? Because you didn’t go to MIT in the first place, and you made good on what you did and made money in the process.
SPEAKER 11 :
And made money in the process. But today, because literally, well, assuming you met the academic credentials, Let me put it this way. So let’s assume that MIT takes in 1,500 freshmen every year. And yes, they have high academic standards, but there’s easily 10,000 people meet those academic credentials, and all 10,000 can borrow the tuition money. So MIT is in a position where they potentially have 10,000 people to choose from, and they’re only going to accept 1,500. Well, if you’ve got 10,000 applicants and you’re only going to accept 1,500, What do you do, John? You bump up tuition. My daughter works at Penn State. John, the amount of, you know, every year the amount of people at Penn State exceed the capacity. And by the way, it’s surprising. I live here in New Jersey, and there are some really good schools. There’s Rutgers. There’s New Jersey Institute of Technology. There’s Stevens Tech. There’s some really good schools. Surprising number of people. So they can go to a good New Jersey school, including room and board, for $30,000 a year. Penn State is $60,000 a year for out-of-state. And for the life of me, I don’t know why so many Jersey residents elect to go to Penn State when they can go to an equivalent school in terms of curriculum. You know, for less than half that cost, I just don’t understand what it is.
SPEAKER 20 :
Well, Joe, I think you being a good mathematician would understand this. We don’t teach kids basic math and how this works at the end of the day and how much that debt’s going to be and what that’s going to actually cost them to make good on that debt and be able to pay that back and so on. We don’t teach any of that, Joe.
SPEAKER 11 :
No, it’s insane, you know, and you get somebody graduating from college today with, $180,000 or $200,000 worth of debt, and maybe they’re going to get a job that starts them off at $60,000, John, that’s an insane… They’ll never get it paid off. It’s an insane ratio. Right. So they’ll never get it paid off. Or maybe when they’re 50, it’ll be paid off. But how that’s going to impact their lifestyle, and that’s… And so, John, I blame government for facilitating… True. …and creating the problem. If people didn’t have access to unlimited amounts of money, and I don’t remember the exact numbers… But back in 1970, only about 54% of high school graduates went on to college.
SPEAKER 20 :
That sounds relatively close, Joe. I would say that’s pretty close.
SPEAKER 11 :
The last time I checked was a couple of years ago. That number had risen to 76%.
SPEAKER 20 :
Far too much. And frankly, Joe, we talk about this all the time. That’s why the trades and others are suffering, because we’ve encouraged kids to go do what you just said, that at the end of the day doesn’t make them healthy, wealthy, and wise. It actually does the opposite to them, and then we wonder why the trades suffer.
SPEAKER 11 :
Yes, and John, because I was affiliated with a company down here near Philadelphia. It was a union HVAC company. After five years of apprenticeship, you’re a journeyman. You know what a journeyman HVAC technician in the Philadelphia area is making?
SPEAKER 20 :
Probably $80,000 to $100,000.
SPEAKER 11 :
Yeah, they’re making $42 an hour, and they’re getting guaranteed, well, not guaranteed, but they all get overtime. So even without overtime, John, they’re making $84,000.
SPEAKER 20 :
That’s right. And the reason I know that, Joe, is because you can do the same thing in the automotive world if you want to.
SPEAKER 11 :
Yep. So, you know, and they’re debt free, John. They go to out of high school. They go in the apprenticeship program. You’re making money as they go through the apprenticeship program. And after five years, they’re 23 years old. knocking down $85,000 to $100,000 a year easy.
SPEAKER 20 :
And we do not promote that near enough. Joe, as always, man, appreciate you.
SPEAKER 11 :
You’re welcome. Thanks, man.
SPEAKER 20 :
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SPEAKER 03 :
Now back to Rush to Reason on KLZ 560. Dan, I got about 45 seconds. Go for it, sir.
SPEAKER 05 :
I have two degrees from MIT. I’ll call you back. And I have no debt.
SPEAKER 20 :
Good for you.
SPEAKER 05 :
Two degrees. Yeah, Metro in town is where I got the degrees.
SPEAKER 20 :
Good for you. Nothing wrong with that at all, Dan. You’re awesome.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, I’ll call back next hour.
SPEAKER 20 :
Okay, man. Appreciate you very much. Nope. Oh, and Dan, we do have Kurt joining us. You can still call back in. We don’t care. Kurt would be happy to talk to you if you want to do that. So feel free to do that. Kurt Rogers should be joining us here at our 5 o’clock. Mark, which is just a few minutes away. We’re going to talk housing, where the markets are headed, interest rates, all of that. So be sure to give us a call then. Otherwise, hang tight. Hour number three is next, right here on Rush to Reason, Denver’s Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560.
SPEAKER 1 :
I’m a rich guy
