Please LIKE, COMMENT, SHARE & SUBSCRIBE… It Really Helps Our Channel.
Jason Schwartz sits with Co-host Scott R Bushnell on the first Monday in December 2023. The world-at-large continues to defy the imagination- at least Jason’s imagination! High spirited interesting conversation.
Summary and Transcript
Summary Neutral Zone Show, December 4, 2023
[00:00 → 03:14] Introduction and Host Interaction
- [00:00] The show opens with Jason Schwartz and co-host Scott R. Bushnell greeting the audience from Maui’s Neutral Zone studio. Jason introduces Scott as a calming and knowledgeable presence, especially important as Jason shares he has been feeling “out of sorts,” partly due to health issues including hearing loss in one ear.
- [01:18] Jason discusses his recent health challenges and the difficulty in settling into routine work, highlighting the importance of “letting go” of overwhelming world and local events to maintain mental health.
- [02:00] The hosts emphasize the importance of public engagement, inviting listeners to call in at 808-873-3435 to participate as guests on the show.
- [02:41] Scott praises Jason’s breadth of knowledge and suggests focusing the conversation on the national and local impacts of wildfires, particularly regarding firefighting and community response.
- [03:14] The hosts prepare to discuss the broader context of disaster response and related social issues, reinforcing the call-in number for audience participation.
[03:14 → 07:26] Call-Out Culture, Accountability, and Service Delivery Challenges
- [03:53] Scott introduces the concept of “call out,” where public officials or decision-makers are directly contacted live on air to foster accountability. This approach is seen as a way to elevate transparency in Maui’s recovery efforts.
- [04:26] They discuss the complexity and fragmentation within aid and shelter systems, noting that displaced individuals often face barriers accessing help due to disconnected databases and bureaucratic inefficiencies.
- [05:30] Both hosts express frustration at systemic issues in delivering aid effectively, underscoring that the problem is not a lack of willingness but a deficiency in creative solutions and coordination.
- [06:06] Jason explains the inefficiency of federal aid programs, including SNAP (food stamps), highlighting that in the 1990s, $27 was spent administratively to deliver only $1 in food assistance, exemplifying waste and overhead.
- [07:26] Scott and Jason contrast political approaches, noting conservatives generally push for efficiency and reducing administrative costs, while liberals tend to prioritize funding delivery regardless of overhead, which may lead to inefficiency but aims to ensure aid is given.
[07:26 → 13:29] Food Assistance Programs, Bureaucracy, and Local Solutions
- [08:01] The hosts discuss the nutritional challenges facing the poor, highlighting that many low-income individuals are overweight due to reliance on cheap, unhealthy carbohydrates, reflecting systemic food insecurity and poor diet quality.
- [08:38] Jason outlines the layers of bureaucracy in federal aid programs, attributing 38 dollars of administrative costs for every dollar delivered. These layers include multiple federal agencies that “take their cut” before aid reaches recipients.
- [09:52] He recounts Internal Server Error
Full Timestamped Transcript
00:00
[Music] well hello good morning we’re in December 2023 isn’t that amazing December 4th we’re at the neutral zone good morning hi I’m Jason Schwarz I am one of your hosts and the other host is our co-host Scott Bushnell Scott R Bushnell it all works Jason I think the r stands for Wow cuz very special special thanks for being here Scott hey no problem Jason thank you you know Scott has taken on the role I call it co-host let me share with you I find him very interesting and relaxing as a as a
00:40
person to have here I have been out of sorts I think even before the wildfires but I just have not settled down into a routine of interviewing people and talking about longterm things at the moment yet or doing stuff because I am so out of sorts if you will are you out of sorts or are you just hyperfocused no I think it’s out of sorts you know I mean the I am I don’t know a little of each I can’t hear out of my left ear and it’s now been a week and uh you know after seeing doctor upon
01:18
doctor I’m going to see another one after the show MH maybe I hope to be able to get back to somewhat of a more normaler how’s that more normal yeah there’s no normal Jason and um maybe that’s one thing but then let go of the world I have to let go of world events let go of local events um kind of hide all the um hide there’s an amazing thing going on called lack of services and I think sometimes it isn’t for lack of anybody wanting to deliver them it’s for lack of knowing how to deliver them you know you
02:00
know I I’m still just I get calls from people that say I want to be on your show 808 873 3435 let me repeat it again 808 873 3435 that’s a call in line if you want to be on our show you can be a guest if you want that’s the easiest and quickest and most direct way 808 873 3435 that’s if I hear the phone ringing and I pick you up but Scott will the light today I I hope to see the light today that would be good Jason I’ve been meaning to see the light um you know I every time I come and speak to you I
02:41
find that I am intrigued by your vast expanse of really indepth knowledge you know and when when I was talking about the fires and you were talking about fires on a a more National level I thought we should probably talk about about that here because that’s a really important subject about firefighters and all that stuff yeah it is and so um I hope you don’t mind I want to talk about that and then maybe we’ll relate it to what’s happening here and what’s the number here again Jason oh yeah 808
03:14
873 3435 that’s our call in line I the reason I say that at some point we’re going to get focused on call out which is okay you got a problem let’s call and see if we can get through through to someone who can help or someone who can whatever that will be when this show go the ratings should shoot up that would be great yeah I I used to do talk radio and we’d get people calling in and it would be just screaming and yelling at me and it was so much fun love that love that I’m really
03:53
looking at the call out as being you know when someone gets a call while they’re sitting at their desk and they’re live on on the air somewhat invasive I guess you know but but you know if they’re a public official and we’re Public Access and we are the voice of Maui they become part of that voice and I think that would you know when they talk about accountability right I think that I think you know in these last couple of weeks I mean I’ve had people call me that are living at a
04:26
hotel absolutely they were in the they were in the shelter they paying for the shelter on the west side and then they were in the Hiatt hotel and then they wanted to have someone else who doesn’t live in the area but is homeless come and talk about what’s happening uh with the west side and this whole C I don’t want to do that I’d rather be the most dangerous thing ever said is uh don’t worry the federal government’s here you can relax no it’s never never been good words well the other one that really
04:57
gets me is don’t worry we we talk to the other people and so everybody knows and we’re on the same page that’s the other thing that really gets to everything is personal it’s all separate this computer system doesn’t necessarily hook up with this computer system so if you’re helpless and homeless and don’t qualify here don’t necessarily think that the people that could help you that might be at the state or county level by the way that’s conjecture that they can help you
05:30
you because they also no room at the in and and I don’t blame the people that are providing Services I really think that we just don’t have enough money we don’t have enough creative ways of solving these problems and like most piles of dung that we go diving in to find the pony this is a bigger pile and we’re going to have to dig a Little Deeper to find that pony it it it it’s not always there there I think there’s plenty of money and I think this is the huge huge difference
06:06
between uh the left and the right where do you think the money is I think and and this is and this is what’s bothered me for back when I was in uh running for office and chairing a party back in my youth that when we explored the um Department of Agriculture SNAP program and we found out back in the 90s that it cost $27 to get a person that needs food $1 of food stamps so I broke it down into thinking okay Democrats and Republicans left right nobody disagrees about getting help or food stamps to
06:47
people that need them the difference is the people on the right say how can we do it better so we can give them more and cost less to administrate that and the left seems to be just throw the money and don’t worry about the delivery system well one I think that most of them may worry this is my thinking they worry but they figure delivering the service is worth the pain afterward I I don’t I don’t see that as somebody you think that they I I think worry is a personal issue I don’t find that as a community
07:26
issue I see that as something that’s internal to the person maybe receiving the services if we could cut in half the cost of delivering the services and increase the amount of money or ability to buy food for that person right now in the United States the greatest number of overweight people are the poor because they’re eating starches and they’re EA crap they’re eating crap crap food I was going to say yeah I was just looking at the seven words we’re not supposed to say I was just here there’re eating all
08:01
these horrible horrible Foods so here we are and not every not all the Working Poor are on food stamps but they are not eating the best way and eating healthy is very expensive I know that so here we are now I think we’re spending $38 to get $1 of food stamps to each person that needs them does that mean the hierarchy of jobs that are related where does that 38 one Congress Congress has approves it and then there’s an entire um Federal agency the Department of Agriculture where this began back in its infancy and now they
08:38
have three layers that are involved with that which includes the department of uh agriculture involves the Department of Social Services Department of Social Security Department of Social um Ware there’s these all these agencies they’re in they’re they’re taking their cut oh you me I get you so just they’re taking the cut of the potential resources resources to deliver them to the people with many times salary and support services for the agencies they create they’re administering and and
09:13
this is what I found out too back in my my legislative era is that with federal dollars that come to schools and we’re jumping from Food Stamps of schools but but it’s all the same issue that if a school wants a half million dollar or he wants $2 million for a program that the federal government is funding and I’m I managed a National Youth Sports sports program a summer program for socio economic challenge youth to get those dollars we had to have at least three administrative people doing the
09:52
paperwork on the grants so that we could have the dollars and those were the highest paid people that we had in our national youth sports program so a significant portion of the dollars to get to take care of young kids who can’t afford the clubs or can’t afford to go to this swim lessons or go to soccer lessons or go to this the summer programs the the federal government was mandating that we had to do XX and X instead of so are the dollars worth it you know I mean the the program was valuable it was set up by President KY
10:36
National youth program on Sports it was a great one it’s get healthy get healthy get healthy and it got so watered down and so many universities that were running the program so many YMCA so many Boys and Girls Clubs just said they wash their hands of it because they realized that they couldn’t afford to destroy the morale of their working people who are actually working with the kids or working in the community because they had high-paid administrators that were just destroying the morale because you come in you
11:11
lifeguards at the YMCA uh Soccer Coaches referees all that they’re the best people on the planet I I I believe that but when they come into work and they’re working with these high-risk kids and there’s all emotion and it’s great fulfilling work and then they’re seeing somebody sitting in an office that does paperwork that’s making five times what they’re making and never never interacts with the people that are receiving the services then it’s it’s really really
11:43
hard and I’ve been an administrator in this and a director that’s really hard to motivate those people under you when they keep seeing this entity just sucking it drop how do you eliminate that I think it just all needs to come back to and this comes right wraps right around to what you were just saying everything needs to be local if we’re going to fix something we don’t want to look we don’t want to ask one of the other Islands to fix our problems we might ask if they have ideas
12:12
on how to fix it but we don’t want to ask them for a blank check and go oh and then they go where did that money go I mean how many times do you see it in a family where kids will come ask their parents say w I need to buy this special computer and it’s going to help me with my school work and then parents never check up to see where that money went doesn’t happen interesting I so how do we now the thing that I always I think we all look at is now that we have the same need now right how do we
12:48
deliver the food stamps instead of 38 to one now that we know we have the Need Is there a way to eliminate some of that some way it’s going to cut jobs and so someone will say hey you’re you’re losing job but it took an administrator that makes five times what the actual person working with the because they had a certain skill and that skill is securing the money so there in lies the bureaucracy therein lies the fall of Rome therein lies the confusion of ancient Greece is that we have such
13:29
well-meaning people I mean I I work for Children and Families um uh and children parents and children together just very much part-time I work with some of the best well-meaning people on the planet But there again they have really good people that are making sure we have funds to deliver Services you know I counsil it to jail on Fridays I I like that I love that um but people aren’t going into those fields anymore because they’re getting frustrated ated with the overwhelming amount of reports you write
14:04
I mean I write three reports for every interaction I have with somebody at the correctional facility back when I first started in juvenile Corrections when it was under Children’s Services our facility housed about 24 very violent very dangerous teenagers in that facility and I was the first new hire in 17 years it was pretty neat and and at that time we had the director in the in the building we had an assistant director and then we had uh program leads for work study we had program leads for emotional we had
14:45
everything from behavioral training everything was done inhouse and in within the 10 years I worked in that one particular facility we went from caring for the same 24 Bab B 24 beds we had three administrators and let’s say these juveniles did everything on their list they did they made their bed they they helped in the kitchen they did everything that that was asked of them and we had a level system so they would they would achieve all this by the weekend if they maintained that like for 3 weeks and they were on point oh okay
15:28
then uh then we they turn the report in the the guy in the office who is the director signs off okay those kids are going okay they’re going to do a trip to the beach that weekend we’re going to go to the beach for 3 or 4 hours and that was approved inhouse by the time I left that procedure would have to go to one administrator above me the main administrator at the build building it went to a whole new Department layer that they created for this estate which interacts with the Department of
16:02
Corrections because we are below the Department of Correction because we’re Juvenile and that in itself would take 90 days for approval so there’s no way to there’s no incentive reward no reward balance yeah and and and it and it’s emic throughout our entire social service system we are we are bureaucratizing everything we have such good you don’t go into Social Services to be a bureaucrat you go into Social Services because you like working with people and they’ve just cluttered
16:38
that up well how do we clean it up I mean I hear you I’m hearing it loudly before FEMA got here before all that those Services were being handled on island pretty cleanly I can honestly say fairly cleanly they needed some more support for the in-house people that were working in the four agents genes on ising that were run by the state and funded by the federal but they were running pretty cleanly and now they got overwhelmed and as you just said at the opening well I’m you brought somebody in
17:14
that doesn’t know the people and now they’re telling you what they’re going to do for you and all this when they don’t even know what you really need and they don’t know that what they’re doing isn’t connected they right oh yeah they don’t they’re signing you and giving you you answers that in no way someone staying in the Hyatt how are they going to be going and getting a job or reestablishing their life it’s got to be really tough well and I I that would be
17:42
so gross I can’t even imagine it but the high it’s beautiful I worked there back in the 80s I get it but I get it it’s a small they’re not giant rooms they’re not living there in in the idea of enjoying a luxur res they’re not they’re not living there with a $700 a day food allotment that it would cost to eat there you know so they’re sort of like an orphan stepchild in the hotel I I’m just saying they they don’t have all the possibilities there the hotel is
18:13
suffering because they don’t get the kind of Revenue they need to support for their other services they provide because they’re all multiac cut down their staff to a certain minimum and yet I I don’t I I guess I just have a confusion when there’s an emergency why is it not possible to get tents I see them doing it but I just don’t see it on do do do we I I don’t have this answer Jason do you know people that are ready to jump and live in a tent with their family who had a $4 million home in that
18:52
cost ,000 what are they going to do otherwise stay I’m I’m hearing them leaving the island a lot okay they’re they’re getting a partial check from their insurance company because they know it’s going to take 10 years to build and and they’re either leaving the island or they’re staying with family and um there’s a new program on the island now that’s for uh I think it’s r p or rip rip re rip I know what that is rest in peace rest in peace no it’s our I think it’s Rest In Peace So people
19:25
that are housing family members be in their other family homes on the island are actually starting to get assistance now which I thought that was good did you see this little article the last couple of days that people that didn’t qualify for the FEMA program are going to be housed for a year yeah I saw that and people that but how does that work there we go again we’re back to the you know the whole Co event you know they they tried to you know we all were we had 80% we had the High I mean all the
19:55
news national news covered Maui is losing more job jobs in any place on the planet any place in the United States during that so here we are I know my little snorkeling swim lons for adaptive adults has been devastated by the fire was devastated by Co because it’s real oneon-one and I teach one lesson a day if I’m if I’m going well so I was affected but yet I’m retired so I’m I would I wouldn’t I wouldn’t reach out for that assistance I mean I don’t know I I also see my
20:32
neighbors where I live and I live in low income and I see my neighbors who are starting to come back a little bit but they’re still struggling because you know my one friend works at Banquets at the Grand WEA and the grand almost third of their conventions cancelled after the fire all the way through Christmas and new years’s and January these big you know like uh the you know the urologist convention the eye doctor convention the convention of used car salesman you know and those people brought in lots of money for the
21:12
Grand and it’s not just the grand it’s the people that prepare the food for those workers yeah my brother and my nephew are coming to visit here in a few weeks and there’s almost no um luow on island anymore we lost L and the luow people that were putting them on at the hotels because of their limited amount of people that are coming that are as we talked earlier we have a lot of people housed at these nice hotels they don’t have the money to spend $400 to go to a li out I don’t but I think they’re
21:47
really cool um so it’s just a snowball you know it’s wonderful that people have a place to stay and I will never question that well you ask as me well are you know many people that are willing and live ready to live in a tent no and the the my answer is you gave it sort of in the programs that you were in you had a career development thing uh help in this helping that all from a central place so the the living in a tent may not be great but if there was living in a tent you know I’m still back onto the
22:27
basic of there are so many people that don’t even have a tent I’m looking at those those people and maybe that’s unfair on the whole picture um but it’s really an an important aspect in my mind because I never thought that our C our country would and our whatever would get to this place when I hear numbers like 42,000 homeless in Los Angeles 42,000 no no Jason 750,000 what was the number I heard for California I heard yesterday well that may be California I’m talking Los Angeles okay yeah numbers are staggering
23:07
staggering so there’s got to be something what is our society doing well I think what we have done separating and it comes down to simple basic economics and it makes all the sense in the world when you back up a little bit okay we have had inflation um consistently since the 60s back in the’ 60s and 7s if you were working at the United States Post Office and you were delivering mail on your salary you could afford a two to three bedroom home with a garage and be the sole person making a living for your
23:44
family and you’d have a couple of kids minimum you’d have a couple of kids everything was going great we went through this period in the 70s where we had a giant inflation Gap housing prices went up but our housing with the inflation of products which is wonderful if you own a home inflation’s a great thing when you own a home because your payment very seldom changes right but the value of the dollar really shrinks great income earner unless it’s the wrong time but now we have this 8% of
24:19
the population who no longer own homes which are like my age your age we don’t own a home and instead of living in an area where our fixed bills are fixed my rent has doubled since Co um the cost of gasoline has doubled in just the last three years those are real big n that’s not 20% more out of my leftover at the end of the month that’s a 300% increase in inflation for fixed income people I don’t think people understand that a lot if you’re in if you’re working and you’re working 40 hours a
25:07
week I have you had a 25% increase in your pay i i b I think I you’d be blessed if you are I have children that have their their jobs have been doing amazingly and they’re doing great and I have other of my kids that are struggling and they’re working not on island but they are working in jobs that would be similar to the island which you’re were stuck if you got a job today working in the post office here on island you would need three of those jobs to afford to buy a home here
25:48
somehow I don’t know if it was the dissolving of the strength of the unions the labor unions I don’t know where the disconnect came I’m going to boil it down to where you said the 70s Richard Nixon and the crew that said we don’t need a gold standard let’s separate our dollars from real value let’s create this mystery of leveraging things and I know that sounds rather simple but isn’t that when it’s changed on that note as the world got unstable as Ukraine all of that what did a a strong world leader
26:36
do Russia went back on the gold standard they went right back to the gold standard because they figured that was the only way to insulate their economy for what’s going on and all the changes I was like going oh my God i’ never heard of a country going back to the gold standard the first time time in history and Putin put Russia back on a gold standard it was a hit for a while but now the Russian economy seems be pretty Rock Solid well except how for for us for for that type of country I wouldn’t want to
27:13
live there but it’s like hm okay but yeah I think you’ve got a good point there we we don’t have any when they created the Federal Reserve and they gave them this great power and this giant printing machine well it allows things to expand without having Che Balan for yes exactly here we are now we’re so far down the road from that that’s 50 can you imagine that’s 50 years I know it’s crazy we were small children at that time oh exactly of course but I can’t imagine how to go from where
27:51
we are unless the only unless is the one that’s not likely and that is when you have a need and I have access I help fill your need right but there’s not that happening the greed to me the fear and greed factor is like the people that have can are hoarding hoarding hoarding pulling money out of the flow and then we need more in the flow so they create more money instead of trying to balance this if if you were the money source and there was no other money then you would become the bank which is what we hope
28:27
would happen that those that have will share in what they have to help Solutions happen but that doesn’t seem to be what happening well I I think it is I think most people that own their homes that didn’t Finance on an arm are doing quite well and that’s about 80% of our population we have a a disconnect from the working class and it’s becoming ever more present when you hear about our Millennials kids born after the year 2000 which is just just bam that they’re 24 years old are
29:01
realizing that they will not live the life that their parents had or their grandparents or great-grandparents they that that seems completely out of reach because they’re going well I finished college now I’m making $28 an hour which on Maui is $8 an hour under the poverty level and they’re going like okay to buy a home on Maui I need $350,000 an income to buy a home that a mailman delivering mail on Maui in 1965 could buy for his family well we can walk off Maui and the problem still
29:39
exists but yeah it’s worse yeah it’s it’s everywhere and it hasn’t changed it inflation and the FED with their giant printing machine because they’re feeding this Center of government we we’ve Shrunk the middle class and we’ve made a giant bureaucracy that’s separating the people who are delivering the services from the people that need them so let’s for a moment listen to this one let’s for a moment let’s for a moment let’s for a moment fantasize that those with conservative
30:16
values the you know are going to be given charge of this problem and now they’re going to I don’t want to say solve it I can’t see how they can solve it well Jason if if let’s I I consider myself a conservative why because when I go to Safeway I use coupons okay that’s the difference between a conservative and a liberal if you’re a liberal spender what’s a coupon I don’t need a coupon I just buy or get what I need no there must be a better way if I can get three for a dollar
30:51
today which nothing’s three for a dollar and I put some away so that I have it when I want on it that’s a good thing so I’m very liberal but I’m very conservative with what little money I have and how I spend it to make sure that I have food in the house and so how are we going to solve it now I mean remember we we said solve it on a local level local level so that’s why I say on a local level yeah those that have I spot the big land owners I SP spot any land owners and and if your land owners in
31:28
and that’s one thing that I think I and I have a friend that works at the bank that um I I don’t there aren’t a lot of big land owners here that aren’t mortgaged up to their eyeballs oh there’s our problem everyone is using this leverage system everyone is using it so that there’s never oh I say never so there everyone is choking PL of time wow so what do we do do keep swimming until we sink I I think we just keep holding on and I think we just need to elect people that use coupons at Safeway and they
32:10
want to know they’re getting their bang for their Buck I don’t know one conservative person that disagrees with food stamps or social services or Medicaid or Medicare or any of them they just want to deliver it much more efficiently without fraud without waste so that we’re getting the best doctors to the people that need them how pay them the best I don’t we we have we have so many layers of government in between I don’t know how to do that I know we El going to be elected that is going to start
32:44
snipping and cutting people and jobs going to get elected again they always promise that but you know well I haven’t seen it happen and if you have a job you have all kinds of guarantees that after so many years years you become a rock and you cannot be moved we we and also which which is really frightening to our democracy and this is this is on a very large level we have created bureaucracies and given them almost legislative power during covid we saw that we saw a government agencies who should not have
33:20
the power to tell people what to do and how to do it whatever it’s happening now with this w it is it’s a nature of people that are out here in the world who say and and again I go back to I don’t know how to change it unless it change the way we are I’m not going to be involved unless there’s a problem and then I’m going to I can say the word you know it’s like and but so they’re not involved we’re not involved on on caller I love that see I didn’t turn my phone off uh um I just really
34:38
restaurants on the island have food trucks because there are a fraction a fraction of the overhead cost taxes everything across the middle board which is weighing the country down that when you have a fixed structure a food truck and they’re coming after the food trucks right now so our delivery system is overwhelmed I owned a restaurant for a number of years I when I bought the restaurant I was an idiot I mean if you talk about buying a restaurant I’ll tell you let’s go to Home Depot buy a hammer
35:14
and we’ll hit yourself in the head with it because it makes about as much sense of owning a restaurant oh boy I had a lot of fun with it it was great I was growing it I did not know the fire department had to inspect my restaurant I knew the food and safety did I didn’t know that the inside of a refrigerator if you had a little piece of tape in the back where it was cracked that had to be replaced I there was a the gas inspectors for the friers the ventilation systems the trucks don’t
35:42
have that kind of inspection level they have uh they don’t have they don’t they don’t have a dining area they don’t have a bathroom they don’t have a plethora of things that they have to deal with waiters exactly it’s and here we go cook delivery cook delivery right out the window that’s what’s happening that works we’re not doing that with many other agencies throughout the government I so what do we how do we stop the restaurants from closing or how or how do we stop I mean
36:18
you go down in in car Louie I remember when we were excited hey there’s a food court in our town isn’t that great and then that food court had to move and it moved down the street and then it got split into two yeah and then now there’s another one and another one now there are five or six food courts yeah and and they’re very limited they’re very limited no but I mean what about the restaurants that said hey hey I’m at the XYZ mall I’m paying rent and now I’ve got maybe we’ll let’s move our whole
36:51
deal to a food truck let’s think about L for a second yeah fleetwoods what would that building sell for and be taxed at new today that’s a $25 million location how much money can you make selling food at one location to cover that outlay here here’s that what’s frightening to me is because of that giant outlay small guys like Mick Fleetwood who’s not a small guy great guy I’ve met him he’s nice um those small mom and CPS even just like ABC which is just on the island to have a
37:32
location in a brand new town that’s being built it’s going to create the gentrification of it it’s going to be because there’s nobody here that’s going to have that kind of money that kind of resources that kind of pile of attorneys yeah to go through that so how do we yeah how do you rebuild a town that has any of the components that got uh taken away so what that why there are food trucks is why the difficulty that I think these business owners in L are going to face the Deep Pockets they realize those
38:09
a lot of those business owners could set up a food truck or a vending truck and you know like the little Mall outside of B McDonald’s and keii those folks do great they pay ex dollars a month they don’t have bathrooms they don’t have they walk and it’s really devolving is you know know we once were we used to have super malls super malls are dissolving I hear you know Queen Kam they’re talking about turning that into senior housing because to where Comm mon Center yeah because the there’s no
38:41
profitability anymore for walk in businesses there that’s just fading but here we got this beautiful building yeah put in house you mentioned that I reminds me of my friend I haven’t seen him in few decades once our Financial paths differently they were I they were curious about me and would get together every time they came out to their Villa at w beach vill and say Hey you see my little three-bedroom it’s now worth six million isn’t that crazy and you know there’s a producer down there I got in
39:14
his movie because he’s in my building I’m only fooling but I’m not fooling you’re not fooling I teach I teach private lessons to a lot of those Hollywood types that’s been my go-to since the 80s I’ve had more movie stars producers Studio Executives that have non-disclosure contracts with me it’s cool I I worry about those that aren’t success you know you talked about that 80 thing 80% of people have homes yes 20% don’t right those 20% they’re and and and they’re
39:51
overweight they’re eating the wrong foods and and if we actually if we actually just gave that 20% the what 40 50 billion dollar that we gave to Ukraine without even knowing where it’s going that would have been taken care of well you’re assuming the responsibility of these 20% that’s that’s oh it’s huge Jason huge but it isn’t just the 20% it’s more like I don’t even know I most people are Sunday what are the I call it um Monday afternoon quarterback well that too but
40:31
I was thinking about those that are Pious on Sunday and Monday they’re back to the old routine and that the idea that brings up something that I’ve just been ripping at my soul lately oh so during covid and during the lockdowns and this last 35 years this country has moved away from centralized going to going to church going to mass whatever has just slowly slowly been edging down edging down what it used to be a family half the families in America would go to church on Sunday okay whether they liked
41:10
it or not okay in the last during Co I think it became really apparent that there’s been a vacuum this vacuum is that people want to feel like they belong during this whole hate event for Trump I have friends that I’ve loved my whole life and I still love them very dearly and I saw them spewing all this hate but when I Stu back and analyzed it I went they want to belong to this hate Club because now they’re not longer they don’t they everybody wants to belong to something so if you Lord of the Flies
41:47
it’s a it’s a micro everything is playing into this we are very tender right now when Captain Cook came to the when the bald ones came to Maui and they showed him about uh Christianity it wasn’t the Christianity was such a sale or such a wonderful thing that they were showing them that it questioned their belief and the beliefs that they had and that created a vacuum here on the island and on all of the Hawaiian Islands when Christianity came that they question their beliefs and that made it so easy
42:23
for them just go we’re going to become Christian and that went across the country when we when the Soviets were going out into Cuba where they were going out in down into South America they were getting people to question their government and then it made it easy for them to unru their programs this is a basic the CIA does it the Soviets used to do it and I think they’ve been doing it against us they get us to question what we believe in our government in our leadership and in ourselves which
42:58
creates a vacuum which makes it very easy to feed in something that shows beautiful here’s a steak and mashed potatoes isn’t that great be part of us one of us be one of us because you’re not getting that feeling from going to mass you’re not getting that feeling from your social group because you can’t meet so all of a sudden people glungezer person or an antiva person they want to belong we have that human need I’m concerned on a I don’t know if it’s a bigger scale it’s a I’m concerned
43:38
that it starts with an individual that has a a moral compass a personally moral comp I think the churches and that going to school on sun going to a thing with a family on Sunday had a a nature of keeping belonging things in control I don’t think that I think it was just belonging okay okay just belonging so here now we are have a a society yeah that wants to belong to something but it’s getting it’s not going in the good directions we have we have so many women right now joining Hamas or becoming
44:15
Muslim and I don’t even think they realize you know that they’re going to maybe give up their driver’s license and their car keys and everything else to join these groups I don’t who knows I don’t know people want to it’s human nature to belong speaking of belong this is Ka KU 88.5 FM the voice of Maui and akaku Maui Community media channel 55 on cable you can also find us at Maui neutral zone.com you can find us on YouTube just look up neutral zone it’s anything but neutral and the thing is
44:52
I’m here with Scott R Bushnell and I’m Jason Schwarz and if you want to throw daggers or you want to throw preise or you want to anything oh yeah you can even 808 873 3435 you know I listen and I I can honestly say I don’t expect the light to go on no at this point but at some point I I’m still waiting for that day when I get brave enough to call out oh yeah to someone that doesn’t expect to hear from me there you go live and in color because and hopefully with both ears I hope you get your ear back I I mean I’m
45:29
going back all that you said I don’t doubt you said elect someone who who Who’s going to be doing this who’s going to support that someone to get them elected it takes a change in our awareness and Consciousness as people I I am constantly upset at the moral compass of individuals I don’t I don’t I think the I think the moral compass is beautiful I think we’ve lost touch do you I can remember everyone that lived on my road in my neighborhood growing up I can remember everyone that lived on
46:05
the road where I lived 20 years ago I now have probably 15 or 20 neighbors and I know four or five of them but when I was out doing the census I realized that many people don’t even know their neighbors anymore oh yeah and I I think that’s really sad do you remember when it was like to have front porches where people would go for a stroll in the evening look I I agree I grew up in a house like you say I’m one of those child of someone that I didn’t realize I was uper upper middle class at the time
46:41
I realize now that if we had that the trickle down there were even then lots of people that couldn’t afford but mhm I don’t know how we’re going to turn this around I think we have to we need to teach not not tolerance we need to teach the ability to disagree without being disagreeable I mean I went to Catholic School in the 60s and the 70s and we studied every religion on the earth not and and respected them because they were a different way of seeing faith we didn’t we didn’t study them so that we
47:18
could down them or speak poorly of them so social media has let us all start talking and inter place and so and give value to something that may not if you look at it along you might not give it value but there’s so little time you’re looking at it this whole generation I mean what when was that that was before the turn of the century right that this all started yeah so and this this is another one of my hot buttons so here we are we’re rolling in the 60s my brother was a television director for decades he
47:53
directed Portland Wrestling back in Portland oreg KPTV channel 12 black and white back then I was like knee higher a grasshopper five six years old I would go out on Thursday afternoons with him I would get to go with him and watch all these professional wrestlers practice everything they were going to do at Saturday night wrestling where is this going Scott okay back when ww wrestling started to take off and they was Showmanship the the Dr when he turned the Lakers in and had the Laker girls going all of a sudden Sports and
48:31
everything had glash it had Pizzaz it had everything and all of a sudden our news media was going like well it’s going to rain today it looks like traffic might be a bit busy instead they started glitzing it up and it wouldn’t sell until they glitched it up and if there was a disagreement in the House of Representatives and with statesmanship they would talk it out and they debated it and they worked on the things they had to sensationalize it because no one would watch their television shows no
49:07
one would read the paper unless there was excitement and there was a fight and there was something going on well here we are now yeah I go back you know there’s too much media like right now what that brought up to me was going back to your 70s again yeah and realizing there’s a guy that just died this obviously this conversation goes everywhere that’s we have fun you should see us and we’re just walking in the water at the pool come on Thursday Jo just died at 100 and I had some couple
49:41
of people say to me oh Henry kiss is such a great statement and then you hear things come out of the woodwork uh democracy now which is put on every day here at akaku thank you very much uh um they did did a little thing about Henry Kissinger when we realize he was Secretary of State and he was a national Foreign Affairs guy at the same time bombing of a neighboring country to a country that were Waring in Cambodia and La 300,000 people whether they be blue green Palestinian Jew Buddhist Muslim
50:24
gone and he Justified it and contined to justify it and now they use things like sending military things into neighboring countries because they broke the mold they started down that direction of uh how are we going to solve the problem we don’t care what the moral I I don’t want to say the the moral compass I’ve said it before I just think it’s I we just need to talk to our neighbors how but how that’s how it starts Jason you just start talking to your neighb place with uh 55 or so units
50:59
and I also know a scant number of people and we have a meeting of some of the people maybe five or six out of the whole coming and we say let’s have a thing and you bring one and I’ll bring one we’ll do a potluck and then next time you each of you bring one after a few Generations will’ll know everybody nobody gets involved yeah my mom who is an assisted living and passed away in 2015 she lived in a complex with like 120 people she knew every single one of them and she was in her
51:29
90s Our Generations have lost touch with being able to communicate with each other if the things that I read on social media if you said that to me I’d take a swing at you in the older days but people are with unabashedly saying things that in the real world if they met somebody on the street on a dark Street and said those things that ain’t going to fly the the interpersonal communic ation has suffered yeah yeah we’re and you Jason you and I disagree on everything and agree on everything all at the same
52:04
time well isn’t it like everything everywhere all at once didn’t that win an Oscar yeah it did a bunch of oscars I I watched it actually over I didn’t see it in the theaters but I’ve been watching it on Amazon and does the world learn from that awareness that they just now have gotten through that kind of a movie I I would I would hope I I think you know when we all of a sudden started to have to work more to provide the exact same thing that our parents had and even working more I don’t think the the collapse of
52:37
the American family or the changing of the American Family the family hasn’t gotten any stronger but I think that we have just misunderstood what as inflation has done to us over the last since the Nixon gold standard what the FED printing money has done to all of us has separated us because we got a grind and we got this we need the new phone we need the new car we need a better house and and that was the American way but it was much more attainable now we’re grinding just like that to survive
53:12
and we’re talking about the big chunk of the middle of the country our two paychecks away from not making their house payment it before covid it was 3 years now we’re down to a few months according to the according to the the fed the or personal savings is an all-time low 10% of all people during the last 24 months have had to dip into their retirement accounts for emergency withdrawals to to not go into foreclosure or be um uh remov from their homes should we invite someone out there to come and give us the answers that we
53:57
I would there I don’t just I I think we need one of those machines they have at the Fed so we can print money and just take a nice is this the time to use artificial intelligence we need some intelligence in the room well I think it’s I think that’s the problem is the government’s artificial intelligence now I I heard I heard my my grandfather told me something and it was something very profound and I know that I don’t know if he said it himself but he says you know when I was a kid and he
54:26
was born in 1889 and he says you know back when I was a kid a $20 gold piece could buy you the nicest suit on the rack a parachute and a briefcase and you could go to work and you’d have change and you’d have change today a $20 bold piece will buy you an Armani suit a sashel and you’ll have change and a $20 bill will buy you a hamburger at McDonald’s oh yeah Happy Meal now is what $18 why do they call it happy they should change the [Laughter] name I always think it’s so funny
55:06
McDonald’s decides to remodel the building triple the cost of everything and smile as they give it to you I really like that I don’t think I’m going to McDonald’s sorry ever again I I I I don’t eat that kind of food well I’m just saying get could you imag I just can’t imagine Scott we have less than a minute oh we do you’ve done it again you filled the space with meaningful exciting conversation the people out there are saying how does he do it you’ve really been a help for me because
55:38
I don’t have to bring on guests that when I can’t really speak to them without deciding I’m going to crucify them on the spot when they don’t have an answer to I think I think almost every politician in their heart wants to do good what can you do with 27 seconds you can say goodbye and be a nice Aloha Mel Kik Maka you know we’re coming into the Christmas Advent coming we are so fortunate I’ve Scott our Bushell with us Aloha private swim Jason Schwarz can you imagine we have 12
56:08
seconds to go that’s crazy that means I have to play the thing did it come on there it is no it is we appreciate you joining with us come on next week go up on the website listen to all this stuff have fun have a good week
