DOGE: Friend or Foe for Utah?

In our latest podcast episode, we delve into the intricate world of housing regulations, specifically focusing on a bill currently being discussed in Utah that would require home buyers to sign an affidavit pledging to live in their property within 90 days of purchasing it. This legislation has sparked a variety of opinions among locals. The implications of such a bill are vast, affecting everything from housing availability to investor interests and the overall climate of the real estate market.

As we unpack this bill, we ask the pivotal question: what is the role of the government when it comes to housing? Should they intervene in the real estate market, or should buyers and sellers determine the terms of their transactions? Many argue that government regulation is necessary to maintain fair housing practices and accessibility for first-time buyers, while others caution against overreach that could stifle innovation and personal autonomy. 

In discussing the bill, we transition to broader topics such as lobbying and the influence it wields on local and federal policy. Our conversation navigates through the murky waters of political donations, interest groups, and the ethical nuances of lobbyists influencing legislation. We highlight the delicate balance between supporting favorable policies and ensuring that the voices of ordinary citizens are not drowned out in the process. The fear of excessive influence leads to discussions about accountability and transparency in governance, as well as the potential creation of a Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which could help oversee such policies.

Link to Deseret News article 'Does Utah need DOGE?' 
web: https://www.deseret.com/politics/2025/02/27/utah-speaker-mike-schultz-says-doge-under-elon-musk-could-learn-from-utah-legislature/

Guest - Blake Norton
Website - https://www.blueformmedia.com/

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Transcript

Introduction to the House Bill in Utah

Speaker 1 0:00

There's a house bill right now going through Congress in Utah that wants to eliminate, wants to require home buyers to sign an affidavit saying they will live in the property within 90 days. Every single home that's sold in the state of Utah I think it's 151. 151.

Speaker 3 0:22

From the Blue Form Media Studios. This is the 435 Podcast the pulse of Southern Utah.

Speaker 1 0:28

Hey everybody, welcome back to the 435 Podcast. I'm your host Today. We sit down with Blake and Jeff and me locals talking about local issues. We hit doge, statewide doge Does Utah need a doge? We talk about that and then we just keep going from there. Hope you enjoy this episode, guys. Big shout out to our sponsors FS Coffee Company, tuacon Amphitheater, tech Ridge Real Estate 435. Cue the ad. Enjoy the episode, guys. We'll see you out there. You know this might sound crazy, but I hate real estate agents and after being with myself for the last 10 years, I know the good ones from the bad ones. If you're thinking about buying, selling or investing in real estate here in Southern Utah, we want you to interview us for the job. Go to realestate435.com and give us a call. We promise you're going to love us. We've been talking about does Utah need a DOGE? Department of Government Efficiency and, blake, your position is that yes, we need it.

Speaker 3 1:22

Yeah, I mean we were talking too. We'll go into this. I'll open it up for you to say what you said about the federal level. But the federal level it's like almost, it's like inherently become so big. You know, small federal government states and the people have the power, is kind of the way America should operate, according to most, I think.

Speaker 3 1:42

According to the, way that it was set up. Okay, according to the way that it was set up. Okay, according to the original um. So yeah, I think it's. I think it's way more debatable at a state level. Right, should we have a doge at a state level? I think each state should, should choose that. And you know, if the people are being heard right, I know a lot of californians are not happy with the state government and the waste that's going on there. Yeah, they're recalling.

Speaker 1 2:06

They're pushing forward with a recall in Newsom, which they've tried six times previously. So we'll see if this goes through.

Speaker 3 2:12

I think it's got more traction than ever. Will it go through?

Speaker 1 2:15

I don't know, I don't know if it's gotten more traction, but people are still pissed about it.

Speaker 3 2:19

I think it feels like it's got more. I've heard about it more, especially after the LA fires and how all the buffoonery there.

Speaker 1 2:28

So yeah, I think this is the thing about the algorithm. I know I'm taking us back off a different topic, but the algorithm is telling you that it's it's got more traction and you're like wait a minute, or did you just not see the traction? It was the same traction, but you just didn't notice it. Was I not plugged into that? Didn't notice it. Was I not plugged into that out? You were not. But because of the fires, now all of a sudden, everybody's got this plug into the. What's going on?

Speaker 3 2:47

in california yeah, more reason to pay more reason to pay attention.

The Concept of a Department of Government Efficiency

Speaker 1 2:49

So now we're hearing about it more yes but that that's the crazy thing about um man, this is weird, it goes deep. You go back to the fundamentals of the way. We're a uh, constitutional republic. We're not a democracy isn't actually how we're described in any way shape.

Speaker 3 3:05

We have democratic processes we have democratic processes, are a constitutional republic.

Speaker 1 3:10

Exactly values because they saw that the whims of the mob can be easily swayed, yeah, through communication and media. Right, none of that or suppressed and none of that's really changed. Like back in the day there was five newspapers everybody got their information from, yeah, like it was just as easy. It was easier back then to control what the narrative was and what attention was back then than it is today. Right, because, yeah, did we have different tools?

Speaker 3 3:34

that they use. So we just have different tools. There's effectiveness, like war has always been around, even though the tools have changed, like warfare is still at its core. Warfare same thing with if there's not a perfected like.

Speaker 1 3:45

All that has needed to be perfected has been perfected in war. We just use different things.

Speaker 3 3:51

Yes.

Speaker 1 3:51

They just look differently.

Speaker 3 3:52

Yeah, the base concepts are the same.

Speaker 1 3:53

The concepts are the same, the way it's fought is the same Coercion blackmail, subversion, covert operations, all those things.

Speaker 3 4:00

They've all been done throughout history.

Speaker 1 4:02

And they've gotten better. I think at the covert stuff, like looking at USAID and like what fundamentally they were doing as a, as a checkbook for the CIA to be able to run operations through the CIA without authorization of the president, because it didn't go through the US, it didn't go through the CIA, it went through the technically Congress.

Speaker 3 4:23

Yes.

Speaker 1 4:23

Right, didn't go through the CIA, it went through the technically Congress, yes, right, and so for. For the appropriations to go to these, these federal agencies, and the misuse that, once it got to them, basically got to spend on on whatever and whoever, and the president didn't even know about it. It was a need to know, basis the president didn't even know about it.

Speaker 3 4:37

And the point is it's not, this isn't new to human history. The tools and the methods just changed, based off culture, time, technology.

Speaker 1 4:44

So, taking it back though, to okay the attention on like Utah, it's easy to get distracted looking at what's going on at the federal level. So I like this article because it poses an interesting question is does Utah need a doge? And I think we always need a doge of some capacity and people need to be more plugged in to where the money is being spent Right. But I also think that because of the legislature the size of our legislature we have a better handle on. Each individual congressperson has a better handle on what exactly the money is getting spent toward, because it's right there at the local level.

Speaker 3 5:22

Right, they're Utah in.

Speaker 1 5:23

Utah yeah, that's what I'm saying. I think the Doge element to it is functioning properly at the state level. I just don't think it's functioning at the federal level because, which we were talking about a trillion dollars, people can't conceptually understand how much money is that really and what is the impact that 500 billion, what that actually can do in the world in production, like what can it actually create? And I don't think it's running wild at Utah. In Utah, like it is in the federal government, and I think it just continues to reemphasize as an individual citizen you have, you are the doge of Utah, like the individual citizen is, because they have access to a lot of this stuff and their congress people do have access to a lot of stuff I would say the same for almost every state too.

Speaker 3 6:12

But, like, what level of involvement is the citizen of the state like, really, you know, given a shit right? Like, what are they caring about? And so, yeah, the more you care about it, the more say you'll have, the more backlash that a politician will receive from his voter base. You know, squeaky wheel gets the grease, yeah, and so if you're, if you're aware of it, I would say yes, but yeah, that's interesting.

The Debate: Do We Need a DOGE?

Speaker 3 6:35

I, here's my, my general thought is the federal level, absolutely, we need a doge and we're seeing what's happening right now with us, us aid and all that stuff. And then, at the state level, I would say this uh, like I said earlier before we started, I don't judge, I don't care what people's political opinions are. If someone wants to have a discussion with me, my new filter is do you, can you tell me what lobbying is in your own words? And if they don't have a good understanding of, like you know, hey, we're a constitutional Republic, you know, I don't care if someone leans liberal or conservative. I'm like do you understand? Like, what we are, or are you? Are you brainwashed? Are you allowing the algorithm to shape your knowledge? Cause it's all. We're all affected by it but that's a good measuring stick.

Speaker 2 7:30

I'm like, hey, do you know what lobbying is? And if they can't speak to it like astutely, then I'm like I'm not going to talk to you. Then, hey, jeff, what's lobbying? Yeah, uh, lobbying is uh, political influence through money, whether it's um private, private influence. Yeah, yeah, well, I mean it could be. There's quasi-government organizations, private money influence on politics. Yeah, whether Sway, whether that money's actually private or it's a fancy way to say bribery.

Speaker 3 7:54

I think yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 7:56

Yeah, but yeah yeah, private money on political influence.

Speaker 1 7:59

So then okay, so if we were to run that down, what's wrong with me, as a private institution, going to the state and saying I know real estate and I think you should be thinking about it in this way and I'm going to support financially the ones that agree with me in campaign funds. What's wrong with that? Why shouldn't I be able to do that? Like, if I have, if I got 500 grand I want to spend and I want to make sure that there's politicians that understand real estate the way I want to understand it, the way I see it and think I should do, and I'm going to support those financially that see it the same way I do. What's wrong with me doing that?

Speaker 3 8:46

That's the. That's where the gray line comes in, because I mean there's nothing that's it's legal, it is. There's nothing wrong with lobbying in a court of law.

Speaker 1 8:56

Is it moral?

Speaker 3 8:57

That's. I don't think it's moral. That's that's the question.

Speaker 1 8:59

Wait a minute. Why is it not moral?

Speaker 3 9:00

It's moral, it's.

Speaker 1 9:01

It's swaying like I have 500 grand of money that I want to burn and I don't, let's say that and you need to run a campaign, because to run a congress congressional campaign it's like four million dollars oh sure, for the cost and stuff.

Speaker 3 9:15

So, taking the cost out of it, like you have 500k to spend as a citizen, I don't or won't. Let's say we both have 500 K. Yeah, like I choose not to choose not to. Okay, then your vote is now worth more why?

Speaker 1 9:31

Why is my vote worth more? My vote worse, because I still only get one vote for that guy, but it's a vote plus sway and levy to run a narrative.

Speaker 1 9:41

But why? Why? How can you, if I was a jury and I could say I believe this way and this guy also individually believes this way you're telling me that I'm I'm implanting my thoughts onto that person and that person is only making those decisions because of the what I'm giving them? Or are they just operating on their own behalf, understanding things the same way? We agree, and so together we're going to walk, you're going to do what you can do and I'm going to do what I can do, and we succeed together? I guess how's that morally wrong? I guess it's really not.

Home Buying Dynamics in Utah

Speaker 3 10:08

The immorality comes from exclusive gain to you. So when there's lobbying at a level where you just happen to own a medical company and you're going to get the contracts for xyz okay and then there's profiteering happening, it's not just purely. I support your message and campaign, we agree it's. I also want that bid on the contract.

Speaker 1 10:32

That's a trillion dollar bid okay, I also, but so we're going, but we're going a step further, we're taking it one more step further versus what is like lobbying at the fundamental, because, yeah, that's true, you can't, you can't clip that the the scenario I just described, you can't legislate that it's true no, that's a. Really you can't say I can't do this because morally we're not making any, we're not doing anything illegal or morally wrong, unless agreeing unless with money involved and unless it takes once, they're in office and then that's what the ig's office is for, right, isn't that what the well?

Speaker 3 11:07

my point is is that if we maybe we can't legislate it, but if we have doge, I think we can legislate it.

Speaker 3 11:14

I was just playing devil's advocate, okay, cool but yeah, that's a really good point, rob, because like I think I've been looking at it like almost too simplistically. Now, just sitting here at the table talking about this, I'm like, yeah, that is a little bit dogmatic. Like people can agree and people can do business as individuals and just happen to be aligned. Right. If I, let's say, you're running for politics and I do have 500k or 500 million and I want you to run for president, like I could fund you all the way there because we do agree, we're the same party, we have the same values, we're both christian, exactly so I don't think there's anything wrong with teaming up, and if I have a resource that I can give you, that's fine. But it's when it's hey, push a specific legilation and give me monopoly over.

Speaker 1 11:57

That's why do we even even individuals individuals don't have the necessary sway to do that because you have to get that person has to get into the subcommittee, and then the subcommittee goes to the chair, like the power starts to narrow down so that maybe that's how it should be chairs, but if I lobby to a lot of people, so this is why.

Speaker 1 12:12

This is why my argument I think we get lost arguing about and the anti-lobbying like angle you have a battle, you're waging a battle. This, this to me, is like I'm gonna move my pawn over to the corner of the board just in case somebody else moves in there, like if we're gonna fight that battle, it's like that's not gonna win the war, it's a distraction over here so that this thing can come in kind of come into play.

Speaker 1 12:36

You're saying there's lots of layers there's lots of layers to it and I I still think that there's some benefit to the system working in that way, but that's why I think we just need to cap campaign finance. Like, why, why would we just not say every candidate can spend this much money on their campaign period? And? And with technology and influence like you know, social media influence they can create their own channels. The cost of doing that advertising is significantly less. The only reason it's been inflated and the cost of it's going up is because social media companies like yeah, I'll take your $2 million.

Speaker 3 13:11

So that's one thing. I'll take your marketing dollars. That's a really good nuance to put. Let's cap the how much money can you lobby in a campaign? But then what about the lobbying going on, like at the federal level, like how are these people in Congress and presidential seats and everything? How are they growing so much in net worth? Like when Obama entered office, 1.5 million?

Speaker 1 13:42

When he got out of office eight years later, like 20 million, 18, 19, 20 million, I know, but this is the thing is, he wrote a book, a bestseller, and dude, you don't realize that?

Speaker 3 13:46

that's not. You're the president. That's most of it, though, dude, it's not all of it.

Speaker 1 13:50

The, the stock tradings.

Speaker 3 13:52

That's how they get the money to you. It's a laundering scheme, but people also were reading those books.

Speaker 1 13:57

I think there's there's a genuine ability to make that money.

Speaker 3 14:00

But you understand too, because we've done audio books for people, you're not wrong. But when we we've done audiobooks for people and people that do put books up like number one bestseller stuff, guess who bought them? Oh uh, another llc sub corporation that's just holding all the books in a warehouse like it's not actually in people's hands. People do that all the time. To get a title they'll lower their price for one dollar a day and it's true.

Speaker 1 14:24

It's true. It's like uh hunter and his his art, because he's an artist, right like hunter, biden's an artist, and so he was selling million dollar pieces of art yeah, it's that good these are the loop art is money laundering.

Speaker 3 14:34

This is why I think doge would is is doing right. They're actually taking a look people would disagree with you.

Speaker 1 14:39

The guy who bought the banana that was taped to the wall and then ate the banana six million dude. He bought a six million dollar banana and ate it in front of the whole press. Yeah, now, I was so crazy.

Speaker 3 14:49

The question like I'm like, okay, that guy had six million to spend, but what? What other tax benefits was he trying to get by paying an art that he just ate? He just ate, you know. So that's the thing. Is anybody that's looked into that?

Speaker 1 15:02

no, you're not not wrong, yeah, right.

Discussing Investment Properties and Vacancies

Speaker 3 15:03

So when Obama writes a bestselling book, I'm like, was it really a bestseller? I don't trust it. You can ask Mal too, because we have clients that wrote a book and we did their audio book and we're like it's good knowledge, but they're going for that title, they're gamifying the system to get a title and I think honestly, like a Navy SEAL, right they the system to get a title.

Speaker 2 15:25

Yeah, and I think honestly like like a navy seal, right, they write it, they get a book. How do you know hollywood? How do you know somebody's been in the navy as a seal?

Speaker 3 15:29

yeah, oh, they got a book, they wrote a book about it, so that's. That's the thing. Is like everybody that's worked with seals they're like jaco's a good dude.

Speaker 1 15:36

There's some good ones out there, but the point being is, if you're the president of the united states, people are going to read your book exactly, period. It's the president of the united states. You shouldn't. And there and there are politicians that are making money outside, whether it's through stock trading and that's you know. You have uh unusual whales and you have the, the nancy pelosi stock trader 87 87.

Speaker 2 16:00

That's what I'm talking about trackers up.

Speaker 1 16:02

Yeah, the pelosi, since they started I listened to that uh rogan episode, which is really interesting to just see. There he's genuinely trying to fight the system, which he sounds pretty legitimate, and he really, or not? It wasn't rogan tucker, it was uh ryan shaw. He was on shaw. Oh uh, yeah. The sean ryan show.

Speaker 2 16:16

Sean ryan show, yeah, the pelosi trades guy was on tucker too oh, maybe it was tucker.

Speaker 1 16:20

It was tucker. Listen clearly you guys can hear all the podcasts that I listen to.

Speaker 2 16:24

They're all good. You're a straight white male, just like us, so we all listen to the same stuff.

Speaker 1 16:28

Doing a straight white male podcast to other straight, white males.

Speaker 3 16:31

Dude, I'm so straight, so white right now and I'm so male you are so male.

Speaker 1 16:38

Well, nobody else is talking about it, so let's talk about it, but yeah, yeah. The question, though, is do we need a state doge? I, I think we have a state doge. I think it's just going to require people pay attention more.

Speaker 3 16:49

Yeah, it's available.

Speaker 1 16:50

I'm looking at the budget right here. It's available. You can see where the money's going to. You have to tell people. You have to go tell your representatives.

Speaker 3 16:57

We just want transparency, like if, if, if there is like advent advantageous, like I can make more business deals as a former politician later, yeah right. Or if I'm in office and I'm enriching myself off of policies that the people don't want, I think that's morally wrong.

Speaker 1 17:12

I think that's morally wrong and it's almost impossible to weed out of the system. I don't think anybody's unless we have a doge.

Speaker 3 17:19

I don't even think so?

Speaker 1 17:20

I don't. I don't think so well, because the doge they had a Doge under Clinton and then gone.

Speaker 3 17:27

It was there and then it was gone.

Speaker 1 17:31

There's no consistent way of doing it. So the only thing I really I'm looking forward to with the Doge is how do we make the changes, then legislate the changes and keep the federal government small and empower the states, which goes back to okay, what's our budget? What are we spending money on? What are the highlights? Right? So this is the straight from the governor's office. This is investing Utah's people, places and prosperity, eliminating social security tax, doubling energy production, proactive innovation, quality service and fiscal responsibility.

Speaker 1 18:00

Okay, so that's at the highlights of the 26 budget, right? And so you're going to get this slideshow it's eight slides and then you got to go look into this and say, okay, what are we actually spending on this? Where should we actually cut money from? And? And at the state level, there's social services that I think we should be providing, right. I think there's going to always be bad decisions we make on a money standpoint, but sometimes we're just trying to figure out what's going to work and what's not going to work. Yeah, but they do have a budget. They got a rainy day budget. It's like over 1.6 billion and ina rainy day budget, which is great, yeah.

Speaker 3 18:37

Well, utah is known for being like financially responsible too, right?

Speaker 1 18:41

yeah, like as but it's also ballooned. It's also ballooned from 2017. We're a 15.1 billion dollar budget.

Speaker 3 18:50

We're up to 30 30, yeah, right so in 10 years, in less than 10 years, eight years been a lot more growth. Do we have more taxpayers business?

Speaker 2 18:56

growth. I think population growth kind of play into that too right, we need more of those.

Speaker 1 19:00

This is the budget. You're talking about revenue items ah, that's true budgets.

Speaker 2 19:03

Budget's money in, money out, though Budget's money in money out. So if population goes up, business goes up, transactions increase. Yeah, state tax goes up, fair enough. Or tax revenue?

Speaker 1 19:13

goes up. Fair enough, budget goes up. Yeah, that's right, that makes sense.

Speaker 3 19:15

I'm wrong, so here's a question, though, too why do we? We had one in the 90s, we shouldn't need one Under Clinton. Well, that's the thing. We need transparency.

Speaker 2 19:25

Right. So whether it's a Doge or another method, so that's why I mean Elon, elon's a private citizen.

Speaker 1 19:29

I think the founding fathers would disagree with you about transparency With government. Keep going, keep going, but we'll come back to it.

Speaker 2 19:35

Well, I think I mean Elon's a private citizen. If we bring, if we have a group of people that are keeping or trying to keep the government transparent and holding people accountable, that's a doge, the accountability. So where does that come from? You know? So like who's?

Speaker 1 19:54

gonna. I mean, he works for the government. Yeah, he's currently employed by the government and I think he is a private individual. It's like trump. Yeah, he's a private individual he's with unelected, unelected.

Speaker 3 20:03

I should have said unelected not I don't think people voting for trump were unaware that elon was going to do what he was going to do. Like that was advertised from the get-go, like elon wasn't a republican and then he was yeah, they did not hide this from anybody they didn't hide, so it's not like he snuck it in like oh but I don't think people are surprised no, we kind of. I think that there's there's some.

Speaker 1 20:26

There's some news. There's some news. Uh, like the way they're shaping headlines about elon being this billionaire oligarch. They're shaping it because they want that narrative, that negativity, to come down upon him. But I don't think they're. I think everybody knew this was coming right. So if I'm a republican, I'm not happy with what it's going on. It's like you were not paying attention.

Speaker 3 20:45

Yeah, yeah, that's what I mean.

Speaker 1 20:47

Like, yeah, you were well informed, but I think most people knew this was coming Knew at some capacity. I think it's been so dramatic, though, and so fast and furious that I think everybody's looking around like, OK, wait a minute.

Speaker 3 21:05

I would say people that weren't as well informed as some normies. The norm, yeah, normies. Even if you had, you knew enough that you were like I'm, I'm going with trump, I'm in this camp, and then you're like, wait, am I? Oh, this is really what they were saying.

Speaker 2 21:14

Like there's some shock value to people that were just surface level, and then some people just like throwing dirt on cyber trucks you see that video, I missed it it's like this, like a small movement of people throwing dirt on teslas.

Speaker 3 21:28

Yeah oh, yeah, the anti hilarious yeah the anti elon hair people I've I've listened to.

Speaker 1 21:36

I think there's three biographies on elon, maybe there's two. I think there's two biographies on elon that are like, uh, approved by him and I listened to both of them and he's not like everybody else.

Speaker 1 21:51

He's not like everybody else and he's he is a dickhead, like I won't even question, like I think it's a consensus that that guy he has he has a very Steve Jobs, donald Trump personality type to where it's it's like my way or the highway which is why he's so insanely productive A hundred percent and I can see people's hesitation with a personality type like that being in charge, because you know if everybody agrees, you know you look at, if it was a democracy at Apple, steve Jobs probably wouldn't have been there as long as he was right. Well, they brought Steve Jobs back.

Speaker 3 22:31

Because he was shitting the bed, exactly. The whole company without Steve Jobs. But that's the thing is that, like any historical figure, like I'm not sure, people were very chummy with gangus khan, even though they followed him, like they were scared shitless of him, right, like yeah, and he shaped history for good or for worse, it's up for you, but like for good and for worse, so so I think that's why.

Speaker 1 22:50

I think that's why there's a lot of fear, right?

Speaker 3 22:52

now everybody like winston churchill too, like it's caesar not as much.

Speaker 1 22:57

That was the I think that I would say argue that caesar wasn't the hammer that the other emperors were right, like his generals.

Speaker 3 23:06

Yeah, like, think more, like more is like nero.

Speaker 1 23:08

I think a lot of people are afraid of like the nero types, yeah, versus the, the caesar type.

Speaker 3 23:12

That is messed up, or at least that's how they wrote him into history. So we don't, we just have to go off what they wrote exactly. But we're interviewed, we're in such we're in.

Speaker 1 23:20

Yeah, that's a good point, right?

Speaker 3 23:22

we, we don't know what we don't know, and so we were just we know what we've been fed, right, and we've just talked about how sometimes we get fed shit and we don't even know it well, to kind of bring it back, though, I think like what's the real thing we want is, you know, transparency and accountability is the thing like why is our government leaving 80 billion dollars worth of weapons to the taliban after we left right?

Speaker 1 23:44

like we're paying them 40 million dollars a week. It was in a week or a month, a week, a week, 40 million dollars. What usaid was paying the taliban and not only the talent taliban, but like 10 other designated terrorist organizations throughout the middle east.

Speaker 3 23:59

Oh man it just goes back to show like we made terrorism a thing in the 80s, like the conspiracy theory, because, like russia was trying to invade iraq or, sorry, afghanistan in the 80s. Uh, when I was born in 88 and the taliban and there you go and the taliban, like they pushed russia's shit in, they just they beat them right. But how, oh, we had cia operatives, we had, we had terrorist leaders, come get trained. Western schooling, right?

Speaker 1 24:27

I mean we could also say that they were. That was the first run post-cold war that russia had taken on a hot war at that capacity and historically, for all of time. Russia takes a minute to figure out how to fight a war and then they adapt. They're not really like proactive warriors because they have a massive population, right, so they do they, they. They shit the bed at the beginning of everything, including the ukraine war, right they? It was a meat grinder for the first six months well that there's.

Speaker 3 24:53

It's the small unit leadership and you've heard this, being at a military school growing up and and from my military experience, the backbone and the decisive adaptation that the us military can do is our logistical supply line, and our tech is awesome, that's. The real might of our military is logistics, and then the backbone of the actual fighters is led at a small unit level.

Speaker 1 25:15

Yeah, and they have a ton of autonomy and that's and that's why afghanistan was so devastating for russia, is because they can't do that they and they had never really fought a war like that.

Speaker 3 25:24

No, they really hadn't I'm sure that they adapt right. They always did, and and russia was like, amazing, like what they did in world war II.

Speaker 1 25:32

Going back to your point, though, we've helped fund these things right, and so we've had these covert operations all over the globe, and does the American people really want to continue to fund that Now? I think there was a time to where they're like yes, please keep the wars off my shore, and as long as I can keep my gas prices down and I can buy a house and I have food and a job, I don't care what's going on out there.

Speaker 3 25:57

Yeah, we didn't know enough. I mean, think about right after 9-11, I was in seventh grade and I remember I'm signing up and, like you know, I knew, yeah, so that's and that's what I did. I signed up in the Marine Corps in 07. So six, seven, six years. I was like I'm going and, uh, now I look back and I'm like you know, I was naive, right, because looking at the evidence and all the stuff, it's like we weren't given enough information. The access to information was different.

Speaker 1 26:25

this was pre-cell phone, this was pre-stuff well, it's not pre-cell phone, but it was pre-internet in your hand, smart phone, pre-social media, social media so, yeah, yeah, we all had the nokias.

Speaker 3 26:34

We were playing snake, you know, it was the good we still just had newspapers.

The Role of Transparency in Government Spending

Speaker 3 26:37

We were getting our information from usa today, it felt like our world was smaller, right, and with each generation too, the access to this information hits you at an earlier age, like, like my, our parents. They weren't worried about this stuff until they were like out of college, and like we were worrying about it in like junior, high and high school. And now the new generation it's like cool to be politically active at like elementary school, right, like they know these concepts. So it it. The information access is so crucial to us making a decision as a people and we all have to consciously kind of wake up and do some work because we've just been given the information on a silver platter. You know, I just open the paper and I read it and I go, oh my gosh, and now, like I talk about it at the office, yeah, while we smoke indoors and talk, talk about this receptionist inappropriately, right, like that was the time, yeah, and we don't do that anymore. And like the information is disseminated differently and I have access to everything in my fingertips, and so if I don't have some self-control or some emotional and maturity and I don't take the time to read, I'm almost cursed on your show.

Speaker 3 27:42

Uh, there's a lot more responsibility we have because we have with. With great power becomes great. You know responsibility, peter parker. Rest in peace, ben uncle, ben, uncle ben. But uh, yeah, like you, you gotta there's some responsibility for us as citizens. So I think we want accountability. But what does accountability mean? Because they had tried to doge in the 90s uh, it probably wasn't called doge, but it was like it's basically the same thing, same thing, it's the same thing.

Speaker 1 28:09

That's that's legitimately why the the right. It's failed at the Supreme Court level. All of the judges have basically struck it down because we already figured this out back in the 90s. We already litigated it, we already this function within the executive branch already existed and Trump's like no, we're going to use that thing that we've already used and we've already run it through all the judges.

Speaker 3 28:28

That's why they can't really stop it. So it was an execution problem then. So they had this in the 90s, but nobody was no they did it.

Speaker 1 28:35

They did it very well, and we ran a huge surplus in the late 90s. Wasn't this under clinton? Under clinton?

Speaker 3 28:40

made it happen. He made it happen. Clinton did a lot of good things and a lot of like, whatever right, you know people are.

Speaker 1 28:47

Yeah, this is where the um infamous and not halliburton dick cheney, old cheney. They made all that money because basically he privatized the military. He cut most of it out of the military, which is why after september 11th, the freaking marines were in 1970s vietnam tents at the beginning like the original invasion in iraq, oh yeah, was just garbage materials, because we basically cut the like, cut all military spending. He, he hatcheted a bunch of stuff. It wasn't just the military, it was a lot of different places.

Speaker 1 29:18

Well, all the the r&d and everything around the military, but I think when he did that going back to why hillary clinton ran later on is that I think they uncovered during that process ways of moving money around to be able to operate more efficiently on a espionage scale. How do? We yeah, if we're going to scale down the military, we need to increase the amount of money we put into cia and dark black ops operations. Right, and that's legitimately what he did, but you can see that too, but then that little seed just kept growing and growing, and growing and growing.

Speaker 1 29:55

Right, it's like why these functions like man, it's going to corrupt. We're going to corrupt every system that we get, whether it was started good or not. We're going to figure out a way to corrupt it and it's just taking this long for it to get corrupted going on since post-world war ii that's gonna be going on forever.

Speaker 3 30:09

That's every government the birth of the military industrial complex was, which I fully. I've seen it with my own eyes. It's there, like no people that are denying did not well describing.

Speaker 1 30:20

Okay, the military industrial complex wasn't created.

Speaker 3 30:23

Then let's be honest well if you listen to eisenhower.

Speaker 1 30:26

Well he's talking about the american industrial, military, industrial right complex, the, the war machine as an institution in the world always existed. The transfer of arms right, political power, military power. They just looked differently in mercenary powers and other governments specialized in oh we're, we're the soldier nation. Right, think of like the spartans. Right, they were the warrior nations, but there was always this, there was always this functional machine. It's just we in housed it into our economy.

Speaker 3 30:58

I think we kind of sat at the head of the table after world war ii. Yeah, exactly we took over. We took over that right, that war machine in-house and the versus going out to the mercenaries of the world, a lot of companies too, that were selling product to both sides of the word, of the germans and the allies, like um, you know, like uh, I think it was jiffy loop I think, early on flying j, not jiffy loop.

Speaker 3 31:21

Yeah, flying j oil and jiffy loop and volkswagen and volkswagen, volkswagen, like they, these things, um, yeah, they those, those corporate entities that kind of stayed neutral but supported both. They profiteered.

Speaker 1 31:35

I think there was like a harmonica company that sold pocket harmonicas for soldiers for to both sides, yeah, you know like great entrepreneurial, yeah, yeah, and that goes into okay, this goes back into a higher conversation, though is like that what are these institutions? Like lobbying is an institution and then thinking of, like profiteering is a subset of capitalism. It is, you can't get it, you can't get rid of it, but it's the gross.

Speaker 2 32:00

It's the gross, uh we gotta define it better.

Speaker 3 32:06

Yeah, yeah, that's what we hope from doge right? Do we all agree, like we hope, if we're putting some entity that's auditing? We want transparency and we want accountability. So, whether it's at the federal or state level, that's like the goal. Is there any other goal like you would want from a doge?

Speaker 1 32:24

That's always a good question.

Speaker 3 32:26

The more informed we are, the better decisions as a nation we can make, and then we have the transparency.

Speaker 1 32:30

But isn't it about saving money? Yeah, we want all that, but it's like, why would uh trump throw out the? Yeah, we're thinking about giving a credit back to the americans for the money that we saved them. It's their money. Let's give it back to them. Isn't that such a like? To me, it's a very masterfully used strategy in calling a tax break or a you know money stipend fund right, a stipend check, giving it to, whether we call it because it's COVID or if we call it because we're giving you your money back.

Speaker 2 33:02

It's not money that we saved, it's money that we stopped spending. Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

Speaker 3 33:09

It's not coming back to us, let's be honest. But what are they going to repurpose it towards?

Speaker 1 33:14

Even if it does come back to us. Did that accomplish what we were trying to do? And that's where I'm skeptical about how this thing finishes.

Speaker 2 33:24

Yeah, we don't need to give money back. We're trying to get the $33 trillion debt to zero.

Speaker 1 33:31

Yeah, and then if we can go past that, don't give me the money, will you just pay the debt off of the people that we owe, please?

Speaker 3 33:36

can we just keep chipping away at that? Yeah?

Speaker 1 33:38

or like if they like. When you're managing your budget, you know you go to the snowball effect. Can you just pay the one creditor off that we owe to just one of them first? Yes, and then go to the next one and I don't need a new maserati.

The Rise of Technical Education in Utah

Speaker 3 33:49

Let's get out of debt.

Speaker 1 33:50

Yeah, so it would be like having.

Speaker 3 33:51

I don't need a five grand.

Speaker 2 33:52

Five grand's not going to help me. It would be like having five. You have five credit cards and 20 grand. Well, that would be a cool option to have. Sorry, to cut you off. Well, it'd be like, okay, I'm going to pay this one, the most expensive card. I'm going to pay that off first. I cards that I gotta pay but instead of chipping away at the next one, you go down to vegas and spend some more money. Yeah, get the hotel you want it doesn't make any sense.

Speaker 1 34:19

You're giving, you're giving uh crack to a crackhead and be like listen, this is for when you're really out of crack. You this, this is only say put this in a safe place so that when you're really out of crack, then giving less crack to a crack addict, but you're still giving the crack addict well like no, you're trying to tell them to save it no, no or make it. Hey, go make this crack, make you money.

Speaker 3 34:42

I think that's the lowest common denominator right but I think that's the lowest.

Speaker 1 34:46

But we give that five grand to me that's a democratic move.

Speaker 3 34:50

That's like what they're like. We want your vote next. So that's why I'm worried when he said that.

Speaker 1 34:54

That's why I'm worried about him doing that. I'm like wait a minute. No, no, no I get the trickle down economics and you can probably give me some reason why this is going to boost the economy, but it's going to be such for such a tiny little fraction of the window and all the while, the like the cracks in the economy are just getting worse and worse.

Speaker 3 35:11

Yeah, so I agree with you. I think, if you have the option, though, like everybody, could probably put five grand to use, even if you don't need it. A lot of people might. But the people that like lost their houses from the fires in LA, like the hurricane victims, like where's the aid?

Speaker 1 35:29

for that.

Speaker 3 35:30

Exactly so like it's not like, hey, you're going to get this money back, but it's like if you just use this money better, please.

Speaker 3 35:36

Yes, and it's like can we reduce our taxes? Like because if we, if we got income tax out, I think what was it like? The average American would have like another 20, 30 grand to spend per year I can't remember the actual figure, but a substantial amount of money. And where would that go? Because house prices haven't gone down. So here's an interesting real estate thing.

Speaker 3 35:57

I saw this guy on Instagram talking about it the old generation, the ratio, like a TV. Back in the day, the average cost in like the 50s was like a $500 purchase, but the average home down payment was like five grand. So it was like down payment was like five grand. So it was like what is that Five like? It was like one fifth the down payment of a house. And so if you, instead of saving for a house, you bought a TV, it was considered fiscally irresponsible, financially irresponsible. But now the ratio of a TV average cost is still the same. It's like 500, 600 bucks. But the average cost down payment required for a house house and this is nationwide average it was like 90 grand or 100k like.

Speaker 1 36:37

Because they're factoring all the makeup blow a simple number two to look at is the um income to debt ratio of a homeowner. That's 30 percent. 30 percent of their income is going towards their home. We're the number number two most expensive country in the world for housing. For housing, so number one's portugal 58 right.

Speaker 3 36:56

So they're like rioting in the street, right, but we're at 30.

Speaker 1 36:59

That's insane and and historically it's been 20 to 30. Truthfully, in the way that our system's been, you know, operated since basically the 40s, right if you go back to like the modern housing boom and so the number is.

Speaker 3 37:12

The percentages stay the same, but the numbers behind the numbers exactly go up Cause I was a mortgage loan officer for about five years and like the debt to income ratio but that the price of a TV compared to the percentages have stayed the same. But for the inflated numbers of house values it's not. It's like one like 30th of a house down payment Now. So it's not considered the old like one like 30th of a house down payment now, so it's not considered the old generation thinks that's financially irresponsible. You lazy millennials, yeah, go get your house Like hey, old man, the future is now dude.

Speaker 1 37:44

Like it's expensive. I'm going to buy a TV first you brought up. Another conversation, though, is about like eliminating income tax, but I think there's a huge fear that people will say, whenever you make big changes like that, it's like this seems like a good idea, but what am I not?

Speaker 3 38:02

what am I not thinking about? Yeah, that's a great way. What's?

Speaker 1 38:04

the second and third order consequence of this thing happening.

Speaker 3 38:06

Let's walk it down the path a little bit.

Speaker 1 38:08

Yeah, it's like we have a lot of debt, so let's stop making people pay the government money. Wait what? How are we going to do?

Speaker 3 38:14

that I guess the idea is right. If, if elon and doge are striking down as much as they are planning and they continue on pay, I think they're on. I think their goal, their goal is to hit a trillion yeah, so if they're taking out a third and then we're reducing the income tax, so people are spending more money, it's not a third dude that's like, it's like 10, I think it's, I think it's.

Speaker 1 38:34

His goal is uh, that's right. No, maybe it's five percent what is one trillion? The, the, but the budget. He's trying to cut it out of the budget. The budget's six trillion, seven trillion. What's the national debt right now?

Speaker 3 38:44

30 34 and a half. Okay, I was thinking I'm sorry, I'm thinking like three trillion. See, I can't even conceptualize a trillion, right?

Speaker 1 38:52

yeah, yeah yeah, and it's gone. It's gone up so fast too that you're like no, I, I heard this number.

Speaker 3 38:57

Last time, I feel like. Last time I checked exactly.

Speaker 1 38:59

It's like three years ago and it went up significantly. Yeah, what is that's?

Speaker 3 39:03

crazy. I haven't even been keeping tabs on that holy smokes. So we're in the 30s of trillions now in debt, and so we're, we're, we're basically 1, 30th, or you know what is that? 10, basically, yeah, that's crazy, so it's going to take time, that, yeah, that changes things, but so, yeah, the more budget we can strike out, though, in this waste and the the ridiculousness that is military spending, because, for those of you that are listening, if you've served or if you know people, grab your local veteran, grab your someone in your family who's served and ask them to tell you about how much they spend on the dumbest shit in the military okay, I was, I was way off.

Speaker 1 39:41

It's 1.7 trillion is the annual budget. If for the for uh 2025, mandatory funding 1.7 trillion, well, it's like a medical crisis debt is like 34 and a half trillion Right.

Speaker 3 39:52

Like it's like in a trauma situation. Right, If I, if I was to triage like some a car accident victim or someone with a gunshot, the first thing is, like you, stop the bleeding. I think that's the main goal. Is we stop?

Speaker 2 40:02

the bleed Well, Mike, Mike Benz on.

Speaker 1 40:07

Rogan said, it's a 50 all of these different budgetary items. If you're looking for a nice cup of coffee and you're in downtown St George, fs Coffee Co that's where you're going to want to stop. It's right there on the corner of Tabernacle and Main Street in downtown St George. So if you've got a bicycle, ride it on down there and grab a drip coffee and tell them the 435 guys sent you Going back to Utah.

Speaker 1 40:36

We have local elections coming up at the city levels and you know, I think it's important to to have good people in those positions. But it's like the state, those state offices and officers, now that they've been elected, like I'm hoping that there's attention brought to. What are? What's going on right now? What bills are being passed? What are the financial things like? Are they just, um, like somebody's running up a bill and this it's? This is a real estate related, uh, house bill. Who is the name of the? The house bill we were just talking about, um, the affordable housing one. So the the proposal I'll we can pull it up, put the link in the in the bio. But there's a house bill right now going through Congress in Utah that wants to eliminate, wants to require home buyers to sign an affidavit saying they will live in the property within 90 days. Every single home that's sold in the state of Utah, I think it's 151. 151.

Speaker 3 41:30

Is that only for primary? If I'm buying something that's not a primary residence does?

Speaker 1 41:33

that apply Any house, any home purchase period. It's so, it's so A single family residence A single condo townhome. Any piece of real estate that was bought. You have to live in it for 90 days. You have to represent no, you have to Gay her name.

Speaker 2 41:55

Yeah, I read it um.

Speaker 1 41:55

This bill establishes restrictions related to single family homes.

Speaker 2 41:56

Okay, so this it is okay, it's not requires a purchaser to sign an affidavit of intent to occupy when buying a single family home within the first 30 days the single family home is on the market, unless the seller incurs an exigent circumstance, whatever that looks like, requires that just sounds like more bureaucratic Recorded with the county.

Speaker 1 42:15

What it does is it cuts out all investment properties. You can't buy a second home.

Speaker 3 42:20

Yeah, it eliminates second homes, unless it's a condo or a townhome.

Speaker 1 42:24

Unless it's a condo or a townhome, it's not considered single family residence.

Speaker 3 42:26

Yeah.

Speaker 1 42:26

It's basically saying so, like opening that up and saying what, like opening that up and saying what would that, what would that do? Yeah, what is that?

Speaker 3 42:32

is that? What does that look like? People into property taxes it's the government.

Speaker 1 42:34

Is that a bad thing?

Speaker 2 42:35

it's the government telling people what they can and can't buy.

Speaker 1 42:38

Yeah, that seems like the government it's the government saying we have an issue that needs solving. And how do we solve the problem issue being affordable housing and families aren't able to buy single-family homes. They're for your first time home, you're forced into buying a condo or townhome and they're wanting to open up the option for some more listings for these less demand. I think what they're trying to do is say we're going to lower demand on single family home homes. If you're from Montana and you want a second single family home here in Utah, sorry, you can't do that or you have to these homes here in utah sorry, you can't do that or you have to these homes.

Speaker 1 43:15

These homes are limited to the locals that that want to live here, that are committed to the community. I'm not sure that's a bad thing, but what is the second and third order consequence of that?

Speaker 3 43:24

and like what's the time frame that it will make an impact? Because if it's like a 50-year project, we're like is that, is that the? Is that the most important piece of legislation? We can push to restrict this and that, but like that, that's what I'd be interested in and reading about, and like hearing a discussion, maybe on like a forum or something open, like city council level or whatever well, let's talk about it right now.

Speaker 2 43:45

It's the government, the government. Okay, I have, um, I have an 85 inch tv in my front room. I want to go buy a second TV for my other room.

Speaker 1 43:55

No, this is food, water and housing. A house is a requirement to live. It's not TV. It's different than that.

Speaker 3 44:00

I mean he's trying to craft an analogy, right? What's your analogy?

Speaker 1 44:03

But the analogy, but still the analogy is off.

Speaker 2 44:06

It's the government telling you what you can and can't do.

Speaker 3 44:08

That's true.

Speaker 1 44:17

I don't like that very much. I mean jeffrey, I mean, but the government tells us what you can and can't do all the time. They do right, like speeding. You can't drive over 30 miles an hour down santa clara boulevard because you will get a ticket well, then also the morale and it's dangerous yeah that.

Speaker 3 44:26

The moral issue is like I can get behind that do we?

Speaker 1 44:29

do we like the fact? Do I mean st george? Do you like the fact? I mean St George? Do you like the fact that probably 20% of the homes, the existing single family residences in the county probably 25, 20% in some neighborhoods, 80 to 90% of the neighborhood is vacant Because it's a snowbird effect 80% of the time.

Speaker 3 44:46

This is really applicable to St George listeners, because the snowbird effect of St George it's huge, it's huge dude it's a real thing. It took me 20 minutes up river road I wish I had the economic, uh demographic thing.

Speaker 1 44:57

We ran for the mls. We're going to do another episode specifically on economics and then demographics to southern utah this is some good utah stuff but think about this, think about this if, if we do pass that bill, is it going to cut out investment dollars?

Speaker 3 45:10

actually dude, you're, you're. I see where you're going with this. Let's. Let's talk about saint george for a second. What is on the horizon for employment opportunities? Growth, and we already have a high demand for housing for people coming here. So I'm kind of I'm seeing some benefit here for restricting people from buying just single family.

Speaker 3 45:31

If they want to buy a condo, if they want to buy a townhome apartment, complex apartment, yeah, or whatever. Yeah, okay, and they're building those like crazy here anyway, but the single family, right, if I'm tech ridge, so where do you draw the line?

Speaker 2 45:43

then you draw it right there, yeah, but that's it's dumb that, like I live in salt lake government has to say I want to buy a single family home because I have twins that want to go down to utah tech and I want my twins to live in well, that's what I think you have to in the house and I want to allow my twins, or whatever that's a primary resident yeah, so that that's.

Speaker 3 46:03

You can do that if you sign. There's just more bureaucratic steps to do.

Speaker 1 46:07

That, I think, is what the bill is saying right your twins, your daughters go down there, you put them on the quick claim deed and they are living. The owner is technically living in the property that they're living in, because you have to sign that. What was it?

Conclusion and Final Thoughts on Government Regulation

Speaker 3 46:17

It's an affidavit, an affidavit saying I'm intending to live here as a primary resident. Correct Right. So if you put them on the deed, yeah, then they are the primary resident, so that's what it is. So I it's just a it's a bureaucratic little piece of red tape that I don't agree with, but I can see the implementation of it. It's not restricting me as much. If I have that situation, how does it benefit? How does it?

Speaker 1 46:41

how does it? You don't agree with it, but how does it negatively?

Speaker 3 46:44

impact you If I'm here in St George, right? This is a perfect example. I'm a business owner. We're in my living room right now. That is a podcast studio, right.

Speaker 1 46:58

Beautiful, like I'm a business owner, we're in my living room right now. That is a podcast studio, right, beautiful. And what, if I want?

Speaker 3 46:59

residential can be commercial but commercial can't be residential. That's ridiculous. Can we fix that? Yeah, because if I, if I could buy a commercial resident, a commercial building and use 80 of it as studios and we live on the top floor, like well, you could do that in chicago, I. I know people that do that. There's a youtuber that does that. Do that. There's a YouTuber that does that and he lives downtown in a warehouse that he renovated. His whole channel is about renovations. It's dope.

Speaker 1 47:18

Now you, as an individual owner, can live in your commercial property, but I can't rent that out.

Speaker 3 47:25

I can't put residential dwellings, I have to be the owner of the building and the owner of the business.

Speaker 1 47:31

Yeah, exactly, and then I can live there Exactly oh well, hey, maybe we should do that. But do you see what I'm saying, though? Like if you just going back to zoning, for it's a quick tangent- and I don't want to take you too far away from it.

Speaker 3 47:39

But zoning.

Speaker 1 47:40

zoning is a huge factor, but how does so? How does this impact you?

Speaker 3 47:54

If single family, if anybody who buys, how does that negatively hurt? Let's start with you. And then let's go to like, how's the economy? We already own this home. So like, let's say we did. We say, hey, we just want this house to be a studio. Every room in this house is already a studio anyway. But what if we move into a second single family, like I'm going to go buy a second? Then I could just say, hey, I am living here, but what happens to this home that I already own like do whatever you want with it, that can keep it.

Speaker 1 48:16

That bill doesn't that bill doesn't say that you can't. You can't turn the house that you're already in into a rental later, so it's only.

Speaker 3 48:21

But when buying a second home, when buying a home.

Speaker 1 48:25

When buying a single family home, you have to promise that you're going to occupy it. Occupy it within 90 days, buying it okay within 90 days.

Speaker 3 48:31

How long? What if I occupy 30 within 90 days? Buying it, okay, within 90 days. How long? What if I occupy 30 days? What if I occupy for six months? I don't know what's the time frame. Do I have to occupy for a year?

Speaker 1 48:41

That's why I don't think the bill's going to go far because I think it's missing a lot of detail in it. It's too vague.

Speaker 3 48:47

It's too vague, but let's say we were to rewrite there for a month and then leave and then buy another house, right? I mean the underlying question how many people would do that though? Too? I mean, like some some make like real estate investor types maybe, but like yeah, I know, I wouldn't, but if I was buying a second, but a snowbird a snowbird, would they just move into it for that.

Speaker 1 49:09

First they got plenty.

Speaker 3 49:10

It's my primary residence, so is it?

Speaker 1 49:12

actually going to fix anything but one of the underlying questions, though, is how?

Speaker 2 49:16

how involved do we want the government to be in housing?

Speaker 1 49:21

yeah, they're already all the way on involved, like to so. So the argument is let's not okay, so I'm playing a game of chess and I'm thinking, okay, I'm in this, I'm in a shitty situation yeah, I got, I got you and.

Speaker 1 49:35

I think. I think I could do it this way. I had it, but I don't want to do that way. I want to do the thing we should have done five moves ago, and so I'm just not going to do any strategy right. We got to still pick a strategy to move forward. We can't go backwards. You got to make a move. Yeah, you got to make a move right. And at the state level, the levers are so small because we've given them up to massive, massive developers. Zoning is really the only real lever that we can pull right, and so if this is a element that you've, you function in along with zoning, maybe it does have an impact.

Speaker 1 50:12

I think if it was, if it was more detailed, let's say it was as strict as you can't turn it in rental, you're not allowed to like live there six months and then leave. You got to at least dwell in it for a year, two years, a year, a year let's just say a year, right, and then then you could turn it into investment property or whatever could. Could that lower the lower the demand and increase the supply? Still got to build. They still got to build, that's true. They still got to build, but they're going to be? What are they going to be building?

Speaker 1 50:41

Because if, if, the, the demand, oh yeah, they're going to build the density that we need, right, so. So maybe that function of saying, okay, well, now, less developers are going to build the density that we need, right, so so maybe that function of saying, okay, well, now less developers are going to build second, massive, second homes, like out in little Valley, to the parade of homes, was ridiculous, dude. It was gross. I'm just going to say it. I was disgusted, bro. We should have an episode.

Speaker 2 50:59

just on that. Uh, dude, you're a real estate agent, sir.

Speaker 1 51:03

I know it's gross, though, dude dude, I don't like driving around those neighborhoods and seeing those massive houses. I'm like this is better than like a commercial, like a commercial development, walking downtown with like a bunch of apartments over top.

Speaker 2 51:15

You're telling me this is better I had a client tell me he's like there's no difference between that, like one of those parade houses and some big industrial building.

Speaker 1 51:25

Yeah, they're kind of. They're kind of better looking a little bit.

Speaker 3 51:29

Are they just building them so smart like there's no character to homes these days? Is that no, I think I think they're pretty homes.

Speaker 1 51:34

I think they're beautiful homes, but but the idea is that I look at that building, I look at a warehouse. I'm like I don't know what goes on there. They probably, like, have machines in there, like building. You know digits and text, dads, right? I'm like that's what I imagine, right? So I'm like, oh, that's a functional piece of equipment there, right where I drive by a house, I'm like, oh, somebody's just sitting on the couch looking at their freaking phone, dude they're not even playing in the pool.

Speaker 1 51:57

Or the biggest, the biggest, most expensive house from last year's parade is empty, is empty it's a third house family gets to use it like if, if this bill goes through and that stops in washington county, dude, i'm'm not going to say that that's a problem. I don't think that's a bad thing. And yes, it's government telling us what we can do and what we can't do, but that's the game we're in, folks.

Speaker 3 52:15

Well, here's here's a question is, let's say, 20 years from now, right? So the people that are interested in these huge, luxurious homes, like, like, we'll call them estates, right? I feel like our generation. That does not appeal to me. My grandparents were really wealthy. They had this huge house that we would go over maybe once a month, you know, and it was just like it was empty man. It didn't feel so. Then I'd go home and I'm like this is home, right, it's smaller, it's more manageable. And then the houses that we've had here, like we've talked at length, you know, mal and I are both millennials and we're like we don't want. We want a nice home, but we don't want this huge house. I don't need six garages, I don't maybe someone does for all the toys.

Speaker 1 53:00

Yeah, I think there's. There is a market for it. Yeah, and I'm not. I'm not opposed to that market but in 20 years. But if you're going to build those, if you're going to build a McMansion McMansion.

Speaker 2 53:09

If you're going to build a McMansion, I think, at this point we can just say mansion.

Speaker 1 53:14

And you live in it. At this point, you just say mansion.

Speaker 2 53:16

At this point we can just say, mansion, take the mick off of it.

Speaker 1 53:18

Why not McMansions?

Speaker 2 53:23

I like McMansions.

Speaker 1 53:24

I mean there's some. But I mean, if you the idea that I got a mansion through mcdonald's somehow. Yeah, mcmansion you won the monopoly. Yeah, like I, it was one of those peel-offs like dude. I played that game so much, I was so convinced I was gonna win one day yeah, I won a mansion with ronald mcdonald on every wall.

Speaker 3 53:40

Here's your k1 for like seven hundred thousand dollars in taxes the hamburglar inside it's like the counter is like bright, red and yellow mustard dispensers. You know that's a big mansion. That's a big mansion so I.

Speaker 1 53:53

So if this bill, I think, if it was, uh, drafted in a way that that made a meaningful impact for southern utah, I think I would probably be on board with it. But I think it's very vague. So, looking at, okay, what are the levers within the state that we can help with housing? You know that's it's it. But I look at you know are, are we going to do a freaking baseball stadium? I love baseball, but I'm like, come on guys, like can we just focus on what's productive? What's productive Like, how can we spend money on producing, like something like tech Ridge?

Speaker 3 54:25

I think that's going to be productive. Yeah, like like up there by zonos and and all the stuff they're developing up there.

Speaker 1 54:31

That's jobs, that's well-paying jobs and that's this, that's the city that's and the private industry coming together to come up with a project that ultimately has, like these uh, compounding effects on the economy right, with utah tech being also a direct recipient and dixie tech dixie tech and everything right.

Speaker 1 54:47

Like I forget that there's two now yeah, well, I mean, utah tech is honestly, it'd be like medical technology, right, they're more of a medical like, uh, administrative business services. I think they're trying to shift into like polytechnical type stuff. But uh, dixie tech is specific trade stuff which, yeah, you know, jeff and I were talking about electricians. You know like the next millionaires are going to be owning electrical degrees technical degrees.

Speaker 3 55:13

Like mal has a bachelor's and a technical degree, uh so bachelor, bachelor's in in uh business. She doesn't have any bastards everybody yeah, she's got some bastards and some degrees.

Speaker 3 55:23

But she's got a bachelor's degree in uh business, but then she has an audio technical degree in sound engineering. So like which ones made her more money at this point? Like, obviously she's a sound engineer for podcasting, doing a great job, um, and like the stuff she learned in business, it just wasn't there. So technical colleges, I think that, like what do they say, if you're an electrician or if you're in the trades, you're more likely to be a millionaire in the next 10 years.

Speaker 1 55:47

So so I just think of like those partnerships, right, Like how does the how does this budget, you know, translate it into dollars? How does that dollar go to work, Right? So I think the efficiency part of it is what I'm most excited about with the Doge like just kind of bringing it all the way back around with Doge is that how can we be more efficient with the dollars that we spend and what is the mechanism for us to utilize that effectively? Like is the? Is the legislature? Could they use a specific entity to lead them? And how to be more efficient with administrative services, which is a lot of what the government does? Here's a question for you is guiding and directing administration right? Isn't that like what the government like? How do they get more efficient on just that?

Speaker 3 56:35

yeah on that and then putting the money to work. Does the private sector need the government to restrict or lessen the restrictions for opportunity like that to come in? Because I feel like sometimes a restriction bottlenecks stuff and gets in the way, but sometimes the right restriction can allow more seats at the table.

Speaker 2 56:55

So then the economy flourishes and I think it depends on what the underlying theme is like um, the faa might be a good example of that. Like I'm okay with some government restriction with the faa when it comes to for me not crashing in an airplane oh that yeah. Like I'm okay with some government restriction with the FAA when it comes to me not crashing in an airplane oh that yeah. Like I'm okay with that. Yeah, I guess it depends. Or you know, like there's actually a lot of restriction around manufacturing of toilets and like the water that can go in them and the way they're shaped and stuff like that.

Speaker 1 57:23

Definitely having like an infrastructure, like code, I think is okay because we want our houses to last and work and right, I think, where you're headed with is that a step like this where we would limit single family? I'm just pulling it back to like the single family, uh, housing, like the single family restriction? Right, you have to move into it, is it? Or it's a step in the wrong direction. It's like that we should be taking this step to less regulation. Don't put more regulation on. It was like we should fix zoning and allow the free market to determine what is the need in this area and let it.

Speaker 2 57:54

Let it do its thing yeah, like basic needs, like safety, housing, you know stuff like that. That's the stuff that I think you know there should be standards yeah, right, like if my house is on fire, I would you know. I want the fire truck to get there as quick as possible, right?

Speaker 1 58:10

and be able to put it out, be able to put it out right like I.

Speaker 3 58:13

You know so, but but like, if you want to build a shed in your backyard, like, how many hoops should you jump?

Speaker 1 58:18

yeah, if I have an rv on the side of my yard and my daughter wants to go live in that because her bedroom's too small, because she's got a family now and she can't afford a house she's got to live somewhere or she's just just because my neighbor doesn't like it.

Speaker 1 58:28

She should still be allowed to do it she should be allowed to do it right, like I. I agree with that right now. If they're, uh, you know, breaking other ordinances, like uh, defecating in the street or dumping their sewer water down the sewer, you know the storm drain, stuff like that, obviously that's.

Speaker 2 58:44

That's where we've crossed the line too far, like if I want to camp in the backyard with my family. That's cool.

Speaker 1 58:50

But like if I'm, if I want to buy five houses, single family houses and not move into them, I should be able to do that.

Speaker 3 58:54

Yeah, if you're opening up like a Potentially Unsanctioned shelter for the homeless in your backyard and your neighbors are complaining about the noise, that's a little different.

Speaker 3 59:06

Yeah, those things are different, also like if the neighbors are cool with it, then why? You know? It's just there's like basic communications, like, for example, uh, we have awesome neighbors, but there was misunderstandings because we have an internet hub in our backyard. From poor city planning back in the day and not understanding what was coming with fiber optics and blah, blah blah, so now I got like three companies trying to access that for the entire neighborhood like a couple streets in our neighborhood need to access our backyard like probably 70 of the time they're doing work and so they never call us.

Speaker 3 59:42

They don't knock on our door. We work from home and they you have here and we have dogs, and so there was one time a guy just walked in our backyard works in for the city. He just walked in our backyard and I'm sitting here with the you know looking, I'm eating. This guy walks my dog, my huge german shepherd, like he's a sweetheart, but if you walk in my backyard he's gonna look mean. So he's barking at the guy. The guy walks around, pounds on my door and tells me what to do and I I went marine corps drill instructor on his ass. I lost my shit at this guy and I just I I the words were flowing, it was a righteous anger. I was like you that's the most un-american thing you could do is come onto someone's property and demand something you blacked out, you like came to later and mal's like do you know what just happened?

Speaker 1 1:00:26

he's like do we win?

Speaker 3 1:00:28

she's speaking to me like scarlett johansson. The sun's going down, big guy, and I'm, like you know, like hulking back to my scientific self, right.

Speaker 3 1:00:37

So like bruce banner, but like, yeah, I, I lost my shit. So then I called like four companies and all I had was a logo in my mind. So I searched like all the companies that were. There's like four or five contracted companies that do cables and stuff. So I called all four of them and I found the guy and I was like, hey, you'd like don't just the guy's fine, I, I chewed him, we're good. But I want you to know like you cannot come in my backyard unless you. I just need a knock on the door or phone call text message. I gave him all my information. I'm like I want to help the neighborhood you can communicate to me.

Speaker 3 1:01:11

I will help as much as I can you knock on my door, I can get my dogs in with a snap of my fingers. I call their names. They're well-trained animals, right. So now our neighbors fast forward like a year. Our neighbors need internet and um, they're. The companies coming out here to do this are not communicating with us. We literally work from home all day. We're here recording, we're doing whatever. If someone needs access to that internet node, they just need to ask. And so they were lying to my neighbors saying we were giving them the middle finger, not allowing them in the backyard and because of our dogs and because they would go look over the fence and see the dogs. And my other neighbor who's with the sheriff's department he's like he vouched for me but another set of neighbors that needed the internet. They were going to call animal control on my dogs. So you can imagine the chain of events.

Speaker 1 1:02:00

Instead of just coming and knocking on your door, but then they ended up doing that because we're like whoa, whoa, whoa, hold up, we're neighbors.

Speaker 3 1:02:07

So we resolved it. But the texts were getting heated for a second and we're like so we're up in arms against our neighbors. And then we're like, oh, let's just talk, yeah. So once you know my, my sheriff's, my neighbor who saw, he's like yeah, I've seen them multiple times, look in your backyard so that that little misunderstanding the city, they don't give a shit, they're not on your. The people working for the city don't care, they're not on your. The people working for the city don't care, they're going to do the minimal amount of work, right, same thing with these, they just have a job.

Speaker 3 1:02:31

And so they'll literally go look over the fence, see a dog, and they're like great, I got a four hour break Because they'll put that in their notes. And so now the representative seeing the notes is on the phone with my other neighbors. Oh, it looks like they're not being allowed in because of the dogs and so my neighbors are going to call and take like action against, like they're going to enact a city ordinance, right and laws. Every single law written into statute is it's executed on by means of force yeah, through place after yeah, that's.

Speaker 3 1:03:01

There's nothing in law like it's. It's a means of physical removing you. Yeah, if comes to it, if it's severe enough or repetitive, a libertarian would call it violence. Yeah, it is. It's physical action against another human being and force, so that's the same as violence.

Speaker 1 1:03:19

So limiting that government power. I think we're bringing this all the way around.

Speaker 3 1:03:22

Limiting that stuff.

Speaker 2 1:03:25

Or the most efficient thing might be just to move the internet hub to the street Exactly.

Speaker 3 1:03:29

And so that's a whole other thing I got to do.

Speaker 1 1:03:31

But who will pay for it? Jeff, I think the neighborhood should pay for it.

Speaker 3 1:03:34

No, I think the. That's what the government would say I think the private entity that bought the rights to own internet here should do that. Yeah, and they're going to run that number and they're like, no, let's just keep knocking on this guy's door yeah, but if, if you know, if I, if I write enough petitions and whatever, because there's other people that have junction boxings that would be team up and they're gonna be like.

Speaker 1 1:03:56

You know, there's an easement recorded on that property. You knew about it when you bought it.

Speaker 3 1:03:59

There was an easement recorded on that not that I know, but if there was, yeah you should check it.

Speaker 1 1:04:05

You should check it, say do you have a utility easement on your property? If not, you're like this is no longer being used. You're gonna have to move it.

Speaker 3 1:04:11

So that's a good thing too. The silver lining is as much jeff would do that red tape, as there is oh you did with an old telephone yeah, but it was old it wasn't functioning.

Speaker 3 1:04:18

That's the thing is that if it was working, I ripped it out yeah if that was a fiber optic line that'd be a little bit different, not my problem yeah, but that's seriously my circus yeah I, I got to check on that. So that's more information. We can arm ourselves with information and understanding these things. So if you guys are listening to the show, like, keep listening, rob is an excellent guy at getting you guys the information in saint george and southern utah. No one, thanks for the plug, dude. Yeah, man, I like being on this show. I mal, how are we doing on time?

Speaker 1 1:04:44

I think I think we could wrap it here. I think I think is a good conversation. We're going to lead into a conversation we're going to have with Aaron Olson about Bitcoin money. We've got tariffs. There's some money conversations coming up. We want to talk about that, especially leading into city elections.

Speaker 3 1:04:58

You should have Zonos back on.

Speaker 1 1:04:59

Got to have Zonos back on Dude.

Speaker 3 1:05:01

They know everything about the tariffs. We're listening to their podcast, like that would be great.

Speaker 1 1:05:05

I think that's a good conversation. Right, you know Southern Utah stuff. Right, we want to focus on Southern Utah stuff. What's impacting Southern Utah? We hope you enjoyed this episode, guys, it's not the typical episode where we're, you know, interviewing expert. This is us three guys, local guys that maybe we don't know a lot about a lot, but we know something about something.

Speaker 2 1:05:23

We know a little about a lot of stuff, yeah.

Speaker 3 1:05:24

If you know a little, and I know a little and Rob knows a little bit, more than a little, Then maybe somebody listening got a little bit yeah. Maybe a medium size. Yeah, let us know.

Speaker 1 1:05:33

Drop it in the comments. Did you get anything out of this? We got called grifters in the comments the other day. Grifters, that's how you know you're doing something right. How do we get a grifter?

Speaker 2 1:05:44

How is this a grifter?

Speaker 1 1:05:46

I. That's a great question. I feel like it could be a number. I think it's somebody who's taking money off of uh hype oh yeah, yeah, we're out here.

Speaker 1 1:05:53

Yeah, we're just in the virality right yeah, we're, uh, we're really loading up the algorithm with, uh, with petty or small scale swindling, small scale swindling. We're small scale swindlers, just giving people education. We hope you got something out of it. Hope you enjoyed this episode, guys. Hey, gentlemen, have a good weekend you too, man. We'll see you out there. Guys, thanks for listening in. If you enjoyed this episode, please like and subscribe. Make sure you're following us on all the social media websites. We love your support. We love the dialogue. We want to continue that going find us at realestate435.com.

Speaker 2 1:06:25

We'd love to help you find a house here in town or help you get wherever you're going.