5 Trillion Reasons to Fear Another Bubble (Hour 3)

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You're listening to Mornings with Pat Craiglow powered by Up North News.

Now, from our Lake Rosota studio, here is the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Craiglow.

What's up, Lake Rosota this morning?

Good morning, 806.

Nice to have you back here up north on a Thursday morning.

It is October 30th, Parker Olson producing things down in Madison Studio A2.

Chad Holmes is standing by.

We'll be hearing from Joseph Becky this hour, Todd Alba.

And Sean O'Malley talking about why the stock market's doing so well when everything else does not appear to be doing so well.

Yeah, it's a bubble, unfortunately, and we're going to talk more about that in just a bit.

In our last hour, we were talking about Medicare Advantage plans and this on the text line from Jan Inno Creek.

Medicare Advantage wasn't put in place to help people on Medicare.

It was established so that private insurance companies can make a profit off of recipients.

It's part of a decades-long plan by Republicans to privatize all social services.

They see a big pot of money and they want to get their hands on it.

might be some of the truest words spoken this week.

And you can add your comments on the text line as well, either 855-75CIVIC or use the Civic Media app to reach out to us and let us know what's on your mind.

You can also send a voice note or record a voice note as well if you prefer.

Let's see, we've got also in the comment sections of YouTube and Facebook over on YouTube.

From Rob.

Good morning from Tigerton.

The sun is coming up.

It's 30 degrees.

Gonna mow up some leaves today.

Yesterday had a doctor's appointment in Shawno.

Still a little color on the trees in the city.

Took a few pictures.

He says around my area, Shawno, Anago, and Wapaka get pronounced wrong on the weather channel during severe weather season.

True.

Watching the World Series last night, we're to see Dodger Stadium emptying out by the eighth inning.

Oh, they could be winning or losing and people would be like, oh, you know that LA traffic, you know, gotta get going.

He says if Toronto wins the World Series Friday night, they would have titles in all three in six games.

So good for them.

So again, that's tomorrow after the Blue Jays beat the Dodgers last night.

Let's see.

So let's with that, turn over to somebody who's been covering more high school football than World Series, but the seasons, they are changing for Chad Holmes and he joins us now from 98.9 WXCO.

How are you, Mr. Holmes?

Very, very good.

By the way, I have been to Dodger Stadium and it is a wonderful place to watch a baseball game.

Is it?

Okay.

It really was.

A number of years ago, I went to a Dodger Brewery game back

in the day.

I actually

lived out in, I lived in Hollywood for a year.

I may not know that, but it was actually a very interesting, fun year.

You can hear the brakes being put on this segment real quick here.

I'm sorry, you lived in Hollywood for a year.

Walk out the door.

where I lived, the apartment, looked to the left down the road and see the Hollywood sign.

Wow.

And I, I, I spent way too much money and then I came back home a year

later.

I was going to say, were you in any commercials or you, were you played the part of a corpse on law and order?

I was on

a, I was on a game show.

You get out of here.

Look at this stuff I'm learning over here.

All right.

Again, put the needle across the record again.

We had to stop what we're doing.

There we go.

Tell me more.

It was a game show named On the Cover.

And it was a short lived game show.

It was on what was called the PAX Network.

Remember the PAX Network?

No.

OK, well, the PAX Network.

But it was a fun little, it was basically that we'd use magazine covers and use sort of questions on pop culture.

And it was actually kind of a fun little show.

It had two rounds.

The first round, I swear, my clicker wasn't working properly.

And I fell way behind.

But then I made a massive comeback in the second round.

I mean, I was way behind in the third place.

And then I got to within one question of winning it, but the time ran out.

And then I go to the bonus round, but it was it was interesting to

do that fascinating

TV and it was

It was kind of cool.

Things we learned.

Wow, that's great.

But as Rob notes on YouTube, Chad's getting ready for basketball now.

I take that to mean your football coverage is over for a year.

Yeah, my football coverage ended last Friday.

So now we get like three, two and a half weeks now.

It's like two, three weeks from this past Tuesday will be our first basketball game.

So get a chance and actually next week I'm back, but then I'm taking a week off.

So it's like that my annual, my, I take a vacation.

One weekend in the summer to go off and play me some poker in Las Vegas And then I take one week between the football and winter sports and I'm gonna take a week off and I'm looking forward to going down to the Chicago area I probably gonna play a little poker down there, but I'm actually planning I'm actually planning on going to the United Center for the first time and see Oh Oh,

that would be nice.

Yeah, I would I would love to see a hockey game there So well, let's come to poker for a moment

And let's let's get to that big scandal from last week involving some NBA players and coaches and mob figures.

And part of it was about, you know, the sports betting.

But another big part of it was about these these poker games, these illegal poker games, where people think they're being invited, there's going to be, you know, a celebrity there, an NBA player or something like that, not realizing everybody else around the table is in on this.

And that

There are ways that they're cheating to see your cards and get your money.

Chad, the first time you heard this report last week, what'd you think?

I have never been involved in anything like that.

Well, no, no, no, but I

mean, but I mean, it's like, I don't know some of the, I don't know the tricks.

I, that's one thing that's, I've never been that deep into it.

But the idea of these, I find it odd that we still have to have these illegal games because there's so

Gambling has become so prevalent and I guess with with the poker it's a little bit more difficult to find the games because like I Don't really have anywhere.

I go around here.

So I don't play very much outside of my little trips But there's so much gambling going on and I one of the funniest aspects about that story was the next morning on ESPN They're doing a rundown talking about Chauncey bill of being suspended and a couple players being involved

And in the corner, there's an ad for ESPN bet.

Yes, of course.

It was so funny.

First $10, you get to matching whatever it is, you know, and it's like, but no, I mean, that's that part of the story is kind of beyond anything that I've experienced in the past.

So I mean, yeah, so all of the with the with the poker tables I mean now the whole way that Poker got popular on television You know you get these little tiny pinhole TV cameras that can see the players cards You know on TV, but of course all the other players can't see but it turns out they all have like either earpieces or other ways of Signaling, you know what what you're seeing on these cards and it is just so

It's both disturbing and also not surprising.

Obviously, there's always people trying to cheat other people, but I guess at one point, there was x-ray tables or something to read the cards.

I mean, just crazy.

How does Chauncey Billups get involved in this?

That was my thing.

You're the head coach of the Portland Trail Blazers.

You're an NBA legend, so you made money for many years in the league.

And you're involved in I mean, I can almost understand if you're somebody that just likes playing and may you got yourself in over your head in terms of gambling losses because you because you just can't help yourself I mean addiction, you know, but this is this is planned.

This is this is I don't understand his

reasons behind it.

It really blows my mind in a certain

way.

Especially when you consider, yes, they had NBA contracts.

They were not, you know, applying for snap benefits.

And yet, they always need that extra edge.

It's not so much the need for the money, but the need to gamble and win that very competitive nature that drives them.

But it's cheating.

You're

not competing, though.

That's just it.

Yeah.

Yeah, I don't understand that part at all.

And I wondered last week,

And of course, in one of the rare cases where Parker was actually the grown up and I was the innocent youth, I was saying, I don't know, this might really put a nail in the coffin of sports betting and all that.

And Parker kind of patted me on the hat.

He's like, they're there.

It's not going away.

And it's not.

I mean, it was a headline for a couple of days.

And the betting sites, I thought they might take their commercials down.

Nope, they're going like never before.

You know, in a big picture kind of way.

Scandal does not have the same punch it used to.

I mean, you remember back in the days whether it was Nixon or Iran Contra, whatever it may be.

Or the NCAA, you know, the things that would get you the quote unquote death penalty are now just another day under NIL deals.

I

mean, the scandals are just a couple of days and then we move on to the next thing.

And then, I mean, our attention span as a society seems to have gone down to zero.

And that's been concerning because, you know, we have a scandal of the day when it comes to our administration.

and things that would have ended political careers in the past have not.

And I think maybe in the same realm, things that would have ended sports careers are not doing the same as well.

And I don't know where that ends if you no longer have shame, if you no longer have shock value.

Where does this end?

And I hate to make a dark pivot to politics, but I will for a second here in that you hear about these a couple of federal prosecutors who were just fired for using the words mob and riot to accurately describe January 6th, but they were talking yesterday about how public opinion polling shows that among many Republicans, their perception of the events of January 6th have

flipped, you know, you had 70% plus believing that what happened on January 6th was wrong.

Now that number is down to something like 30% believe that what happened on January 6th was wrong.

And I have no easy way to say this is how we're going to retool, reeducate, remoralize

Americans to recognize that there are things that are wrong.

And even if you like that person or support that person, it's okay to be shocked and and not want that not to support that thing happening.

No, exactly right.

And I mean, there's so many things that were considered norms that are not norms anymore.

I mean, it was a norm where you didn't see a president.

blatantly profiting on his office.

Oh my goodness.

Where there would have been a, that's an incredible.

Again, Jimmy Carter had to sell his farm.

He had to sell his peanut farm because, you know, he would be ultimately in charge of agricultural policy and you didn't want any appearance of a conflict of interest.

And now between the crypto scams and now this ballroom, which is just going to be one big thing for, you know, it ought to be

Named after Whirlpool for all the money laundering that's probably gonna be going on as part of this thing.

Have you heard?

What the name of the ballroom has been proposed by Trump what?

The Donald Trump

ballroom.

Oh, you know shocking But like we said a few days ago in case folks missed it any any Democrat running for president It simply has to make sure you include this in your campaign promise that

name is going to be changed instantly to either like the Barack Obama ballroom or something else because eventually Trump and others will move on from the scene.

And I always think of one of those Christmas animated specials, the one with the Burger Meister Meister Burger.

And eventually, you know, the guys that tried to make all the toys illegal, they fade from the scene.

their paintings are taken down from the wall and they're put into the ash can of history where they belong.

And we will, we will find, you know, other better names for these things, other better use for ourselves, but we have to get through this crisis first.

And that's, that's a tall order these days, but I still feel like we can do

it.

I hope you're right.

I hope so too, because you know why?

Because we need voices talking to other people who believe in these things like morality and normalcy again.

And Chad Holmes is one of those folks.

You can catch his updates on 989 WXCO or on the app or through WXCO.fm or the Civic Media website.

Thank you, Chad.

Have a great day.

You too.

All right.

We're going to talk about the potential for a stock market bubble involving artificial intelligence with Sean O'Malley talking about your money in the markets and still Joseph Peckie coming along as well.

Live from the lake, thanks for making this the place to spend part of your mornings.

I'm Pat Critello.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

You're listening to Civic Media.

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Alright, let's talk about your money in the markets with Sean O'Malley joining us now.

Mr. O'Malley, how are you?

I'm doing well, Pat.

How are you doing

this morning?

I'm doing fine.

We're really going to look at your expertise here in financial compliance and all the things that just make my red flags go up about what is happening in the markets, the way that money is moving all around in one particular area.

uh and and what what led me to this Sean was this headline about a company that is now worth uh it has a market capitalization of five trillion with a t dollars i have a tough enough time with the concept of any one person being a billionaire how much it would take to collect and spend one billion dollars to have a five trillion dollar company just

sounds fishy to me and it tells me that there might be more behind this current stock market run that does not appear to reflect the greater economy.

Does it raise some red flags with you?

Absolutely, Pat.

This is one of the things that we call concentration risk right now.

The company you're talking about, of course, is NVIDIA.

They make up a huge proportion of the market capitalization weighted S&P 500 index.

So basically whatever happens within video, that's what's happening with the S&P 500 index to a large extent because they are literally I think about a quarter of the weight given their capitalization.

Now here's the really funny thing though.

This bubble thing isn't exactly new.

When I was in London two and a half weeks ago, I took a picture of an article that I read that I thought was particularly interesting.

And it was entitled to are we in an AI bubble was from the London Sunday Times and authored by John Yeomans And he had eight reasons for why he felt that was the case now I noted in there looking sort of zooming in on that photo This was two and a half weeks ago Nvidia's market cap at that point in time was 4.7 trillion so in those two and a half weeks they have gone up 300 billion dollars in market capitalization

That's that's not Like that that's there's nothing realistic about that.

No, that's it's like saying, okay Yeah, we went up six percent in two weeks.

It's like we're playing whose line is it anyway with the stock market where the poor the points don't matter.

Yeah, and they're yeah, they're there are a number of People that I listen to that do a very intelligent podcast online where all the comment has been that I mean a couple of comments

One, it feels more like we're gambling now.

It feels more like we're in a casino rather than the stock market.

And the second one was, you know, talking about the fact that we, with the government shutdown, we have no economic data to go on.

We were supposed to get GDP this morning.

We don't have that.

We are supposed to get initial jobless claims for the week.

We don't have that.

We haven't had it since September 20th, you know, unemployment.

Haven't seen that since September.

So we are literally flying blind We don't really know what's going on and yet the market keeps going up and AI is Riding it

which which enables, you know again the current administration to say whatever they want to say and to say everything is just hunky-dory But it's not all hunky-dory.

I mean we see it just in the numbers the the the crazy

tens of thousands of numbers of layoffs that have been announced so far this year.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, I think the Fed's rate cut this week clearly has a lot of support given that they say that they're focusing on the labor market.

And you just look at the litany of companies that have laid off.

I mean, I'm not going to go through all of them, but I mean, Intel, don't forget, US government owns 10% of that.

24,000 employees laid off.

Amazon 14 and they're estimated to go up to 30,000 now.

Amazon interestingly has told their board of directors that they are going to be able to double the revenues between now and 2033 without adding any additional staff.

None.

Not one more human involved in the process, but we're going to double revenues.

Wow.

Look at these though.

Nestle 16,000 employees cut UPS 14,000 Ford 11,000 and on and on people closer to home heard about Target cutting 1800 employees and I get that in a lot of instances these these announcements are accompanied by well AI means we can do more with fewer people I I really get the suspicion that

they're more fundamentals at play, but AI is an easy thing to cite rather than to say, you know, this current administration is kind of screwing up the economy.

Yeah, well, yeah, it's it's both are happening.

As no idea what they're doing with the economy, which is why nobody's making any investments in this economy.

We have become the pariah globally in trade and

you know, all transactions and investment of all sorts.

Everybody's sort of trying to placate President Trump saying, oh, yeah, we're going to come in and do investment, but we'll see if it actually happens.

And yet that leads to what you would call a generational gap in terms of where the market is going right now in light of these federal reserve cuts.

Correct.

And we've talked about this sort of topic before, but we're putting a label on it now.

We talked about who is going to sort of win and lose with the economy.

And now they're putting a label on it.

It's the generational gap.

So older people who have more wealth in stocks are going to do fine.

They're doing well.

But younger generations that are more debt burdened are dealing in

Obviously, most of them don't own their homes, so they're dealing with rental prices that are ever-increasing and student loan debt that they have to deal with.

Most of us had to deal with a lot of debt when we were younger.

That problem has gotten worse.

What we're seeing is older, graying America doing very well financially, and the younger generation, 20s, 30s,

you know, early 30s, I guess I'd say probably more, really not doing well and not having much of a chance to get ahead.

No, and it leads to that this much.

I've learned about the alphabet covering economic recoveries There's either the the V shaped recovery where it's a quick recovery the U shaped recovery where it's a long hard slog and then worst of all for some people the K shaped one where some go up really nicely and Some really not so much.

We're talking to Sean O'Malley about your money in the markets.

We'll talk a little bit more about the

AI bubble that appears to be out there and then we'll bring in Joseph Peckie and Todd Alba before we're all done on a Thursday morning live from Lake Wissota.

I'm Pat Krightlow.

This is Up North News.

This is Up North News powered.

See what happens when you change the name of the show.

This morning's with Pat Krightlow powered by Up North News on the Civic Media Radio Network.

We should record

this.

Add a

kid.

All right, Joe Specky is standing by on this Thursday morning at 8 35 first a little bit more with Sean O'Malley about your money and the markets and we're going to talk about the bubble in AI But Sean before we wrap things up here

I gotta do it.

I gotta sound kind of sort of whiny here.

This is new from the Associated Press.

President Trump says he's made a deal with China's President Xi and that China has agreed to purchase 25 million metric tons of soybeans annually for the next three years.

Allow me to editorialize for a moment.

No, no, no.

No, this happens every time where Trump says we have a deal.

We have concepts of a plan.

Last time around, in his first term, he also did this.

He also said China was going to go back to buying soybeans, and they didn't right away.

It took a while for China to come back in, and yet everybody reads the headline, Sean, and we're not going to look at the reality.

This is once again Trump saying he has a deal without an actual deal in place.

Yeah, he's got a history of doing stuff like this.

He wants to paint a very rosy picture because that reflects well on him, he believes.

Unfortunately, until it's actually signed and done, I wouldn't say that you have any semblance of a deal, particularly since the standard purchases that China has made per year have been replaced by Brazil and Argentina.

Unless they're going to be increasing their purchases,

right?

So it means their Soviet purchases already locked in for this year.

Dear national media, you've learned nothing, at least put in the word claims, Trump claims to have a deal, blah, blah, blah.

All right, let's set that aside.

That's the that's the breaking news there.

Now we were spoke, speaking a little bit ago about what is seems to really be becoming an AI bubble in the in the stock market.

Is there anything that, you know,

Your typical investor should know or do like stay away from or do we need to when you see what appears to be a bubble?

Do you start hedging ahead of time or what do you what do you advise?

Yeah, you should start to head to head of time That's why I made that statement right after coming back from Europe a couple of weeks ago That is still my statement is what I'm doing personally.

I'm advising others to do it, but let's just put it into perspective for one second.

Okay, so

These are facts.

The real question is whether AI is going to live up to the hype, yes or no.

But right now, the valuation, the AI bubble is 17 times the size of the dot-com bubble, 1717, and four times the size of the real estate bubble from 2008, which caused, of course, the financial crisis.

So if it pays off, great.

But that is a lot of risk and that is a lot of exposure and that is a lot of concentration and you really want to roll the dice.

And by the way, even if it is that successful, we just went over all the layoff numbers.

It is coming at such a price in terms of labor and we do not have the policies in place to make sure that all these Americans who are losing their jobs because of essentially automation can either find new work or have

you know the proper safety net to say hey it's great the robots mean we don't have to work so much anymore but let's make sure we can afford groceries so I mean there's a lot that has to be processed we didn't get it right with with NAFTA and we we we risk not getting it right with AI as well he said

whining you know yeah true but I mean the the real issue is that um

you're looking at the possibility that, you know, with, especially with this administration being so, you know, pro deregulation, there is going to be no safety net.

It's going to be laissez-faire and you've got to watch out for yourself because that is the attitude of this government.

All right.

I've gobbled up too much time for us to get to the trade deficit and the national debt.

We're going to get to both of those next week as well with Sean O'Malley.

Sean, thank you so much for all the expertise.

I appreciate it.

I have pleasure, Pat.

Have a

great day.

Yep, you as well.

All right, let's bring in Joseph Pecky for the rest of the hour here and Todd Alba will be joining us along the way as well.

Joe, how are you today?

I'm doing all right.

How are you?

Other than whiny?

Well, you see these things and it's like, again,

Why why aren't we learning this guy does have a track record, you know, I just feel like that's that's not being said nearly enough Anyway, let me let me put Parker Olson our fine producer on notice if Parker if you've got that sound clip from Congressman Derek Van Orden that we played just a little after 6 a.m I want to play it again because I think that I mean Congressman Van Orden has said some things over the past couple of days again trying to sound

moderate.

It's not really working.

He is what he is.

And so we came upon this clip from last December.

Okay, President Trump or Donald Trump had been elected was going to serve a second term as president.

Republicans were going to take the Senate and the House.

And so maybe they were going to end the dysfunction and passing a budget.

And here's what he had to say on one radio show.

When we have unified government, I'll be very clear about this when we have unified government.

If we cannot get our 12 appropriations bills through in a budget, then we don't deserve to be in the majority any longer.

We don't.

You know, I don't sugarcoat anything.

And I'll take the paint off anybody that is talking smack about these sorts of things.

That includes members of my own party.

So a lot of the reasons you got to understand that we didn't get a lot of things done was because of members of the Republican Party.

Some of our far-right guys

held things up in the rules committee.

They voted against rules if the rule passed and they prevented a lot of these measures getting through.

So that's true.

The other side of the coin is anything we do has to get through the Senate, which was controlled by Chuck Schumer.

It still is until we get through January.

So I'll say that again real clear.

When we have unified government, if we can't get our 12 appropriations bills through and a budget passed, then we do not deserve to be in the majority period.

I'm Becca Cook, and I approve this message.

I'm Emily Berge,

I approve this message.

I'm State Party Sherry, Devon Remaker, and I approve this message.

And Joe, every word he said is true.

Yeah, I could not have said it any better myself, and I don't want to talk any smack, or TVO is going to tear the paint off me, whatever that means.

So well said, Congressman, we agree on something.

Ah, yeah.

So that's that's where we stand.

We don't have to dwell too much on the shutdown other than the whole notion of let's again clarify the the cut in snap benefits.

The cutoff is not necessary.

It's never been done in a shutoff.

And there are literally billions of dollars in a contingency fund, expressly for this purpose of making sure families don't go hungry.

And the Trump administration says, Oh, no, no, no, we can't touch that.

Joe, the cruelty is the point.

It is a choice that they are making.

and families will go hungry, including some military families, which is unconscionable at any time, at any moment.

And it's the choice that Republicans are making because they would rather you pay more for health care next year than actually get to work and actually pass appropriations bills.

Yeah, there is some talk that, you know, there's a little chatter behind the scenes, maybe even involving Senator Tammy Baldwin to get some of these appropriations bills passed and

you know that that has me a little concerned Joe because on both sides of the aisle we're Republicans and Democrats so they're talking about how there's cracks in the in the unity and I know we don't want this to go on forever but I I do worry that once again we're we're going to get a case of Lucy and Charlie Brown and the football where they reach a deal to pass some appropriations bills and that down the road we will resolve you know x y and z

But that would involve a level of trust, Joe, that is just not there in Washington anymore.

No, it's not.

But I am as optimistic as I have been since this government shutdown that they're going to get this right.

And here's why.

Americans are procrastinators.

We are.

It's not just the college kids.

And a lot of consumers in the affordable health care marketplace have not

availed themselves of the window shopping period.

They do not yet know just how much these health care costs are going up.

And when you look at the history of the Affordable Care Act, what we have seen is that the growth, particularly in the last five years, has largely been in red states, in smaller communities that tend to vote Republican.

It is Republican constituents who are going to

have sticker shock starting Saturday when the open enrollment period begins.

And they will not be happy.

Their Congress people will hear from them.

And I think that that will create the space for a deal to happen, hopefully very quickly.

We cannot go a week without SNAP benefits available to people.

And Republicans don't want to go a week or two weeks with their constituents mad as hell about what they're going to be forced to pay for health care next week.

I hope so.

I was a little concerned by this one stat from the market poll yesterday.

Among Republicans, two out of three, 67% say the credits for health insurance should expire.

Well, of course, 89% of Democrats and 54% of independents want the credits to be continued.

Joe, I feel like either that 67% of Republicans that say the credit should go away either haven't shopped yet or

are I guess somehow kidding themselves that in the end they won't have to pay these higher premiums and like you said they're in for a rude awakening.

And what folks who are not on Obamacare plans tend to forget is that we end up paying for it when fewer people have health insurance coverage because the hospitals and the big drug companies and all the CEOs

they're not going to take a haircut on this stuff.

So it's going to mean that we pay more if we have happened to have employer-sponsored coverage or a part of a group plan.

And so this is a, you know, healthcare is, I think, the fifth largest component of the United States economy.

This is going to have aftershocks across the board if they don't get it fixed.

Political strategist Joseph Pecky is joining us on this Thursday morning.

Todd Albow will be along before too long as well.

Now, again,

my usual disclaimer on the Marquette poll or any polling, we don't get too deep into it, especially on the horse race stuff.

But it was intriguing to see some of the positions on various issues.

Here, let me, let me, I was going to do the governor one, let me do the one that encourages me the most right now.

Name recognition is still not high between the two announced candidates, appeals court judges Chris Taylor and Maria Lazar.

However,

Despite the lack of knowledge about the race, seven out of 10 registered voters said they are absolutely certain to vote in April when there will be a Supreme Court race on the ballot.

That is a level of civic engagement, Joe, that makes me very happy to live in Wisconsin.

Yeah, most states never see that amount of interest even the week before an election.

And

so I was not surprised by how little known.

these candidates are.

Mass communication is a thing.

There's a reason that campaigns have to raise all these resources to spend talking to voters.

That will come and it will come very soon for now.

Enjoy the lull when you don't have campaign commercials on here.

your TVs and your screens as you're watching your stories.

Yes.

Now, now as for the gubernatorial field on the Democratic side, and I say this completely tongue in cheek.

I love Francesca Hong.

But of course, how do you not have a subject line in an email that says

I'm number one in the polling for governor.

Now, here's where that polling is.

She's at 8%.

Lieutenant governor, Sarah Rodriguez, 4%.

Milwaukee County Executive, David Crawley, and State Senator, Kelderoyce, 3%.

Missy Hughes at 2%.

Undecided, 81%.

So yes, you can be in first place with 81%.

Or you can be in first place with eight, I'm sorry, 6% as Fran Hong is.

That other 81% is gonna take some time before they weigh in.

The other part of this is that in the Democratic primary ballot test,

The margin of error was 6.8 or 6.9%.

So

nobody's

outside of the margin of error of even having support at all.

Yes.

So again, that's the magic of polling.

But what you did get is obviously the candidates from Madison and Milwaukee are better known than other candidates.

Similar numbers you see on the Republican side as well.

But I was very encouraged, again, like I said, to see the level of civic engagement.

People understand that these races are big deals and that the August primary is going to be so important next year.

We'll continue this conversation just a bit.

We'll be joined by Todd Alba of the conveniently named Todd Alba Show as we wrap things up from Lake Wissota for a Thursday morning here across the Civic Media Radio Network.

I'm Pat Breitlo.

You're listening to Civic Media.

Find the latest news, information, and archives of all your favorite shows on the Civic Media website, civicmedia.us.

We got one more note off the text line before I forget here.

We did get a note from Joe in Superior.

about our segment earlier on Medicare Advantage Plans, saying the American healthcare system and understanding Medicare choices is such a cluster.

It's little wonder people throw up their hands and simply take the Medicare Disadvantaged Plan sales pitch, which makes it very simple to sign up.

And yeah, that's we talked about all the commercials for Medicare Advantage Plans.

And now more than half of seniors who qualify for Medicare, more than half are on Medicare Advantage Plans, not because they're so great.

But because they see all these TV commercials, whereas original Medicare, that's a government program.

The government can't run that many TV ads compared to the money insurance companies have.

And so again, the main thrust of our segment this morning was to look very carefully.

And don't just pick something because, you know, Joe Namath.

or JJ Walker from Good Times runs a commercial telling you to buy a Medicare Advantage plan.

So all right, having that out of the way, we welcome in.

Todd, all but to the discussion.

Todd, reporting from outside and the clouds are dark back there.

They're not palm trees.

And so I know he's not waiting for Hurricane Melissa, but it's a little gloomy where you are out there.

Thank God you're there brightening things up.

Thank you, Pat.

I am feeling dino mine.

That's how I am

before.

J.J.

Walker

reference.

Yeah, absolutely.

I'm here on the near west side of Matt.

I thought we'd go enjoy a little fall weather out here.

It's a beautiful time of year.

Yeah, well, you

got coffee and hand

tarp and good.

You got a coffee.

You got a hand warmer in the form of the coffee market.

Nice.

Todd, I was just going to ask Joe about something that you and I discussed on your program yesterday, and that was Senator Tammy Baldwin's announcement yesterday of endorsing Rebecca Cook in the third congressional district.

primary, which again is still almost a year away.

And you and I talked about the strategic advantages or disadvantages of a U.S.

senator making a declaration already.

I believe the word you used was coronation.

So let me get Joseph Pecky's thoughts on this first, and then we'll see.

Joe, I'll put it pretty bluntly.

Why would Senator Tammy Baldwin make an endorsement in any congressional district race at this early stage?

I don't know.

If I was a United

States Senator, I would not.

My speculation is that given that some of Senator Baldwin's colleagues like Bernie Sanders have already endorsed Rebecca Cook, that she felt like she needed to do that to give a colleague some cover.

I don't know.

I tend to think that primaries are a good thing.

And listen, the fundraising disparity

Certainly, Rebecca Cook has a big advantage going into next year.

And I can understand an argument that we want to marshal resources to focus on Mr. Van Orden.

But, you know, I think primaries are a good thing.

They're healthy.

And, you know...

But Tammy Baldwin is an awfully smart politician

who's

done very well in this state.

So who am I to question her?

No, and I can definitely be accused of overthinking this.

But what I said to Todd on his show was I think that Senator Baldwin looked at that there are divisions among Democrats in the Third Congressional District.

And this was her way of saying, not so much that this had anything to do with Emily Berge or the people that support her, but to say,

We need to be united now.

We don't have the luxury of waiting until August 12th of next year.

Otherwise, Derek Van Orden is going to walk into this again.

Todd, now that you've had a night to reflect on it, to what degree does it still constitute meddling or coronation as opposed to something more strategic on her part?

Well, I would just agree with what Joe just said, which is Tammy Baldwin

I'm on another show, Joe, you talk about this.

I think Tammy Baldwin, along with Tony Evers, are one of the few undefeated politicians in the state.

So yeah, she's pretty darn smart, less smarter than I am.

I come at this with a guy who lost two Republican primaries for the assembly.

So yeah, maybe I'm a little salty about it.

And also I pointed out this show yesterday, you know, and Joe knows this, when Tammy ran in the, what was it, five or six-way primary in 1998, she was not the favorite to

and a pretty rural second congressional district, it was Joe Winnickie, a more centrist Democrat state senator, so she benefited from a primary.

I guess I, with Joe, I just like primaries.

You find out who the strong person is, and I think that...

maybe last time around the third district, Mark Polkan, endorsement Katrina Shanklin, who I like a lot, is a very smart politician.

But I think you found out in the primary, Rebecca Cook was the better primary campaigner.

And so I think the campaign's primaries tend to do that.

Okay.

I'm giving this short shrift, and I completely acknowledge it.

We have not talked very much about Governor Evers versus legislative Republicans on the prison overhaul program.

Joe, we'll try to give it more time later, but in the very short time that we have here, is this just another case of legislative Republicans just trying to get in the way of whatever Governor Evers is trying to do, or is there a genuine need for bipartisan negotiation on this issue?

There has been bipartisanship on the prison closure issue and there needs to continue to be.

One of the hard things about, let's use the military base closing commissions,

the BRAC

commissions, when there are parochial local issues in a statewide system like the Department of Corrections, individual legislators are going to be focused on

their community and not the big picture.

The idea that before we have even brought in outside experts, the consultants who can look at the whole state, look at the whole picture and the whole system and make recommendations about what is the best path forward, that even before that happens, we're going to have individual legislators, you know, talking only about their own slice of the system doesn't make sense to me.

So this is

Fighting for fighting's sake before we've even got to the main event.

Let's let the undercard sift through this thing with outside experts.

That's what the $15 million is for.

Under 30 seconds, Todd, you want to add any insight on this prison overhaul debate?

I agree largely, Joe.

I think it's been ongoing this state.

It should have been taken care of administrations ago, and I give Evers credit for pushing it through.

There you go.

Finally on the text line from Jim and Brookfield.

Always good to see Todd Alba on the morning program.

Apparently looking to expand his role to be a weather channel reporter.

I love that.

Yeah

I mean Jim Centauri of Civic Media.

Hang

on to that lamppost there Todd.

You'll be okay.

All right Todd Aulo, Joseph Pecky guys.

Thank you both so much.

Appreciate it.

Thanks to all of you for joining us as well.

By the way Todd's going to have Chuck Collins on from Patriotic Millionaires at 2.30 this afternoon.

I'm Pat Krightler from Up North News.

Have a great day.

We'll see you Friday morning bright and early here up north.

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