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  • Podcast Transcript

    Please note we intially post un-audited, ML-generated transcripts and later revise them. As a result some errors may be present in the unformatted versions until they receive a subsequent and final review.

    And welcome back to the Polychromatic Podcast ! I am your host, Zach, along with my co - host, Elaine Filing. Isaac, How are you doing today ? Good, Good. What do you think of the snow ? You know, I'm not a huge fan of it's. You know, we've honestly been getting pretty mild winters, all things considered. Not not since you've moved back. But you know, for the past two years prior. Has been pretty mild. But looks like we're back to the normal, you know, snow and snow out. Yeah, except I gotta say, this long term cold snap we've had. I don't remember it being this cold ever. And I've lived in Colorado for so many years and honestly, it's been really cold. It has been in the biggest problem. The thing I have the biggest problem with snow wise, and is that it doesn't offer any time for the other snow to be to melt away. So you know, it's like it's like a permafrost kind of situation. Since when do we have this grungy snow in Colorado ? Usually it's bright white and it melts away in a few days. Yeah, that's the three hundred sunny days a year. That's why I was. I was always told him that's how we get our three hundred sunny days, the sooner sunny days to melt all the snow away. I'm looking forward to it. I cannot wait for Spring ! I will be so excited ! While I'm sure you know, with your history being out in California, you know, being formerly a Cali girl and all you know that you. The cold winter, you know, really really sinks into your bones. No kidding. It's taking me a while to adapt. Regardless, it's great to be back in Colorado with my son and I'm really really great to be doing these podcasts with you. I'm really enjoying this while. It's great to have you back. And I'm also enjoying these podcasts as well. And so anyways, I don't think we have any side topics to talk about other than I wanted to update you guys on the stash. The website and pretty much all the main features that I want there or I need there are there, and if included, the ability to be able to comment on new podcast episodes and those automatically as we syndicate them from RSS dot. Com. R. Our actual podcast host will appear on the website and you'll have the opportunity. Opportunity If you sign up for an account, It's real simple. It doesn't involve you and a password. You basically just submit your email address and you know an alias or a user name that you like to use, and you'll be emailed to what's called a magic link and you can click on that magical ink and you're automatically logged in, so you do not need to remember another password. Were you able to comment on our new episodes ? You are also able to send us a note if you like using our contact form, or there can be other various uses for it. As if. Outline anything on the previous podcast. One will be. If you do contributed the podcasting you do sign up. We will obviously have some sort of special way of setting you aside with your user name or your identity or alias to show that your contributor. So, but other than that, everything's there that I want you know. And we've also written up all of our sites section, so it's a. It's a pretty completed thought of a website, which I'm pretty proud of, because let's say, for most website projects, and you know, previous and recent memory. That has not been the case where I've completed all aspects of it. So it shows. Allow your excitement about this and I'll tell you he's been so dedicated. I mean, staying up the other night til four thirty in the morning. Yeah, yeah, the thing I wanted to say thanks for making it so you don't have to remember your password. I really think he did this for me because I never remember my password and it's been so frustrating at times. I'm sure for his act because he's going, What's your password ? I'm going. I don't know. I don't remember. It was really good though. Doesn't work and I think that's what I really like. Especially by your. Designed to this because people can just come and just not even worry about that aspect of it. Yeah, yeah, you know, I wanted to lower the impact threshold of effort for people getting on the website to. You know, even if it's just like a one time to leave us some feedback and. And the great thing is from a security standpoint to their advantages to a passwordless system. And the main advantages for. One thing is most people are not encouraged to use different passwords on different websites, right ? So if our database got hacked or some other sites website website, you know a website database got hacked, then if you recycle know passwords across websites depending on their storage features, there are ways that they can reverse engineer. These are called call password hashes. Sometimes there is also a thing called salting. I'm not going to Gurley go into too much detail about it. But suffice to say, there's ways that you can. He can revert or reverse engineer the passwords to be able to find out what they are so they can use them on other forms. It's a pretty typical practice in the hacking community, so the bottom line is a pass through the system. The advantage is really the only way that your. Your account will be compromised on this website is if your email address is compromised on this website, which of course our website would not contribute at all to those ends because there is no password even if you did recycle a password. So there you go. Well, I just wanted to say again, Thanks so much for working so hard. I really love what you did with it. It's colorful, it's eclectic, it's different. It's very organic and rich and earthy. And all those great things that I love about a website when they're created in a way that is very unique and you really accomplished that with this. Thanks. You know, this is very much been a passion project and I'm usually really good at executing things in that manner. And if I can really pick up on the passion pick up on the image of what we're doing, it becomes oldest like, you know, I'd say infinitely easier versus like if I was working on a client, freelance terms, you know, on a website or whatever. You. It takes some time to really understand branding and identity and just one dimension real quick. Your influence on the website and initially the background was just a static gradients and you know, you had suggested. Wouldn't be cool if it. If it's cycled through colors and so that was your suggestion, so was added. But you know what's interesting as it kind of harkens back to a couple of years back when I purchased my first set of hue Philips hue bulbs. And there's the color loop option. And so Reinvite reminds me of that color loop. I had for a long time had envisioned designing something website related related that involved the color loop. And there you go. It's right on our website. And not only that, but what's so perfect about it ? And it's like hindsight twenty twenty. Realizing this is that since it is the Polychromatic or the Play chromatic podcast, what a befitting, you know, like, in other words, it's cohesive. The website design is very cohesive with a name with a branding and also is. Is also cohesive on the. On the side that the census is the polychromatic podcast, its multi - hued it is, you know, more than one color. Just like our topics are more than one color, they take on many different forms. Well, thanks so much for that compliment. And you know, I really appreciate you mentioning how that color change. And you know, kind of the rainbow kind of effect. It is really sort of sui lack thing to look at him. He could just look at it and really enjoy it. But honestly, it's beautiful. And I just gotta say that you put a lot of soul into it while. Thank you and I'll even share one find. One funny moment is when I did prototype to my mom what it looked like with the background, I decided to turn up the transit, the animation transitions. I turned down the animation transition time to be really low and I was joking with my mom that it would be seizure inducing and also just looking at the screen. You know, so that she's like behind the computer, right ? And so I'm seeing the color light up her face from the screen. I'm not seeing the screen and it looks like the police are here like I'm seen read and and and a blue oscillating on her face. So of course we were just doing that to mess around. We were not going to really cause people to have seizures or make fun of people that have an epilepsy or anything like that but he was just kind of a funny moment. A funny thing to do. So then I of course turned it back up. Actually, I think it was at fifteen seconds and then turned it to thirty seconds. As a matter of fact, I turned it down to one second just to just to show her. Just for her to be funny. So I thought for a minute I was told a satanic or something. I mean as going, What is this really doing this ? And then we just started laughing. We just had a lot of fun with it. So not only have you put the time and energy, but also I think that it's also been really fun for me to watch you develop it and show me that that changes and it just come together so nicely. And then also just having fun. I mean this this whole podcast and the website. Even though I know you. You put labored many hours for it, I see. I can see that you actually had fun putting it together because it was like it was your. It was just you and that's what I think made us a beautiful. Because it really shows the beauty that you have. And I mean that thank you. And I was going to say the website is a bit like Fever Dream Drug Dream inspired you. Notes and the fact that it's so colorful and. And you know it's got the greeting. The colors and stuff, so I'm sure it'll, you know, capture people's attention for sure. But you know, we really wanted to get across that. It really is kind of an extension of the eclectic nature of what we talk about. And you know, is very befitting a. You know, I. I was ultimately came back to you as well with. You know, the naming of this podcast as well was due the fact that you know, there's a multitude. Native nature. I've worked on other past projects before, like one of them was Escapism, which was a. You know, a poor man to have the word escape and prism and. And but here you know you came up with polychromatic, and then we're like as polychromatic taken and they were like polychromatic. Haha. So, you know, we're able to do some. Some of our own branding in that sense. And I've just thought that the whole idea of a fact we're talking about different subjects and the fact that you know we spans a spectrum is perfect for. You know, the. The visual of a prison in the way that it shines the rainbow of colors on to whatever surface you know. Well, I just have to say for those of you that have insomnia, check it out. I think it'll put you to sleep. It's very, very relaxing and the colors are incredible. So is entrancing. It's mesmerizing us. All the above that so many ways. What are we gonna talk about tonight ? Well, you know, we thought about this first off we were thinking of. And we thought that we would have time to get around to put out another podcast before this time. Sorry, that didn't happen, but we are committing to the. Once a week and when we're able. More than once a week is just going to have to kinda depend on our schedules. And my mom is working a full time job. I'm not working fulltime job at the current moment, but in the next couple months as I get better with PT, I'm going to be looking for a job and working at a job so it's going to take a little bit of massaging. I think we're fine with coming to once a week. I think that's totally doable and that on some weeks we. Definitely. In our heart we would like to do it twice a week, but in reality we couldn't just have to. You know, we don't want to overcommit until you. More and a higher frequency than what we're able to commit to use. Let's just say once once a week and when we're able to. More than once a week. Okay, I'll settle for that. I'd love to do it every day. And I have. Is saying Hey, let's do it two times. Maybe we could do three in taxes. He will as take care and I had to stop and think you're right. You know what. Once a week. If we do more than that then all the better. But ta as we progress forward, that could all change some day. Yep, but for the time being right, this is. This is the way that we decided we probably need to be reasonable and shoot for two. But if we. And make sure we do at least one and that's where you know passion can. Passionate can sometimes get in the way and not a bad way, just in the. In the sense that you know we. What we don't want to do is overcommit to our fans and then for them to be burnt. Being like, Oh god, you know I was looking forward to another podcast. You know we don't know what you're doing when you're listening. This podcast. Been all actuality. I imagine it's probably something work related. I mean, that's where I would use podcast for. Is mostly when I'm at work, I'm just waiting to kill time while I'm doing something, you know, brainless. That's, you know, a built up muscle memory to deal. But anyways, one other thing I want to do real quick before we get started, as did want to do a shout out, not the full name of the individual, but to sue F. She donated two hundred dollars to the podcast to help us out and sue. We just want explained where your money's going. Your money actually helped pay for the first year of our hosting, an RSS dot com for our podcast. So thank you very much for that, and also helped us secure our domain name Polychromatic dot com for the first year as well. So thanks, Vic. Shut outs, huh ? Su F for that. Thank you so much ! You can also check out on our website on the Contribute or donate page. You'll see her name listed. If you want your name listed as well, please get in touch with us. We will be sitting up at least a Paypal or Venmo or some sort of donation link here shortly, But in the meantime, if you're willing to donate sooner, just get in touch with us on the contact form and we'll get that set up and sue. You know, I really appreciate just like Zach said, your donation because it was self from the heart and it's like you wanted to encourage us and we had that really great discussion with you about it and immediately said Hey, how can I help and just immense. So much does can I. And you barely touched us deeply and I I am a sack. Thanks so much Because you know that really not only encouraged us because we are already excited, but it gave us that extra push to really get going. So hats off to you soup ! Yep, thanks so much for believing in us and being our friend. And you know, we look forward to putting up podcasts. We hope that this can become part of your everyday enjoyment. And certainly you deserve the enjoyment given the fact you helped contribute. But you all are deserving to listen to this podcast. But we really appreciate when people do contribute because we're putting our heart and soul into this. And you know we did upfront, you know, throw it together. Twenty five hundred dollars for our equipment. So in no short amount of money. But I do think that's her. As we've been told from the people. I've listened to us, right ? Mom, All the people that listen said that sounds really great. The only thing we're trying to remain to hammer down is when we might have my cousin come by in the next couple of weeks for dinner. And he actually went to school for sound design. So and sound engineering. You know, he went to full sail in Florida. I can't remember how many years back he's actually does web development and other stuff now, but at any rate, you know he. I asked him. Justin's spur of the moment if you could help out, and he was more than willing. Even provided some feedback that we implemented to this podcast. So this will be another data point for him until you know. And various other data points until he comes over for some chicken and dumplings. Love you, J. Yeah, we love you, Jeremy, We love you, man, you're awesome. Noone, Can we really love you guys and we look forward to seeing the other cousins do. Absolutely. All right. So without further ado, and I hate saying that it's so overdone on youtube and everywhere else, let's let's not even say that. Okay, I'm so sick of that without further adieu thing. And so anyways, we're going to start off with a podcast day and the topic is while the over arching team and we can branch out some from just focusing on energy specifically because the rising process, right ? Rising prices of of everyday living, you know, the well we're making the primary focus on tonight is going to be specifically energy bills as they've been, you know, affected by whether or not they are affected by Ukraine or whatever. But as they've been affected in the past. I dunno. For five months as we've noticed it. And so that's going to be the primary focus. But we'll also let. Things can be loose enough that we can go off to the side and talk about other rising costs of things. And just in our opinion, and in my opinion, my. You know, my sole opinion at least. And I don't think it's far off from my mom as this is. Pardon my French. Fricken. Ridiculous. And you know, another word that starts with an F. This is ridiculous. Level of this is level of of exploitation going on with energy prices. And to the point that you know everyday people and. And you know, for us, you know we're not at the bottom by any means. But for if you're middle class or lower class, I mean, how the hell are you supposed to eat or eat and you know, pay pay energy bills, eat, you know, afford car insurance, gas for your car. All these all these different kinds of things. You know, how are people supposed to come up with an extra on average, thousand to two thousand dollars a month ? That's what. That's what I feel like. I may. Maybe I'm exaggerating a little bit, but I think it's easily. Everything's about five hundred thousand dollars more a month. Oh, you are not exaggerating. As a matter of fact, I really truly believe we had a gas leak. Because. Shocking. Yeah, I mean, then I started talking to my coworkers and Zach started talking to people and we just see so many people. So angry. Yeah, And because it's monopoly. We need to heat our homes and we need to stay warm. And God bless the homeless people. I don't want to leave that out because every day my heart goes out to them. I don't know how they're doing it with this weather and it's just a really sad thing. That's whole totally different topic. You know ? I do wanna comment on that in a second. Okay, I just wanted to say that tie. You know, when I just mentioned we need heat immediately my mind went to the homeless. And that is near and dear to my heart. Because I totally feel so sad for them. And I know people are dying out there and it really bothers me. So I don't want to make it feel like that. I'm entitled because I need heat. But truth of the matter is, if I were out there I would not survive one night. And I can guarantee you that because I don't take the cold well, so I cannot imagine. And God bless them is. I've got to say yeah on that topic. And at least here in Denver, I think it was four or five years ago. Denver police were taking away people's sleeping bags during the middle of a really bad cold snap. And the. Aseel you got involved when they found out about this human rights violation as it should be a human rights violation. So basically we aren't. You already know that he'll. Homelessness and this is not the topic of the episode, but did want to kind of go off on a tangent here, just for a second. And homelessness in this country is becoming increasingly illegal. Becoming illegal to be homeless. It's. You know, it's ins and so you know it's a crime to be homeless. And and so the bottom line is they took away these people's sleeping bags and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see why. Literally you take away the sleeping bags. You. They hope they die. Problem solved, right ? You're homeless. Problem of homeless people coming up to people and asking for money or whatever, you know. And it may not even be that. I think police sometimes just aren't such much of that on such a power trip that they go to the point of just doing those kinds of things even when the public is not complain about a homeless person, How do we look and value people in general ? I think that's the first thing that comes to mind. Why do we have ? Because as from the first broadcast and I'm going to probably say this a lot. The labeling we have of people automatically believing that people are homeless are lazy. That is ridiculous. Do you know how many people lost their homes and businesses during covet ? Number one ? Number two, there are reasons why people may have lost their homes in it. And a lotta times it is not out of sheer laziness. So you know, that is just all I want to say about the labeling aspect of that. It's like we sort of in our society. I gather that we think of things one way and sometimes we don't have that compassion and empathy that I feel is humans is necessary to live in this world. And we automatically come to these conclusions that are really pretty ridiculous. Yeah, you know what I think the reason why any of us are upset at homeless people or feel we're on homeless people is just the vulnerability aspect. I think all of us really subconsciously know that we're one paycheck, one illness away from being homeless into how to show vulnerability with someone on the corner there. That point. You know what I mean that's what I think of. And so I've always told myself, you know, up until my most recent issues with health, I've told myself, you know, even if I work a job that I don't like, you know, or I do like, but I have the stresses of editing. It's like, Oh God, you know. And I think we all have that kind of very much the human condition unit to hear we have a job that you know is paying the bills and stuff. But you're kind of like, just like, Oh man, I wish you didn't have to work, etc. But then you remind yourself, by working a job, I am preventing that from happening while it. And it's being really very thankful. Guess, and thankful it comes from a place of thanks and gratitude. Ranks of like thinking, Gosh, how come home tired, but thank goodness. I have a job because I can earn an income which gives me a warm place. This is exactly me. Hot food on the table. And that's not for everyone in like that to said, I always think of that to hate. You know, there's nothing that keeps a lot of people from becoming homeless. I mean, we. It's. I've known people that have lost everything on selective. Yes, so just bearing that in mind because we feel very, very passionate about that And so I just. You know, I know we went on a bit of a tangent, but I think it's important to talk about that cause you know some of these topics we talk about. And like I love. I love what you said there, Zach. Maybe because it makes us feel more vulnerable and maybe when we see that, it makes us think. Oh my God, But if that were to happen to me, and now that is quite possible. Some people because none of us can really predict what can happen in the future. And we both are very aware of that. Well, I appreciate that you went there first because they think it would be a miss for us to be talking about how other people were affected. How were people, how we're. How other people are affected and were affected by this without first talking about, you know, unspoken elephant in the room, which is, you know, what about the homeless population ? So I think it's important that we at least acknowledge that first. So thank you for doing that. I think that was a really important part that you brought out there. So what we found is in the past pretty much for us. October was the last regular month for a bill for us. The last regular bell. What's a regular bill ? I would say it's anywhere from as little as maybe one hundred and ten to his highs may be about to seventy and and at times even when I had additional roommates living here, I think the highest it ever got was foreigner. Fifty bucks, but that was with like five people. And it was in the middle of a really bad winter. And two thousand and fifteen. Or yeah, or sorry, twenty fourteen, rather. And so. But you know, with two people it shouldn't be that much. And I mean, I'm not even showering. Sorry to say this, I'm not even showering every day. And you know, so I can't explain this. But basically, in November, November was very cold, right ? November ? And I believe to San Francisco that cold snap in December November was the one because you remember how we had to go to Scott's place to to fetus cat ? That was as I do. Haha. And then November also was pretty cold. Yeah, it's been unusually cold for Colorado. And I remember when they actually. And I really appreciated when they were predicting possibly as low as minus fifty five degrees. They actually were looking for places to put the homeless. And I think wow, does it really have to get that bad ? But anymore, we're not going to go back there. But I'm just saying they did consider that during that time. And I give people credit for realizing that during that time there would be a lot of people dying there just be probably people all over that had. That had died from the cold it was. It was that cold. So yes, doing. In answer to what you just asked November, December and January was called to come on. Hey, I think it's. It's been very, very cold from November November onward and to the point where honestly, I've gotten in the car and just shivered so much I can't stop shaking afterwards. That's how cold to spend to me anyway. Okay, so what we have is for our bill in November for electricity was seventy twelve and gas was one hundred and forty five, fifty three. So also together all sit together and this would have been an October Milan, Sorry, October for September. Oh yeah, because they cause as the. From the month before graph, so that would have been for September. And then October was hundred and forty gates who double on electricity and three or five more than double on gas. K. And then December rolls around. And then for electricity, we're at two hundred and thirty nine. So that is seventy one, forty two ten. We're already at three times the amount for electricity and gas is now at two fifty two, which is not quite double. But the reason why the electricity went to Bhutan is because we started using space heaters, cause at. Believe it or not, electricity is cheaper per kilowatt hour than it is for gas per therm. And so we thought that we were getting ahead. But ultimately we ended up paying more because the collective of those two that this summation of those two came up to just shy of five hundred dollars. Now we get into January a kiss. This is a month where things were not as cold. So we did not do what we did with electricity. So we only spent ninety two dollars. So comparisons sake, that's somewhere in the middle, but on the low end. And then gas was three hundred and sixteen dollars, the most that we ever spent. But we didn't even turn up the thermostat. He didn't. And why ? Like I said, I've not been taking showers everyday. We're not been using hot water that much for the dishes or anything like that. There's absolutely no way to explain away the fact that our bill was three hundred and sixteen dollars in nineteen cents for the gas portion. And so, you know, I have some other things to say about my mama. Opportunity to say whatever her pieces. Before I go to go into the breakdown of doing the math on what this all meant for us. I'd like you to get into the nitty gritty of this. Because we actually sat down to gather and listen to each charge because we look at your bill. There are several charges, and although it doesn't look like that much, it adds up like your four dollars here. Two dollars there, and they've got all these charges and we're going, What is this one ? Well, what is that one ? So we thought that we would include you in this after we broke down the charges to define what each one is. So you've got the information before USAC. If you want to kind of to give us the nitty gritty of what the breakdown is, that would be helpful. Yes. So basically what we're looking at is, I already went over basically with seventy dollars in October for September. So what was the breakdown ? And basically we start off at seventy. So the last was seventy dot one, two, so seventy dollars and twelve cents. And the highest it was for electricity was two hundred and thirty nine. Sixty eight. For the most part, electricity remains pretty stable on price and pretty stable on usage. And it's not surprising the month that we use the space heaters that is as high as it was the mural topic, yours, Gas, But we're going include both just for the sake of realizing what it all means. And then for gas, the lowest we have would have been in an October four. Yeah, sorry, October. For September, it was one hundred and forty five dollars and fifty three sensors on the low end. It got as high as this past month, which was not even the coldest month in January. And er, guess maybe it was for December. I dunno, it was three hundred and sixteen nineteen. So let me do the breakdown. So every month from September, October, November, December, January, five months the price on average. One. I've done the calculations on the two most expensive line items, and you know, negating the other ones because they are just a few cents or a fractions of cents. We're looking at my computer to sell Superego a dollar ten in December for some reason, and we must have gotten some sort of tax or some sort of an tax break, some sort of usage break, cause it was as cheap as seventy six cents per kilowatt outer per per kilowatt hour. And again, this is an approximation. Is probably higher because it includes absolutely every single one. I didn't want to do that kind of math, but the two most expensive line items on each section, so we had seventy six cents was the lowest for electricity per kilowatt hour, up to a dollar ten per kilowatt hour for comparison, sake, gas to get ready for this gas was as little as a dollar fifteen. And this last month the dollar sixty four. Oh my gosh, So in addition around November, they basically doubled the cost of gas already. I was talking on the phone with the person at Excel and it went from, I believe it was fifty forty nine cents a kilowatt, Sorry, forty forty five, forty nine cents per therm, to ninety one cents a therm. And then the other one was the kilowatt hour. One also was from like, I think I believe it was nineteen cents to thirty three cents or something, but not nearly as much of a jump. And then it went beyond as increased beyond the ninety one cents. But the thing that miffed me the most, the part that gets me the most upset is not just shelling out five. Hunt over like four hundred, anywhere from four hundred to five hundred dollars a month for two people to heat a house that we're not even using. We're not even keeping the heat on where we're under our sheets most of the time. And you know we're not when our thermostat stays pretty much anywhere between sixty nine and seventy two, seventy three degrees. And so we have it on very conservative settings. By all accounts, we could turn it down a degree or two, but I don't think we should sacrifice our comfort. And gosh, I went off on a whole bunch of things. Let me think of what else I was going to say about this. Well, let me just say Zack, from my understanding, just overall, I just want to throw this and why you're pausing for a moment. My understanding is that when you call, the first thing they told you is that oh, gas prices have gone up. Yeah, san, as were listening to this video of each cost that we're going through. They're talking about. They have to make up for let two thousand twenty one cause he didn't charge us enough. Yeah, so hold that. That I remember was going to say real quick and we'll go to that. What I was miffed about is everyone I talked to the XL represented if they explained about the tier pricing. So quarter one, January, February, March, those first three months, Q one, April, May, June, QTR July, August, September, Q Three and October, November, December queue for. Throughout the year they have a tiered system where throughout the year the price will increase per quarter. And then once you get to first quarter when the year rounds out and you get to the next quarter, which is then resorts from. It's the transition from Q four to Q One, you should be going from the highest rate you pay per year to the lowest rate you'll pay per year. Guess what though ? This year when we transition from Q Four to Q One, the gas went up an additional two cents not go down actually. So that means that Q started Q One is now the highest. And then we get to queue for at the end of this year it's going to be even higher. You know it's crazy too. Is that I was looking over Xcel Energy's website and they said there are ways that can improve so much B. S. It can improve your bills. Will you know when you talk about not having enough money to to really pay for the bills with including everything else has gone up with groceries and just everyday living expenses, they're telling you you should put insulation in your house. Should we do when does this like ? I'm thinking, Wait a second. How is that helpful for people ? And I'm talking about people like maybe more elderly people, people who are unable to work. How do they afford this ? And then yeah, they're going to be able to go out there and get a window company. Come in and put new windows in the house. That is ludicrous. I agree, but here's the worst part. Let's see you do all that stuff. Okay, let's say that you get the most energy efficient windows. Lets see that you spend seventy five thousand dollars. Kiernan, That's probably not that. Not that much for winterizing your home okay. But let's say that you somehow take your nest egg your entire savings account. And if you have seventy five grand, you're doing pretty well, by the way, in today's world, but lets. You got seventy five grand invested on double pane windows are triple pane windows. You invest in all new insulation you invested on. You know, you know we have enough of old boiler system. Let's say that there's something more efficient than that. Which, by the way, boilers are not that inefficient. I don't think. But you know, with whatever the best you know heating situation is. And you and you, you know do all your new appliances and baba lot right ? So you do like a huge energy audit and you do all that stuff while. Guess what ? What's going to happen when the bill still high and they say they still make that something. Recommendation. Oh, have you considered, you know all the energy efficient things you can do ? Well, what if you've done all those and you can still not pay the bill ? What does that mean ? Kind of speechless. I think I would be extremely depressed and pissed because you spent all your savings thinking that in the long run you'd be able to recoup it from the savings in your bills. Yeah, and then you're really stuck because you've spent your savings on trying to update your home to make it more energy efficient. And in fact, now you're really stuck, right ? Yeah, if anything, I think there's very little incentive for those programs. And we can talk about how there's a line out specifically for the fact that everyone's helping pay for other people to have those. Some of some of the subsidies that Excel does give out to supposedly help pay for some of this stuff, but I was going to save. From my point of view, there's very little incentive for people to do it. I'd say if anything, and I'm not. I don't work for a solar company or anything like that. I think the the one number one thing that. Mind you, it's really a problem if there's hail if you live in an area with hail and then I dunno how that works for ensuring them, etc. Etc. Etc. But having solar panels few can actually save quite considerable amount of money with that. I just think it just depends on what your usages. If you're a person that doesn't use very much, you could potentially almost work exclusively off of your own solar panel solar energy while in Colorado, especially because of all the sunshine we usually have. Although it's been pretty grey the last couple months, but for the most part we do get a lot of sunshine, so it would be. I think it would work really well. Yeah, Colorado. Believe it or not, I didn't tell you this, but back in twenty sixteen I had a door to door canvassers that knocked on the door and actually listen to her spiel. She was with a sore company and she said you would you like a free estimate ? So sure. So they did. As they got up on the roof in the measured actually deemed have to get up on the roof. I think they actually. Actually, I'm wrong about that. They took a picture from Google images and were able to figure out which side gets the most salt solar light and to know which size would have the panels to figure out what they'd be. And they said, I believe that the out of pocket costs would be twenty thousand dollars, but the government would pay back like ten thousand dollars over the course. I think the. Sorry thirteen thousand dollars over the course of the repayment plan. You'd only unappealing seven thousand dollars. All said and done, but it would be over the course of like ten years. But in that same tenure plan, think of all the other electricity that you save. The biggest problem by far with solar, though, in general, with any renewable energy, is the problem is during off hours. How do you know in the. In the simple answers, there are two options. One is you can just use your solar panels, solar panels, to essentially push energy back into the grid, in which case you no harm eater goes one direction, actually turn it the other direction and so will get credits for that. And that helps offset it. Or for people that respects you. No one is specifically used energy generate the energy and then use the energy you have to have. Batteries and batteries go bad and stuff. So there's a. It's a little more complicated than just simply getting solar panels, but I just want to throw that out there. Well, no, I actually think that's really important because that might be something for us to educate herself about. Because SA we could get more information and even share with our listeners about solar. I'm thinking if you live in a place where heating it don't get a lotta sun that wouldn't work as well, but certainly for people in this area and are places where you get a lot of sunshine. Maybe that's a thought because we. You know, we. We want to talk about these topics about a problem, but we also want to try out a solution or something that can be beneficial for everyone. Or asked you guys for a solution. We may not always have the answer. That's right. So you know. Since you mentioned that sack, that's something that we should really look into. Yeah, yeah, it's probably not worth a try. I probably wouldn't hurt it would be worth looking into lately. So we back to breaking down this bill. Yeah, So there's one thing that we should mention before all this. Okay, so first off, gas prices are at all - time highs. France, So first births Q, three, Q four of last year, they're doubling the gospel. And then they're adding to the gospel like a set. Q for Q one supposed to be less thank you for is actually higher than key for what does that mean ? Okay, that means exploitation. There's no other way of saying it. We currently live in a state where there is only one energy provider provider. It's Xcel Energy. So we don't have a choice. And as a matter of fact, I remember back and twenty eleven Boulder. They were wanting to miss plies. The Boulder power Plant XL didn't make that allowed to happen. Why ? Because, believe it or not, the Colorado Board that runs all this. They're basically Excels pocket. There's so much lobbying, goes, it goes on and whatnot. They basically and we will be talking about this about all the lawyers and stuff like they all they all that Excel has to do to increase the rates is just to ask for it. And they always let the bills go through if there's pretty. Basically very little resistance. But now we're hearing there's actually is some resistance. Fortunately, because it's starting to get to the level of pure exploitation. Which way will work ? And towards the end of the podcast because we found out some information, new information that just came through yesterday, which we're going to share with you. But I think just breaking down the spell and just how ridiculous. It's like I'm thinking really, they charge you for that instead of just having. You know, I mean, I used to think that you're charged this much electricity and this much gas. But I learned that when we broke this down. There's a lot of things with gas that you have to pay for, Yes, and for electricity too. But so get this Excels utility monopoly in Boulder County in two thousand and twenty one. The CEO made sixteen million dollars during this time. Word that Excel can't pay for everything because the gas prices and whatnot this year is making a record sixteen million dollars. Sixteen million dollars. Then people are struggling to pay their bills. And this is the biggest problem with capitalism in a nutshell. Pretty much is. What happens is. So the question is, who's paying for the ceo. Ultimately, I think I think we know the answer to that question. Would you like to answer in all of us ? Yes, Exactly. Because here's the problem with capitalism. Okay, capitalism does what we like to call public trading. K. We public publicly traded company. The biggest problem with public trading is it's not always in the public's interest what public trading does, but public trading basically does. Is it says Hey, if you want to invest in our business, would like, basically, you know, increase your value of your money. That's in. So they know they have earnings calls and all these different kinds of things for investors. And so what we basically do is we pick sell all this money, right ? And so what happens is all this money goes to seal. All this money goes to the investors. What's left in the coffers. Nothing is the same thing that happened with Boeing. It's the same thing happens with these huge billion dollar companies. Is all of a sudden they have one bad month or two bad months and they're looking at going broke. So what do they do ? They knock on Congress's door and say we're going to let go. You know, forty five thousand people from our company and they're all going to go on to welfare. So you better pay us money and gut. What does the government do we do it. It adds to the deficit. So the problem is that's not without consequences for our overall national GDP, etc. The fact that we're, you know, going more and more into debt. But anyways, Weiss just tries, though. Is the fact that this. That we're paying the CEO all this money during a downturn would accompany. Needs to do is they need a reverse. Do a complete one eighty. Realize that this is not a. A, a, a, a quarter or a. A yearly fiscal situation where they should be paying out anything. They are at a loss. They should not be paying their CEO records amounts, and they should not be paying out to their people record amounts. And so if they're wanting to knock on the irregulars door for our. And our energy, you know, in Colorado the need to not be asking for anything if they have the money. I think it's just absolutely ridiculous that the CEO make sixteen million dollars a year. You should actually what ? Yeah, for what ? Not only that. Shouldn't that his income go down some, especially if they are really struggling. I mean, why does he make that much consistent money that doesn't reflect what's actually happening ? Add two and two don't go together. Yeah, and so you know, and this is, this is the kind of cognitive dissonance, the kind of D Synchronization between reality in what you sometimes see in companies, in their behavior and their actions. So let me tell you the next one, This one's on another doozy. Each Xcel Energy appointed Colorado Energy Commission Board member makes around on average three hundred thousand dollars a year to lobby what's involved in doing that job ? I think I'll apply. So to lobby, you're basically attending all of the board meetings. All of the different meetings that the current Energy Commission Board puts on to basically put out the voice of Excel Energy's interest to further Excel entries. Excel Energy's interest in these meetings. So your advertising. You're all working together to come up with the basis for the charges. Or. Well, let's just give an example. During this downtime, most recently, XL has been asking for an additional amount of money they can charge for gas to consumers, even though it's a record high, even though they've already more than doubled. It is matter of fact. As per the line at him you're talking about in February, Two thousand and Twenty one, where there is a huge cold snap in Texas and just overall in the Midwest that affected so many people there, making the consumers pay for all those mistakes. So when let me give you an example in Texas, they know that the equipment that they equipped down there to handle the power distribution was not set up for anything colder than a certain temperature. It was not standardized. They were not using the correct infrastructure rather than Excel. Been following the books, doing things by the books and installing the right type of God. What are they called ? While they're basically capacitors, and you know, they needed to make sure that there were oil cooled and that they had insulation. They didn't have insulation because in Texas is normally really hot. The problem is if there's a cold snap that kills the grid. So that killed the grid down there. It also hurt the grid here. And so now Excel saying all the consumers over the course of what the next two or three, four years have to pay back. I think it's ten dollars a month on average for all this five dollars. They said in one case till two thousand twenty four and there was another twenty five was the other one. The other one was two thousand twenty fifth. So you know this is a really big problem here. Because what we're basically do is we have a company, a corporation that's not working in the public interest and they don't want. And you know, Minnesota cities two minutes police because he knows City of Boulder was very interested in his splicing while they tore that down the commission also toured it down. Which reason why they tore down is because they're right in their pocket. But what we've heard most recently, we don't know too much of the details, but you were reading about it is basically, finally, there is some level of this actually going to lie in legal terms being reviewed. Bright, Yes, I was just reading that yesterday. They're actually thinking of promoting some type of legislation that limits the increase of what they can do. Which really makes me think what they've been doing is not above board. Which commonsense kind of tells you that, right ? Yeah, So basically yes, as a matter of fact, Ah, they came up with this. A bunch of people got together. Ah, attorneys were hired to investigate this and that again, the thing that was shocking. I dunno. I get shocked anymore because oh god, the world, the world right now in general. But guess who paid for these attorneys ? Who we did even though to invest them, We. We had to come up that consumers are paying over two million dollars for these interni attorneys to investigate. Okay, here's the explicit part. What the fuck ? Seriously ? What the fuck ? I mean, You see, here's the thing is, I feel like all consumers are getting hit exactly with that. Absolutely everything. We're paying. All the taxes were paid for every single thing. But We're not all paying for every single thing. We're paying for every other thing to do. You know what I mean ? Well, I'm just reading here from the Denver Gazette and it just says XCEL officials said they've been working to keep customer bills low. Working. What kind of work they must be asleep by purchasing and storing natural gas when it's less expensive. Well, then, how come we're paying back Twenty twenty one ? Yeah, yeah. The company also can track spore natural gas in advance of winter to lock in prices. According to Excel. It's investments in wind, wind and solar saved Colorado customers about seven hundred million dollars in fuel costs. Between two thousand and seventeen and two thousand twenty two. And we're paying for that now. Yeah, while you did, did we also mention there's a line item that we're paying for all that infrastructure as well ? All of these, all of the wind and solar. Oh, absolutely. There's actually a line at him right on the bill. So we're paying for that one for it. But they're saving us the money. The way that this is worded, they have saved Colorado customers about seven hundred million in full in fuel costs, between two thousand and seventeen and two thousand twenty two. You know, what I wish they would do is actually right on the bill what that exact savings is. Rather than just blow huge figures in front of our face and try to impress us all the one thing we didn't mention. I love this because we were talking earlier about getting windows and getting new appliance and you listen to. That's the company. Encourage customers to explore ways to conserve energy and lower their bills by finding energy saving tips at Xcel Energy. Dot com. Slashed to just like the tips that were tipping people and we can't afford to tip any more. They're. They're providing tips to us, but they're not actual monetary tips. Their their their, what, their their ideas. Well then it says to learn more about energy efficient programs and options and rebates. Have you looked at ? The rebates are laughable. Yeah, the rebates are like we'll give you a few bulbs for free or something like that. Yeah, they'll give you some. They'll give you energy saving light bulbs for much less than you can buy them in the stores. Even though we're paying for dinner bill even though a painful er bill. You know, it's just it's. It's like we keep paying for things and it comes back. But like, don't you see that snowballs in their favor ? Yup. So if you're ok. I'm going to move on to the next point with this. Go for it. And alright. So during the gas shortages and crisis due to the UK to do to the Ukraine and I don't wanna call incident the crane or what do you call it ? I would say that the. You create in the war, the war on your brain. In twenty twenty two XL made record profits of sixty eight billion dollars. Now wait a second. How did they make record profits during a war with Ukraine ? Well, that's the question. Probably because they increased the price of the gas before the actual got price cut price of gas went up. Dude, I'm saying you think I am or what I'm taking that as as that is that we're paying more and they say they're paying more but I think they're paying their double charging us of what I said. I think so too. I think the. The preemptively increased the price before the extra nuccio. Number one and number two. You, as you already probably are aware of the reason why were affected with the cost of gas is kind of indirectly. What happened is because of the war in Ukraine for two reasons. One is because of the United Nations is won't cut off any kind of export situation for Russia. So that way their their economy's screwed in their current situation. These are the God. What do they call them ? The sanctions. Because of the sanctions they're preventing the shipping of fuel out of Russia. Turns out Russia is, I think the supply about a third of the world's gas. Energy like that's the only thing that. The main export, the only major export that actually affects you to the gross. The GDP or gross domestic product of Russia with exports. And so what happened is because of the sanctions. The European Union is not using any of that fuel, obviously not being exported elsewhere. So what does that mean ? That means there's now a shortage in Europe and so I don't so. Nor to fill those. You know, obviously they have to come from other places like either the Middle East are from the United States. I don't know if Europe does actually any sort of drilling or not, but the reality is that led to a shortage. And of course there's a thing called supply and demand, etc. Etc. Etc. So that's kind of my understanding of how. Of how this all worked as far as the Ukraine war's effect on the cost of both gasoline and natural gas. And. But so rare. Record profits of sixty eight billion and yet presented to the Colorado Energy Commission Board that they need to charge customers even more to defray their costs, I'll say. Important note, every customer is responsible for pain every aspect, including handling of the overhead cost of paying the CEO. And that's not paid out by their profits. Again, they're a publicly traded company. All their profits go to their stakeholders. So you think the profits that they would make for a. First go to the CEO and whatever's leftover would go to the stakeholders. Nope, that's not the way it works. It all goes to the stakeholders. And then we have to pay for the CEO. And we have to pay for the lawyers for any public situation to, you know, Mercy, I'm right on Xcel Energy's website right now and they have what's called a PIP. It stands for percentage of income payment program. Where the hell does that mean ? It means this ? Through these programs, Xcel Energy offers a percentage of income payment program that ensures customers or consumers are not spending more than six percent of their monthly income on electric and natural. Asheville, Where's that ? Because I don't think the city where near where we're at. Okay, hang held on for. Alright. The income threshold for eligibility for the program sits at one hundred and eighty five percent of the federal poverty level. What is that ? By the way ? Do you know they broke it down ? Or sixty percent of the state median income. So in Colorado, they give an example to the state median income is one hundred thousand seven hundred and sixty dollars for a four member household, making that family qualified for benefits at sixty thousand four hundred and fifty six. So that for working people doesn't matter just for people. And basically, they're saying if four people were earning twenty five thousand dollars, or in other words, for thank. If you have kids, Okay, but nonetheless, if you make less than sixty thousand dollars, Yeah, and you can get help sell. How can a family live family of four right now where I live off one hundred thousand, no, sixty out of sixty thousand, I'll help you if you make less than sixty thousand. I don't think that's possible. I mean, unless you're. I mean, because here's the thing, what is the. Let's just say that that for for individual for family a four person family was making. And sorry that their rent alone, lets just say was two thousand dollars. And that's that's very, very generous. That's meaning they're paying for a one bedroom, one bath, one bathroom place cave for four people. Probably not logistically possible. Let's see, that's what they're doing. Let's just say that's going to be about twenty two hundred dollars. K probably anywhere from twenty to twenty five hundred dollars minimum minimum. So how much are they paying just on rent alone in here ? Okay, so I went to a graph here. That's for four people in Colorado. Sixty percent for one person. You have to make less than thirty one thousand a year to get help. For two people, you have to make less than forty one thousand a year to get help. Now, come on, right ? And you want to hear the funny part this program you're talking about. Where's the money come from ? This program comes from. Every one that pays exactly that. Seventy five cents that's added onto the end of the bell. Which I really found this hilarious. Because this guy from Xcel Energy talking about the bell breaking things down, which I don't know what. Maybe we're not going to get to. I thought maybe we would. But that's okay. If we don't, it's probably not that important what each detail of every little broken part of the belt is. But regardless, I thought it was hysterical. The end where he said both for electric and gas, the seventy five cents at the end of the bail you can refuse to pay. Yes, you have to opt out. Automatically signed up for it. You don't even never told that you can opt out of it. But if you. If you complain about your bill enough. Apparently they tell you about a week and save a dollar fifty a month because that goes towards helping other people so we can deduct at dollar fifty. Isn't that amazing ? That's going to just be such a saver for. Oh god, you know I think a combine extra gumball or to know. So what they have down here for poverty is ridiculous. Because what they're talking about as far as annual incomes is so absolutely ridiculous. Because people that have those i it type of incomes of law of earning so little. Yeah, you're not the biggest problem with the government. The biggest injustice with the government. They have not updated the poverty level guidelines in so many years. They think that when do you think they. The last time they don't know I'd be curious. Sixties. Probably because there's a thing poverty level has always been. I think around thirteen to fifteen grand sixteen Grant hasn't changed that much with the standard of living. I think what the poverty level now would be if I'm thinking should be closer to probably like thirty five forty thousand. I feel like anything below like licious a great living thing. Less than twenty five thousand per person. No, just just just again perf per family. The. I don't know how it's broken down, but I'm just saying there's the figure licious. Not going to the tactics of that because I don't want to talk about that. Just know that yes. Usually the way it works with the poverty level is it does mean the entire family. So in other words, if you fail, if the whole family makes them less than fifteen thousand dollars, does poverty level ? You get the benefits. Fifteen thousand. Where'd you get that from ? You just look it up. And how in the hell can a family of four survive ? And fifteen thousand that if you. If you make fifteen thousand dollars or less, you can all be unmet Medicaid, You can get the the stamp program. What is it called ? Where you go, the grocery store, etc. Stamps, yeah, food stamps. I'm not making up. Just look at poverty level. Doing it for Colorado. I'm looking it up. It most is price. Seventeen grand has not gone up with the standard of living, you know, doubling tripling, quadrupling from where it was. There's no way people. I mean people would be home. I know that I know. Well, that's the way it is. They're not. It's the bottom line is you're missing the point of what I'm just trying to say. I know. So shocking. But the reality is you are so right. What on my gosh. The latest five year figures from two thousand and sixteen to twenty twenty American Community Survey reveals nine point eight percent of Colorado and earned incomes below the federal poverty line of twelve thousand, one hundred and sixty four per cent for a single person. So the problem with these poverty level figures is when the government refuses to come back around, right in every so many couple of years, least I think it needs to be done yearly, if not couple of times a year, but these have not been updated in decades. The same thing is true. I'm not getting into these whom he details about this. But imagine now. Let's just wait twenty or thirty years from now. Okay, imagine if use steals groceries, Okay, because you can't pay for them. Okay, because we're going to probably eventually get to that point and all of us will. But imagine if you sell groceries right now it would be a misdemeanor, right ? But when the groceries are over five hundred dollars, it becomes a felony and a felonies. Nothing you can ever get off your record. So I'm not encouraging people to commit crimes. The point I'm just trying to say is felonies five hundred dollars. That that law was written forty fifty years ago. So shouldn't a five hundred dollars be like two thousand dollars or three thousand dollars now in today's terms. And obviously the same thing's true with minimum wage. The same thing's true with. While they did some tax stuff a couple of years ago, but with the. The. A single deduction on taxes used to be twelve thousand five hundred. And forget what Trump's plan was, which is complete. BS. It was totally away for, you know, have powers that be that are rich Republicans alike to ultimately, in the long run, get a lot more out of the middle income and lower to middle income families by giving us a break up front. But then five years later the brakes mostly favor the companies and special interest. But the reality is there's not enough relief for us. And we're getting hit with all these other bills and we're paying for everything. We're paying for all of our infrastructure. And I hate to say this, but the rich are not paying their fair share. That is a fair statement. If everyone paid straight up fifteen percent, I'd say except for the people that are below poverty level and that needs to be. You know, I think people are. Poverty should not pay a cent at all for taxes. That's my personal opinion. This is quite interesting. Their say on when I said nineteen sixties. This is interesting. That is when actual aid, the federal poverty level developed was in the nineteenth. So that's where the figures from the nineteen sixties, it says, is now outdated measure. It's a blanket standard applied that across the country, with no recognition of higher cost and low cost areas. Yep, while it factors in family size, it doesn't take into account the age of family members, which significantly influences a household expenses. Supporting an infant, for example, costs much more than a teenager. It's basically sol. Pardon me, It's based solely on the cost of food and assumes food comprises one third of the families told them the budget, leaving the remaining two - thirds for everything else. Reality, Food now represents a much smaller slice of the family total expenses. Yeah, because everything else has gone up. But what's funny is now food is making a come back on how much it costs now. I mean, correct me if I'm wrong. I think food is about three times more expensive than it used to be, and gas is about probably about twice to three times as expensive as it used to be variably. And then house gas is more than doubled. I think it's close to sixty to seventy percent above where it was the previous year and then the year before. There were some also smother increases. This is just all coming out of left field. You know, this podcast is really been just. And we were discussing whether or not we want to do this podcast because we want to mix it up or not. I don't think this is inherently a negative podcast, but my mom and I were talking. We were kind of a little conflicted about even doing this. But I think it's important because it affects people and we want to talk about things that affect people and. And obviously, this doesn't just affect Colorado, it affects everyone and Sony ways. I just want to say the sixty eight billion yet presented the Colorado Energy Commission Board, Then the new charge customers even more to defray their costs. An important note, every customer is responsible for paying every aspect. As I was going into the profits go to the stock and stakeholders that have invested. So again, we pay for the lawyers, we pay for everything. So that's basically guaranteed profits. And in this case record profits during a downturn. To me, you know what that is ? That is beyond that. That's reprehensible. That's b ons. And I dunno, I don't have. I don't have a word to say for it. It's. Let's just put it this way, when the economy, when everything is so hard to live, they would rather pay out their stakeholders, record profits and exploit their customers by charging them more when they could just not charge them more and that would be the savings. You know, they may not may not be able to bring things down and then the stakeholders, they can just make their normal amount. You see, the problem is we're taking just like with healthcare, something we're taking things into away where these companies are making record profits during the downturn. That's not normal. And again, like I said, the problem with these companies as well as they have no way to have extra money in the coffers for when they have a downturn. Months. So what happens is they turn around, they go to Congress, they go to the government and they basically hold them hostage and say, Hey, if you don't pay us this money and then what does our government do ? They print more money in the form of bonds and then our national deficit goes higher and higher and higher. And again, why is this all happen ? All this is mostly happening and I'm sorry to over simplify. And I'm sorry if this message really upsets people. But it's true. It's the reason why it might upset is because there's actually some truth to it and people might say I don't know what I'm talking about it, but I have done my research. I've done my fair share of research is that if the rich were to pay their fair share, we would have a lot more social while wellness situations in the form of. You know, to frame the consumer's costs on a lot of different things. And if you. If rich people think that's not farewell, you know what, then we need to reach a time in our history where we go back to you paying your fair share. Because that was the time when we could go to the hospital if we couldn't pay our doctors bill, it wasn't like we're. You know, having to choose between paying money for the rest of our lives or etc. And just, you know, the pain of a two hundred dollar bill. It's it's inner. So all of these things are negatively affected by them not paying their fair share. You know, I'm just thinking that too. Like you were saying, having a certain percentage that you pay just a set percentage for everyone doesn't matter how much demanding upon. Makes it so much fair. Because, you know, when I went to. To Europe and actually to to France, I was on a tour a few years ago and I found out that they pay overall, which it seems a little high, but probably not really high compared to what we pay. But everyone is just charged twenty three percent total. Now that is their tax that includes their healthcare. While their deductions from there from what they make. It's a straight twenty three per cent. So basically it's consistent because the people that make last. Pay twenty three percent of what they make, and the people that are wealthier pay twenty three percent of what they'll make. So it becomes much fair where I feel like the middle class are the ones that are constantly stuck in the middle because of. Because we're the ones paying all the. All that and the low, lower low class and the middle class are paying everything well, absolutely, because people that have the wealth have all these deductions now that they can claim. And because they can invest in real estate, they can. It do all these investments. And when you are middle class, you are so limited. So you can then save on your taxes because you've got all this money you've invested. Can. And they're all tax write offs. Yes, and they're all. Tax rate. So the taxes they pay is much less than. Probably what we pay for our taxes. So this and this and this country was built on capitalism. It's always been there. It's been the one percent of people that always can make it. And honestly, we need to. As a country. Take a look at this because we've got some really sad things going on. In this country, like when we opened up with this broadcast and start take at talking about homeless people. I do believe we need to help out other people in other countries. But we're not even taking care of our people. We aren't. And we never do. You know what ? We're over in Ukraine helping out them with the war over there. And it's. The problem is America wins a time in our history that our government actually made the focus. The welfare of the people will. Hey, I've got an answer to that. I'm not saying it's perfect. I'm not saying Democrats are perfect, but I'd say in in memory I would say Obama with Obamacare, which was amazing. And before people go Obamacare shit and blah blah blah. You know what ? I'm sorry. I don't agree with you. I agree it's expensive. Do you wonder what the difference is between pain six to ten thousand dollars a year vs. Paying three hundred thousand one million yuan ? You to explain that to you cause I. I've had health issues. I can tell you firsthand what. That. That's still a better deal. I agree it should be cheaper. I agree it is not accessible to everyone in. That needs to be worked on. But I can tell you this if the rich pay their fair share. You want to know what our premiums look like on Obamacare ? What are the maximum out of pocket deductibles ? Would look like it would be laughable. Would probably be you have to pay. I'm just. I'm just this complete bullshit but I honestly think I'm not too far off the mark. You probably you'd pay me be fifty dollars for your premium and you probably would have a maximum out - of - pocket of fifteen hundred in. Your deductible would be one thousand. I just remember when you're sweet. Father was alive. Yeah, yeah, I look. I miss him. I miss him too. He is such an awesome guy. Yeah, and you know what if it wasn't for him we would have lost the house because of. Lot of things in. And realized he was so sick that towards the end he could not move around and he still went to work until he. Absolutely. The last moment he could. So you could make sure they got as much retirement benefits to go to my mom for the rest of her life. And it wasn't for that. I can safely say. And I think my mom agrees we wouldn't be able to pay on the mortgage and get the house to. Being paid off to where it is now. A lotta things wouldn't have been possible now. Actually, it's like so beautiful. Because he's always was protective and very caring of his family and it's kind of an amazing thing he's no longer with US Senate, and when we talk about it, it's sad. But I, I celebrate him and I celebrate our lives together with him. But the one thing that you're absolutely right about is in a way, he's. He's still contributing to us than in such a beautiful thing. Because that was first and foremost, he was very, very ill. He had LS and witches, or a really really horrific disease and very painful to watch. But also for the person with it. Extremely terrifying because you lose your ability to be able to move where you're actually paralyzed, but your mind remains sound and it's horrific. I I dunno, I can say is, Is that an awful thing to watch ? An awful thing for a person who experiences it ? But Zach's absolutely right. He would go to work and at his job. He was a supervisor and his boss was so great because he said as long as you can drive into work, you can set and supervise in your pickup every day and it was awesome. I mean to the very end. That's what he did until he could no longer walk. And Dom, Yeah, that's just something that remains very, very close to my heart and I'm thankful for every day. But where I was going with this is that he figured out one time and I think he's. But he was a smart man. I think he was pretty close with what he said one time he told me to. You know, that we really work five months out of the year. So January, February, March, April, May is non taxes. So the rest of the year we have earnings. So that's almost like half the year. You're working with the government for the government. Then you have an income. And I was going. Really when he said it that way, I said, please don't say that because that's really depressing. It's actually very true. So if you look at things that way, I don't think that the taxation in the way things are with health care and everything that goes into that is. Is really fair, especially for middle class people as we were talking about. And you know, I don't expect anything to change tomorrow. But I certainly do hope in the future that it doesn't continue down this road. That there are some breaks that we can get for for people in the middle class to work. I mean, honestly, you know what people that are. Middle class team are going to work, coming home, taking care of their children going to bed, getting up in the morning, doing this repetitive thing and you know what, only to pay their bills. I. You don't hear about people saving money. It used to be years ago. Oh my gosh, we're in the seventies. You could actually save money. You could actually say this month we've saved this much money. I don't believe anymore that it's really possible and it's minimal, if possible, to save that much. So is the stories. I remember you telling it. And then I have something else I want to say too, was that you and father were just working just very normal jobs. Not not in college educated. Yeah, just normal jobs, as the saying goes, when smart, but just normal jobs. I think he worked at a grocery store and you did various odd and odds and ends like linen, closet and. And other things. And collectively between the two of you, you'd reached a point where you have a mortgage on the house in your paint on that and various other things. But you've got enough money for groceries in the odds and ends on a given week on a given month that you get a paycheck. You both get a paycheck and you can go what, like maybe a couple months before putting those checks. Actually deposit those checks. I'm telling a story from the freezer. Actually, we did put checks in the freezer and and then we'd take him to the bank. It was just kind of a fun thing. We did, but nonetheless, honestly, we lived what I would call comfortably. Yeah, we were not wealthy. And what time was that ? What was the period time ? I would say the seventies in general were pretty easy, you know, because I'm thinking our first house we bought. I think our monthly payment was three hundred and fifty dollars. And that goes in the story. Starter home was what forty one thousand ? Well, we bought our first house for forty three five and it was nice. It was a nice house. It was a track on. But it was a nice house. And that's another thing that also is so depressing is that young people these days don't even have the opera even hear of starter homes Because there's not such a thing anymore. Because there's no homes that can be reasonable enough for young people, even if you've gone to college to practice. And that's a problem. Because, honestly, it's so sad to me. Because you know that American dream is gone is gone because it used to be that it was just. It was just the way we thought about life. You now you get married, you can buy a house. You can have children as well. Within reach. It was all in reach and it was reasonable. It was doable. Yeah, and you want to say something or quicker for sure. I was going to say that that back then. I feel like people would invest in real estate. But it wasn't like abused people would just invest some. So that meant there were new homes and there are homes that are on the market where they're not all marked up. They were just. Hey, it's no different than like when you go to the store and buy a toothbrush. You know there are all different comp types of competition and none of them are like forty box. They're all like five bucks. So it's not like it's not out of reach. But now it's like ought to reach. Because there's so many people that are invested in real estate and a lot of these huge mega mega and megalomaniac. And when I was a maniac, I love that about. Yeah, there are these huge corporate conglomerates that, you know one. All of this real estate. And literally they're just increasing our costs because they are middlemen for both rents, renting for, you know, businesses and renting for us. That is making it much more difficult. One. Do you realize that when a place pays rents, a restaurant pays rent, all that cost is coming back on to us just like it is for our rents. Just like. As for everything. So there are people that literally you're out there their own all of this real estate that are basically doing nothing than just basic landlord ing. They're making up the wazoo like I think. Tebow in Boulder. Oh my god, I think the other ones. Warner Group, those two pretty much one. I think it's like seventy percent of older. It's very. It's really very depressing. When I lived in California and there was a restaurant that went down because they couldn't afford. They kept raising their rent and this was in Laguna Beach. It's like one of my favorite places in the world is near and dear to my heart. Really beautiful. It's like a just. It's own space is just got. It's very very own and population of people that is very varying. It's. It's just very clear. It reminds me a lot of Boulder. I mean, you know, got a lot of different kinds of people and bolder and bolder vibe yet at athletic in many ways. But I was going to say that their rent went up and they were paying twenty five thousand dollars a month. Think about that. Twenty five thousand dollars a month in rent and what ? What did they do ? It was a restaurant or restaurant. Okay, and they will end. Landlord have to sell a lot of food. The food has to be pretty expensive. No kidding. And basically I actually know a woman. I used to go to her salon and she'd been in business for years and years. And I mean she worked so hard. Her and her husband owned the place and she worked. She didn't even have anyone working for her. She worked every single day. Wow. So it's really tight, ship tight ship. And you know, every year their landlord would raise their rent. Will finally got to the point they just couldn't afford it anymore. And if what was remarkable about it is. And I see this in Boulder too at some of the Asian. Are you talking about Tebow ? Especially that's the one that stands out in my mind. You'll see where places are for rent by T bo. So they have places vacant because they want so much money. That's the case of. What happened to her is they wanted her to increase the rent and then they wanted her to. Tube. We placed the awning out front and she's going. I can't. I don't know I can. I'm not even able to live anymore. And so I'm wondering what these big businesses do anyway. Because you can see these vacancies of businesses and they're sitting empty. So wouldn't you rather have someone an income of less than what your great expectations are than to just have a space empty ? I don't understand that concept. They would prefer, on principle to leave it empty. And the other thing, too, is, during this economy where where it's really hard to find places to live. At least in Colorado, it's very saturated. In the past five years alone, there's been an influx of eight hundred thousand people that have moved here in the past five years. So you can do the math on that. The bottom line is there's a huge demand for places to live. So what they're doing is obviously increasing the cost. But then additionally, there are some real estate investors and people. They're actually doing what I like to call it sequestering. So what you're talking about, they're sequestering in the sense that they've got a place to rent. But what's worse is it's not even that they're asking market rate or fair market rate, or slightly above market rate. They have this blown out thing they say while it's. People are wanting it so bad that they're like asking an additional. Like, you know, five hundred thousand dollars. Something's way outside of market rate and there are also fine. Was sitting on it being empty if that doesn't happen. And so that should tell you just how far things have gotten with real estate in this lifetime. Ownership and then they can pass it on to their kids and their kids. The problem is, I think thirty rock got its forty years ago. God, time flies right. Forty years ago, when used to invest in real estate, it wasn't like it was saturated and investors now like the way it is now in the way that it controls our lives. And these are middlemen that are being paid both in. Consumable, you know, items that are sold at these places. If it's a business or at home, it's, you know, as our income. It's. But in. Rather than it being back the way it was where rent was, you know, I'd say fifteen to thirty percent of our income. It's closer to fifty to seventy five percent of our income. And then you add utilities that are getting out of control. On top of that, the bottom line is so. Groceries while my guy go to the grocery store and I'm sure all of you would agree. I cannot believe how much groceries have gone up in cost. And part of that I understand we had covered. And I've seen a big jump from that. But it's just everything what I wanted to say real quick before we move forward too far. This one is. So I was just thinking about these places. You know, I was just saying these places that sat empty that they're not earning have any money. They're not earning a penny for them, right ? And they're kind of proud about it. Even so you don't need me think about what. They're not even fazed by this. In other words, rather than saying I gotta get this place rented. Man, this is really important. Otherwise this is really going to be an impact on my. On my income or on my on my. And many rentals I have. It's going to just impact me so great. Because there's a lot of. Of buildings that. Individuals, which we've given a couple of names out one, many different buildings, and many of them I've really lucked are empty to sell. Zac, Honestly, that means they don't even need that money because now they don't. Of course they don't. So that just shows you how wealthy someone is that they own these buildings, but they don't even care if they're rented. It's a stupid level of wealth to give you an idea with Tebow's. Well, and I'm not trying to dig into the guy. I mean, I've even see, we've watched an interview of him. He seems very down to earth, all things considered. He comes from a place of not wealth. But the reality is this guy also owns five hundred cars. I think it is. Or it's like I can't remember what his car collections. He's got an entire warehouse that is air conditioned and heated just for his cars, and he never drives him. He just, as a matter of fact, he's hot. He has a fleet of guys working for him full - time, full - time that take care of his cars and they drive him ever so often to me, like sitting idle. Yeah, exactly. It's crap. I'm like trying to figure. You know, I just can't wrap my head around all this because to me, Okay, I have nothing personally against people that are wealthy. Please, I don't I. I really don't have anything against people. But what ? But what's the obsession with earning more and more and more and more when you're already satisfied and why don't you do the right thing ? What if there is a family that could benefit with getting into a place in charging a little bit less ? You're still ending up with the money. Exactly. And see to me there becomes acquaintance. I know there's some wealthy people that give to charities and they really share. And you know, So I know I'm not just putting a blanket statement out there that people that are wealthy do not share because there are some people that have done it. But you know, an example. And I don't want to go too far in the distance. But I was just on the internet not looking for anything. And all of a sudden I see where there's the most expensive house. I think it's in the United States and its seven hundred and fifty million dollars. And I'm going What White house, Zach, that house has been trying to. I've rarely airport or in it or something. No new. Know it has twenty nine bedrooms and forty one bath. Wow, there's a lot of people go bad for the review. Forty one bathrooms. It's got a bowling alley. Okay, that's kind of cool. It's got swing has got all of these. I think may may have beauty shop. I dunno. It's all in it. Bottom line is is I'm like playfully thinking, Okay, so how does that work ? Do you go ? I'm sleeping in bedroom number fifteen tonight and I'm gonna choose bathroom number twenty three. Exactly. I'm just thinking, what's the point ? Wouldn't you have to have a person there full - time maintenance for the toilets by that. So because when toilets are not flush for a really long time, they tend to leak. I. I really, Honestly, I don't want a seven hundred and fifty million dollar house. Believe me, that's not even a desire of mine. I just can't wrap my head around why someone would need that or why someone would want that. Because what you do with all this room's. I mean, you could have a huge family living in there that would. Could break up throughout the house and not even see each other for days. You could get lost like you could hide from your partner in there and it might take them a couple of days to find you, you know ? Yeah, it's. I don't understand anything to say. Hey, that'd be a great place to play hide and seek. Thou. Come on. Yeah, I think it's just cuz they can. But it to me. What makes me. The thing that I can't wrap my head around is when you obtain that level of wealth where there's no way you could spend that money in the rest of your life. Why do you continue make the obsession to do that when you should look hard and heavy and carefully at the fact that you're actually making life for other people more difficult at their expense for your benefit. And I'm not saying that people need to be always altruistic and always watching out for the people. But I think the world would be a better place if more of that focus was on other people. How can you. My point is, and you know, I'm speaking from me. I'm not. I'm only me. I could never justify. Like I couldn't walk out of a. I couldn't own a seven hundred and fifty million dollar house and walk out that door. Yeah, and look around me and see homeless people on the streets and feel okay. That's what I'm saying. There's so much bad stuff in the world. Why don't you ? You know, like I dunno. I. It's just, you know, I. I. I still. I read this probably a month ago and I'm still trying to wrap my head around why someone would need something like that. But I guess I just don't understand. Because maybe when you become extremely wealthy, if you look at it differently and that comes in obsession, I think it's. Know. It's kind of like a pissing contest. I feel like. But I think we should continue on with the. The subject. I know that we're talking about rich. But on the topic of the Excel. Because we were already at almost an hour and a half in. Well, I think we should probably finish soon. I think we've been doing really well though because we were talking about living your dreams. I mean, you know what I think we're talking about life and we know life is unfair and it's not equal to everyone and that's just life. Okay, it's just that way. But also I just think that to touch upon how I think the way it. Reason why we really got into talking about this is once we got into thinking about taxes and how the middle class are the ones that really tend to support the economy in this world or in the United States anyway. So I think that's how come we became really engaged and talking about that because it does pertain to our topic and I'm not in disagreement. I mean we already preface by saying that this will go different places as a result. I'm just saying when you get back the subject bit to the core stuff because of some stuff written down that we need to go through. Still, where would you please break that down ? Because I've. I've wanted you to do this for the beginning of the podcast. Like just a couple things like what the. The abbreviations are and what they go for it. Because I just to me when we went through this bell I thought it was interesting how you have to pay for gas going through pipes or the pipes that. That have the gas going through them somehow I thought that should all be included in the total of what we paid. But the. Actually charge you more in addition to your monthly bill for just these little things that I. That that you made notes about. Maybe you didn't know what I did. I did. But there's some other things I want to say. First support. So first off, I just wanted to say the. The major issue is you know, the questions the American dream dead. And I would say for the most part it is because if you get a college education coming out of a college education at. Depends if your. What your majors have is computer science or something pays higher. You know you know you go to law school or something like that. But the reality is getting out of all that. And if you start making more money, you hit attacks wall that prevents you from making more. Because then your taxation goes up through the roof. So let's say you make. And more than thirty thousand dollars, your taxation goes from eleven percent to twenty two percent. And then once you get above. What is it ? I can't remember. So it doubles and it doubles. Yeah, and then once you get to above I think sixty or seventy thousand. It goes up again. And then once you get above as some amount of over one hundred thousand dollars, then it comes down. But the reality is that's what's keeping people poor is because all we're already paying for everything. But now you have to pay additional taxes if you're trying to make your way up in the world. And that's what pisses me off about rich people saying while you're just not working hard enough, or you know, I. I you know, my one million dollars per year that I earn iron every single penny. While I'm not saying you don't work hard, but you work. I dunno, fifty or five hundred times harder than I do. I don't think so. So this was one thing I wanted to throw out there real quick. And in those one to say just to get into this and will will get back into it is according to cost of living. Twenty twenty three. In order to live comfortably in Colorado, one must make one hundred thousand dollars yearly in order to survive the median income. So that's the middle most number. For statistics, it's not the same thing as the mean. The means, the average. The median is the middle most number of all of your data set vs. The. The mean, which is the average where you obviously just take the average. So again, the media. In the middle most income of individuals and household is thirty six thousand nine hundred and thirty four for a single person or for a household is seventy five thousand two hundred and thirty one combined. Meeting and come across households. So and the minimum to be in the twenty per cent. Top twenty percent of earners in Colorado means that you need to earn at least one hundred and forty three thousand five hundred and ninety six dollars, with the average income being two hundred and forty nine thousand two hundred and eighty five dollars. So again, again, to be the top twenty percent earners. What it means is it means that you. If it was an individual, you would be. Have to be earning one hundred and forty three thousand five hundred and ninety six dollars or for an entire household, you have to be at least earning two hundred and forty nine thousand two hundred and eighty five dollars. And that's the colts. According to Boulder, Colorado USA dot com Now, property taxes have nearly tripled. They're currently sitting for for us at least around forty seven fifty four. Force. Sorry, four thousand seven hundred fifty six dollars. And roughly a decade ago on the house seat during the hostage crisis in housing crisis in two thousand and eight. The property taxes on the house for a closer to around two thousand. So just kind of give you an idea of a one bedroom apartment in Boulder County averages twenty three hundred dollars per month in rent alone. And just in case you're curious what our Boulder people called their Boulder rights. And one, though, sorry, one hundred thousand dollars in Colorado, your take home after taxation will be seventy three thousand dollars. So there's twenty six thousand dollars in taxation per year. And like I said, once you get above a certain amount, the amount of taxation goes down. And then one thing to mention is just right outside of Boulder. There's a place called Lewisville, Colorado and is just seven minutes away from Boulder and was rated by CNN MUG Money Magazine as the top five per cent of Top places to live in two thousand and five. Number three in Two thousand and Seven and number one in two thousand and Nine and two thousand and Eleven and number three in two thousand and thirteen. So again, in two thousand and Nine and two thousand and Eleven, it was ranked number one on this latter part, and the number three in two thousand and thirteen. And then let's see ITU - T. The other thing is a. National Geographic and the Today Show recently recognized Boulder as the happiest city in the United States in two thousand and eleven. Forbes recently know that Boulder tops are the top list of equitable. Sorry. Toplist of etiquette experts. Friendliest cities in the nation. Gallup Poll has and has it as the highest well being. Communities in. For several years, so we don't have the actual years. So as far as getting into the. Into the breakdown of the bill, and we have to look into that because we were trying to figure out why everything was as expensive as it was. And it's like decoding. It's like decoding a. Like a. Like an encryption cipher. It's really, really hard to explain, so we'll do our best to break it down. But the bottom line is they have everything itemized in a way that I think it's intentionally deceitful when she agree with it. That's what I felt when we were going to this. Yes, absolutely, and we. There's no way that we can actually explain our. Our gas usage for this past month been as high as it is Again, we can understand the past three months has been cool. Cooler, but the fact that we didn't actually turn on the heat because we were cold, etc. We were not expecting in. The average temperature wasn't that bad for it to be the highest this past month. And I'm curious on this next one. So, unless the January bills for December. And that's the part I missing out on on which could be the case in in February. It's coming down with Q. One that stopped from what we've been seeing. But I would be equally surprised that it's not going to go down just because of the way things have been. Okay. So as far as electric charges are concerned, there are different types of line items and I'm just going to go through them and we'll go ahead. Maybe post this to the website in one form or another. So that way you guys can see it is going to be a poly p o l y c h r o m a t i Q e dot com. Polychromatic dot com in our news section, just because it was probably the easiest. So it can kind of go over this quickly. So there is a service in a facility fee under electric, which pays for the meter on the home. XL, reading the meter, billing you and providing customer service and then for people that pay for their gods. Can you remind me what this was ? The re the retail thing ? Hang on, just give me a second. Because yeah, this was the one where like we're not affected by it, but a fair. Apparently they charge based on like this criteria. It's like certain areas have it. I think Denver has it. Basically this is if you install the smart meter, which is, I think that the mom or the thermostat in your house. They actually have times of day like, in other words, they rated according to how much they charge certain times of the day. If you have one of these meters. Okay, thanks for explaining that. Yeah, I was trying to remember. So if you have the special smart meter, it basically will breakdown the cost. And I think personally, it's not going to save you money. I think it's going to cost me more money. I was like to me when I was looking at that, I thought, Oh, I'm not getting one of those because it sounded like in the evening it got really expensive. So yep. So during peak hours they're going to charge you up the ass the rest of the time they won't. But that's the great part of not having that system in your home as it's not going to discriminate when you actually use it yet. Gives them an insider and I don't like that anyway. So they have what's called. It's called retail R e t o U which is either on peak or sorry. Sorry, Yeah, on peak, mid peak or off - peak time frame as her timeframes. And then there's the winter season and or whatever season you're in. So could be. I guess it would be what are the seasons again, Spring, summer, spring, summer, fall and winter, Spring, summer, fall and winter. And throughout the year, your quarter throughout the quarters was you go from quarter one to quarter. Forza explained the actual cost of each utility increases, so that's where you actually get off. So for just giving example winter season electric, which would be quarter four if you see one line item, but then a second line item, the second light, I am wings that you're going into the next quarter, which would be Q one. Suggest if there's two items, realize that's the breakdown, but actual gas usage for the previous quarter's. I said for the first line item, I miss the least expensive in quarter one, and the most expensive quarter for actual gas usage for the next quarter For that second line item, If billing occurs mid - month during a quarterly transition period, and now there's a transit transit cost adjust, which is a surcharge to pay for the transmission lines, there's an electric current commodity adjustment, and there are two line items, potentially for this one. What is the actual fuel costs to generate the energy we use ? And this is the overhead gas usage used by Excel to actually generate the energy. So it's not the energy output, but the overhead this required to actually generate the energy in the first place. And so the first line one will be for the previous quarter and then the. If there's a second item, it'll be a breakdown for the next quarter. Because again, they do a tiered system based on the quarter that you're in and split month adjustments as what I said for the second line. New quarter if current bill transitions since next quarter, that's already said that have so demand side management cost helps to fund rebate incentives for homeowner homeowners to install smart thermostats, L E D light bulbs from Excel. This also helps fund that subsidy and other subsidies. And they also have a I. A trans electric plan helps to fund rebate incentives, homers and blah, blah blah. Ok, we got that for both. I don't know what the breakdown with those two us, then they have a purchase cap cost adjustment, and those are two line items. Potentially the first one is energy purchased by itself from a third party. Previous quarter costs, and then of course, the next. Salem as if it's as if it transitions to the billing period, transitions to the next quarter. That'd be the next quarters cost breakdown. And then there's the GR essay eating electricity rate changed that was not paid for in the previous section. Just meant if they didn't build enough in the previous recharges above so In other words, if excels not making enough overhead money in addition of the prophets they're sending. If if it cost the company more money for anything is coming back onto the consumer no matter what because that that gr as a he basically will make up for that that cost. So there is guaranteed that there are always going to be making record profits every amount because they can just charge consumers for the next line item is e g c r r So this is for the February twenty twenty one and cold snap in your last until February twenty two February of two thousand and twenty form when Excel purchased the very expensive natural gas from the winter cold snap to cover the surgeon demands and keeping the gas flowing during that time. So we're paying for the fact that they were not prepared for that. A renew renewable energy a standard adjustment number one percent of the bill, sorry, one percent of the bill to fund renewable energy effort generation initiative in Colorado and then we have the Colorado energy plan adjustment pay Excel back for retiring multiple coal plants early and then at energy assistance charged. I know that skin excessive right bill assistance for those in need passed by Colorado Legislature. You can obviously opt out of this charge, but by default you are built for it. And then last but not least, this one's for the both the the best part there's a franchise fee, which is three per cent. Covers the associated costs owned by the owner of the branch for the four. To the umbrella parent company, which has Excel. In this case, Excel gets three percent of whatever that franchise makes. It's passed along to the consumer. Now I'm going to move over my computer to my mom so she can read off the gas ones. If you're up to it, or would you rather me do it, you can discontinue. If you wrote this out, you may remember better because that's fine. So then now we get into natural gas. Okay, so first off, there's a. There's a thing an electric runs under kilowatt hours, which makes pretty much logical sense. But there's also have. With natural gas, something called. And while there. Cubic feet per gas, which is C FF or something or CCF, and that is multiplied by this constant. It's like zero point eight, and I. Some what's with called cold, what's called a thermal supplier to get the total number of therms. My questions, What is that ? Where did they get that from that conversion factor ? But anyways, then you get to therms. So that's what you're charged for. This past month we were charged for two hundred and forty one. Therms and the month before was hundred, sorry, hundred and ninety. So we somehow just used up an additional fifty therm. So that is what makes us think we might have a gas leak or were being screwed up by the energy company. Can't explain how we used all the synergy when it wasn't colder and we weren't using it. So but anyways, let's get the line items. There's a service and facility fee meter on the home XR, reading the meter, billing you and providing customer service. Usage Charge of covers Excel gets a sorry covers Excel as so I guess Excels ability to get your gas, for instance, storage pipelines, etc. Gas infrastructure to deliver gas to distribution hubs and then into your home. And then there's the interstate pipeline, which covers the cost to move gas in onto XL system path. Then there's the natural gas a one through four quarters, so it depends on which quarter in in Again, this can be possibly to line items because if you have a bill that transition from one one quarter to another, you have no partial charge for on each quarter. So there's the actual gas gas usage for the previous quarter of that. And again, first quarter is the least expensive and fourth quarters the most expensive. And then the next line item has actual gas usage for that next quarter. And then there's the D. S. M. C. A. Which is an incentive program like I sent them a sorry incentive program if I can talk that funds rebates for home owners to install more efficient gas appliances and insulate their home. And then I don't know what the RDS is. We couldn't find out what the RDS is, but there is a charge for that. The G R S A P dash P is a gas pipeline adjustment costs due to rate change. This can either be in the form of a refund for overpaying or in the form of a bill for underpaying. It's a way of chewing up everything at the end. So again, they're nuts. Excels never really at a loss here in it. In. The most important thing to understand before going to next next line item is Excel can just ask the Energy Commission in Colorado for another adjustment. You know, Oh, we need. I think. Can you remind me what it was was a thirty million. They asked for something around thirty eight million and they said they proved it and they've been improving every single thing. That's like completely blindly and they just get whatever they want. And in addition, they're charging. These costs are the customer's. More than making record profits even during a downturn so that just makes zero sense in a down economy that an energy company can be doing this unless what they're doing as exploit full and it is definitely exploiting people. The next line is the e. G. C r r which again this can be comprised of two line items. So depending on a split quarter, there is a sorry split quarter between billing periods there. This is to repay from the February twenty twenty one. A cold snap in this repayment periods, repay back XL for all. This will last until February of twenty twenty five. And this is where XL had purchased really expensive natural gas. And again, first layer will be previous quarter. Next island and possible would be next quarter if it's a split quarter and there's a GR. Essay is any amount that is still due to an underpaid after all other associated costs have been calculated. So just like electric, they have a a catch all case you haven't paid enough in this mentions nothing about. And if you've overpaid, you get your money back and then there's an energy assistance charge is an optional charge you can opt out that helps those with financial need reduce the financial burden for their bills. And then of course the font. Same franchise fee. Something I wanted to save real quick before I pass it back to my mom, as I just wanted to say this little bit. I have never had a problem in my life with paying my energy bill ever. And I've been paying my energy bill ever since I lived on my own. And I'm currently paying for the energy bill here because my mom's handling all other aspects like you know, including our. Our taxes every year on the house and insurance on the house, etc. Which I'm happy to do and I would like to do as long as I can. But the thing is, pat, recently, it's been very challenging on. Currently on disability has been very challenging to. To handle these recent influxes and bill built and are accessible and there's absolutely no good reason for it. Actually called Excel to ask them about it and I was asking the possibility of. You know what can. What can be done and I was told them the best that they could do was they could split it up so you know, I could pay it. Paid overtime or something. I was like okay, yeah, maybe that might be something I'm interested in. So first day is like no. And there's like okay, yeah, sure one would look into that. But what I found out is they have to take you off autopay to do this. They can't just freeze the auto. Pay to have their autopay you renew the following month or the month after that. They have to take you off autopay in order for you to be set up with taking a partial balance from a month in advancing into next month, even if that's a couple of months. So I told them that's absolutely of no use to me because now the chances of me not pay my bill on time increases and you know the. More than anything, I hope the legislation really looks into this because I think that we're going to find a lot of fraud, a lot of anti trust, especially with the monopoly that Excel has, I think, and I pray to God that we do. I hope this. I hope this bankrupt bankrupt them. I hope this. But of course probably not going to happen because we already know that in this country, if you've got money, you can go to get away with murder. You can have blood all over your hands. You can have their fingerprints all over the victim. And guess what, if you have enough money in this country, we can get away with murder. Man, this whole thing just roars with BS. I'm telling you it's so stressful. I mean, you're reading that. I'm laughing because it's so unbelievable at all. The breakdown of this, but it's so interesting. When I read earlier that Excels saved colorado and seven hundred million dollars. What the hell does that even mean ? Well, because when you are reading this, there's a. There was a one percent fee that we saved for energy saving stuff, like in investing in energy saving steps. So where are the ones paying for it ? The other thing that came to mind when you were doing this was, you know, you're. You've broken up the quarter's different times for us. So if you think about it, fourth quarters, the most expensive. Well, that's the most expensive to begin with. Time of year, because it would be November. Know, October, November, December. So that's going to be so then January, February, March is number one. So they have it in their favor any way with the way the quarters have broke down. So it's. It's just a giant monopoly. And you know, it's almost reminds me of the Monopoly game like I remember when I used to play. But if I could get my hands on Boardwalk and Park Place, I could win that game every time because it was the most expensive real estate on the whole board. And if you own that, you built your hotels, people came around and landed on it and they had to pay a bunch of money. They just go bankrupt really quickly. So I just feel like we're just playing the game of Monopoly I mean that's the way I see this. Because we just keep going around that board and we are all we are. Landing on Park Place and Boardwalk. Xcel energy. That's love. I love the analogy you came up with. Then you know what ? That is so perfect. It's like, you know, if you're unlucky enough to land on that and we're all landing on that, it's not. Here's the thing. We talked about this, mom, right ? You and I had a conversation about this and it was a pretty lengthy one. We talked about how can you. And it's not that we're willing to run away from life, but how can you reposition or even move away to find a place where you can live more comfortably in the. Simple answers. It's not. It's not simple. There might be a few places in the world. We. It's possible, but for the most part it's not. Because the reality is we're in a global economy and this. The welfare of the entire world rests on the welfare of the United States. Sadly, because we do control the money supply in large. Because of the nicest dollar is usually valued over other currencies, and it used to be. Because it was backed by gold, etc. And we were powerful. Novel on will let people that had weapons and weapons of mass destruction, etc. And now that's less the case Now it's more. It's funded by whatever natural resources there are. So in this case, you know, oftentimes oil. I always associate whether it's true or not. But I think I'm pretty accurate. And the reason why our United States dollar has value is because it's backed by an energy. Commodities such as oil. And of course, we stick our face and all the other business of the world. And you think that really, when we were over in Afghanistan, it was really because we were trying to get rid of terrorism. Or do you think that we are also sticking her head in the oil fields and Nelson, the poppy fields ? I mean, that's that's what. And we're also, you know, fighting proxy wars nowadays, All I've got to say about this whole thing is that it's ludicrous, unfair, I mean, but we have no control. So what I am grateful for after reading this is that it's beginning to look as though there's gonna be some legislation that's going to go into effect. And honestly, listeners, we all have to have a voice. And you know, sometimes we feel like one voice is not going to change things but you. Now, if we bond together and all voice our feelings. That's when things change. It's when we get a mass amount of people together that can make things change. And that's the whole idea behind peaceful protests is to get out there in the world things that are unjust or things that are not okay, and to be able to express yourself. Element, I'm talking about when they get out of control. I'm just saying peaceful protests of being able to express how you feel about something and really, to have a voice in this arm. It sounds as though with the research that Zach and I've been doing, they are getting something like I don't remember the number and I'd hate to quote it, but they're getting like, ah, this relief place that can help you if you're part of the Leap program. They said that their cars are up like one hundred and fifteen percent of what they were, but that sounds right. I think it was one hundred and sixty, actually under sixty. And there are people that are voicing this. And you know what if this does become part of legislation and there is a ceiling on what they can charge you. Voices do matter if it is not going to change for next month because it's going to take awhile for all this to go into effect. But do know that even though we may feel powerless and that's the worst feeling in the world. And I think that's what I was feeling when we talk about this whole subject. Is that how do we change this ? Because this is unfair. Will you know what I would love to see in the future that it comes out that in fact they have been doing things that are illegal because it would please me because I really think that what they're doing is illegal. I mean they are using something that is a necessity as two people to survive. And I think that having some way to be able to control this, like with less legislature. I. I like to think of the positive in the end that maybe we can change some of this. So I guess what I'm trying to say is speak up about what you believe in. You know, it's not. We are powerless in many ways because maybe we don't have that much wealth or not capable of changing things because of that. But we're all kind of sitting in the same boat here. And if we work together, that's the whole thing about power, numbers for sure. Yeah, that's the whole thing about why Zach and are apparently doing this podcast is because we just see the separation, this world and how people feel disconnected, disconnected and so alone. And I really want to see like a. Zach and I are two little voices here at. But I think there's a lot of other voices in this world that would agree. Wouldn't it be great if we could just feel connected to other people and not feel so distant and feel as though that people genuinely care about one another. And I've seen it. Okay, I'm not going to say that's all gone, because I've seen some really kind acts, and most recently by people with arms that have helped Isaac with some of his issues that are going on with him personally right now in a way that have been very, very kind and very genuine. And when I see that, it really reinforces to me that there are people out there that really do care. But I think that we don't see that so much because we're so overwhelmed with. With just trying to exist in this world, we survived, we're not. We're not even enjoying life, we're not living, we're just surviving around. And so hopefully we. With our topics and discussions and things like that, maybe we can all be a bigger voice to gather at some point in making change and promoting change. And one of the biggest changes. And it's really that one of the greatest things I'd love to see is that connection with people and that's what we really want to do is connect with you and know that there are other people who are down to earth and who want to feel that connection in that warmth. And that there are people that care for one another in this world and not to give up because it's seems so harsh right now with. I think, especially after Calvet. I mean, distancing ourselves from people in. In. Literally distancing ourselves from people was really a strange thing. And obviously it's what we needed to do at the time. But I think it's time now to really look at. You know, what can we do in our world to make this world a better place for all of us ? What ? What is it that we can give ? What is our passion in that area of what we feel that we would like to see changes in. And we are really open for topics and you know, you can email us and give us suggestions. We would love to. To. To talk about some things that you guys might be interested in. And do you know, just stay connected, you know, for those of us. As for those of you who continue to listen to our broadcasts and we appreciate you, we really do. We really really would like to feel that connection of you guys coming back and listening. And hopefully some day maybe there'll be a way that we can even talk to you. And that's something in the future that Zach and I are are thinking about very strongly and just have not come to. To the grips of actually making this all happen. So we don't want to talk about that too much. Bake until we get to that point. But it's. It's really want to connect more on a personal basis. That's where we want this to lead us eventually. And when we get there, we'll talk about it more. But you know, Zach, I. I think this was a really good topic, even though sometimes it's hard to talk about those things that really bother us because it seems like we're being negative. And he. Even though that's not where we're coming from, we're actually wanting to provide hope with what we say like we want. I think we feel the world were very empathetic and we feel the world and we're all humans and we all have come neatly. The human condition. And so we want to both explain and expose and described the human condition. But we also won't expose the reality that we've been living disconnected ever since. Dependent bucket and we know what that's like. And so we hope this voice really resonates. Passion that we put out there really resonates. The authenticity. The realness that we share really resonates in a way that really speaks to your soul and speaks to your heart in a way that is like God. I'm looking forward to the next episode and to be involved with us. Like my mom was saying, we don't want to comment too early on it, but suffice to say, you know, we have plans in the future where there might be opportunities where you guys can be more involved beyond just commenting on the Puck us, you know, possibly being involved actually on the podcast, but we don't want to come in on a. Too soon until until we get there. Well, you know. And just one other thing I want to say before we. And is that one thing I've learned sometimes Just the simplest thing is just smiling at someone who may look like they're down when they make eye contact with you. It's just giving them a smile that can change someone's day. We don't have to go out there and do all these major things. Just thinking. Be mindful around us and the people we see. We are all human beings. We're all equal and to be kind to one another and just in the. Be kind to ourselves and absolutely self care. Being kind to ourselves, giving ourselves some grace and showing that towards others is really kind of a beautiful thing. So just even maybe this week if you see someone, maybe that looks a little down, just just give them a little smile. You don't know. Maybe that that will help him make it through the day. Maybe they're going through some really hard things and hard times. Or maybe something in an event that's going on in their life and just just try to realize that the small things we can do sometimes can be huge for someone else. Yeah, that's so important is. You know, sometimes we can get wrapped up in the way the world feels just nowadays. So negative. You know, some ways we live in a very amazing time with the internet. But the internet is also changed us. I think for the. For the worst, you know, here we have technology to connect us in ways that would not be possible. I think with the pandemic pandemics a lot of people to continue working. It's connected people when we had to separate. It's been amazing. But on the other hand, we rely on it over heavily a lot of cases in a way that really it's of wedge is the disconnect. I mean, how easy is it to break up with someone nowadays ? You don't even have to call them on the phone. You can send a text message to Sam Dunn and then delete them from the phone and never talk to them again. And if you. If you think that's atypical, that's actually the way that it happens ninety percent of the time. And it's really screwed up that people don't actually have the face. Taxi, break up with a person, or even have a conversation. Budgets be completely shut out. I think that's cruel and unusual to do that. I do too. I can't even imagine it's just the thought of it makes me very sad. It really really does. So anyway, I. I think that I'm kind of glad we did this and I feel kind of relieved talking about it. Yeah, it feels good to talk about it, you know, because sometimes as I just said, it's those things that we don't want to talk about we need to talk about the most. And certainly, I love that. Yeah, and certainly, maybe that's what we need to remember that when we don't want to talk. But you know, some of our podcasts are going to be really very. About details, like about the. That may impact all of us in a way. Because as being responsible, I mean, if we're really wanting to take a topic and look at how something can be afraid of it, it can't it. Can't really be afraid of it. So again, we appreciate any emails, visit our visit this beautiful website that sack made. I mean, honestly, it is incredible on this. Now I'm not just saying that because acted. I mean, I'm Zack. You know how fond I am of you, how much you mean to me. But it truly is beautiful. And. And I really hope that we can do away another podcast here and this weekend. Yeah, I would love to do that and come up with a really really good organic topic of swords and continue down the road. But anyway, we thank those of you who are listening to us and please come back and. And yeah, we want, we want to be your friend. We want to. We. We wanna enlighten you and we want to be positive and we want to. We want it. We want to support and help build you and know that you're not alone. You're not crazy for thinking the world's kind of kind of messed up because it is. It is as if we live it every day. And. But we need to understand the importance that we're in this together and don't underestimate the power of positivity and being a positive influence on other people in a recipe. Or, you know, reciprocated flee, if that's a word. You know, other people can show you the same. And it's about showing kindness to ourselves and. And kindness and grace to others. You mean giving people the benefit of the doubt but also holding people accountable when they need to be held accountable. And that's a case where with what's happening with this energy stuff, I think it's complete utter bullshit. I love that you said that sack because you want to know something that's really what it's about right now. Our topic tonight is the accountability of a major corporation taking advantage of people and us individually. But how many million people, millions of people is this taking advantage of ? And those things do need to be talked about. So you know, I am really glad you said that. Because accountability is is a very important part of life. It is. And it's just important also for us to show grace and patience towards ourselves and others is something that we forget to do because you know what. There are so many problems in the world and it seems like the world keeps getting sicker and sicker with it. Like there's a certain sickness to it and even seat on the news. This reason why I don't watch the news anymore. I naturally through natural osmosis find out the important stuff that's negative on the news, usually from coworkers and friends and the like. And I'll find out one way or another about really major situations. But do I want to hear every day about how someone came in and shot up another place ? No. Because you know what ? I think there was a year, like a year or two ago where that was happening on the regular. Like literally every day or every other day. Sorry, I know, literally every day and sometimes multiple times the same day, there were shootings in their tone. Us about this. Just like you know, gun legislation. Unless it's going to happen. We're going to keep hearing about this and am tired of hearing about it. You know it. It makes me sick. It makes my heart sick. Absolutely. So anyways, did you think there was anything useful about playing that sound bite from from the news ? Or do you think we were done ? I think we're pretty well. Okay, and everything we are too. And so we hope to talk to you soon. And this weekend is what we're planning on. And I. Yeah, we're excited about what we're doing. We're excited about the future with this podcast. And as I said, we're really passionate and investing a lot to be able to do this. And we thank you so much for listening to us. Yeah, most importantly, thank you guys so much for listening For your support. Even if you just listen, it means a lot to us. We do get the statistics from RSS dot com R podcasting host. When you guys click on it, you guys listen to it. We hope to get some other on basic demographic information. I don't know how they do that, but bottom line is nothing too pressing as you know, just basically where your IP address to come from certain countries so we can kind of know those demographics. But I just want to say from the bottom of heart on. This is such a passion project for me and my mom. We really put our heart and soul into line with what we do here and we're happy to share that with you. We hope it makes your day better and we just fly. I really appreciate you and I guess we'll see in the next one. Spread peace and love. Take care. Take care. Bye bye bye.