life comes at you fast most of it is just smoke and mirrors we're here to clear the air whether
it's the can't make this up moments or the hard truths hitting our streets in our state
we're finding the signal and all that noise no spin no nonsense just the facts the fallout
and a little bit of humor and a little bit of humor and a little bit of humor
it's time for the morning drip on wrto.fm radio free georgia
hey good morning everybody welcome to the morning drip it is me grady d here
with you on a wednesday it is the 8th of july 2026 and as i keep reporting
it's the morning drip on the morning drip on the morning drip on the air
in portions of big bend florida and south central and southwest georgia hot temperatures
and high humidity may cause heat illnesses so basically yeah drink plenty of fluids stay in
air conditioning if you can do your best to stay out of the sunshine and check up on your relatives
and your and your neighbors so yeah and as i've said before if you if you happen to work outside
or you work in a in a factory or a warehouse that's not air conditioned then take breaks as often as you
can make sure you stay hydrated and if your boss bitches about it tell them grady d said shut the hell
up your health is more important than their bottom line anyway that's the way i feel about it
so let's start off today talking about there's there's two stories that we need to talk about
that's related to affordability first one is if you don't if you're running low on your forever
stamps which i am then you better go ahead and get some ordered go to the post office and buy them
whatever you need to do because the u.s postal service will be raising those postage stamps
starting july 12th the forever stamps going to move from 78 cents to 82 cents so a book of 20 stamps
will rise from 15 dollars and 60 cents to 16 dollars and 40 cents other mailing services are also increasing
domestic postcards are going to go from 61 to 65 cents
metered first class letters from 74 to 78 cents and international letters and postcards from a dollar 70 to a dollar 75
and the post office is saying the increases are part of a broader effort to stabilize its finances after years of
declining mail volume and mounting losses they lost 9.5 billion dollars in 2025 their annual mail volume fell
from more than 213 billion pieces in 2006 to about 109 billion today and i think they were trying to make up
some of that along the way because they they were the preferred last mile shipping partner for amazon uh amazon is
like what's happened to us here in south central georgia they now have a i don't know what you call it
like a depot or whatever in valdosta where we now actually have amazon drivers delivering our amazon packages most of the time
now there's still some things that come in ups depending on what the item is or whether it's from a third party
that's shipping directly and doesn't have all their stuff sitting in an amazon warehouse somewhere
and i do believe that amazon renegotiated a contract with usps but i don't think usps is getting as much money
out of amazon as they were that's what i that's what i remember if i'm wrong on that you can let me know
our phone lines are open 229-520-5957 or you can send a text to that same number 24 7 229-520-5957
or shoot us an email morningjep at wrto.fm postal officials have warned congress that without
significant reforms the postal service would face serious financial challenges within the next year
this hike is part of usps's long-term restructuring plan officials have indicated additional increases
could follow potential future changes under discussion include raising the price of a forever stamp to 90 or
95 cents and reducing regular mail delivery to five days a week which means you wouldn't get mail on saturday
honestly i don't care 90 of the stuff that comes in my in arrives in my mailbox is junk
sometimes i get uh checks from clients in there but most of the time it's just junk most of my bills are i pay online
i have tried and tried and tried with farm bureau i don't need you to send me a bill they keep sending me a bill
anyway even though it's on auto pay and it's important to recognize
how valuable the united states postal service still is even if all we seem to be getting most of the time is junk
i mean you look back at its its origins i mean it's a staple of any functioning democracy in my opinion
but it's in dire straits and i and i remember somewhere along the line in the past 25 or 30 years
congress made it almost impossible for the postal service to actually break even or turn a profit and
it has to do with what they what they forced them to do to fund retirement for like the next 75 years or
something like that so yeah the post office needs some reform how many of you actually send letters
that's a good question i don't send any letters i mean i have to put stamps like my mail-in ballot i have
to put a stamp on it occasionally i have to send something back that requires a stamp but i think
the last time i bought these forever stamps was over two years ago that's how long they've been sitting on
on a desk in here and i just in the last couple of months i think it might have been the the ballots
where i had to send in the request for it no i did that electronically well i had to send in the actual
ballot and i've done it twice because well we had the primary and then we had a runoff so i've used two
stamps this year that i can remember and i think i just flipped it over to the front of the little strip
that the stamp set on i don't know when's the last time you sent something that required you to put actual
stamps on it let me know another thing connected to affordability the this one just gets me because
vehicles used to be a lot more affordable the ratio the ratio and i haven't looked at this scientifically
but it feels like the ratio between income and the cost of these vehicles is definitely out of whack
now from what it was 30 years ago 40 years ago the average monthly payment for a new vehicle
has climbed to a record 770 a month this is according to lending tree and experian data so of course this
is a continued affordability issue that's facing car buyers average lease payments also reached a new
high of 619 per month used vehicle payments well they increased more modestly to 531 and even that
even that just blows my mind a used car that you're having to pay over 500 a month now granted
in 2003 i bought my wife a 30 it was a 35 or 36 000 ford explorer all right we got it for five
years zero percent interest i i don't even remember if i put anything down honestly i can't i can't
remember those payments for a brand new vehicle for five years were under 500 a month so now you're
telling me in 2026 for me to get a used vehicle i'm still looking at a car payment for over 500 a month
it's it's ridiculous the average new car loan is now approaching 44 000 i have a friend of mine who has a
diesel truck i think he bought it two years ago now 70 plus thousand dollars for this vehicle that truck
cost 20 plus thousand dollars more than our 2 000 square foot double wide mobile home that we bought
in 1996 i know we've got inflation folks but damn outstanding u.s auto loan debt has also reached a record
1.685 trillion dollars which is up more than 57 percent over the past decade it makes auto loans
the nation's second largest category of consumer debt behind mortgages americans in their 30s 40s and
50s account for the largest share of new borrowing while lenders report that even borrowers with excellent
credit continue to finance large loan amounts because of persistently high vehicle prices well
that also goes to the point that if you can get a really good deal now the interest rates i think the average
interest rate for a vehicle still somewhere between six and seven percent i believe it's it's been a couple
months since we checked it but the old adage is use other people's money don't use your own well in a
sense this is what even people with excellent credit i have excellent credit my credit score is over 800
but i don't have the available funds to just walk out and drop down fifty thousand dollars for a vehicle
i don't even have it to do for 30 or 35 000 i'd still have to finance it
even even at this godforsaken interest rate somewhere between six and seven percent if that's still where it's at
i i yearn for the days of the 1.5 and two percent and even the special zero percent i'm not sure if
we'll ever see those again industry analysts say affordability of course remains the biggest
challenge for buyers despite modest improvements in inflation well we haven't really inflation's not
improving it's actually going backwards discounts have been become harder to find yes forcing many
customers into longer long terms or higher monthly payments i remember the first time back in the 80s
you know you didn't do over a five-year loan and and i believe i want to say that used cars didn't you
couldn't do more than 36 months and i remember my parents were they were trading in a vehicle it was a
Parisian white beautiful my mom loved it but for some reason she got it in her head that she wanted a van
so she could haul butts around for church and stuff like that and so they traded the vehicle in and
wound up because of one of being upside down in the Parisian or something like that having to do an
unheard of seven-year loan at the time this was like 1986 87 somewhere in there never heard of that now
seven-year car loans it's average that's that's a typical one and that's because you have to if you're
trying to finance a 70 000 vehicle for five years i'm not even gonna do the math but i can tell you
it's approaching my mortgage payment so it's ridiculous but yeah if you're out there looking
for new vehicles or if you if you need to buy stamps if you're running low on the forever stamps you
better get get to it right now because everything's going up everything's going up you recently bought
a new vehicle are you looking at buying a new vehicle are you are you relegated and this is not
a down thing i mean there's some good used vehicles out there my son bought a 2003 ford ranger several
years ago got a really good deal on it of course then covid hit and the the actual value of that vehicle
damn near tripled from what he paid for it so i don't know what's your car situation let me know
229-520-5957 phone lines are open or you can send a text 24 7 if you're shy 229-520-5957 or shoot us an email
morning drip at wrto.fm we're going to take a short break and we will be back
your coffee is weak your commute is long your boss is well you know it's time to wake up join the
revolution of the caffeine addicted the morning drip every morning on wrto.fm it's not just a show
is your daily jolt of reality warning make all sudden outburst of free thought
hey everybody welcome back to the morning drip it is me grady d with you here on a wednesday morning
the 8th of july we're going to have another scorcher today so as i said earlier take care of yourselves
look out for your loved ones your relatives your neighbors your dog your cat everybody and that
power bill oh i'm not even not even wanting to see that i want to see that phone lines are open
229-520-5957 or you can send a text to that number 24 7 365 229-520-5957 or drop us an email
morning drip at morning drip at wrto.fm all right let's keep on going with the affordability idea so
this week it's come out that walmart and sam's club have announced temporary summer price cuts on
hundreds of popular products including groceries and grilling supplies and outdoor items and household
essentials as some of the biggest discounts are fresh corn dropping from 68 cents to 25 cents a year
73 percent lean ground beef falling from 674 to 594 per pound fresh cherries cut roughly in half 24
packs of coca-cola and pepsi reduced to nine dollars and 97 cent sam's clubs also lowering their prices on
more than 250 products such as chicken wings and hot dogs snacks and other barbecue staples as part of a
seasonal promotional aimed at helping families with summer shopping now of course this announcement
quickly became political after dear leader donald trump said on truth social that walmart made the
price reductions at the request of his administration as part of the nation's 250th anniversary celebration
yeah right he praised the retailer inside of the lower uh ground beef prices as evidence that
his administration's economic policies are helping reduce costs for consumers all right let's let's uh
let's let's take a beat his administration's economic policies are not helping reduce costs for
consumers his economic policies are what drove the damn prices of this shit up to begin with
tariffs the tariffs and even walmart in their official announcement has described the discounts as a
company-led summer savings event focused on seasonal demand and helping customers stretch their
budgets they said that it was investing in lower prices on frequently purchased items
they did not state that the promotions were made at the request of the white house the discounts are part of a
limited time summer campaign they apply to sell selected products while supplies and promotional pricing last
other reports that have been validated out there said that the reason why walmart is
actually doing this is you remember that the supreme court ruled that that dear old donnie's tariffs were
illegal he did not have the power and so they had to set up a process to start giving this money back to
all of the companies that basically got raped due to his economic policies aka tariffs and so
they're using this money that they have gotten back to help offset the cost of these products
it didn't have a
fucking thing to do
with the trump administration but
he's always going to take credit
he is he's always going to take credit he's going to he's going to take credit for anything that is a positive for the economy and the
american people
and then anything that he does that basically bends us over without lube
he's going to blame on anybody else
he's he's he's going to blame it on other countries that have been taking advantage of the united states
he's going to he's going to blame it on the democrats as he likes to say
oh by the way did you know that the word dumb
actually ends with the letter b a lot of people don't know that right
good god
the stupidity of this man and all of the people that believe in him so yeah
when he's out here touting that his economic policies are the reason why prices are coming down
an affordability which by the way was a democratic hoax just several months ago
affordability you've probably heard of the word affordability it's a democratic hoax
no no
when shit goes
man
i get so flustered because the
the stupidity
the absolute stupidity
of some of the statements that he makes and then the fact
of his supporters
that just
blindly believe every damn thing that comes out of this con man's mouth
he calls the affordability crisis with tariffs and then
whenever he got his hand slapped by the supreme court and said donnie you can't do that
they had to start giving this money back
now because
one of the biggest retailers in the world
is lowering prices due to the fact that they got some of that money back and so they're trying
to help people during which that in itself just blows my mind because none of these corporations give two
shits about any of us if they can fuck us over they're going to that's you you know
i don't trust any of them
at all but the fact that they're doing this
you know there's a little glimmer of hope there
but they're only doing it because it's not necessarily costing them
anything now granted you could you can rest assured that they're not using the total amount
of what they got back and and i haven't seen any reports on how much money they actually got back
in this whole tariff fiasco but you can be guaranteed that they're not using every bit of
it to offset these costs so that they can provide you lower hamburger meat just not maybe half maybe a
third i don't know maybe even maybe just a quarter but the point is you're going to see some lower prices
which is good because as you know hamburger meat's gotten ridiculous we started buying
we've been buying the 73 percent hamburger in the 30 in the pre-formed patties 32 pat
for years now because back when it was still 19 and 20 dollars a box and even today when it ranges
anywhere from 28 on a good week to 32 it's still cheaper to buy that take four patties which
roughly equals a pound thaw it out and bust it up and that's what you use ground hamburger meat for if
you're if you're putting it in a hamburger helper you're putting it in stroganoff whatever it is that
you're going to do that's what we've been doing over the last couple of months every week i've tried
to buy one pound of grass-fed beef and it started out at seven dollars and something per pound and
that's ridiculous in itself but it's good quality meat so i'll give it that then like three weeks
after we started buying it three to four weeks after we started buying it it went up over eight dollars
now it's come back down in the seven dollar range there's absolutely no reason why that hamburger
meat should be over seven dollars a pound but it is what it is all right which is the reason why i
only buy one pound per week and we keep trying to stock it up and then we use it for various meals
because that that type of meat is best used in recipes where you're going to season it if you're
making hamburger patties because you want to make hamburgers you're better off with the higher fat
content because that's what gives it its flavor that doesn't mean you can't season it of course
season that meat but that with that underlying fat is what makes a really damn good hamburger we've
actually found and it's cheaper buy turkey turkey is is around two dollars a pound buy turkey season
it up like you would hamburger meat to make hamburgers you got turkey burgers and it's a lot cheaper it's a
lot cheaper but don't be fooled when trump's out there touting that he's the reason why walmart is
lowering prices he's not he's taking credit yet again for a positive that he had nothing to do with
but he definitely had his hands right in the middle of everything that was negative when the prices started
going up due to the tariffs what is your grocery budget looking like i talked about mine yesterday
i talked about six hundred and i talked about six hundred and i talked about six hundred and twenty six hundred thirty
dollars a month now on average i try to nail 150 every week try not to go over it some week most weeks i can't i
i wind up going over by ten or twenty dollars and we don't buy junk food i buy i buy a 12 pack of uh of grape soda maybe once every two weeks i buy one bag of potato chips
once every two weeks and everything else is just staples of trying what you need to make
meals out of hamburger meat turkey meat chicken tenders you know your your staple stocks of ketchup and
mayonnaise and mustard and cheese and things like that we're not out here buying forty dollar roasts we might do that
for say like a a thanksgiving or christmas or something like that but our our weekly eating habits
no nothing like that no steaks either nope not at all tuna fish canned chicken things like that but i'd love
to hear from you you know what is have you seen your grocery budget go is it is it like doubled already from
say like two years ago how are you coping i guess is a question anyway let me know 229-520-5957 phone lines are
open or send us a text to the same number or drop us an email morning drip at wrto.fm we're going to take
another break and we'll be back in a bit i asked for a car i got a computer how's that for being born under a
bad sign this is wrto.fm radio free georgia broadcasting from the tifton media work studios in tifton georgia
your alarm clock is a liar it says it's time to wake up but you're still sleepwalking through life
stop the snooze start the brew it's the morning drip on wrto.fm we're serving up unfiltered truth
questionable advice and enough caffeine fueled energy to power the entire piedmont plateau the
morning drip because sleeping in is for people with nothing to say weekdays only on radio for you georgia
hey everybody welcome back to the morning drip it is the morning drip for wednesday
the 8th of july 2026 all right before we get into our last segment i would like to bring your
attention to the fact that it is brought to you by visible and you've heard you've heard me talk about
this you know why pay hundreds of dollars for cell phone service when you can cut that bill probably
by 50 to 80 percent but you're gonna get the same quality of service as the big boys already provide
and of course i am talking about visible because my family and i we went from paying over 400 a
for service with verizon to just 25 per phone with visible and you know what the kicker is visible is
owned by verizon and uses verizon's nationwide 5g network i consider that a win-win so if you're
interested in saving money on your cell phone bill and saving 20 for switching then visit morning drip
dot show slash visible that's morning drip dot show slash visible and start saving on that cell phone
bill today there are a limited number of spots for this promotion so switch today and i want to thank
visible for being an affiliate for wrto.fm and the morning drip all right last story the trump
administration has and this does not surprise anybody they have abandoned plans to redesign the 20 bill
to feature abolitionist harriet tubman and this is according to treasury secretary
scott bessett asked about the status of the long delayed redesign best said the administration is
quote not at present moving forward with replacing andrew jackson on the front of the currency
the decision reverses efforts by the previous administration to revive the redesign
the proposal to place tubman on the 20 bill was first announced during the barack obama
administration with an original goal of unveiling the new note in 2020 marking the 100th anniversary of
the 19th amendment to the united states constitution project was delayed during the president uh trump's first
term then revived by the joe biden administration which said u.s currency should better reflect the nation's
history and diversity i agree with that and of course with the latest announcement there is no time time
time table for a tubman design 20 bill so andrew jackson will remain on the front of the currency
and the redesign effort has once again been placed on hold again this is not surprising
and the reason why i say that is because just look at what this administration has done they are doing their
best to whitewash the history of the united states of america and and again don't get me wrong i still
love this country i think it's one of the best countries on the planet we have some major issues that we need to
to resolve and we have some very very dark history slavery happens to be one of them but this administration
is doing everything they can they don't want slavery taught in school they just want american exceptionalism
taught in school that america is the shining beacon of freedom and democracy that every country on this planet
should strive to be just like to emulate etc they they want to shove all of our dark the darker parts of
the founding of this country the darker parts of us getting it wrong they just want to shove that
into the closet shut the door lock it and then put a wall in front of it and basically say there's there's
nothing to see here move along and we can't do that one of our greatest strengths as human beings is that we
learn or we should learn from our mistakes and it because if we don't we're going to keep repeating them
so you can't whitewash the history no matter how much you want to forget about the the darker aspects
of our country you can't you need to acknowledge them you need to recognize that that was a dark part
of our history you need to learn from it and you need to move on and maybe maybe the twenty dollar bill
is not not the best vehicle to put her on i don't know but i can tell you this they're constantly
wanting to put trump's face on damn money his freaking signature is on it now which is out of character
and there's actually a law that says that no living president's face or likeness can be on american
currency yet i forgot this is an administration that think the laws are just simply there as
recommendations suggestions not something that they actually have to listen to anyway that's going to
wrap it up for today's episode of the morning drip i want to thank you for joining me if you had the
opportunity to join live we try to do this tuesday wednesday and thursday starting around 7 30 a.m
eastern time but don't you fret if you missed it well it's available in podcast form just go to
morning drip dot show and you will get the latest episodes i put them up they're free for the seven
days and then after that if you want access to the back catalog it's just a measly seven dollars a
month to get your own membership and your own private rss feed to throw right in your favorite podcast
catcher app whatever to get these episodes and listen to them as i've said before our call in line is
two two nine five two zero five nine five seven but it is now closed but you can send a text 24 7
two two nine five two zero five nine five seven or drop us an email morning drip
at wrto.fl all right everybody try to stay cool take care of yourselves check on your neighbors check on your
loved ones it's going to be hot out there have a wonderful wednesday and we'll see you hopefully
tomorrow morning around 7 30 a.m right here on wrto.fm for another broadcast of the morning drip
good morning everybody