Norm Blumenthal – an attorney for workers and consumers. Selected as one of the Top Attorneys in Southern California. Norm was inducted and recognized as one of America’s Most Trusted Lawyers in Employment Law.
“What You See Is What You Get”
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About the host:
Bert Martinez is a successful entrepreneur and best-selling author. Bert is fascinated by business, marketing, and entrepreneurship. One of Bert’s favorite hobbies is to transform the complicated into simple-to-understand lessons so you can apply them to your business and life. Bert is also obsessed with exploring the mindset of the high achievers so you can follow their secrets and strategies.
Bert Martinez:
Welcome. I’m super glad you’re here. On the show today, Norm Blumenthal. Norm Blumenthal is an attorney for workers and consumers like you and I. He helps the average guy, the working class stiff, the the mom and pop entrepreneur. Norm is the guy. Selected as one of top attorneys in Southern California, Norm was also inducted and recognized as one of America’s most trusted lawyers in employment law. Norm Blumenthal, welcome back.
Lawyer Norm Blumenthal:
Good to be back, Bert. Interesting times. The election’s over, and, away we go. And tonight tonight today, I wanna talk about, what you see is what you get. And I think everything, Trump said he was gonna do, he’s doing, whether you like it or not.
Bert Martinez:
And whether it’s legal or not. Right?
Lawyer Norm Blumenthal:
Well, I think that the that’s kind of an aside. I don’t think he’s worried about that at this point. He’s just firing all the attorneys he didn’t like anyway. So, it’s gonna be a bit of an authoritarian, regime, I expect. He’s thinking about a third term and a fourth term, and that’s he’s he’s got a lot of money, and he wants to keep running. So, you know, this show may not end when we expect it to, in in another four years or so. So hold on to your hats. He’s not accepting the fact that that he’s a two term president.
But let’s look at, you know, as long as we’re here, and he’s president. We gotta look at what he’s done and what he’s doing, and he’s lived up to everything he said he’s gonna do whether you like it or not. He did win a, a fair election. No one’s claiming that it wasn’t. And, so we’ll have we have to live with a majority rule. So the first thing he’s doing is which is prevalent out here in San Diego, He’s, taking into custody and repatriating, persons who are here illegally. And, that’s what should happen. People should come through the system legally.
I don’t think, there’s any reason that they need to go illegally. There’s plenty of jobs. But the ramifications of it are if you if you own a restaurant and your dishwasher and line cook and table cleaner are no longer there because they’ve been repatriated, it doesn’t just affect their job. It affects the jobs of, the waitress, the, cashiers, the, chefs, and, other workers in in the restaurant because now somebody’s gotta do those jobs, and and there’s nobody there to do them. So you have to go out and hire them. So you’re you’re going to hire them from other restaurants. And then how do you hire somebody from another restaurant? You gotta pay them more. So the concept that, we’re not gonna live in an inflationary world, just doesn’t exist here.
Bert Martinez:
Absolutely. And not only are you talking about restaurants, but let’s look at, I think, the issue that we had before, and, I believe in the first Trump term when he went ballistic on immigrants and whatever. We had crops that were going rotting rotten, or bad because there were no workers to to harvest the crops. And and so he’s trying to do a he’s fighting a tariff war with Mexico, which seems to be, maybe a maybe he’s gonna let that slide for now. Excuse me excuse me for now. But still, you know, to your point, if there are no laborers in the kitchen and there’s no labor in the crops to pick the crops, our food costs are gonna skyrocket.
Lawyer Norm Blumenthal:
Yeah. Right now, eggs are $14 a dozen because there’s no one to work the, chicken coops, and there’s also the, chicken virus or something thrown rolling around there, and they had to slaughter a bunch of birds, unfortunately, and couldn’t use them. And so there’s a lot of issues happening at the same time, and then Trump has this notion that, tariffs did not affect the price of goods sold. I don’t know where he gets this idea. Maybe he doesn’t have that idea, but I know what he’s thinking. My speculation is is that if there’s a tariff, those funds go to the government. Okay? So he wants to, have more money, in the government’s hands. So one way he’s gonna do it is through tariffs.
So he puts those on and, he collects that at the port of entry. As far as he’s concerned, what it cost the consumer is is another issue, and, where they take it from is another issue. So he’s not seeing it as as inflationary. I just don’t get it. It looks to me like, everything he’s doing, the net effect is gonna be, prices will go up. There’ll be plenty of jobs, but no one to fill them. And, we’ll live with higher prices across the boards from tariffs and lack of personnel to fill jobs. So I think that that the expectation, at least from my standpoint, is is I expect that prices will go up is is is in the first round.
Bert Martinez:
Oh, absolutely. I think, as you pointed out, I think Trump is is, you know, like a lot of times, he doesn’t wanna he doesn’t wanna accept that, what he’s doing could hurt other people and or he certainly doesn’t care one way or the other. Right? It’s just about him being able to say, look. I’ve kept my promise. I got all these tariffs going and and this and that. I I think that, again, when you start looking at the Hispanic immigrant, which, for the most part, are hardworking people who send money home.
What’s interesting to me, Norm, is that, he has not made any mention of all the other illegal immigrants that come over. Right? I think sixty minutes did a report where 20% of the illegal immigrants coming over the Mexican border are from China, and I think that poses a bigger threat.
China is an enemy. They certainly have done everything they can to send us, toxic foods and furniture I’m sorry, sheetrock and lumber and you name it, honey and it the list goes on. These guys are are not good citizens, and that to me is a bigger concern, and maybe he’ll do something about that.
But bottom line is when you look at right now, whether you like it or not, and I know there’s a lot of people out there who are who feel victimized. They feel marginalized. They they they feel as though, maybe their life is, not going the way they want, and they’re and they’re looking to place that frustration and that anger and that hate. And I think Mexican people or illegal aliens, Latinos is is as good as place as any. We’ve seen this his you know, throughout history when, over and over again, people are looking to blame somebody.
And and so when you look at all the sectors that are affected by these hardworking people, we’ve already talked about restaurants, there’s, the crops, there’s the hotel industry, there’s the construction industry, there’s the transportation industry. The list is massive, and it’s gonna be interesting to see who who Trump blames when we see double digit inflations again.
Lawyer Norm Blumenthal:
Today, I just saw, what, earlier in the in the day, he suspended the government payment for grants. It’s, and so he, except for Social Security and Medicare, he took that out. And so I don’t quite know what that means yet. I haven’t been able to have the time to explore it, but he’s he’s frozen, expenses. You know? I I I don’t wanna speculate on what what part of it is, but, you know, you have all these, NGOs that get their funding through the federal government. Expanding that and, you know, all the, nongovernmental organizations, will have no funding. So I don’t know what that’s gonna do and how many people that’s gonna, put out of work, until they get that straightened out or whether or not it’ll happen at all.
You know, we don’t quite know. When he does, it will actually happen. He called Columbia’s bluff, and, that certainly set Columbia back on, you know, whether or not they’re gonna do anything. So they’re accepting all of the returnees, and he’s gonna return these, persons. There was a group of, Venezuelans. He he took everybody from the bar. I guess it was alleged that there was a Venezuelan, some type of, of, trade group that was illegal. And so the way they went so, you you know, they’re out there putting people on airplanes and sending it back.
And at some point, the lack of personnel will have to have its effect. I think it you know, well, it’s just the the numbers. But from a labor standpoint, the good news is those people that are here legally and are citizens and, were born here, hopefully, that’s not gonna change, will be entitled to, more funds. I mean, they’re they’re gonna demand higher wages. There’s no question about it. And so that’s gonna lead to inflation. So where we end up, remains to be seen.
Bert Martinez:
Well and and I think that we have to look at what’s going on. I think, again, from a due process and and, obviously, I’m not an attorney, but you are Norm. And and my understanding, when it comes to things like deportation, usually, there’s a process for that. They’re they have to verify the the circumstances. I envision that sooner or later, Trump, and and his, what do you call it? His border czar there or whatever the guy’s name, is going to accidentally deport some US citizens as well as some lawfully legal people because in that instance, they may not be able to prove that they’re a citizen. They may not be able to prove that they’re here legally. And so it’s it’s going to cause some legal ramifications. Again, not that, he’s gonna care, that Trump’s gonna care.
But when you’re doing this kind of crazy over the top I wanna say, you know, I think it’s illegal, just because there’s there’s no there’s no overseers. There’s no there’s no judge saying, okay. This is right. This is wrong. They’re just, you know, getting rid of everybody they can regardless.
Lawyer Norm Blumenthal:
Yeah. You know? And and don’t think for a minute that when the issue of citizenship comes before the, United States Supreme Court that they’re not gonna rule, in favor of Trump’s interpretation of citizenship, as, you know, being born here. They’re going to exclude, persons who are born here to an illegal resident as not being citizens. It it could very well happen. This is what happened to the second amendment on guns from the beginning of time all the way through to until, the DC case.
Not too many years ago, Everybody thought that, gun control was in the hands of the, states and that they had the right to protect their citizens from, use of guns until, the Supreme Court said, no. You don’t. Second Amendment, trumps all your laws, and, people can carry guns, open carry and large guns and, AR fifteens.
And and that that’s just recent law from the the Trump, court. And, you could very well see that on citizenship too. So the net effect would be with the view even less citizens, to go around for jobs and labor costs are gonna go up. I mean, we, you know, we started these shows, Bert, the, minimum well, minimum wage is still $7.50, but all the states enacted higher minimum wages.
California is now $15 plus, and you’re gonna see there’s no reason that, you know, a good dishwasher can’t get $25 an hour. Right. And that’s and, you know, that’s a a living wage. So maybe at the end of the day, we’re gonna be moving up to a living wage in persons who are legally here or, will will have these these jobs because Trump is pretty clear that he’s not after persons who, are legally here.
You know, this, group of engineers that all of the Silicon Valley hires in h one, hurdles, he he wants to keep it wide open. And so that’s gonna continue to to go, and we’ll continue to have persons in here persons here legally and and are in school here legally. So there’s a lot of things here at all of the points to higher wages, more job availability, and less persons to, to fill these positions.
Bert Martinez:
Yeah. This is going to be upsetting for a lot of people because we’re gonna have a double or possibly even a triple standard. Hey, we’re gonna get rid of immigrants unless it affects some of my donors, some of my contacts. And we’ve seen that the big seven tech firms have kissed the ring, Amazon, Google, Facebook, Meta, whatever you wanna call them. They’ve all lined up, to avoid his wrath because they know that president Trump does not play by any set of normal rules, that he is unhinged and that at any minute now, his ire could be focused on you or your family, your children, your company, your and who wants that?
Lawyer Norm Blumenthal:
Yeah. And the government’s not it’s not gonna help out. I mean, they’ve just heard yesterday that, okay. If you’re a victim of the fire and your house burned down in Palisades or, Altadena, that if you want the government to, core of engineers to scrape your land of, all of and get it back to the point where you’re ready to build, They’ll do it for free, but the process will take eighteen months.
Or you can do it yourself or have your insurance company do it, and you can start tomorrow. So there’s a big flaw in the system as to how they can get these, areas back up and running because the first thing they have to do is remove the, the burnt materials from all these lots. And it should be, if they’re gonna do it, the corps of engineers should get out there tomorrow and start cleaning these lot lots off and then worry about who’s gonna pay it later.
There’s gonna be plenty of lawsuits charging the electric company and and the city, and the state, with, claims and besides everything else along with the insurance. They’re talking now about $275,000,000,000 in losses. And they’ve interviewed, some insurance experts. And, apparently, the, insurance companies that you buy your insurance from, they had they have very little of the actual risk.
That risk has been spread around the world through through reinsurance, and it’s in in the world’s scheme of things through reinsurance, 275 to 300 billion dollars spread around the world is a manageable number. It’s not that big a deal because the insurance companies themselves, they take very little of the risk. They’re in the business of, brokering, policies, and but not accepting risk because that’s the way insurance business works.
So that’s where where you’re headed and but there’s no reason for there to be these kind of delays. That’s another problem. And then it’s finding somebody that’s gonna actually get out there and clean these and scrape these lots. Where’s the personnel coming from? Who’s gonna get out there in the hazmat suit, to to do the work, and where is the, hazmat material once it’s scraped? Where does it go? So there’s a tremendous amount of holes in the system there. And but if you wanna get it done, you’re gonna pay. So, you know, it it won’t be a hundred and 75,000. Maybe it’s 250,000, but but at least you’re in the system where you’re in a position to rebuild. So that’s all.
It’s not a a big number, but that’s all part of the system that’s just it’s not working. And Right. You know, you you just can’t go and pull people out of their jobs. They interviewed a fellow. Been here nineteen years, you know, working, and then he was on the Guatemala airplanes, and they interviewed him when he landed. And, the question was, well, are you a citizen? No. Do you have a green card? No. Are you gonna stay in Guatemala? Are you are you gonna go back? Oh, I’ll go back.
You know, speaks perfect English. I’m trying to get my job back. So there’s gonna be some matriculation back to the, countries and those that were there. And some people will not come back either.
But this is gonna be the the immigration issue is the stand alone biggest issue of, that Trump won the election on, and, he’s gonna deliver.
Bert Martinez:
Absolutely. No. He has to. Look. He delivered for the, the insurrectionist, the January. He allowed people who were murderers. I mean, these people killed three or four police officers. A hundred plus people were injured, and he had no hesitation in releasing them.
And and we’re gonna see a bunch. I kinda betting that we’re gonna see about 20 to 30 of all these, the most radical January 6 people, I believe, will eventually get rearrested on a completely different set of crimes because now they’re emboldened. They believe that they’re that the president is going to watch their back and take care of them. I I think one of the guys who was pardoned immediately, was rearrested on some kind of gun charges or gun related crimes. And and so I that, I think, is gonna be an ongoing thing.
And every time that one of these guys gets rearrested, you’re going to get an earful from president Trump and and his followers, and and it’s just gonna be a constant never ending battle. To your point, Norm, we’re never ever going to get rid of Trump until he passes away, and and that’s just what it is. So whether he gets a third term or not, he’s always going to interfere. He’s always going to be a a a thorn in the side of of the law, of justice.
He has forever changed politics and not in a good way. I mean, at least at one point, there was a certain level of diplomacy. There was a certain level of let’s work together. Now it’s all of that is evaporated, and it’s just constant combative, you know, what do you call it, scorched earth kind of mentality.
Lawyer Norm Blumenthal:
Yeah. He’s you know, remember, again, the Supreme Court had a lot to do with all of this. Yes. In regard to guns, it was Felder versus The United States and regard to, powers that Trump has the president has. They ruled in, in US versus Trump that his powers are are on are unlimited while he’s in office, basically.
And, you know, he could decide what he wants to do. And part of that unlimited power is to potentially stay in office and cancel the election. So you you really, unfortunately, there’s some real parallels here between the fall of the republic, from in Roman times when Caesar took over and, now because the republic is only as good as the persons in it, and it’s it’s very precarious.
And how long it’ll last, we don’t know, but I think if inflation goes the way that some people are are talking. You know, he may not be in office that, you know, that much longer because people just won’t be able to afford to have him in in office. I mean, we may need some some controls on our debt, federal debt, and we may need some controls on the workforce as to who can stay and who can go, once, it’s determined that they don’t, have citizenship, but they do have a a job or and they’ve been here plus, you know, ten plus years and and work that there needs to be a process for those persons different from the process of persons who have been, convicted of criminal activity and those persons that, you know, just arrived.
So there’s there’s a process that reasonable people can agree to that will keep the person working and have been working and paying taxes and and, no reason to be sure they, came here illegally or their parents came here illegally. But, you know, what have they done? And, if they’ve been good citizens, that that has to mean something.
Now under Trump’s policy, it means nothing. This guy that’s been working here paying his taxes for nineteen years, and he’s back in Guatemala because he started out. He wasn’t a citizen when he started. Well, there has to be some credit given to, people like that. And, hopefully, the, you know, cooler heads will prevail and the policy that Trump started will be in place to secure the borders. But how, we deal with the persons that are arrested should be on some form of a case by case basis.
Bert Martinez:
And I agree. Look. You and I have talked about this multiple times. The the immigrant worker is essential to our economy. I don’t think you’ll you’ll find any economist that would argue different to that. And and I think that it’s very easy to fix. All you have to do is set up some kind of worker visa program where these people can come over, do the work. We know who they are.
They can pay taxes. They can they can do everything they’re supposed to do legally because they’re on a worker visa. And and because, you know, the there there may be some additional fees or or what we call additional cost, these visas, you know, you could charge for that, obviously, and and say, okay. Listen. For a twelve month Visa, it’s x y z, and then you can renew it, and that renewal is based on being in good standing. You know, during that twelve month period, you get arrested. You don’t get a renewal. You get booted out.
So there there’s there’s so many ways to do this where it helps, our economy. It helps the restaurant industry, the construction industry, the transportation industry, the the farming industry. And and these are all industries where right now there isn’t enough people to to do the work at to begin with. I mean, you know, we hear every day that there’s, like, 500,000 trade jobs that are going unfulfilled. We’re talking plumbing, carpentry, and so on. And getting rid of all of these people again is just gonna exacerbate this situation.
Lawyer Norm Blumenthal:
Well, the the carpenter, the plumber, the the architect, the designer, the general contractor, the investor, they they can’t build a house unless they have the, laborer, you know, to carry the wood, you know, do the the the the backbreaking work. Right. And, you take those people out of the equation, you take the house construction out of the equation. That’s another area. Also, if you’re gonna have a trade war with Canada, and, you know, you’re gonna be there and you’re gonna put tariffs on lumber. Yeah. I got I mean, all of a sudden, it’s gonna cost a heck of a lot more to to build a house. So, you know, we we do a lot of business with Canada.
And, you know, like Canada, I live in San Diego. People cross the border every day, come to San Diego to work, and then go home at night and live until you want it. It it works. I mean, that’s, you know, that’s how people do things, and there’s no reason it can’t be done on a bigger scale so that there’s enough workers. Yeah. There’s 8 million jobs now that we can’t find people to, work on. And it it you know, the situation will be exacerbated with this program where good, hardworking people are repatriated to their country of origin because they didn’t come here legally, and with the government’s turning a blind eye to what they are doing.
You have, you know, obviously, what, Biden, during three years of his term, was doing was just letting people come across with with no no plan process. Right. People from Latin America and people from China since, Southeast Asia. So it was a bad he exacerbated the situation, and the reason he lost the election or he didn’t wasn’t even voted there, is he did nothing. He he deserved to lose, and, Trump was there to accept the victory, and he played all the cards correctly. But now it becomes there’s a big difference between winning an election and governing. And, his plan of government is through executive orders, and, sometimes you go a little bit too far.
I think in the end, hopefully, they’ll realize that the process, you know, the the pendulum swung too far the other way, and good people are being, expiry patriot that should be have a path to, to, stay here and work. They don’t have to be citizens, and we’ve talked about this. But, certainly, they’re they should have a work permit for while they’re here. And if they, don’t have work, then they they don’t have any reason to still be here.
Bert Martinez:
Absolutely. Absolutely. You know? And I’ve said this before. Look. I just think that that, president Trump lacks a lot of leadership skills. I’m not saying he he’s a hundred percent zero, but when you go through a list of of things like, emotional intelligence, problem solving skills, delegation, you know, building relationships, servant leadership, integrity, empathy, decisiveness, effective communication, all of the you go down through a list, things like accountability. None of these things, either he scores zero or he scores very, very low on. Does he have confidence? Absolutely.
Is he able to, paint a picture sometimes? Absolutely. Even though as we’ve seen time and time again, sometimes they’re not, founded in truth or fact. I think that, we have a situation where where you’ve already mentioned that, the the US Supreme Court is giving them a wide, latitude, a wide, yeah, wide latitude. And so he’s going to dismantle or get rid of anybody that’s either a democrat, who’s a, a civil servant, who’s either a democrat, or if he thinks this person may object or not be, quote, loyal, he’s you know, they’re gonna get rid of all of these people.
I think what’s gonna happen is you’re going to see a lot of government corruption, and some people say, well, the government’s already been corrupted. Well, you’re gonna see it worse. And so if you think that the the our government’s corruption was a was a 10, Now it’ll it’ll be a 20 because you’re gonna have all these people who believe that they can do no wrong because they got, this protection.
And and I think that, you know, I was, on a show, and and I, and one of the things that I believe will happen, and we’ve already seen it, is that you’re going to have problems because, let me tell you, Elon Musk and Donald Trump both have a very large ego.
They they both think that they’re right. They’re and sooner or later, they’re going to I assume or I I believe that Trump will will get rid of Musk and anybody else that gets any kind of credit or or or spotlight. Vivek, Ramaswamy is already left because he see he saw the writing on the wall, and and so you have all of these big egos, and it makes it hard for people to work together when all they care about is themselves. I have high hopes that RFK might be able to do some good with our with our food.
I think our food does need some, some, overhauling because there’s a lot of ingredients that’s hurting people in our foods, all these red dyes and all these preservatives that seem to do very well in Europe. Meaning, just to clarify, these ingredients and these preservatives, these red dyes are not allowed in Europe, and and they sell the products without the red dyes or the the bad dyes and the preservatives just as well in Europe as they do here. The and so why has our FDA allowed these terrible ingredients to to be allowed, to continue in our foods because they get they get paid. There there’s just the way our government works right now.
I think that that, again, I hope that RFK can do something, and I hope that Elon Musk can do something because, look, I I don’t think anybody will argue that we need to fine tune our government. It it needs to be more efficient. What’s interesting to me, Norman, you and I have talked about this before. You have the corn industry, the sugar industry, the beef industry, and and there’s a few more that get massive government subsidies, and these are all wealthy, profitable industries. They they know they do not need government subsidies. And so it’s gonna be interesting to see what happens there.
Lawyer Norm Blumenthal:
Yeah. The I just happened today is, I don’t have all the information, but apparently, Trump is canceling all of the government contracts with NGOs, nongovernmental organizations. So there’s a tremendous amount of money spent through, NGOs. And you canceled all that, and I don’t know the extent of it. But if if he wants to save money, he can. But I think a lot of organizations that do the work of government is not done by government employees. It’s done by NGOs that, or, you know, different departments hire different groups to do the work for them. So I I don’t know the extent of it, and, hopefully, it won’t be that extensive, but it sounded pretty serious, and, you know, Trump paints with a big brush.
Bert Martinez:
He does. He does. And so, you know, just just look at, what the, what the AP wire has come out. Right? Just, today, at least 56 senior officials in the top USAID and development agency were placed on leave amid investigation into an alleged effort to dwarf president Trump’s orders. So, again, if they’re not gonna be loyal to Trump, they’re gonna be booted out. He’s not interested in anybody’s else’s opinion. He’s not interested in in working, with anyone else. It’s it’s his way or the highway.
Right? And and so Trump has also suspended aid to the to Ukraine. No doubt he did that because I’m assuming, Russia, you know, might have influenced him somehow. There there’s no good reason not to help Ukraine fight off, Russia. And so he is, he’s rescinding federal funds, on all you know, again, a bunch of different programs, and some of them are are critical. I’m I’m a big believer that we need to help Ukraine. And, you know, again, we’re gonna see what happens.
Lawyer Norm Blumenthal:
I think it’s gonna be an interesting four years plus. But if you read your history, republics are are sensitive political organizations, and it’s they’re easily, unfortunately, overthrown. And I think we’re we’ll know more as we go, but Trump is it has all of the attributes of, of the Caesar. And so, it it could be a a a tough time with, you know, inflationary spiral that’s that’s, that we could be facing. But in terms of dollars, I think it’s good for labor that people that are working here and working hard are gonna be making more because there’ll be less of them.
Bert Martinez:
Yeah. Absolutely. That that that could be a plus. Norm, we’re out of time. As always, my friend, good to have you here. Looking forward to having you back again soon.
Lawyer Norm Blumenthal:
Okay, Bert. It’s a pleasure. Have a good one.
Bert Martinez:
Good stuff there from Norm Blumenthal. Norm Blumenthal. And you can find out more about Norm and his team at bamlawca.com. Bam law c a Com. Maybe you completely disagree with what what we’re saying. Maybe you think we’re, I don’t know, too woo woo. Maybe you think we’re too liberal, and love to hear from you.
And in a non combative way, if you can express yourself, intelligently, hey. I’m always up for a a debate. Please share this episode with everyone you know. Let’s help get the conversation started.
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