The incredible opportunity ahead for downtown Baltimore to grow and thrive with Orioles new ownership

Leonard Raskin and Nestor discuss power of downtown Baltimore to grow and thrive with Orioles new ownership

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

year, tickets, baltimore, baseball, arena, city, week, drove, taxes, tax, cfg, talking, state, buy, concert, good, people, income tax, pay, lights

SPEAKERS

Leonard Raskin, Nestor J. Aparicio

Nestor J. Aparicio  00:01

Welcome home we are wn St. am 1570, Towson, Baltimore and Baltimore positive we are up and running here, as we’re sort of awaiting the beginning of spring training that like really begin and obviously we’re going to have some combine information next week. In the sports side. Luke will be in Owings Mills. He will be in Sarasota in his spirits. But, but blogging and talking about all things oriels he and I had a great visit here this week. And we’re sort of ramping back up from crabcake row brought to you by our friends at the Maryland lottery conjunction when donation as well as Jiffy Lube MultiCare. There were 78 conversations almost all of them are up in Baltimore positive right now. You probably heard them during the course of the week and giving the great causes and eating crab cakes and crab soup Zia was a wonderful little February idea letter Raskin returns is our defending champion here just in time to have a president state weekend where we have a tax free Maryland, I know that’s in your dreams, all we have to do is just drive 40 miles up the Delaware. You have some property over there. But how are you your favorite weekend in Maryland and it

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Leonard Raskin  01:03

doing great love the tax free? Love the tax free? I always wonder to myself, What is the purpose of the tax free weekend? I just don’t get it.

Nestor J. Aparicio  01:14

It’s an incentive to go out, save a few bucks. No, I

Leonard Raskin  01:18

get that it’s an incentive to go out and spend because merchants make a lot of money when there’s not sales tax when there’s no tax. So the question is, if it’s good for a weekend, why isn’t it good for a week? If it’s good for a weeknight, um, why not a month? And if it’s good for a month, why not a year? And if it’s good for a year, why not ever forever? So taxes are an impediment. The fact is that people don’t do things. And when taxes are incentivized they do things. So if we want people to spend, we should reduce taxes, and people spend more.

Nestor J. Aparicio  01:51

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That is a good point. I mean, and you make a point, but I guess the four days of taxes last than all of this, if you times that by 366. We get an extra day this year anyway. Yeah. But at that point, I wonder do we go broke I said to my wife,

Leonard Raskin  02:10

well, it’s the states don’t have sales taxes don’t have income taxes. They don’t go broke. They get another

Nestor J. Aparicio  02:15

way. Listen, we’re doing a shoot interview here. It’s like a wrestling interview. But I’ll just say this when I drive around now, and I rent a car, and no matter where I am, they all of the toll booths in the country are gone now. And for 50 years, they screwed up traffic, stop everything a quarter in the basket, then 50 cents and $1 then $3 If you go through the Lincoln Tunnel, it’s $18 or whatever it is now right now

Leonard Raskin  02:41

the flashers that catch your EZ Pass if you don’t have an EZ Pass and then they get your license plate right

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Nestor J. Aparicio  02:49

but when you rent a car, you pay the fee fee comes later from the state of California. It feels like I didn’t have you know they call them freeways in California but yeah, they’re not my wife we’re watching this it’ll This will bring into journey concert at the CFG Bank Arena. Journey fake journey plays and they come down and do their thing and and they sang lights when the lights go down on the city and it showed San faces journey. Fake journey. Pictures. It’s not really I call it fake journey. It’s not. She says to me do you call all bands without? You know, Terrell was missing two members. Is that original? Oh no. And I’m like, Well, Steve Lucas was there. So you know, it’s feels real to me. I won’t call rush fake rush if they bro goes out and plays the drums. I just wanted to. But lights came on the song when lights go down the city? Yes, yes. Go. And they showed the Bay Bridge. They showed the Golden Gate. But they showed the Bay Bridge. Yeah. I said to my wife. I’m like, I drove over that three weeks ago when I was in San Francisco. bucks. No, no, no. The best thing ever. There was no, I have never been able to get into San Francisco or out quickly. Because that bridge had Yeah, Booth. Yeah, it just was legendary. If you want to go to Oakland, it may take you two hours right? When you can take the BART and be overnight minutes. When I once I figured that I never rented a car in Northern California. But I drove across the bridge and there was no traffic. And then I said they’ve taken away all that. But I got the bill literally on my desk from national and they charge you and then they charge you fees

Leonard Raskin  04:15

on a fee to charge you, you write. So I don’t like it. It’s a racket. All the taxes are ran over the East Coast. If you’re on the East Coast and you’re going somewhere in a rental car, you can take your EZ Pass, right, just hold it up, hold it up to the windshield when you go through the area and they’ll charge you that way. And that’s

Nestor J. Aparicio  04:37

all part of Ted Leone’s this is we’re all one big city from Boston to Richmond right that’s

Leonard Raskin  04:41

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right that’s right it’s just the east coast before I get

Nestor J. Aparicio  04:45

to sports with you or anything current because you’re like Mr. Republican here and like I’m we’re not going to talk about politics too much with you this year. The tax part of this yes tax part of this, which which tax Do you hate the most? and why, and what tax Do you think serves a purpose? I mean, because we pay a lot of taxes you can hate. Please don’t tell me that you think we should never pay taxes for anything? Because nothing, never country would never run like that. So let’s

Leonard Raskin  05:17

it’s run in the past it could run. The thing is income taxes are the worst. Income Taxes are the worst Social Security second, income taxes, I have a view on income die. This is

Nestor J. Aparicio  05:29

you’re being penalized? Because you’ve been successful? Is that what you’re saying? No, no, this

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Leonard Raskin  05:33

is earnings, income tax, right? When you go to work, not a not a self employed person, as myself and yourself. But as an employee, when you go to work, you are giving your labor, your time yourself, your body, your energy. And what you get back is paid for that. Why is that taxed? You’re being you’re being rewarded? And and

Nestor J. Aparicio  06:00

because you’re getting to do it in this country. I’m sure you get to live in this country go to Mexico.

Leonard Raskin  06:09

You’re being compensated for your slavery. So So I think that’s fine. It’s a fair trade, I give you labor, you give me income, the government has no no peace in that, why they feel they can take a piece of that and decide how much of that they can take is beyond me.

Nestor J. Aparicio  06:28

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Have you figured out in the first part was that Thomas Jefferson, who came up with that I don’t even know who it was, but somebody who

Leonard Raskin  06:32

first came up with it, but we passed it in, in the 16th amendment 1913 That income taxes were illegal in this country before 13 was, I don’t know the history of that it was the state taxes and tariffs and other things that that paid the bills and if you go up for instance you will see these mansions. I mean castles. There used to be a show on TV America’s castles. You can see all these amazing places.

Nestor J. Aparicio  07:06

Where does this say this again? Because you made out in Maine in Maine, okay.

Leonard Raskin  07:10

New York, you know, Vermont, all these beautiful castles, you go to Carolina, you can see one there. There’s lots of them. They’re ginormous homes. These people used to live in Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, whoever. And now they’re all museums, because the families couldn’t maintain them. Because income tax and estate tax took away so much of that generational wealth that they weren’t sustainable. Well,

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Nestor J. Aparicio  07:36

we can only hope that changes the Baltimore Orioles if we’re trying to round a situation. You know it? Certainly it put the Washington Redskins in really bad hands at one point, you know, the death of a father right? Like, yeah, the baseball side of it should be you. You’ve been back for a week you are and why don’t we let her baskets here for basketball? Well, he manages money, which is about politics and usually treats his friends pretty well.

Leonard Raskin  07:58

teaches people how to save taxes. That’s what it’s about. Well, right.

Nestor J. Aparicio  08:01

That way we can have more money later. That’s right. That’s right. Yeah, I don’t want to cheat the government. But I don’t want to give them something they’re not entitled to. You’re

Leonard Raskin  08:09

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only required to pay what they require not a penny more. Well,

Nestor J. Aparicio  08:13

we heard all along that. The young Angelo’s boys would not be able to keep the team because of estate tax and whatnot with the dad. Right? Where are you going back for a week? Yeah, for the first time come back from a Why were the teams going to be sold? We talked about Yeah, you’re kind of going through a pretty weird period of time between championship games and the team changing hands and then the Super Bowl, but right for local people, and based What are you feeling and hearing about the auras because we live through a year last year with a 101 games where we taught. We didn’t talk a lot of baseball for years, and they’re losing. It’s exciting. They started talking baseball was exciting. And I had expectations. I told everybody this when you were gone, because I didn’t do a piece with you. Yeah, two weeks when it happened. I was in a state of shock. Like you were flying off to Hawaii for a week and a half. And I was sort of I said to my wife, it took three days. And I’m like, I’ve never really thought about anybody else owning the team because I just didn’t want to get hopeful, you know, right. Seven Oh, miles would always say to me, you outlive him. That’s what he always seems. Like at this point, maybe that’s the case. But the baseball thing here and I’ve talked at length with Luke about this, because I took last week sort of down after we did crabcake row. And I put my head around this. And this is the first time I’ve had a conversation with you about it. Put my head around where it’s going to be three years or five years from now and whether more people are going to go what downtown is going to look like and how they’re going to spend money and more than that. The fact that the Bloomberg and the Rubinstein’s was really wealthy, Uber wealthy in this and their thing here is it squeezing five cents out of a hotdog. I mean, which they will and I was at CFG Bank Arena repairs are 1750 the other night I’m like Baltimore, you’re wondering why premium anything because people don’t want to pay it. It’s simple. It’s outrageous. Oh my taxes. It’s an hour rageous surcharge you get a beer at a concert or get a hot dog in a hockey game or

Leonard Raskin  10:04

it’s the it’s the price you pay to enjoy luxury.

Nestor J. Aparicio  10:08

But it’s not luxurious.

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Leonard Raskin  10:11

It’s a choice. But it’s a choice when it’s premium.

Nestor J. Aparicio  10:13

Yes, the IP, it’s all Yeah. What’s the baseball experience gonna be like even back a week, you’ve talked a lot of people, a lot of older white folks as well, who love baseball who wanted to come back to it. Like all of that, like I keep everywhere I go, people talk to me about it. Maybe it’s because I’m appeler excited.

Leonard Raskin  10:30

People are excited. I think people are tentatively thrilled. Like they, they’re thrilled that it’s a Baltimore ownership group, generally, they’re thrilled that it sounds like they’re going to involve local people in ownership and decision making. They’re not going to as as Angelou said, we can’t keep everybody we don’t have the money to keep everybody well, now they got money. And I guess 600 million, as we saw with the ravens, keeping Lamar, and who knows what a shot he’s going to do this year, but $600 million for stadium improvements, goes a long way to let you increase and hold payroll. So the hope is that they’ve got a lot of flush cash. They’re wealthy people. You look at Bloomberg, oh, my goodness, how many millions? Is he given to Hopkins and other causes that he cares about? So I

Nestor J. Aparicio  11:28

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wonder what this doesn’t lift the city? Because I keep thinking about when Camden Yards was built, and young people don’t feel this you can remember? Right? Can we remember it being the Gateway Arch? It was the place it was everybody had to come everybody needed to spend time at the harbor. If you were going to come downtown, you were going to bring the kids who go to the Science Center, you’re going to you know, and the affordability of all that has changed 30 years later, where baseball ticket was six bucks or eight bucks. But you still get a little baseball game very inexpensively. Yeah, it’s gonna be good. The new owners are going to be incenting lots of folks to come to the game that haven’t been that has never been that haven’t been in a while and we don’t go as often or only go once a year. How do I get you back more often? How do I get you watching the games to get you engaged. But my bigger picture when I started hearing Bloomberg and his other guys is that they want to fix the city. And that’s you know, the bottom of positive thing and I get grief about it being you know, every time there’s a shooting every time there’s a card in it, that’s every day, every day happens right? That we can’t be positive about Baltimore, Baltimore could never be lifted again. And I’m thinking to myself, that’s nonsense, and it’s put it’s gonna take really it’s gonna take smarter people than then Then John Angelo’s and it’s gonna take Well, that’s the people we’ve talked about shoddy,

Leonard Raskin  12:43

talking about community involvement, they need to have community involvement they need to get they need to get the politicians Dare I say to pass laws that are going to make the city safe, safer. I mean there are there are lots of people that will not go downtown. I think we talked about a year ago or so. One of the selling points to the VIP if you will season ticket PSL whatever they call it an experience at CFG was you can get a parking pass where you drive into the arena parking lot. Walk directly to a door that brings you directly into the arena and you never have to step foot out and Baltimore city around the arena that was a selling point and that’s terrible.

Nestor J. Aparicio  13:36

I did that on Sunday night by the way I we went we went to dinner at young cook we Wendy brown fine I’ll have her on this week and curio we went out to dinner Mike Rosenfeld had us down the oak few people invited some people to see their their sort of newest suite it’s called the vault. It used to be the Hall of Fame behind backstage in the backs okay. And it’s a big playroom with Papa shot and Donkey Kong and, and Mike wanted me to talk about it on the air. So I’m talking about it on the low. But it’s for business, a man like you has some means once the holiday party wants to do something. Adele comes to town. You know, John Mayer, and you’re like, oh, I want 20 tickets. I’m going to take it you know, my friends. Do a Christmas night do a party. Do it. I did it. Don’t forget Rodricks Yeah, two months ago. My friends never room. They have those kinds of rooms. Now if you remember they never had those sort of like, honestly, it reminds me of like a Vegas suite without the kids and without the view.

Leonard Raskin  14:33

Fun room with a bottle service with a big bottle sir,

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Nestor J. Aparicio  14:37

you step right from the arena back into it. And you never know what’s there. It’s black door. It’s not mark. It’s called the vault. Nobody knows it’s there. It’s literally not a marked room. But it’s part so I drove down and did that the other night and I My first thought was this. We’re getting the speech during halftime between from Lowell about hey, we’d like to get the underarmor is in the McCormick’s and some bigger businesses. I’m here to buy suites and do all that stuff. And, and I know other arenas have full suites, like the DC suites been there with the bathroom. Like, this one isn’t built that way. And that’s okay. But people have experienced, oh, I could say to the guy, he was like, low and I know mold for a couple years since he’s been here. He’s like, Hey, we’re trying to get more people to experience this. If you get the word out, talk about it on the radio, if you have a radio show, so I’m doing that. But I’m thinking to myself, I walked out into the bowl of the arena, and I looked around, it was packed. Yes back for faith journey. No offense to your faith journey at 100 bucks to throw 120 bucks my my stand, went paid 80 bucks last night bought a ticket walking up. So I’m thinking myself, this is a really healthy thing this CFG bank people have done in the Oak view people that whatever Stevie Nicks was there Saturday night last night, you know, Sunday night, it was this next week.

Leonard Raskin  15:51

Shelly on Tuesday, you’re going to put Shelly Right, yeah, he was sick, and had to postpone after the one of the football games this year. It was a Sunday all day, downtown for us. We had the game followed by Bocelli. In the evening, we were going to sneak a hotel room in between to change clothes and be dry. And then we got to notice the day before that he was sick and canceled. And so we’re hoping Tuesday night, we’ll have that experience to get to see him.

Nestor J. Aparicio  16:22

What do you think when you go to that? I mean, because I thought about it for the first I don’t know what in my sobriety Sunday night that I’m there. I’m an invited guests because I always buy my tickets out. I mean, I mean, there’s they go to concerts. It’s weird for me. I mean, Roosevelt offered me a ticket. I’m like, don’t ya somebody else you can offer that. I mean, it’s the first part of my, I’m like, give it to somebody that really will go crazy, because I go to concerts all the time. We want you there. We want you to see this room. So I’m like, great. And I went down there and all I thought about was there are a lot of people here and respecting has improved so much. Yes, sound is improved so much. The bathrooms have improved so much. The ingress and egress the fact that I drive down there at 630. And I can’t get across Baltimore street because there’s just people coming to it like Monster light. Is my old curl. This is the old chicken box. You know, this is the old Baltimore scimitar. And it’s it has been completely brought. brought back to life. We’re less than a year into this letter. We’re talking about it like it’s been here forever. It’s taken months

Leonard Raskin  17:24

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selling tickets to everything. That’s what they promised. They promised the best shows. The best concerts in the region. The best sound What have you been offered? You went? Yeah, I’m Ben Bocelli would be the first I have not been Oh, I’m so glad I’m talking about did not have not? You didn’t worry you did you toured the arena. I did tour. I definitely saw it. And I was all about buying the entire package of VIP seats. Access parking. Your average guy though, right? Yeah, yeah. That’s an eight show seven, eight shows a year. Right. So we do that. But this was, you know, almost an event or two a week. I mean, this is this was everything. This was the whole season of everything CFG arena had to offer and I was game, you know, there were a bunch of shows I wanted to see. And it meant you could go to just no shows you could go to everything. And everything option was outstanding. The pricing was right, the seats were good, the amenities look good. Everything about the new experience look good. As I said, they sold the fact that you could go into the parking lot, never have to be outside I thought that was good. You got weather, you got crime, you got Baltimore, but they can turn that around. And they had a contract to sign and it all looked good. Nestor until the contract said in three different places. in big, bold type. It was a either five or seven year commitment to buy, which I had no problem with. I was all in for the the whole thing that they were going to be able to pull off and I was going to do it in big, bold 50 point font. It said, you may not resell tickets to any event, show bah bah, blah, blah, blah. You’re out on social social media, any ticket reseller sites, yada yada, yada, or they have the right to cancel your contract and require payment in full for the remainder of the contract. Under the terms of the contract, that’s a little punitive. And I said to the guy, this is ridiculous. I’m not coming to everything. Like I don’t want to see cool in the gang. I don’t want to see Earth Wind and Fire. I don’t want to see bad bunny, or whatever it was, but but I’ll buy the whole set. And I’m pretty darn sure that be a StubHub or any of those If I could sell enough tickets and enough profit that the shows I would want to see would cost me nothing. It’s

Nestor J. Aparicio  20:07

a strange sir thing because like the Orioles would love for you to buy season book and once you buy and they don’t care what you do well that’s exactly right be true of any sports. That’s

Leonard Raskin  20:15

exactly that would

Nestor J. Aparicio  20:16

be true of any concert you out for Stevie Nicks tickets on Saturday No, I can flip them and get

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Leonard Raskin  20:26

the contract. So I said to the guy, explain this to me. And he said, It’s the artists that make us put it in there. It’s, I think it was an oak view or whatever they’re called. She’s the name of that. Right? They require that it be in there. But he said, We don’t intend to enforce that. And I said, well, they take it out. No, it’s gotta be in there with the artists require it blah, blah, blah. It was in the biggest, boldest fought three times one time, maybe three times. And I said, Dude, I’m not going to do this. So I’m not going to pay a five year seven year commitment. And when I resell tickets to whatever it is, you’re going to call me up and say, You owe us five years of money. And you Oh, by the way, don’t come back. I said, No, that’s not gonna work. Yeah,

Nestor J. Aparicio  21:17

I mean, this is a little rascals here. This is an interesting conversation cuz I think everybody’s listening. If they had the means they’d love to go to every but they wouldn’t go to everyone. They wouldn’t go to every game. season tickets forever. And you’d love to brag that you’ve been to every game, but yeah, good luck with that. You went somewhere and you flipped the tickets. Right?

Leonard Raskin  21:33

That’s right. That’s right. And it used to be much easier to flip a ticket because you walk out the day the game and at least get 20 bucks for it. Now it’s all digital. I don’t know how you do that. I haven’t done that. But I’m sure it works. To sell down. Yeah, it’s just ridiculous out of the park. I’d

Nestor J. Aparicio  21:47

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never a seller of tickets on these. These. I’m only a Vaizey crazy, I’ve never really listed tickets and

Leonard Raskin  21:54

a lot of tickets. But there’s been a lot of tickets, Oriole tickets, concert tickets, extras, you know, whatever. So, so the fact is, I said no, thank you. But But they’re trying CFG made an effort. They stepped up they they signed their name to the arena. And it’s a big presence of a regional local bank. Not many of them left. And now you’ve got the Orioles group. And I believe if they come in, and they they contact and start putting their their poundage, not just to get 600 million, not just to develop a little bit around there, but to get the state legislature to rewrite these laws, where kids are not able to be prosecuted or even questioned. for crimes that they commit. And you wonder why they keep committing crime. If they can clean up that aspect of the city, and and start to bring people back to the city that live in the surrounding areas. My goodness, it could be the jewel of the area again, it’s magnificent. But nobody wants to go to a baseball game, or a football game or a concert, where you’re walking from a restaurant, to the facility in your heads on a swivel. And if you’re not concealed carry your concern, you know, you’re gonna get robbed. It’s tragic. And they got to step up into the state and say this has to stop.

Nestor J. Aparicio  23:30

US moron I’m having I mean, I continue to ask these questions. But I will say this, and this is in the year and maybe this is the good news for the oak view group or for anybody listening in regardless, you like you haven’t been down to the arena yet. Yeah. This is what, like 10 months. They’ve

Leonard Raskin  23:47

been sent back 10 months since

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Nestor J. Aparicio  23:50

the first night when Springsteen was there and the Eagles and you remember it opened opening depths of last year, so we’re almost a year 11 months into this. Yep. I think of how many times I’ve been to the arena, right. So I saw the Eagles. I saw queen. I saw John Mayer. I saw Janet Jack. I mean, I go through I mean, I’ve been there once. Yes, sort of every month for all these shows. Every one of them I’ve been to has been. I don’t want to say PAC that’s crazy. 94% full? Yeah, we were doing any Raven game, I bet. Yeah, absolutely. They’re doing literally and they forget the Orioles. I mean, it’s a big it’s a big facility. But every time I go it feels like man. They’re selling tickets. They’re selling beer. It’s full here. There. It’s not half full. It’s not packs of empty seats. It’s like it’s assets and elbows everywhere you are in the arena. And I think to myself, That’s cool. That’s great, but it’s something I never envisioned. I listen, five years ago, you and I are doing radio if I would have said you. Yeah, but you guys are going to come in here from California. They’re going to bring artists they’re going to refurbish the arena and you watch a year into it. They’re going to have full crowds. They’re going to have top notch I crazy. I’ve lived here, Leonard I’ve lived here my whole life. That center came in 73. And once that happened, Elvis and the Beatles stopped coming here Led Zeppelin stop. For the most part, you want to ask Frank Ramesh has done an unbelievable job of stealing the stones and oh six, stealing youtube 101. And then giving the years that these these major bands played at the arena, but there was never thought that we could play there. That’s for Washington. That’s for Philly. It’s been that way my whole life. Now

Leonard Raskin  25:26

their statement was we’re going to change that this is going to be the concert destination for all the biggest and best acts.

Nestor J. Aparicio  25:32

Well, then Then how about football? We lose our football team. We sit here sucking our thumb for a decade. Yeah, they don’t love us. They’ll never let us in Mr. Mr. Cook. And we’ve had football here for generations. So I don’t want to hear it can’t be done. I mean, you when you went out that’s exactly right. And Williams just gonna take the Orioles and move into DC. He never had any intention to do that. He got Camden Yards built, Angelo’s. And His Eminence goofy kids are taking all the credit that he he saved baseball here. I mean, Edward Bennett Williams family would have a lot to say about saving baseball. Right? But what it can be and what the city can be. I use this as 55 year old old guy is saying and we’re doing something on Tuesday. That’s a miracle. I did something on Sunday, which is we went downtown and stole top notch entertainment in a beaten up crappy old arena that we made fun of all of our lives, right? I didn’t because I always loved it. Right? The baseball thing has been so depressed. And now it’s time

Leonard Raskin  26:27

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to turn that corner to visioning the topic. And winning and community involvement will change the whole scene. And then on top of that you’ve got its Bramble, you got Bramble who wants to redevelop the harborplace. area. And all all pictures are that that’s going to be state of the art. It’s not going to be the little shopping centers that it is today. It’s going to be a major new residential area, office area, commercial area. And he’s a man of the city. He’s a man that’s done a ton of good. It turned it around places in the city and he’s of the city. And you’re going to fight with him,

Nestor J. Aparicio  27:08

right? I mean, he’s avoiding me. He hasn’t come on the show. I don’t know why. But I’ve invited him and I like tell me about what you’re saying, because I don’t know enough about it. But I know this, they’re gonna fight about it enough that they’re either gonna make it bad, or they’re gonna make it good. And I hope that the people that are fighting about it, to improve it to make it better than all these hard questions that he’s not answering for me, but answering from everybody else in the community associate. Yeah, this is good. This is the way you guys right beside this or that should be talked about by doing a big

Leonard Raskin  27:37

job. He’s looking to change the entire face of the harbor and let’s face it, was it Roush? It was Roush that did that? How long ago? Let’s go back in time. Yeah, how long ago? Was that a dump? Was that a place? Nobody would go. And then you got the aquarium. And then you got the Science Center. And then you got a harborplace and it became talking about a go to place? I don’t think in in high school and college. I don’t think there was a weekend we weren’t there. No, it was nonstop. It was the place to hang

Nestor J. Aparicio  28:13

out theaters down there at the time. Everything right? You had the power plant that came to life and you had Little Italy and then you had downtown restaurants that existed like absolute works and then the prime rib Absolutely I did on the Phillips and you add it on the Morton’s and the roofs. Krista came here because of baseball was Chris Kane. Baseball state. Well, Rusty scupper was an early part of the hall. Right, right, right. arthouse was part of absolutely so but those restaurants all benefited and they don’t benefit no there’s nothing there anybody that if all I did was drive and park on level six and try to get the hell out of there it separate ways was That’s

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Leonard Raskin  28:50

my point. Right? That’s my point. So Bramble wants to regenerate and rejuvenate the harbor area. C F G is if they can promote going to the shows, and not leaving right after or coming from your home to the show. But what’s around there? How amazing is that? And a couple of playoff games for the ravens and a home couple playoff series for the Orioles and suddenly, you know you turn the corner and Baltimore positive is what we have. And that’s what we’re hunting for. It’s it’s I think the the News, the news media, sadly, and it’s because that’s what news has become. Every night is a carjacking car theft, robbery murder

Nestor J. Aparicio  29:38

my wife puts it on it creates a lot of fear. I mean, it really does. That’s why

Leonard Raskin  29:43

people in the surroundings aren’t going and if they are they go in they go out. And it’s changed

Nestor J. Aparicio  29:49

8

that though right baseball right either thing that more people go more often and it’s on Absolutely

Leonard Raskin  29:55

it’s not once every couple of weeks to the Ravens for eight times. So Oftentimes, it’s it’s 162 games just ad opportunities a year to get downtown

Nestor J. Aparicio  30:08

LA hopefully by the time Green Bay is a Green Day is fake, that we have fake Green Day like 10 will have a harbor to go to and have dinner before we go up to the CFG. Back to the arena, right, enjoy it stopping and getting a crepe on the way up if Yeah, you

Leonard Raskin  30:25

know, maybe it’s just because I don’t watch the local news. But when I travel, I got no problem walking around San Antonio. I got no problem walking around Houston. I got no problem walking around Columbus, I got no problem. In Dallas, I got I got a lot of places that I go. And I don’t feel anything to walk around outside. And yeah, I’m gonna keep an eye out. But I’m not worried about it yet. In my home city. I don’t want to walk around out there. I’ll

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Nestor J. Aparicio  30:56

see this and I have one last question. Let it raskins here for Rascon global you find him at Rascon global you find them Baltimore positive. He manages money managers. The American dream just got back from a beautiful trip. But he’s gearing up for all this baseball and all this other stuff. Right move into the city on when Wednesday night my wife and I went on Valentine’s night we drove into the city to get carry out from our favorite Indian place to go into the city. And we carried out and came home so we literally just drove in double parked on a side street on a really cold Wednesday night, in and out. On my way in. I got off on Guilford Avenue, which I’ve been doing my whole life, right? Yep. The Baltimore Sun was located on the backside of Guilford. So my car got broken into on Guilford at least three times in the 80s. Right? So we’re talking about 35 years ago, my my car windshield got busted in. Right. I went down Guilford and the sun’s abandoned. I mean, it’s just part of the middle part like where the D AC is and like all that. Nothing. You’ve been driving through there forever. And ever homeless people living under the bridge periods of time under 83 and whatnot. I drove through and the first thing I saw on Wednesday night when we got off on Guilford and went that way was light. Like where the old hammer jacks is where they have the the, the the Sunday morning. Flea Market and

Leonard Raskin  32:14

yeah, pharmacy camera jacks, fake camera jacks.

Nestor J. Aparicio  32:18

Well done. Excellent. I know exactly what you’re talking about. So we went down and they were all the lights were on. And I said to my wife, I’m like, oh my god, I say when I talked to Brandon Scott, I’m going to ask about this because I’ve driven this road for 30 years, they just lit it up, they just put light on and all of a sudden, it feels a little safer. Just perception of a 55 year old guy who lives in the suburbs now who lived in the city for 20 years driving in and I’m like they they put lights on and I’m like wow, that’s whatever the broken window theory and like all that stuff is right but just having light or even around the arena putting up these New Times Square sort of adds itself to create light. There’s something about that that you feel safer in Times Square than you probably are just because it’s well

Leonard Raskin  33:08

8

lit. Sure. Sure. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Nestor J. Aparicio  33:11

All right. Last question for you. Yeah. You talk to me on this pitch about taxes and tax Dickey give me a tax that you’re

Leonard Raskin  33:19

so this you’ll be surprised by I think people have it wrong. When they say that capital gains taxes should be lower. Okay, on when you sell assets that you’ve held, and they’ve gone up in value, I think he did nothing for that except maybe get lucky or hold it for a period of time I think you should pay tax on gains accrued on assets rather than on your income. So so if you earn really against

Nestor J. Aparicio  33:47

income on a fundamental I’m giving you my time the government should my labor on that my labor is exchanged when I take this money and spend it you get taxes in any way you want. Right here

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Leonard Raskin  33:58

sales tax I’m fine with but income should not be taxed. I’m just fundamentally opposed to slavery. With the government as an intruder,

Nestor J. Aparicio  34:07

how many tax if Florida is a place where there’s a couple of states, right that are

Leonard Raskin  34:11

seven right now seven states with no income tax, others that are dramatically lower than ours. So yeah, Washington State, Alaska, South Dakota, Tennessee, Nevada. New Hampshire. And Florida, Texas. Yeah, Florida, Texas.

Nestor J. Aparicio  34:33

8

I didn’t know New Hampshire was that way. Yeah, I

Leonard Raskin  34:35

think there’s either none or very little. I have to talk to my wife about that because her whole

Nestor J. Aparicio  34:40

family lives there. So but we always here again, move over the state line. Save money

Leonard Raskin  34:44

Delaware’s lesson, no sales tax away less property tax. You still have an income tax. It’s just significantly lower. You

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Nestor J. Aparicio  34:51

and I talked about the difference between you having a beach house in Delaware, which you do as opposed to having one on 118 Street Ocean City.

Leonard Raskin  34:59

The taxes are a thing Our property taxes are a third.

Nestor J. Aparicio  35:03

It’s just a game changer to literally, if I’m your client, and I am and I say I’m thinking to get into place at the beach up, if you buy in Maryland, you’re just gonna get screwed. You’re and it’s just not

Leonard Raskin  35:16

8

let’s say there’s two $2 million properties right next to each other one, the property taxes sixth grade and the other one, it’s 22 years, four years, six years times for the length of time you own that place? I mean, what could you do with the difference? 10 years is $150,000. Just think about how much more prosperous Bryce think about how much more prosperous everyone would be if there was no income tax. But But then how does the state operate? Well, what do you sales tax it? Let’s do this. If I make more money than I get to keep? Do I buy a smaller house or a bigger house? When I buy that bigger house? Do I need more windows? Do I need more blinds? Do I need more carpeting? Do I need more whatever? Everything I buy has a sales tax. So

Nestor J. Aparicio  36:01

you’re going to get your own premise that if you made more money, you’d spend it, which is exactly why they need you. If

Leonard Raskin  36:07

you make more money you got you’re only going to do three things with money. Here’s the thing, people think wealthy people hoard money, there’s no such thing, nobody’s got it a safe. Well, you might have a little bit of a safe in your home, if you’re funny Willis or whatever her name is down in Atlanta, she keeps money in her house, she keeps cash in the house, but most people don’t. But what you do with it is you spend it, and that generates economic activity, which generates more use of money which generates restaurant tax sales, tax ticket tax, whatever taxes there are. And that money flows through the economy that employs more people. That means we have less unemployment, less food stamps, less welfare, more people working, okay, we could have a low tax, maybe a flat tax, maybe. But here’s the deal, we got a lot more money. Now the other thing people do with money is they invest it. When you invest it, you create the economy, you create an opportunity, you create jobs, you create business, and from that are taxes generated revenue from that. And the third thing wealthy people do with money is they give it away. We’re the wealthiest, most generous nation, not wealthiest, but the most generous nation on the earth. And when you give money to charity, you help people in organizations do things that otherwise couldn’t get done. So people don’t just hoard the money. And well, I hear from people Oh, well, they buy boats. Yeah, well, somebody makes the boats and all the equipment material that goes on the boat. And there’s no gas goes in the boat and you’re getting money on that or getting money on the gas. So

Nestor J. Aparicio  37:40

in California, oh my god. Well,

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Leonard Raskin  37:43

that’s your My point is all these other things that the government taxes, Florida entertainment, hotels, etc. You have a choice, whether or not to spend your money on those things. Your income is you go out and work because you got to eat. So I’m against an income tax, and we’ll do this another time. I love it. It’s good. I’m totally against social security, taxation of Social Security. We can go that another another session. Alright, what do that do that?

Nestor J. Aparicio  38:11

We’ll do that before? April 15. You got it. You know, we didn’t know we were gonna get into today. But here we are. We got into here. We hope you enjoy Bocelli. I hope so good

Leonard Raskin  38:20

experience forward to it.

Nestor J. Aparicio  38:22

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I hope you don’t think about how much tax you paid on the ticket.

Leonard Raskin  38:25

But that’s a choice part of the gig. Well,

Nestor J. Aparicio  38:28

I went to California a couple of weeks ago, and I took a picture of the of the gas prices and I’m like, oh, it’s heavy, heavy. It is heavy duty but we got a tax somewhere. There’s no tax on this program. We’re a free of charge. We even have an I had a long conversation two weeks ago with one of the best conversations that week was with Chris Gorman, who was the sports editor of the Baltimore banner. Okay, that conversation your favorite place out of Pappas. And we were just talking about journalism and talking about like, reporting and all of that stuff, real stuff. We’ve had important conversations around here. Please go check them all out. And we’ve done a lot you mentioned charity and giving money away we 78 places at the front of Baltimore positive military children, women’s boys, orphans, dogs, cats. That’s

Leonard Raskin  39:18

what society bird sanctuary society is all about. Helping each other instead of relying on the government to do it for you. Alright, well look next week we’ll get into baseball you and I will There we go. Closer to opening day great 30 activity eight days till I think it is opening day so I’m even

Nestor J. Aparicio  39:36

gonna put the crabcakes we’re back together friends at the Maryland lottery in conjunction with window nation 866 90 nation to 0% financing for five years if you’re buying windows here this month, as well as our friends at Jiffy Lube, multi care all coming together to put us out on the road. We had a great week two weeks ago, had a great Valentine’s Day. It’s been it’s been a lovely February after losing an AFC Championship game if there is such a thing. Thinking about baseball knowing baseball is a month away and So just the spring is about the spring in 2024 We’re having a good time around here I am Nestor he is Leonard Raskin if you need to invest money if you need advice on money please find him at Raskin global you can also find him at the front of Baltimore positive.com Stay with us