Speaker 1: A lot of the fundamental principals of ut and individual loss.
Speaker 1: This is the show, all right, everybody, welcome to your
Speaker 1: own book show. On this Wednesday, April ninth, the day
Speaker 1: that Donald Trump blinked, spitulated, gave up, maybe not so much,
Speaker 1: somewhat some of it anyway, the day where maybe we
Speaker 1: realized more than any other day that we were complete.
Speaker 1: We're at the complete whim of an authoritarian thug in
Speaker 1: the White House. It basically is whatever he wants one day, yes,
Speaker 1: one day, no, one day. Partially, don't like Chinese, go
Speaker 1: after them. Insanity is the name of the game these days.
Speaker 1: So yes, we are here to give you, to give
Speaker 1: you the latest on what is going on in Washington,
Speaker 1: d C. And a hall. This really adds up to
Speaker 1: really does I think, add up to a new world order.
Speaker 1: We'll see how events develop in the next few days, hours, days, weeks,
Speaker 1: months up. But the world will never be the same
Speaker 1: after the last few days and weeks, and we will
Speaker 1: talk about that, and it's it's it's going to be
Speaker 1: interesting to see how events developed developed in the next
Speaker 1: few days. The market today up the NASDAC today, technology
Speaker 1: stocks technology stocks were up up. What was a twelve percent.
Speaker 1: Twelve percent, one of the biggest increases on a one
Speaker 1: day in the history of the stock market. We'll get
Speaker 1: to that. I'm back home jet lagged, so maybe i'll
Speaker 1: be a little slow today. I don't know. We'll see
Speaker 1: how long I last. We'll see how long I last
Speaker 1: given the jet lag. I'm like, I want to go
Speaker 1: to sleep, but we'll hang in there and do the show.
Speaker 1: I expect shows tomorrow and Friday, not see exactly what times.
Speaker 1: I'm still working on. Those times are a little unusual
Speaker 1: because my schedule is a little bit in flux. And
Speaker 1: then over the weekend there will be a show on Sunday.
Speaker 1: I think the show on Sunday is going to be
Speaker 1: I think the theme of the show on Sunday is
Speaker 1: going to be how Trump is the worst negotiator in
Speaker 1: human history. I think that's going to be the title
Speaker 1: Trump the worst negotiator ever. That'll be Sunday, and it'll
Speaker 1: be a promised to entertaining show. It's a sponsored show.
Speaker 1: I got a sponsorship for that one, So it is
Speaker 1: it is, it is going to be. It is going
Speaker 1: to be fun and I think interesting. I think interesting
Speaker 1: to see all the ways in which Trump fails in negotiating.
Speaker 1: All right, reminder to everybody, super chat is open. It
Speaker 1: was opened by Willie Randall with one hundred Australian dollars,
Speaker 1: so thank you Ranal. So yeah, jump in. Thank you
Speaker 1: Robert for the sticker. And Katherine Catherine said like she's
Speaker 1: going to bed, she's in Europe. It's too late, but
Speaker 1: she left some dollars, So thank you Catherine. That that
Speaker 1: that was very generous and nice with Catherine. You can
Speaker 1: do the same coming over to YouTube, where you can
Speaker 1: participate in the super chat and also contribute to a
Speaker 1: sticker ask me questions that basically determines the direction of
Speaker 1: the show. God, the US, the austrillion dollars just keeps
Speaker 1: thinking lower and lower in terms of American dollars. So yeah,
Speaker 1: come on over and let people know, well on live
Speaker 1: right now, on Twitter, wherever, YouTube, let people know that
Speaker 1: they should come over and participate in the live chat
Speaker 1: that is going on. If you're not a subscriber, please subscribe.
Speaker 1: If if you're on the show and you're listening and
Speaker 1: you like it, press the like button. That'll help a lot.
Speaker 1: All right, let's jump in. God, what what a few
Speaker 1: days this has been. We saw the stock market react
Speaker 1: to Trump's Liberation Day last week where he placed so
Speaker 1: called recipical tasks because they're now reciprocal, that have nothing
Speaker 1: to do with the other country's towers. And we saw
Speaker 1: just the market collapse as a consequence of those toasts.
Speaker 1: We saw the market go down dramatically and it became
Speaker 1: and we saw Trump really say he was committed to these.
Speaker 1: I mean, I've got a quote somewhere with him saying
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna change my mind. This is a reciprocal traffs.
Speaker 1: We're gonna stick with these, We're gonna We're gonna go
Speaker 1: with them. And indeed, Natannielle Beni a minute to now
Speaker 1: met with Trump yesterday and he came all the way
Speaker 1: from Israel and he was gonna ask for Hey, look
Speaker 1: our tariffs and American goods, we have lowered them without
Speaker 1: even asking you. We have lowered them to zero. Please
Speaker 1: lower the reciprocal tavis because how's the zero. Trump's reciprocal
Speaker 1: tavits on Israel as seventeen percent. And Trump said, nah,
Speaker 1: I don't think I'm gonna lower them below seventeen percent,
Speaker 1: even though yours are zero, because there's a trade epicode.
Speaker 1: See Trump doesn't care about other countries tariffs on American goods.
Speaker 1: Only thing that as to Trump is the deficit. So
Speaker 1: if you're running, if Israel is exporting more stuff to
Speaker 1: America than it is importing from America, which I don't know,
Speaker 1: maybe they're not counting military equipment or something. I don't
Speaker 1: know how that works. But if that's the case, then yeah,
Speaker 1: you get America places a terrify on you. Because for Trump,
Speaker 1: again zero some mentality. And this is one of the
Speaker 1: things I really keep repeating, but I want to try
Speaker 1: to try to get people to really get this has
Speaker 1: nothing to do with anything the whole terraft thing. It's
Speaker 1: not three D chess, it's not tax revenue, it's not
Speaker 1: bringing manufacturing back home, it's not any of those things.
Speaker 1: It is everything to do with Trump's perceptual level understanding
Speaker 1: of the essence of trade. A trade deficit for Trump
Speaker 1: is we are losing somehow. There's no conception of win win.
Speaker 1: It's wind lose. So you got to balance the wind
Speaker 1: lose transactions with lose winds, and if the trade balances,
Speaker 1: then at least you're not losing. So what he wants
Speaker 1: is with every country in the world. He wants a
Speaker 1: trade balance. Say you want a poor country like Vietnam
Speaker 1: to buy expensive American goods in the same quantity as
Speaker 1: American biased shep Vietnamese goods same dollar amount. I mean,
Speaker 1: that just can't happen. Vietnamese are not rich enough to
Speaker 1: buy the kind of things that America actually makes and
Speaker 1: produces services. Primarily, it's it's stupid, but it's insane. It's
Speaker 1: non economics, anti economics even. And it's perceptual level, it's
Speaker 1: non it's non concept nonconceptual, nonconceptual, anti conceptual even. But
Speaker 1: that's the level of which Donald Trump functions, always has
Speaker 1: and he really believes this. Again, this is the one issue,
Speaker 1: the only issue really that he has not changed his
Speaker 1: mind about since the nineteen eighties. Right, He wrote about
Speaker 1: this in the nineteen eighties about trade with Japan, and
Speaker 1: just just the same as he did today. This we're
Speaker 1: supstizing them. We should have a trade deficit with them,
Speaker 1: and we need to do whatever we can to bring
Speaker 1: trade into balance, or ideally we sell them more goods
Speaker 1: than we import. That way, we're being subsidized by them.
Speaker 1: That's okay, we lose. You want to be the win
Speaker 1: they one they're going to lose. So yeah, so this
Speaker 1: is a case where there's nothing going on here other
Speaker 1: than Trump's signam wants nothing really no. And again Vietnam
Speaker 1: has come over and said, will lower test to zero?
Speaker 1: Will you lower your taes? Will you lower these new
Speaker 1: tariffs for us? And Trump's basically said, well, let's negotiate.
Speaker 1: But this is not some way of achieving free trade,
Speaker 1: zero tarifs across the board. This is not some leverage
Speaker 1: he is putting on other countries to lower their tasks. Anyway,
Speaker 1: what has been happening in the last few days is
Speaker 1: the first day that Trump and We're gonna go through
Speaker 1: a little bit of financial market stuff. In the first
Speaker 1: few days, the Trump announced the reciprocal in quotation marks tariffs,
Speaker 1: which were some of them were sixty seventy percent, which
Speaker 1: were not reciprocal because it was just a trade deficit
Speaker 1: divided by exports, so just represented the extent to which
Speaker 1: we have a trade deficit with the country, not how
Speaker 1: much tariffs actually put in American goods. The stock market
Speaker 1: collapsed fifteen percent, uh and this morning it was going
Speaker 1: down further. At the same time, and another interesting phenomenon
Speaker 1: was going on the bond markets. This is a government
Speaker 1: bonds that are traded, and in the bond market, initially
Speaker 1: people sold stocks and boat bonds. Bonds are usually what's
Speaker 1: called the safe haven. When people panic, they buy bonds
Speaker 1: because bonds probably don't default, the US government probably is
Speaker 1: not going to default on them, and if for, they
Speaker 1: were safe haven, so everybody buys the bonds. When you
Speaker 1: buy bonds, you drive the price up, the yield, the
Speaker 1: interest rate. The ten in this case ten year interestright
Speaker 1: that everybody's watching went down and went down a lot
Speaker 1: in the first two days. In the first day after
Speaker 1: the tasks were announced, and then something curious started happening,
Speaker 1: which was completely unexpected or at least unexpected by most people.
Speaker 1: Stocks continued to go down, but then so did bonds,
Speaker 1: very similar to what happened during COVID. Bonds started collapsing.
Speaker 1: In other words, bonds American bonds were now viewed as
Speaker 1: a safe haven anymore, or somebody out there were selling
Speaker 1: American bonds. Ten year bonds and thirty year bonds were
Speaker 1: being sold in quantities that we just have not seen.
Speaker 1: In other words, the interest rate ten year inches straight
Speaker 1: and thirty year interest rate suddenly went up a lot. Now,
Speaker 1: if you remember on my show last week from Israel,
Speaker 1: I mentioned one of the ideas at Ludwig or Bessett
Speaker 1: or one of these mindless Trumpet appointees made on one
Speaker 1: of the talk shows, and he said, yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: if the Stockholm goes down and there's a session the
Speaker 1: you know, interstates are coming down. Interstates will go down.
Speaker 1: That will allow the government to raise money at lower
Speaker 1: interest rates, save money on interest payments by the government,
Speaker 1: and that will reduce the deficit and reduce of debt.
Speaker 1: And that's a good thing. And there was a couple
Speaker 1: of days there, like Wednesday, Thursday or Thursday fighting it
Speaker 1: looked like, yeah, that looked like that might be happening.
Speaker 1: And then all of that reversed and suddenly interstate started
Speaker 1: going up. The ten year, the thirty year all going
Speaker 1: up significantly. I mean, so the highest percentage changes in
Speaker 1: interest rates on the way up that we've seen in
Speaker 1: modern times. I mean one day was it was higher
Speaker 1: than any other day since nineteen eighty two. Nineteen eighty two.
Speaker 1: Now that means it was doing the reverse or what
Speaker 1: best it. And Ludwig was saying, because now if they
Speaker 1: come in and wants to all money. For example, I
Speaker 1: think it issued thirty nine billion dollars worth of debt today,
Speaker 1: ten year debt. It paid, It wasn't paying less. It
Speaker 1: was actually paying more than it would have a week ago,
Speaker 1: or a little bit more than a week ago, but
Speaker 1: much more than what it had dropped in those first
Speaker 1: two days. So why did that happen? And why is
Speaker 1: that what ultimately I think forced Donald Trump's hand in
Speaker 1: pausing some of the taps. We'll get to them in
Speaker 1: a minute. You remember, I think I told you the
Speaker 1: story once of during Bill Clinton's term in the nineteen nineties,
Speaker 1: everybody talked about the bond market vigilantes, and every time
Speaker 1: the government did something the bond market didn't like, they
Speaker 1: drove into straights up and that forced the government's hand.
Speaker 1: And James Carvill said that if he was going to
Speaker 1: be born again, he wanted to be born as the
Speaker 1: bond market, because the bond market had the real power
Speaker 1: in the world, not presidents, not you know, political advisors.
Speaker 1: It was the bond market that drove the world. And
Speaker 1: that's what we saw this week. That's what we saw today.
Speaker 1: The bond market basically spoke and the bond market said,
Speaker 1: what Donald Trump is doing is insane. It's driving up risk,
Speaker 1: driving up the prospects of higher interest rates in the future,
Speaker 1: potentially inflation. But really what it drove up is not inflation.
Speaker 1: I think it's risk. It's risk of either the federal
Speaker 1: government defaulting or more likely, the federal government having to
Speaker 1: inflate in order to pay off its debts given the
Speaker 1: insane economic policies that are being followed. It's also the
Speaker 1: case that a lot of our bonds, government bonds, used
Speaker 1: government bonds, are being held by foreigners, the Chinese, the Japanese,
Speaker 1: the Europeans, and you know, suddenly all these people might
Speaker 1: be losing their appetite to invest in the United States,
Speaker 1: partially because the US is just behaving like a thug,
Speaker 1: and they it just for political reasons. Might think why
Speaker 1: should we put our money in an economy whose president
Speaker 1: is treating us like shit? And secondly because they might
Speaker 1: be looking at the US and saying US is heading
Speaker 1: towards a recession. Potentially these tariffs are not good for
Speaker 1: the US economy. Why would we want to invest in
Speaker 1: an economy in a downward spiral? An add to that,
Speaker 1: the fact then in spite of all the doge dam
Speaker 1: it looks like the Senate is going to pass a
Speaker 1: budget that is going to dramatically expand the deficit and
Speaker 1: increase government debt. Why would anybody want to buy government
Speaker 1: bonds US goverment bonds under those conditions? There is reason
Speaker 1: to believe that over the weekend Monday, and going into
Speaker 1: today a Tuesday, and going into this morning, when again
Speaker 1: the stock market was down this morning, either Japan or
Speaker 1: China or both were basically dumping. Their bonds were selling.
Speaker 1: And part of the problem there is if they sell
Speaker 1: their bonds, who's going to keep buying them? And the
Speaker 1: people who buy them aren't they going to expect to
Speaker 1: hire and hire indust rate. So what you saw over
Speaker 1: the last couple of days is a significant spike in
Speaker 1: interest rates in long term bonds, again the thirty year bonds,
Speaker 1: the ten year bonds. You also saw a massive increase,
Speaker 1: again almost unprecedent into the speed at which it happened,
Speaker 1: a massive increase in the implied yield of high yield
Speaker 1: bonds of junk bond that is the risk premium. The
Speaker 1: premium people are demanding to hold on to risky assets
Speaker 1: right now is very high. It's similar to what it
Speaker 1: was in March twenty twenty during COVID. All of this,
Speaker 1: I think caused the people around Trump to panic, I
Speaker 1: mean really panic. You saw elements of this over the weekend,
Speaker 1: particularly last couple of days, where Elon Musk came out
Speaker 1: against the tariffs, came out against Peter Navarro, started calling PETERA.
Speaker 1: Navaux names, Peter and Navarau started calling Trump names, and
Speaker 1: there was this whole public you know, attacking each other
Speaker 1: publicly between Navarro and Musk over these tariffs. In this case,
Speaker 1: Musk is right, Navao is a bigger idiot than his boss.
Speaker 1: If all was like the worst economists in the world.
Speaker 1: I think he owns that title now. But Worston, Paul Kogman,
Speaker 1: there's something for you. There's there's a there's a statement
Speaker 1: for Worston Paul Krugman. Uh So you could tell that
Speaker 1: there was already fiction with an administration. The various Trump
Speaker 1: representatives going on to the new shows, we're finding it
Speaker 1: more and more and more and more difficult to actually
Speaker 1: defend these tariffs. A number of academics, you know, when
Speaker 1: they came out with the tariffs, they cited a bunch
Speaker 1: of papers saying that this is where we got our
Speaker 1: numbers for the uh, you know, for these new tariffs.
Speaker 1: This is what we got the theory behind why we're
Speaker 1: doing these new traffs. Basically, the authors of those articles,
Speaker 1: one by one came out and said, that's not what
Speaker 1: our article says. And by the way, you're using the
Speaker 1: formula wrong. You're putting the wrong numbers in. In other words,
Speaker 1: you guys don't know what you're doing. And every single
Speaker 1: one of the arguments that the Trump mindless zombies was
Speaker 1: saying on TV was falling apart, and they were even Fox,
Speaker 1: even Fox propaganda channel, the Trump propaganda channel, that's what
Speaker 1: we should call it, the Trump propaganda channel. Fox was
Speaker 1: starting to have doubts about the towers. Of course we
Speaker 1: know Ben Shapiro was, of course doubting them. And I
Speaker 1: think there was there was just every increasing pressure going
Speaker 1: into this morning about this. And what happened this morning
Speaker 1: was stocks going down again and then bond yields went
Speaker 1: up again, and I think Trump's economic advisors went to
Speaker 1: him and said, this is a disaster. A few days ago,
Speaker 1: I can't remember what it was, it was Monday, or
Speaker 1: I think it was Friday. There was a rumor in
Speaker 1: the market before the market opened that Trump was going
Speaker 1: to pass tariff for ninety days, and it stucks growing
Speaker 1: up on the rumor, and then the White House the
Speaker 1: night of the rumor, and stucks collapsed. So Trump figured
Speaker 1: out how to make stocks go up. And today at
Speaker 1: around noon, actually one nineteen pm, you can tell because
Speaker 1: he posted this on social one nineteen pm, Trump came
Speaker 1: out with a statement basically for a ninety day pause
Speaker 1: on some of the tariffs. In other words, the pause
Speaker 1: is only on the portion that he called reciprocal. It's
Speaker 1: still true the ten percent tariffs on everybody go into
Speaker 1: effect immediately. It's still true the twenty five percent tariffs
Speaker 1: and cars and car parts are in place. It's still
Speaker 1: true that the twenty five percent tariffs on sudden goods
Speaker 1: from Canada and from Mexico, the Fenton Al tariffs are
Speaker 1: still in place. And this morning it was still true
Speaker 1: that tariffs on China were in place. Indeed, a part
Speaker 1: of his announcement for ninety day pause, Trump raised the
Speaker 1: tariffs on China. This is what he wrote, based on
Speaker 1: the lack of respect that China has shown to the
Speaker 1: world's markets. I am hereby raising the tariff charged to
Speaker 1: China by the United States to one hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: five percent effective immediately. In other words, in other words,
Speaker 1: China didn't come and gravel, they didn't kiss the ring,
Speaker 1: and therefore the bad guys they actually imposed reciprocal tarots
Speaker 1: of eighty four percent or something, And now he's up
Speaker 1: to the one twenty five, and who knows what they'll
Speaker 1: do tomorrow. This isn't him being tough on China. This
Speaker 1: is him just being his regular mindless, reactive tit for tat.
Speaker 1: They didn't kiss the ring. They insulted me, they're not
Speaker 1: nice to me. Respond so she picks up the phone
Speaker 1: tomorrow and talks nice to Trump and pats him on
Speaker 1: the back a little bit and kisses the ring a
Speaker 1: little bit. Even if the mild kiss, Trump will immediately
Speaker 1: lower the towers. There's no substancy. In other words, it's
Speaker 1: not like the one twenty five tabists is increased in
Speaker 1: China because China is a potential enemy of the United
Speaker 1: States and we own a bankrupt them because we don't
Speaker 1: want them to get strong and successful. No, this is
Speaker 1: just they didn't kiss the erring, he continues, and he
Speaker 1: is exactly. He is exactly the point. At some point,
Speaker 1: hopefully in the near future, China will realize that the
Speaker 1: days of ripping off the United States and other countries
Speaker 1: is no longer sustainable or acceptable. Conversely, and based on
Speaker 1: the fact that more than seventy five countries have called
Speaker 1: representatives of the United States, including the Department of Commerce,
Speaker 1: Treasury in the US Trade Representative, to negotiate a solution
Speaker 1: to the subjects being discussed relative to trade trade barriers tabis, coulency, manipulation,
Speaker 1: and non monetary talis, and that these countries have not,
Speaker 1: at my strong suggestion, retaliated in any way, shape or
Speaker 1: form against the United States. I've authorized one ninety eight
Speaker 1: pause and a substantially lower reciprocal TAFF during this period
Speaker 1: of ten percent, also effective immediately. In other words, they
Speaker 1: kissed the right, they came groveling. Now, notice that this
Speaker 1: is all BS because Donald Trump basically paused the tafts
Speaker 1: because financial markets were penalizing him and the economy for
Speaker 1: raising them. He blinked, he folded, he failed. As a consequence,
Speaker 1: stocks shut up. I've never seen such an upward movement
Speaker 1: out I think I don't know. I think it's nuts
Speaker 1: just my personal opinion. Stocks or does the market the
Speaker 1: technology stocks? Are they really worth twelve percent more than
Speaker 1: they were yesterday based on ninety day pause by our
Speaker 1: strongman leader. I don't see how. I don't see how
Speaker 1: this affects it that much. Yeah, they should have been
Speaker 1: up three to four percent, twelve percent at the same time. Note,
Speaker 1: and this is why I don't think this rise in
Speaker 1: stock prices sustainable. At the same time, bonds continue to
Speaker 1: go down. That is, the yield went up not as
Speaker 1: much as it had this morning. So after the pause,
Speaker 1: bond went up a little bit relative to where they
Speaker 1: were in the morning, but they still ended the day down.
Speaker 1: In other words, inter states went up, the ten year
Speaker 1: interestrate went up. I think the three year went up
Speaker 1: as well. And generally when interestates go up, long term
Speaker 1: interestates in particular stocks should come down. So mixed messages here.
Speaker 1: I don't think the rally in stocks is sustainable. There's
Speaker 1: not enough here to sustain that rally. Ten percent tariff
Speaker 1: on all inputs into the United States and addition to
Speaker 1: the inputs that you already exist, means a five acs
Speaker 1: of the existing tariffs. Taraffs are about two percent right now,
Speaker 1: and they're going to ten percent. That's five x the tariffs.
Speaker 1: And then, of course the big issue is one of
Speaker 1: our big trading partners is China. We export a lot
Speaker 1: to China, we input a lot to China. Basically China
Speaker 1: trade is dead. And what exactly this means is hard
Speaker 1: to tell. Amazon I read this, I read today Amazon
Speaker 1: is suspending all purchases from China because they can't raise
Speaker 1: prices by one hundred and twenty five percent, So they're
Speaker 1: just not gonna They're just not gonna buy anything. And that's,
Speaker 1: of course what happens. It's not that they sell exactly
Speaker 1: the same volume of goods as one hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: five percent tariff. They land up selling zero goods at
Speaker 1: one hundred and twenty five percent tariffs. And indeed, many many,
Speaker 1: many companies out there, many many small businesses, large businesses,
Speaker 1: medium sized businesses who buy goods, or buy materials, or
Speaker 1: buy anything from China, many of them are going to
Speaker 1: go out of business. They're going to try to source
Speaker 1: material from elsewhere, but it's going to be rough. They
Speaker 1: can't buy it from China anymore. They can't. By the way,
Speaker 1: China has very low tariffs and US goods, very low
Speaker 1: tariffs and US goods. So it's not we're not penalizing
Speaker 1: China of having high tariffs. They don't, and they have
Speaker 1: been declining for the last thirty years, steady systematic decline,
Speaker 1: and they're very low, lower than ten percent. Sole ten
Speaker 1: percent tariff on everybody is already higher than what China
Speaker 1: tariff's US goods. This has nothing to do with how
Speaker 1: other countries tariff the US. Israel has a ten percent,
Speaker 1: zero percent tariff on US goods. Now under this new scheme,
Speaker 1: Israeli goods coming into the United States will be tariffed
Speaker 1: at ten percent. There's no relationship between the two. Trump
Speaker 1: has no conception of what trade means, and white trade
Speaker 1: difficits don't matter. We talked about this last week, so
Speaker 1: here we are today with a pause for ninety days.
Speaker 1: But of course Trump has already said that this doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that we won't have tariffs on other goods. He
Speaker 1: is probably gonna imposed house specific tariffs on a number
Speaker 1: of different goods being inputed into the United States and
Speaker 1: various places around the world, just like he did an
Speaker 1: automobile and steal. Note that the Trump zombies o wout
Speaker 1: enforced today saying, look, what a genius Trump. This is
Speaker 1: a Trump win. No, this is Trump giving into financial markets.
Speaker 1: This is Trump loss. Trump got nothing of what he wanted.
Speaker 1: There is not going to be trade balanced, not in
Speaker 1: ninety days, not in a thousand days. He ain't getting
Speaker 1: a balanced trade deficit as they were trade deficit, and
Speaker 1: that's all he cares about. And the graveling, the kissing,
Speaker 1: the ring. He got a little bit of that, that's true.
Speaker 1: It's also so they're gonna be montarios in the days
Speaker 1: to come, but just won't targeted. So they came out
Speaker 1: and spun this as this is a big Trump victory.
Speaker 1: But Trump himself didn't say that. I've got a quote
Speaker 1: from Trump somewhere here. Let me just find this, see
Speaker 1: if I have it. Yeah, So Trump was asked outside
Speaker 1: the White House why he decided to institute a ninety
Speaker 1: day pause, and this is how you responded. Note that
Speaker 1: he's not saying he won at all. This is how
Speaker 1: he explained it. Quote, Well, I thought that people were
Speaker 1: jumping a little bit out of line. They were getting yippy,
Speaker 1: you know, they were getting a little bit yippy, a
Speaker 1: little bit afraid. Yeah, markets were collapsing. People are afraid.
Speaker 1: Bud markets were collapsing, people were afraid. At Lon Musk
Speaker 1: was flipping out. People were afraid. I'm speaking for Trump,
Speaker 1: I'm quoting Trump. Trump is saying he did the ninety
Speaker 1: day pause because people were a little bit afraid. In
Speaker 1: other words, he paused. He paused because of the fear
Speaker 1: in the markets, not because he won, not because he
Speaker 1: got what he wanted now, because other countries gave in,
Speaker 1: now because they surrendered to him, but because financial markets
Speaker 1: were afraid a little bit afraid. Is a direct quote
Speaker 1: from Donald Trump. I didn't make that up. So you know,
Speaker 1: you can play the three D chess all you want.
Speaker 1: Trump actually says it like it is. He knows he's
Speaker 1: incapable of three D chess, and therefore he just tells
Speaker 1: you exactly what it is. Yeah, I caved because the
Speaker 1: markets were a free all right. I titled today's show
Speaker 1: a new World Order, and I think it is a
Speaker 1: new world order in a number of different respects. I
Speaker 1: think the last few the last week or so, have
Speaker 1: basically made real the fact that the United States now
Speaker 1: is in many ways more similar now to Putin's Russia
Speaker 1: than it is to America. We have a president who
Speaker 1: can basically sign executive orders in an unprecedented manner, raised
Speaker 1: taxes on Americans by hundreds of billions of dollars with
Speaker 1: no checks, no balance, no input from Congress, no input
Speaker 1: from anybody, can basically challenge the world like a little
Speaker 1: dictator with the only checks and balance is the stock
Speaker 1: market in the bond market. You know, Edward, I'm just
Speaker 1: going to do it a side for a second. Edward,
Speaker 1: you should stop posting comments on the chat and you
Speaker 1: should listen. You'd learn something. You're very ignorant, and you
Speaker 1: would really learn from the analysis. You might not agree
Speaker 1: with all of it, but you would learn something. You
Speaker 1: really would get to Nathanielle's visit in the White House
Speaker 1: in a little bit, because what you're doing in the
Speaker 1: chat is it's ignorant and silly. So we now have
Speaker 1: really a strong house, a strong man in the White House,
Speaker 1: as we said, raising tariffs, putting people. The courts are
Speaker 1: trying to hold him up, but it's difficult. It really
Speaker 1: is difficult. It's slow, and on tariffs, I don't think
Speaker 1: the courts know exactly what to do, and we'll see
Speaker 1: what actually develops. They might be I know they're going
Speaker 1: to be some more lawsuits around tariffs, and it's going
Speaker 1: to be interesting to see how the courts deal with that.
Speaker 1: There's some noise in Congress about taking back the authority,
Speaker 1: the responsibility, that the responsibility, the constitutional responsibility of owning tariffs,
Speaker 1: but I just don't think they'll get enough votes in
Speaker 1: order to do it. It won't even in the House
Speaker 1: speaking Johnson won't even come to the floor that you
Speaker 1: won't let it even be discussed. So we now have,
Speaker 1: for the first time, maybe since I FTR, maybe really
Speaker 1: ever a president they can get away with an economic front,
Speaker 1: refriguring the US economy and refrigering the global economy, really
Speaker 1: without any consultation, without anybody's input. It's whatever Trump wants
Speaker 1: this morning. And the whole US system of government is
Speaker 1: built to prevent this. The whole system of government is
Speaker 1: organized around the idea year that the president doesn't have
Speaker 1: this power to just wake up in the morning and
Speaker 1: dictate what should be the order of the day, that
Speaker 1: if he wants to change things, he has to go
Speaker 1: through Congress. He has to have bills passed, and the
Speaker 1: two houses of Congress. So it's not even enough to
Speaker 1: have control over one and in the Senate you need
Speaker 1: sixty votes to get anything done. So the whole point
Speaker 1: of our system of government is to slow things bound
Speaker 1: to make change difficult, particularly when it comes to increasing
Speaker 1: taxes or dramatically changing the world economic order. You want
Speaker 1: to slow things down, to deliberate, to discuss, to think
Speaker 1: it through, to get consult from experts. But no, we
Speaker 1: live in America and New America, America that did not
Speaker 1: exist yesterday, I mean did not exist three months ago.
Speaker 1: In America where the president wakes up in the morning
Speaker 1: and decides, Hmm, I don't like Canada. I'm gonna impost
Speaker 1: twenty five percent tas in Canada. And somebody might say,
Speaker 1: but but President Trump, you signed an agreement with that
Speaker 1: would agreement. Who cares about the agreement? I want twenty
Speaker 1: five I will get twenty five percent tariffs? What about Congress?
Speaker 1: Who cares about Congress? I want twenty five percent hoffs?
Speaker 1: I think I will get twenty five percent have And
Speaker 1: by the way, I don't like the Chinese. They're pissing
Speaker 1: me off. They like not playing the game the way
Speaker 1: I want it to be played. So I'm going to
Speaker 1: race to have on them for one hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: five percent. I'm basically gonna stop trade with China. Now
Speaker 1: that's a game change in American politics, and I don't
Speaker 1: you can't put this genie back in the box. This
Speaker 1: is now going to be the standard for whoever comes
Speaker 1: after Trump. It's going to be the standard for the
Speaker 1: next four years. The President will decide, the President will determine,
Speaker 1: and everybody else will obey. Gone is the American syst
Speaker 1: no government in many respects. Now there are only some
Speaker 1: areas in government where as of now the president can
Speaker 1: get away with that. But that's going to expand, you know,
Speaker 1: it's going to expand. It's not gonna shrink unless there's
Speaker 1: some kind of constitutional revolution. And I don't see where
Speaker 1: that comes from. Where does a counter constitutional revolution, a
Speaker 1: revolution that brings back the constitution? Where's that going to
Speaker 1: come from. Who's going to initiate that, Who's going to
Speaker 1: launch that? The left? Democrats, Republicans, this Republican Party got
Speaker 1: to be kidding me. Now, this new World Order also
Speaker 1: signifies a mean is signified by a complete rejection by
Speaker 1: the United States of what has me taken as its
Speaker 1: role in the international order since World War Two. Gone
Speaker 1: America's alliances. Trump has indicated exactly what he thinks of NATO,
Speaker 1: of Europe, of the UK, no respect for them, and
Speaker 1: no interest in any kind of alliance that signifies mutual defense.
Speaker 1: I don't know if Trump will leave NATO, but Trump's
Speaker 1: commitment to LATO is insignificant. There is no way any
Speaker 1: of European countries now rely on Trump on America to
Speaker 1: defend them. We're seeing a complete breakdown in trust in America.
Speaker 1: And it's not just in Europe. The way he has
Speaker 1: treated Japan, the way he has treated North South Korea,
Speaker 1: the way he's treated Vietnam, the way he's treated Pacific
Speaker 1: countries who unnecessary allies for US. Confronting China makes alliances
Speaker 1: with those countries unlikely. And if we do have alliances
Speaker 1: with them, they will be very, very very cautious. They
Speaker 1: are going to be very, very very suspicious. They have
Speaker 1: seen how he will turn on a dime on a
Speaker 1: country like Canada, a member of America's defense alliance. Basically forever,
Speaker 1: America is now renegged on the virtue of free trade.
Speaker 1: Not that long ago America was responsible and committed not
Speaker 1: just to free trade in theory, but responsible and committed
Speaker 1: to the defense of the shipping lanes in the world,
Speaker 1: to facilitating free trade. We saw that by the way,
Speaker 1: and uh we saw the turning away from that in JD.
Speaker 1: Vansa's response there was captured in Signal Gate two going
Speaker 1: after the Hooties. What did Jadevan say? Why should we
Speaker 1: do it? Most of the trade up the Red Sea
Speaker 1: through the Sewus Canal goes to Europe. We have no
Speaker 1: interest in trade, so why should we care? We have
Speaker 1: no interest in European trade. A complete reversal of the
Speaker 1: idea that the United States, which it has done since
Speaker 1: World War Two and the British British did before World
Speaker 1: War two siddenly before World War One, is maintaining the
Speaker 1: shipping lanes, maintaining free movement of goods across the planet,
Speaker 1: not allowing pirates, not allow Hutis and others to stop
Speaker 1: the trade. It's gone. So not only are we not
Speaker 1: committed to free trade anymore, on the contrary, we're committed
Speaker 1: to quote balance trade, which is bs nonsense. We're committed
Speaker 1: basically to producing all the goods within our country and
Speaker 1: minimal trading only minimally with the rest of the world.
Speaker 1: We're not committed anymore to the free passage of goods.
Speaker 1: You remember behind Ran said that the primary function of
Speaker 1: foreign policy and the primary function of our military was
Speaker 1: free trade. Was the preservation and expansion of free trade.
Speaker 1: That is gone. That idea is gone. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: even true that we live in a world in which
Speaker 1: the people in power and the people who support the
Speaker 1: people in power have also completely rejected any kind of
Speaker 1: trust in science and particularly in modern medicine. The world
Speaker 1: is different. It may be the change already started under COVID,
Speaker 1: but the new world that Donald Trump is brought forth
Speaker 1: is different. It is basically a world where the United
Speaker 1: States is dramatically diminished. It's a smaller America. It's an
Speaker 1: America that doesn't trust its allies, that doesn't value relative freedom,
Speaker 1: doesn't value trade. It is in America that has lost
Speaker 1: the interest in the world, but has also lost the
Speaker 1: interest in freedom, in liberty, and in its own economic success. Now,
Speaker 1: it could be that the stock market, in the bond
Speaker 1: market will save us from this latest Trump irrationality, but
Speaker 1: it's not going to save us from the fact that
Speaker 1: we have now created a presidency which is imperial, which
Speaker 1: is authoritarian, which is strong man ish. We are moving
Speaker 1: now in the direction of a Putin's Russia with nominal elections,
Speaker 1: but not that important because whoever gets elected is going
Speaker 1: to rule as a strong man. Nobody has an incentive
Speaker 1: to give the power back. In the short run. We
Speaker 1: live in a world of massive uncertainty. Market swinging wildly
Speaker 1: was with an authoritarian's whim. Whatever the autocrat feels like
Speaker 1: this morning. We don't know how to plan. Business is
Speaker 1: not going to invest. Long term planning has gone out
Speaker 1: the window. What we have is a presidency committed to power,
Speaker 1: the flexing of muscles. That is not good news for business.
Speaker 1: It's not good news for economic growth. It's not good
Speaker 1: news for investment. And by the way, you remember I
Speaker 1: told you the story of how we're not a story
Speaker 1: of the economic fact of how people sell America stuff
Speaker 1: to get dollars so they can invest it in the
Speaker 1: United States. Who's going to want to do that? Who's
Speaker 1: going to want to invest in the US? Why would
Speaker 1: they want to invest in the US? Maybe that's what
Speaker 1: the bond market is telling us. Our fund investors are
Speaker 1: running away from us. They're leaving. You know, Germany is
Speaker 1: going to be issuing a lot of bonds soon to
Speaker 1: build up its defenses. They'd rather buy German bonds than
Speaker 1: American bonds. Right now, America cannot be trusted. America is
Speaker 1: run by the whims of a strong man. Why would
Speaker 1: we want to invest in that now. One of the
Speaker 1: things that is dramatically changing here is one of the
Speaker 1: most beneficial, one of the most mutually beneficial trade relationships
Speaker 1: in human history. The trade relationship between China and the
Speaker 1: United States is now broken. Not a little bit, it
Speaker 1: is broken now. You could argue that the United States
Speaker 1: needed to back off a little bit from trading with China,
Speaker 1: certainly goods, but one hundred and twenty five percent tariffs
Speaker 1: basically means the United States is buying Americans are not
Speaker 1: buying anything Chinese, and the Chinese are not buying anything American.
Speaker 1: What it means is a massive lose lose scenario. It
Speaker 1: means Chinese ships are not coming to American ports. By
Speaker 1: the way, all Chinese built ships, this is irrespective of tariffs.
Speaker 1: All Chinese bill built ships are going to have to
Speaker 1: pay a fine to enter US ports and unknown goods
Speaker 1: in US ports. China today produces more than fifty percent
Speaker 1: of all ships, so a massive number of the world
Speaker 1: shipping is Chinese built, and yet those ships will not
Speaker 1: now enter US ports because they'd have to pay a
Speaker 1: huge fine. China has massive industrial manufacturing capacity. They're going
Speaker 1: to sell those goods, They're just not going to sell
Speaker 1: them to America. And China is not going to be
Speaker 1: buying many American goods. Chinese are not going to be
Speaker 1: buying many American goods. And again, this relationship now is broken.
Speaker 1: The core of globalization is broken, and this will have
Speaker 1: spiraling negative effects globally. It will shift trade to new places,
Speaker 1: to new countries. It will retard trade in many areas,
Speaker 1: in many places, and for many people. And again this
Speaker 1: is lose lose. You know, maybe some people gain, but
Speaker 1: for most part, everybody loses. America, with all these trade barriers,
Speaker 1: is going to be relatively marginalized in the world. Investments
Speaker 1: are going to flow elsewhere. Why would you invest in
Speaker 1: America given them suddainty that's involved. Why would you invest
Speaker 1: in America when other countries are great tariffs and goods
Speaker 1: made in America? So, why would you invest in a
Speaker 1: country where the leadership is driven by wim Not even
Speaker 1: a bad economic theory, not even a wrong economic theory.
Speaker 1: I can do that because that's predictable. But just no
Speaker 1: economic theory, just on whim. All right, all right, let's
Speaker 1: see now, it looks like the huge dumping of US
Speaker 1: bonds yesterday last night was being done by Japan, now China.
Speaker 1: Although it's hard to tell these things, but that's what
Speaker 1: it seems like, and it's what forced Trump's hand. I
Speaker 1: don't know what the world looks like at the end
Speaker 1: of all this, but I do think what America is
Speaker 1: doing is exact opposite of what Trump claims he wants
Speaker 1: to do. He wants to prevent China from becoming a
Speaker 1: hegemon in Asia. Well, this trade stuff is going to
Speaker 1: make China the hegemon in Asia, the dominant power in Asia.
Speaker 1: The Chinese, the South Koreans and the others are not
Speaker 1: going to trust the United States. Then I had to
Speaker 1: trust us today defend them. Then are going to trust
Speaker 1: us to trade with them, and they're going to have
Speaker 1: to hedge their bets. And they hedge their bets by
Speaker 1: warming to the Chinese. In spite of the Chinese growing authoritarianism.
Speaker 1: They need a hedge. And this is true across all
Speaker 1: of Asia. Note that the one country the United States
Speaker 1: did not put tariff on is Russia. Trump's basically granting
Speaker 1: Russia dominance over I think any area of the putin
Speaker 1: wants and Europe either fends for itself or falls onto
Speaker 1: the dominance of Russia. But the United States is no
Speaker 1: longer there to protected. So we are going to have.
Speaker 1: What I've been talking about for weeks now is only
Speaker 1: becoming more and more and more real as this ridiculous
Speaker 1: trade war manifests itself. We have a you know, these
Speaker 1: fears of influence, these dominant hegemons. We're gonna have Russia
Speaker 1: Europe if it steps up the United States, maybe in
Speaker 1: the America's although the way it's alienating Canada and Mexico,
Speaker 1: it's not clear that anybody's gonna want to align themselves
Speaker 1: with the United States. And then China in Asia and
Speaker 1: maybe in Latin America because the United States again nobody
Speaker 1: wants will want to deal with US. I mean yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean he's making the Chinese look good, which is hard,
Speaker 1: which is hard. I am taking super chats, but I
Speaker 1: usually take super chats an hour plus into the show,
Speaker 1: So once I finished talking, I've got things I want
Speaker 1: to say, all right, I don't know if we're heading
Speaker 1: towards a recession, but I wouldn't be surprised, not because
Speaker 1: of the tariffs per se, but because of lack of
Speaker 1: investment that results on the tariffs. All I did want
Speaker 1: to say something about Natanio because we talked about him
Speaker 1: last week and Nataniel's visit to the US. You know,
Speaker 1: there were three things that Nintenia wanted to get out
Speaker 1: of this. He wanted to get to discuss with Trump
Speaker 1: about Iran and wanted to get a US commitment to
Speaker 1: support an attack on Iran or the US attacking Iran
Speaker 1: or the Israel attacking run But he wanted to get
Speaker 1: his support. He wanted to get the US support for
Speaker 1: continuing the war in Gaza and for Israel putting a
Speaker 1: lot of pressure on Hamas to release the hostage just
Speaker 1: through military force. And he wanted Trump to do away
Speaker 1: with the tariffs because Israel had already reduced its own
Speaker 1: tawerts visa the United States the zero which is the
Speaker 1: right thing to do. Everybody should do that. And Nintennio
Speaker 1: basically went oero for three. He struck out. He did
Speaker 1: not get the tariff production. I mean he got it
Speaker 1: because everybody got it today. But when he met with Trump,
Speaker 1: Trump said, nah, I'm not going to give you it's
Speaker 1: still going to be seventeen percent. Today it was lowered
Speaker 1: to ten, but not because of anything that Tanyaou did.
Speaker 1: He did not get a commitment from me about Iran.
Speaker 1: On quite the contrary, what Trump told him was, you
Speaker 1: keep quiet. We are starting to negotiate with you on
Speaker 1: this weekend. And you know, if we need to put
Speaker 1: military pressure on Iran, we will, but for now, we're
Speaker 1: in negotiating mode. We are talking to Iran directly starting
Speaker 1: this weekend. And three. Trump basically said, look, I want
Speaker 1: this war to be over. Enough of this war in Gaza.
Speaker 1: It's distracting, we don't need it. Just end it. And
Speaker 1: if that and means compromise, compromise, just end the war.
Speaker 1: So Trump basically completely didn't give Natinillo anything. And if
Speaker 1: you look at the Israeli press, they clear both right
Speaker 1: wing and left wing, they clearly view this as a
Speaker 1: complete failure for Nataiello. He achieved nothing, not a single
Speaker 1: one of his goals going into Washington, DC. And what's
Speaker 1: interesting is this is a meeting Trump asked Nachenna how
Speaker 1: to come for. He invited him over to tell him,
Speaker 1: you're not getting anything. I've been telling you and particularly
Speaker 1: my Israeli friends, that at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: Trump is not a friend of Israel's hard for them
Speaker 1: to grasp, hard for them to accept that, but I
Speaker 1: think it is a reality. He will turn against Israel
Speaker 1: when his whim dictates. So we've a strong man who
Speaker 1: has whims on those whims of what guide him. All right,
Speaker 1: I think let me just summarize. Look, I think that
Speaker 1: pausing the riciper Go tarist is a good thing. I
Speaker 1: think that pausing is very weak in the sense that
Speaker 1: it still creates a lot of uncertainty in the marketplace.
Speaker 1: That's why I don't think this increase in the stock
Speaker 1: market is permanent. I think the investors are going to realize,
Speaker 1: what does it mean? What happens in ninety days? What
Speaker 1: else could he be doing? What other stuff will happen?
Speaker 1: It would have been better to eliminate them. A ten
Speaker 1: percent tariff is still pretty bad. It's five x on
Speaker 1: Tawis and what it was before. I think it's really interesting.
Speaker 1: We should all watch the bond market. We should watch
Speaker 1: the bond market to see what happens to the interest rates.
Speaker 1: It's going to be very interesting. The bond market is
Speaker 1: asserting itself. That hasn't happened in a long time. And
Speaker 1: when the bond market starts are sitting itself, interesting things happen.
Speaker 1: It'll be interesting to see the extent to which it
Speaker 1: can discipline Trump, and that'll be terrific. Trump will take
Speaker 1: credit for it, but we will all know because I
Speaker 1: will have told you it was really the bond market responsible.
Speaker 1: I don't know, did you guys? Do you guys see
Speaker 1: all the navao navao alone musk stuff? It was? It
Speaker 1: was pretty it was pretty entertaining. Let me just scan
Speaker 1: this and see what else I want to say. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I've got a nice graph that shows that
Speaker 1: basically China has been dramatically reducing tewer. So if you
Speaker 1: go back to ninety seventy nineteen seventy eight, taffs in
Speaker 1: China were above fifty percent. Today there below fifty, below
Speaker 1: ten percent and going down. They went down. Now you know,
Speaker 1: so ITAs a well below ten percent today in China.
Speaker 1: And China didn't get rich because of tariffs. China indeed
Speaker 1: got rich because it eliminated tariffs as tabs were eliminated,
Speaker 1: China got rich. I'll show this graph to you tomorrow.
Speaker 1: I've got a graph that actually illustrates what's happened in
Speaker 1: the middle class. Peter and Avaro over the weekend yesterday
Speaker 1: said that he doesn't care for Vietnam rejuices tarists to zero.
Speaker 1: So this is not about getting everybody to zero. The
Speaker 1: problem is we buy too much from them and they
Speaker 1: don't buy enough from us. So again it's all about
Speaker 1: it's all about the trade balance. And anyway, Trump continues
Speaker 1: to be a narcissist and win worshiper and pretty ignorant
Speaker 1: and unsophisticated when it comes to economics. All right, let's
Speaker 1: call that my segment. I think we're entering a new world.
Speaker 1: It's going to be really interesting. Trade is gonna shift. Oh,
Speaker 1: I did want to say trade is gonna shift to
Speaker 1: China is gonna find new markets for its goods. Uh.
Speaker 1: It's gonna find new markets for the stuff it imports.
Speaker 1: For example, it's not gonna buy agricultural products in the
Speaker 1: United States. Trump is gonna have to give the farmers
Speaker 1: a subsidy. China is gonna This is a huge boost
Speaker 1: for Brazilian agriculture. China will start buying from Brazil Argentina.
Speaker 1: Maybe now that Argentina has fewer tariffs and your export controls,
Speaker 1: maybe Argentina will be exporting a lot more agricultural products
Speaker 1: to China. So China will be buying from other countries
Speaker 1: it also starts selling more to other countries. I wouldn't
Speaker 1: be surprised if China signed a bunch of free trade
Speaker 1: deals with other Asian countries, African countries, South American countries.
Speaker 1: That China presents itself as now the champion of free trade,
Speaker 1: which is kind of a joke given its authoritary nature,
Speaker 1: but she has been known to do that, So expect
Speaker 1: Chinese inputs in the United States to drop dramatically. Now,
Speaker 1: it could be the Trump and she signed a deal
Speaker 1: or kind of deal, but I don't think things are
Speaker 1: ever going back to the way they wire. Just don't
Speaker 1: see it because I don't think anybody's ever gonna trust
Speaker 1: America again. I don't think anybody is going to assume
Speaker 1: that America as friends. I don't see a political leader
Speaker 1: in our future that can resurrect trust. I just I
Speaker 1: you know, maybe I'm wrong. I just don't see it,
Speaker 1: and I think we now had entered the era of
Speaker 1: American strong men, American strong men ruling by their own
Speaker 1: by their own whim. Whatever deal we have with China
Speaker 1: will be no better than where we were before there
Speaker 1: was a deal, or where we were before taris were raised.
Speaker 1: We're going to gain absolutely nothing for what Trump has done.
Speaker 1: We're gonna lose a lot of money, lose a lot
Speaker 1: of economic growth, lose a lot of employment, lose a
Speaker 1: lot of relationships. We are going to be poorer for
Speaker 1: what Trump is done. The world is going to be
Speaker 1: poor for what is Trump has done. And you know,
Speaker 1: he might cut some deal, but it would be meaningless
Speaker 1: and it's not garanteed there's going to be a deal.
Speaker 1: As I said, China was lowering taffs anyway, So it's
Speaker 1: sounds like she says, okay, lower tariff's, will you be happy.
Speaker 1: Trump is going to say no, because we still have
Speaker 1: a trade deficit with you, and there's no way to
Speaker 1: get rid of that trade deficit. There just isn't anyway. Again,
Speaker 1: China on a per capita GDP is a poor country.
Speaker 1: America is a rich country. The Chinese cannot afford what
Speaker 1: we have to sell and we can afford a lot
Speaker 1: of what they have to sell, so there's no way
Speaker 1: to raise the trade deficit. And nothing I think Trump
Speaker 1: does is going to get rid of the trade episode.
Speaker 1: What he is going to get rid of is our
Speaker 1: relatively high standard of living. That's what he's trying to
Speaker 1: get rid of. Not consciously, but that's that's what's going
Speaker 1: on all right. Let me remind you of our sponsors,
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Speaker 1: much faster. All right, let us get starded Randall, says
Speaker 1: hey Ron. In Australia, there's a debate over multinational gas
Speaker 1: companies paying tax as Many see it as fair. Well,
Speaker 1: I get the economic benefits of no tax. I struggle
Speaker 1: with the fatness argument. What's the best model justification for
Speaker 1: them not paying tax? Well, this is in verse right,
Speaker 1: What is the moral justification for anybody paying tax? What's
Speaker 1: the more justification for coursing people, for forcing people into
Speaker 1: paying taxes? Now, corporations don't really exist. They are entities,
Speaker 1: legal entities owned by individuals. Those individuals have already paid
Speaker 1: taxes on the money they used to invest in these corporations.
Speaker 1: Those individuals typically pay taxes on the dividends they get
Speaker 1: from the corporations, and they pay taxes on the capital
Speaker 1: gains that they generate from sale of stock in those corporations.
Speaker 1: So you know, the income of the corporation to the
Speaker 1: extent that they excruise to the individuals involved. As income
Speaker 1: is already is taxed, corporate taxes are in a sense,
Speaker 1: say double taxation. The taxed your tax on your investment
Speaker 1: in the corporation, both at the individual level and at
Speaker 1: the corporate level. How is that fair? How is that right?
Speaker 1: So look, taxation in out of itself curse taxation is
Speaker 1: IMO what the right weight to tax should be. It
Speaker 1: should be determined by if you're going to tax, should
Speaker 1: be determined why, what generates the revenue necessary to fund
Speaker 1: the government and what does so with minimal distortions to
Speaker 1: the economy. A corporate tax is incredibly distortive economically, and
Speaker 1: as I've told you many times, corporations don't pay it.
Speaker 1: It's passed on to mostly to employees who get lower wages,
Speaker 1: and it raises the cost of goods, and maybe a
Speaker 1: fraction of it is paid by shareholders. So in other words,
Speaker 1: it's a hidden sales tax, it's a hidden employment tax.
Speaker 1: It's a double tax on capital and on shareholders. Corporations
Speaker 1: are not, uh should not be taxable entities. Only individuals
Speaker 1: should be taxable entities. Business should not be taxed. Now, again,
Speaker 1: it's not clear what the least destructive tax regime would be.
Speaker 1: Probably a consumption tax would be the least destructive tax regime,
Speaker 1: or a flat no deductions, no deductibles, no nothing, income tax.
Speaker 1: But again that would involve getting rid of corporate taxes
Speaker 1: and everything else. So you know, I'm not sure what
Speaker 1: the faintest argument that says corporations should be taxed owns to.
Speaker 1: Where does it come from? Why should they be taxed
Speaker 1: if it doesn't make economic sense and it's a tax,
Speaker 1: and we're against taxes and taxes unfair and taxes unjust.
Speaker 1: Corporations are producing huge benefits for all of us. We
Speaker 1: trade with them in when when relationships. Why do we
Speaker 1: penalize them for producing the values that are necessary for
Speaker 1: us to survive and to thrive. I mean again, corporations
Speaker 1: produce all the goods that we benefit from. They produce
Speaker 1: the wealth, They produce the stuff that we need to survive.
Speaker 1: You're talking about gas companies. What we do we do
Speaker 1: without gas companies would there'd be no gas? So why
Speaker 1: are we penalizing them for offering us this amazing product
Speaker 1: at relatively cheap prices. Indeed, an incredibly cheap prices given
Speaker 1: the cost of extracting and shipping and producing the gas.
Speaker 1: All right, not your average algorithm fifty dollars, thank you.
Speaker 1: Even if the stockmank comes back, economic dislocation and destruction
Speaker 1: of wealth caused by tariffs will persist for a long time.
Speaker 1: Companies and individuals can't take risks because the investment will
Speaker 1: be ruined at the drop of a hat. Absolutely. I mean,
Speaker 1: what Trump has done again is he's basically put the market.
Speaker 1: It's told the market we're going to run things for
Speaker 1: the next four years on whim my whim whatever I
Speaker 1: feel like. And he's told the market I am ignorant
Speaker 1: of economics, and I don't really care. I don't care
Speaker 1: if I'm ignomant of economics. We're just gonna do what
Speaker 1: I think feel is the good thing to do. That
Speaker 1: is how I'm going to run the economy. Well, that
Speaker 1: does not encourage investment. That does not encourage long term planning.
Speaker 1: You know, I might put on tariffs, I might take
Speaker 1: them away if they gravel, I might treat them nicely.
Speaker 1: If they say something I don't like, I might penalize them.
Speaker 1: Think about how he's treated law firms, media companies. He
Speaker 1: is running our economy like I'm off your boss. Does
Speaker 1: not encourage investment. By the way, I wonder what happens
Speaker 1: to Apple with one hundred and twenty five percent tariffs.
Speaker 1: I wonder what's already happened to iPhone prices. So I
Speaker 1: don't know what happens to Apple given these tariffs. It's
Speaker 1: going to be really, really, really interesting. I assume supply
Speaker 1: chain shift. Apple does not input phones from China to
Speaker 1: the United States, but the phones it sells in the
Speaker 1: United States that twice the input from Vietnam and India.
Speaker 1: The Chinese manufactured iPhones are sold everywhere else in the world,
Speaker 1: but not in the United States. I figur it has
Speaker 1: to rejigg it supply chains. That's how it avoids raising
Speaker 1: prices by one hundred and twenty five percent. Now, Apple
Speaker 1: has a healthy profit margin, but not one hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty five percent, So it's going to be interesting. Apple
Speaker 1: would be a good test case, just like the auto
Speaker 1: companies a good text case in terms of the auto tariffs.
Speaker 1: It's going to be really fascinating how supply chains change,
Speaker 1: and again a complete new world order in terms of
Speaker 1: where products are made, how they ship, where they ship to.
Speaker 1: Who protects the shipping lanes. One of things to consider
Speaker 1: is if you can't trust America to defend the shipping lanes,
Speaker 1: would China now have to deploy its navy across the world.
Speaker 1: How will America view China deploying its navy across the world.
Speaker 1: We know Trump is upset because the Chinese and Panama.
Speaker 1: What happens when the Chinese and the Sewiss canal in
Speaker 1: the Red Sea, in the in the in the Indian Ocean,
Speaker 1: all over the Pacific Ocean, they have more boats now
Speaker 1: than the United States navy does what exactly happens? And
Speaker 1: and how can we blame China for trying to protect
Speaker 1: its trade interests by deploying a navy all over the
Speaker 1: world when we won't protect those same trade interests? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I completely agree with you. And now you average algorithm
Speaker 1: the the uncertainty that has been caused by what Trump
Speaker 1: has done is incredibly destructive to the US economy and
Speaker 1: ultimately the stock market. So for the stock market to
Speaker 1: go back to where it was before all this, it
Speaker 1: just doesn't make any sense given what's happened over the
Speaker 1: last few weeks, over the last week, Liam, while Trump
Speaker 1: is a nightmare, the Gramocrats, the Democrats are not a
Speaker 1: meaningful alternative. Their failures make Trump possible, and that puts
Speaker 1: Republicans in a deeply precarious position, clinging to power not
Speaker 1: by merit but by default. Yeah, but you say the
Speaker 1: Democrats are not a meaningful alternative in what sense? In
Speaker 1: spite of Biden's flaws. Biden didn't do anything as destructive
Speaker 1: to the US economy as these towers. As horrible is
Speaker 1: what Biden did, and he did horrible things. Biden did
Speaker 1: do as awful things to the rule of law as
Speaker 1: some of what's happening with the deportations, or what is
Speaker 1: happening with threatening out not threatening executive voters against particular
Speaker 1: law firms. So why are Democrats not an alternative, particularly
Speaker 1: if Democrats can move to the center on economic issues
Speaker 1: and dump the woke di bs I mean, I know
Speaker 1: we hate the Democrats. I agree with you hate the left,
Speaker 1: but at some point you have to vote to the
Speaker 1: less of two evils. And given what Trump has done
Speaker 1: in the first two months, three months, I don't think
Speaker 1: he is the less of two evils. I think he is,
Speaker 1: by far, as I warned you, the greater of two evils.
Speaker 1: He is changing America, changing American politics, changing the American
Speaker 1: system government, changing American's relationship with the world, all for
Speaker 1: the worst in ways that no Democrats could get away with.
Speaker 1: So at this point, would Kamala be better, Yeah, probably,
Speaker 1: less destructive, less damaging. She would have been bad, really
Speaker 1: really really bad, but in a conventional way, in a
Speaker 1: way that's fixable. Trump's evil are not fixable. What he's
Speaker 1: doing right now is not going to be easy. This
Speaker 1: genie is out of the bottle. It's not gonna be
Speaker 1: easy to put it back in. It's not gonna be
Speaker 1: easy to regain trust. It's not gonna be easy to
Speaker 1: reaffirm our commitment to trade now. It is if it
Speaker 1: was somebody like me who came in and just said
Speaker 1: zero talis on the rest of the world, and that
Speaker 1: would be done. I mean, Trump's stuff would be gone,
Speaker 1: but nobody's going to do that. There's no way to
Speaker 1: put back into the bottle. The massive abuse of executive
Speaker 1: order is now again. This is a process that started
Speaker 1: probably with started way back, but was intensified by Bush
Speaker 1: and then Obama and then Trump one and then Biden
Speaker 1: and then Trump two is taking it to a new dimension,
Speaker 1: new level. I mean, just think of the kinds of
Speaker 1: people that Trump is appointed to head out health and
Speaker 1: human services. Kinds of people a Trump is placed at
Speaker 1: the head of the FBI or the Justice Department. This
Speaker 1: is a new low, a new low in American history.
Speaker 1: So you know, Democrats might be well the alternative, but
Speaker 1: again they will cling to power now by mad but
Speaker 1: by default. I think we're into a period where either party,
Speaker 1: whoever wins, is going to be there by default. I
Speaker 1: don't see anybody in the political horizon. I don't see
Speaker 1: anybody in politics today who could win by merit. It's
Speaker 1: all by default, it's all the less of two eagles.
Speaker 1: That's the world in which we live in today. Andrew,
Speaker 1: I agree with you totally on trade. But when Peter
Speaker 1: Shift says trade deficits are product of the US sickness,
Speaker 1: a big gunman massively inflated dolla. I find it compelling. Also,
Speaker 1: does he have a point he's against tariffs. No, I
Speaker 1: don't think he has a point. I really don't. I
Speaker 1: think he's wrong on this. I think the only deficit
Speaker 1: that matters is the the government deficit. I don't know
Speaker 1: that the dollar is inflated. You know, if it is,
Speaker 1: why would they why would the world inflate the value
Speaker 1: of the dollar? Now again, everything's off right now, but uh,
Speaker 1: you know again, Peter Schiff is excellent and one hundred
Speaker 1: percent right on tariffs. He's been excellent in attacking Trump
Speaker 1: on tariffs. He's been very very good on it. I
Speaker 1: don't buy his idea that that there's there's something inherently
Speaker 1: wrong with the trade deficit. Now. His argument is we're consuming,
Speaker 1: we're not producing, and what we're what we're using to
Speaker 1: consume is not production but debt. But the very fact
Speaker 1: that people are willing to lend to us means that
Speaker 1: our bankers, in this case, the rest of the world
Speaker 1: believes that we were produce in the future. So I
Speaker 1: am I do not think the deficit are sign of weakness.
Speaker 1: I think there a sign of strength, the sign that
Speaker 1: the rest of the world wants to hold dollars the
Speaker 1: sign of the rest of the rest of the world
Speaker 1: wants to invest in US, borrow, lend us money that
Speaker 1: the rest of the world believes in the US economy
Speaker 1: and the ability to produce. Otherwise they wouldn't lend money
Speaker 1: to us. Now they're losing that quote faith in US.
Speaker 1: They're losing their trust in US, and you can see
Speaker 1: that in the bond market right now. And that's a
Speaker 1: real problem. The real deficit that matters is the government deficit.
Speaker 1: That's the only deficit that matters. And every piece of
Speaker 1: energy thought focus needs to be placed in what doge
Speaker 1: really should be about, which is basically shrinking government, but
Speaker 1: shrinking government in a smart way. Shrinking government about the
Speaker 1: around the proper role of government, that is, getting rid
Speaker 1: of those functions of government that government should not be
Speaker 1: engaged in. And I again, I've I've specified many times
Speaker 1: in the past how I would do that in great detail.
Speaker 1: I've done my State of the Union one hundred, first
Speaker 1: hundred days, what I would do in the first hundred days.
Speaker 1: All of that is available, you can look it up,
Speaker 1: and you know, you just cut government systematically and thoroughly,
Speaker 1: and you go after the Medican and you go after security.
Speaker 1: But you start with subsidies and called p taxas and deregulation.
Speaker 1: You start with business, and then you go to entitlements,
Speaker 1: uh it and uh and and the last thing you
Speaker 1: do is cut cut the welfare state. Hop up. The
Speaker 1: head of the i r S just resigned because Trump's
Speaker 1: immig immigration thugs want to collect tax tax data on
Speaker 1: illegal immigrants. He wants to deport people who are working
Speaker 1: and paying taxes into a system they will never receive
Speaker 1: benefits from. Yes, but but more than that, you know,
Speaker 1: one of the one of the principles around the i
Speaker 1: r S has been in the past that you know,
Speaker 1: we we don't the government agencies don't share information about
Speaker 1: individuals across platforms up that you know, and this was
Speaker 1: the IRS scandal under under Obama, related to using text
Speaker 1: data to discriminate against conservatives. Well, you know, you're not
Speaker 1: supposed to be digging into the tax recodes of individuals.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean, and legal immigrants are paying taxes. Now,
Speaker 1: it's not true that they never see benefits from I mean,
Speaker 1: as people will point out to you, they drive in
Speaker 1: the roads, they send a kiss of public schools, They
Speaker 1: use the infrastructure that this federal government supplies. They benefit
Speaker 1: from police and military and all the other protections right
Speaker 1: supposedly unless it's ice thugs. But they don't receive so
Speaker 1: security benefits, and they don't receive Medicare, but everything else
Speaker 1: they do receive it, and they pay taxes and they work.
Speaker 1: But the idea of deporting working people is just nuts,
Speaker 1: legally illegal. Who cares they're working for a living. Why
Speaker 1: are you budding in? That's the rights violation. I mean,
Speaker 1: I understand the porting people who are leaches on the state,
Speaker 1: who are leaches on their fellow Americans who don't work,
Speaker 1: who are not working, But if they're working, leave them alone.
Speaker 1: So good for the head of IRS. Good for the
Speaker 1: head of the IRS for resigning over something like that,
Speaker 1: for standing on principle, Andy, can you explain treasury bonds
Speaker 1: and yields matter and are concerning? Yeah, So, treasury bonds
Speaker 1: are basically bonds at the US government issues. They sell
Speaker 1: the bonds in the marketplace, and that's how they raise
Speaker 1: money to pay for governed expenditures. Because government spends more
Speaker 1: than the tax revenue that comes in, it needs to
Speaker 1: borrow money from whoever's willing to buy government bonds, treasury bonds.
Speaker 1: At government bonds, they're just ways to fund the deficit,
Speaker 1: that's all they are, and the government has to pay
Speaker 1: interest on those bonds, and they have to pay the
Speaker 1: principle back at the end of at the end of
Speaker 1: the period. Right, could be a one year bond, It
Speaker 1: could be a five year bond, could be a ten
Speaker 1: year bond, could be a thirty year bond. The government
Speaker 1: primarily issued short term three months, six months, one year,
Speaker 1: up to five years, but it does issue ten and
Speaker 1: thirty year bonds as well. Now, these bonds trade in
Speaker 1: the marketplace, So I can go now and buy a
Speaker 1: bond that the government issued a year ago, a five
Speaker 1: year bond the government issued a year ago, and I
Speaker 1: can go in and buy it today. The price that
Speaker 1: I get, the price that I'm willing to pay for it,
Speaker 1: will determine my return on the investment. Let's say I
Speaker 1: pay a thousand dollars. Let's say I'm buying a thousand
Speaker 1: dollar bond, so I will get one thousand dollars when
Speaker 1: it matures in four years. But if I buy it
Speaker 1: from nine hundred dollars, I'm going to get the interest
Speaker 1: payment that come in every month, plus the one hundred
Speaker 1: dollars the difference between nine hundred and one thousand which
Speaker 1: I will get in four years, and that determines the
Speaker 1: yield on those bonds. That is the return that the
Speaker 1: price I'm buying it at today implies for the next
Speaker 1: four years, and if I hold them for four years,
Speaker 1: I'll get exactly that return because the cash flows don't
Speaker 1: change in a bond. The bond says we will pay
Speaker 1: five percent a year on a monthly basis for five years,
Speaker 1: and we'll pay you one thousand dollars back at the
Speaker 1: end of those five years. Now, the interst rates that
Speaker 1: are the yields. The interest rates basically represents the return
Speaker 1: on my investment basically reflect the market's estimate of what
Speaker 1: the risk is in the marketplace and what inflation will
Speaker 1: be in the future and what chance there is it
Speaker 1: DearS coming too faults and its death. So, for example,
Speaker 1: in the nineteen seventies and early nineteen eighties, tenure bonds
Speaker 1: went up to like fifteen sixteen, seventeen percent because of inflation.
Speaker 1: People said, you're gonna pay me a thousand bucks in
Speaker 1: four years, But inflation is like fifteen percent. I want
Speaker 1: to be compensated for inflation, she's gonna have to give
Speaker 1: me more than fifteen percent over the next four years,
Speaker 1: fifteen percent a year over the next fourteen four years.
Speaker 1: And then if you looked at Greek bonds in the
Speaker 1: let's say twenty eleven twenty twelve, they were like, I
Speaker 1: can't remember how how they went, but they went really
Speaker 1: really I maybe fifty sixty percent. Why because there was
Speaker 1: a real chance the Greek government will never p pay
Speaker 1: those bonds back. So instead of selling I'll give you
Speaker 1: nine hundred dollars for getting one thousand in a few years,
Speaker 1: plus a five percent interest perce now they're selling it
Speaker 1: maybe one hundred dollars because I'm divining of I'm demanding
Speaker 1: a very high return because there's a chance I won't
Speaker 1: get anything. So when yields go up, that is, prices
Speaker 1: go down. As a price goes down, your return goes up.
Speaker 1: So if you pay one hundred dollars for one thousand
Speaker 1: dollars in the future, that return is very high. As
Speaker 1: compared to nine hundred dollars for one thousand dollars in
Speaker 1: the future, that return is very low. So price and
Speaker 1: yield are inversity related and what when interestates go up,
Speaker 1: that means that people believe this higher risk or higher
Speaker 1: risk of inflation or high risk of default in the marketplace.
Speaker 1: And when the tenure bond goes up, mortgage rates go up.
Speaker 1: A lot of other interest rates in the economy that
Speaker 1: affect consumers and affect business go up as well, because
Speaker 1: people use the markets buying and selling a bonds and
Speaker 1: the interest rates implied by them as a signal regarding
Speaker 1: way interest rates should be and how much to charge
Speaker 1: for loans over similar length of time. So that is
Speaker 1: the I think that's the best I can do for
Speaker 1: a short explanation of those relationships. Take my finance class
Speaker 1: at ARU to get a more detailed explanation. Randall another
Speaker 1: one hundred Australian dollars. Thank you, Randall. The argument for
Speaker 1: hiking taxes from lefties is research shows fifty six percent
Speaker 1: of gas exports from Australia attract zero royalty payments, effectively
Speaker 1: giving a public resource to multinational gas corporations for free.
Speaker 1: It's time the gas industry started paying its fair shape.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know if that's exactly true that
Speaker 1: they pay zero royalties on that. But let's say it
Speaker 1: is true, why should they pay any royalties. The problem
Speaker 1: here is not that they're not paying royalties. The problem
Speaker 1: here is that somehow natural resources are considered state property
Speaker 1: and that corporations should pay any royalty to the government
Speaker 1: over them. Basically, the natural resources should be owned by
Speaker 1: the people who produce the natural resources. The oil companies,
Speaker 1: the gas companies. They're the ones drilling, they're the ones extracting,
Speaker 1: they're the ones piping. What is the government doing to
Speaker 1: get its royalty? Now you might say the government owns
Speaker 1: the land. Well, government shouldn't own land. That land should
Speaker 1: be private, and then private entities can negotiate royalties with
Speaker 1: gas companies. And indeed, what's more likely is the gas
Speaker 1: company will just buy the land from the land owner
Speaker 1: and then no royalty isn't needed. The whole system is statused.
Speaker 1: The whole system is wrong, and it what it ignores
Speaker 1: is the contribution of the gas company to, you know,
Speaker 1: making the gas available. Gas is not just there. Somebody
Speaker 1: has to extract it, and they shouldn't have to pay
Speaker 1: a royalty to a government that's done nothing to generate
Speaker 1: that gas. Now, again, if it was a private property.
Speaker 1: Then a private property owner would have the ability to
Speaker 1: negotiate a deal, the best deal that they could with
Speaker 1: a gas company. But the government goverment shouldn't own that land. Indeed,
Speaker 1: all the distortions happen because of government so called ownership
Speaker 1: of land. Land should only be held by private individuals,
Speaker 1: by private entities. That's where the fundamental challenges and that's
Speaker 1: why the leftists don't get it, because they think it's
Speaker 1: owned by the state. But it's not. It can't be
Speaker 1: owned by the state. The state is not a entity
Speaker 1: that should own anything. The state is an entity to
Speaker 1: protect rights. Indeed, all the problems pollution and the so
Speaker 1: called problems of the commons all problems created by having commons,
Speaker 1: that is, having state ownership rather than all these problems
Speaker 1: go away once you privatize the commons, the so called commons.
Speaker 1: That dudeo Bandi. Even though the Enlightenment is much stronger
Speaker 1: in the US and Europe, we have John Dewey, which
Speaker 1: makes us dumber and more emotional than Europeans. Could this
Speaker 1: make fascism more susceptible to spending here than in Europe?
Speaker 1: I mean, it's hard to tell well where it will spread.
Speaker 1: More easily in the past. That Europe has been more
Speaker 1: susceptible because Europe is dramatically more collectivistic than the US.
Speaker 1: As the US is now becoming more tribal, partially because
Speaker 1: of John Dewey, that is changing. Its advantage was always
Speaker 1: its individualism, but its individualism is in decline, and that
Speaker 1: is making it far more susceptible to fascism now. Whether
Speaker 1: more so or less so than Europe is very hard
Speaker 1: to tell at this point. Part of Europe's resistance of
Speaker 1: fascism is the fact that they have firsthand experience with it.
Speaker 1: They know their history and have rejected it. Americans don't
Speaker 1: know history and have never had the experience firsthand, and
Speaker 1: therefore much likely to embrace it out of a certain ignorance.
Speaker 1: Mary Elleen a relative. A relative owns a successful beauty salon.
Speaker 1: She knows tais will increase their costs, but says she
Speaker 1: shouldn't want. We shouldn't want instant gratification. We will eventually
Speaker 1: become the powerful country we used to be. She's deeply religious. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean this is faith. How are we going to
Speaker 1: become a powerful country? How is that going to happen?
Speaker 1: What's a mechanism by which that happens. They have no idea,
Speaker 1: no idea. Basically believes it because Trump said it. She
Speaker 1: believes it because she heard it on Fox. She believes
Speaker 1: it because she wants to believe it. But there's no
Speaker 1: economic reality. The reality is the tariffs make us weaker,
Speaker 1: make us poorer, make us less powerful. America's far less
Speaker 1: powerful today than it was three months ago because of
Speaker 1: what Trump's done over the last three months, including the tariffs.
Speaker 1: So religious mentality is an epistemologically authoritarian mentality, which makes
Speaker 1: it susceptible to taking on faith what somebody like Donald
Speaker 1: Trump says. But that's all she has. She has no
Speaker 1: ability to articulate how this is going to make America
Speaker 1: more powerful. Harper, the tariff freederick strikes me as the
Speaker 1: same pitch as utopian communism. The initial slave is just
Speaker 1: transitional period. We have to go through. The old structures
Speaker 1: have to be torn down to make way for the
Speaker 1: paradise to come. Yeah, I mean there's a sense in
Speaker 1: which that's true. The the communists are more idealistic. They
Speaker 1: have a clearer picture of where they're heading this, but
Speaker 1: this is this is typical statists. You know, trust the authorities.
Speaker 1: They know what they're doing. And yes, there's gonna be
Speaker 1: a purvoiti of pain, but there's a wonderful outcome on
Speaker 1: the other side. Just go with it. Just trust them,
Speaker 1: just believe. And that's communism and it's Christianity, and it's
Speaker 1: because it's Christianity, right, Just suck it up in this world.
Speaker 1: This world sucks, You're gonna suffer, you're gonna sacrifice, but
Speaker 1: it's okay. There's a utopia at the other side of death.
Speaker 1: So just hang around. Everything's gonna get better, and you
Speaker 1: know Trump will fix it, so it don't worry, Michael.
Speaker 1: Will Trump settled down for the remainder of his term.
Speaker 1: It seems like a few adults have entered the room.
Speaker 1: If not, is there a chance he can be impeached
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty six when the Democrats take both House
Speaker 1: and Senate. No, I gets no sense that there are
Speaker 1: any adults in the room, not in any systemic way.
Speaker 1: It's true that I think Elon Musk gets trade in
Speaker 1: a way that Navara does not, and the power between
Speaker 1: those two might shift over time and might alternate from
Speaker 1: day to day, as we saw in the last few days,
Speaker 1: and it might be that Trump throws Navara bone and
Speaker 1: throws Trump throws the Elone musket bone to keep them
Speaker 1: somehow in balance. But I don't see any adults in
Speaker 1: the room, because while Elon Musk might be okay on Tariff's,
Speaker 1: he's terrible in other things and feeds the worst elements
Speaker 1: within Trump. So I I don't know any adults in
Speaker 1: that room. We thought Bessett was an adult, but based
Speaker 1: on what he says on television, he is a complete sello.
Speaker 1: So I don't think there are any adults. I think
Speaker 1: it's just the Trump panicked because the markets are panicking,
Speaker 1: particularly the bond market, So I don't consider that adult.
Speaker 1: I mean the adults in the bond market. There are
Speaker 1: adults in the stock market, but not in the Trump administration.
Speaker 1: Will he settle down, I don't know. He might just
Speaker 1: because you'll run out of energy, you know, the inotia
Speaker 1: will dissipate. Congress is already unbelievably slow, and that might
Speaker 1: slow him down. Will he be impeached? No, nobody's going
Speaker 1: to impeach him. I mean, you'd need significant Republican support,
Speaker 1: you need two thirds in the Senate. It ain't happening,
Speaker 1: and if it does, what do we get? JD Van's no,
Speaker 1: thank you, no thank you. I'll take Trump over Jdvans.
Speaker 1: Jdvans would being a lot more methodological in his nationalism
Speaker 1: and his authoritarianism than Trump is. Trump is all over
Speaker 1: the place, and that's good fuss in some sense, Jennifer.
Speaker 1: If someone is married to and stays married to a
Speaker 1: horrble person, is it legitimate to criticize them for that?
Speaker 1: Or maybe they're afraid to leave and more information is
Speaker 1: needed to judge them. Yeah, I mean, I think you
Speaker 1: need to be careful about judging somebody's intimate personal relationships.
Speaker 1: You don't know what's going on behind closed doors. You
Speaker 1: don't know what the psychologic getting out of that other person.
Speaker 1: I think it's very tricky to judge, you know, assuming
Speaker 1: the person is all there and is capable of making
Speaker 1: those judgments for themselves. I mean, you can bring it up,
Speaker 1: you can criticize, but I think you have to be
Speaker 1: cautious and you have to be willing to walk away
Speaker 1: and just accept that this is a choice that they've
Speaker 1: made and that you don't know. You don't understand because
Speaker 1: we only you know. Relationships are tricky things. The very
Speaker 1: intimate things, and we don't have the kind of information
Speaker 1: we would need to really with full context, make a judgment.
Speaker 1: Jonathan Jonathanas says, God, make this tariff madness stop. Jonathan's
Speaker 1: still in the markets. I don't know. I'm glad my
Speaker 1: hedge fund is closed. I don't know how I would
Speaker 1: deal with what's going on right now in the markets. God, yes,
Speaker 1: it would be nice if it stopped. But then what
Speaker 1: where's the next madness coming from? We know madness is
Speaker 1: in the cards because we've got a mad man running
Speaker 1: this country, Literally, a madman running the country. Liam says
Speaker 1: Trump is more of a fluke than a tsunami. Americans
Speaker 1: already can't stand him. MAGA snuck into power due to
Speaker 1: the incompetence of Democrats in twenty twenty eight. The phenomena
Speaker 1: is gone. You know, I'm not convinced they didn't. Just
Speaker 1: you know, remember MAGA also snuck in the power because
Speaker 1: of the incombinants of Republicans. They're the ones who had
Speaker 1: a primary and elected Trump to be the representative. They're
Speaker 1: enough Republican crazies, They're enough Democrats crazies to keep us
Speaker 1: on our toes, to keep craziness in our politics for
Speaker 1: a long time to come. So maybe this particular manifestation
Speaker 1: Omega goes away. The phenomena is not going to go away.
Speaker 1: The phenomena will only expand and grow because there is
Speaker 1: no alternative to it. What is the alternative? What is
Speaker 1: the alternative? Boring centrism, that's not an alternative. What excites,
Speaker 1: what's going to get people motivated? There's just no alternative.
Speaker 1: What we need is an exciting pro freedom movement, but
Speaker 1: we don't have that. We just don't have that. Islam Ali,
Speaker 1: Argentina had to enter a recession to heal the economy,
Speaker 1: but America does not. Can you explain the difference here, Well,
Speaker 1: Argentina didn't have to enter a recession to heal its economy.
Speaker 1: I mean you mean by what Milay did. Yes, but
Speaker 1: it was noticed it was a very short recession. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure Argentina ever made it to to a session
Speaker 1: under Melae as Argentina being in a recession since Mille
Speaker 1: was there. I don't think that's true technically, So no,
Speaker 1: I don't think you have to go into recession. I
Speaker 1: don't think Argentina went into recession during me La. I
Speaker 1: mean and if it did it, it was very very short.
Speaker 1: So what you need is a period of readjustment. What
Speaker 1: you need is a period of restructuring investments, and that
Speaker 1: would happen when the government starts really cutting subsidies, cutting spending,
Speaker 1: cutting programs, cutting whole departments. Then you're going to get
Speaker 1: a reallocation of resources, and that will result in disruptions
Speaker 1: that will result in some people, in people losing their jobs,
Speaker 1: having to move investments, some investments losing money because they
Speaker 1: were based on subsidies, and the capital flowing into other investments.
Speaker 1: So you will be there. You will have this locations
Speaker 1: and maybe that involves as But the recession we're talking
Speaker 1: about causing in the United States is being caused by tariffs,
Speaker 1: and there is just no need for tariffs. In other words,
Speaker 1: you're not going to fix the US economy by raising taxes.
Speaker 1: You need to fix the US economy by cutting spending.
Speaker 1: But Trump is choosing to fix the American economy by
Speaker 1: raising taxes. That's an impossibility, and therefore you won't fix
Speaker 1: the economy. He'll just drive it into a session. Nothing
Speaker 1: good will come of it. Businesses will go out of business,
Speaker 1: not the right businesses will go out of business. The
Speaker 1: businesses that go out of business because of taxes because
Speaker 1: of tariffs, which are taxes, are different than the kind
Speaker 1: of businesses that would go out of business if you
Speaker 1: cut dramatically gum and spending. So it would be a
Speaker 1: completely different type of restructuring, a completely different type of
Speaker 1: recession if government's cutting spending even leads to recession. So no,
Speaker 1: I don't think you have to go into a recession. Plus,
Speaker 1: whatever changes we have to do in America to get
Speaker 1: it healthy are far smaller than the changes that Argentina
Speaker 1: had to do. Argentina had to go through much more
Speaker 1: radical surgery, and in both cases, in all cases, no,
Speaker 1: I mean raising taxes to the extent that Trump wants
Speaker 1: to do is inappropriate as a way of trying to
Speaker 1: quote fix the economy. Opposite. Ultimately, you want to get
Speaker 1: to a place where because you've cut spending, you can
Speaker 1: cut taxes, but only after you cut spending. SAYO, do
Speaker 1: you think Milay example might have inspire Trump to take
Speaker 1: more drastic action hoping for similar long term results. I
Speaker 1: don't understand what drastic action Trump is doing that could
Speaker 1: be inspired by Malay. Trump is the opposite of me.
Speaker 1: Lay he's increasing government power, is increasing government control, and
Speaker 1: he's dramatically raising taxes. So he's not being inspired by Milay.
Speaker 1: He's the counter. Melay is the opposite of me. Lay.
Speaker 1: Melay was really radical. Melay has taken really drastic actions,
Speaker 1: drastic action towards more freedom, whereas Trump is taking drastic
Speaker 1: action towards less freedom, more statism. Trump is a statist.
Speaker 1: Melay is a free market, at least as much of
Speaker 1: a free market as anybody is in this world. Right now, KAO,
Speaker 1: did you hear launch one PM of Singapore Prime Minister
Speaker 1: of Singapore speech. Yes, it was very good. I mean,
Speaker 1: he defended free trade, he defended markets, and he called
Speaker 1: Trump's tarifs what they are. I can't remember the exact
Speaker 1: words he used, but it was quite good. Not Javis jaga.
Speaker 1: What did the Fall Left and MEGA have in common?
Speaker 1: Almost everything? The idea that the future good of all
Speaker 1: requires the destruction in the present, that's part of it.
Speaker 1: They have in common a a really tolerance for any
Speaker 1: ideas that are different than theirs. They have in common
Speaker 1: the willingness to use the state to impose their will
Speaker 1: on other people, having common and complete ignorance of economics
Speaker 1: then to be common and complete ignorance of what America is,
Speaker 1: what it stands for, what it represents, what it's founded on,
Speaker 1: complete ignorance of the Constitution, complete ignorance of the Declaration.
Speaker 1: They have in common, a real racist thread in both.
Speaker 1: So they have a lot income. That's why it's become popular.
Speaker 1: And I call woke right because yeah, they behave like
Speaker 1: the wolk left. James, does all malevolent behavior come from
Speaker 1: low self esteem? I don't know. I think so, but
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm not a psychologist, so I'm sure
Speaker 1: there are other causes that I can't think of. Right now.
Speaker 1: There's a Turk dichotomy. The market rebound is cold comfort.
Speaker 1: Trump is holding the US world hostage. He should get
Speaker 1: no credit or praise. It's not even full rebound. It's madness. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, you wouldn't expect a full rebound, and it
Speaker 1: might still go up tomorrow, but he should get no
Speaker 1: credit of praise because he caused the decline to begin with,
Speaker 1: and it's and he still placed ten percent tariffs on
Speaker 1: the world, which is not good. There's there's just nothing
Speaker 1: good is coming up of this nothing. So I'm glad,
Speaker 1: he paused the tariffs, he paused, but he hasn't paused
Speaker 1: the madness, and he can't because he is the madness.
Speaker 1: He hasn't paused on Suddinty because he is done. Certainty,
Speaker 1: Aimes says, if we do collapse into pure fascism, I
Speaker 1: don't suspect it will last long. I hope not. I
Speaker 1: hope not. It's very hard to tell. It's very hard
Speaker 1: to tell how people align and what forces align against.
Speaker 1: It is going to be interesting, Doug. Is Trump making
Speaker 1: the world more selfish, for instance, Europe pivot to defend itself. No,
Speaker 1: I don't think so. I mean, maybe what Trump is
Speaker 1: doing is good for Europe in the long run because
Speaker 1: it's forcing them to be accountable to themselves. But I
Speaker 1: don't think that is going to be true of other
Speaker 1: countries and other places. And I think that it's emboldening
Speaker 1: the bad guys. So at the same time, it's emboldening China,
Speaker 1: it's emboldening Russia, it's emboldening Iran, North Korea. So I
Speaker 1: think on net No, I mean, it's not making the
Speaker 1: world more selfish, even if it is good ultimately for
Speaker 1: Europe in the sense that they become more responsible for
Speaker 1: their own future unless dependent in the United States. Michael,
Speaker 1: you said an irrational mind as an inconsistent mind. But
Speaker 1: the Nazis were very consistent while being extremely irrational and mystical.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't know that they were consistent. I
Speaker 1: don't know what that means exactly in the context of
Speaker 1: the Nazis. What was consistent about them? That they hated Jews? Okay,
Speaker 1: But was their economic policy consistent? No, I don't think so.
Speaker 1: Was their military strategy consistent? No, I don't think so. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know what exactly was consistent about the Nazis.
Speaker 1: Country first, state first, the party first, sure, but beyond that,
Speaker 1: I just don't know. An irrational mind is detached from
Speaker 1: what may allows consistency, which is reality. All right, let's see, Jonathan,
Speaker 1: how many futures did ron Vera buy before the announcement?
Speaker 1: Just unfair manipulation? Yeah, I mean Donald Trump actually tweeted
Speaker 1: this morning something like I had I had it here,
Speaker 1: but I deleted it. Now's the best time to buy,
Speaker 1: like a few hours before he made the announcement that
Speaker 1: he was going to let me just let's see if
Speaker 1: I can find this. Where is the quote? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't have it, but just a few hours before he
Speaker 1: made the announcement that he was pausing. So how many
Speaker 1: people indeed bought on the inside of knowledge and did
Speaker 1: Trump didn't follow, did others. It could very well be
Speaker 1: real manipulation, although I don't think it's the reason for it.
Speaker 1: I think, well, if you're gonna, if you're gonna change,
Speaker 1: and you get a pause, I might as well buy
Speaker 1: some stock. Just give me a couple of hours to
Speaker 1: get my broker and everything aligned. Richard, I think that
Speaker 1: Democrats are in denial about how poor Kamala Harris was
Speaker 1: as a candidate. They don't admit their mistakes like Trump
Speaker 1: would admit his. Yeah, I think that's right, although I'm
Speaker 1: sure inside the Democratic Party there's a lot of discussion
Speaker 1: of that. And you can see already the different Democrats
Speaker 1: aligning themselves, you know, with running. So you're seeing the
Speaker 1: governor of California, you know, we basically changes views on
Speaker 1: all of the woke stuff and moderating. Jared Polis, the
Speaker 1: governor of Colorado, has been very very good on tariffs
Speaker 1: and good and some economic freedom issues and clearly is
Speaker 1: positioning himself as the kind of moderate centrist pro market
Speaker 1: relatively speaking candidate, So I think Democrats are going to
Speaker 1: look for somebody a lot stronger than Kamala when the
Speaker 1: time comes to twenty twenty eight. Michael, I'm hoping some
Speaker 1: major deregulation will offset some ridiculous tariffs. But I suspect
Speaker 1: Trump's fascist advisors are not crazy about deregulation. A lot
Speaker 1: of them are not. So it's going to be interesting
Speaker 1: to see what deregulation we get and where we'll get it.
Speaker 1: Where Maga is behind it, like an energy and environmentalism.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if we'll get it elsewhere, but I
Speaker 1: do think we'll get it there. But yeah, it's still
Speaker 1: to be done. Clark, did Jamie Diamond and Elon Musk
Speaker 1: cornered Trump and make him daw back these tariffs? I
Speaker 1: don't know if Jamie Diamond has any inward Trump. I
Speaker 1: don't know. Elon Musk spent the whole weekend talking against
Speaker 1: the tariffs and against Navarro. It's possible that he cornered him,
Speaker 1: but hard to tell. I mean, Elon Musk was losing
Speaker 1: hundreds of billions of dollars or tens of billions of
Speaker 1: dollars of his wealth on a daily basis. Michael, do
Speaker 1: you think much of the justification for nihilism or being
Speaker 1: destructive is the feeling the world screwed me in some way. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's some sense of which I don't belong in this world.
Speaker 1: I'm not suited for this world. The world is somehow
Speaker 1: against me. It screwed me in some deep way, and yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm going to screw it back. So yes, I think
Speaker 1: there's something there, TOUI kind of the Tui attitude. Trevor says,
Speaker 1: what a time to be alive? Indeed, what a time?
Speaker 1: All right? Uh, these tariffs are crime. Yes, this is
Speaker 1: a crime against American people. This is theft, this is
Speaker 1: stealing our wealth. Trump is evil. I agree with all
Speaker 1: of that, Clark. Most voters do not vote for trade war.
Speaker 1: Republicans were expecting some tariffs, but not this monstrosity. The
Speaker 1: MAGA movement is over a transient moment of raised and confusion.
Speaker 1: I hope you're right. I hope you're right. We will
Speaker 1: see we will see super cask the conservative agenda make
Speaker 1: us poor, so we'll worship God and be dependent on
Speaker 1: religion and family. Yeah, stop being so materialistic. All this wealth.
Speaker 1: We're anti left, but we're anti wealth. As well, we're
Speaker 1: anti capitalism, we're anti freedom. Yeah, I think that's an attitude, Michael.
Speaker 1: What Israeli's think of Trump? I mean they still love
Speaker 1: him because they think that he is pro Israel and
Speaker 1: will stay pro Israel. So I think he's Israeli. Still,
Speaker 1: he probably gets more support among Israelis than he does
Speaker 1: among Americans, primarily because they really believe that he will
Speaker 1: ultimately back back Israel. I think they're in for surprise, Michael.
Speaker 1: Only in Maga world do you worship the Confederacy and
Speaker 1: then sneer the free trade in slavery. I don't understand that.
Speaker 1: You praise the man who owned people then clutch your
Speaker 1: polls over terror free iPhone. Oh you sneer that free
Speaker 1: trade is slavery. Okay, I get it now. Yes, I
Speaker 1: mean Maga is crazy. Yes, they are tolerant of the
Speaker 1: Confederacy and of slavery in the Confederacy, But you know
Speaker 1: they want They're horrified by actual free trade. They don't
Speaker 1: like freedom, they don't want freedom, they don't believe in freedom.
Speaker 1: That's the reality. Harpercampbell COVID lockdowns, physical confinement, universal tariff's
Speaker 1: economic confinement. The proponents agree your freedom does not matter.
Speaker 1: Remember Trump was the one who endorsed and initiated lockdowns,
Speaker 1: the physical confinement, and he's the one now doing economic confinement.
Speaker 1: This is completely consistent for Trump. Freedom does not matter
Speaker 1: to him. Freedom does not matter to him. People forget
Speaker 1: the COVID lockdowns happened under Trump. They somehow think it
Speaker 1: was Biden, But no, it was Trump, and Trump supported lockdowns,
Speaker 1: was enthusiastic about lockdowns. Bonnie says, how can none of
Speaker 1: this be impeachable? Because you need Congress with balls to impeach.
Speaker 1: You need politicians with integrity to impeach a president over this,
Speaker 1: and we have a dysfunctional Congress with politicians without integrity
Speaker 1: that have sold their souls, So it's impossible. Doug Obama
Speaker 1: promised fundamental transformation. Has America fundamentally changed? Is this Obama's vision?
Speaker 1: How did Obama contribute to where we are? Is he proud? Oh? No,
Speaker 1: I don't think this is what Obama wanted. But suddenly
Speaker 1: Obama was one step in this direction. I don't think
Speaker 1: we would have gotten Trump without Obama. I mean, Trump
Speaker 1: was Trump twenty sixteen was not just the hatred of Clinton,
Speaker 1: but was a repudiation of Obama's presidency. It was a
Speaker 1: repudiation of his attitude of Obama care of a kind
Speaker 1: of an aloof detached president who looked down on I
Speaker 1: think a lot of common people on the people who
Speaker 1: constitute MAGA and who basically introduced ever growing statism into America.
Speaker 1: But did Obama transform America indirectly by giving us Trump
Speaker 1: indirect by being one more stepping stone towards autheletianism, one
Speaker 1: more stepping stone towards a strong man ruling America? Is Trump?
Speaker 1: Is Obama happy? No? He hates Trump. But that's more
Speaker 1: to do with personality than it is with policies. I
Speaker 1: don't think Obama necessarily objects to taoffs. He objects to
Speaker 1: the stupidity in which Trump is doing the taos. But
Speaker 1: I don't think Democrats on principle objector tawse. Just the
Speaker 1: kind of taus and the way Trump is doing them.
Speaker 1: This is particularly bad, Adam, fear of US trade sanctions
Speaker 1: was holding the CCP back from taking over Taiwan by force?
Speaker 1: Could you discuss the consequence of TSMC under CCP control? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I think I don't know that
Speaker 1: fear of trade sanctions was holding back to CCP a
Speaker 1: lot of things holding back to CCP. I think the
Speaker 1: main thing holding back to CCP was their fear of
Speaker 1: getting bugged down in the war they couldn't win, and
Speaker 1: American involvement in such a war was a big part
Speaker 1: of what they feared. I do think the probability of
Speaker 1: China invading Taiwan has increased dramatically, dramatically in the last week.
Speaker 1: I think the more we try to isolate, the more
Speaker 1: we separate China from the US, the more we would dislodge,
Speaker 1: the more likely war is. The more Trump makes it
Speaker 1: clear is not interested in freedom around the world, He's
Speaker 1: not interested in defending anybody, He's not interested in the
Speaker 1: world more broadly, the more likely it is the Japanese
Speaker 1: will assess that he won't intervene in Taiwan. So I
Speaker 1: think the probability of China, I think the probability of
Speaker 1: China invading Taiwan in the near future is still very low,
Speaker 1: but it's a lot higher than it was even a
Speaker 1: week ago. Suddenly before Zelenski episode. I think every week
Speaker 1: that Trump does one of these crazy, crazy things, the
Speaker 1: China becomes more emboldened, and the probability of China invading
Speaker 1: becomes more real China invading. You know, my I don't
Speaker 1: know that TSMC would be under CCV control because my
Speaker 1: guess is that one thing the United States might do
Speaker 1: is blow t SMC up. That is, it would destroy
Speaker 1: that factory, destroy a capability, and prevent ASML from selling
Speaker 1: more machines to a Taiwan under China. I don't know
Speaker 1: that for a fact, but I think that's probable. But
Speaker 1: if China got a hold of TSMC, it basically gets
Speaker 1: a hold of all the chip manufacturing for Apple, for Ai,
Speaker 1: in Nvidia, for basically everything that the United States does.
Speaker 1: And now a lot of that will have to shift
Speaker 1: to South Korea, but in the meantime it'll take a
Speaker 1: while for South Korea to be able to ramp up.
Speaker 1: It would also mean that China has would have the
Speaker 1: most sophisticated chip manufacturing plants in the world supplying it
Speaker 1: with chips. So it would be a disaster, a geopolitical disaster.
Speaker 1: But notice that one of the things that Trump has
Speaker 1: said is that he wants to increase tariffs and chips
Speaker 1: on microchips from Taiwan to one hundred percent, So you
Speaker 1: might stop imputation of chips on Taiwan anyway. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: imagine if he did that what that would do to
Speaker 1: tech in the US. Doug, Why doesn't Israel get to
Speaker 1: expand sphere of influence? Who will get that sphere? Israel's
Speaker 1: just too small, small population, a small country. Turkey would
Speaker 1: like to spread it and the influence around it is Muslim,
Speaker 1: and they're not likely to listen to Israel or to
Speaker 1: care about Israel. They hate Israel. Indeed, so much more
Speaker 1: likely as influences in the Middle East, this Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Egypt,
Speaker 1: to any one of those countries is more likely than Israel,
Speaker 1: given the Muslim character of most of the countries in
Speaker 1: that region. Doug, is it a coincident that major world
Speaker 1: news breaks when you travel just asking questions? I'm not
Speaker 1: going to answer that question, because you know, I'd rather
Speaker 1: keep you guessing, keep asking questions. They're really interesting questions.
Speaker 1: Maybe there's something there, maybe there isn't. I don't know,
Speaker 1: maybe there is, maybe there isn't. Justin, did you read
Speaker 1: the article in Atlantic about Atlanta peacock. What do you
Speaker 1: think of it? I did not read it and not
Speaker 1: interested in discussing it. I probably will read it, but
Speaker 1: I'm not interested in discussing it anymore than I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: I can't quite bring myself to read it. Put it
Speaker 1: that way, Doug, if you had a supersonic jet the
Speaker 1: show whatever, less downtime, you could spread the wood at
Speaker 1: speed of sound. Glad Jesus didn't have a jet. He
Speaker 1: did pretty well spreading the wood in spite of that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if anybody wants to buy me a jet, I am
Speaker 1: all for that. And yes, we'd have a lot more shows.
Speaker 1: A jet would be the best gift anybody could buy me. Andrew,
Speaker 1: the protectionists are unswayed by a low standard of living.
Speaker 1: Maximizing standard a living is not a goal. No, And
Speaker 1: this is the point of nationalism. Nationalism is a lot
Speaker 1: not about standard of living. It's about some mystical good
Speaker 1: of the nation undefined. If you want to ask questions,
Speaker 1: you do it using the superchat. Don't ask in the chat.
Speaker 1: I don't answer them in the chat. Ask using the
Speaker 1: super chat. Put two dollars behind it, fifty dollars behind it,
Speaker 1: three hundred dollars behind it, whatever you want, but I'll
Speaker 1: answer it if it's in the super chat. Don't have
Speaker 1: a lot of time because when you have two questions left, Andrew,
Speaker 1: is Trump an empiricist? How do you evaluate a psychostomological method?
Speaker 1: I don't think he has a method. I mean he's
Speaker 1: an empiricist in the sense that he's a he's at
Speaker 1: the perceptual level. All you have is I guess empirical data.
Speaker 1: But it's an insult to empiricist to call him an empiricist.
Speaker 1: He's a wim worshiper. He's an emotionless, unthinking moron. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think it was Greg sel Mary who said he's
Speaker 1: not philosophical. You can't attribute a philosophical method to it.
Speaker 1: He's not a he said. Calling him a pragmatist is
Speaker 1: not right because a pragmatist has a view about the
Speaker 1: world and about how the world about reality about and
Speaker 1: Trump doesn't have a view, just he just makes it up.
Speaker 1: And the same with an empirsist. It's not like he's
Speaker 1: read the philosophical literature and yeah, that's the way human
Speaker 1: knowledge works. It's that he's just a mootes. Instead of
Speaker 1: looking like a leader, baby looks like a coward and
Speaker 1: a loser. Next to Trump, who's baby. I don't know
Speaker 1: what you're talking about. I think Trump now looks like
Speaker 1: a loser, a coward. Justin last question, given how influence
Speaker 1: of the Atlantic is, someone from the objective's community should
Speaker 1: respond to it. But you you know, you can't respond
Speaker 1: to it. I mean, and a lot of it has
Speaker 1: to do with personal stuff. That is that Lennart could
Speaker 1: respond to if you wanted to. But it's personal. So
Speaker 1: the stuff on objectivism the objectives could respond to. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I just I just don't think. I don't think it's
Speaker 1: worth interacting with stuff like that. Apollo says, anything positive
Speaker 1: you can say to wrap up the show. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: tabs will pausit. That's good. Prices won't go up quite
Speaker 1: as much as you expected. The economic disaster will not
Speaker 1: happen quite as fast as we thought. And oh, you
Speaker 1: mean Baby, instead of looking like a lead a BB,
Speaker 1: not baby, BB looks like a coward and to losing
Speaker 1: next to Trump. Well that's something given how much of
Speaker 1: a coward and to loser Trump is. But yeah, Nataniel
Speaker 1: looks weak. Nataniel looks super weak next to Trump because
Speaker 1: he's letting Trump bully him. But that's okay because Nataniel
Speaker 1: is a bully too. Yeah, there's ninety days left to party,
Speaker 1: as Jennifer says. So that's good news, right, we can.
Speaker 1: We can party prices and not going off in ninety days.
Speaker 1: Somebody sent me a really positive news article. I'll use
Speaker 1: it tomorrow. I'll have a I'll have a positive tomorrow.
Speaker 1: But you know, science continues in spite of the government
Speaker 1: cutting significantly into funding. Of all the things they decided
Speaker 1: to cut on the spending side, science is what they
Speaker 1: decided to cut. Beyond that, I don't know what is positive.
Speaker 1: I'm sure this positive stuff. I'll promise to bring in
Speaker 1: positive stuff on tomorrow's show, how about that. But right
Speaker 1: now I'm starting to feel like I'm losing my voice.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's time we stop. It's been two and fifteen
Speaker 1: minutes on jet lag. I'm surprised I can even actually,
Speaker 1: you know, express myself in any coherent way. My mind
Speaker 1: is basically mush at this point. Let's call it a night.
Speaker 1: Thank you to all the super chatters. Thank you to
Speaker 1: all the listeners. Don't forget to like the show before
Speaker 1: you leave. Don't forget a subscribe if you're not a subscriber.
Speaker 1: Don't forget to become a Patrion supporter if you're not
Speaker 1: a supporter and I will see you all tomorrow. Have
Speaker 1: a fantastic night by everybody as