Speaker 1: And hello, Welcome to the Big Podcast. Today is Tuesday,
the twenty second day of July, Year of Our Lord,
twenty twenty five. My name is Tom Sullivan. So, man,
we've got We've got a lot today. We've got the
whole thing about Stephen Colbert. It's getting ramped up. I've
got some very strong feelings about CBS and what they're doing.
And then PBS, let's throw them in there as well.
The Epstein's not going away. They're now starting to fish
around about Julane Maxwell and talking to her Hunter Biden.
He's still griping about the Democrats, and rightfully so just
did his language is a little flavorful. And the fed
Jay Powell is he going to be fired or not?
Who would take his place? So we've got some some
views about all of that. And then the entertainment industry
today was rocked by the news get that of Ozzy Osbourne,
the godfather of heavy metal, passed away today at the
age of seventy six. And what's surprising about this, it
was just what was it? Two weeks ago he did
a reunion thing with Black Sabbath. They came back together
again and they had a reunion.
Speaker 2: Show.
Speaker 1: I guess you'd call it, but they've said Ozzy died
of Parkinson's. I didn't know that you could do a
rock and roll show, a heavy metal show and two
weeks later died from Parkinson's. But so that's the word
from Sharon Osbourne and the two children as Ozzy has
passed away at the age of seventy six. And that's
after yesterday the surprise. The surprising news about Ozzy Osbourne.
I'm not trying to be flippant here is God bless
the man. The shocking part is that he lived to
seventy six. I mean, he was a wild man and
he was able to squeeze out seventy six years of
life despite all the everything that he was involved. Was
so God bless Ozzy Osbourne. And yesterday was the surprise,
not for age but for Malcolm Jamal Warner, who played
theo Huxable with his family on vacation in Costa Rica.
I've been there once. They have gorgeous beaches there. Anyway,
he drowned yesterday at the age of fifty six. Bill
Cosby was asked about it and he said, it reminds
me of when I lost Ennis. That was his son
who died, and I've heard that. Remember an old interview
from Gracho Marx years ago. He was just before he
passed away, and somebody interviewed him and said, you know,
you've had all these highs in your life, what's the
biggest loan? He said, I lost my adult son. And
so it doesn't matter how old they are or how
young they are, but a parent losing the child was
something that Grachos brought up and Bill Cosby brought up.
So a lot of celebrity deaths in the last couple
of days. Let's start with the bad pun death of
late night television. I mean, it's not it's not dead,
but I think it's going to be. We talked briefly
yesterday about the fact that Stephen Colbert was axed, and
we went over the numbers. What was there. He's like
a million people behind Greg Guttfeldt his audience. It's like
two million something like that is not anywhere near what
late night used to be. And you look at the
late night crowd. You talk about Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy
Kimmel and Seth Myers, and they're all the same, and
they all talked politics, and I think Kimmel has more
Hollywood type people on than anybody else. But Colbert has
turned into a late night political talk show. And political
talk shows, I know from personal experience, work much better
during the daytime, absolutely much better during the daytime. So
they're putting that on. People want into your day. The
last thing you want is somebody griping about some politicians.
So instead, the formula that Johnny Carson came up with
was humor and entertainment, and he had movie stars and comedians.
You can go back on YouTube right now and look
at you can watch the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson,
and he had on stars that are long dead and gone,
but they were funny. I mean, you can watch them
now and still it'll still bring a smile to your face.
So there is no bringing a smile to your face
from Stephen Colbert. They're very uptight and it's all about politics,
and it's all about Donald Trump is the worst person ever. Okay,
but tomorrow the same thing and the next day the
same thing. And that's what's been going on. So they
have lost their audience now.
Speaker 3: I know.
Speaker 1: People are trying to bring up the fact that CBS,
which is owned by Paramount is trying to be sold,
and they need the approval of the Federal Trade Commission.
And the Federal Trade Commission is run by Brendan Carr,
who is an appointee of Donald Trump and a conservative guide.
Federal Trade Commission has conservatives and liberals on the panel,
but in any case, they have to get his approval,
and they don't want to rock the boat right now.
That's why CBS paid Donald Trump sixteen or seventeen million
to settle the lawsuit that Trump brought regarding the editing
of Kamala Harris's interview for sixty minutes. That's another whole show.
But I'm just talking about Late Night in general. So
there's a media trade magazine, Barrett media guy by the
name of Garrett Seawright talked about, wrote a piece today saying,
no matter how you felt about Colbert, be honest. Plenty
of folks on the right saw his run as an
unending monologue against everything they believe in, but that the
cancelation of the Late Show is the kind of media
earthquake that causes cracks far beyond the walls of CBS.
And I agree, and I would think if I was
Jimmy Kimmel or Jimmy Fallon or Seth Myers. I'd be
dusting off my resume because I think that era is
over unless you can find a comedian to go out
and do a late night show. Greg guttfelt On thought
is a funny guy. And I know Greg very well.
And when I first met him, we would talk a lot,
and I said, well, were you a stand up comic
or something. He goes, no, no, he says I was
an editor for Men's magazine. Said what, yeah, he says
he was a magazine edited. But he's naturally funny, and
he has funny people on his show, and as a result,
he's beating all the late night competition. They moved his
show up a little bit because people aren't stayed up
as late. That is so true. When I was in
local television, this is years ago, I was on the
six thirty PM news. I would do my financial news
and business news and all that, and they came to
me one day and they said, I would like you
to do the morning show. I said, you mean the
one that starts at six in the morning. They said, yes,
oh my god, but who's watching at six in the morning.
And they said, well, other than the six thirty PM show.
The six am show is the second biggest audience that
we have all day long. What about ten and eleven
at night? Nope, much smaller people in America get up
earlier than they used to, and the format has changed.
It's not Johnny Carson, not even close, not even trying
to be Johnny car. Carson was a genius also from
the fact that he was not the star. He brought
stars on and interviewed them and his reaction to them
was funny. But he oh, he was had a comedic talent,
but it was really the John Wayne's and the Elizabeth
Taylor's in that kind of crowd that people tuned in
for and watched until they fell asleep sometime after midnight.
So I think this Cobert thing and he's this is
the other part about this. I learned also a long
time ago, if you are running a broadcast facility, whether
it's a network like CBS or a local television station
or local radio station, when it's time to say goodbye
to somebody, you're going to cut a talent loose. That's
what that's what they call is talent. I know it's
kind of weird if you're going to the host. You're
going to say, okay, we're going to let you go.
Here's your last paycheck. They never ever give the audience warning.
And the reason why I saw somebody do it wrong.
One time, there was a lovely lady that I worked with.
She did an afternoon show and it never got really
good ratings. It's a nice lady, but it just never
got an audience. And so they said, well, we're going
to cancel the show, and you're canceled too, And she
said oh. She says, can I go back on and
tell the audience goodbye? And they said sure. So the
next day she was on the air and she says, well,
my show has been canceled, and the company said they
don't want to keep me here, and I just wanted
to say goodbye. It was the worst. For the next
three hours, it was phone calls from people going, oh,
I'm gonna miss you. Oh you're the best. Oh, I
can't imagine the day without all that kind of stuff.
It went on for three hours. What I learned from
that was that the broadcast executive who allowed her to
stay on, uh, never lasted long himself in broadcasting. I
know it sounds mean, but When you cancel a show,
you cancel it effective this you know, after show. Oh,
the word in broadcasting is go see the program director.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 1: Oh, you go in to see the program director and
they got a check and they hand it to you
and say, what the show you just did? That was
your last show? Because they don't want people on there,
They don't want the host going. I'll tell you what.
This company is the worst company I've ever worked for
in my life. Oh and the program director is the
worst person I've ever met in my life. Let me
tell you how bad the person. No, they don't want
that either, And they don't want this song, the sing
song stuffed from listeners. So that's just the way it
is in broadcasting. If somebody says, for example, when I
announced I was going to be retiring from my daily
radio show in two months, you know that they are
the ones who chose to leave. But if they just
disappear one day, it was the company that chose for
the person to leave. So here's a little bit from
Stephen Colbert last night. This is the first night since
the word came out Friday night that he was going
to be fired, but not until May. And I'm thinking
to myself. This makes no sense in the world none,
because now he's going to go on he's going to
gripe about CBS and he's going to gripe, Well, he's
already griped about Donald Trump. He does that every night.
So that's just more of the boring stuff. But it's
the audience is going, oh, this is terrible. So here,
let's listen. Here's Stephen Colbert from last night.
Speaker 5: On Friday, Donald Trump posted, I absolutely love that Colbert
got fired.
Speaker 1: His talent was even less than his ratings.
Speaker 5: How dare you, sir? Would an untalented man be able
to compose the following satirical witticism?
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right. He decided to drop an F bomb on.
I thought, what happened to the days when the Federal
Communication Commission FCC would find stations and networks if there
was swearing, And now they're dropping F bombs and there anyway,
So no class mister Colbert trying to keep it classy.
I can't imagine CBS is going to let him continue on.
Here's a little bit more from last night.
Speaker 5: Over the weekend, it sunk in that they're killing off
our show. But they made one mistake.
Speaker 1: They left me alive.
Speaker 3: I don't care for him.
Speaker 5: Doesn't seem to have like the skill set, doesn't have
the skill set to be president.
Speaker 1: You know, just not a good fit.
Speaker 3: That's all.
Speaker 1: Listen. We all all have different ways of doing broadcasting.
We all have different ways of doing television or radio shows.
And so he chose that way. Like I told you before,
when he was on Comedy Central the Colbert Report, I
thought he was kind of a funny guy. So he
has comedy talent, but he's really just relied upon one
trick pony, which is just say bad things about Donald
Trump and you'll get oh yeah, you'll get an audience.
But it's the ratings are dismal. They really are. And
so in addition to people speculated about a CBS doing
this to make the Federal Trade Commission happy. Maybe I
don't know. I don't have any inside dope, but I
will tell you that when CBS loses forty million dollars
a year on your show and you have lousy ratings,
I don't think anybody should be surprised when you get
called into the office and told your show is over.
You're canceled forty million dollars. When I had a network
television show. I had fifteen people on the on the show,
to fifteen people from bookers to producers to line producers
of a variety of people Colbert had. I've heard two
different reports. One was he had one hundred people. Another
one was he had two hundred people on his staff
and people are expensive. And besides that, like I said,
the ratings were terrible. They were losing forty million dollars
a year. I'm surprised that they I still cannot believe
that they're going to keep him on the air until
his contract aspires in May. I will bet you a
large lunch of the drive up window that that's not
going to happen. He is not going to last until May.
So if you like Colbert, you better tune in because
I'm not sure or how much longer this act is
going to go. So then we'll go to another show,
which is hosted by John Stewart, The Daily Show, and
I I don't think I've watched The Daily Show twice
in my life, but I've seen clips of John Stewart
and he seems like a funny guy. But guess what
he works for. Well, the company that owns The Daily
Show is Paramount Global division of MTV Entertainment Group, And
so Stewart has now said that he's unsure of the
Daily Show's future. I didn't look up his ratings, but
I don't know if they're making money or not. If
he has good ratings, and he has and they're not
it's not costing a millions of dollars to put the
show on, then he's probably fine. But he also went
off of again. I grew up in a world where
you just don't bite the hand that feeds you. So
even if you don't like your boss or you don't
like your company, you don't say anything until after you leave,
and then you can say whatever you want. Kind of,
but it might follow you down the road when you're
trying to get another job. Here, John Stewart from Night
Before Last.
Speaker 6: And if you believe as corporations or as networks, you
can make yourselves so innocuous that you can serve a
gruel so flavorless that you will never again be on
the Boy King's radar. Hey, why will anyone watch you?
And you are wrong? You want to know how impossibles
that's a show.
Speaker 1: But he's right about authenticity. You better be authentic. You
can't be a phony and host a daily show or
in John Steorge's cases, now down to one day a week.
But you have to be authentic, and Stewart seems to
come across that way. He's done a lot of good
things in the community and so forth. But again, don't
bite the hand that feeds you and expect to keep
your job. Bill Carter, he wrote the book War for
Late Night, had this observation.
Speaker 7: We have a sense it's going to play out in
this very in your face way.
Speaker 1: Let's face it.
Speaker 7: Colbert has been extremely critical of Trump. He has been
extremely critical Trump. To say he's going to get unleashed, well,
he's already pretty unleashed, so I don't think it'll get
exponentially worse. I just think he's going to be very
bold in saying his mind. And his mind is that
he thinks that the president is ill qualified and does
a lot of things that are worthy of criticism or
at least being held to account. You know, that's interesting
because Trump would say anything that comes up as criticism.
But I mean, he basically doesn't accept anybody saying, you know,
this the wrong thing to do, or you made a mistake.
He won't agree with that. That's a real good question.
I mean John openly said I'm going nowhere. Last night,
he said, I'm not going anywhere. So the idea that
they're walking off is off the table. He did, although
at the end of that say I think, which I
guess means he does think it's possible for them to
pull the plug on him. I guess you know, they
have to say to themselves, how far do we want
to go looking like we're squashing descent? Because now they're
basically laying on money. But if they pull him off
the air, if they pulled John Stewart off the air,
after pulling Colbert in the air because of their outspoken
criticism of a president, they are openly saying we're going
to squash descent. We don't like what they're saying, and
that's a pretty dark place going. I'm not saying they
won't do it. I mean it will see how much
they can tolerate. But the big thing just that the
merger will have been finished. And I think that's what's
really been in the middle of this because they don't
want Trump to block this merger. It will cost him
a ton of money if that falls through. So I
think it's really about that. When they get past that,
they'll probably say, you know, let it play out. John
Stewart's contract is up at the end of this year,
for example. They could quietly or not so quietly, refuse
to renew it, and then they won't be saying we
didn't squash Descent. He was able to talk for all
these months. We just decided it's time to move on.
Speaker 1: Well, he's entitled to his opinion. I think it's about money,
and I don't think they're squashing Descent. I mean, good grief,
it's CBS. CBS has lots of left wing shows, so
and so what. So you cut him off and you
get a whole bunch of hate email for forty eight
hours and then you move on. Yeah, you better have
another program to put in there, something else to put
in whether people are interested in because right now the
audiences for these shows are too small, or the production
and all the staff are too big. It's not working financially.
And as far as to say goes again, I don't
think CBS is opposed to left wing commentary. But Bill
Carter is entitled to his opinion. So if Stephen Colbert
wants to be unleashed. I don't know if CBS will
allow them to be unleashed on their network, but he
could literally, I think, make more money by just doing
a roadjo tour and go around. Jay Lena used to
do this all the time. He would he made his
money by doing stand up comedy while he was hosting
The Tonight Show. He would go around the country on weekends.
And so Stephen Colbert could easily. He's got a big name.
He could sell tickets to all the people that are
a bunch of lefties that like to hear him gripe
about Trump, and then he will do just fine. I
don't know. He can't get out of the contract by himself,
but if CBS cuts him loose, I would think he
would be celebrating, going hallelujah. So this isn't the end
of Stephen Colbert. He's been around a long enough time
and has a beg enough following. He'll do just fine.
CBS is the one who just I don't are they
that bad at running a network where they won't just
say to him that was your last show. Now to
the other television story, PBS, Public Broadcasting and NPR, why
the government has funded them for this long is a
mystery to me. They don't fund any other media. No,
and PBS, if they were smart, there's lots of options
that they can do. They can pony up with other
with commercial They're going to become a commercial network if
they're going to survive. I mean, you can only do
bega thoughts so often, and you can raise money that way,
but if you really want to get to the full
amount of money you need to run your network. They
they've got shows that they could joint venture with CBS
or ABC or Fox or whoever, any other television production company,
and they could join at the hip there and they
get a sales staff and start selling ads. They already
do sell ads. You know, this program sponsored by brought
to you by the Bank of X, whatever it might be.
So they're selling ads. So I think I think PBS
is no, they're not going to do more pledge drives.
I think they'll do fine if they just wrap their
arms around commercial television and they've got a bit built
in audience. I don't know what's holding them back. As
far as NPR National Public Radio. Again, I've seen a
number of articles about the staff that they have at
these NPR stations is four or five times bigger than
most radio stations have commercial radio stations. I got my
I've actually got my start at PBS. I got a
call from a program director of PBS who said they
would like me to do a round table with a
black curtain around and everything else, a financial show every week.
And it was grace. I cut my teeth on that.
The hardest part about it was it was a sixty
minute show and there were no breaks for commercials, so
you just keep going for sixty minutes. But I mean,
I owe my start in television to the Public Broadcasting Corporation.
They'll do fine. I really do think they will. Where
are we going to go next year?
Speaker 7: Oh?
Speaker 1: How about that Epstein story? I know it will not
go away. It just will not go away. I I
don't know where it's going to go. But they're now
talking about Todd Blanche who was the president's lawyer and
he's now the deputy ag is talking about getting an
appointment with Jelaane Maxwell. She's like, she's got time. She's
in prison and they want to meet with her and
talk to her about anyone who committed crimes. They've reached
out to her attorney for a meeting at the direction
of Pam Bondy. So they're trying to do some motion
and commotion to make you think that they're working on this,
as opposed to what they said last week, which was no,
that's it, nothing more, move on and half the magacrab
went nuts on that. Half the country with nuts on it.
So they are now making some moves about trying to
get Julaane Maxwell to tell them what was really going on.
I'm thinking, well, don't they already have files of interviews
with her the FBI when they were first questioning her.
So I'm puzzled by this, But I think they're just
trying to make it look like they're doing something. David Axelrod,
I don't know how he got in this, but this
is his view of the whole episode with Epstein.
Speaker 2: But you know, not to feed conspiracy theories. The idea
that someone who's in prison for twenty years is going
to testify truthfully at is really a stretch. I mean,
she knows the president has the pardon power, she knows
that the president has used it pretty liberally, I mean
that in a different way, and so there is quite
a bit of incentive for her to say what is
useful and what is helpful, and you know, the idea
that this Justice Apartment wants her to say other than
that is also strained by the things that we've seen.
So I'm not sure. It's just the plot just keeps
getting thicker all the time.
Speaker 1: Here, the plot does get thicker because Jolanne, if you
were in Jelainne Maxwell's shoes, what would you do? You
would be bargaining for get me out of prison. Right now,
I'll talk, but I want to pardon and I want
that agreed to and advance before I say one thing,
So we'll see what she said. I think she's going
to talk, but what she says may or may not
be believable. But she was right there. You see these
old photos of Epstein and right next to him was
Dulane Maxwell. The bottom line out of this Epstein story,
I think where it's going is the President said, well
Pine and BONDI said, Nope, that's it, nothing more, nothing
to see here. And now it's clear that the president
has pivoted to more transparency, saying he supports transparency. So
we just wait and oh, by the way, Congress was
supposed to vote on whether to release more information to
demand more information from the Justice Department, and Mike Johnson,
the Speaker, late this afternoon said, oh, look at the
time we got to go. So they are not going
to hold a vote on asking the Department of Justice
to release more information. And not only did they not
vote today, they're not voting for I don't know when
their August recess has begun. They are done at the House.
I know it's not August, but close enough for government work.
They are gonzo. They're on their August recess. So they're
hoping that during the month of August everybody will forget
about this. Maybe, but I don't think so. And then
with the characters that we are talking about today, we
mentioned it yesterday, Hunter Biden sat down for a three
hour interview with some guy. I don't know what it is.
It's on YouTube if you want to look it up
and spend three hours of your time that you can't
ever get back. But and Hunter, I've never heard I've
never heard of sailors swear as much as this. Apologies
to the sailor's out there, but this is pretty incredible
that he is going after everybody. He's going after the Democrats,
blaming them for the fact that his dad stepped down
from running for president.
Speaker 8: Him, him, him and everybody around him. I don't have
to be nice. Number one. I agree with Quentin Tarantino.
George Clooney is not an actor.
Speaker 3: He is a like.
Speaker 8: I don't know what he is. He's a brand. James Carville,
who hasn't run a race in forty years. And David Axelrod,
who had one success in his political life and that
was Barack Obama, and that was because of Barack Obama,
not because of David Axelrod.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I don't know anybody that talked like that. I
know people that swear, I know people that dropped the
F bomb, but I've never heard anything like this before.
Mark Penn, who is a Democrat polster, put out a
tweet today he said, my stomach churns at seeing a
foul mouth hunter Biden to attack the world. He is
out of jail only because Dad pardoned him after he
carried out a twenty million dollar shakedown of shady foreign
interest with the consent and participation of Joe Biden, and
he paid no taxes on it. This was followed by
fake painting sales. His laptop was one hundred percent reel,
and what it revealed was horrific on all counts, from
living with his dead brother's wife to fueling endless cocaine
binges to abusing the trust of his dad's office. No
one should pay him an iota of attention. That's Mark Penn,
by the way. A reaction to his ex posting today,
Jackie staffs it, I don't think preemptive pardons are constitutional.
You have to say what you were issuing the pardon for.
I wish someone would set up a test for this
in the Supreme Court. I don't know. That's another whole battle.
I don't even know if you were able to decipher
between all the beeps that we had to put in
to cover this wear words what he was even talking about.
He's griping about everybody and about the Democrat Party basically
turned their back on dad. Even Katie Pavlich, the Lady
on Fox, agreed with Hunter.
Speaker 9: Well, it is true that the Biden family was betrayed
by the party. Every one was in on Joe Biden's reelection.
Let's not forget that they tried not to have a primary.
They were suing to keep people like RFK Junior off
the ballot. They didn't want to have any competition leading
into the summer of twenty twenty. Then the debate happens
and everyone is exposed. A month before that debate, George
Cooney was walking Joe Biden off stage and holding a
big fundraiser for him, asking people to donate big bucks
to get him to the White House in November. So
it is true that they were betrayed by the party,
but this delusion that they could have won what Joe
Biden is ridiculous. And it is true that Hunter Biden
would be in federal prison. That his entire career has
been based off of being connected politically. Now his father
is no longer in office for a second term, he
can't grift off of that, and so he doesn't really
have anywhere to go. So he's not only defensive because
a it's Dad, but b because its entire living has
been based on the ability to be connected politically, and
now the Democratic Party has left the Bidens for dead.
Speaker 1: There's going to be more of this.
Speaker 9: Joe Biden is writing a book, I believe, and unless
the Democratic Party deals with this issue, and they're not
talking about it in the recent autops they don't even
name Joe Biden or Kamala Harris. They're not going to
be able to move forward with voters because so much
distrust has been lost. I mean, the Quinnipiac poll shows
that only twelve percent or nineteen percent of voters approve
of the Democratic Party.
Speaker 1: Good luck with that. Yeah, So Katie thinks that Hunter
was onto something. But Hunter is just the definition when
you look up in the dictionary loser. There's his photo.
The guy has had a mess of a life and
you kind of see why he's and he was advising
Joe Biden on campaign ideas. In any case, fetter Reserve,
Jay Powell seems kind of tame compared to all these
other characters that are out there. Powell is well. The
couple people are reacting, Scott Bell, Starvis, Scott Besn't the
Treasury Secretary, kind of the adult in the room, and
he brings up something that I have brought up in
the past about the Federal Reserve. Let's listen to Scott
Besn't the Treasury Secretary.
Speaker 10: I think that what we need to do is examine
the entire Federal Reserve institution and whether they have been successful.
We should think has the organization succeeded in its mission.
You know, if this were the FAA and we were
having this many mistakes, we would go back and look
at why has this happened.
Speaker 1: That's an excellent point, and I'm right there with with
Scott Besant. I've often thought the Federal Reserve they are
the bank that all the banks in the country have
to belong to, the Federal Reserve Bank. It's the central bank,
so all the banks have to do business with that
central bank. But do they determine what interest rates are? No,
they I mean, they proclaim what they want the rates
to be, but it's the bond market that truly determines
whether interest rates go up or go down. And I understand,
especially when you had the meltdown of the financial system
of two thousand and eight, they came in Bernanky called
a bunch of people together. The banks got together. He
called in the big big banks and said, we need
to make sure and cover the losses that are coming
from all of this. So they do some things to
keep the banking system fluid and healthy, and they do
examinations to make banks to make sure the banks generally
are healthy. But Larry lindsay, well, I've always had great
respect for he used to be on the Federal Reserve Board.
He is an economist and one of my favorites that
I follow. But the question really is about if the
Federal Reserve let the bond market control interest rates and
leave the Federal Reserve to running the safety of the banks.
Here's Larry lindsay, Well.
Speaker 3: What I think it means is they want to check
on whether they're doing their job. And I don't think
they had to scratch the surface very far to find
out that they really aren't haven't done a very good job,
you know. If he's here was the test that I
actually just conducted. Suppose it took the December FOMC statement
excuse me, a summary of economic projections, and you compare
that to what actually happened. So remember this is December.
Just looking forward one year, the average error since they
started collecting these was one point one percent. The target
they're shooting for is two percent. That means their average
error was fifty five percent of the number that they
were shooting for. That's a huge error. And even worse
if back in two thousand and seven you had just
simply written down the number two for all of the
following years coming up to the present, you would have
had a much lower error than what the FED actually did.
In the words, the value added or the productivity of
all the Fed's efforts was negative. Well, I think it's broader.
I mean, are they doing well? If you look back
at the Silicon Valley Bank failure, you had the head
of the bank sitting on the San Francisco FED board
until the day before the bank was closed. They had
twenty three different memos from the supervisory staff going up
that were ignored. I mean, this is just not the
way to run a railroad, and I think it's important
that we get the facts out and that we make
a decision whether things are going the way we want
and what we can do to change. Well, again, they're
doing worse than what they would do if they had
simply picked a two percent number. As far as projections go.
They completely missed the uptick inflation in twenty twenty one,
which was a big mistake. Their September move got a
loud Bronx cheer from the bottom market.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: They cut fifty BIPs in September, and within a month
or so the ten year bond was up sixty BIPs.
That's certainly a signal that they weren't doing the right thing.
So I dis agree with those who say that, you
know they're doing fine. You know, it's a tough job,
there's no question about it. No one expects perfection. But
this is again the productivity of all their contributions has
been negative since twenty two thousand and seven when they
first began. Well, I think their biggest lack is for
intellectual diversity. Back in the day, years and years and
years ago, when I was on the board, didn't we
weren't all economists, shocking idea, right, And I think that
broadened the perspective. In addition, both for staff hiring and
also for the analysis of who would be a FED governor,
they narrowed the scope of the number of universities that
they considered acceptable to miny PhDs. Well, when you do that,
you get more and more of the same type of people.
So there really isn't any intellectual diversity any basis for
debate at the FED, and so they're consistently wrong. Well,
I think it's an important to have a banker on
the board. I think it's important to have at least
one businessman on the board. For example, and I would
say the word at least in both cases, So that
would be one kind of diversity. And in regard to
the staff, they have got to go out and you know,
you can't just have gone to Harvard, Yale, Princeton or
Stanford because you're being taught the same thing at each place.
There is some diversity in the economics profession, let's see
it be brought into the staff so at least they
can have a debate and don't have everyone thinking the
same way.
Speaker 1: So that's why I like Larry Lynsey. He said that
when he was on the Reserve board, it wasn't just
a bunch of economists from Harvard, Yale, Stanford. I mean
they had all PhD economists, a bunch of economists sitting
around the table with no diversity of opinion. And then
economics economists are, I've often said, are more diversified as
far as left versus right versus middle than politicians are.
So why don't they have people that do have a
view different views of the economic world and put them
on the board and not all economists. Sony Wett's Larry
Lyndsay's view of it. Phone calls today, I got a
phone call. I've got to play for you, Laurie the
comment line, lady, she checked in with us, and it
ties in with the Hunter Biden interview.
Speaker 4: You know, if they had edited out all of the efforts,
Hunter Biden's interview would have gone from three hours to
probably seven and a half minutes.
Speaker 1: And I'm not even serve you seven and a half.
But I love her point. Man, he swares a lot,
So that's oh. Let me get some emails in as well.
Email address. You can go to my website, Tom Sullivan
dot com and there's the phone number for the show
to call and leave your comments, and there's also my
email where you can send me an email about whatever
your thoughts are regarding anything. Charles Daily, Charles, You're too kind,
says With the coming demise of Stephen Colbert and the
Late Show, would be nice if you would contact one
of the many networks and discuss an independent personality on
the air with more than just a podcast. You are
like a pivot point of a teeter toatter that needs balancing.
You would do much better job of offering commentary and
venue for various points of view that exist at this
point in time. There are lots of us out here
that would support you and whatever network you choose to
give you a podium larger than just your podcast. Charles,
thank you, longtime listener, one time communicator. And then he
puts a note on his email Catholic nuns have less
cervical cancer than any other group. I don't know. I
have no idea what he's talking about. Noel sends me,
sends me a copy of a Daily Mail website and
it says Bill Clinton sent warm and gushing letter for
Jeffrey Epstein's fiftieth birthday. As Trump sues over the claim
that he also wrote a body note for the Pedophiles
half century, a story basically says Bill Clinton wrote a
warm and gushing letter which was included in Jeffrey Epstein's
infamous fiftieth birthday book. According to The Daily Mail, the
former US president was one of hundreds who contributed to
a heavy leather bound, golden bossed album of letters the
Epstein's ex lover, Julane Maxwell, took more than a year
to compile leading up to the landmark date. Mister Clinton's
letter is one page and embossed with from the desk
of William Jefferson Clinton at the top yeah, I mean
that was that was two thousand and three. I don't
know why Trump is so upset about it. It just
doesn't seem like it in any way harms Donald Trump.
And a fan says, you know, Tom, this thing about
Obama and the Trump Russian collusion thing, it is one
hundred true in my mind, though it is kind of
circumstantial evidence, I suppose. But you know something that I
will always remember. It was a couple of months before
the twenty sixteen election, there was an interview with Obama.
I will never forget what he said, so matter of factly,
so sternly, he said something to the effect that, and
I'm paraphrasing, but he said something to the effect that
Donald Trump is not fit to be president of the
United States. And I just remember thinking that I'd never
heard another president speak about another presidential candidate like that.
And if he said that and thought that, then I
know darn well that he was involved in this. And
you know, you know, I know he hates Trump because
of the birth certificate thing. Yeah, this, I am still
going back to Matt Walsh's posting on X yesterday. Obama's
looking like he is the guy who organized the whole coup,
trying to put a coup to overthrow the elected president elect.
The people voted for Donald Trump twenty sixteen, and Obama
wasn't having it. So that's what the documents apparently show,
and they that's why the criminal referral by Toolsey Gabbert
to the Department of Justice was made. And Matt Walsh's
ex post yesterday said, I'll believe I'll care about this
when there's actually charges being brought. I agree if they
have a charge that is filed with the court regarding
Barack Obama trying to run a coup against President elect
Crump back in twenty sixteen, I will believe it when
those charges are actually on the docket of a federal court.
And then another email from Noel he says, I do
not go to fast food places a lot, maybe at
the most once a month or even a couple months.
In and out. Was an exception, the most perfect experience
of the wonder of America. A mixture of all classes,
from young people going to the mountains, to construction workers
to retiring old people like myself, to teams of youngsters
to a game, the most friendly staff anywhere, a small
totally satisfying meal and atmosphere leaving California. The owner, now
labeled a billionaire, sounds so much despicable. Is telling us why?
Yet the ding bells in the media are trying to
twist the words sad noel. So the story. The story
is about the lady that owns In and Out Burgers.
Her name is Lindsay Snyder. I think she inherited that,
but she has stirred up a controversy because she revealed
that she plans to move her family out of California
to Tennessee. And the news comes as In and Out
begins to expand heavily into the South, launching a new
joint headquarters in Franklin, Tennessee, near Nashville. That's where she
will be moving too, and In and Out will now
be based in Tennessee. And she revealed the coming move
on a podcast, saying that there's a great there are
a lot of great things about California, but raising a
family is not easy there. Doing business is not easy there,
And so that made the rounds and many Californians are
not according to the SF Gate, the San Francisco newspaper,
saying many Californias are not happy about the way she
presented the decision, with some even calling for a boycott
of the California born burger chain. I got to tell
you something. You can get a boycott about Tesla's, you
can get a boycott about Hamas or Palastny, whatever you want,
but you're not going to get a boycott on a
burger that people love. They tried that with Chick fil
A because somebody said something that was perceived to be
offensive that people never stopped buying the chicken from Chick
fil A, and I don't think people will either. So
In and Out they're not going to close their operations
in California. She's just moving to Tennessee, and from there
will be the expansion of In and Out in primarily
Tennessee and then going south from there. They're expected to
open the CO headquarters in Tennessee in two thousand and
twenty six. All right, let's see what happened. Speaking of business,
Wall Street today SMP new record high. Not big but
a little tech fell a little bit as we're getting
close to a bunch of big tech stock Ernie's reports
coming out. But the Dow did find today the Dow
was up one hundred and seventy nine to close it.
Forty four thousand and five h two SMP up four
Nazdak down eighty one, Gold was up. Ben Gold's been
on a tear, up thirty seven dollars today to thirty
four forty four and oil down almost a dollar to
sixty six dollars for one barrel of oil. So that's
it for today. Thank you for coming by. We're going
to try this seatin tomorrow. Hope to see you then
Speaker 4: Stay