Speaker 1: A lot of funds of last little self interest and
Speaker 1: an individual lots. This is the show. All right, everybody,
Speaker 1: welcome to you one book show on this What is it?
Speaker 1: It's Thursday, February thirteenth. Tomorrow is Valentine's Day. I hope
Speaker 1: everybody's having a fantastic week and you're looking forward to
Speaker 1: Valentine's Day and the weekend. All right. We are going
Speaker 1: to cover a bunch of different topics today. Inflation Ukraine,
Speaker 1: which we talked about yesterday. Inflation as well, RFK plastic straws.
Speaker 1: We're back to that, see if PB just a general downsizing,
Speaker 1: so doge again. And the question, which I guess has
Speaker 1: got the internet a flobby is uh with the fifties better?
Speaker 1: With the fifties better? Uh? You know?
Speaker 2: And and.
Speaker 1: Well we'll talk about that. We'll talk about that. There's
Speaker 1: a picture going around illustrating and the superiority of the
Speaker 1: fifties today. And yeah, all right, Uh, what do we
Speaker 1: want to do? What else do we want to do?
Speaker 1: Why is that not working? All right? What's that? I'm
Speaker 1: going to fix something? Weird? Copy paste? All right, So
Speaker 1: that's what we're gonna do. Remind you to use the
Speaker 1: uh Okay, it's a sound valid. We will try again,
Speaker 1: which your tracker need you to work now it's working,
Speaker 1: all right, go figure. All right, So yes, I remind
Speaker 1: you to use the super chat so that you two
Speaker 1: can dictate the topics that I talk about and dictate
Speaker 1: how long the show is and all of that's good stuff.
Speaker 1: So ask me questions about stuff you want me to
Speaker 1: talk about. You can ask me questions about anything, all right,
Speaker 1: let's uh, let's jump in. I thought i'd share this
Speaker 1: graph with you from John Cochran's a Grumpy Economist a blog.
Speaker 1: John Cochran one of my favorite economists out there. Not
Speaker 1: outstainding economists, but but really good and good and always interesting.
Speaker 1: And this is a graph that I think is just
Speaker 1: worth contemplating, even if it, you know, past doesn't indicate,
Speaker 1: you know, an analogies don't indicate that what happened in
Speaker 1: the past will happen in the future. But it's kind
Speaker 1: of interesting. So here's two episodes of inflation, right, Two
Speaker 1: episodes of inflation in American history, one the nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: two to nineteen eighty one inflation and the second one
Speaker 1: the twenty nineteen to twenty twenty five inflation. This is
Speaker 1: price is going up. This this is the CPI, this
Speaker 1: is you know, the way conventionally people measure talk about inflation.
Speaker 1: And what you can see here, interestingly, is that inflation
Speaker 1: rose at pretty much kind of the same steepness, the
Speaker 1: same in both episodes, in nineteen seventy two and in
Speaker 1: the in or was it twenty twenty two? Red is
Speaker 1: the twenty twenty two, blue is the seventy two, and
Speaker 1: you can see that it declines at a very similar
Speaker 1: rate in both cases, stabilizing above the long term previous rate.
Speaker 1: And in nineteen seventy two or around nineteen seventy eight,
Speaker 1: inflation then took off and reached new highs significantly higher
Speaker 1: than the previous time. And we're at a point right
Speaker 1: now where we're waiting to see we repeating the nineteen seventies,
Speaker 1: or is this going to be something completely different. It
Speaker 1: is interesting how closely these two graphs parallel. Of course,
Speaker 1: they're both adjusted downwards. I mean, the twenty nineteen to
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five is lower. Everything is lower. The starting
Speaker 1: interest rate was lower, if you will, and the starting
Speaker 1: inflation was lower, and the spike, but the spike the same.
Speaker 1: You know, same kind of spike, same kind of decline,
Speaker 1: same kind of flatness. Sense, and given the inflation but
Speaker 1: from yesterday, which suggests inflation is not coming down, it's
Speaker 1: actually going up a little bit. Prices are going up.
Speaker 1: Maybe inflation does not be defeated. You know what? What else? Right?
Speaker 1: So yeah, just the interesting there's no again, it doesn't
Speaker 1: have to follow this path. It very much depends on
Speaker 1: what the Fed and Trump federal government Congress do. I
Speaker 1: think a lot of the as I talked about yesterday,
Speaker 1: a lot of this is people waiting to see is
Speaker 1: those real in the sense of actual cutting of it spending?
Speaker 1: What is Congress going to pass in terms of a budget,
Speaker 1: Like there's this big bill that's supposed to come for
Speaker 1: a vote in the next few weeks that will both
Speaker 1: cut taxes and dictate spending. Is the death is going
Speaker 1: to go down? Is this it's going to go up.
Speaker 1: Is the future trajectory of US debt to dramatically increase
Speaker 1: as it is right now, or is it going to
Speaker 1: be slowly declining. I think there's a lot of pausing
Speaker 1: to wait to see. There's us a big difference between
Speaker 1: the seventies and now in the nineteen seventies, debt to GDP,
Speaker 1: US government debt to GDP was about twenty five percent.
Speaker 1: Right now, right now debt to GDP is about one
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty percent. So we're in dramatically worse shape
Speaker 1: than we were in the nineteen seventies. So it will
Speaker 1: be interesting to see how inflation evolves from from this point.
Speaker 1: From this point on. Interestingly, there was the Journal had
Speaker 1: a It was the Journal's editors, you know, they write
Speaker 1: editorials every day, and they had an interesting editorial when
Speaker 1: it was it today, the small no yesterday yesterday, where
Speaker 1: they didn't quite come out and say it the way
Speaker 1: I say it, but they basically argued that Trump doesn't
Speaker 1: understand economics and he doesn't know what he's doing, which
Speaker 1: was refreshing here people on the right the wars. The
Speaker 1: Journal editorial board is clearly right right of center, and
Speaker 1: they're basically calling the president and trump onomics ignorant. In particular,
Speaker 1: you know, they criticized Trump's call for easier money just
Speaker 1: as consumer prices keep arising. They asked the question, I'm
Speaker 1: just going to read from this, does President Trump understand money?
Speaker 1: Not money as in cash, but the supply of money,
Speaker 1: the price of money as managed by interest rates, and
Speaker 1: the impact on inflation. The answer would appear to be no.
Speaker 1: After mister Trump called for lower interest rates on Wednesday.
Speaker 1: The same day the Liberal Marketer put it increase in
Speaker 1: inflation for the third straight month. So yes, even the
Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal editorial Board, which is pretty consistently pro Trump,
Speaker 1: recognizes how ignorant he is of economics. They they're also
Speaker 1: very very critical of tariffs for all the reasons we've
Speaker 1: talked about, including the fact that while taros don't cause inflation,
Speaker 1: they suddenly mean higher prices on the goods that are
Speaker 1: affected by the taffs. So there are some people still
Speaker 1: among Republicans, not many, very few, but there are some
Speaker 1: Republicans out there who are still independent enough, honest enough,
Speaker 1: knowledgeable enough, I don't know how you want to call it,
Speaker 1: two to actually call it, and to actually recognize the
Speaker 1: you know, the the fact that Trump is ignorant of economics,
Speaker 1: really ignorant of economics. Good to know. Anyway, Inflation something
Speaker 1: we need to be watching. Problematic could be rising again,
Speaker 1: probably fed. It is probably not going to lower interest
Speaker 1: rates anytime soon, and a lot of it is going
Speaker 1: to depend on what Congress does and what Doge does
Speaker 1: if Dose gets serious or if it continues to what
Speaker 1: is it dabble in cost cutting? I mean, I'm all
Speaker 1: for what Dodge is doing in the sense of cutting
Speaker 1: as much as it is, but it's not serious. If
Speaker 1: you really want to take on the deficit and the debt,
Speaker 1: it's like a I don't know, phase phase one, Phase
Speaker 1: point five, phase point two, I don't know. It's a
Speaker 1: pre taking. Seriously, the amount of debt the United States
Speaker 1: has and where we are all right. We talked yesterday
Speaker 1: about the fact that basically the Trumpet administration, Donald Trump
Speaker 1: himself and his defensive could have basically basically handed Ukraine
Speaker 1: to Russia. They have completely They're going into negotiations at
Speaker 1: the Munical Conference. This is a Munich Defense Conference of
Speaker 1: European powers. They're going into that conference to negotiate with
Speaker 1: the Russians. Basically haven't given the Russians much of what
Speaker 1: they want. They're basically guaranteed or they said they don't
Speaker 1: expect Ukraine to be a member of NATO. Ever, they
Speaker 1: basically said they don't expect the borders to go back
Speaker 1: to twenty fourteen. They basically said that they've basically taken
Speaker 1: all their negotiating chips away. They're basically starting the negotiation
Speaker 1: giving into the Russians on a bunch of different things. Now,
Speaker 1: maybe that is what you get at the end of
Speaker 1: the negotiation, but they're not even bothering to wait. They're
Speaker 1: giving that to the Russians, starting the whole negotiation from
Speaker 1: a position of extreme weakness, you know. And then today, God,
Speaker 1: today Trump did this press conference about Ukraine, and it's just,
Speaker 1: I mean, who is this guy. I mean, I know
Speaker 1: who he is. I've been talking about it for eight years,
Speaker 1: but it still astounds me that he is president of
Speaker 1: the United States. It just it just shocks the hell
Speaker 1: out of me. Okay, So he says, you know, he
Speaker 1: basically implied during the press conference that this is a war.
Speaker 1: It's kind of Ukraine's fault. I mean, he says, He's
Speaker 1: asked at some point, do you view Ukraine as an
Speaker 1: equal member of this peace process because in the negotiating
Speaker 1: and he goes, uh, we talking about Ukraine, Rightine, this
Speaker 1: is a war on Ukraine's sebretory. He's not sure they
Speaker 1: should be part of the peace process. He says, it's
Speaker 1: an interesting question. I think they have to make peace.
Speaker 1: That was not a good war to go into, Like
Speaker 1: Ukraine went into this war. Do you guys remember what happened?
Speaker 1: Do you remember that Russia is just invaded, So now
Speaker 1: we blame Ukraine for it. That's a great negotiating position
Speaker 1: to go in against the Russians. And then he kind
Speaker 1: of implies, well, look, you know, Russia really fought for
Speaker 1: this land in Ukraine. They lost a lot of soldiers
Speaker 1: on this land. I mean, you can't deny the land
Speaker 1: from them, given how many soldiers they sacrificed for it.
Speaker 1: They should just keep it because they fore fought and
Speaker 1: they died on it. The guys, the guys, the guys
Speaker 1: an incompetent buffoon. I know, I keep calling him the names,
Speaker 1: which is not helpful. I mean, this is such a betrayal,
Speaker 1: such a stamping in the back of not just Ukraine
Speaker 1: but our allies in Europe, and an embrace, a complete
Speaker 1: and utter embrace of Putin. As I told you before
Speaker 1: the election, Trump is in Putin's pocket. Whatever it is
Speaker 1: the Putin has on him, or whatever it is that
Speaker 1: Trump finds appealing in Putin, Trump is in Putin's pocket.
Speaker 1: Trump does what Putin wants him to do. He will
Speaker 1: not stand up to Putin. He will not challenge Putin.
Speaker 1: This is Putin's world. It's not America first. This is
Speaker 1: Russia first. I mean the ignorance of the war, the
Speaker 1: ignorance of American interests. Yeah, the just complete capitulation of
Speaker 1: Russia and the complete sidelining of Ukraine in a negotiation
Speaker 1: between the tribute between Ukraine and Russia. This is not
Speaker 1: America's job to negotiate here. I mean, imagine a Trump
Speaker 1: kind of deal with Ramas and sidelined the Israelis. Tell
Speaker 1: with you, it's none of your business. I'll make a
Speaker 1: deal with Ramas for you. This is embolding, not just
Speaker 1: the Putin, it's embolding the hi. Uh And I don't
Speaker 1: know the everybody expected because Rubio was tough against Russia
Speaker 1: and pro Ukraine and what was that the emissary that
Speaker 1: that uh, you know, Kellogg, this shoal presidential envoy is
Speaker 1: tough on Russia and pro Ukraine. Yesterday, by the way,
Speaker 1: I said, the Kalig was not participating in the Munich
Speaker 1: conference and his name was now listed in all the
Speaker 1: public reports about it. He is going to Europe. He
Speaker 1: will be at the Munich Security Conference. He's going to
Speaker 1: visit NATO and EU and he'll even go I think
Speaker 1: he's going to visit Ukraine. But I mean Trump has
Speaker 1: basically sold them all out. Trump is not only proving
Speaker 1: himself over and over and over again ignorant of economics,
Speaker 1: of basic, basic, simple principles of economics, and he's proved
Speaker 1: that for the last eight years, and he's proving it
Speaker 1: that he hasn't learned anything since then. But he's also
Speaker 1: ignorant and you know, incompetent when it comes to phone policy,
Speaker 1: and which not does suffice me. I called it right,
Speaker 1: and I said, this is what he would do to Ukraine.
Speaker 1: And you could tell that from his behavior towards North
Speaker 1: Korea in his first term, which was an abomination, an abomination,
Speaker 1: and he is repeating it now. But this time notwith
Speaker 1: the incompetent, you know, pathetic meaningless North Korea. This time
Speaker 1: he is doing it with somebody who has real standing
Speaker 1: in the world and a strong military force and somebody
Speaker 1: you could have an impact on the world, which is
Speaker 1: putin it. Yeah. One of the things that you know,
Speaker 1: the United States seems to have already agreed about is
Speaker 1: that there will be some kind of peacekeeping force in
Speaker 1: Ukraine after this deal with Russia is a stip related
Speaker 1: but according to the Defense Secretary, the peacekeeping force will
Speaker 1: be a non NATO but European mission and will not
Speaker 1: be covered under Article five. In other words, the peacekeeping
Speaker 1: force will be there, and if Russia attacks, that will
Speaker 1: not involve the United States, that will not require the
Speaker 1: United States to participate under Article five. So basically, the
Speaker 1: United States is washing its hands of Ukraine, basically leaving
Speaker 1: it to the Europeans and the Russians. In other words,
Speaker 1: it's it is we know what the Europeans can and
Speaker 1: cannot do. It is basically, handy Ukraine over to Russia.
Speaker 1: Handy Ukraine over to Russia. All right, So no yours
Speaker 1: troops and no NATO troops. Whatever troops they are, they
Speaker 1: will be European and non not under the flag of NATO.
Speaker 1: I mean literally, this is making Russia the most the
Speaker 1: winner and the powerhouse. It's in Bolden's China, Iran, North Korea,
Speaker 1: we will pay the consequence of this. Here's a prediction.
Speaker 1: Iran making a prediction. We will pay the consequence of
Speaker 1: this betrayal for decades, for decades, and it could have
Speaker 1: gone the other way easily. Russia is in bad, bad,
Speaker 1: bad shape. Its economy is on the is in horrible shape.
Speaker 1: It's MILLI totally not being successful in what it's tried
Speaker 1: to do. Ukrainian forces are now occupying a chunk of
Speaker 1: Russian land. This could go the other way so quickly,
Speaker 1: and yet it's better, easier to just surrender. I keep
Speaker 1: trying to find good news. We'll get to, you know,
Speaker 1: a couple of items of good news. There's a few
Speaker 1: items of good news on the bad news front. On
Speaker 1: the bad news front, RFK, I think the most horrible appointment,
Speaker 1: the most horrible person ever to be head of the HHS.
Speaker 1: And that's saying a lot was approved by Senate fifty eight,
Speaker 1: not even clothes. Republicans, everybody think except McConnell voted for him.
Speaker 1: McConnell seems to be the only Republican with even a
Speaker 1: semblance of a spine to stand up to Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: RFK has been confirmed he will be in charge. Republicans
Speaker 1: caved completely. Even Republicans who typically take a more independent
Speaker 1: position like colleins Mkowski on this one, they just folded.
Speaker 1: They gave Trump what he wanted. The Republican Party has
Speaker 1: become a monolith. It's become as I predicted, as I've
Speaker 1: told you for eight years, it's just Trumpism. It's just Trump.
Speaker 1: There's no opposition in that sense. Trump can do anything
Speaker 1: he wants. The Republican Party will support him. There's a
Speaker 1: little bit of opposition in the House where some Republicans
Speaker 1: are demanding actual spending cuts, which neither Trump nor the
Speaker 1: rest of the Republicans in the House want. But so
Speaker 1: there's some back and forth, there's some opposition, there's some
Speaker 1: debate in the House. But in the Senate it's over.
Speaker 1: There's just nothing. There's there's nobody, there's nothing that are questioning,
Speaker 1: that are challenging it. I mean, there are a number
Speaker 1: of senators who you would think, for example, would be
Speaker 1: freaking up over the Ukraine. Tom Cotton, for example, who
Speaker 1: could be strong voices opposing Trump on the Ukraine issue.
Speaker 1: I haven't heard anything from Tom Cotton. Complete silence, complete silence,
Speaker 1: even some of Trump's allies. I mean, Cotton is an ally,
Speaker 1: but but there's a bunch of senators who are very
Speaker 1: pro Ukraine Antio Russia. Silence, not a word out of them.
Speaker 1: They basically all caved RFK is a good sign that
Speaker 1: they've caved. One thing that so a couple of news
Speaker 1: articles mentioning is that the healthcare industry insurance in just
Speaker 1: the pharma, doctors, doctors, hospitals. None of them came out,
Speaker 1: None of them came out with it came up basically
Speaker 1: in strong opposition RFK. There's no lobbying. It's a very
Speaker 1: powerful lobby when they want to be very powerful. No
Speaker 1: lobbying against RFK by the medical profession. And I think
Speaker 1: this says a huge amount about what is actually going
Speaker 1: on here. Right. They're afraid, They were afraid. They you know,
Speaker 1: they realize that what is happening in Washington is you've
Speaker 1: got they better behaved like good swamp animals. They don't
Speaker 1: want to piss RFK off. They don't want to piss
Speaker 1: Trump off. They know how much power AFK is going
Speaker 1: to have over them, and they can see the kind
Speaker 1: of monolithic, mindless way in which the Senate is voting
Speaker 1: for Trump and pointees, and they've just basically backed off.
Speaker 1: They've backed off. They all oppose him. They all know
Speaker 1: what a disaster for them for their industry he could be.
Speaker 1: But they're hoping to limit the fallout if Kennedy goes
Speaker 1: through with his plans. You know, he's going to come
Speaker 1: after all of them, and they want to be able
Speaker 1: to They don't want to be singled out as oh,
Speaker 1: you know Kennedy thinking you're all going to go after
Speaker 1: these guys first, because they they lobbied against me. They're
Speaker 1: just playing it soon for safe. And it's also you know,
Speaker 1: an indication of how authoritarian they think, I think this
Speaker 1: administration is, and how fascistical authoritarian the power that Washington
Speaker 1: now has and has had for a long time over
Speaker 1: their industry, over every industry. They have to be very
Speaker 1: careful because otherwise the alligators in the swamp will will
Speaker 1: will come after them. So yep, Republicans in Congress, I
Speaker 1: think the evaluation was, I'm not open to we swade
Speaker 1: right now. They're gonna vote for Trump no matter how
Speaker 1: much we lobby. They're gonna Trump is a Trump is
Speaker 1: the force. No point in trying to stand up to it. All. Right,
Speaker 1: here's a positive story, kind of right, I mean, uh,
Speaker 1: Trump uh signed an executive order basically uh saying uh,
Speaker 1: you know, reversing a federal ban on plastic straws and
Speaker 1: basically reversing that and and particularly stating the so called
Speaker 1: evil of paper straws. I mean, I'm glad somebody is
Speaker 1: defending the plastic straw that we needed that, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: this is what the executive order actually said. This is
Speaker 1: the level at which the swamp now and under under
Speaker 1: Biden and now we're Trump. It gets into the details
Speaker 1: of our daily lives through executive order, now through regulatory action,
Speaker 1: just executive voter quote. Plastic straws are often replaced by
Speaker 1: paper straws, which are non functional use chemicals that may
Speaker 1: carry risks to human health. Expensive to produce them plastic
Speaker 1: straws and often force users to use multiple straws. Oh
Speaker 1: my god. Additionally, paper straws sometimes come individually wrapped in plastic,
Speaker 1: undermine the environmental argument for their use. So it's great
Speaker 1: to see a principal defense of plastic straws. Finally, so
Speaker 1: the Free Pass has a little article with a little
Speaker 1: bit of the history of this attack on plastic straws,
Speaker 1: which is nutty right, environmental nuttiness. It started the attack
Speaker 1: on plastic stars. I didn't know this. It turns out
Speaker 1: it start in twenty eleven when a Vermont Vermont ninety
Speaker 1: year old. This is from the free Pass. Milo Cress
Speaker 1: came up with an obituary number for how many plastic
Speaker 1: straws Americans used daily. He figured it out, he says,
Speaker 1: by calling up straw manufacturers. He calculates that Americans use
Speaker 1: five hundred million straws a day. It turns out that's
Speaker 1: a number completely pulled from the air. Nobody can verify
Speaker 1: that number. It's a big number, and as a big number,
Speaker 1: that's good. He started scaring people. I mean, the five
Speaker 1: hundred million straws a day number has been cited by
Speaker 1: the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post,
Speaker 1: and pretty much everybody else. And over the last fourteen years,
Speaker 1: this issue of plastic straws and plastic more broadly has
Speaker 1: become the biggest environmental issue anybody talks about. States and
Speaker 1: cities have banned the use of plastic straws. You can't
Speaker 1: get them here in Puerto Rico. Basically, plastic has been banned.
Speaker 1: Most plastic stuff has been banned. I notice in hotels
Speaker 1: when I travel in a lot of states, they don't
Speaker 1: have the plastic laundry bag anymore. It's some kind of
Speaker 1: other material, you know, they're blanning, they're banning a plastic cutlery,
Speaker 1: plastic cups, and uh yeah, so there are you know,
Speaker 1: there are many, many, many, many many states have gone
Speaker 1: along and banned this, and then of course Biden assigned
Speaker 1: the executive voter of banning it at the federal level.
Speaker 1: At the federal level. Now it turns out that you know,
Speaker 1: this is all just made up plastic straws. They know
Speaker 1: the five hundred million number is fake. I don't know
Speaker 1: anybody knows how many, what the real number is, but
Speaker 1: the five hundred million is fake. And of course the
Speaker 1: environmental damage, the so called the environmental damage, the damage
Speaker 1: to human health. You've got a plastic spoon and you
Speaker 1: had quantity of plastic. It's all. It's all, you know, BS,
Speaker 1: Plastics are not the massive threat those those bags taking
Speaker 1: in the grocery store. I'm not going to destroy planet Earth.
Speaker 1: We're not all going to die from plastic poisoning. There
Speaker 1: just is no basis for any of those claims. And
Speaker 1: indeed the replacements are often worse than for the so
Speaker 1: called environment. Whatever the environment is. It's not even anti
Speaker 1: industrial industrialism, because the replacement often require more industrialism than
Speaker 1: than the plastic. It's anti convenience, anti human comfort, it's
Speaker 1: anti human really convenience. Think about the plastic bags. Single
Speaker 1: use plastic bags. They you know, they required that you
Speaker 1: replace those with thick top bags, and they would lead
Speaker 1: to less waste. But now you've got these thick tout
Speaker 1: bags that are being thrown out the thick instead of
Speaker 1: really really thin plastic. It turns out that the top
Speaker 1: bags have to use an organic cotton twenty thousand times
Speaker 1: to offset the impact from actually producing the bag the bag,
Speaker 1: you'd have to use the top bag twenty thousand times. Sorry,
Speaker 1: you'd have to use the top bag twenty thousand times
Speaker 1: to offset the so called the environmental impact of producing
Speaker 1: the bag. The top bag is probably has a bigger
Speaker 1: environmental impact. Again, I'm putting all this in quotes because
Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't think there is such a thing.
Speaker 1: Whose environment? What environment? What impact? What are you actually impacting?
Speaker 1: Who's suffering? I mean, the real suffering is this toutbag.
Speaker 1: I love the plastic bags. They're so figging convenient. What
Speaker 1: is the point of all this? And of course the
Speaker 1: reality is that air pollution is way down, water pollution
Speaker 1: is way down. We live in some of the healthiest,
Speaker 1: cleanest environment probably the healthiest cleanest environment human beings have
Speaker 1: ever lived in. And we're obsessing of our plastic straws
Speaker 1: and plastic bags. And if you actually look at who
Speaker 1: pollutes again, depending on you know, plastic, let's say, plastic
Speaker 1: pollution the United States isn't significant on the global scale.
Speaker 1: It's mostly China, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Egypt, Thailand,
Speaker 1: port places in Asia that are discarding lots of plastics.
Speaker 1: So the whole thing, like most of the environmentalist stuff,
Speaker 1: is just blown out of proportion, scare the hell out
Speaker 1: of people, cause them to change their behavior, all in
Speaker 1: the name of being anti human. I think that's what
Speaker 1: it is. Not even anti industrial, it's anti human, anti human,
Speaker 1: anti convenience, anti pleasure, anti yeah, anti man. All right,
Speaker 1: thank you Arue Ice for giving us some of the
Speaker 1: stats on on these What did I just do? Sorry
Speaker 1: one second, how do I get that back? I'm not sure?
Speaker 1: All right? So be it that is plastic Okay? See,
Speaker 1: I mean maybe one of the best things DOGE and
Speaker 1: the government is doing right now, is it really, really,
Speaker 1: really really is limiting the CFPB now Ideally CPB would
Speaker 1: be shut down. For that, you would need legislation. It's
Speaker 1: part of Dot Frank. CPP is one of the I've
Speaker 1: told you this over and over again over the years,
Speaker 1: nastiest organizations in Washington, d C. The economic benefit of
Speaker 1: just getting rid of it would be tremendous. What Trump
Speaker 1: is basically doing is he is, you know, keeping it
Speaker 1: because he can't get rid of it. He can't shrink
Speaker 1: their budget because their budget comes from the Fed. It
Speaker 1: doesn't come from Congress or the Executive. It comes from
Speaker 1: the Federal Reserve. Basically, what he's doing is incapacitating them.
Speaker 1: He's not allowing them to actually do anything, which is terrific, right,
Speaker 1: it's it's raveling or unraveling, sorry, unraveling. It's basically being
Speaker 1: placed on on limbo. The previous executive, the guy who
Speaker 1: ran CFPB is fired. The guy running CFPB right now
Speaker 1: is the head of the Budget Office and a super
Speaker 1: conservative Trumpist, and it's basically going to make the CFPB impotent.
Speaker 1: This is the problem though, that is what happened in
Speaker 1: his first term, or a lot of that happened in
Speaker 1: the first book. And then biting cream about and reinvigorated
Speaker 1: the ce if PB, So I really would like to
Speaker 1: find to see if they can find a way actually
Speaker 1: pass legislation to get rid of this monstrosity, actually do
Speaker 1: away with it, because if a Democrat ever wins in
Speaker 1: the future. Now, what is the CFPB do? It advocates
Speaker 1: for consumers visa v. Finance and it is an evil
Speaker 1: institution that is basically trying to eviscerate the capacity of
Speaker 1: financial institutions to provide you with services and negotiate with you.
Speaker 1: It has placed itself between you as a customer and
Speaker 1: the financial industry in trying to force the financial industry
Speaker 1: to live up to Elizabeth Warren standards. And it does
Speaker 1: so without legislation. It does so with the ship power
Speaker 1: of a regulatory agency that has been given almost unlimited
Speaker 1: power by Dot Frank and almost unlimited budget by the
Speaker 1: fact that Congress is not involved in budgeting for it.
Speaker 1: The the FED is the Supreme Court has had a
Speaker 1: number of opportunities to get rid of the CFPB, to
Speaker 1: rule it unconstitutional, and sadly, really I think, really really sadly, uh,
Speaker 1: they they failed. They they you know, did not actually
Speaker 1: they did not actually do it. So it's still around.
Speaker 1: It's going to be around until they get rid of it.
Speaker 1: Dog is going in there and we'll see what Doge
Speaker 1: does with it. But but it's going to be I think,
Speaker 1: I think we can trust and this is a good
Speaker 1: thing from the Trump administration that it's going to be, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, fairly fairly impotent. It's not going to be
Speaker 1: able to do anything while Trump is president. All right.
Speaker 1: Update on the attempts of Trump to get governed employees
Speaker 1: to design as you know, a judge had blocked that
Speaker 1: had blocked the whole buyout of government employees. Well, a
Speaker 1: federal judge has lifted the temporary restraining order on the
Speaker 1: Trumpet do the station's federal employee defoe resignation plan. US
Speaker 1: District Court judge had previously paused the administrations for busic
Speaker 1: deadline for employees to accept the buyout after and then
Speaker 1: in the current order, you know, it is the program
Speaker 1: is not closed. About seventy five thousand workers have accepted
Speaker 1: the offer. So seventy five thousand workers, unless another court
Speaker 1: steps in and versus this, are going to leave their position.
Speaker 1: They're guaranteed salaries until the end of September, at which
Speaker 1: point they will no longer be governing the employees. So
Speaker 1: this is a reduction of staff in the government by
Speaker 1: seventy five thousand people. I'm all for that. That's great.
Speaker 1: I wish it was one point five million, not seventy
Speaker 1: five thousand, or seven hundred and fifty thousand, not seventy
Speaker 1: five thousand. But it's something. It's something, right, and so
Speaker 1: the government employment does look like it's gonna shrink. Now again,
Speaker 1: we'll see. It is going to be interesting at the
Speaker 1: end of Trump's term to look at the government employment.
Speaker 1: Is it has a trunk or hasn't it? Overall, they
Speaker 1: promised a big shrink. I'm curious in four years where
Speaker 1: they we'll have it. They say we're spending. I mean, here,
Speaker 1: I'm willing to bet money the government spending will be
Speaker 1: higher in four years than it is today, that nothing
Speaker 1: will be in absolute terms cut that his government will
Speaker 1: spend more money in four years when Trump leaves office.
Speaker 1: Hopefully then it spends when Trump came into office. Okay,
Speaker 1: so we will we will see, all right, let's see okay,
Speaker 1: uh oh, wait, a few small items of of just
Speaker 1: general interest and stuff we've talked about in the past.
Speaker 1: So this is just filling you in. Have you ever
Speaker 1: been Ben and Jerry uh, the left wing social social
Speaker 1: advocacy ice cream maker. I have not eaten a Ben
Speaker 1: and jerry Is ice cream and since the late night
Speaker 1: because I'm so opposed to the philosophical advocacy. Anyway, Unilever,
Speaker 1: who which, who bought Ben and Jerry's and what forty
Speaker 1: years ago, thirty years ago, has decided to sell it.
Speaker 1: It's a hassle. Ben and Jerry is a hassle. It's
Speaker 1: a handful because of their social activism and and the
Speaker 1: boycotts and all of that. So Ben and Jerry's. Unilever
Speaker 1: is spinning off Ben and Jerry but it's and it's
Speaker 1: picked Amsterdam as a place where they will be listed.
Speaker 1: So Amsterdam they're gonna They're gonna list on the on
Speaker 1: the Amsterdam stock Market, not London, not New York, Amsterdam,
Speaker 1: which is kind of interesting and strange and weird. But anyway,
Speaker 1: Ben and Jerry no longer part of Unilever, even more
Speaker 1: reason to continue to boycott them, unless, of course, they
Speaker 1: changed their political social policies. Do you remember yesterday, I
Speaker 1: think it was yesterday we talked about Elon Musk's bid
Speaker 1: for open Ai. He put a bid in a ninety
Speaker 1: seven point four billion dollars to buy open Ai. Well,
Speaker 1: today his lawyer said that he would withdraw the offer
Speaker 1: if he would withdraw the offer and not try to
Speaker 1: buy open Ai Chatgypt. In other words, if the nonprofit
Speaker 1: entity dropped its plan of spinning off open Ai as
Speaker 1: a for profit business. So if opens a nonprofit arm
Speaker 1: drops its planning to become a for profit entity, Trump
Speaker 1: will not Trump Trump Ellen. It's all the same thing, right,
Speaker 1: Elon will not try to buy it. Just that's an
Speaker 1: update from yesterday. Again, I think Elon's bid is more
Speaker 1: to disrupt than anything else. One most story before we
Speaker 1: get to the fifties. Better, remember we talked about the
Speaker 1: fact that there was going to be a new stock
Speaker 1: exchange going to be listed in Texas. It's what was
Speaker 1: going to be called the Texas Stock Exchange. Well, they
Speaker 1: filed for registration last month. They'd raised one hundred and
Speaker 1: eighty one million dollars in order to do that, and
Speaker 1: they're planning to launch the stock exchange in twenty twenty six.
Speaker 1: And well, in a sign of the competitive nature of
Speaker 1: stock exchanges, I guess, although I'm not exactly sure, the
Speaker 1: advantage's disadvantages here. But anyway, the New York Stock Exchange
Speaker 1: is low launching a branch in Texas. President of the
Speaker 1: NYC Group said in a statement that quote, Texas is
Speaker 1: a market leader in fostering a pro business at atmosphere,
Speaker 1: and therefore NYC is opening a branch in Texas to
Speaker 1: provide competition to the Texas Stock Exchange. Competition has not
Speaker 1: gone away. Still out there still exists, people are still competing.
Speaker 1: I well, one more thing I'll just say, uh, and
Speaker 1: that is about Gaza quickly, and that is that Hamas
Speaker 1: is now indicating that it would release the hostages on
Speaker 1: schedule on Saturday. Probably that supposedly they have gotten guarantees
Speaker 1: from Israel that Israel would abide by the ceasefire agreement.
Speaker 1: I know everybody will you will give Trump credit for this,
Speaker 1: but I think that's silly. I think Hamas doesn't want
Speaker 1: the wa to restart. They know the consequences of that.
Speaker 1: They're going to play their hand to the fullest. They
Speaker 1: want to postpone. They want to basically do everything they
Speaker 1: can to re establish themselves in Gaza, which they are doing.
Speaker 1: The longer the better. They're only going to release three hostages.
Speaker 1: They're not going to release the seventy two which Trump demanded,
Speaker 1: or the nine I think nine or seventeen or whatever
Speaker 1: the Israel demanded. They're just they're going to go back
Speaker 1: to the regular schedule. So a lot of this is
Speaker 1: huffing and puffing and making a lot of noises, but
Speaker 1: we're back on the regular schedule. We're back to the
Speaker 1: point where what is phase two of this is fire
Speaker 1: going to look like? What is Israel going to do
Speaker 1: and what does Trump actually wants versus the huffing and
Speaker 1: puffing in public and the pressure on Israel. Where does
Speaker 1: Trump land up in the end with all of this?
Speaker 1: So we'll just wait and see again. I thought resuming
Speaker 1: the war was the right thing to do, but at
Speaker 1: the same time I also recognized that three hostages will
Speaker 1: be freed, their families will be happy. That's all good, right,
Speaker 1: This isn't you know? This is Hamas just living up
Speaker 1: to the so called agreement that they had and they
Speaker 1: forced Israel to come to the negotiating table and commit
Speaker 1: commit themselves to the kind of level of aid and
Speaker 1: the number of tents and all this stuff that Israel
Speaker 1: had committed to, and according to Ramas was not fulfilling,
Speaker 1: and now I think Israel's convinced them they are fulfilling it,
Speaker 1: or that will do it. To view this as a
Speaker 1: weakness of Ramas, I think would be a mistake. This
Speaker 1: whole deal, the whole negotiation, the whole structure is a
Speaker 1: symbol of the weakness of Israel and in the US
Speaker 1: and the actual strength of Ramas, the fact that they
Speaker 1: can grab the West by the balls. Basically. Okay, so
Speaker 1: there is this post put out there, and I'll show
Speaker 1: you the picture that the post, this post depicts. You know,
Speaker 1: the picture is kind of cool. Let me see where
Speaker 1: is this? Think's there? There we go. There's the picture.
Speaker 1: A wholesome family in the nineteen fifties getting ready for
Speaker 1: dinner to be served, the kids smiling and happy, the
Speaker 1: father relaxed and smiling, the mother watching over all of
Speaker 1: this and making sure it's all functioning correctly and smoothly,
Speaker 1: smiling away. And James Lucas, you know, is here saying
Speaker 1: he's got six hundred and fifty one thousand followers, six
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty two thousand followers, saying, you know, life
Speaker 1: in the fifties was amazing. It was amazing. This is
Speaker 1: a genuinely happy looking family, you know, and they had
Speaker 1: a life that I guess we can't even imagine how
Speaker 1: good their life. Their life, their life was much better
Speaker 1: than anything that we have today. You know. Groceries were
Speaker 1: really really cheap, you know, and you could you could
Speaker 1: pay for all of it on one salary because the
Speaker 1: housewif stayed home. Teenagers in the nineteen fifties were well dressed,
Speaker 1: they weren't having sex, they weren't taking drugs. You know.
Speaker 1: Nineteen fifties America, you know, was cleaner, homeless, people cared
Speaker 1: about their environment, they took care of the buildings they
Speaker 1: lived in. Manhattan was more beautiful and much nicer and cleaner.
Speaker 1: There was actually public libraries, beautiful buildings, big buildings. It's
Speaker 1: just everything was better from around nineteen hundred to the
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties, sixties, early sixties, right, life was so much better.
Speaker 1: And this is such a ridiculous, bizarre and indeed fairly
Speaker 1: stupid claim. You could stop by the fact that for
Speaker 1: this family in nineteen fifties, they didn't go anywhere by plane.
Speaker 1: There were no airline flights. They didn't travel to Europe
Speaker 1: to see the sites They didn't travel to the other
Speaker 1: coast to visit places in America. Maybe they drove if
Speaker 1: they could, but you know the car that they drove,
Speaker 1: they had one car, not more than one car. It
Speaker 1: was probably us, you know, was probably would break down
Speaker 1: on a long cart trip. It would rust out. At
Speaker 1: ninety thousand miles. It was almost very unusual for Cause
Speaker 1: in that era to last kind of the two three
Speaker 1: hundred thousand miles that Cause today have. They had no
Speaker 1: long distance calls. If they called lost distance, it cost
Speaker 1: them a fortune. Maybe the groceries were cheaper. Long distance
Speaker 1: calls were unbelievably high. If the father was a traveling salesman,
Speaker 1: he might not talk to his wife his kids for
Speaker 1: days and days and days, potentially weeks because of the
Speaker 1: cost involved them might not see them for very long.
Speaker 1: The summers were hot, sweaty, and brutal. There was no
Speaker 1: way conditioning, and they actually lived in a small house
Speaker 1: houses in the nineteen fifties. Average house of a new
Speaker 1: house in nineteen fifty was nine hundred and eighty three
Speaker 1: square feet nine hundred and eighty three square feet for
Speaker 1: a family of four. Just to give you an example
Speaker 1: of the difference two years ago twenty twenty three, the
Speaker 1: average new home size was two thousand, two hundred and
Speaker 1: thirty So basically homes homes back then were you know,
Speaker 1: less than half the size of homes today, half the
Speaker 1: size on homes today. One of the reasons housing is
Speaker 1: so expensive today is becau because we went from nine
Speaker 1: hundred and eighty three square feet to twenty two hundred
Speaker 1: square feet and to significantly more bedrooms. You know, it
Speaker 1: used to be that two bedrooms are less. Was where
Speaker 1: I don't know, twenty percent of Americans lived. Now it's
Speaker 1: nine percent. Four bedrooms are more. Is today about fifty
Speaker 1: percent four bedrooms or more. Four bedrooms are more. We
Speaker 1: have fewer kids, but many, many more bedrooms and three
Speaker 1: bedroom homes which used to be like sixty five percent
Speaker 1: as in the seventies and now forty three percent. So
Speaker 1: two bedroom homes down, three bedroom homes down, four bedroom
Speaker 1: homes way up from just over twenty percent to forty
Speaker 1: eight percent. So yeah, a big difference in in size
Speaker 1: of homes, life expectancy significantly. Knowing in nineteen fifties and
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties are on sixty nine today closer to over eighty.
Speaker 1: And the reality is that today. If you don't smoke,
Speaker 1: if you don't drink a huge amount, right, I mean
Speaker 1: really abuse the drinking. If you don't use drugs, and
Speaker 1: this is a big one, if you're not obese, your
Speaker 1: life expectancy in the United States is over ninety. I mean,
Speaker 1: nobody was a beast in the fifties, or very few
Speaker 1: people were beast in the fifties, and the elect expertency
Speaker 1: sixty nine. But if you are not obese, don't take drugs,
Speaker 1: don't commit suicide, don't overly drink, don't smoke, your life
Speaker 1: expectancy is into the nineties. Do you know that for Americans?
Speaker 1: American women, if you make it to the age of
Speaker 1: sixty five, over fifty percent of women who make it
Speaker 1: to the age of sixty five are going to live
Speaker 1: into their nineties, into their nineties. So yeah, there was
Speaker 1: a greater sense of freedom. But I'm not even convinced
Speaker 1: completely of that, right, I mean, going back to those teenagers,
Speaker 1: there was no sense of sexual free. There were no contraceptions,
Speaker 1: which made sex super scary. Values definitely, you know, were
Speaker 1: traditional and and and and very conservative. I don't know
Speaker 1: if that's a good thing. Well, I know it's not
Speaker 1: a good thing. People were repressed. And even when it
Speaker 1: comes to freedom, certainly, you know, the interest that you
Speaker 1: got from the bank was determined by the government. The
Speaker 1: price of a ticket on an airplane that when you
Speaker 1: flew anyway, it was determined by the government. The shipping
Speaker 1: costs of freight across the country, if you moved homes
Speaker 1: was determined by the government. There were so many things
Speaker 1: that were determined by the government. So, yeah, there was
Speaker 1: a there was no freedom. You know. One of the
Speaker 1: measures of that freedom is interesting. We've talked about this
Speaker 1: in the past. We'll talk about it again in one
Speaker 1: of the shows soon is mobility. Americans were much much
Speaker 1: more mobile in the fifties. Americans up the people who
Speaker 1: used to move the most in the world. We moved
Speaker 1: all the time within the same city, out of the city,
Speaker 1: between states, all over the place. Move, move, move, move, move.
Speaker 1: Today we barely move. That sense of freedom, that sense
Speaker 1: of mobility is gone, which is sad, really really really
Speaker 1: sad and disruptive. So, you know, we're not going to
Speaker 1: the best jobs. The most productive were stuck. You know. Generally,
Speaker 1: here's an interesting stat I can't feel what it was
Speaker 1: people who've never left their hometown. People who've never lived
Speaker 1: outside of their hometown voted for Trump by a margin
Speaker 1: of twenty six percent, So Trump's you know, people who
Speaker 1: have moved very rarely voted for Trump in overwhelming numbers.
Speaker 1: So the frustration, the fear, the hate, the angst that
Speaker 1: led people to vote for Trump, and explain much of
Speaker 1: the Trump phenomena have a lot to do with immobility, stagnation,
Speaker 1: personal stagnation, stagnation that I think is too largely is
Speaker 1: self inflicted. But yeah, we didn't have It's true, we
Speaker 1: didn't have environmentalism. Government was a lot smaller, you know,
Speaker 1: we didn't have their part of education. We didn't have
Speaker 1: the EPA, we didn't have most of the regulatory agencies
Speaker 1: didn't exist. So certainly there were areas in which things
Speaker 1: were better, But no iPhones. Do you know that back
Speaker 1: then women had a really really hard time finding a job.
Speaker 1: There was not a secretary, a teacher, women could not
Speaker 1: open their own checking account, and fifty percent of them
Speaker 1: were married by the age of twenty four. Makes sense,
Speaker 1: if they can't find work and they can't even have
Speaker 1: a checking account, you need to latch yourself to a husband,
Speaker 1: to a man that's not a good thing. These things
Speaker 1: are not good. We built more in the nineteen fifties.
Speaker 1: We were ambitious from you know, from a civil engineering perspective.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of things that were better in the
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties, but this is not one of them. Put
Speaker 1: the women in their place, and you know, living in
Speaker 1: a home, the life that we actually lived on a
Speaker 1: day to day basis, there's no reason to believe was
Speaker 1: better in any kind of significant way. By the way,
Speaker 1: the reason you know, housing was booming in the nineteen
Speaker 1: fifties because people were moving a lot all over the place,
Speaker 1: and because supply was not constrained, prices didn't go up
Speaker 1: like crazy. People didn't expect to make money on their home.
Speaker 1: Making money on your home is a new phenomena, and
Speaker 1: indeed not a phenomena that exists everywhere in the United States.
Speaker 1: If you live in large areas in the Midwest, your
Speaker 1: home value does not go up. You don't buy your
Speaker 1: home expecting to sell it for a higher price. That
Speaker 1: is a phenomena only of places that restrict supply. Anyway,
Speaker 1: this nostalgia the nineteen fifties is sad and uh really pathetic,
Speaker 1: and you know, I think that it's instead of saying,
Speaker 1: here are the things that made that were better back then? Freedom,
Speaker 1: size of government, know, enviromentalism, no bad, bad ideas weren't
Speaker 1: as bad. What the conservatives would like us to focus
Speaker 1: on is I don't know, family, place of women. Women
Speaker 1: were put in their place, and it was there was
Speaker 1: there wasn't a lot of secks going on, and I
Speaker 1: don't know. People were better behaved and the quality of
Speaker 1: our life today is so much better in so many dimensions.
Speaker 1: So let's fix the things that need fixing, like shrinking
Speaker 1: government dramatically. That will do it, That will do it,
Speaker 1: and having a better ideas. That's always the case. We
Speaker 1: need better ideas today, just like we needed better ideas
Speaker 1: in the nineteen fifties. So stop being nostalgic. And you know,
Speaker 1: to be nostalgic for the nineteen fifties, you would have
Speaker 1: to be pretty old today. I mean, baby boomers can
Speaker 1: be nostalgic to the nineteen fifties. But these are not
Speaker 1: baby boomers. These are people who don't live through the
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties. All right, let's see, um, all right, let
Speaker 1: us take your question. That is the news for February thirteenth,
Speaker 1: and we will now move to your super chet questions.
Speaker 1: You can still ask more questions. There's plenty of time today.
Speaker 1: We're not under any real constraints, so feel fee to
Speaker 1: come in with questions with stickers to support the show.
Speaker 1: And yeah, let's see uh move there there all right.
Speaker 1: Before we get to that, Before we get to supercheck questions,
Speaker 1: let me remind you that we have two sponsors for
Speaker 1: the Iron Book Show. One sponsor is the Iron Ran Institute,
Speaker 1: which is running a conference Iran Conference in Austin, Texas
Speaker 1: at the end of the month, and where there's going
Speaker 1: to be a deep dive into the philosophy of objectivism.
Speaker 1: You're all invited register. There's a fee, but you'll get
Speaker 1: amazing courses by Greg SALAMII and Ben Beer and a
Speaker 1: number of our young fellows are going to be there speaking.
Speaker 1: It'll be a great opportunity to meet up with other
Speaker 1: objectivists and to have a chance to interact with our faculty,
Speaker 1: Iran University faculty. So you can register for that conference
Speaker 1: by going to Inrand dot og slash start here, Iron
Speaker 1: Rand dot og slash start here. Alex Epstein is also
Speaker 1: a sponsor of the show. Alex Epstein dot subsect dot com.
Speaker 1: Alex provides the best, most coherent, most valuable analysis of
Speaker 1: what is going on in the field of energy, what
Speaker 1: is going on with climate change and with ussile fuels.
Speaker 1: He gives you talking points he can he will. I
Speaker 1: guarantee it make you a far better communicator, a far
Speaker 1: better communicator than you are today than you are today.
Speaker 1: So check him out. Alex ept signed a substack dot com.
Speaker 1: William says, was there toothpaste and floss in nineteen fifties?
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't It was definitely toothpaste. I
Speaker 1: don't know if there was flaws. I don't know if
Speaker 1: there was flaws. Generally, I think two de ka was
Speaker 1: much bigger of a deal. I don't know. I ate
Speaker 1: more sugar in the nineteen sixties than I do today,
Speaker 1: but I'm not sure. Children today probably eat more sugar
Speaker 1: than I did in the nineteen sixties. They probably eat
Speaker 1: generally more than I did. But remember, life expectancy much
Speaker 1: higher today than it was back then. Even with the drugs,
Speaker 1: they alcohol, the obesity and everything else, it's still much
Speaker 1: higher at birth. Never mind, if you avoid the really
Speaker 1: bad behavior, then you're likely to live into your nineties,
Speaker 1: all right. Reminder to support the show Patreon dot com,
Speaker 1: Patreon dot com, just look up you on book show.
Speaker 1: Become a Patreon supporters, a monthly support. It's incredibly valuable
Speaker 1: to me because it's consistent, it's predictable. You know, this
Speaker 1: show is made possible from your guys contribution. The sponsorships help,
Speaker 1: but the dominant ninety five percent of the revenue that
Speaker 1: makes it possible for me to do this show comes
Speaker 1: from you, guys, the listeners to the show. So please,
Speaker 1: you know, please consider supporting the show. Consider providing value
Speaker 1: in exchange for the value you get from listening to
Speaker 1: the show. I assume you get some value from listening.
Speaker 1: Otherwise why would you listen? I guess is the point.
Speaker 1: So please consider supporting the show. Patreon's a great way
Speaker 1: to do it. Pay thousand another way where you can
Speaker 1: become a monthly supporter. And of course, if you're here
Speaker 1: live and we have one hundred and fifty people on
Speaker 1: YouTube and two hundred and eighty four on Twitter, you
Speaker 1: can come over to YouTube. If you're on Twitter, you
Speaker 1: can use YouTube feature the superchat or sticker to support
Speaker 1: the show. Super Chat allows you to ask a question.
Speaker 1: A sticker is just support without a question either way.
Speaker 1: It's great. We have targets. A target for a two
Speaker 1: hour show is five hundred dollars. It's basically two fifty
Speaker 1: an hour. We achieved our first hours goal. We're up
Speaker 1: to two sixty two now, so we now have a
Speaker 1: two hundred and thirty eight dollars to go for the
Speaker 1: second hour. Hopefully, hopefully that is something you will, you
Speaker 1: will do, will support, you will embrace. All Right, um,
Speaker 1: let's see let's start with uh, let's see the no
Speaker 1: fifty dollars. So let's start with James. James is Trump's success.
Speaker 1: Proof objectivism is dead as a cultural force. So no,
Speaker 1: I mean that's ridiculous. With Biden's success, proof of objectivisms
Speaker 1: is dead as a cultural force? I rand opposed Reagan
Speaker 1: was Reagan's success, proof of objectivism is dead as a
Speaker 1: cultural force. No, it just means we're still a minority.
Speaker 1: We're still a small minority, and we've got a lot
Speaker 1: of work to do. It doesn't mean we're dead. It
Speaker 1: means we're not dominant. But if if what's her name,
Speaker 1: Kamala had won this election with that, I mean proof,
Speaker 1: I mean what constitutes proof that we are cultural force,
Speaker 1: given that neither one of the political candidates was a
Speaker 1: political candidate's objectivism objectivists supported wholeheartedly. So No, I don't
Speaker 1: think Trump's win says anything about the cultural force that
Speaker 1: is objectivism. Uh, it's way too early. There's a huge
Speaker 1: amount of work to do. It's going to be a
Speaker 1: r before we are a real significant cultural force to
Speaker 1: be reckoned with where we are actually impacting election that
Speaker 1: is in augh, you know, that's still in the future.
Speaker 1: We are not they yet. We're just not they yet,
Speaker 1: and that shouldn't surprise you. Nobody's ever said that we
Speaker 1: were there or even close to being there. It's decades away.
Speaker 1: And that doesn't mean we're dead. It means we're growing.
Speaker 1: We're just growing slowly as we'd expect. Andrew, it's hard
Speaker 1: to read Johann Nobook's progress and not be in awe
Speaker 1: of how life before a few generations ago was hell
Speaker 1: compared to now. A Hobbesian view of life was understandable
Speaker 1: before reason and freedom revolutionized the world. Yes, and absolutely,
Speaker 1: I mean one of the one of the great tragedies
Speaker 1: right now is the level of ignorance people have of
Speaker 1: what life was before capitalism, what life was before the
Speaker 1: Industrial Revolution, what life was before the eighteenth century. And
Speaker 1: people have no concept, no clue, really no clue, And
Speaker 1: even if they theoretically know, it's hard for them to
Speaker 1: actually comcrotize it in their own life. What it means
Speaker 1: to live in two dollars a day or less in
Speaker 1: real terms today? How would you live in two dollars
Speaker 1: a day or less, even if you're homeless, how would
Speaker 1: you live in two dollars a day or less? It's
Speaker 1: just unimaginable. So that stand of living that qualitive life,
Speaker 1: never showering or almost never having a bath or showering,
Speaker 1: eating very little, very simple and very little, and being hungry,
Speaker 1: working basically, you know, whenever there's light outside, not being
Speaker 1: able to read, not having a toilet or toilet paper.
Speaker 1: I mean, you could go on and on and on.
Speaker 1: It's just stunning. And people have no concept, no idea.
Speaker 1: They just take everything that exists today. Everything that exists
Speaker 1: today is taken for granted. This is this is the
Speaker 1: way it's always been, This is natural to human beings.
Speaker 1: It just all shows up out of nowhere. It just
Speaker 1: it just is. How could it be otherwise? One of
Speaker 1: the One of the most important things we can do,
Speaker 1: I think is tell people about how life used to
Speaker 1: be before capitalism, what it meant, Barbara, Thank you, Ron.
Speaker 1: Your shows directed to your viewers intelligence are refreshing, even
Speaker 1: if the news sucks. I am feeling despair at the
Speaker 1: proposed make of a Munich agreement of nineteen thirty eight. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know, I mean, I think despair is the right thing.
Speaker 1: It's I don't think and I don't think. I think
Speaker 1: this is true even of my audience. I don't think
Speaker 1: people realize how big of a betrayal this is, and
Speaker 1: how evil an enemy, how evil a thug Putin is,
Speaker 1: and how popular he is, that is, how many of
Speaker 1: the elites in Russia support him, or if anything, think
Speaker 1: he's too moderate. So the kind of culture, the kind
Speaker 1: of world, the kind of people were emboldening with this
Speaker 1: act is pretty pretty nuts. I got your email, by
Speaker 1: the way, Baba, and I'll actually be spending some time
Speaker 1: in Lisbon in August, so if you're around, maybe we
Speaker 1: can grab some coffee. Truth shall set you free? What
Speaker 1: do you think of flat tat that rand Paul proposed.
Speaker 1: He also wanted to eliminate property taxes yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm all for a flat tax. I haven't seen this
Speaker 1: specific proposal by Rand Paul. I'm more in favor of
Speaker 1: a sales tax and the repealing of the amendment that
Speaker 1: authorizes the income tax. I think a sales tax is
Speaker 1: better economically and easier to put in place and creates
Speaker 1: fewer distortive incentives, but relative in comparison to the existing
Speaker 1: tax code today, a flat tax that's simple that everybody
Speaker 1: can basically pay on a postcard, like what's his name
Speaker 1: Steve Forbes proposed decades ago. No deductions, no exemptions, no nothing.
Speaker 1: You made so much money, you pay a certain percentage
Speaker 1: and that's it. Yeah, I'm incredibly pro that. I think
Speaker 1: doing a property taxes is, by the way, under flat tax.
Speaker 1: I would also hope that that flat tax would apply
Speaker 1: really to everything, so it would apply to all the
Speaker 1: taxes would either go to zero or be at the
Speaker 1: flat tax rate, but that will also include tariffs would
Speaker 1: be zeroed out and everything else. And then in terms
Speaker 1: of eliminating property taxes, yeah, I mean, I think that's great,
Speaker 1: but property tax is a taxes levied by states primarily
Speaker 1: to funded education, so you know, states would have to
Speaker 1: agree to that, and they would have to find alternative
Speaker 1: waste to fund education as long as the education is
Speaker 1: funded by the government. Now I don't believe education should
Speaker 1: be funded by the government, but the reality is that
Speaker 1: it is funded by the government today. So what do
Speaker 1: you do, How do you replace that funding, what do
Speaker 1: you replace the property tax with? Or do you just
Speaker 1: cut spending? And of course that's true of all these
Speaker 1: tax cuts. Much much more important than taxes is spending,
Speaker 1: much much more important than taxes than cutting taxes, is
Speaker 1: cutting spending. And that's what needs to be done, That's
Speaker 1: what needs to happen. Silvanos, The very presence of the
Speaker 1: sixties counter culture revolution speaks that orofessors of the fifties were. Yes,
Speaker 1: and how intellectually corrupt the fifties were. That the professors
Speaker 1: of the fifties created the hippies of the sixties. That is,
Speaker 1: the professor of the fifties were Marxists, real Marxists. And
Speaker 1: the rebellion of the sixties was a rebellion against communism,
Speaker 1: against Marxism. That it was not in a sense radical
Speaker 1: or subject activist enough. This is the rise of the
Speaker 1: new left. You know, the old left was anti reason
Speaker 1: in the name of reason, and he was anti capitalist,
Speaker 1: and the new Left said, we need abandoned reason completely,
Speaker 1: and we need to abandon capitalism, but we also need
Speaker 1: to abandon communism in the name of egalitarianism and in
Speaker 1: the name of complete and out of subjectivism. And that's
Speaker 1: the hippies. You can see that an I RAN's talks
Speaker 1: articles on the New Left versus the Old Left the
Speaker 1: antiduster evolution. So the old left, the fifties left, was
Speaker 1: pro industrialization. The new Left of the nineteen sixties was
Speaker 1: anti industrialization, anti every element of capitalism, including industry, in
Speaker 1: the name of hugging trees in the name of the
Speaker 1: so called environment. So much much worse intellectually, ideologically, And
Speaker 1: it's the fifties that set us up for that, all right, Wes.
Speaker 1: Wes just came in with a sticker for fifty dollars.
Speaker 1: As I said, you two can now come in and
Speaker 1: support the show with the stick of Mary Ellen has
Speaker 1: done it. Thank you, Mary Ellen. And let's see who else.
Speaker 1: I'm just going through the list of people to see
Speaker 1: who else did stickers. No, not there, not there. I
Speaker 1: think that I think that's it. We've were sort of
Speaker 1: stickers today. You know, you can come in with Mary Aleen.
Speaker 1: I think did another sticker. She did too. Yes, there's
Speaker 1: Marie a Leene again. Two stickers from Mary Ellen. But
Speaker 1: you guys should come in with the stickers. You don't
Speaker 1: have to ask a question. Oh Savannas started us out
Speaker 1: with a with a stick a way way way in
Speaker 1: the beginning, so he was he was indeed the first.
Speaker 1: So please consider doing a sticker. You can do a
Speaker 1: buck ninety nine to ninety nine, any amount just to
Speaker 1: show the support for the show. There you go, y'all
Speaker 1: just did two buck fifty. Robert just did a buck
Speaker 1: ninety nine. We could do you know, one hundred buck
Speaker 1: of ninety nine's there's one hundred ninety nine dollars, which
Speaker 1: would get us past our goal for the second hour.
Speaker 1: So important though, again thanks to West for the fifty
Speaker 1: dollars that really really helped and moved us forward to
Speaker 1: where we need to be. And there's Linn doing twenty
Speaker 1: dollars and odf doing five, and yeah, we're chipping away
Speaker 1: nicely at our goals, all right, Chawsbot. One of the
Speaker 1: reasons I would like to live longer is so that
Speaker 1: I know what happens in the future. Yes, I agree completely.
Speaker 1: It's basically my primary reason for wanted to live longer
Speaker 1: is I'm just curious how this all works out. And
Speaker 1: of course that's really wanting to live forever, because whatever,
Speaker 1: whenever we reach the point of you know where I'm
Speaker 1: about to die, there's going to be a future then
Speaker 1: I want to know what happens then. So but yes,
Speaker 1: I'm just curious. It's like if I die, it's like
Speaker 1: you stop reading in the middle of a novel. That's
Speaker 1: not fun, that's not good. You want to keep going.
Speaker 1: All right, we're on a roll here with stickers. We
Speaker 1: got Lynn for twenty and our DF and Silvanos and
Speaker 1: super Cask and Colleen and Paul all coming in anywhere
Speaker 1: from ninety nine cents to twenty the whole range in between,
Speaker 1: so you two can can participate. All right, let us
Speaker 1: continue with the super check questions. We're still about ninety
Speaker 1: seven dollars short, so there's still five twenty dollar questions
Speaker 1: would be phenomenal right now, and we've got again we
Speaker 1: got plenty of time, no rush, so you can ask
Speaker 1: as many questions as you want today. I'll stick around
Speaker 1: and answer them, all right, Roberts says, what do you
Speaker 1: think of the phrase taxation is theft? I think it's
Speaker 1: inexact that invites confusion regarding the impropriety of various taxes.
Speaker 1: I don't particularly like it. I know what it's attributed to,
Speaker 1: and at the end of the day, a taxation is
Speaker 1: theft in a sense, but it doesn't distinguish between the
Speaker 1: fact that usually theft is something defined in the law,
Speaker 1: what constitutes theft, what doesn't constitute thefts defined in the law,
Speaker 1: and taxes are legal, So it's not theft in the
Speaker 1: sense of, you know, legally theft. It's and it's not
Speaker 1: even theft generally, it's something people don't like. A majority
Speaker 1: of people, overwhelming majority of people don't like theft. They're
Speaker 1: anti theft, they fight against theft, and yet the majority
Speaker 1: of people are for taxes. So when you say taxation
Speaker 1: is theft and you just throw it out there like that,
Speaker 1: it's it's mostly just confusing for people. It doesn't convey
Speaker 1: anything interesting unless you're willing to actually explain. But then
Speaker 1: by starting the explanation with something like taxation is theft,
Speaker 1: a lot of people are just gonna shut their minds off.
Speaker 1: You're some oh yeah, it's the crazy libertarian type instead
Speaker 1: of explaining what exactly is going on and in what
Speaker 1: sense it is the same in what sense taxation is theft.
Speaker 1: So I don't think it's a helpful statement. And when
Speaker 1: people throw out there, I kind of agree, but not really.
Speaker 1: At the same time, John says, I'm waiting for Trump
Speaker 1: to proclaim that he has achieved peace in our time.
Speaker 1: I think his argument is he would have achieved peace
Speaker 1: in his time if everybody would have recognized that he
Speaker 1: actually won the twenty twenty elections, right, they wouldn't be
Speaker 1: an a war in Ukraine, there would not be a
Speaker 1: war in Israel. There really would know be he wars
Speaker 1: anywhere in the world. So we missed out on peace
Speaker 1: in our time by by not recognizing the fact that
Speaker 1: he won in twenty twenty, and now he has to
Speaker 1: do all this work which he doesn't like, and sell
Speaker 1: out all of our allies in order to achieve peace
Speaker 1: in our time. But yeah, I would not be surprised
Speaker 1: if you got that phrase him to say that phrase. That's,
Speaker 1: of course the phrase that Chamberlain said after they signed
Speaker 1: the Munich Agreement, which basically capitulated to Hitler and embolden
Speaker 1: Hitler thought World War two. Soon after, Andrew says I
Speaker 1: said that every that even many objectivists avoid explicit selfishness.
Speaker 1: Capitalism is too often justified based on social utility. The
Speaker 1: sense of selfishness is too radical, even among defenders of freedom.
Speaker 1: If so, what's the cause, Well, it's a radical position.
Speaker 1: It goes up against everything people believe in the culture.
Speaker 1: It goes up against everything we were race to believe,
Speaker 1: It goes up against everything your audience believes. And to
Speaker 1: advocate for it requires explaining. And it's not easy to
Speaker 1: explain what you mean by it, and why is it
Speaker 1: so unpopular? And why of noll of the philosophers engaged
Speaker 1: with it? Why have no other philosophers advocated for it.
Speaker 1: It's a lot of work, so I and everything. Every
Speaker 1: time you say egoism, selfishness, self interest, you have to
Speaker 1: spend an hour explaining what you mean, because you cannot
Speaker 1: rely on the every people in the culture having any
Speaker 1: understanding of what it is that you mean. So I
Speaker 1: think those are the reasons why people are hesitant or
Speaker 1: avoided or you know, a little reluctant to do it.
Speaker 1: And then of course there is you know, we're all
Speaker 1: still struggling with the remnants of altruism in our own minds.
Speaker 1: Truth shalls that you free. Problem is our taxes is
Speaker 1: being used for things we don't need. Plus our dollar
Speaker 1: is taxic st eight times over, which is why Dolly,
Speaker 1: in my opinion, is losing value your thoughts. No, I
Speaker 1: don't think either of that has anything to do with it.
Speaker 1: Even if all the taxes were used for things that
Speaker 1: people needed, they would still be wrong. It would still
Speaker 1: be a moral to take from some and give to others,
Speaker 1: even if the people who are receiving get something they
Speaker 1: actually need. So the morality the legitimacy of taxes doesn't
Speaker 1: come from whether they provide something that somebody needs or not.
Speaker 1: They come from whether they're using force and coersion, whether
Speaker 1: they are being taken by force, whether they are or not.
Speaker 1: And of course, whether the government is exceeding its responsibility
Speaker 1: to protect individual rights or not. It shouldn't be doing
Speaker 1: anything other than protecting individual rights. And then you say
Speaker 1: our dollars tax six st eight times. I don't see
Speaker 1: the six d eight times. The dollar is taxed two
Speaker 1: to three times. I'm struggling to see where it's tax
Speaker 1: more than three times. Your tax on your income, you're
Speaker 1: taxing on capital gains, and you're tax on a sales tax.
Speaker 1: That's three times. But I don't see how that's connected
Speaker 1: to the dollar losing value. And indeed, it depends how
Speaker 1: you mean by the dollar losing value. It's it's definitely
Speaker 1: losing value and it's purchasing power. But that doesn't have
Speaker 1: anything to do with taxes. That has everything to do
Speaker 1: with the supply of money and the printing of money
Speaker 1: and the distribution of money. And then if it's not
Speaker 1: losing money against other currencies, it is losing money against gold.
Speaker 1: But again that has to do with the supply money,
Speaker 1: not with taxation. Not with taxation that taxes. You're taxing
Speaker 1: the money. There was taxes income, and was taxes capital gains,
Speaker 1: so it's a third tax. I don't see how it's
Speaker 1: an eight or nine tax. Gift taxes same thing. Your
Speaker 1: gift tax is not also taxes a debt tax. Those
Speaker 1: taxes are applied to different dollars. Your property taxes again
Speaker 1: applied to money you spent on the property. There was
Speaker 1: tax once's income, so it's a second time you taxed.
Speaker 1: So any given dollar is not taxed more than three
Speaker 1: times your state taxes and federal taxes. But remember that
Speaker 1: for most people, unless you live in a very high
Speaker 1: state tax environment, you get to deduct your state taxes
Speaker 1: from your federal taxes, so you're not paying double. Now
Speaker 1: in California you do. Okay, So in california's four times.
Speaker 1: Still not eight or nine, Still not six or eight.
Speaker 1: But the real loss of value has to do with
Speaker 1: worth inflating the multicupply William Ram's essay. The pop pedlars
Speaker 1: is relevant at all to the talk about USA D
Speaker 1: and feign aid in general, no real question. You're on
Speaker 1: fire today, yeah, I mean, but the pop pedals is
Speaker 1: relevant to everything. The pope pedlars is relative relevant to
Speaker 1: USA D. It's relevant to you know why some pole
Speaker 1: pedlers are not arguing against RFK and some are for RFK.
Speaker 1: It's relevant to every action of government today. That is,
Speaker 1: it's relevant to every aspect of the mixed economy. Once
Speaker 1: you have a mixed economy. The pop pedlars are everywhere, uh,
Speaker 1: inside the United States. Outside the United States, even people
Speaker 1: who typically are just productive human beings and don't have
Speaker 1: anything to do with Washington become put pole pedlars because
Speaker 1: that's the only way they can defend themselves against the
Speaker 1: onslaught from a mixed economy, from mixed economy government. So yeah,
Speaker 1: poor Pedlar's as relevant as ever, more so than ever.
Speaker 1: And thank you about me being on fire today. I'm
Speaker 1: always a fire, always apollows us as life is the
Speaker 1: standard of value and flourishing and flourishing. Would it not
Speaker 1: be in our best interest to get together to fund
Speaker 1: businesses which specialize in life enhancing and life extending research
Speaker 1: and development? Yes, yeah, absolutely, But that's exactly what venture
Speaker 1: capitalists do. That's exactly that. Plenty of businesses like that
Speaker 1: out there. You can find a variety of different ways
Speaker 1: to support them, by buying their products, by investing in them,
Speaker 1: by you know, seeding, providing seed capital. Lots of different
Speaker 1: ways in which you can support this industry that is
Speaker 1: extending and more importantly improving human life. Yeah. I mean
Speaker 1: whether we should is the people right here. I mean
Speaker 1: that depends on how much money you have, what are
Speaker 1: you spending it on? Do you know anybody in the field,
Speaker 1: How much level of expertise do you need to have
Speaker 1: in order to make it a proper investment in it?
Speaker 1: That is a more complexed question, but yeah, people should
Speaker 1: be investing in it, and people indeed are investing in it.
Speaker 1: Apollo Zeus West is best. Thank you, Apollo Zombie. Gallant
Speaker 1: said in a new interview that Israel had the opportunity
Speaker 1: to fully eliminate thousands of Chrismaala members with the walkie
Speaker 1: talkies in October twenty twenty three. BB said no. Week yes,
Speaker 1: BB said no, repeatedly. I mean, they had the ability
Speaker 1: for years, and he waited and waited and waited, and finally,
Speaker 1: I think with finally they decided they were going to
Speaker 1: take on Grisabella fully and completely. But it was late.
Speaker 1: They could have eliminated Grisbela as a threat as early
Speaker 1: as October twenty twenty three. They knew where Nozuela was.
Speaker 1: They could have killed Zuela. Everything they did they could
Speaker 1: have done ten months earlier. Now it's good that they
Speaker 1: did what they did, but earlier it would have been better.
Speaker 1: Saved more lives, prevented people from having to leave their homes,
Speaker 1: lots of stuff. I haven't missed any questions as far
Speaker 1: as I know. There's just a long list of them.
Speaker 1: I'll get to all of them in the order they
Speaker 1: were asked, But to remember, I always answer questions of
Speaker 1: twenty dollars or more first, and only then questions of
Speaker 1: twenty dollars less. So if you're if you're in a
Speaker 1: hurry and you need to have your answer question answered quickly,
Speaker 1: then make it a twenty dollars question. Andrew Ran in
Speaker 1: Virtue of Selfishness states the questioning her use of selfishness
Speaker 1: implied cowardness cowardice. Was she too harsh? I do think
Speaker 1: people are afraid of it, though I don't know if
Speaker 1: I would morally judge them for that per se well,
Speaker 1: I mean calling them cowards is a mal judgment to
Speaker 1: some extent, but it's it, you know, So I don't
Speaker 1: think you would hostly judge them because it takes time.
Speaker 1: They have to develop the the the courage, and they
Speaker 1: have to understand what she means. They have to understand
Speaker 1: the concept, They have to understand what it fully means
Speaker 1: before they're going to use it. So I agree that
Speaker 1: I would not judge them too harshly morally for a while.
Speaker 1: At some point you should, but everything in the objectivism,
Speaker 1: it takes time, all right. Cook California is doubling down
Speaker 1: on plastic bag bands I'm not surprised California's nuts about
Speaker 1: these things. Environmentalism is out of control in California, and yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not good. By the way, so is Puerto Rico.
Speaker 1: Plastic back situation in Puerto Rico is very very bad,
Speaker 1: very very bad. Plastic anything in Puerto Rico very bad. Austin,
Speaker 1: what would you say about claims the Big Ag and
Speaker 1: food is colonized in Puerto Rico and the global food
Speaker 1: supply also toxic chemicals and preservatives. I have no idea
Speaker 1: what that even means. What does it mean to colonize
Speaker 1: Puerto Rico? I mean, I wish Big AG was here,
Speaker 1: we'd have better food. I mean, part of the problem
Speaker 1: with Puerto Rico is we import most of our food
Speaker 1: and because of the Jones Act, it's very compassome in inefficient,
Speaker 1: and our food supply is not great, and we don't
Speaker 1: have a lot of local food because Big AG is
Speaker 1: not here. So I don't know what it means to colonize.
Speaker 1: I mean, Big Eggs should go everywhere in the world
Speaker 1: and produce massive quantities of food. If you don't like
Speaker 1: the food the Big Egg produces, don't buy it. It's
Speaker 1: very simple. There are plenty of options. That plenty of
Speaker 1: alternatives here in all of the world. I lost to say,
Speaker 1: you couldn't feed all the people in the world without
Speaker 1: big AG. It has lowered the cost of food to
Speaker 1: such a degree that people can eat, and now we
Speaker 1: have the problem of obesity. But that's a problem on
Speaker 1: self control, it's not a problem of BIGAG. And if
Speaker 1: it's a problem in demand, if we switch the demand
Speaker 1: to different types of food, BIGAG would follow. BIGAG would
Speaker 1: produce the kind of food that we would want. I'm
Speaker 1: not worried about toxic texic chemicals and preservatives. There's very
Speaker 1: little evidence in any of the literature that the kind
Speaker 1: of chemicals used to grow food and the kind of
Speaker 1: preservatives used in our agriculture have much or anything to
Speaker 1: do with our health. They don't seem to be affecting
Speaker 1: our health in a significant negative way, and there's plenty
Speaker 1: of research being done. Indeed, the phenomena of organic versus
Speaker 1: a non organic very very questionable about whether there's an
Speaker 1: advantage to eating organic, whether the nutrient new the organic
Speaker 1: is more nutrient rich than not. I'm skeptical about all
Speaker 1: of that. All of that, I mean, I think this
Speaker 1: seems to be research about what do you call it?
Speaker 1: Processed food? That you shouldn't eat processed food. It loses
Speaker 1: much of its nutritional value, and it adds a bunch
Speaker 1: of things that your body probably doesn't need. It might
Speaker 1: do harm, not clear, but other than that, all right,
Speaker 1: thank you, Austin Andrew. One of Trump's motives, in addition
Speaker 1: to attention power lost, is cynicism. He's obsessed with others
Speaker 1: getting over on him. He's a conspiracy manga. He fights
Speaker 1: against fraud, not for positive agenda. Yeah, I don't know
Speaker 1: that that's cynicism, but he's definitely constantly it's all derived
Speaker 1: from his low self esteem and is a lack of confidence.
Speaker 1: Is that he always thinks that somebody is pulling something
Speaker 1: over him, the Canadians are stealing our stuff, and that
Speaker 1: leads him to constantly be on the defensive and constantly
Speaker 1: you try to explain his losses with crazy with crazy ideas, Nrik,
Speaker 1: Is there a point in the world condition that shrugging
Speaker 1: makes sense? Sure? I mean I think first that point
Speaker 1: is going to vary for all of us very on,
Speaker 1: you know, to the extent to which the world is
Speaker 1: impacting us, the extent to which we feel constrained. It
Speaker 1: depends on our age and where we are in life,
Speaker 1: and which country were in, and what industry and what
Speaker 1: our profession is, and it depends on a lot of things.
Speaker 1: But in terms of the world, cerleinly with free speech
Speaker 1: goes some form of struggling is appropriate. Hasn't gone yet Austin.
Speaker 1: Why is healthcare so expensive? How do you know for
Speaker 1: sure that a free market would make it affordable and universal? Well,
Speaker 1: I don't know what universal means, and I don't care
Speaker 1: about universal. Is food, universal, iPhones? Universal is homes? Universal?
Speaker 1: I mean universal is not the standard by which I
Speaker 1: go by. Now affordable because I know because I understand
Speaker 1: how markets work, I know how industries work, I know
Speaker 1: how uses and businesses work, and I know that in
Speaker 1: a free market. In a free market, quality goes up
Speaker 1: and prices go down. At least prices go down per
Speaker 1: unit of quality. You see that in every market out there.
Speaker 1: The only things where prices go up and quality goes
Speaker 1: down are things where the government is involved ed, education, healthcare, housing,
Speaker 1: to some extent, anything that is affected by zoning. So
Speaker 1: there's nothing about healthcare that makes it unique, that makes
Speaker 1: it different. Yep, So I understand the laws of economics.
Speaker 1: I understand the laws of markets. It's like understanding the
Speaker 1: law of physics. How do you know that things? You
Speaker 1: know the next time you drop the apple, it's going
Speaker 1: to fall. How do you know how fast it will
Speaker 1: fall on Mars? Maybe on Mars it'll fall. Different because
Speaker 1: I know the laws of gravity, and I can extrapolate
Speaker 1: to Mars. I know the laws of business and economics
Speaker 1: that can extrapolate from every other place. The markets work,
Speaker 1: to healthcare. It's not different. Esoteric echotomy, Hey you're on.
Speaker 1: Is there a happy medium between the fifties nostalgia and
Speaker 1: the progress of today? Would like to see a synthesis
Speaker 1: best of both worlds. I don't see the point. Like
Speaker 1: the best of the nineteen fifties was a small government.
Speaker 1: That's about it. I mean, there's nothing interesting. I mean
Speaker 1: I'm a big, big, big, big, big promoter of progress,
Speaker 1: big promoter progress. So you know, it's it's generally from
Speaker 1: a material perspective, everything is better today. The movies were
Speaker 1: better in the fifties. The ideas that the universities that
Speaker 1: were being taught were not quite as destructive as they
Speaker 1: are today, but they were destructive. So no I want
Speaker 1: to I don't want to synthesis. I want better than
Speaker 1: the fifties and better than today. I want better. I
Speaker 1: want better in every dimension. And you know, if you
Speaker 1: were black in the fifties, it wasn't good. If you're
Speaker 1: a woman in the fifties, it wasn't good. If you
Speaker 1: were gay in the fifties, it wasn't good. If you
Speaker 1: were entrepreneur in the fifties, not as good as today,
Speaker 1: particularly if you were engineering oriented. But Americans were more mobile,
Speaker 1: more entrepreneurial. They and again, the government intervened less in
Speaker 1: important ways. There were no environmental regulations. But there's also
Speaker 1: less being produced, a lot less, a lot less being produced,
Speaker 1: and of lower quality. So I want abundance of stuff
Speaker 1: and of freedom. And that's not the best of both worlds.
Speaker 1: That's better than everything in terms of treating women or
Speaker 1: gays or blacks. I don't want to synthesis with the fifties.
Speaker 1: I want to get rid of the fifties. Austin follows
Speaker 1: up the healthcare Yes, can you explain how were details
Speaker 1: and real world facts on how free markets would make
Speaker 1: sure everyone could afford healthcare? So first, I can't make
Speaker 1: sure that everyone could afford anything. I don't care about everyone.
Speaker 1: I don't think the goal is to have a system
Speaker 1: where everybody can afford everything. You know, as I like
Speaker 1: to say, the wife beating drunk probably won't be able
Speaker 1: to afford healthcare. And I don't care. The standards should
Speaker 1: be can everybody who is working and being productive can
Speaker 1: afford healthcare? Absolutely? I can show all of that, and
Speaker 1: I have. You know, I've done this many many times.
Speaker 1: But if you search just recently, I've done shows on
Speaker 1: health care. So I did, what would a free market
Speaker 1: healthcare look like? And you know, health insurance, catastrophic health insurance,
Speaker 1: which is all the insurance you really need, costs less
Speaker 1: than a cell phone bill. Most poor people have cell phones,
Speaker 1: almost all of them. Do they pay a cell phone bill?
Speaker 1: They can pay for insurance, you know. And I go
Speaker 1: through how everything gets cheap in a free market. I go,
Speaker 1: you know, I've given an example in the past of
Speaker 1: lasik surgery keeps getting cheaper all the time, veterinary medicine
Speaker 1: keeps getting cheap and better all the time. Anything where
Speaker 1: you don't have the regulatory state and the whole third
Speaker 1: party ridiculous insurance schemes that we have today you get
Speaker 1: better and cheaper, and I've done it. I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: do it now. That's a three hour show, but I've
Speaker 1: done those shows. Just look, you're on healthcare or you know,
Speaker 1: and you'll find them. I've explained all that, so I
Speaker 1: didn't realize you wanted me to explain in detail right
Speaker 1: then and there for five bucks in three minutes, how
Speaker 1: it all works. But it's all explainable, it's all doable.
Speaker 1: Usin says, why does food so expensive at the supermarket? Solutions?
Speaker 1: Food is not expensive at to supermarket. Food is cheap
Speaker 1: to supermarket. Americans spend a smaller percentage of their income
Speaker 1: on food today than they probably ever have. I mean
Speaker 1: unless you unless you shop at Whole Foods. It's not
Speaker 1: expensive on a per hour basis, per hour of work basis,
Speaker 1: it's not expensive. Now to the expense, it's more expensive
Speaker 1: than it should be. Just check out groceries per hour
Speaker 1: worked in America. Let's see if we can do that
Speaker 1: on the fly. Grow because that's how you should measure it.
Speaker 1: How many hours do I have to work to get
Speaker 1: the groceries that I need in order to feed my family?
Speaker 2: Groceries per hour worked USA let's see, how do we
Speaker 2: do we have something over time?
Speaker 1: The dumb Yeah, I mean you have to find I
Speaker 1: think the Cato has the the human what do you
Speaker 1: got a bun? There is I know there is a
Speaker 1: project out there that has done this. Anyway, I can
Speaker 1: look it up sometime and get it to you. But
Speaker 1: get it to you. But no, grocies stores are not
Speaker 1: grossies are not that expensive. The more expensive than in Spain.
Speaker 1: But we also make a lot more money than in Spain.
Speaker 1: So again, on a pro our worked, you are not
Speaker 1: paying that much for groceries. Now, inflation has driven up
Speaker 1: recently grossy prices up, but on a per hour worked,
Speaker 1: grocery prices are now back to where they were before COVID,
Speaker 1: So you've made up in salary what you lost to inflation.
Speaker 1: So Ian says, human progress shows are dropping from thirty
Speaker 1: hours to four hours. So in nineteen nineteen you had
Speaker 1: to work thirty hours to pay for groceries. Today average
Speaker 1: American has to work four hours to pay for groceries.
Speaker 1: That's the kind of that's what I mean by it's
Speaker 1: not that expensive. The solution if you want to make
Speaker 1: it cheaper easy and get rid of the environmental regulations.
Speaker 1: Get rid of the FDA, get rid of land use regulations,
Speaker 1: get rid of tariffs. A lot of the food you
Speaker 1: buy in the supermarket is flown in from all kinds
Speaker 1: of countries. That's true. That if you want blueberries, blueberry
Speaker 1: twelve months a year, if you want kiwis twelve months
Speaker 1: a year, some months, they're gonna cost a lot of
Speaker 1: money because they're being imported from another country. In the
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties, you couldn't get blueberries twelve months a year.
Speaker 1: You couldn't get kiwis twelve months year. That's another way
Speaker 1: in which a standard living quality of life is much
Speaker 1: much better today than it was back then. Right, So no,
Speaker 1: I mean, get rid of the USDA. That's right. We
Speaker 1: have so much abundance in the supermarket. Just think about
Speaker 1: all the food that you have out of season in
Speaker 1: the food in the supermarket, and how good that is
Speaker 1: that you can have all that food twelve months a year.
Speaker 1: Even if you live in you know, god forsaken cold
Speaker 1: place like Michigan, you can still get all that wonderful
Speaker 1: food in the supermarket. That's amazing. But that costs money.
Speaker 1: It costs money to get it to you. So those
Speaker 1: are going to be slightly more expensive. I don't know
Speaker 1: if this next question a serious Austin, do I believe
Speaker 1: in ghosts? I mean do you? Does anybody? No? I
Speaker 1: don't believe in ghosts one hundred percent. Don't believe in ghosts. Ben, Hey, Ron,
Speaker 1: I live in New York City, but my French wife
Speaker 1: and I are moving to Paris in a few months.
Speaker 1: You have traveled Europe. Where do you think I should go? First? Florence? Oh? Wow, Well,
Speaker 1: first you're going to go to Paris, So enjoy Paris.
Speaker 1: There's lots to do in Paris. I mean, certainly, Florence
Speaker 1: is amazing, beautiful, stunning, in lots of great art. So yes,
Speaker 1: go to Florence. Amsterdam is great, London is great, but
Speaker 1: Florence is a good first destination. Yes, but there's so
Speaker 1: much to see in Europe. You know, every few weeks
Speaker 1: you should go for a weekends somewhere there is uh
Speaker 1: Copenhagen is amazing, uh you know, south of Spain, Southern Spain,
Speaker 1: Northern Spain, Sbastian there's some phenomenal restaurants. Of course, the
Speaker 1: central Vieia is beautiful. But for for art, Florence. After
Speaker 1: you've done all the museums in Paris, Florence. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: airplane tickets up, you know, super cheap if you willing
Speaker 1: to pay fly coach Apolosles. Could you summarize the core
Speaker 1: tenants of Western civilization and the inevitable results for the
Speaker 1: lives of those who live in such an environment? Thanks? Really,
Speaker 1: there's a question in five minutes, three minutes, two minutes. Sure.
Speaker 1: The core tenants of Western civilization as I see them,
Speaker 1: our reason is our basic means of knowledge and survival.
Speaker 1: Reason is the only source of knowledge. Individualism, the sanctity
Speaker 1: of the individual, and liberty capitalism. In other words, so reason, individualism, capitalism,
Speaker 1: those are the Those are the core tenants of Western civilization.
Speaker 1: And the inevitable result is freedom and capitalism and a great, great,
Speaker 1: great society and wealth and you know, endless prosperity. Jennifer.
Speaker 1: I knew this would get to Jennifer. I mean it
Speaker 1: was partially targeted at Jennifer and the rest of the Michigan's.
Speaker 1: Michigan is, who are on the chat? Why do you
Speaker 1: keep insulting Michigan? Makes me feel bad? Kidding? We have
Speaker 1: beautiful snow here now, I mean it's because I have
Speaker 1: there's a disproportionate number of people from Michigan listening to
Speaker 1: the show, and yeah, why not. I mean I could
Speaker 1: have said not Dakota, but like nobody would have responded,
Speaker 1: nobody would have cared. But I say Michigan, and like,
Speaker 1: like ten people in the chat like, whoa, he just
Speaker 1: insulted us, Stay, what's he doing? So it's more fun
Speaker 1: that way. That is the point, and the fact that
Speaker 1: it elicited a twenty dollars super chat question from you
Speaker 1: just increases the fund right, Thank you, Jennifer. All Right,
Speaker 1: Apoloss was Aristotle influenced by at all by Greek mythology.
Speaker 1: I don't know what that means. Sure he read it,
Speaker 1: I mean he lived in a world filled with it.
Speaker 1: But I don't know of direct influence with something philosophically
Speaker 1: that he said is something that he took for the
Speaker 1: mythology or inspired he was inspired by the mythology. I
Speaker 1: just don't know the extent to which that was the case,
Speaker 1: or if that was the case, we certainly was immersed
Speaker 1: in it. Lynn. People who complain about capitalism and use
Speaker 1: their handheld computers to do so usually get an earful
Speaker 1: from me. Good for you, Good for you, and you
Speaker 1: should keep doing that. Give people earfuls. Asoteric dichotomy. Is
Speaker 1: it immorl to be or once to be a housewife
Speaker 1: or maybe not immral but I grew up with mom
Speaker 1: at home. Later she got a degree in six figure job.
Speaker 1: Is this subpar?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: I mean, if a woman takes seriously the responsibility of
Speaker 1: keeping a house and raising children and doing all the
Speaker 1: things that that entails, then that is as important and
Speaker 1: productive a responsibility and a job and a purpose in
Speaker 1: life as anything else. And the fact that she could
Speaker 1: do that and then also go out and get a
Speaker 1: degree and have a job is amazing. Good for her.
Speaker 1: But no, there's nothing wrong in being a housewife. But
Speaker 1: it is true that many women don't want to be
Speaker 1: housewife or would like to have a career. I would
Speaker 1: like to do both, and our modern world allows them
Speaker 1: to have choices, options, and to do more than one thing,
Speaker 1: which is not true in the nineteen fifties. It was
Speaker 1: almost impossible to find a good job in the nineteen
Speaker 1: fifties if you were a woman. Peter Ruthling, thank you
Speaker 1: for interviewing Robert Zuberin. I'm amazed by how good he
Speaker 1: is at what he does, and how sound his ideas
Speaker 1: are even without objectivism. Yeah, it is amazing. There are
Speaker 1: people like that in particularly in particular fields, that are
Speaker 1: very very good even without. I mean, civilization couldn't have
Speaker 1: come to where it is today. People had to have
Speaker 1: objectivism to be good. They can be good, particularly what
Speaker 1: they do, even without objectivism, and that's how we got
Speaker 1: to where we are today. What did I start to
Speaker 1: think about Greek mythology? I have no idea. I do
Speaker 1: not know, Megan, regarding our FK Junior. I'm trying to
Speaker 1: start a gene therapy business. Help. Yeah, good luck. Don't
Speaker 1: use MR and A. Whatever you do, don't call it
Speaker 1: MR and A. Maybe call it something different. If you're
Speaker 1: using MR and A, don't admit it. Ever. Let's hope
Speaker 1: he is not taking too seriously. Let's hope they don't
Speaker 1: he doesn't do a massive power grab. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know what to hope. It's so pathetic and
Speaker 1: so it's so sad. Austin thoughts on the book Why
Speaker 1: Women Have Better Sex under Socialism? I don't have thoughts
Speaker 1: on the book. I haven't read it, but it's it's
Speaker 1: just on a title. I can tell it's a stupid
Speaker 1: book and untrue, completely untrue. So I think I read
Speaker 1: a review of it. It's just a it's a completely
Speaker 1: ridiculous premise, and the way the author approaches that, if
Speaker 1: I remember right, is completely bad. And yeah, I haven't
Speaker 1: read it. I don't plan to read it. I never
Speaker 1: wore read it. It's it sounds stupid as the Terrech economy.
Speaker 1: Twenty dollars questions are hard. Five dollars is one hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty characters versus twenty for twenty five, I can
Speaker 1: ask you six hundred characters of wisdom with five dollar questions.
Speaker 1: Favorite class in university? Thank you, Ron, Well, that's fine,
Speaker 1: but I was just saying, if you want them answered quickly,
Speaker 1: they have to be twenty favorite class in university. I
Speaker 1: don't remember. I don't know something in finance, probably yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't remember. I can't remember stuff like that.
Speaker 1: Life at university was a long time ago, and now
Speaker 1: I don't dwell in that past. Neo, what's the consequence
Speaker 1: to the West If Putin wins, well, I think more,
Speaker 1: and you know, gradually the West becomes more like Putin,
Speaker 1: which I think is what's happening already that is more thalitarian,
Speaker 1: more conservative in the negative sense, more religious, more palitarian.
Speaker 1: So I think Putin's influence will grow. Right wing political
Speaker 1: parties in Europe will grow in influence and become more
Speaker 1: and more like Putin because they will view him as
Speaker 1: a victor. I think they already do. The United States
Speaker 1: will become more like Putin's Russia. And that means Western
Speaker 1: civilization disappears, slowly, fades away and is replaced by a
Speaker 1: you know, regressive what do you call it, reactiontionary ideology
Speaker 1: that is anti the three anchors pillars tenants of Western civilization, reason,
Speaker 1: individualism and capitalism as a teric dichotomy to make a
Speaker 1: twenty dollars show today, I like your payment model of
Speaker 1: twenty dollars. Getting a priority and more time given per
Speaker 1: dollar amount feels fair trade. Thank you, Thank you. As
Speaker 1: a turch echontomy, you really appreciate the support Austin. Aren't
Speaker 1: zoning and building codes important? No, the zoning in particular,
Speaker 1: but so building codes very very They make housing expensive,
Speaker 1: They make the supply of housing in short supply. They
Speaker 1: restrict ability to experiment in terms of city layouts and
Speaker 1: city design, and neighborhood design and neighborhood layouts. They've caused
Speaker 1: a huge housing dage and crisis in the United States.
Speaker 1: But it's not just housing, it's it's UH the inability
Speaker 1: to build mixed use and UH and and skyscrapers and
Speaker 1: a lot of other things. So zoning is one of
Speaker 1: and Oh and they have reduced mobility. They've reduced the
Speaker 1: ability for Americans to travel UH or move from from
Speaker 1: state to state, which has far reaching consequences to entrepreneurship,
Speaker 1: to business formation, to a lot of other things. UH.
Speaker 1: Building codes UH are significant and reducing innovation in building. UH.
Speaker 1: You know, there should be UH codes developed by builders,
Speaker 1: by insurance companies, by banks who fund the building. The
Speaker 1: state has no business in zoning and telling you what
Speaker 1: you can and cannot build and where you can build
Speaker 1: it or not. So uh you know, but a lot
Speaker 1: of Frank Lloyd Wrights buildings would have never lived up
Speaker 1: to the exist building codes, although structurally they're completely sound.
Speaker 1: Austin should InCAR serrated people. Incarcerated people get free food
Speaker 1: in medical well, I mean yes, they're going to get
Speaker 1: free food in medical out top point. I don't think
Speaker 1: spend a huge amount of money trying to cure you know,
Speaker 1: you know, awful diseases. But they should while they're in jail,
Speaker 1: while they're separated, they should at least be fed and
Speaker 1: given basic medical care. And if they have money, by
Speaker 1: the way, if they have money, then they should be
Speaker 1: billed for all of that, they should have to pay
Speaker 1: for it. They don't have money, they get what the
Speaker 1: state provides. If they do have money, they should be
Speaker 1: built for it. Andrew, do you actively think people should
Speaker 1: care what you spend super chat money on? Your understanding
Speaker 1: about it, But it's like left us complaining that a
Speaker 1: company profits too much if it's excessive. No, I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't think people should care what I spend the
Speaker 1: money on, because what they're paying for is the value
Speaker 1: they're receiving. And if they're not receiving a value, don't pay.
Speaker 1: And if you are receiving a value, you probably should pay.
Speaker 1: How I spend it, what I spend it on is irrelevant,
Speaker 1: but it is important for people to understand that you're
Speaker 1: paying for my time. What I spend it on is irrelevant,
Speaker 1: but my time that is the show. The show requires time, prep, technology,
Speaker 1: and actually doing the show significant hours every day, and
Speaker 1: that the show just wouldn't exist if not for you
Speaker 1: paying for my time, I would do something else I
Speaker 1: have to. So I think that relationship between the show's
Speaker 1: existence and the money. It is a listener supported show.
Speaker 1: Without the supportive listeners, it doesn't exist. How I spend
Speaker 1: it on rent restaurants close certainly, not close obviously, But
Speaker 1: you know, is none of anybody's business. You're paying for
Speaker 1: the value you get from the show. You're paying for
Speaker 1: the product of my mind, the show for my time.
Speaker 1: All right? Soupcast supercask has the final question. I think,
Speaker 1: unless somebody jumps in with one in thirty seconds, can
Speaker 1: you give a rundown of US history in thirty seconds?
Speaker 1: Rundown of human history? Declaration of Independence? War of Independence
Speaker 1: America wins has it creates a constitution which is the
Speaker 1: best in the world, establishing freedom and capitalism. That constitution
Speaker 1: is eroded by slavery fight a civil war now to
Speaker 1: eradicate slavery in the North before the civil war, and
Speaker 1: then post civil war, massive industrialization, economic growth, and expansion
Speaker 1: to the West, becoming the most powerful militarily and economically
Speaker 1: country in human history by the break of World War One.
Speaker 1: For some reason, participates in World War One for a
Speaker 1: little bit more reasons. Participations in World War Two is
Speaker 1: the deciding fact in both, but it's progressively less free
Speaker 1: throughout that period, and post World War two thrives economically,
Speaker 1: but progressively slowly, is growing slower and less free progressively
Speaker 1: from the Great Depression. On something like that. I don't
Speaker 1: know if that's helpful. Probably not. Marilene, thank you for
Speaker 1: the sticker. Let's see. Did I miss anybody else's sticker
Speaker 1: thanking people? I thought there was Mary Mary. I remember
Speaker 1: I didn't Thank Mary Mary. Thank you Mary Mary. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Guys really appreciate it. Will I will be back tomorrow,
Speaker 1: same time, same place again, a three hour show, no
Speaker 1: rush tomorrow. We will get into I'm hoping we have
Speaker 1: time to get into the post constitutional the view of
Speaker 1: post constitutionalism, and I'm sure there'll be have with the
Speaker 1: topic to talk about. So I will see you all tomorrow,
Speaker 1: same time, same place. Thanks to all the super chatters,
Speaker 1: Thanks to all of the viewers. Don't forget I like
Speaker 1: the show. Before you leave. If you're not a subscriber,
Speaker 1: please subscribe. We're heading to forty thousand and and Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'd like to show share the show. Do all the
Speaker 1: things that you're supposed to do on YouTube by everybody,
Speaker 1: and Twitter and everywhere else.