Latest / Financial Survival Network / The Consequences of the Harris Economic Plan - More Inflation?!- Robert Bork Jr #6139

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The Consequences of the Harris Economic Plan - More Inflation?!- Robert Bork Jr #6139 · Financial Survival Network

0:00
Speaker 1: Look, she alleges that there's so much corporate greed, but
0:03
Speaker 1: in food that's ridiculous. For more than forty years, food
0:09
Speaker 1: prices rose around two and a half percent a year.
0:12
Speaker 1: Double digit food inflation began with the pandemic in the
0:17
Speaker 1: disruption of the supply chain. But you know, the massive
0:20
Speaker 1: negative effect economic effect was really exacerbated by Biden.
0:24
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0:52
Speaker 3: And welcome you are listening to and watching the Financial
0:56
Speaker 3: Survival Network. I'm your host, Carrie Letz. Hey, we're just
0:58
Speaker 3: about at the end of August. We got a phenomenal
1:02
Speaker 3: guest for you today. His name is Robert H. Bork,
1:07
Speaker 3: junior economist, journalist. He's known for the antitrust education Project,
1:15
Speaker 3: and obviously not enough people out there have been educated
1:20
Speaker 3: about antitrust because we still got a bunch of insane
1:23
Speaker 3: policies going on. But Robert it's great to have you
1:28
Speaker 3: on the show. We're talking about the proposed economic plan,
1:33
Speaker 3: if that's not too broad by the candidate for president,
1:38
Speaker 3: Kamala Harris not here to really talk about the efficacy
1:41
Speaker 3: of her campaign, or what she has or doesn't have,
1:47
Speaker 3: what she lacks as a candidate, or how she got there.
1:51
Speaker 3: We're just talking policy here, which is what I like
1:54
Speaker 3: to do best. After all, it is a family publication,
1:57
Speaker 3: a family show, so we don't really like to talk
2:00
Speaker 3: about the obscenity of politics as it's practiced in modern
2:05
Speaker 3: day America today. So price gouging, all right, Like I've
2:09
Speaker 3: always thought my supermarket was a price gouger.
2:13
Speaker 1: All right.
2:14
Speaker 3: But if they're gouging, they're really bad at it because
2:18
Speaker 3: they should be making like fifteen to twenty percent profit
2:21
Speaker 3: margins instead of a one and a half two percent.
2:27
Speaker 1: Where are they going wrong here? Where they're going wrong
2:30
Speaker 1: is they're in a competitive marketplace for groceries or vegetables,
2:35
Speaker 1: for all the things that you take home and serve
2:39
Speaker 1: your family for dinner. And so they can't gouge or
2:44
Speaker 1: as the Vice president would say, gauge, which she blew
2:48
Speaker 1: her lying. She blew her lying. In the thing. But
2:50
Speaker 1: it's a big word. Come on it. I wonder if
2:53
Speaker 1: somebody wrote it the wrong way because they couldn't spell
2:56
Speaker 1: on her staff. But you say, we were going to
2:58
Speaker 1: do this, so let's all right, So back to price gouge, engaging,
3:04
Speaker 1: the price gouging. Look, she alleges that there's so much
3:09
Speaker 1: corporate greed, but in food, that's ridiculous. For more than
3:15
Speaker 1: forty years, food prices rose around two and a half
3:18
Speaker 1: percent a year. Double digit food inflation began with the
3:22
Speaker 1: pandemic and the disruption of the supply chain. But you know,
3:26
Speaker 1: the massive negative effect, economic effect was really exacerbated by
3:31
Speaker 1: Biden's or we're doing politics, we're doing policy, you know,
3:35
Speaker 1: of his inflation reduction acts, pumping three trillion dollars into
3:41
Speaker 1: the pockets of consumers, leading to too much money and
3:45
Speaker 1: chasing too few goods, and that, you know, I think,
3:50
Speaker 1: I think this is correct. I've read this before. I
3:53
Speaker 1: read it again. Every hundred days, we add a trillion
3:58
Speaker 1: dollars to the national debt, correct, you know, And it's
4:01
Speaker 1: it's outrageous. And that's where these prices, those factors, that's
4:07
Speaker 1: where the prices that she of course come from, and
4:11
Speaker 1: the answer, of course, is to get the government out
4:14
Speaker 1: of the economy as much as possible, to let the
4:19
Speaker 1: marketplace actually begin to find its own level. But they
4:26
Speaker 1: don't understand, and they don't believe in the marketplace. They
4:30
Speaker 1: think it's all fixed by corporate corporation's private power. And
4:35
Speaker 1: there you know, they don't understand that you can't outlaw
4:40
Speaker 1: supply and demand, and only a fool or a liar
4:44
Speaker 1: believes that you can. And I'll let you let your
4:46
Speaker 1: audience decide which they are or both.
4:50
Speaker 3: Okay, But now, as a business person, and remembering the
4:55
Speaker 3: last rounded inflation that we had Bob back in the
4:59
Speaker 3: set these and eighties, Normally, under normal economic conditions, consumers
5:05
Speaker 3: are resistant price increases. But when you're in an inflationary cycle,
5:10
Speaker 3: I believe that consumers become they expect prices to go up.
5:16
Speaker 3: And you know, your average business wants to keep their
5:20
Speaker 3: margin constant or they want to increase it. So I'll
5:23
Speaker 3: give you some examples here and give me your thoughts
5:26
Speaker 3: on it, because I'm curious. Back in twenty twenty, McDonald's
5:33
Speaker 3: profit margin was twenty five percent, then in twenty one
5:38
Speaker 3: twenty two it went to thirty and then now twenty
5:42
Speaker 3: three twenty four, it's at between twenty eight to twenty
5:46
Speaker 3: nine percent. And the same thing has happened for each
5:51
Speaker 3: Chipolte went from twelve to fifteen. Burger King they were
5:56
Speaker 3: less greedy, they went from twenty to twenty one percent.
6:00
Speaker 3: Uway went from eight to ten eleven, Taco Bill less greedy,
6:06
Speaker 3: they went from fifteen to sixteen to seventeen percent. So
6:11
Speaker 3: there are companies that do take advantage of it, But
6:14
Speaker 3: isn't it really short term? They can't get away with
6:16
Speaker 3: us in the long run because competition.
6:19
Speaker 1: Is going to rear its head again. I those margins, Now, yeah,
6:23
Speaker 1: I had this question the other day from somebody saying, well,
6:28
Speaker 1: you know, they're monopolies, and you know, and what's your monopoly?
6:31
Speaker 1: You can raise prices. These companies are monopolas. But unless
6:37
Speaker 1: it's the bad food marketplace. But yeah, exactly. But you know,
6:45
Speaker 1: then once you're in control, you could raise prices. And
6:49
Speaker 1: I said, and how long is that going to last
6:51
Speaker 1: before somebody comes in and says I can beat that price.
6:57
Speaker 1: You know, I can offer my hamburger for much less.
7:03
Speaker 1: And that's what's going to happen. But the government, particularly
7:06
Speaker 1: this government doesn't believe in letting the marketplace work. That's
7:14
Speaker 1: they do. They think everything is every everything that happens
7:17
Speaker 1: is an expression of greed and private power, and they
7:22
Speaker 1: don't see a world in which a marketplace could be
7:26
Speaker 1: the solution. And like my father said in the Anti
7:28
Speaker 1: Trust Paradise, you know, the consumer is really the key
7:35
Speaker 1: to all of this. You know, the consumer Welfare standard
7:39
Speaker 1: which he put forward, in which the Supreme Court adopted,
7:41
Speaker 1: which has been the anti trust operating system for the
7:45
Speaker 1: last forty five years, is it's a principle that allows
7:50
Speaker 1: you know, it puts the consumer at the center. And
7:52
Speaker 1: if we would just actually put consumers at the center
7:55
Speaker 1: of some of these other things that we're talking about
7:58
Speaker 1: here and let the market place, let them decide, let
8:01
Speaker 1: the market work. Gouging may happen briefly, but it's not
8:08
Speaker 1: sustainable right right.
8:10
Speaker 3: And to give to follow up on the McDonald's thing
8:15
Speaker 3: is they've seen their first sales decline since twenty twenty.
8:20
Speaker 3: They're rethinking their price increases and their margin expansion, and
8:27
Speaker 3: they're coming out with a new burger.
8:30
Speaker 1: And then McRib I mean, you know they're panicking over there. Yeah,
8:34
Speaker 1: and they're going to extend their five dollars meal deal.
8:38
Speaker 1: So you see, yeah, you can do it in the
8:40
Speaker 1: short run, it makes sense, but then competitive market is
8:45
Speaker 1: going to rear its ugly head for lack of a
8:49
Speaker 1: better term, And you know, they always fail to appreciate
8:54
Speaker 1: that there are substitutes, like, hey, I can make a
8:58
Speaker 1: cheaper burger now at home than going to McDonald's. And
9:03
Speaker 1: you know, if I use paper plates, I could just
9:05
Speaker 1: throw out the dishes and not even worry about it,
9:08
Speaker 1: right right, yeah, look again, I they're you know, unpleasant
9:17
Speaker 1: things happen in the economy, things that we don't like.
9:19
Speaker 1: WED like to be different. But I find generally speaking
9:23
Speaker 1: that the bad things are a result of government intervention
9:28
Speaker 1: and the good things that happen are a result of
9:32
Speaker 1: the private sector and competition and innovation. But unfortunately the
9:41
Speaker 1: government doesn't think that way. Even Republicans don't think that way. Yeah,
9:45
Speaker 1: for the most part, and certainly these days there's so
9:48
Speaker 1: many Republicans in the Senate and the House now who
9:52
Speaker 1: fashion themselves as conservatives and thinks she's doing a great
9:57
Speaker 1: job at the FTC that I wonder what happened to
10:02
Speaker 1: the traditional traditional conservative economics. Maybe that'll come back I'm
10:10
Speaker 1: not sure we have to wait till after Trump before
10:12
Speaker 1: that happens.
10:13
Speaker 3: But yeah, well, it is fascinating that these people have
10:17
Speaker 3: absolutely no conception. Now I remember, I'm old enough. When
10:23
Speaker 3: Reagan came in, the first thing he did was decontrol
10:28
Speaker 3: energy prices. Oil prices they were fixed at the barrel
10:33
Speaker 3: head throughout the United States, and initially this caused a
10:37
Speaker 3: price increase, and they said, oh my god, we're going
10:39
Speaker 3: to have two dollars gasoline, which we'd be loving to
10:43
Speaker 3: have now.
10:45
Speaker 1: And what happened.
10:46
Speaker 3: He unleashed competitive forces in the market, and the price
10:51
Speaker 3: of gas dropped below a dollar. And you know, no
10:55
Speaker 3: one could believe it.
10:56
Speaker 1: Now.
10:57
Speaker 3: He never got any credit for this, other than maybe
11:00
Speaker 3: in certain economic circles, but that was a direct result
11:04
Speaker 3: of decontrolling prices.
11:06
Speaker 1: And you know what happened.
11:07
Speaker 3: We never had another energy crisis where people were waiting
11:11
Speaker 3: online to buy gasoline to fill up their cars because
11:16
Speaker 3: there was a so called shortage. And you know, as
11:21
Speaker 3: an economist, Austrian with an Austrian bent, you know, the
11:26
Speaker 3: best allocator of any goods, any good or service, is
11:31
Speaker 3: the price, right right.
11:33
Speaker 1: It's the fairest too, isn't it. It doesn't discriminate against
11:39
Speaker 1: class or race or anything, which is one of the
11:41
Speaker 1: reasons why I get so wound up when I see
11:44
Speaker 1: this focus on changing. Coming back to my reason for
11:49
Speaker 1: being protecting the consumer welfare stated, then they start wanting
11:53
Speaker 1: to introduce other issues other than efficiency and price and
11:56
Speaker 1: innovation and things like that, start talking about a worker
12:00
Speaker 1: and equity and all that stuff. All that does is
12:03
Speaker 1: skew everything to higher prices. Yeah, I had a professor
12:10
Speaker 1: at law school and he said fair is a sissy word.
12:15
Speaker 1: Who was that? Oh god, it was way back when.
12:18
Speaker 1: I think it was my towards professor in law school.
12:23
Speaker 1: But yeah, like, hey, prices go up, prices go down.
12:28
Speaker 1: But if you look back, if we hadn't increased productivity
12:35
Speaker 1: so dramatically over the years, the dollar would buy zero
12:39
Speaker 1: at this point, wouldn't it correct? Absolutely correct?
12:44
Speaker 3: So how do you educate the people who were responsible
12:49
Speaker 3: for making these often disastrous decisions. Is there a way
12:54
Speaker 3: to educate them or do we just need to remove
12:58
Speaker 3: as much power from the ruling class as possible.
13:03
Speaker 1: They don't know how you do that either. Well, Supreme
13:07
Speaker 1: Court seems to have made a move in that direction. Actually,
13:12
Speaker 1: in some ways restoring power to Congress and taking it
13:15
Speaker 1: away from the independent agencies that will help educating them
13:21
Speaker 1: if they want to be educated, would help, which is
13:24
Speaker 1: what we try to do, and we try to do
13:27
Speaker 1: it in a way that they understand that it's in
13:29
Speaker 1: their self interest and the self interest of their constituents
13:36
Speaker 1: to stick with this consumer welfare standard, which is a
13:44
Speaker 1: neutral principle. It's not republican, it's not big D democrat,
13:49
Speaker 1: it's low it's small D democratic. And it's the consumers
13:53
Speaker 1: who make the decisions and not the government. And now
13:56
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that there aren't reasons why one would
14:00
Speaker 1: investigate and perhaps bring a case, but you know, against
14:05
Speaker 1: a monopolist or against you know, about a deal that
14:09
Speaker 1: could lead to monopoly. But generally speaking, I think business
14:17
Speaker 1: knows best about what it needs to do to create
14:22
Speaker 1: more efficiency and innovate than the government does. And the
14:26
Speaker 1: government is always like you know, a decade behind, trying
14:30
Speaker 1: to trying to you know, with industrial policy, trying to
14:33
Speaker 1: use antitrust law, trying to use the power of government
14:36
Speaker 1: to create, you know, to create a situation that they
14:42
Speaker 1: think would be preferable within the one We have none
14:46
Speaker 1: of those things ever, work. I can't imagine. You know,
14:50
Speaker 1: the worst monopoly that there ever was, perhaps was AT
14:55
Speaker 1: and T, and that was a government created monopoly in
15:00
Speaker 1: in the telephone system. When they got rid of that,
15:03
Speaker 1: I got, you know, now we're talking over cell phones
15:05
Speaker 1: to each other with video. So, hey, what about the CAAB,
15:09
Speaker 1: the Civil Aeronautics Bureau, I think it was called our board, And.
15:14
Speaker 3: They had all the prices fixed in the sixties seventies
15:18
Speaker 3: in air travel and then somebody got what was his name, KHN,
15:22
Speaker 3: got the brilliant idea of just getting rid of it. Yeah,
15:26
Speaker 3: and then you know, like, look, we've got concentration in
15:30
Speaker 3: the airline industry. There's definitely barriers to entry, a lot
15:33
Speaker 3: of them government imposed, but on an inflation adjusted basis,
15:39
Speaker 3: it's never been cheaper to travel. More people are traveling
15:42
Speaker 3: than ever. And that's just one example. We got rid
15:45
Speaker 3: of the Interstate Commerce Commission another one, and we got
15:51
Speaker 3: to return to this. So you brought up indirectly, and
15:55
Speaker 3: I'll bring it up the Chevron case. That was just
15:59
Speaker 3: a recent overthrown which overturned by the Supreme Court, which
16:04
Speaker 3: said basically that hey, courts don't know, government doesn't know.
16:10
Speaker 3: The agencies are the experts, So anything they do, unless
16:13
Speaker 3: it's flat out illegal, we have to defer to it.
16:17
Speaker 3: And now, and I haven't talked with anybody about this,
16:20
Speaker 3: so it's really opportune that you're here. What are the
16:22
Speaker 3: long term effects? I mean, Congress, like you said, has
16:26
Speaker 3: to take back responsibility. You can't basically climate change. They
16:34
Speaker 3: haven't passed any laws about climate change, but the EPA
16:38
Speaker 3: was attempting to use existing rules and statutes as a
16:42
Speaker 3: justification to regulate carbon and gases, shut down power plants
16:48
Speaker 3: all this. How profound is the impact here, Bob.
16:52
Speaker 1: I don't think we've fully realized how profound the impact
16:55
Speaker 1: is going to be. If this begins over the next
16:59
Speaker 1: couple of Congresses, UH, to result in in members of
17:03
Speaker 1: Congress actually doing their jobs and making and making the
17:08
Speaker 1: decisions that we have asked them and put them in
17:11
Speaker 1: power to make, and not delegating it to unelected so
17:17
Speaker 1: called independent agencies, then I think it could be serious.
17:23
Speaker 1: We may actually see a situation that that where where
17:30
Speaker 1: members of Congress actually UH will have to have hearings
17:34
Speaker 1: and decide things in public, you know, and UH mayor
17:39
Speaker 1: and right and and there their re election will depend
17:43
Speaker 1: on whether or not. You know, they can't hide behind
17:45
Speaker 1: an independent agency and about climate change or any of
17:48
Speaker 1: any number of other things. Uh, yeah, it'll belonged to them,
17:54
Speaker 1: and that'll probably rainy in some of the craziness. Yeah.
17:58
Speaker 3: And you know, the media, other than lamenting it, the
18:04
Speaker 3: the overruling of the Chevron.
18:08
Speaker 1: Standard, there's been no coverage of it. Yeah. You hear
18:13
Speaker 1: some people like, you know, upset about it whatever, but
18:17
Speaker 1: you know, there really there's been no blowback yet. But
18:23
Speaker 1: when the courts have to start striking down all these
18:26
Speaker 1: rules and regulations, I mean conceivably, like twenty five percent
18:31
Speaker 1: a third of the regulations that have been passed, aren't
18:34
Speaker 1: going to muster that test, are they? No? Now? And
18:39
Speaker 1: you know, I'm getting back to Vice President Harris and
18:44
Speaker 1: her price gouging policy. She wants to put the the
18:52
Speaker 1: responsibility for investigating and adjudicating these things in the Federal
18:57
Speaker 1: Trade Commission, Lena Khan and Marxist and it's just not
19:05
Speaker 1: going to work because the FTC doesn't have actual congressional authority,
19:11
Speaker 1: statutory authority to do this. So so so much of
19:14
Speaker 1: this is actual bs. You know, let's throw everything against
19:18
Speaker 1: the wall now for the election and then say, oops,
19:21
Speaker 1: I guess we really couldn't do that. But you know,
19:24
Speaker 1: if she gets a majority, if she wins and she
19:26
Speaker 1: gets the majority of the Senate of the House, who knows,
19:28
Speaker 1: maybe they will do that. Then the Supreme Courts will
19:32
Speaker 1: in two or three terms have to knock it down. Yeah,
19:35
Speaker 1: that's problem.
19:37
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, look, the gun laws are basically all
19:41
Speaker 3: struck down in one Supreme Court decision three years ago,
19:46
Speaker 3: maybe is it four years ago? And now we're still
19:50
Speaker 3: fighting over this. The cases all over the place. Some
19:54
Speaker 3: have adhered to Justice Thomas's decision, others have tried to
20:00
Speaker 3: do workarounds all of this. And you know, obviously we're
20:05
Speaker 3: coming to the point where maybe they'll do what they
20:08
Speaker 3: did with voting rights and segregation. They'll start appointing special
20:13
Speaker 3: masters for all these states and say, you know, you
20:17
Speaker 3: got to go with the special Master and do what
20:20
Speaker 3: he says, or we're just going to strike everything.
20:23
Speaker 1: Now I worry greatly about this country when if it's
20:29
Speaker 1: all going to fall on the Supreme Court and how
20:32
Speaker 1: long can how long can the Supreme Court hang on?
20:35
Speaker 1: They're trying to they try to pack the court, they're
20:38
Speaker 1: trying to put in term limits. And I can't I
20:45
Speaker 1: can't believe I grew up at a time when politics
20:49
Speaker 1: was a little less combative and nasty and ideological. But
20:55
Speaker 1: I guess that was a time when the Democrats controlled
20:57
Speaker 1: everything and so therefore they didn't.
20:58
Speaker 3: Have to be and the media was monopoly itself. By
21:04
Speaker 3: their own words, they should have broken that one up
21:07
Speaker 3: a long time ago.
21:10
Speaker 1: Yes, you know, I was a journalist for a dozen
21:12
Speaker 1: years before I decided it was just too corrupt and
21:14
Speaker 1: I left. Good move, good move. Hey, so anti trust policy.
21:20
Speaker 3: So the Justice Apartment says that Jet Blue can't merge
21:25
Speaker 3: with Spirit, spirits hanging on, they're losing money. But then
21:29
Speaker 3: they say that Alaska Air can merge with Hawaiian Air,
21:33
Speaker 3: which is similarly situated to Spirit. I mean, there's no
21:39
Speaker 3: consistency here.
21:41
Speaker 1: No, there isn't. And I really wonder what rule you know,
21:48
Speaker 1: that's the problem. If you don't have a standard. Again,
21:51
Speaker 1: I come back to the Consumer Welfare Center, and it's
21:54
Speaker 1: just all political choices, it's all subjective choices. Then the
22:03
Speaker 1: airline industry, every industry doesn't know what it really is
22:07
Speaker 1: allowed to do. You do we have to call up
22:11
Speaker 1: Lena Khan and say, we're thinking of buying a box
22:14
Speaker 1: of paper clips. Is that okay with you?
22:18
Speaker 3: We're buying a box of paper clips so we can
22:21
Speaker 3: count them and just save money, right, kind of this
22:25
Speaker 3: It is madness.
22:26
Speaker 1: It's utter madness.
22:27
Speaker 3: And as you so eloquently stated prior, the government doesn't
22:32
Speaker 3: know what it's doing most of the time, which is
22:35
Speaker 3: why you can't keep giving them more things to do,
22:38
Speaker 3: because then you wind up like California.
22:40
Speaker 1: Right right, right? All right?
22:44
Speaker 3: So education, you know, that's one thing, like the One
22:47
Speaker 3: Party says, oh, education is so important, and then when
22:51
Speaker 3: you try to educate them about issues.
22:54
Speaker 1: That really are important, they don't want to hear about it. Yeah,
23:00
Speaker 1: I'm not sure what else to say to that. It's true, like, hey,
23:04
Speaker 1: education work great.
23:05
Speaker 3: People are smoking a fraction of the amount of tobacco
23:08
Speaker 3: they used to smoke, right, and you know, hopefully cancer
23:12
Speaker 3: rates will go down at least partly as a result
23:15
Speaker 3: of that and the heart attacks and all that.
23:18
Speaker 1: So it worked there. It can work with the other
23:21
Speaker 1: stuff too, if we just let it right. Well, and
23:25
Speaker 1: I've got to say, if we believe in the freedom,
23:29
Speaker 1: then people should have the freedom to you know, kill themselves.
23:33
Speaker 1: I don't mean that literally, but in terms of but
23:36
Speaker 1: I do think that we ought to educate people about
23:40
Speaker 1: the benefits of certain lifestyle things. But then we got
23:44
Speaker 1: to let them they're gonna do. Yeah, the balls in
23:48
Speaker 1: your court. We did all we could now held you.
23:51
Speaker 1: The rest is up to you because we can't do
23:53
Speaker 1: anything else. Uh huh. But we are the government, so
23:56
Speaker 1: we can, you know, come in and slap ugly warning
24:00
Speaker 1: out on products, and we can try to remove products.
24:03
Speaker 1: We can try to raise the prices so that you
24:05
Speaker 1: won't use them, and uh yeah SCYN taxes, Yeah, yeah,
24:10
Speaker 1: syn taxes. Look, look, the country was built upon the
24:15
Speaker 1: tobacco industry, all right, either going to keep it legal
24:19
Speaker 1: or you're going to get rid of it.
24:21
Speaker 3: But they don't really want to get rid of it,
24:22
Speaker 3: and they don't really want people to stop smoking because
24:25
Speaker 3: there's huge amounts of tax revenue that come in from
24:28
Speaker 3: all these syntaxes. Right right, that's what Let's look ahead
24:33
Speaker 3: to electric cars. I mean, the roads and so many
24:37
Speaker 3: other things are built.
24:38
Speaker 1: On gas taxes. If really, if they really really get
24:43
Speaker 1: rid of gasoline or reduce it, you know substantially, whether
24:49
Speaker 1: think we're going to have charging taxes and you know
24:53
Speaker 1: the damn things are the dam fakes are too expensive already,
24:56
Speaker 1: and there are no charging stations. Well when you use
24:59
Speaker 1: a public charger.
25:01
Speaker 3: Basically, I have an EV and not because I think
25:04
Speaker 3: I'm going to save the world other reasons and I
25:07
Speaker 3: do like it a lot, but has nothing to do
25:09
Speaker 3: with why they're being marketed to the public. But you
25:14
Speaker 3: know it goes evs when you go to public charging station.
25:19
Speaker 3: It can cost as much or more than gasoline from
25:22
Speaker 3: those stations and take five hours, right like forty minutes.
25:27
Speaker 3: But you know, when you actually think about it, if
25:29
Speaker 3: you have a home charger, like that's why I tell people,
25:32
Speaker 3: if you don't have a charger at home, don't even
25:35
Speaker 3: bother with it is just going to be time and money.
25:38
Speaker 3: Unless you're a very infrequent driver, go for it. But
25:42
Speaker 3: you know, to be giving me seventy five hundred dollars
25:46
Speaker 3: because I bought an EV is the height of insanity,
25:50
Speaker 3: isn't it?
25:50
Speaker 1: I think?
25:51
Speaker 2: So?
25:52
Speaker 1: Yeah? And there's no limit to that, right, there is
25:55
Speaker 1: no limit if they sell one EV or they sell
25:59
Speaker 1: ten million, and everybody gets tax credit as well as
26:02
Speaker 1: it meets the criteria, right, right, and actually, and actually
26:06
Speaker 1: who is paying for that all of the rest of
26:09
Speaker 1: the people who don't have them and couldn't afford to
26:12
Speaker 1: buy them.
26:12
Speaker 3: Anyway, right right, I mean economically it's not really a
26:17
Speaker 3: bad deal, especially with the tax credit. But if you
26:20
Speaker 3: couldn't sell it without the subsidy, then you shouldn't sell it, right,
26:25
Speaker 3: isn't it basic? And when you subsidize stuff, you create shortages,
26:30
Speaker 3: and when you tax it then you create surpluses.
26:35
Speaker 1: Right right, So as a Austrian economist, what do you
26:38
Speaker 1: think You're perfectly happy to enjoy the subsidy.
26:42
Speaker 3: And hey, look, it's kind of like it's easy to
26:46
Speaker 3: justify because as a tax paying individual, they're using my
26:50
Speaker 3: money for so many useless things. I can I can
26:54
Speaker 3: rationalize it. Okay, it might not be true, But am
26:58
Speaker 3: I supposed to like to stick to my morality when
27:04
Speaker 3: it's to my advantage?
27:05
Speaker 1: Not to?
27:06
Speaker 3: I mean, it's a hard thing to do it. Most
27:08
Speaker 3: people won't do it. Now, I was going to buy
27:10
Speaker 3: it anyway, I just took it. I guess I could
27:13
Speaker 3: decide not to file the paperwork and forego my tax preadit,
27:17
Speaker 3: But what good is that going to do?
27:19
Speaker 1: Okay? Right? Yes, I love a good rationalization when I
27:23
Speaker 1: hear what Hey, I admit it, I admit it.
27:26
Speaker 3: But everybody, everybody pursues. The whole theory of economics is
27:33
Speaker 3: in a free market, everybody pursues their own economic interest,
27:38
Speaker 3: you know, without violating the rights of others first and foremost.
27:44
Speaker 3: But you pursue your own economic interest, your own interest,
27:47
Speaker 3: or your family, your community.
27:49
Speaker 1: And all that. Right. So that's what Milton Friedman says. Yeah,
27:53
Speaker 1: and it works. Right. I'm not greedy, it's the other
27:56
Speaker 1: guy is greedy. Right. Yeah, so I'm greedy, but I'm
27:58
Speaker 1: greedy for a good call me case. I guess.
28:06
Speaker 3: I guess when you carry my rationalization through to everybody
28:10
Speaker 3: else and all the other money they're getting, and the
28:13
Speaker 3: corporate welfare and all the money that's been giving out,
28:18
Speaker 3: that's the whole preps and the problem. Right, get rid
28:20
Speaker 3: of their subsidies, not mine. But I'm willing to say
28:24
Speaker 3: I'll forego my subsidy if you get rid of everybody
28:27
Speaker 3: else's too.
28:29
Speaker 1: Right, none of us are willing to actually live by
28:33
Speaker 1: the principles we espouse. So when I turned seventy next
28:36
Speaker 1: year and I apply for my Social Security benefits, I'm
28:41
Speaker 1: going to take them.
28:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, you paid it, and there you have the
28:44
Speaker 3: best rationalization of all you paid into it, and you're
28:48
Speaker 3: going to be lucky to break even on the deal.
28:50
Speaker 1: Right, you've been in.
28:52
Speaker 3: A private account mimicking the market by only a third,
28:57
Speaker 3: you would be be getting five times more social security
29:02
Speaker 3: than you're getting now, right, it's a deal for us,
29:05
Speaker 3: is a great deal for our parents because they got
29:08
Speaker 3: many times more than what they put in. But you know, okay,
29:12
Speaker 3: so so where do we start here?
29:14
Speaker 1: All right? If we all like go to the poker
29:17
Speaker 1: table and we're all putting our subsidies into the pot here, right,
29:22
Speaker 1: and we see, yes, hey, we're going to start from
29:24
Speaker 1: the beginning. But so hard to do that because oh,
29:28
Speaker 1: you can't let Boeing go bankrupt, right, Boeing's vital to
29:31
Speaker 1: the national interest. We can't allow that. And the airlines too,
29:34
Speaker 1: because everybody wants to fly. Right, Well, they're only one
29:37
Speaker 1: hundred thousand planes parked that in Arizona or something, right,
29:40
Speaker 1: so yeah, well you know, and they're not getting any younger,
29:44
Speaker 1: like the repit right, right, Hey, how do we connect
29:48
Speaker 1: with you on the web? How do we get your work? Well,
29:52
Speaker 1: the Antrust Education Project dot org is our principal social
29:56
Speaker 1: media platform and all of my blogs and hop show
30:00
Speaker 1: up there. You can also check us out on Twitter
30:05
Speaker 1: ex elks, the site formerly known as Twitter. That's right
30:10
Speaker 1: at antitrust Edu because it's you know, the handles are
30:16
Speaker 1: too short, so okay, excellent.
30:19
Speaker 3: Well the links in the show notes of this interview
30:21
Speaker 3: on Financial Survival Network. And while you're there, please sign
30:25
Speaker 3: up for your free newsletter. Mister Bork, it's been an
30:27
Speaker 3: absolute pleasure and honor to talk about these issues with you.
30:31
Speaker 3: Wish you the best and we'll have you back on
30:33
Speaker 3: at some point.
30:34
Speaker 1: I'd love to do that.
30:35
Speaker 2: Thank you very much, Thanks for listening to carry Letz's
30:38
Speaker 2: Financial Survival Network, your solution to today's trying times. For
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