Latest / Rich Valdés: This is America! / Iran Capitulates?, Interview: EJ Antoni, Isolation
Transcript
- 0:08Speaker 1: This is America with Rich Valdez powered bipolitweek dot Com and.
- 0:13Speaker 2: Rich Valdees is with US former Christian Administration official. You
- 0:16Speaker 2: worked at Chris Christie and in Fallistas on a lot of
- 0:18Speaker 2: public service stuff.
- 0:19Speaker 3: Rich Valdez Communist now with the Washington Times. This is America, Richiev.
- 0:23Speaker 3: You're on the air with the Nation of the Nation
- 0:26Speaker 3: with America with your host, Rich Valdez. What's up, America.
- 0:31Speaker 3: I am Rich Valdez. Valdez with an US at Rich
- 0:33Speaker 3: Valdez on all of the social media. Welcome to the
- 0:37Speaker 3: Monday Night. No it's not mony, it's Tuesday Night edition
- 0:39Speaker 3: of This is America. I am Rich Valdes seventeen blocks
- 0:43Speaker 3: away from Madison Square Garden here in New York City
- 0:46Speaker 3: at our Times Square studio, and there is a bit
- 0:49Speaker 3: of breaking news that I want to share with you.
- 0:52Speaker 3: I don't think we have the breaking news music that
- 0:54Speaker 3: I like. I like the old school ABC news breaking
- 0:57Speaker 3: news music that goes anyway. So just imagine that's still
- 1:05Speaker 3: playing in the background, getting all dramatic and breaking news.
- 1:11Speaker 3: The Iranians have peed their pants. They said, please do
- 1:16Speaker 3: not end our civilization in the name of Allah. We
- 1:21Speaker 3: want to continue to exist. We want to make a
- 1:24Speaker 3: deal with President Trump El Trumpito den Alldos Magnus, the
- 1:27Speaker 3: forty fifth and forty seventh President of these United States,
- 1:31Speaker 3: El President Donald J. Trump, And that just happened moments ago.
- 1:37Speaker 3: Here we go based on conversations with Prime Minister Shabaz
- 1:40Speaker 3: Sharif and Field Marshal Assim Munir of Pakistan and wherein
- 1:47Speaker 3: they requested that I hold off the destructive force being
- 1:51Speaker 3: sent tonight to Iran and subject to the Islamic Republic
- 1:55Speaker 3: of Iran agreeing to the complete, immediate and safe opening
- 1:58Speaker 3: of the strait of our moves, I agreed to suspend
- 2:01Speaker 3: the bombing attack of Iran for a period of two weeks.
- 2:05Speaker 3: I should be doing this in my eld Trumpedo voice.
- 2:08Speaker 3: This will be a doublet sided ceasefire. The reason for
- 2:11Speaker 3: doing so is that we have already met and exceeded
- 2:14Speaker 3: all military objectives and very far along with a definitive
- 2:19Speaker 3: agreement concerning long term peace with Iran and peace in
- 2:25Speaker 3: the Middle East. We received a ten point proposal from
- 2:29Speaker 3: Iran and believe it is a workable basis on which
- 2:32Speaker 3: to negotiate almost all of the various points of the
- 2:35Speaker 3: past contention have been agreed to between the United States
- 2:39Speaker 3: and Iran, but a two week period will allow the
- 2:42Speaker 3: agreement to be finalized and consummated. On behalf of the
- 2:46Speaker 3: United States of America as president and also representing the
- 2:52Speaker 3: countries of the Middle East. It is an honor to
- 2:54Speaker 3: have this long term problem close to resolution. Thank you
- 3:00Speaker 3: for your attention to this matter, President Donald J. Trump,
- 3:04Speaker 3: and I will add for dramatic effect, El Trumpito. So yes,
- 3:08Speaker 3: ed Trumpito knocking it out of the park, as we
- 3:12Speaker 3: knew he would. I knew he would write, I was,
- 3:14Speaker 3: let me take it back. I was a little unsure.
- 3:16Speaker 3: I thought he was going to knock you ran out
- 3:17Speaker 3: of the box. I really did. I didn't think they
- 3:19Speaker 3: were going to come to their senses. And I still
- 3:21Speaker 3: don't know that they did, right, I don't know that
- 3:24Speaker 3: they did. I believe that you can't trust these guys, right.
- 3:29Speaker 3: I think eventually you have to just kill enough of
- 3:32Speaker 3: the true believers in their cause that those that are
- 3:36Speaker 3: not totally sold go. You know what, Maybe I do
- 3:39Speaker 3: want to have a family one day. Maybe I do
- 3:41Speaker 3: want to becoming old man. Maybe I don't want to
- 3:43Speaker 3: die for this cause. And how many layers deep. You
- 3:47Speaker 3: have to kill the top leadership to get there. Is
- 3:49Speaker 3: really an unknown number to me. But I'm going to
- 3:52Speaker 3: read you a couple of more things that President Trump
- 3:54Speaker 3: put out On his truth social account. He posted the
- 3:59Speaker 3: actual letter that he sent to the Iranians as well
- 4:03Speaker 3: as the letter that he got from the Iranians. I'll
- 4:09Speaker 3: start with the letter from the Iranians. Official Statement of Iran, Tehran,
- 4:16Speaker 3: seventh April twenty twenty six. On behalf of the Islamic
- 4:20Speaker 3: Republic of Iran, I express gratitude and appreciation for my
- 4:24Speaker 3: dear brothers. Maybe I can do this in my ayatola voices.
- 4:28Speaker 3: I don't know if I have an iotolo voice, but
- 4:29Speaker 3: let's say, when you don't have audio because it's such
- 4:32Speaker 3: new breaking news, you kind of kind of make it up.
- 4:34Speaker 3: Right on behalf of the Islamic Republic of Iran, I express,
- 4:38Speaker 3: this is my iron chic voice Iran number one. I
- 4:42Speaker 3: watch a lot of wrestling as a kid.
- 4:44Speaker 4: I express gratitude and appreciation for my dear brothers. He
- 4:49Speaker 4: is Prime Minister of Pakistan, Sharif and he Field Marshall
- 4:53Speaker 4: Munir for their timeless, tireless efforts to end the war
- 4:58Speaker 4: in the region. In response to the broadly request of
- 5:03Speaker 4: Prime Minister Sharif in his twit, and considering the request
- 5:08Speaker 4: by the US for negotiations based on its fifteen point
- 5:12Speaker 4: proposal as well as announcement by POTUS about acceptance of
- 5:18Speaker 4: general Framework of Iran's ten point proposal as basis for negotiation,
- 5:24Speaker 4: I hereby declare on behalf of Iran's Supreme National Security Council.
- 5:31Speaker 4: If attacks against Iran are halted, our powerful armed forces
- 5:36Speaker 4: will cease their defensive operations for a period of two weeks.
- 5:41Speaker 4: Save passage through the Strait of Ormuz will be possible
- 5:45Speaker 4: via coordination with Iran's armed forces with due consideration of
- 5:51Speaker 4: technical limitations. Sayed Abbas Arakshi. I'm sure I'm saying that wrong.
- 6:00Speaker 4: Minister of Foreign Affairs Islamic Republic of Iran. So two
- 6:03Speaker 4: things we gleaned from this. One I need to work
- 6:05Speaker 4: on my Iranian accent. Two, El Trumpito wins again, at
- 6:10Speaker 4: least for now. Right, this is a win for the
- 6:12Speaker 4: world now. On official letterhead, President Trump also put this
- 6:17Speaker 4: out here. Oh, actually that's what I read to you before.
- 6:20Speaker 4: I just read you the same thing on the Truth
- 6:22Speaker 4: social and this one is on the presidential letterhead.
- 6:26Speaker 3: So there we have it. El Trumpito, thank you for
- 6:30Speaker 3: your attention to this matter. And that's good news. I
- 6:35Speaker 3: think that's great news. So many of us were having
- 6:40Speaker 3: an ail binder right the end of civilization. Praise be
- 6:43Speaker 3: to Allah. That's what he wrote, Open the f and
- 6:46Speaker 3: straight you morons, right, I think that's what he said. Now,
- 6:49Speaker 3: what are they gonna say, all these people the how
- 6:52Speaker 3: could he do that? It's a war crime. It's what
- 6:54Speaker 3: else were they saying about him? It's a war crime,
- 6:58Speaker 3: it's non presidential, explicitive, laid in blah blah blah. Guess
- 7:04Speaker 3: who's not doing anything now? I am seeing some reports
- 7:08Speaker 3: online that this ceasefire may already be violated, but I'm
- 7:14Speaker 3: sure that they will turn around the GPS grit inside
- 7:17Speaker 3: that thing. You saw the Limitationsuse me, what are you saying, sir?
- 7:21Speaker 3: I don't even know what that was, but I think
- 7:23Speaker 3: that was a bleed coming in from Twitter. Our buddy
- 7:27Speaker 3: Mario nawful. But anyway, the bottom line here is that
- 7:34Speaker 3: I think we didn't know what was going on, and
- 7:38Speaker 3: Ed Trumpito was able to pull this off. Why tough talk?
- 7:42Speaker 3: He let them know. It's the end of the road
- 7:44Speaker 3: for you. I've had it up to here.
- 7:47Speaker 5: Right.
- 7:47Speaker 3: You take a guy that's always like y, all right,
- 7:49Speaker 3: give them another chance, give another chance. And let's be
- 7:51Speaker 3: frank here, This give him another chance thing is not
- 7:54Speaker 3: always it's not always give him another chance. Right. It's
- 7:59Speaker 3: not all Trump being a pacifist, which he is and
- 8:03Speaker 3: there's nothing wrong with that. A lot of times it's
- 8:07Speaker 3: him waiting, buying time, saying do we have them all?
- 8:11Speaker 3: Do we know exactly where each and every last one
- 8:14Speaker 3: of them is? And I think, let me tell you something.
- 8:16Speaker 3: I think this was a good move by Iron. Why.
- 8:19Speaker 3: I'll tell you why, because I believe with the way
- 8:24Speaker 3: Trump was talking last night about the way he was
- 8:28Speaker 3: gonna rain holy hell on these people, that he knew something.
- 8:34Speaker 3: They didn't know what it was. I don't know. I
- 8:36Speaker 3: can only speculate it, but he was negotiating like he
- 8:42Speaker 3: was holding the winning hand. And obviously, I mean figuratively speaking,
- 8:46Speaker 3: he's always holding the winning hand. He's got a bigger military,
- 8:49Speaker 3: more of a budget, more strength, more ability to execute
- 8:52Speaker 3: all of the above. But that's not what I'm talking about.
- 8:55Speaker 3: I'm thinking, remember when the guys from Hezbollah and Hamas
- 9:00Speaker 3: and whoever, it was I had their beepers and walkie
- 9:03Speaker 3: talkies exploding on their hip or in their pocket. I
- 9:08Speaker 3: remember that that was the guys that get the blame
- 9:12Speaker 3: for everything the Mossad, and the Mossad is good at
- 9:15Speaker 3: this stuff. And I feel like when Trump says, don't
- 9:18Speaker 3: you deer crust this line in the sand, and then
- 9:21Speaker 3: they go ahead and they cross that line, don't you
- 9:23Speaker 3: deer crust this new line in the sand. That's not
- 9:25Speaker 3: him getting bullied by the Malas. That's not him allowing
- 9:29Speaker 3: the Ayatola to push him around. That's him going on
- 9:33Speaker 3: the phone back channeling with Bibe, Hello, baby, do you
- 9:38Speaker 3: got him? Do you got them all? Where they at?
- 9:40Speaker 3: And bb chiming it, mister President, we know exactly where
- 9:44Speaker 3: each and every one of them is. I can explode
- 9:46Speaker 3: their peepies right off. I can explode them right now.
- 9:49Speaker 3: We can do it right now. Shut up. And I
- 9:53Speaker 3: think that's what he was doing. And I think these
- 9:55Speaker 3: guys were going to meet certain death, certain death. There
- 10:00Speaker 3: was going to be a show, of course, some major
- 10:04Speaker 3: show of strength, maybe that F thirty five stealth bomber
- 10:08Speaker 3: in and out again, blowing up some big stuff that
- 10:10Speaker 3: you know would hurt their feelings. But on top of that,
- 10:15Speaker 3: I really think that they were going to get taken
- 10:17Speaker 3: out big time and it was likely going to be
- 10:22Speaker 3: a costly mission, one where the President said, hey, look,
- 10:28Speaker 3: this is the best outcome is for us to truly
- 10:30Speaker 3: have peace, not to keep you know, killing people. At
- 10:35Speaker 3: the end of the day, he doesn't want anybody to die,
- 10:37Speaker 3: and that's a good thing, right, So kudos to Ed
- 10:41Speaker 3: Trompido and this breaking news on a ten point framework
- 10:46Speaker 3: with Iran, because I think that's important. I'm just going
- 10:50Speaker 3: to look that up because I think that Iran said
- 10:54Speaker 3: there was fifteen points from the United States and they've
- 10:56Speaker 3: agreed to ten of those fifteen. And I think that's
- 10:59Speaker 3: where we are at right now. So I don't know,
- 11:03Speaker 3: I don't know. Let's see here, let me see what
- 11:05Speaker 3: I got here in these ten points. All right, what
- 11:07Speaker 3: we know so far? President Trump gave Iran until eight
- 11:11Speaker 3: pm to reopen the strait of our moves. That was
- 11:15Speaker 3: an hour ago, and Pakistani Prime Minister Shabas Sharif played
- 11:21Speaker 3: a critical role in brokering the extension, urging the US
- 11:24Speaker 3: to delay the strikes while diplomacy runs its course. Fuel
- 11:27Speaker 3: prices are surging worldwide amid Iran's blockade. On the straight
- 11:30Speaker 3: up our moves quick commercial for you, and we're going
- 11:32Speaker 3: to talk about the surging fuel prices with ej Antoni
- 11:36Speaker 3: from the Heritage Foundation. He's going to join me in
- 11:38Speaker 3: the second and third segment, and in our fourth segment,
- 11:41Speaker 3: we're going to talk about something that I think we
- 11:44Speaker 3: haven't talked about in a while, if at all, is
- 11:48Speaker 3: the loneliness that people that work at home face. And
- 11:51Speaker 3: we'll talk about that later, but right now we're getting
- 11:55Speaker 3: to our top line stuff that we know. The White
- 11:57Speaker 3: House has been discussing potential meetings between the US and
- 12:01Speaker 3: Iranian officials, and these are discussions about in person talks,
- 12:06Speaker 3: but nothing's final until announced by the President of the
- 12:08Speaker 3: White House. Obviously, That's what Caroline Levitt said earlier today.
- 12:12Speaker 3: The American and Iranian heads of state have not met
- 12:15Speaker 3: in person for decades following the Iranian revolution in nineteen
- 12:18Speaker 3: seventy nine. So for context here, my friends, I was
- 12:23Speaker 3: born in nineteen seventy eight, Cinco de Mayo of nineteen
- 12:26Speaker 3: seventy eight, and this is nearly my lifetime ago and
- 12:31Speaker 3: soon it'll be my birthday again and I'll be forty eight.
- 12:34Speaker 3: So this has clearly been going on for the entirety
- 12:39Speaker 3: of my life. And I've shared with you my thoughts
- 12:42Speaker 3: on arian as a kid. I mean, just think about it.
- 12:44Speaker 3: My entertainment as a kid growing up was World Wrestling Federation.
- 12:48Speaker 3: Back then they called it WWF. Now it's called WWE,
- 12:52Speaker 3: and the big wrestlers, Hulk Hogan wrapped in the flag,
- 12:55Speaker 3: Sergeant Slaughter was a drill instructor. I mean, if you
- 12:58Speaker 3: know about it, you know about it. If you don't know,
- 13:00Speaker 3: you don't know. Who was the perpetual bad guy? Same
- 13:04Speaker 3: bad guys we got today? Is it predictive programming from
- 13:07Speaker 3: the CIA? Maybe? Who knows? But the bad guy then
- 13:10Speaker 3: Nikolai Volkoff, Right, Nikolai Volkoff, who'd come in singing the
- 13:15Speaker 3: USSR's national anthem. Who else was the bad guy? The
- 13:20Speaker 3: iron chic?
- 13:21Speaker 5: Right?
- 13:21Speaker 3: And he'd come in and he would spit and he
- 13:24Speaker 3: would scream, Iran number one, Iran number one. It was great,
- 13:28Speaker 3: and that Hulkogan would come in. I am a realmeric
- 13:33Speaker 3: I mean, that's you know, just this is my childhood here.
- 13:36Speaker 3: I would turn off after wrestling. I'd watch some cartoons.
- 13:39Speaker 3: What cartoon GI Joe right GI Joe with Sergeant Slaughter
- 13:43Speaker 3: who was in G I Joe as a cartoon. I
- 13:46Speaker 3: had the action figure, I had the wrestling action figure.
- 13:50Speaker 3: I had them all anyway. At seven point fifty pm,
- 13:57Speaker 3: Shaba Sharif, the Prime Minister of Pakistan says, with the
- 14:00Speaker 3: greatest humility, let me see if I can do my
- 14:02Speaker 3: Pakistani here. I don't have a good one. With the
- 14:04Speaker 3: greatest humility, I am pleased to announce that Islamic Republic
- 14:08Speaker 3: of Iran and the United States of America, along with
- 14:10Speaker 3: their allies, have agreed to an immediate sea is fired everywhere,
- 14:15Speaker 3: including Lebanon elsewhere, effective immediately. I warmly welcome. Oh boy,
- 14:24Speaker 3: I had to click more and it's taking forever now
- 14:26Speaker 3: to helpen well. He warmly welcome. Now I lost my
- 14:29Speaker 3: whole accent. I am warmly welcomed the sagacious gesture and
- 14:35Speaker 3: extend deepest gratitude to the leadership of both countries and
- 14:38Speaker 3: invite their delegations to Islamabad on Friday tenth April twenty
- 14:43Speaker 3: twenty six to further negotiate for a conclusive agreement to
- 14:47Speaker 3: settle all disputes. Both parties have displayed remarkable wisdom and understanding,
- 14:52Speaker 3: and have remained constructively engaged in furthering the cause of
- 14:56Speaker 3: peace and stability. We earnestly hope that the isl I'm
- 15:00Speaker 3: about talks succeed in achieving sustainable peace and wish to
- 15:04Speaker 3: share more good news in coming days with copies sent
- 15:08Speaker 3: to Real Donald Trump, Jdeva and Secretary of Rubio Envoy
- 15:12Speaker 3: Witkoff peace missions. Other people I do not know, and
- 15:18Speaker 3: mister arag Rakshi, he is the Minister of Noseke from
- 15:23Speaker 3: Iran and that's it. That is the the shab Serif.
- 15:30Speaker 3: I probably do a better shaba shif than I do
- 15:32Speaker 3: the others. Although I've never met mister she Reefs, I
- 15:35Speaker 3: don't know if he has like an Indian slash British.
- 15:37Speaker 3: He know, there's a lot of like Priyanka Chopra onhe
- 15:40Speaker 3: that married Nick Jonas. She's a really beautiful accent, right,
- 15:43Speaker 3: She's like Indian but yet also English and depending on
- 15:48Speaker 3: I guess on when you grew up back in stan
- 15:50Speaker 3: in India, were On's the same place I had a
- 15:53Speaker 3: good friend growing up. Shout out to my guy Monish
- 15:57Speaker 3: Manish and his family and they're all Indian but his
- 16:01Speaker 3: dad was born in Pakistan, his mom was born in Vietnam.
- 16:04Speaker 3: He was born in Nigeria. They're all Indian, though, beautiful family.
- 16:08Speaker 3: By the way, some of my dearest friends. Anyway, Rip's
- 16:12Speaker 3: my man hero who who passed away some months ago.
- 16:17Speaker 3: All right, anyway, we're getting out in the weeds here,
- 16:19Speaker 3: We're getting out in the waied. This is what happens
- 16:20Speaker 3: when you let me do breaking news and the only
- 16:23Speaker 3: audio I have for the breaking news is me doing impressions.
- 16:26Speaker 3: All right, So that's the latest on that. I don't
- 16:29Speaker 3: know if there's more that I can add to this.
- 16:31Speaker 3: Let me see both parties displayed blah blah blah. The
- 16:34Speaker 3: new supretor of the new Supreme Leader of Iran, Moshtaba Khamani,
- 16:40Speaker 3: I have to say it that way because it keeps
- 16:41Speaker 3: me going, is reportedly incapable of running the country, according
- 16:46Speaker 3: to an intelligence assessment reviewed by The New York Times
- 16:49Speaker 3: or is it the Times India? Just as the Times
- 16:51Speaker 3: here and need some clarification on that. The diplomatic memo,
- 16:54Speaker 3: understood to be a comprised memo of both American and
- 16:58Speaker 3: Israeli intelligence, claims that Khameny is in capacitated and receiving
- 17:01Speaker 3: medical treatment in the Holy City of com Oh, so
- 17:03Speaker 3: they let him know, Hey, we know where your man's is,
- 17:06Speaker 3: and we're gonna drop a bomb on your man's in calm.
- 17:09Speaker 3: Dropping bombs on the calm. How about that? And when
- 17:12Speaker 3: they drop those bombs, guess what these guys, No, no, no,
- 17:15Speaker 3: don't kill Ariyahtola. Take it easy, take it easy and trumpito.
- 17:20Speaker 3: What do you want two weeks? You got it, We'll
- 17:22Speaker 3: see what happens to come. Qom is approximately ninety miles
- 17:28Speaker 3: from Tehran and considered a sacred site to Muslims of
- 17:32Speaker 3: the Shia sect. So I think that was it. And
- 17:36Speaker 3: again they would have been justified in this saying that
- 17:41Speaker 3: the commander in chief of the Iranian military is the
- 17:46Speaker 3: Ayatola and taking out this individual as a high value
- 17:51Speaker 3: military target was required. Whether or not he was in
- 17:54Speaker 3: this holy city or not is secondary. And this is
- 17:59Speaker 3: how you get around this war crimes thing. Now, if
- 18:01Speaker 3: they target this city without the Iotola there, then it's
- 18:04Speaker 3: a total war crime. And this is why you can't
- 18:09Speaker 3: pay attention to all these people out there that are
- 18:11Speaker 3: just freaking out. Anyway, let me see what else we've
- 18:15Speaker 3: got here. I want to see if there's any additional news.
- 18:18Speaker 3: I see that there were some reports about additional skirmishes
- 18:25Speaker 3: and fighting in Iran. But so far, in the last
- 18:30Speaker 3: couple of hours, all we have is Trump and Iran
- 18:34Speaker 3: have agreed to two week Well it's really the United
- 18:37Speaker 3: States and the Islamic Republic. What else here? Trump suspends
- 18:43Speaker 3: attack for two weeks. Yeah, that's pretty much all the
- 18:46Speaker 3: news thus far. Here we go. This looks good. Maybe
- 18:52Speaker 3: this is it. Iranian link tackers have disrupted multiple US
- 18:56Speaker 3: industrial sites. They're always good for a cyber attack. These
- 19:00Speaker 3: guys multiple US oil and gas and water sites in
- 19:06Speaker 3: recent weeks, according to a federal advisory released today. Three
- 19:09Speaker 3: sources familiar with the investigation, which means they leaked this
- 19:13Speaker 3: to CNN Politics. The hacking campaign marked an escalation of
- 19:17Speaker 3: cyber attacks launched by TRON since the US and Israeli
- 19:21Speaker 3: war with Iran began. Because it tested the safety systems
- 19:25Speaker 3: at US industrial plants that protect human life. The hacks
- 19:28Speaker 3: have caused some industrial processes at the sites to shut down,
- 19:31Speaker 3: forcing them to operate manually. These sources say that the
- 19:34Speaker 3: downtime has caused financial losses for some victims. The Federal
- 19:38Speaker 3: Advisory also said hackers have in some cases tried to
- 19:44Speaker 3: use destructive malware or wipers to delete data from victim companies,
- 19:49Speaker 3: but it was unclear if they were successful. So anyway,
- 19:53Speaker 3: this is pretty vague. It's not telling me anything that
- 19:55Speaker 3: happened today with any specificity. But again, leave it to
- 19:59Speaker 3: CNN to do just that. Of course, they make this
- 20:03Speaker 3: look like it's new in the last forty nine minutes,
- 20:06Speaker 3: but I don't see the newness of it. This is
- 20:08Speaker 3: saying it's all happened in the last couple of weeks.
- 20:10Speaker 3: I guess they saw a memo now that's showing that
- 20:13Speaker 3: a lot of that. All right, I'm gonna pause right
- 20:15Speaker 3: here because i feel like I'm all over the place.
- 20:17Speaker 3: I'm going to regroup, see what we got. We're gonna
- 20:20Speaker 3: connect with ej Antoni and talk about the economic aspect
- 20:23Speaker 3: of all of this. We're going to talk about Iran
- 20:25Speaker 3: and the economics of Iran. But first we're going to
- 20:28Speaker 3: talk about the jobs report. Some people say it was
- 20:30Speaker 3: a great job support, others say it wasn't a great
- 20:33Speaker 3: job support. One thing we know about ej Antoni that
- 20:35Speaker 3: while he is oftentimes supportive of the president, and was
- 20:39Speaker 3: himself nominated by the President to run the Bureau of
- 20:42Speaker 3: Labor Statistics because of his prowess as an economist. He's
- 20:46Speaker 3: always honest and he always calls it very accurately. So
- 20:49Speaker 3: keep it locked right here. I'm Rich Valdez coming right
- 20:51Speaker 3: back with ej Antoni.
- 20:53Speaker 1: This is America, This is America. He's brown, he's bald,
- 21:09Speaker 1: and he's breaking it down.
- 21:11Speaker 3: Oh he's still has some what's his day, Rich Valdez?
- 21:24Speaker 5: All right to me, he goes.
- 21:24Speaker 3: Welcome back, Rich Valdes, keeping your company tonight and our guest.
- 21:28Speaker 3: You know him as the resident economist here with Rich Valdez,
- 21:32Speaker 3: This is America. You know him as EJ and Tony
- 21:35Speaker 3: head honcho over there, chief economist at the Heritage Foundation.
- 21:39Speaker 3: Always in the headlines because people want to know what
- 21:41Speaker 3: he has to say about what's going on in our economy.
- 21:43Speaker 3: E j Antny, welcome back, brother, Oh Rich, great to
- 21:46Speaker 3: be back, Thank you man. So you know, yesterday I
- 21:50Speaker 3: was looking at this article in Forbes magazine and they
- 21:54Speaker 3: were beating up this report, this Job's report, saying that
- 21:59Speaker 3: there's really my reader's digest version, that there was no
- 22:04Speaker 3: big difference between a Trump Jobs report and a Biden
- 22:07Speaker 3: jobs report because it might be adjusted up or down
- 22:11Speaker 3: one way or the other, and criticizing the administration for
- 22:14Speaker 3: doing that. That's something you and I have talked about
- 22:16Speaker 3: a lot. So talk to me a little bit about
- 22:20Speaker 3: what you think about this forbespiece if you've seen it,
- 22:22Speaker 3: or that critique.
- 22:23Speaker 2: Overall, Well, I think there's certainly a kernel of truth
- 22:26Speaker 2: in it, but there's also some really really big differences
- 22:29Speaker 2: we should address between the jobs report jobs reports under
- 22:33Speaker 2: Trumps versus Biden. First of all, where the similarities. Well,
- 22:37Speaker 2: one of the things is the massive downward revisions that's
- 22:40Speaker 2: a huge problem at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which
- 22:43Speaker 2: still hasn't been fixed, which has been ongoing, and not
- 22:48Speaker 2: just myself, a lot of major investment houses were pointing
- 22:50Speaker 2: this out all the way back in twenty twenty two,
- 22:53Speaker 2: that the data was unreliable and that we were going
- 22:56Speaker 2: to have these big downward revisions, and we have had
- 22:58Speaker 2: them every year since then. And it's not just the
- 23:00Speaker 2: annual revisions, but also the month to month revisions. The
- 23:04Speaker 2: problems have not gotten any better. In fact, by some metrics,
- 23:07Speaker 2: I think you can argue they've actually gotten worse. So
- 23:10Speaker 2: again there are serious statistical issues at play here. They
- 23:14Speaker 2: have not yet been fixed. They were not addressed under
- 23:16Speaker 2: Biden post COVID, and they have not yet been addressed
- 23:19Speaker 2: even to this day. So that's the similarities. One of
- 23:22Speaker 2: the really really big differences, though, that is worth pointing out,
- 23:26Speaker 2: has to do with government jobs. This was especially an
- 23:29Speaker 2: issue in the second half of the Biden administration as
- 23:32Speaker 2: they really ramped up their efforts to hire a lot
- 23:35Speaker 2: of federal bureaucrats. And what happened there, Rich was you
- 23:39Speaker 2: essentially were adding jobs. You were adding to that headline
- 23:43Speaker 2: jobs number, even though you weren't actually increasing the number
- 23:46Speaker 2: of people employed in productive work, that is the private sector.
- 23:50Speaker 2: Now what has happened under Trump. They've managed to get
- 23:53Speaker 2: rid of a whopping ten percent of the federal workforce.
- 23:56Speaker 2: That's astounding, So credit where credit is due. They have
- 24:00Speaker 2: made great progress in cutting down the federal bureaucracy. If
- 24:04Speaker 2: you look at these federal jobs numbers, you have to
- 24:07Speaker 2: go all the way back to nineteen sixty six, so
- 24:09Speaker 2: full six decades ago to find a lower print. In
- 24:12Speaker 2: other words, find a time when there were fewer federal
- 24:15Speaker 2: bureaucrats employed than there are today, so again credit where
- 24:18Speaker 2: credit is due. That they have really made, I think
- 24:21Speaker 2: good efforts in reprivatizing the economy, you.
- 24:25Speaker 5: Know, EJ and Tony.
- 24:26Speaker 3: A lot of people were surprised by this Job's report,
- 24:29Speaker 3: saying that it, you know, defied expectations. It came in
- 24:33Speaker 3: a lot higher, all good things. What's being attributed there? Right,
- 24:38Speaker 3: they're saying it's non foreign payroll, it's private sector growth.
- 24:42Speaker 3: But is this part of is it the same?
- 24:45Speaker 5: Right?
- 24:46Speaker 3: Is this because people are joining ICE because they changed
- 24:48Speaker 3: the requirements, or are we seeing the beginning of an
- 24:52Speaker 3: economic resurgence in our country?
- 24:55Speaker 2: Well, you know, Rich, I think in the same way
- 24:57Speaker 2: that people were too down on the January report. In
- 25:00Speaker 2: other words, I think they kind of over exaggerated how
- 25:03Speaker 2: bad the previous report was. I think now they are
- 25:07Speaker 2: playing up a little bit how good this report is.
- 25:11Speaker 2: These reports are composed of two different surveys. One is
- 25:14Speaker 2: a survey of businesses, the other is a survey of households.
- 25:17Speaker 2: And while the survey of businesses showed that the number
- 25:20Speaker 2: of jobs was increasing, the survey of households showed that
- 25:24Speaker 2: the number of people actually employed was going down. For example,
- 25:27Speaker 2: the unemployment rate declined, not because people shifted away from
- 25:31Speaker 2: unemployment and to employment, but simply because unemployed people gave
- 25:35Speaker 2: up looking for jobs left the workforce. So, yes, the
- 25:39Speaker 2: unemployment rate went down, and that looks good on paper,
- 25:41Speaker 2: but if you understand why it went down all of
- 25:44Speaker 2: a sudden, the report doesn't look that rosy anymore. So again,
- 25:47Speaker 2: just like the previous report that had a big drop
- 25:50Speaker 2: on the headline, wasn't as bad as people thought, I
- 25:54Speaker 2: think also this one is not quite as good as
- 25:56Speaker 2: people think either. We have to look beyond the headlin
- 26:00Speaker 2: lines here. We don't want to just become, you know,
- 26:01Speaker 2: cheerleaders for one thing or another.
- 26:04Speaker 3: In my opinion, I agree with you, and this is
- 26:06Speaker 3: why I felt like I saw a lot of headlines
- 26:08Speaker 3: pro the job's report. I didn't hear much from the
- 26:11Speaker 3: actual White House on it. A little bit, but nothing majoring.
- 26:14Speaker 3: I would have imagined if it were as spectacular as
- 26:17Speaker 3: some of the headlines made, it seem that Trump would
- 26:19Speaker 3: have been leading with that.
- 26:20Speaker 5: Saying, you know, we've had a great jobs report, you know,
- 26:22Speaker 5: but we didn't hear that.
- 26:23Speaker 3: So ultimately I thought, what is this them propping it
- 26:27Speaker 3: up to knock it down? And I think oftentimes we
- 26:29Speaker 3: do see that a lot in the media. What grade
- 26:32Speaker 3: would you give it?
- 26:32Speaker 5: Good?
- 26:32Speaker 2: Good question, Rich, I mean, I have to give it
- 26:34Speaker 2: a C. I would love to give it better than that.
- 26:36Speaker 2: But again, if as soon as you dig dig into
- 26:39Speaker 2: the report, as soon as you get past the headline,
- 26:41Speaker 2: you start looking at some of the internals. Unfortunately, there
- 26:44Speaker 2: are just too many areas where we're not making progress.
- 26:46Speaker 2: In fact, we're we're moving in the opposite direction. Right
- 26:49Speaker 2: where we're it's in retrograde. For example, if you look
- 26:54Speaker 2: at the progress that had previously been made by Native
- 26:57Speaker 2: born Americans who were in the first year the Trumpet
- 27:00Speaker 2: administration making huge gains, again a stark contrast to Biden,
- 27:04Speaker 2: where native born Americans were actually losing jobs and all
- 27:07Speaker 2: net job growth was going to foreign born workers. Today,
- 27:11Speaker 2: unfortunately that pattern has really stopped. What I'm getting at, Rich,
- 27:15Speaker 2: is the fact that you can make I think a
- 27:17Speaker 2: really strong case after statistical adjustments, that the number of
- 27:20Speaker 2: Native born Americans employed today is roughly the same as
- 27:24Speaker 2: it was back in twenty nineteen, seven years ago. And
- 27:28Speaker 2: again that's not all Trump's fault. Obviously, Biden was at
- 27:31Speaker 2: the HELM for four.
- 27:32Speaker 5: Of those years.
- 27:33Speaker 2: But the really great progress we were making on the
- 27:36Speaker 2: jobs front for Americans in the first year of his presidency.
- 27:40Speaker 2: The breaks came on really hard in the month of March. Now,
- 27:44Speaker 2: some of that might have to do with the war
- 27:45Speaker 2: with Iran, and we'll see as that, hopefully, please God,
- 27:49Speaker 2: gets revolved, very resolved, very soon. Hopefully the labor market
- 27:53Speaker 2: gets back on track after that. But I think it's
- 27:55Speaker 2: just too early to tell. Right, one month does not
- 27:58Speaker 2: give us a trend right now.
- 28:00Speaker 5: I get that.
- 28:01Speaker 3: Now there was a couple of areas where it dipped, right,
- 28:05Speaker 3: it took a little bit of a dive. Is this significant?
- 28:07Speaker 3: Is this something that we should be paying a lot
- 28:09Speaker 3: of attention to. Is it something that we're going to
- 28:12Speaker 3: feel on Main Street? Or is this kind of an
- 28:15Speaker 3: ebb and flow fluctuation?
- 28:18Speaker 2: Great, great question, Rich, you know, I think it is.
- 28:20Speaker 2: At this point you have to kind of chalk it
- 28:23Speaker 2: up to being, as you said, the ebbs and flows
- 28:26Speaker 2: of the labor market. Unfortunately, we're seeing changes simultaneously in
- 28:31Speaker 2: supply and demand, So labor supply and labor demand. If
- 28:35Speaker 2: you were only changing one or the other, but holding
- 28:38Speaker 2: the other end of the equation constant, it'd be very
- 28:40Speaker 2: easy to predict which way things were going, both in
- 28:43Speaker 2: terms of wages and also in terms of the number
- 28:46Speaker 2: of jobs. But we're seeing pretty stark changes to both
- 28:49Speaker 2: sides of that equation. So it's becoming very, very difficult
- 28:53Speaker 2: to just assess where the labor market is today, let
- 28:57Speaker 2: alone predict where it's going in the future. So again,
- 29:00Speaker 2: and one month does not give us a trend. I
- 29:02Speaker 2: think we're really going to have to wait and see
- 29:05Speaker 2: how the rest of the first half of this year
- 29:07Speaker 2: shapes up before we should really feel confident in giving
- 29:11Speaker 2: a more definitive assessment of that labor market.
- 29:16Speaker 3: Now, overall, you've given this jobs report a see how
- 29:19Speaker 3: would you grade the overall economy, our economic health in
- 29:24Speaker 3: the country, labor growth GDP, all of it.
- 29:30Speaker 2: You know, if you had asked me five or six
- 29:32Speaker 2: weeks ago, before the war with Iran, I would have
- 29:34Speaker 2: given you a different answer. It would have been a
- 29:36Speaker 2: lot more rosy, a lot more optimistic outlook. But unfortunately,
- 29:40Speaker 2: these these high energy prices that was really a cornerstone
- 29:44Speaker 2: of the Trump agenda, and a lot of a lot
- 29:47Speaker 2: of his economic performance was predicated upon those prices staying low.
- 29:51Speaker 2: And now with the spike that we've seen that puts
- 29:54Speaker 2: a lot in jeopardy, you know, looking at the economy,
- 29:58Speaker 2: So I think you have to really downgrad it, maybe
- 30:00Speaker 2: even so far as to a CNUS. And again I
- 30:04Speaker 2: take no joy in saying that, and I don't make
- 30:06Speaker 2: that kind of assessment lightly, but I also have to
- 30:09Speaker 2: put the caveat on their rich that we have no
- 30:12Speaker 2: idea what's going to happen with this war with Iran.
- 30:15Speaker 2: There's talk of a ceasefire now, so you know, again
- 30:18Speaker 2: we don't even know which way this is going to
- 30:20Speaker 2: go in six weeks, six days, let alone something like
- 30:24Speaker 2: six months. So it's really difficult to see where the
- 30:28Speaker 2: economy is going to be at the end of this year.
- 30:30Speaker 2: One thing I can tell you for sure, though, is
- 30:32Speaker 2: that there are a lot of price increases that are
- 30:34Speaker 2: now just baked into the cake that are going to
- 30:37Speaker 2: happen even if the war is resolved very quickly and
- 30:41Speaker 2: amicably between both sides and we get the crewed and
- 30:43Speaker 2: the LNG flowing asap. For example, you've seen huge spikes
- 30:48Speaker 2: and fertilizer prices just as farmers were buying that fertilizer
- 30:52Speaker 2: for their crops. That's going to translate into higher food prices,
- 30:56Speaker 2: not today, but this autumn when those crops are actually
- 31:00Speaker 2: getting harvested and those crops are being brought to market.
- 31:04Speaker 2: So again there's a lot, unfortunately that's already baked into
- 31:07Speaker 2: the cake in terms of those prices increases. And that's
- 31:10Speaker 2: why I greed the economy as harshly as I do
- 31:13Speaker 2: right now. Even though folks aren't feeling it necessarily immediately,
- 31:17Speaker 2: they're going to be feeling it in the months to come.
- 31:19Speaker 2: And that's even under an optimistic scenario.
- 31:24Speaker 5: I me, he goes.
- 31:24Speaker 3: We're on with EJ and Tony, the chief economist over
- 31:26Speaker 3: at the Heritage Foundation, and as we speak, negotiations are
- 31:31Speaker 3: going on between Iran, the IRGC people, the Ayatola and
- 31:35Speaker 3: the White House, and we don't know the outcome of that,
- 31:38Speaker 3: but I do want to get into these energy prices
- 31:40Speaker 3: you mentioned, So stick with me, EJ and TONI We're
- 31:42Speaker 3: coming right back.
- 31:43Speaker 5: I mean, he goes with EJ. A Tony, don't go anywhere.
- 31:46Speaker 6: This is America. This is America.
- 32:12Speaker 3: President m Jake Russ, mister President, welcome to the program.
- 32:14Speaker 6: Service.
- 32:15Speaker 3: Well, thank you, Rich and thank you for everything.
- 32:18Speaker 2: I know you very well, and I have I.
- 32:20Speaker 6: Listen, but I have a lot of people that listen
- 32:22Speaker 6: and they love your show, and I appreciate it very much.
- 32:26Speaker 5: Welcome back for media.
- 32:27Speaker 3: We continue the conversation with EJ and Tony, chief economist
- 32:31Speaker 3: at the Heritage Foundation. You likely remember him from being
- 32:35Speaker 3: tapped on the shoulder by El Trampito himself to run
- 32:38Speaker 3: the Bureau of Labor Statistics. And this is a guy
- 32:41Speaker 3: who knows how to add the numbers, knows where the
- 32:44Speaker 3: numbers are buried, and that's why we bring him on
- 32:46Speaker 3: the show. Ej Antoni, I want to get into this
- 32:48Speaker 3: energy price issue right because obviously the United States has
- 32:52Speaker 3: been drill baby drilling, and we've done well with our
- 32:54Speaker 3: own energy production and we're not buying we're not dependent
- 32:57Speaker 3: on buying a ton of oil from anybody body else,
- 33:00Speaker 3: thank god. However, there are others that are and this
- 33:03Speaker 3: affects everybody. Like you said before, the baked in price increase.
- 33:07Speaker 3: Give us a snapshot on where we are today with
- 33:10Speaker 3: energy prices and how you think they will eventually dissipate.
- 33:14Speaker 2: Really really good questions. You know, we just saw a
- 33:17Speaker 2: new record set for dated Brent crude, which is the
- 33:21Speaker 2: kind of the global sees benchmark, and unfortunately that has
- 33:26Speaker 2: now surpassed levels that we saw even during the energy
- 33:30Speaker 2: crisis in twenty twenty two with the invasion of the Ukraine,
- 33:34Speaker 2: or that we saw right before the mortgage meltdown and
- 33:38Speaker 2: the global financial crisis, the spike and oil prices that
- 33:40Speaker 2: we had then. So what this is though, this isn't futures,
- 33:45Speaker 2: this is dated, So this is essentially people who are
- 33:48Speaker 2: trying to take physical delivery as soon as possible, immediately
- 33:52Speaker 2: or as soon as possible, and so we've actually seen
- 33:55Speaker 2: those prices spike even higher than the futures contracts, which
- 33:59Speaker 2: means delivery in the case of Brent, you know, two
- 34:01Speaker 2: months after the future is actually the contract actually closes.
- 34:05Speaker 2: So what I'm getting at here is there is this
- 34:08Speaker 2: scramble for energy right now that the market is not
- 34:12Speaker 2: pricing in for months to come. So that's a bit
- 34:14Speaker 2: of an indication that people do think you're going to
- 34:16Speaker 2: have some kind of resolution in the coming months. But
- 34:20Speaker 2: it doesn't solve the current supply problem. It doesn't solve
- 34:23Speaker 2: the fact that so much energy has not passed through
- 34:26Speaker 2: the Strait of Hormuz and so much energy infrastructure has
- 34:29Speaker 2: had to be shut down, and other energy infrastructure has
- 34:32Speaker 2: been damaged or destroyed. And a really important note rich
- 34:35Speaker 2: on oil infrastructure being shut down. These are not pieces
- 34:39Speaker 2: of equipment that you can simply turn on and off
- 34:41Speaker 2: like you're flicking a light switch. You're talking about things
- 34:44Speaker 2: that oftentimes take weeks to either start up or shut down,
- 34:49Speaker 2: and that's under emergency procedures. Again, these are not things
- 34:53Speaker 2: that you can quickly turn.
- 34:54Speaker 5: On and off.
- 34:55Speaker 2: They are built to operate under very steady conditions and
- 34:59Speaker 2: to operate almost in perpetuity, essentially just shutting them on
- 35:04Speaker 2: or off for maintenance typically.
- 35:06Speaker 5: And that's really it.
- 35:07Speaker 2: So even if you get the strait of Hormos open today,
- 35:11Speaker 2: it may still take a couple of weeks before infrastructure
- 35:14Speaker 2: and the Gulf gets turned back on and the crude
- 35:17Speaker 2: actually starts flowing again. And so we're looking at a
- 35:21Speaker 2: situation where, again, unfortunately, even under an optimistic scenario, there's
- 35:26Speaker 2: going to be extreme pressure in the oil's market because
- 35:30Speaker 2: in the oil market because there's such a shortage of it.
- 35:33Speaker 2: And then one last thing that's important to point out.
- 35:36Speaker 2: We are a net exporter of crude, but that's only
- 35:39Speaker 2: when you include all of the distillates all of the things,
- 35:42Speaker 2: the products that we're making from those barrels of crude.
- 35:45Speaker 2: If you're just looking at crude itself, we're actually a
- 35:49Speaker 2: net importer. So we're exporting some of it, we're importing
- 35:53Speaker 2: some other oil. Why on earth do we have that?
- 35:55Speaker 2: It's because not all crude is created equal. Some crude
- 35:58Speaker 2: is thicker, it's heavier, it's more viscous. Other crude is light.
- 36:01Speaker 2: Some crude has a very heavy or very high sulfur content,
- 36:05Speaker 2: sour crude. Other crude has very low sulfur content, sweet crude.
- 36:09Speaker 2: So what we typically get out of the ground in
- 36:11Speaker 2: West Texas, for example, is light, sweet crude. A lot
- 36:14Speaker 2: of our refineries are not set up to optimally refine that.
- 36:17Speaker 2: That's why we import crude from Canada, from the Tar Sans,
- 36:21Speaker 2: from Venezuela, from certain parts of the Middle East. Right.
- 36:24Speaker 2: We import that crude because that's what our refineries are
- 36:27Speaker 2: set up optimally to process.
- 36:32Speaker 5: So if we.
- 36:35Speaker 3: Spitball this a little bit, you've got these ships presuming
- 36:39Speaker 3: yes tomorrow they open up the straight and more ships
- 36:42Speaker 3: are coming through. If production is stopped or slowed, or
- 36:47Speaker 3: whatever the case may.
- 36:48Speaker 5: Be, how do we.
- 36:50Speaker 3: Estimate this a month, two months. What type of price
- 36:54Speaker 3: tag does that look like on these barrels of crude.
- 36:58Speaker 5: Good question.
- 36:59Speaker 2: Oil prices are definitely going to come down as you
- 37:02Speaker 2: get that crude flowing again. The issue is that because
- 37:06Speaker 2: you have had infrastructure again damaged or destroyed, that infrastructure
- 37:10Speaker 2: is not going to be coming back on anytime soon.
- 37:12Speaker 2: So that represents a permanent, if you want to think
- 37:15Speaker 2: in the short term, a permanent decrease in supply. Now.
- 37:20Speaker 2: On the other hand, you do have certain parts of
- 37:22Speaker 2: the world that have some excess capacity. In the United States,
- 37:26Speaker 2: believe it or not, as much as we have been
- 37:27Speaker 2: doing the drill, baby drill, we don't have much excess
- 37:30Speaker 2: capacity right now. Well count was actually steadily declining under
- 37:35Speaker 2: the Biden years, and that means that although we were
- 37:38Speaker 2: getting more efficient at getting more oil out of each
- 37:40Speaker 2: well and thereby increasing production that way, we weren't actually
- 37:44Speaker 2: building in a lot of excess capacity into the system,
- 37:47Speaker 2: which believe me, would be great right now, but unfortunately
- 37:50Speaker 2: we had four years of Biden. So again, you do
- 37:54Speaker 2: have some areas of the world that have some excess
- 37:56Speaker 2: capacity and can help make up for the shortfalls. What's
- 38:00Speaker 2: been damaged or destroyed thus far in the Middle East,
- 38:03Speaker 2: but it's unclear if they'll be able to replace all
- 38:06Speaker 2: of it, in which case you're probably looking at oil
- 38:09Speaker 2: prices again definitely coming down, not staying at one hundred
- 38:12Speaker 2: hundred and twenty barrel, but not necessarily getting back down
- 38:15Speaker 2: to sixty five.
- 38:17Speaker 5: How long do you think that stays that way.
- 38:19Speaker 2: At sixty five or or close to sixty five do
- 38:22Speaker 2: you mean, or at current prices.
- 38:24Speaker 3: Now, at this unknown state, presuming things go back online,
- 38:27Speaker 3: what do you think that turnaround looks like?
- 38:29Speaker 5: That length of time to bring it back down to
- 38:31Speaker 5: fifty good good question.
- 38:34Speaker 2: At least a couple of months probably, And again, unfortunately,
- 38:38Speaker 2: a lot of this just has to do with the
- 38:40Speaker 2: slow nature inherent in oil infrastructure. I don't mean that
- 38:45Speaker 2: these facilities are slow in processing crewed. They may be
- 38:48Speaker 2: very fast in doing so, but again, getting them started
- 38:51Speaker 2: up is going to take some time. It's going to
- 38:54Speaker 2: take some time to renew confidence in the safety of
- 38:57Speaker 2: ships actually moving through the strait. It's going to take
- 39:00Speaker 2: some time again to replace the lost capacity in terms
- 39:04Speaker 2: of what was damaged or destroyed.
- 39:06Speaker 5: But then you.
- 39:07Speaker 2: Also have the question of how long is it going
- 39:09Speaker 2: to take for gasoline prices to come back down, right,
- 39:13Speaker 2: how long is it going to take for food prices
- 39:15Speaker 2: to come back down? And in those instances you have
- 39:18Speaker 2: to first wait for the negative effects. In this case,
- 39:21Speaker 2: the price increases to actually filter through the system before
- 39:24Speaker 2: we can even talk about when the price decreases are
- 39:27Speaker 2: going to follow.
- 39:28Speaker 3: So, looking at the situation we have right now, presuming
- 39:32Speaker 3: this ten point framework that is being you know, rumored
- 39:36Speaker 3: right now between the administration and the iatola and the
- 39:39Speaker 3: latest iatola, let's say all that stuff happens and we're
- 39:43Speaker 3: good to go. What would be you know, you, as
- 39:47Speaker 3: the senior Economic Advisor of the United States, is there
- 39:51Speaker 3: something we can do to help mitigate this other than
- 39:54Speaker 3: not have war?
- 39:55Speaker 2: Oh goodness, Yeah, not have ward would really really help,
- 39:59Speaker 2: you know, not going to war in the Middle East
- 40:02Speaker 2: would really help ensure that we don't have these kinds
- 40:04Speaker 2: of disruptions. So, yeah, obviously, no more war with Iran.
- 40:07Speaker 2: That would be a big one. That would definitely be
- 40:10Speaker 2: a huge, huge help. But aside from that, Rich, we
- 40:14Speaker 2: have to do better on cutting regulation and also cutting
- 40:18Speaker 2: marginal tax rates here in the United States in order
- 40:21Speaker 2: to remove the disincentives the artificial disincentives that government has
- 40:26Speaker 2: put in place that have artificially decreased production and capacity
- 40:31Speaker 2: as well. So again I think you do both of
- 40:34Speaker 2: those things, that's going to go a long way. But
- 40:37Speaker 2: those are long term provisions.
- 40:39Speaker 5: Right.
- 40:40Speaker 2: You're talking again about not just starting up infrastructure and
- 40:44Speaker 2: it taking weeks. That's infrastructure you've already built. You're talking
- 40:48Speaker 2: about building things from scratch. So now you're on a
- 40:50Speaker 2: timeline of many years. So unfortunately, we are more or
- 40:55Speaker 2: less stuck somewhere close to our current capacity when it
- 40:59Speaker 2: comes to both oil and LG.
- 41:01Speaker 5: A j Antoni final question for you.
- 41:02Speaker 3: A lot of speculation about a change in our banking
- 41:07Speaker 3: system to quantum, to embracing crypto, different types of coins
- 41:14Speaker 3: to do different types of things, and if this happens
- 41:18Speaker 3: sooner rather than later, how.
- 41:23Speaker 5: What does that look like economically?
- 41:25Speaker 3: I guess for many Americans you see a lot of
- 41:28Speaker 3: regular everyday Americans cashing in on this, or is it
- 41:31Speaker 3: going to be the institutional investors that are buying up
- 41:34Speaker 3: all the crypto right now, which I'm guessing or having
- 41:37Speaker 3: a bit of an issue as they need a lot
- 41:40Speaker 3: of energy to mine more crypto, and energy of course
- 41:43Speaker 3: is very expensive. Rich.
- 41:46Speaker 2: I think it really just depends on which way the
- 41:48Speaker 2: regulations go here. You know, are we going to create,
- 41:52Speaker 2: for example, a kind of backdoor CBDC central bank digital currency?
- 41:58Speaker 2: And although there's a peace of legislation, I believe it's
- 42:00Speaker 2: on housing that's currently getting kicked around the halls of Congress.
- 42:03Speaker 2: If for some reason, someone snuck in a CBDC provision,
- 42:06Speaker 2: which seems really odd. And the provision might look good
- 42:09Speaker 2: at first because it says we're going to ban the
- 42:12Speaker 2: federal government from issuing one of these things. The problem
- 42:15Speaker 2: is that it actually allows for private banks to issue them.
- 42:19Speaker 2: So it's basically an end run around this idea of
- 42:23Speaker 2: banning CBDCs, and that would be terrible. That's a government
- 42:26Speaker 2: run crypto currency essentially, where the government can approve or
- 42:30Speaker 2: deny any transaction because every transaction has to go through
- 42:34Speaker 2: a central node, as opposed to something like a bitcoin,
- 42:38Speaker 2: for example, where it is purposely decentralized and it's a
- 42:41Speaker 2: peer to peer network, so you and I are transacting
- 42:44Speaker 2: with each other and it's not having to get routed
- 42:46Speaker 2: through a third party.
- 42:47Speaker 5: Let's say.
- 42:48Speaker 6: So.
- 42:48Speaker 2: Again, it just depends on the kind of regulatory framework
- 42:51Speaker 2: that I think we're going to put in place before
- 42:53Speaker 2: we can make an assessment on which way these cryptocurrencies
- 42:57Speaker 2: are going to go. Where these stable coins let's say,
- 43:00Speaker 2: you know again, it really it really just depends on
- 43:04Speaker 2: what the regulators and what the lawmakers do, whether or
- 43:07Speaker 2: not it's going to be something that's you know, are
- 43:09Speaker 2: we talking it's going to be fully backed by one
- 43:12Speaker 2: to one with United States dollars or maybe with treasury bills?
- 43:15Speaker 2: Are these things just gonna float? Are they not backed
- 43:18Speaker 2: by anything? Can you make an infinite amount of them?
- 43:21Speaker 2: Or is it like bitcoin where you're just going to
- 43:23Speaker 2: asymptotically approach a certain limit and never go beyond that. So, unfortunately,
- 43:29Speaker 2: I think way too many questions to really give you
- 43:32Speaker 2: a good answer, as much as I would love to rich.
- 43:35Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, too many variables, I get it, And that's
- 43:37Speaker 3: probably why I have so many questions, because there are
- 43:40Speaker 3: so many variables and it's kind of hard to pin
- 43:42Speaker 3: this thing down.
- 43:43Speaker 5: Ej Antoni. I want to thank you for being here.
- 43:45Speaker 3: Let everybody know how they can follow you and keep
- 43:47Speaker 3: up to speed with the amazing work that you're doing.
- 43:50Speaker 2: Best place to find me is going to be on
- 43:51Speaker 2: the x platform and the handle there is at Real
- 43:54Speaker 2: ej Antony.
- 43:57Speaker 5: Outstanding. Check them out at Real Antony. I follow him.
- 44:01Speaker 3: You should to ej Antoni, You're a gentleman, a scholar,
- 44:04Speaker 3: and a patriot.
- 44:04Speaker 5: Godspeed to you, sir, Same to you, Rich.
- 44:07Speaker 3: You bet my brother, and am he goes, there's still
- 44:10Speaker 3: more to come. I want to get into a little
- 44:12Speaker 3: conversation on loneliness. Ever since COVID, some people think it's
- 44:15Speaker 3: the best thing in the world to work from home,
- 44:17Speaker 3: but others they're suffering from the most serious case of
- 44:20Speaker 3: loneliness they've ever dealt with, because they wake up there,
- 44:24Speaker 3: they go to sleep there, they work there, They're doing
- 44:26Speaker 3: everything from there. Keep it locked right here.
- 44:28Speaker 6: I'm Rich Aldees, this is America, this is America.
- 44:47Speaker 1: He's making podcasting great again.
- 44:50Speaker 6: This is America with Rich Valdez.
- 44:57Speaker 3: All right, I mean, he goes, welcome back, Rich, keeping
- 45:00Speaker 3: you company this Tuesday night, and again Iran not getting.
- 45:05Speaker 5: Blown to smither riens.
- 45:07Speaker 3: Their civilization will continue for at least another two weeks.
- 45:11Speaker 3: And I want to jump into this conversation on loneliness
- 45:17Speaker 3: because this is something that two years ago we were
- 45:21Speaker 3: hearing about on the news as an epidemic as a crisis. Right,
- 45:26Speaker 3: there's a big deal going on with loneliness after the
- 45:29Speaker 3: Surgeon General put out a report saying it was as
- 45:32Speaker 3: bad as smoking to your health. Right, imagine that. Listen
- 45:36Speaker 3: to this.
- 45:38Speaker 7: Searches for how to make friends and how to meet
- 45:40Speaker 7: people have reached all time highs. That's according to a
- 45:43Speaker 7: recent Google Trends search report. But the loneliness crisis is
- 45:46Speaker 7: not limited to our search bars. The US Surgeon General
- 45:49Speaker 7: recently released a report saying that the problems of loneliness
- 45:52Speaker 7: and isolation in the US have reached epidemic proportions. Studies
- 45:57Speaker 7: show that the loneliness crisis has been worsening even before
- 46:00Speaker 7: the pandemic, which forced us inside to avoid infection. And
- 46:03Speaker 7: loneliness can be associated with problems with our physical health,
- 46:06Speaker 7: elevated risk of heart disease, stroke, dementia and older adults,
- 46:10Speaker 7: and even premature death. Besides indicating how lonely we feel,
- 46:14Speaker 7: these search trends also show that we're looking to meet
- 46:16Speaker 7: new people out in the world. Think of social infrastructure
- 46:20Speaker 7: as potential points of connection, like libraries, parks, and public squares.
- 46:24Speaker 7: Because however many friends we have on social media, what
- 46:27Speaker 7: we're really looking for is that physical connection.
- 46:29Speaker 3: So I don't disagree with her. I think she's probably
- 46:34Speaker 3: onto something and she's basing this on the report that
- 46:37Speaker 3: the Surgeon General under Biden put out two years ago.
- 46:40Speaker 3: That was Doctor Surgeon General, doctor Vivic Murty, and I
- 46:46Speaker 3: have a clip of him. I don't want to overdo this,
- 46:48Speaker 3: but I want you to remember what he said then,
- 46:49Speaker 3: and then I'm going to play what's going on right
- 46:52Speaker 3: now to see if there's been an improvement there. Listen
- 46:54Speaker 3: to this.
- 46:55Speaker 8: The growing mental health crisis in the United States and
- 46:58Speaker 8: also in other parts of the world, and my deep
- 47:01Speaker 8: concern has been in particular about young people. We are
- 47:04Speaker 8: seeing a literal youth mental health crisis in America. It's
- 47:07Speaker 8: the reason two years ago I released a Surgeon General's
- 47:09Speaker 8: Advisory on Youth mental health. And this is a deep
- 47:12Speaker 8: concern to me. We're seeing rising rates of depression and
- 47:15Speaker 8: anxiety among young people, and part of this is being
- 47:18Speaker 8: fueled by loneliness and isolation, which have reached epidemic proportions
- 47:23Speaker 8: in our country, in the UK and in other nations
- 47:26Speaker 8: as well. And now we're learning more and more that
- 47:29Speaker 8: that loneliness and isolation, which by the way, was exacerbated
- 47:32Speaker 8: by COVID, has a profound effect on our mental health
- 47:36Speaker 8: and well being, increasing our risk for depression and anxiety,
- 47:39Speaker 8: but also increasing our risk for physical illness as well,
- 47:42Speaker 8: like heart disease, dementia and premature death.
- 47:45Speaker 3: Now this is where it gets really interesting. And again
- 47:48Speaker 3: this is an interview from Sky News out of Australia,
- 47:51Speaker 3: and I'll go back to the interview. There's only about
- 47:53Speaker 3: forty seconds left, but I just wanted to chime in
- 47:56Speaker 3: here and say, loneliness a quit in my mind to
- 48:01Speaker 3: mental health, right, you feel lonely. It's a feeling. When
- 48:05Speaker 3: they start saying that this has the same effects on
- 48:07Speaker 3: the body and life expectancy and whatnot as heart disease
- 48:12Speaker 3: and smoking. Now that's a whole different story, and it
- 48:17Speaker 3: shows you how dire, how serious, how sinister what happened
- 48:23Speaker 3: during COVID really was. Listen to this.
- 48:26Speaker 9: Access to social media, to phones, to digital devices.
- 48:30Speaker 8: People are getting younger and younger and younger.
- 48:32Speaker 6: They're giving very small children phones and laptops and iPads.
- 48:36Speaker 8: Now, social media is extraordinarily complex, it's evolving rapidly, and
- 48:40Speaker 8: many parents, despite their best of intentions and efforts, to
- 48:44Speaker 8: monitor their kids use and ensure that they it's safe.
- 48:47Speaker 8: They're finding it extremely difficult to do so, and so
- 48:50Speaker 8: we've got to step in and have the backs of parents.
- 48:53Speaker 8: And we've done this before with other products. We can
- 48:55Speaker 8: do it again with social media. But we have to
- 48:58Speaker 8: act now because social media is been on the scene
- 49:00Speaker 8: for twenty years and we have failed to put in
- 49:03Speaker 8: place and fundamentally implement the kind of safety measures that
- 49:07Speaker 8: have long been needed. We can't afford to wait any longer.
- 49:10Speaker 3: Now. I'm not going to get into a whole thing
- 49:12Speaker 3: about online safety, social media and all that. I understand
- 49:15Speaker 3: that there was a case recently that's still being litigated
- 49:18Speaker 3: about is social media addictive? I would presume that it is,
- 49:23Speaker 3: and I would think that if I sold something, you know,
- 49:26Speaker 3: like I said my show, I hope that my show
- 49:28Speaker 3: is something that you find addictive, and when you don't
- 49:30Speaker 3: have it, you get withdraws, like some of how my
- 49:33Speaker 3: listeners were commenting on social media saying I have withdraws.
- 49:35Speaker 3: When I was on vacation. I can't call it vacation, right,
- 49:38Speaker 3: I was just working overseas. But the point I'm making
- 49:42Speaker 3: is I understand how anyone in the private sector that
- 49:45Speaker 3: produces a product or a service would want it to
- 49:49Speaker 3: be addictive quote unquote, so that people can't live without
- 49:54Speaker 3: the stuff that you do, that you produce. However, this
- 50:01Speaker 3: carries on into specific scenarios, and the specific scenario that
- 50:05Speaker 3: I'm thinking of in particular is the workplace. Right now,
- 50:10Speaker 3: the workplace is an interesting thing because one would think
- 50:15Speaker 3: that's where, you know, people make very very strong social connections.
- 50:21Speaker 3: Right when you're in high school. You make your friends
- 50:23Speaker 3: in school or in grammar school, in college, same thing.
- 50:28Speaker 3: Then there's the bar scene. If you become social right
- 50:31Speaker 3: you go out to restaurants, you go to parks. You
- 50:32Speaker 3: may be athletic in your social life. You'll meet more people,
- 50:37Speaker 3: but it's only a little while right where you're able
- 50:39Speaker 3: to do that. Some people maintain a very athletic lifestyle.
- 50:42Speaker 3: But for the most part, people have to work, and
- 50:44Speaker 3: I think by and large most people work in a place.
- 50:48Speaker 3: They have to go somewhere to do their work. And
- 50:52Speaker 3: that's where it becomes challenging for the people who don't
- 50:56Speaker 3: have to go somewhere. Right and I saw this article,
- 51:00Speaker 3: let me see where did it go? Here? It is
- 51:02Speaker 3: it's in a Spanish publication called El Pais, which stands
- 51:06Speaker 3: for the country, and Enrique Ray is the author of this.
- 51:10Speaker 3: It's just a couple of days old, April fourth, twenty
- 51:13Speaker 3: twenty six. He's writing it out of Murcia, Espana. I'll
- 51:17Speaker 3: read you some excerpts from it in a moment. It's
- 51:20Speaker 3: an interesting thing because one wouldn't think that loneliness is
- 51:24Speaker 3: occurring at this epidemic level. Still two years, four years
- 51:28Speaker 3: later from when we found out that this was a
- 51:30Speaker 3: big deal, and specifically to people who are at work.
- 51:35Speaker 3: So there's this woman out of the UK that has
- 51:39Speaker 3: a few things to share. I can't play the whole
- 51:40Speaker 3: video for you, but she raises a couple of interesting points.
- 51:43Speaker 3: Before I do a deep dive on that article, listen
- 51:47Speaker 3: to this.
- 51:48Speaker 9: I'm going to talk to you about working from home
- 51:51Speaker 9: and coping with loneliness and isolation. My name's Katie Demain.
- 51:57Speaker 9: I'm at Eyeopener Institute, which is a consoleancy based in Oxford,
- 52:01Speaker 9: but we work with organizations all over the world, so
- 52:06Speaker 9: working from home for some people, this is quite a
- 52:09Speaker 9: strange phenomenon. It can be strange for those especially who
- 52:13Speaker 9: haven't experienced working from home before, but not everybody feels
- 52:18Speaker 9: like that some people feel elated that they're able to
- 52:21Speaker 9: work from home, whereas others may feel lonely and isolated.
- 52:27Speaker 3: And that's a very true statement. Some people truly do
- 52:30Speaker 3: love the idea. Right, So, I can tell you during COVID,
- 52:33Speaker 3: I was doing three different jobs but all pretty much
- 52:37Speaker 3: the same.
- 52:37Speaker 5: Right.
- 52:38Speaker 3: I was hosting a radio show in New York City.
- 52:41Speaker 3: I was hosting a radio show on the weekends in Philadelphia.
- 52:44Speaker 3: I was hosting my podcast and excuse me. I was
- 52:49Speaker 3: also doing production work for the Mark Levin Show. So
- 52:54Speaker 3: what was my day like? It was hectic. I was
- 52:56Speaker 3: all over the place. I was in Westchester County, I
- 52:58Speaker 3: was in Manhattan, I was back at home. But during COVID,
- 53:01Speaker 3: it all came to a crashing halt. Why because they said,
- 53:04Speaker 3: you know what, we're going to stop people coming into
- 53:07Speaker 3: the office. And it wasn't during COVID. Its actually after COVID, right,
- 53:10Speaker 3: COVID had kind of wound it down and they decided
- 53:16Speaker 3: at this point, now we're gonna not let anybody come in.
- 53:19Speaker 3: It was the craziest thing, and like a real delayed reaction. Anyway,
- 53:24Speaker 3: bottom line was at the time, in order to facilitate
- 53:28Speaker 3: things legally and practically so that I could do the
- 53:33Speaker 3: work I was doing and not have to comply with
- 53:37Speaker 3: taking a vaccine. My employer was very accommodating and allowed
- 53:44Speaker 3: me to work from home to become permanently remote, which
- 53:50Speaker 3: worked well for me and that I was still able
- 53:52Speaker 3: to do all my work. And they did that by
- 53:55Speaker 3: installing studio equipment in my home and stuff like that. Anyway,
- 54:00Speaker 3: that was many years ago. To do my production work
- 54:04Speaker 3: for the Mark Levin Show. Now, I would tell people
- 54:09Speaker 3: at that time, oh, yeah, you and I work from home,
- 54:11Speaker 3: and they would their face would become elated, smiling from
- 54:16Speaker 3: ear to ear, and they're like, Wow, that's got to
- 54:18Speaker 3: be awesome. And I never ever viewed it as awesome ever.
- 54:24Speaker 3: I never considered that. That was never the word that
- 54:27Speaker 3: came through my mind. Awesome. I was happy to be
- 54:30Speaker 3: doing the work I was doing and blessed to be
- 54:33Speaker 3: able to do it, but awesome was not it. I
- 54:37Speaker 3: used to go to a studio seventeen miles away from
- 54:43Speaker 3: from the Bronx, and it was a twenty ninth Street,
- 54:50Speaker 3: seventh Avenue, Broadway, Madison Square Garden. On the seventeenth floor
- 54:55Speaker 3: of that building was five radio studios and a day.
- 55:01Speaker 3: Just listen to what a day at work sounded like
- 55:04Speaker 3: for me. I would go from my home in New Jersey.
- 55:07Speaker 3: I would take the train, then the bus or the
- 55:09Speaker 3: bus and the train, excuse me, walk from the Port
- 55:13Speaker 3: Authority over to Madison Square Garden, take the elevator up
- 55:16Speaker 3: to the seventeenth floor to these five legendary studios, WPLJ
- 55:22Speaker 3: Power ninety five, WABC seventy seven, Nash FM one O
- 55:30Speaker 3: three point nine WNBM, And there was another station there
- 55:35Speaker 3: that I'm forgetting, but anyway, there was a lot going
- 55:38Speaker 3: on there. We had a sound stage. It was nice.
- 55:42Speaker 3: I had lots of nice radio friends. That was my
- 55:45Speaker 3: social network. I went to lunch with different people, We
- 55:47Speaker 3: ordered out, we you know, we were always having a
- 55:51Speaker 3: good time and telling jokes. And COVID came and it
- 55:54Speaker 3: was over. Then they sold the company and all sorts
- 55:57Speaker 3: of things happened. But the point was all that came
- 55:59Speaker 3: to an end. It wasn't lonely. But I missed those
- 56:01Speaker 3: people and I miss those times. So you take that
- 56:04Speaker 3: away from somebody, and sure you feel that kind of
- 56:07Speaker 3: culture shock. Now I still have the ability to work
- 56:09Speaker 3: from home, and I'm very grateful for it. But when
- 56:15Speaker 3: you need people in the business I'm in, you need
- 56:17Speaker 3: a producer, especially now that we're doing video from our
- 56:20Speaker 3: Times Square studio. It's a blessing to be able to
- 56:24Speaker 3: go over to the guy that's running the camera and say, hey, look,
- 56:27Speaker 3: this is what's going on. So anyway, that's the long
- 56:29Speaker 3: story short of why I never liked it. But apparently
- 56:33Speaker 3: there's a lot of people that take exception to this,
- 56:36Speaker 3: listen to this. So this piece in El Pais focuses
- 56:41Speaker 3: on a specific group of people that are freelancers, mainly
- 56:48Speaker 3: writers that work from home, and saying that loneliness impacts
- 56:53Speaker 3: them more than anybody and very interestingly right similar to
- 56:58Speaker 3: the same thing I mentioned to you that some people
- 57:01Speaker 3: think going to work as a hell whole, while others
- 57:03Speaker 3: think it's a blessing in disguise. Depends on what age
- 57:07Speaker 3: you are, however, a lot of the studies show that
- 57:08Speaker 3: between the ages of twenty and sixty, especially for men,
- 57:12Speaker 3: work is the place where new friendships most frequently occur.
- 57:17Speaker 3: Before then, like I mentioned, it was school, and then
- 57:19Speaker 3: in retirement it's your local neighborhood. So this is from
- 57:24Speaker 3: Juan Gomez Barisenna and he writes something called the Map
- 57:29Speaker 3: of Loneliness and very interesting, right. The most significant findings
- 57:34Speaker 3: there as follows. In twenty twenty four to thirty two
- 57:36Speaker 3: percent of freelancers felt the impact of loneliness and isolation constantly,
- 57:41Speaker 3: while eighty nine percent experienced it at some point. Sixty
- 57:44Speaker 3: six percent felt that irregular work patterns and routines were
- 57:48Speaker 3: detrimental to their well being, and ninety one percent felt
- 57:51Speaker 3: unproductive and overwhelmed by a lack of income who would
- 57:56Speaker 3: for at least one month. In short, eighty six percent
- 58:00Speaker 3: of respondents agreed that self employment is detrimental to mental health.
- 58:04Speaker 3: Now that sounds like something that would come out of Europe, right,
- 58:07Speaker 3: because I think Americans responding to this would react a
- 58:10Speaker 3: lot better than the Spaniards or any Europeans would in general.
- 58:14Speaker 3: But the bottom line here is I think when life
- 58:19Speaker 3: gives you lemons, you make lemonade. I'm not trying to
- 58:21Speaker 3: minimize this. I do believe that this is a real thing.
- 58:23Speaker 3: There was a very famous DJ, I believe his name
- 58:26Speaker 3: was a Vichy, and he killed himself because he would
- 58:33Speaker 3: be on top of the world DJing electronic dance music
- 58:38Speaker 3: EDM and have these stadiums filled with one hundred thousand people.
- 58:42Speaker 3: Guy didn't sing a lick of anything. He just would
- 58:45Speaker 3: play the music that he produced and put on a
- 58:47Speaker 3: great party for these people. And he loved it. And
- 58:51Speaker 3: the after party was excellent. And when he would go
- 58:54Speaker 3: home to his hotel room because he played all over
- 58:55Speaker 3: the world and he was by himself. After everything's over,
- 58:59Speaker 3: and after parties over, you got to go to sleep.
- 59:03Speaker 3: He confided with some people that he hated it, he
- 59:06Speaker 3: hated coming down from that high of performing. And in
- 59:10Speaker 3: a very minimal way, I've been able to relate to that.
- 59:13Speaker 3: I love being on the radio. I love doing what
- 59:15Speaker 3: I do. I love connecting with the listeners, whether it's
- 59:19Speaker 3: a podcast or television or video podcast or streaming, but
- 59:24Speaker 3: mainly radio. Radio is really the best connection. And when
- 59:28Speaker 3: I'm done with work, and you know, at first my
- 59:30Speaker 3: late shift, when I first started, it was at one am,
- 59:33Speaker 3: I was done. I was wired. I drink coffee all
- 59:35Speaker 3: through the show. So imagine that drinking two cups of coffee,
- 59:38Speaker 3: or at least one cup of coffee between nine and midnight,
- 59:41Speaker 3: or between ten pm and one am, and then doing
- 59:46Speaker 3: what at one am? Right, it's not even good TV
- 59:49Speaker 3: on let alone. Friends are a place to go for
- 59:52Speaker 3: a little while. One of my closest friends actually also
- 59:54Speaker 3: had a lead shift. Then we would go to like
- 59:56Speaker 3: the diner that was open twenty four hours and we'd
- 59:57Speaker 3: hang out. And those were not every day but on
- 1:00:00Speaker 3: frequent occasion. But shout out to Meli. Mel Melissa's an old,
- 1:00:06Speaker 3: dear friend. But the bottom line here that I'm trying
- 1:00:09Speaker 3: to make is I could see how this becomes detrimental,
- 1:00:13Speaker 3: and the question is how do you fix it? And
- 1:00:16Speaker 3: this article gets into something to combat this issue that
- 1:00:21Speaker 3: they call the pajama's mentality, and they say it's dangerous
- 1:00:25Speaker 3: if you don't keep an eye on it. The psyche
- 1:00:28Speaker 3: naturally gravitates towards what's comfortable, what's easy, and ultimately harmful
- 1:00:32Speaker 3: in the long run. You have to be a little
- 1:00:33Speaker 3: savvy and deliberately introduce friction, getting up early, getting dressed,
- 1:00:37Speaker 3: moving around, going out into the world. The bedroom mentality
- 1:00:41Speaker 3: can be countered by wearing ankle weights and going for
- 1:00:44Speaker 3: a four mile walk before your breakfast. Working from home
- 1:00:48Speaker 3: often requires you know different things, a certain aesthetic and
- 1:00:54Speaker 3: mental discipline to avoid becoming complacent with your own comfort again,
- 1:00:58Speaker 3: and this is in this piece advice. I'll share this
- 1:01:00Speaker 3: on social media if you want to take a look
- 1:01:02Speaker 3: at that at rich Valdesk with an s at rich Valdesk.
- 1:01:05Speaker 3: But bottom line here is it's not always a pot
- 1:01:11Speaker 3: of gold at the end of every rainbow. Right. This
- 1:01:13Speaker 3: isn't the best or everyone's cup of tea, I should say,
- 1:01:18Speaker 3: and this is something that we have to work on.
- 1:01:20Speaker 3: I think as we become a more connected society, we
- 1:01:24Speaker 3: see people a lot less and I see this trend
- 1:01:28Speaker 3: in many places, even in church.
- 1:01:31Speaker 5: Right.
- 1:01:31Speaker 3: You would think church is a great social place, but
- 1:01:34Speaker 3: there's movements on YouTube and even within churches where people
- 1:01:39Speaker 3: want to become electronic members, right, And they will tune
- 1:01:44Speaker 3: in and listen to the pastor and do their praise
- 1:01:46Speaker 3: and worship and enjoy it, but they won't set foot
- 1:01:50Speaker 3: in the building. They don't want to be part of
- 1:01:53Speaker 3: the organized religion as many call it. This is bad
- 1:01:57Speaker 3: because loneliness is not good. So I just wanted to
- 1:02:01Speaker 3: introduce this topic because I think we're going to bring
- 1:02:04Speaker 3: in some of our heavy hitters, one of our you know, shrinks,
- 1:02:07Speaker 3: to kind of talk about this a little more. And
- 1:02:10Speaker 3: I'm curious if anybody wants to use this or something
- 1:02:13Speaker 3: related to this as a Dear Richie segment where I
- 1:02:17Speaker 3: give you my unsolicited and unqualified advice on your topic.
- 1:02:21Speaker 3: I would love to. I'd love to get into a
- 1:02:23Speaker 3: conversation on this. You know the phone numbers eight seven
- 1:02:26Speaker 3: seven Valdez one, or you can send a text to
- 1:02:29Speaker 3: that same number from your cell phone and we'll get
- 1:02:32Speaker 3: that as well. Anyway, I just wanted to put that
- 1:02:35Speaker 3: out there, a little food for thought. We'll resume on
- 1:02:38Speaker 3: this when we get together again. Until then, I say,
- 1:02:41Speaker 3: you got to stand for something, because if you stand
- 1:02:43Speaker 3: for nothing, you'll fall for anything. And the only thing
- 1:02:46Speaker 3: necessary for evil to triumph is for good people like
- 1:02:49Speaker 3: you to do nothing. So you know what to do.
- 1:02:52Speaker 3: Become an informed patriot, do the right thing. Start approxima
- 1:02:57Speaker 3: until the next time. America. I am rich Valdez and
- 1:03:00Speaker 3: this is America.
- 1:03:02Speaker 6: This is America.
- 1:03:12Speaker 1: M