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Mark interviews economist Steve Moore. · The Mark Simone Show

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Mister New York. He's on the game the Mark Simone
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Showoor Well. Steve Moore than brilliant economist and a great columnists.
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  Speaker 1: You should read his latest book, The Trump Economic Miracle.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Great book, Trump Economic Miracle. And then he runs the
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: Committee to Unleashed Prosperity. Every day they put out the
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: best daily news, briefing and analysis. Great stuff. It's free,
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: it'll come right to your email. You can go sign
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: up at Unleash Prosperity dot com. Steve Moore, how you doing.
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  Speaker 2: Hey, Mark? I am doing really well. By the way,
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  Speaker 2: I apologize I missed your show last Thursday, but I
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  Speaker 2: had to think. I have a pretty good excuse I had.
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  Speaker 2: I did a day long visit to a data center
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  Speaker 2: in Loudin County, Virginia. Now, have you ever been to
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  Speaker 2: a data center? Mark?
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  Speaker 1: No, I don't know. Most people haven't, but I'm yeah fascinate.
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  Speaker 2: Well, I have to tell you it was an amazing experience.
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  Speaker 2: These are technological marvels. They're industrial. I mean, I've never
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  Speaker 2: seen so many construction workers, so many trucks, so many Caterpillar,
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  Speaker 2: too much creterpiller equipment. This is the nerve center of
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  Speaker 2: the Internet. We need these data centers. And as you know,
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  Speaker 2: there's a revolt around the country and in the state
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  Speaker 2: you'rein in New York, you're idiot. Governor said, you know,
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  Speaker 2: moratorium on data centers. Well, does that mean she wants
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  Speaker 2: some moratorium on the internet.
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  Speaker 1: Well, like most crazy left wing voters, they don't realize
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  Speaker 1: the consequences of what they're voting.
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  Speaker 2: For.
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  Speaker 1: You, they won't be able to use their phone eventually.
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  Speaker 2: But yeah, I mean people, I always say to people,
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  Speaker 2: do you like your iPhone? You know, like your cell
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  Speaker 2: phone in your hand that you can't you know, lived without.
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  Speaker 2: Oh I love it, Well, but I don't want data centers.
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  Speaker 2: Like that'd be like saying I want I want electricity,
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  Speaker 2: but I don't want an electric power plant.
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  Speaker 1: All right, well, let's go over the three objections. One
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  Speaker 1: is it uses up all the electricity. Is that true?
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  Speaker 2: Well, they do use an enormous amount of power, no question.
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  Speaker 1: The internet is.
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  Speaker 2: Very uses a lot of energy, and yet they pay
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  Speaker 2: You know what they're doing now, And I've been working
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  Speaker 2: with these internet companies and the data centers. They are
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  Speaker 2: now paying the freight for the energy that they use,
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  Speaker 2: so much so that in Virginia they've actually lowered the
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  Speaker 2: rates that pay that the homeowners pay in that area
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  Speaker 2: because they pay all of their variable cost and all
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  Speaker 2: the fixed costs for the for the electric power.
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  Speaker 1: So this idea that.
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  Speaker 2: They're going to force everybody to pay more for electricity
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  Speaker 2: is wrong in many cases. They In fact, if you
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  Speaker 2: look at Virginia and compare Virginia, say with New York,
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  Speaker 2: where you have no data centers, the rates electric power
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  Speaker 2: rates are falling in Virginia and they're going way up
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  Speaker 2: in New York.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, sometimes they try to claim they can provide their
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  Speaker 1: own electricity, but we haven't seen that in.
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  Speaker 2: The well, some of them are talking about like building
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  Speaker 2: literally a nuclear power reactor, a small module next to
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  Speaker 2: the data that's still a little bit far off in
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  Speaker 2: the future, but at some point they probably will, you know,
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  Speaker 2: do that with these you know, many nuclear modules that
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  Speaker 2: are you know, you know, one tenth the size of say,
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  Speaker 2: you know, a three mile island reactor. But but uh,
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  Speaker 2: you know, this is this is kind of a myth
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  Speaker 2: because in the state, in the areas where you have
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  Speaker 2: the data centers, they they use a lot of electric power,
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  Speaker 2: but they pay a lot of the freight for the electricity.
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  Speaker 1: They use. What about using up the water supply of
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  Speaker 1: the town.
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  Speaker 2: Oh, that was that's one of the most focused things,
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  Speaker 2: you know, one of the things we saw on these
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  Speaker 2: data centers. I mean these are huge, by the way,
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  Speaker 2: markets are like two football fields long, massive amount of
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  Speaker 2: computers and uh, and they have these massive pumps because
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  Speaker 2: water for the you know, it's a it's an interesting
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  Speaker 2: engineering experiment. The reason they use so much water. You
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  Speaker 2: know what they use the water for?
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  Speaker 1: No, cooling? I guess cooling.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, cooling, because you know, there's so much heat created
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  Speaker 2: by these computers. They need to cool them down, and
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  Speaker 2: so the water is what cools down so that they
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  Speaker 2: don't end up exploding. Uh. But they've become almost circular.
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  Speaker 2: They do use a lot of water, but it's they're
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  Speaker 2: now recycling it, so it just you know, flows back
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  Speaker 2: and forth through the plant. So that's kind of bogus
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  Speaker 2: argument as well.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, the third argument is that they make a tremendous
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  Speaker 1: amount of noise and that the residents wouldn't be able
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  Speaker 1: to sleep at night.
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  Speaker 2: Well, they are noisy. They can be noisy, but that's
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  Speaker 2: why you should you So for example, the one that
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  Speaker 2: I visited was right in the shadows of Dolus Airport.
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  Speaker 2: So what's going on at Dolus Airport? Every every twenty
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  Speaker 2: five seconds there's a plane, you know, flying by. So
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  Speaker 2: nobody complains with the data is because you know they
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  Speaker 2: so by the way, it would be the same things
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  Speaker 2: that we don't want airports in this country. We're gonna
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  Speaker 2: have airports. They made for too much noise. But but
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  Speaker 2: you know, but that's why I think they should be
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  Speaker 2: built only in communities that want them. This is an
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  Speaker 2: enormous amount of jobs. These are people are making fifty
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  Speaker 2: to one hundred dollars an hour or more. You know,
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  Speaker 2: the technicians make you know, several hundred thousand dollars a year.
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  Speaker 2: So this is the future. But you know, the other
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  Speaker 2: thing is we are in a race, as you know,
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  Speaker 2: I call it indy five hundred race against the Chinese
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  Speaker 2: to see who's going to get there first. Because it's
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  Speaker 2: not like we're going to stop AI and data centers
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  Speaker 2: from happening. They're going to happen. It's just a question
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  Speaker 2: of whether it's going to be controlled by the USA
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  Speaker 2: or China. Right now, I mean we're you know, I mean,
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  Speaker 2: we have a little bit of a lead, but not
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  Speaker 2: a big lead on China.
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  Speaker 1: So the reason we need the AI uses like a
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  Speaker 1: million times more whatever than a simple Google search would
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  Speaker 1: it uses? Right, So, but the way this technology advances,
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  Speaker 1: don't you think in five years the whole data center
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  Speaker 1: will be the size of a vending machine besides of
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  Speaker 1: what a vending machine in other words, Oh, I.
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  Speaker 2: Don't know about that. But they get better all the
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  Speaker 2: time in terms of their efficiency, no question about it.
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  Speaker 2: And at some point, you know when you talked about
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  Speaker 2: the future, at some point the data centers will probably
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  Speaker 2: be up in the atmosphere.
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  Speaker 1: Oh oh, I mean it's space.
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  Speaker 2: They'll be like satellites that'll do the So. I mean,
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  Speaker 2: you know, the future is coming quickly, and I just
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  Speaker 2: want to are going to win the race to the future.
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  Speaker 2: I don't want the China someroughly say, but go ahead.
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  Speaker 1: When you walk around in the data center, what goes
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  Speaker 1: I mean obviously all the equipment, But are there a
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  Speaker 1: lot of people working there?
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  Speaker 2: Not a lot? I mean these are huge mega computers, uh,
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  Speaker 2: and you have technicians running around making sure that there's
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  Speaker 2: a lot of security because you know, we're vulnerable if
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  Speaker 2: if China wanted to, you know, or a terrorists wanted
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  Speaker 2: to do damage to our country to take up these
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  Speaker 2: data centers all of a sudden. Guess what, you don't
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  Speaker 2: get your internet, you don't catch your GPS system, you
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  Speaker 2: don't get the secure you know. The military is very
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  Speaker 2: dependent on the data centers as well, so there's a
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  Speaker 2: lot of security at these things. They would not let
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  Speaker 2: me bring a camera in, by the way, they would
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  Speaker 2: not let me take fixtures because they're worried about Chinese espionage. So,
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  Speaker 2: but the technicians are everywhere. The construction was amazing though,
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  Speaker 2: because they keep expanding these, you know, and I've never
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  Speaker 2: seen some in The construction workers union.
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  Speaker 1: Is the biggest.
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  Speaker 2: They're the biggest advocates of of the of the data
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  Speaker 2: centers because that's where a lot of the jobs are
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  Speaker 2: coming from.
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  Speaker 1: Now, yeah, who owns these data centers? Are they all independent?
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  Speaker 1: Are they owned by a tech company? Who is the
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  Speaker 1: data centers?
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  Speaker 2: Well, I would tell you that except I have to
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  Speaker 2: kill you. I mean, they're very secretive actually about who
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  Speaker 2: owns them. And uh so, some of the companies like
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  Speaker 2: the Googles and Amazons and stuff, run their own data
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  Speaker 2: centers and some of the then you have these independent
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  Speaker 2: companies that build them and then they essentially rent them out.
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  Speaker 2: They you know, there was they operate the data centers
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  Speaker 2: and the Googles and the you know in videos and
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  Speaker 2: so on. They contract with the data centers to use
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  Speaker 2: their uh, you know, their facilities.
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  Speaker 1: So we could open a data center and then contract.
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  Speaker 2: Out you know.
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  Speaker 1: But they're enormous.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, they they are gigantic. They as I said,
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  Speaker 2: they're several acres big. They're like giant. They look like
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  Speaker 2: those giant Amazon warehouses that people are familiar with, and
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  Speaker 2: so but it's pretty exciting in the future. And and
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  Speaker 2: you know, now they've got the you know, one of
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  Speaker 2: the things this AI is doing now is they're being
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  Speaker 2: able now to detect cancer cells in the body much
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  Speaker 2: much much sooner than the old technologies. So just as
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  Speaker 2: one example, because of this AI revolution, which is dependent
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  Speaker 2: on data centers, you know, within twenty years, we could
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  Speaker 2: literally have cures for cancer because we'll be able to
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  Speaker 2: detect them. As anyone knows who've had the tragedy of
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  Speaker 2: you know and the loved one having cancer. This earlier
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  Speaker 2: you can detect the cancer, the more likely you are
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  Speaker 2: to cure it.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. Hey, I don't know this, but do you have
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  Speaker 1: to put the data center, like local to where you're
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  Speaker 1: going to need it, or can they be any place
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  Speaker 1: in the world.
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  Speaker 2: Well, that's that's a good question. Mark. I asked that
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  Speaker 2: exact same question to the technical people there. You know,
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  Speaker 2: there is a benefit to proximity because you need the
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  Speaker 2: transmission lines. But at some point I said, why can't
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  Speaker 2: we build these things out in the desert? Yeah, you know,
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  Speaker 2: and the problem is you would just need long transmission lines,
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  Speaker 2: you know, getting that to New York City or to
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  Speaker 2: Baltimore or to you know, your local community. But I
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  Speaker 2: think at some point that might be the future. You
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  Speaker 2: build them in outer space, and you build them in
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  Speaker 2: you know, very remote areas.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, the way you describe it, obviously it costs
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  Speaker 1: millions and millions to open one of these things, So
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  Speaker 1: why don't just put some heavy taxes on them and
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  Speaker 1: have them to help our tax burden.
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  Speaker 2: Well, there's all sorts of alternatives to how we do this,
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  Speaker 2: but we have to do it. And people say, well,
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  Speaker 2: I don't want to.
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  Speaker 1: AI is here.
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  Speaker 2: Businesses are already using AI and we're in that said
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  Speaker 2: many times in couple. So we're in the middle of
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  Speaker 2: an incredible productivity revolution. I mean, how about this mark,
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  Speaker 2: you know what we could with these productivity improvements they're
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  Speaker 2: coming four day work week.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, well I'm already doing that, but but I know, uh,
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  Speaker 1: Steve Moore, this has been fascinating. What a fascinating Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: it's great.
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  Speaker 2: I mean it's I wish every American could go visit
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  Speaker 2: a data center and you could see with your two
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  Speaker 2: eyes what's going on in these things. They are mind
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  Speaker 2: numbing in terms. I mean, think about this. Remember the
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  Speaker 2: old Lily Tomlin, you know skits where she would pay
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  Speaker 2: the play the uh, the switch to the telephone operator
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  Speaker 2: and she'd put me, oh you want to call Mike Smith, okay,
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  Speaker 2: and she'd take the plug out, she put it, put
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  Speaker 2: it into the you know that was like one one
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  Speaker 2: telephone call and one one operator was you know, you know,
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  Speaker 2: transmitting your call. These are billions of transactions and communications
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  Speaker 2: that are happening every minute.
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  Speaker 1: Well, well, Steve Moore, fascinating interview. This is it is unbelievable. Well,
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: great stuff. Everybody gets Steve Moore's book, The Trump Economic Miracle,
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: and make sure you sign up for his daily briefing.
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: And it's called the Hotline. You go to Unleash Prosperity
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: dot com. Sign up, it's free, it'll come write your email.
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: Unleashed Prosperity brilliant as always, Steve Moore, thanks for being
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: with us.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, Mark, have a great week.
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  Speaker 1: Take care, take care. Wow that was see Now you
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: know everything you need to know about these data centers. Hey,
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