Latest / Yaron Brook Show / Hegseth; Iran; Russia; JDVance; Debt; Oil; Golden Shares; Founders; Achievement | Yaron Brook Show

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Hegseth; Iran; Russia; JDVance; Debt; Oil; Golden Shares; Founders; Achievement | Yaron Brook Show · Yaron Brook Show

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: The Radical Fundamental Principles of Freedom, Rational Self-Interest, and Individual Rights.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: This is The Yaron Brook Show. The Radical Fundamental Principles
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: of Freedom. All right, everybody, welcome to the Ron Brooks
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: Show on this Thursday, September 3rd. Thanks for joining me.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: I know many of you were there yesterday when we
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: did a show on September 11th with Ilan Juno and
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Ankar Ghate. If you missed that, I highly recommend you
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: go view it. It is yesterday's show. As you can see,
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: I'm back in my office in Barcelona. So we will
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: be back to a fairly regular schedule of shows for
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: the next week and a half or so before I
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: go to London. London looks super busy, but I will
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: try to do shows out of my hotel room in London.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: Then I'll be in Tbilisi. I'm not sure what that's
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: going to be like. We will see and what my
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: schedule is going to be like in Tbilisi. and then
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: I'll be in Madrid. Anyway, it's going to be the
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: second half of the month is going to be very difficult.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: We'll try to do as many shows as we can
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: the first half of the month to catch up. If
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: you have a budget allocated for the month for Super Chats,
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: use it up early because there's not going to be
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: a lot towards the end. I get back home on
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: October 1st, and there'll be a few weeks there where
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: we'll do shows from home before I get back on
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: a plane and head to... South America, I'm going to
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: be in Brazil, in Chile, and in Argentina in October.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: And then I'll be in Rio for a while in Brazil.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: And then I'll go to Mexico City and then go
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: back home for like two or three days. And then
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: we're doing a tour in Michigan, right? Michiganians, where are you?
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: I know you're there. We're going to do a tour
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: in Michigan. Jennifer's helping with that. So I've got three, four, five,
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: three talks, three different universities in Michigan that I'm going
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: to go to. Then I'm in Denver. Then I'm in
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: San Francisco. Big debate in San Francisco. More info on
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: that forthcoming. As soon as I have it, I'll get
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: it out to you. So hopefully some of you can
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: come to that. And then after San Francisco, I'm going
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: to Ecuador to Quito and Guayaquil. And then back to
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: Mexico City. and then back home, and then I'll be home.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: Second half of November, basically Thanksgiving week, and all of December.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: All of December. All of December. Where and when in Michigan?
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: I think Jennifer is in the best position right now
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: to answer you in the chat about where and when,
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: but I think I'm speaking at University of Michigan. I'm
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: speaking at Hillsdale. First time ever. My first time ever
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: for years, Hillsdale refused to have me I'm speaking in
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: Hillsdale for one of the, I think the Economics Club. Jennifer, again,
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: will correct me if I'm wrong. And I'm speaking at
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: this other university that always has me up there. What's
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: the university name, Jennifer? So three universities. I'll actually, at
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: the university, the one I can't remember his name right now,
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: I will be teaching classes. two or three classes of
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: a professor and I'll bring in some of the classes
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: and I'll be talking about stuff, not sure exactly what.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: Sebas asks, when will I be in Quito? I'll be
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: in Quito. Oh God, I have to bring up my calendar.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: Once again, I'll tell you when I'm in Quito. We'll
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: be doing a whole day on, I'll be doing a
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: whole day, I think it's just me, on capitalism in Quito.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: So let me see when that is. That's that trip.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: Michigan is Michigan. Quito. Okay, Quito is on the 16th
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: of November. 16th of November I'll be in Quito. I'll
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: be in Guayaquil on the 17th.
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: So, yeah. That is the plan. All right, anybody else
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: have questions about my travel schedule? Again, Jennifer has all
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: the details. Hillsdale, November 17th. Northwood, I'll be in Northwood
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: during the day on the 17th, teaching classes. But I
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: think the event in Hillsdale will be open to the public.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: We'll get you information about that. I'm pretty sure the
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: University of Michigan will be November 10th. will be open
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: to the public Hillsdale, November 11th, not 17th. I misread that,
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: November 11th. So University of Michigan and Hillsdale, I think,
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: certainly Michigan, will be open to the public. So hopefully
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: we'll get a lot of you Michiganians, Michiganers, out to
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: join that. Anything else? Anything else on your mind, guys?
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: Anything else before I get to the news, what we're
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: really here for, we're actually here for the news. So, yes,
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: Hillsdale and University of Michigan, Jennifer confirms, are open to
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: the public. Also, San Francisco will be open to the public.
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: Denver not, unless we do something additional in Denver. I
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: was thinking of doing a public event in Denver, trying
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: to do a public event in Denver, if there's enough
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: people who would pay to attend. But I still need
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: to work on that. Talk a bit of the video
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: or live that you'll do next week on Mike Mensah.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: I don't know what that means. Anyway, on Sunday, Nikos
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: and I will be talking about Mike Mensah. For those
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: of you who don't know Mike Mensah, Mike Mensah is
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: a bodybuilding legend. But that's not really why Nikos and
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: I will be talking about him. I mean, I have
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: to admit, and I don't know about Nikos, I'm not
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: that interested in bodybuilding. But what's unique about Mike Mansa
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: is his interest in Iran. The fact that he studied objectivism,
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: he wrote about objectivism, he became a gateway for a
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: lot of people into objectivism because of his writing and
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: his commentary about objectivism. A lot of people came to
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: objectivism through Mike Mansa. And he was just a really
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: interesting guy. He also popularized a method of weightlifting, which
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: I think goes beyond bodybuilding, which is just the issue
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: of building muscle and the issue of health. That is
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: what we're talking about a little bit as well. We'll
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: talk about that. So that'll be on Sunday, Sunday at
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: 2 p.m. East Coast time. That'll be part of the
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: Yaron and Nikos Dialogues, Yaron and Nikos Dialogues. And, yeah,
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: that's it. Let's talk about the news. I don't know
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: where everybody is, but just, yeah, let people know. We're
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: on live right now. I think because of my irregular
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: schedule and not doing stuff, the number of people here
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: live has actually declined. All right, let's start with Hexeth.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: A lot of turmoil. A lot of challenges at the
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: Department of Defense or Department of War, however you want
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: to refer to it. But the reality is that there's
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: been a huge amount of turnover. Hegseth came in with
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: the idea of shaking things up. He particularly wanted to
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: get rid of DEI from the Defense Department, a good goal,
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: I think. But he also wanted to bring back what
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: he calls the warrior spirit. The one good thing about
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: Hegseth and I don't think there's many good things about Hicksworth,
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: but one of the good things about Hicksworth is he
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: has no, he is an opponent, if you will, of
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: just war theory. Now, he doesn't really have anything to
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: replace it with. He doesn't have an idea of what
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: the rules of war should be and how wars should
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: be guided and what the principles by which one should
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: fight should be and how soldiers should behave on that.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: I don't think, as far as I know, he's articulated
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: a full view on what that should be. But he does,
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: he is suspicious, and I think rightly so, of just
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: war theory, of the kind of idea that in trying
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: to win a war, and of course not winning any wars,
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: but in trying to win a war, one should protect
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: the enemy's civilians more than one's old soldiers, and one
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: should value that collateral damage, kind of destroying enemy civilians
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: or civilian infrastructure is somehow, you know, should never be allowed.
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: He is suspicious of that, and that's good for him.
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: The problem is that he's, the problem with Hicks is
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: my sense. I don't know him. Not very smart, not
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: very strategic, and too much of a partisan, too partisan,
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: a Christian nationalist with potentially, potentially, no proof of this,
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: but potentially racist undertones. But anyway, Hexeth came in to
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: shake things up and to get rid of a lot
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: of the generals. I think that's a good thing. I
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: think there was probably, you know, it was top-heavy, the Pentagon,
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: to change the mentality towards a warrior mentality. There's a
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: sense in which that could be a good thing. Of course,
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: it depends what you mean by warrior. I think Hexeth
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: Hicks' view of a warrior is physical ability and again,
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: the strategy, the thinking that is necessary to win wars
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: and the strategic thinking that is necessary to go into combat,
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: the planning, the logistics, all of that, I don't think
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: he values much. I think it's about fighting. He was never,
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: he never made it to a very senior rank in
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: the U.S. military. So he never really commanded a big force.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: He never had a thing strategically. He was a fighter, right?
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  Speaker 1: And so I understand that perspective. But now he's Secretary
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  Speaker 1: of Defense. He's not just a fighter in the trenches.
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  Speaker 1: He actually has a vital strategic role. He is the
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: chief strategist of war, of defense. And I don't think
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: he has that perspective. I don't think he has the ability.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: I think the U.S. military needs a real shakeup. I
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: think it has huge amounts of waste. The whole procurement system,
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: what Eisenhower famously called the military-industrial complex, needs a shakeup.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: The U.S. military needs a shakeup. DEI needs to go.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: All of the nation-building stuff needs to go. All of
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: the just war theory needs to go. It needs to
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: be much leaner. The military needs to be smaller, leaner,
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: and more lethal, and more lethal. But a big part
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: of that, a big part of that, as we're seeing
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: right now, has to be, for example, a focus on technology,
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: a focus on startups, a focus on a new way
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: of thinking about war that is less going to be
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: oriented around a muscular, you know, six foot three, I
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: don't know, 300 pound or I don't know, is that
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: a lot? 300 kilo chest press kind of guy and
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: much more around tech. Drones, robots, uh, drones in the air,
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: drones on the ground, drones in the water, drones underneath
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: the water. That's the future. It's AI. It's AI targeting.
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: It's AI in the drones. It's, it's tech. The future
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: of voice technology. And we're seeing that in Ukraine. We're
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: seeing that, uh, in, in, with Israel and Israeli using
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: AI for targeting and, uh, We saw it with the
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: war in Iraq, in Iran, sorry, in Iran. The future
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: was technology. And what we need is a Secretary of
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: Defense who is a thinker, a strategist, a, you know,
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: somebody who can, who understands technology, who can look into
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: the kind of, make a prediction about the future and
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: build a military around the future, not the past. Hexer
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: is not that guy. He shows no evidence of that.
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: A couple of days ago, we saw the Secretary of
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: the Army, Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, resign. Dan Driscoll is
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: much more of that kind of guy than Hegseth would be.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: He's much more on the side of intellect. Driscoll reportedly
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: voiced his concerns. He voiced the concerns about Hegseth, who
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: he's been clashing and fighting with since, you know, for
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: the last 16 months, since they've been in office. He
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: voiced his concern about the state of the army directly
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: to President Trump at a White House meeting last night,
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: last week, in telling the president he did not believe
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: the army could make the changes that it needed to
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: make because it lacked the leadership, the proper leadership. And
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: he told the president he was going to resign. I
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: don't think Trump seemed to care that much. He wanted,
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: from some rumors about the meeting, suggested all Trump wanted
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: to do was talk about the ballroom. But anyway, Driskell
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: is now out. And, you know, the army is not
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: in a position where we're fighting a war in Iran
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: without the top civilian leader, the secretary of the army,
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: without a Senate-confirmed chief of staff, and without... a confirmed
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: general commanding all army troops in Europe, which is relevant
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: given the risk and the fear, really, that Russia might
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: have some plans to try to destabilize NATO. So if
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: you look at what Heckseth has done over the last
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: 18 months, I mean, he has basically either fired or
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: blocked the promotions previously. of more than 80 generals and admirals.
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: That includes at least seven army officers who had been
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: scheduled to be promoted to the rank of two-star general.
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: You know, when, I mean, early, very early on, February 2025, Trump,
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: with Hex's endorsement, fired the chairman of the Joint Chief
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: of Staff, the Air Force Joint Chief of Staff, Air
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: Force General Charles Q. Brown. He then, or Hex has
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: then fired Admiral Lisa Franchetti, Chief of Naval Operations, and
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: General James Slythe, the Air Force Vice Chief of Staff,
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: all in the same evening, barely a month into the administration.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: And again, since then, over 80 people have been either
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: fired or their promotion has been blocked. Now, again, I
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: don't know enough about the particulars, particularly generals. A shakeup
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: in the Pentagon was justified. Shrinking the number of generals
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: is justified, probably. Do I trust Hexer to be doing
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: this with the right motives? Or is this a political cleansing?
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: Is this about DEI? Is this about people who he
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: thinks got their jobs because of DEI? Probably. Hexeth is
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: claiming that he has already made the military the best,
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: most powerful, most lethal fighting force the world has ever seen.
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: I think the U.S. military has been that for 60 years.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: But the reality is there's a drawn-out war in Iran,
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: which was not won. the massive, just unbelievable munition shortages,
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: the strategy in Iran, you have to conclude that the
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: military strategy which the Secretary of War is responsible for
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: was really, really flawed. And the fact that we're in
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: a dramatic munition shortage Patriot missiles, Tomahawk missiles, other missiles,
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: again suggest a lack of strategic thinking before going to
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: war and a lack of planning. And the fact that
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: the Pentagon is right now frantically going around to different
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: contractors trying to get more Patriots and more Tomahawks built faster.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: Why weren't they doing this a year ago? Why weren't
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: they doing this six months ago when they launched the war?
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: It really is It really is stunning how badly the
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: Pentagon is being run right now, given that we didn't
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: win in Iran, haven't won in Iran. We'll talk about
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: Iran in a minute. And we're facing this unbelievable munition shortage. Now,
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: many administrations are responsible for this munition shortage. This is
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: not just the Trump administration. This goes back decades in
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: terms of the irresponsibility And the bad management and the
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: bad strategy and the bad planning that president after president,
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: defense secretary, defense secretary have been engaged in. Okay, but
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: I don't see anything has changed in that respect. If
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: you remember in September last year, he summoned all the
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: military flag officers, generals and admirals, To Virginia and gave
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: this speech, which is kind of embarrassing. Really embarrassing. The
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: story is that he wants to do that again. He
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: really emphasizes fitness, fitness tests, height, weight checks, sex neutral,
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: highest male standard for combat arms jobs. I agree with that.
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: And now he wants mandatory testosterone screening for troops 30
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: years and over. So we're going to have a bunch
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: of American military getting testosterone patches, I guess, supplementation of testosterone.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: This is the focus on physical. At the same time, right,
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: in April, Hex has fired General Randy George, the Army
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: Chief of Staff, and General David Hodney, the head of...
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: the Services, Transformation, and Training Command. That command is responsible for, quote,
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: force design, force development, and force generation. In late June,
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: Hengstet ousted General Chris Donahue, the commander of all U.S.
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: Army troops in Europe and Africa, who was regarded as
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: a superb special operations commander. Mind. Horne, Donoghue, alongside Driscoll,
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: were also leading the army's push to incorporate more drones
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: into operations. Take that into account. What we talked about,
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: what is it, a week ago, two weeks ago, Baraheksek's
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: replacement for chief of the army, eliminating the drone battalion
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: that was working with the Ukrainians. to learn about drone
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: warfare and the emphasis of drone warfare by this administration.
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: It just, at the same time as all these startups
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: are building, it's, it just doesn't make any sense. So, um, yeah,
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: I mean, there's a lot of, I think, angst in
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: a Pentagon along a lot of angst among, um, professionals,
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: military analysts, and so on about what is going on
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: in the Pentagon. And there's also suspicion that a lot
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: of the firings and, you know, the people who are
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: blocked from promotion have been female and minorities. Whether that
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: is just a knee-jerk reaction to DEI or whether this
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: is really about performance or whether it's something else is
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: hard to tell, but it just is a fact. We're
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: not seeing the kind of modernization that you would expect,
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: given what we're learning from Ukraine and given what we're
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: learning in Iran. There are massive strategic decisions that have
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: to be made. I think we're really in a transition point.
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: Could we stand up to China? given the drone advantage
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: China has. We're also seeing a breakdown in logistics in
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: the Gulf of Oman, the Indian Ocean, where the Navy
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: is having a really, really hard time supplying its ships. Again,
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: part of that is past administrations deciding where to put
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: various logistics hubs. which the Iranians have very skillfully dismantled.
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: And part of it is going to war without really
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: thinking through the consequences. There's no exit strategy from Iran,
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: no military exit strategy, no diplomatic exit strategy other than retreat.
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: And of course, I'll go down, there are massive implications
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: to the fact that We're running out of weapons, of missiles.
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: I mean, Hegseth is, compared to previous Secretaries of Defense,
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: unbelievably unqualified. He's never run a big organization. Now he's
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: running the largest organization in the United States, the Defense
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: Department and the military. He's never really held a major,
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: you know, a significant rank within the military. He never
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: He never rose above the rank of major. You need
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: a real probe there. I've talked about this since he
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: was appointed. I mean, Hexler is a Fox commentator, a
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: Fox personality, a news personality. And he is now running
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: the Department of Defense. And I think we're going to
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: see a lot of distress there. Some people are calling
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: for his resignation or he's firing, but he seems to
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: have the full confidence of Trump. Trump is completely backing him.
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: So it doesn't, I would be shocked if Hexeth goes.
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: I think Hexeth is one of those guys that Trump loves. He's,
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: you know, Hexeth knows about as much about the military
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: as Trump knows about the economy. So he feels a
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: certain kinship. So no, I don't think Hicks is going anywhere,
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: even though there are rumors. I know Senator Tillis today
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: said that, you know, he should resign or he should
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: be fired. So it's something to watch. The U.S. military,
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: I don't think, is in good hands. We've got a
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: president who is irresponsible and not a strategic long-term thinker.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: We've got an incompetent, I think, Defense Department Secretary. We
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: don't have an Army Secretary anymore, and it's not clear
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: who's going to be appointed. There's nobody in line to
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: be appointed yet. In the meantime, HECSA is extending the
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: Mideast deployment of about 50,000 troops Into 2027, again, no
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: exit strategy, no strategy for victory. We know this is
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: straining troops. We know there's morale problems on the ships
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: that are out there. We've seen a shift in the
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: aircraft carriers. By the way, the aircraft carrier that was
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: in the Gulf of Oman had been there for a
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: very long period of time since the war began, really,
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: or since before the war began. uh, is now just
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: anchored in Thailand to allow, uh, the troops some vacation time, some, uh,
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: recreation time. Uh, and Thailand's very well known for some
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: types of recreation. Anyway, it, it, you know, they can
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: have a blast in Thailand and, um, and, uh, so
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: they're going to be in, uh, in, in Thailand, uh, for,
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: I guess the next couple of weeks, uh, to get
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: some rest and recreation. Uh, but yes, um, We're stuck
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: in Iran. The military is stuck there taking casualties, not
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: large numbers, but small levels of casualties. I think there
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: are 18 American casualties and about 750 injured since the
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: war began. A lot of the injuries, by the way,
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: are brain injuries. So let's talk about Iran, the war
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: in Iran. I mean, Trump keeps saying that the Homo
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: straight is now in American hands, I think. He's actually
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: suggesting that we change the name of the homeless straights
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: to the Trump straights. You know, you sometimes think, oh,
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: he's just kidding. He's trolling. And then he does it, right?
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: The Gulf of America and the Lake America instead of
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: Lake Ontario. So he goes ahead and does it. So
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: you never know with Trump. But anyway, things are... better
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: in the Homo Straits in this sense. It seems like
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: the Navy has finally gotten control of at least certain
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: routes out of the Homo Straits. You can't say they've
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: restored freedom of navigation, but they've had increased success recently
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: in providing more freedom of navigation. So You know, so,
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: you know, when I claimed in week one of this war,
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: on the Saturday after the war began, that the U.S.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: Navy has plans on how to open the Straits of Hormuz,
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: and I laid out what I thought some of those
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: would be. They've done a lot of that. They've done
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: some of that anyway. And it's taken them six months.
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: But it looks like the Strait of Hormuz is not
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: nowhere near back to previous levels. but maybe at 40%
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: of previous levels, maybe 30 to 40%. So U.S. officials
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: told Axis on September 2nd that approximately 40 4-0 vessels
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: carrying millions of barrels of oil transited the Strait of
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: Hormuz on September 1st. U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Rice also
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: confirmed that an oil tank has transported over 17 billion, million,
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: not billion, million, barrels of oil through the Strait on
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: August 31st, which is the highest volume of oil exports
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: through the Strait since the start of the war. And
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: the amount is close to the pre-war levels, which average
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: about 21.6 million barrels a day in the Fourth Code
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: of 2025. Now, my guess is the 17 million includes
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: all the oil going around the Strait of Hormuz through
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: the pipelines, the various pipelines, and that is intensifying. By
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: the way, they've now started a trucking route from Basra
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: in southern Iraq through the desert in western Iraq into Syria.
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: And then so you can see there, I've seen these
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: photos of long, long lines of these trucks carrying oil
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: going from Iraq basically to Syria, to Syrian port where
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: they're loading up the oil and shipping it out of there.
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: So all these countries are finding ways around the Strait
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: of Hormuz. My guess is the 17 million bowers includes that.
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: It's not literally shipping through the Strait. I don't think
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: that's realistic. The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimated on August
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: 10th that an average of 4.9 barrels per day transit
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: to the Straits in the second quarter of 2026. So
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: we've gone from 4.9 million barrels to 17 barrels, but again,
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: 17 including, I think, everything. Now, what all this suggests
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: is that Iran is having difficulty preventing the commercial vessels
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: from using the southern route. I think I've showed you
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: the one that hugs the Omani coast, the furthest one
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: away from the Iranian coast. And I think the reason
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: for this is they're facing real constraints. The U.S. has
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: bombed the radars, has you know, taken out both mining boats,
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: but also their projectiles, their cruise missiles, anti-ship cruise missiles.
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: They've taken out a lot of the forces along the coast.
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: The U.S. finally was bombing the coasts where they were
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: attacking ships. And they have been degraded. So U.S. strikes
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: have degraded. some of Iran's maritime surveillance and land mining capabilities,
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: and I think their cruise missiles capabilities. So the IGC
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: keeps claiming falsely that vessels are striking naval mines in
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: the Straits, but the fact is that the U.S. has
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: cleared those mines. Again, the U.S. has the capacity to
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: clear mines. It just should have done it. All of
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: this should have been done in week one. not six
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: months out. Imagine what the war in Iran would look
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: like if they'd never closed the Strait of Hormuz or
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: prices never spiked. It would be a different, I mean,
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: we would not be sitting in a completely different world. Now,
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: Iran is desperately trying to reconstitute military capabilities to threaten
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: the shipping in the Strait. It is the one card
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: that they have. They know that and they need to
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: reestablish it. So they're trying to rebuild their radar systems.
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: They're trying to rebuild and get more of the missiles
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: and the cruise missiles. They have these missiles that lay
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: small mines. That was one of the attacks that the
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: U S did the other night on missile launches for that.
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: They're trying to, they're trying to get whatever assets they can.
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: They're probably working with both the Chinese and the Russians
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: to try to import stuff. Um, So, yeah, Iran will
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: continue to try to do that. And they'll look for
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: other ways to do it. You know, we will see
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: what exactly. But Iran's not going to give up, in
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: other words. They're not going to give up. They've also
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: threatened in the past to cut the undersea tables, right?
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: These are the cables, fiber optics cables, the transit, the straight. And,
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: you know, these are crucial strategic connections between the Middle
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: East and Asia. They've threatened to cut the cables. And
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: there are many of these cables underneath, and they could
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: probably cut them. So we will see. They're also continuing
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: to attack, of course, other countries, Jordan and other countries. Although,
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: Just the other night, 50% of the ballistic missiles that
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: Iran launched failed at launch. So they're having problems, the Iranians.
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: They have no money. The economy is completely devastated. And
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: they are struggling. And 50% daily rate on ballistic missiles
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: is probably a reflection of the degradation of their long-range
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: missile capabilities. It's one of the reasons they don't fire
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: at Israel because they know they can't handle what the
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: response would be. So they'll fire at others because they
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: know the US is not going to get serious and
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: that the Saudis and the UAE and the Kuwaitis have
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: shown that they're not going to respond. So anyway, 50%
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: of missile failure is a lot, right, is a lot.
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: On September 1, Iran fired approximately 25 ballistic missiles at Jordan,
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: only half reached Jordanian airspace, and Jordanian air defenses intercepted
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: all 10 missiles. Well, no, three, actually three landed in
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: open areas. So they're probably using older, less advanced missiles.
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: or new hastily assembled missiles that did not work. So
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: in 2024, in April 2024, about 50% of missiles Iran
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: launched at Israel at the time also failed to launch
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: or crash before reaching their target. So the quality of
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: the missiles Iran has are not very good. Again, more
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: reason to believe that this is a war that could
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: be won and won easily if only there was a
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: commitment to actually winning it, to actual victory, and a strategy,
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: a strategy for actually winning it.
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: The Financial Times reported on September 1st that Russia has
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: covertly been helping Iran develop advanced cruise missile technology. This
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: would be hypersonic cruise missiles. That would be interesting. We
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: haven't seen cruise missiles play much of a role because
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: most of the cruise missiles, the Iranians have a slope
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: and can be shut down. This technology is significant. It
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: employs turbo jets and turbofan engines. And, you know, we
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: will see. They can bypass modern air defense systems more
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: easily because of the speed. So the current missiles deploy faster. uh,
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: use turbojet and turbofan engines. These would be, uh, different technology. Anyway,
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: Russians helping the Iranians, the Chinese helping the Iranians, uh, and, uh,
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: nothing more is really moving ahead. There's been a lot
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: of tit for tat the last week. I haven't had
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: shows on a lot of tit for tat that Iranians
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: will shoot, the Americans will shoot, the Iranians will shoot back,
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: you know, nothing really happening. Um, It does seem like
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: as the U.S. Navy is escorting ships out of the
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: Strait of Hormuz, which they, again, should have been doing
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: from week one, they're taking down a lot of the
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: drones that Iran is trying to shoot over. The U.S.
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: has the technology to take down drones and is successfully
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: taking down the drones in protecting the shipping lanes. All right.
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: Is there anything else? How does this end? is not clear.
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: I mean, Trump on the one hand thinks that the
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: blockade plus the economic sanctions, which have not really gone
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: into effect. Again, Trump has no interest in antagonizing the
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: Chinese right now by sanctioning China over its trade with Iran.
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: So he's not doing anything with regard to the secondary
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: sanctions that they threatened, they warned about. But not doing
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: anything about. But he hopes that Iran will just collapse
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: because of sanctions. It doesn't happen. It won't happen. It's
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: unlikely to happen, put it that way. He actually tweeted
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: the other day, when are the Iranian people going to
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: go out into the streets and overthrow the solution? Yeah,
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: last time they did that, you promised them help, and
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: they didn't provide the help. So I don't know if
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: anybody's taking you seriously about going out in the streets.
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: So he's hoping that the economic pressure of the blockade
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: and the sanctions will cause the Iranian people regime to collapse.
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: On the other hand, he's telling aides, supposedly, that he's
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: had enough, that he can't sustain this war, and he's
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: basically considering formally declaring the war over, mission accomplished, like
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: Bush did. He really, according to Wall Street Journal, the
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: stories they're hearing is that what he really wants to
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: do is declare the war over and just forget about it.
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: Keep the sanctions. I don't think he can keep the
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: blockade on without keeping all those troops over there. So again,
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: not clear what's going on, not clear what Trump wants
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: to do because I don't think Trump knows what he
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: wants to do. In the meantime, a lot of tit
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: for tat, a lot of tit for tat. And real
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: challenges of providing food, water supplies to the Navy that
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: is parked outside the Strait of Hormuz. You know, I'll
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: just give you a sense. On a typical U.S. aircraft carrier,
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: you've got 5,000 crew members. They work around the clock.
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: They require up to four meals a day. While the
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: ship is nuclear-powered, the planes and helicopters that are flying
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: off of them all use millions of gallons of fuel
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: every week. So you've got to get fuels. Now, the
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: carriers don't travel alone. They are protected by destroyers armed
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: with anti-aircraft and cruise missiles, together forming what is called
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: the carrier strike group. These ships also need to be
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: resupplied with food and fuel. There are currently two carriers
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: and 12 destroyers in the Middle East helping to enforce
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: the blockade of Iranian ports. You've got the USS George W.
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: Bush and the USS George Washington with 12 destroyers. So
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: that is, what, 10,000 personnel on the carriers another 3,700
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: personnel on 12 destroyers. Now, they also have extra support
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: from a set of three warships known as amphibious ready groups.
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: These are marine amphibious ships. They have 5,000 personnel, 5,000
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: Marines on them. The Navy has about 20 ships in
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: the Middle East overall, carrying roughly 20,000 sailors and Marines.
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: The logistical challenges are huge. The ships need enough food
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: for more than 420,000 meals and about 8 million gallons
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: of fuel each week. And this is the thing. Their
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: main supply depot was in Bahrain. That was taken out
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: by the Iranians week one, maybe even day one. Since then,
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: they've had to resupply the ships primarily from either Diago
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: Garcia or Singapore. Diego Garcia is 2,200 miles away, 2,200
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: miles away from where the ship's active. Singapore is 3,700
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: miles away, and you have to go through the Malacca Straits,
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: which is not an easy transit given how busy those
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: streets are. So food and oil, Can you just imagine
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: how many ships have to go back and forth from
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: Diego Garcia to supply? Again, strategic challenges without a war deployed,
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: without really thinking it through. So, yeah, we're still stuck there.
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: And I have no confidence in the leadership of our
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: military or at least the political leadership of our military
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: in the Pentagon or the political leadership of our country.
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: in Trump is figuring out a way of how to
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: win this, how to bring the troops home, and how
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: to bring the troops home while winning, right? Not bring
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: the troops home in utter complete defeat and acceptance of
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: that defeat. All right, a few things related to Russia.
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: So this will be a hodgepodge of stuff. I mean,
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: Russia's just pounding Ukraine. It's pounding Ukraine. And as we've
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: talked about before, Ukraine just doesn't have the Patriot missiles.
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: It doesn't have their defense systems to take down what
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: Russia is throwing at them. They're out of Patriots. They're
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: not going to be resupplied anytime soon. Whatever alternative to
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: the Patriot system they don't have, there are alternatives. The
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: Israeli arrow system, which should have been supplied to Ukraine.
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: Shame on the Israelis for not selling it to Ukraine.
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: And then there's the European anti-aircraft and anti-missile defense systems.
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: I don't understand why those have not been adopted by
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: the Ukrainians and not in full supply. Maybe they're not
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: that good. I don't know. They're supposedly, for some jobs,
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: as good as the Patriots. Anyway, In some ways, the
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: Ukrainians are naked in the face of this assault by
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: the Russians. And Russia now is using a new tool.
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: They're using jet-powered drones. These are jet-propelled drones that travel
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: significantly faster, twice as fast as older models of drones.
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: They're launched in quantities that overwhelm their defenses. And because
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: they're fast, it's very, very hard to knock them down. Now,
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: Ukraine is about as good as anybody at shooting down drones.
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: So there's an arms race. Can the Ukrainians develop defensive
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: tech fast enough to overcome the latest, greatest weapons that
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: the Russians are throwing at them or launching at them,
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: as the case may be? In August, Russia launched more
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: than 2,800 of these jet-propelled drones. And they can probably
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: produce tens of thousands of these a year. And look, strategically,
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: these drones are not causing that much damage. But they
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: cause so much angst and disruption. And they cause some
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: damage to the infrastructure that provides the heat during the winters.
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: That's the real pain. The pain is that, you know,
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: they're not killing thousands of Ukrainians, but every day they
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: kill a few. That increases fear and what the Russians
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: hope is to break the morale of the Ukrainians. These
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: jet-propelled drones are basically variations of the Iranian drones, the
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: Shahad drones that Iran provided to the Russians. And they
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: could reach speeds up to 250 miles an hour. And,
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: you know, it's hard, hard to shoot them down, hard
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: to shoot them down. So this alliance between Russia and
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: Iran is important to Russia and important to Iran, right?
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: All right. So, That's kind of an update on the
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: kind of Russia-Ukraine war. Nothing, I mean, there's still fighting
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: on the ground going on, but nothing dramatic happening on
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: the ground. This is about Trump's attitude towards Russia. So
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: here's an exchange from a press conference. Trump says, we
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: all had good relations with Russia. A reporter says, but
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: Russia's not our ally. Trump says, yes, they are. Putin
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: is my friend. The reporter says, what about Canada? They
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: stood with us for decades, Trump says. They're nasty people.
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: Reporter says, so now Russians are good and Canadians are nasty?
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: Trump says, yes. Next question. It's unbelievable, right? Russia is
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: the good guys. It's Canada that's the problem. How he
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: gets away with this and nobody is up in arms
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: about it? And here's Besser. Again, he's being interviewed about
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: oil prices. He says, quote, we're going through an energy shock.
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: Ukraine has decided that they want to blow up Russia
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: energy assets. This is creating pressure on prices globally. So
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: let's blame the Ukrainians who are doing everything they can
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: to defend themselves against Russian aggression. Let's blame them for
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: oil prices going up. And not mention at all that
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: Russia spent years bombing Ukrainian power plants, destroying Ukraine. energy infrastructure,
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: attacking Ukrainian cities and trying to freeze Ukrainians in the
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: winter and killing just civilians, just targeting civilian targets without
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: any constraints. I mean, this sounds like, yeah, the Ukrainians
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: were bored one day and decided what the hell. Let's
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: go after Russian energy assets. My view of Besson, I mean,
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: it was low to begin with. I mean, it was,
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: you know, maybe he's an adult in the room. It's
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: just gone. It's just plummeted, particularly over the last few months.
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: It's just unbelievable. Just unbelievable. But instead of blaming Russia
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: for the war, which has raised oil prices, blame the
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: Ukrainians for attacking Russia. Defending Russia. Unbelievable. All right, this
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: one's going to be fun. I want to show you
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: a video of JD Vance. And this is not really news,
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: but I'm building up evidence, sharing with you evidence about
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: JD Vance. And I know many of you are already
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: convinced the guy should not be president. But when the
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: time comes, and many of you will turn on me
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: and say, Yeah, but it's a binary choice and we
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: have to vote for Vance. I want you to remember
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: some of these videos that I am, you know, the
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: videos I'm showing you of him and our discussions here
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: about J.D. Vance and his ideas, if you can call
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: them that. So this is from an interview he did with,
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: what's this guy's name? Bryce Crawford. Bryce Crawford, who has 1.1
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: million subscribers. He's a Christian, young Christian guy who talks
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: a lot about faith and Christianity. And he managed to
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: get the vice president of the United States on the
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: podcast with him. And they had a very interesting conversation.
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: So we're going to jump around a little bit. Let
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: me just find my notes about where I have to
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: jump to. Where is that? Right there. Okay. So I've
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: got that. So we're going to, I'm going to show
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: you a few very short, I think they're pretty short, uh, bits. And, um, no,
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: you know what? I need to check. I wondered what
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: speed I've got this. Anyway, it's this short. And if
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: it's a little fast, that'd be fine. Um, So this is,
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: I guess, Bryce. He's right here. And he's asking JD
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: Vance questions. And let's take it from this point, right?
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: And a lot of this has to do with spirituality
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: and faith and so on. All right. Let me know
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: if you're hearing okay, right? If sound is good.
• 52:36
  Speaker 4: Have you ever been in a room, though, like in
• 52:38
  Speaker 4: Washington that feels spiritually dark?
• 52:42
  Speaker 5: Because I've been in a room.
• 52:43
  Speaker 4: That's like, okay, you feel like Satan is presently here
• 52:47
  Speaker 4: or there's blatant evil. Have you ever felt that, just
• 52:51
  Speaker 4: being in a room around power or influence, stuff like that?
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: How about you guys? Have you ever felt like you
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: were in a room and Satan was there? I mean,
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: sometimes it's hard to believe we're in the 21st century.
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: We're in the post-enlightenment 21st century. It's challenging to believe that.
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: But this is a serious question. If you're in the present,
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: have you ever felt you're in a room where maybe
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: Satan was present? Yeah.
• 53:20
  Speaker 6: So definitely, though less like a room itself and more
• 53:24
  Speaker 6: sometimes like people that are around you sometimes give you
• 53:28
  Speaker 6: a very, very bad feeling.
• 53:29
  Speaker 5: You know, I've definitely... You know, I've been in meetings
• 53:35
  Speaker 5: with world leaders where various.
• 53:38
  Speaker 6: Issues are being discussed and somebody will say something or
• 53:41
  Speaker 6: somebody will make an observation and I will like feel
• 53:45
  Speaker 6: a certain darkness about it. And I kind of like
• 53:48
  Speaker 6: it sort of sets off every spiritual alarm bell in
• 53:51
  Speaker 6: my body.
• 53:52
  Speaker 5: Like whatever that person.
• 53:53
  Speaker 6: Just said, I need to be very careful because that's
• 53:56
  Speaker 6: not that's not a great thing.
• 53:57
  Speaker 5: So I would say I feel it more around people
• 53:59
  Speaker 5: necessarily than people.
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: So I'm really glad we had a vice president of
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: the United States or maybe future president of the United
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: States that has such strong feelings and is guided so
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: much by the feelings he gets and the spiritual guidance
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: he gets and the vibe that he gets from what
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: people are saying, particularly world leaders. I mean, we want
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: our leaders to be well-educated and to be guided by feelings, right? Feelings?
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: Who's that? I think that's right. By the feelings that other,
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: the vibes, you know, that other world leaders, you know,
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: this is the guy who's going to decide who's going
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: to go to war and what wars we're going to
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: go fight. I'm glad he's attuned with his feelings. This
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: is good. Let me do, okay, I think, Yeah. This
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: was a little earlier than I wanted, but. Assassinated.
• 55:05
  Speaker 4: He barely moved half an inch. I mean, you literally
• 55:09
  Speaker 4: would not be sitting here talking to me.
• 55:11
  Speaker 5: Correct.
• 55:11
  Speaker 4: So how, when you, when you think of that scenario,
• 55:16
  Speaker 4: do you see, how does, do you see God in
• 55:19
  Speaker 4: that scenario bringing you here?
• 55:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 55:21
  Speaker 6: So, and this is why, you know, I say like,
• 55:25
  Speaker 6: if you really want to try, you can find just
• 55:28
  Speaker 6: a hyper scientific, rational explanation for this.
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 55:31
  Speaker 6: So, President Trump is standing on stage, I guess, and
• 55:35
  Speaker 6: he points to a chart, and he points to a
• 55:37
  Speaker 6: chart just so happens to be at the exact moment
• 55:40
  Speaker 6: that the guy took a shot. Now, again, there is
• 55:41
  Speaker 6: a physical explanation for that. He noticed the chart. He
• 55:44
  Speaker 6: pointed at the chart. He turned his head.
• 55:46
  Speaker 5: The guy fired the bullet. Crazy coincidence, right? These things happen.
• 55:50
  Speaker 6: But I think that that's a very spiritually impoverished way
• 55:55
  Speaker 6: to look at things.
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: So looking at things through science– and thinking things through
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: causal relationships and recognizing the existence of chance that, you know,
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: things are not coordinated by any, by, by, by an
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: external consciousness. That's all spiritually impoverished way. I mean, I'm
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: glad to know that I'm spiritually impoverished, but to look
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: at things, but you know, this.
• 56:24
  Speaker 6: Was, Like whatever the reason is, whatever God was trying
• 56:27
  Speaker 6: to accomplish, like it is just so obvious to me
• 56:31
  Speaker 6: that coincidences like that don't happen without the hand of providence.
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: Coincidences like that do not happen without the hand of providence.
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: This is a mystic, a complete and utter mystic. This
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: is guided by God. So, I mean, of course, Lincoln
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: was also shot and that was guided by God, whatever
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: his purpose might have been. And when babies die, that
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: is guided by God, whatever it proves to be. And
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: when you get cancer and you die a horrible, slow death,
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: that is guided by God. Although, of course, they always
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: say no. I always like it when, you know, in football,
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: they seem to thank God a lot. They don't thank
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: God in basketball, maybe because the game is too fast.
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: But in football, you catch the pass and you score
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: a touchdown, you thank God immediately, right? When you drop
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: the pass, you don't shake your hand at God. It's
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: always your fault. So it is interesting. They never blame
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: the bad sucker. You know, I get really upset about
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: this stuff. And I get really upset about this stuff
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: because we're in the 21st century, and we have a
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: chance of being led by somebody, and maybe by, there's
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: a lot of people out there, who is medievalist, who has...
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: A real pre-enlightenment sense of religion. God is in all
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: of our affairs. He's here all the time. He's guiding
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: everything that we do. I am a vehicle of God.
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: I mean, that is a scary proposition to me. Will
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: he start hearing the voice of God? Who knows? And
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: I know, I know, I know 60, 70% of Americans
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: believe this crap. And another 20% believe other crap. But
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: other mystical crap. But I'm, you know, I'm going to
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: say this. This is barbarism. This is primitivism. This is crap.
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: This is nonsense. This is the kind of stuff that
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: is really scary that our founding fathers tried to move
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: away from. If they believed in a God, they believed
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: in a God, kind of an Aristotle God, a God
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: that sets stuff in motion and moves away. I don't
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: think any of the founders, the major founders, believed in
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: a God that determines whether the bullet will hit Trump
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: or not hit Trump. They didn't view themselves as being
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: guided by God. Maybe being guided by a certain moral code,
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: but not by God. And I'm sure there'd be another president.
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: who felt this, but like, the later it gets, we're
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: in the 21st century, the more offensive this becomes, the
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: more upsetting it is, the more ridiculous it is. And
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: I don't have an argument, you know, I'm not going
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: to get into a discussion here about The fact that
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: God doesn't exist and a God that intervenes in every
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: one of our decisions fills, you don't get filled the
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: room here with contradictions that that necessitates. Again, it's the
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: Vice President of the United States is having a serious
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: conversation about this. Takes this completely serious. There's no irony.
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: There's no question in his mind. always putting on a
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: great show for the religious audience of this guy. I
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: don't know. And I'm not sure which one it was.
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 6: Okay.
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: I'm going to skip ahead. Let's go to, because this
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: is in some ways even spooky, right?
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 2: 5852.
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: Let's see if I can make that.
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: We'll start here. All right. Maybe a little bit further.
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 2: 5852.
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 6: Got it.
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 5: Do I think that we're in the end times? I
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 5: don't know.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: Do I think we're at the end of times? His
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: answer is, I don't know. Now he has to say,
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: I don't know, because he doesn't know. And it would
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: be unbelievably presumptuous of him as a Catholic to know
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: the end of times. Think about what he would be
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: like if he were president and he believed that we
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: were at the end of times. Think about what that
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: would imply and how that could shape his actions. I mean,
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: this whole, you know, he's going to talk about the
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: end of times. He doesn't know if we're at the
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: end of times. And note, we've been at the end
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: of times since the time of Jesus. Jesus thought we
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: were at the end of times. Jesus believed, according to
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: the New Testament, that the world was going to end soon.
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: Many of the things he said assumed that. The people
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: writing the Gospels believed, Paul believed we were close to
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: the end of times. The people writing the Gospels thought,
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: was it a hundred years later, that we were at
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: the end of times? Over and over and over and
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: over again, fall of Rome was suggestive of the end
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: of times. But we don't know. Maybe it's now. Who knows?
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: I mean, there's so much stuff going on in the
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: world right now. Maybe the end of times is right now.
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 6: And I think that it's probably bad for me spiritually
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 6: to focus too much on it because there are like things.
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 5: You got to do. I got to be good to
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 5: my wife. I got to be good to my kids.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 6: I have to be, you know, as good of a
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 6: leader as I can for the United States of America.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 6: And so I think that focusing while I'm fascinated by it,
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 6: I think focusing on it is too much can be
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 6: very bad.
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: He's fascinated by the end of times. Fascinated. i'm glad
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: we're gonna have a we have a leader in the
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: white house who is really fascinated by the end of
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: times and demons we've talked about that in the past i.
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 6: Think that there are like things about the world that
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 6: make me feel like not shocked if the antichrist was
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 6: was walking among.
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: Us so you wouldn't be shocked if the antichrist was
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: walking among us and who is that zelinski maybe i
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: don't know uh I don't know. Maybe it's Centennial. Who
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: knows who the Antichrist is, but he wouldn't be shocked.
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: I mean, just think about a mentality. I really, how
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: do I drill this home? Think about a mentality that
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: thinks it could be living in the end of times
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: and God has sent an Antichrist this year and there's
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: going to be this big rapture and Jesus is going
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: to come down and he's going to fight the Antichrist
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: and there's going to be this war of all against
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: all and the Jews better convert to Christianity or they
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: go to hell and and the dead are going to
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: rise up from their graves. And this fascinates him. There's
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: a spookiness to the whole thing.
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 6: But again, I try not to focus too much on it.
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 6: I think that I made life as living as an
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 6: investor in Silicon Valley– sort of right before the AI
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 6: boom really started.
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 5: I sort of got into politics and, you know, there.
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 6: Are things that some of the AI companies you see
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 6: happening where you feel like there is some really, really
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 6: weird spiritual dark energy. So like, have you, have you
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 6: heard this? Like one of the companies, you know, that
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 6: develops these models when they get rid of one model
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 6: and announce a new model, they actually hold a burial
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 6: ceremony for the old model. And the employees apparently will cry.
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: What the heck? So this is from a mystic who's
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: complaining about other people who actually created this stuff. So
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: it's not mystical. Maybe they connected to this model. They
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: built the model. They created the model. And if you've
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: interacted with AI, you know you can get personally attached
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: to these models. He's complaining. about the dark energy. I mean,
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: can you think about anything with more dark energy than
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: putting the body of Christ in your mouth and drinking
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: his blood? And the wine converts into his blood so
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: you're basically a cannibal. There's something very, very dark about
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: Christianity and Catholicism in particular and about the whole ceremonies
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: of it. But no, we're complaining about AI. We're complaining
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: about an AI company. All right, one last quick one.
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: And again, this is all just building up some evidence,
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: building up the kookiness of this guy, because I think
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: he's a kook. And I think you need the evidence
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: that he is one. Wait a minute. We have to
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: go back.
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 5: All right.
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: We'll start there.
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 6: Whoops.
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: Now it keeps jumping forward on me. Back.
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 2: 101.
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: All right, we'll start here.
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 6: When you completely divorce the human from the social element
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 6: that God made us for, I think that's very bad.
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 6: So anyway, I'm fascinated by it, but I try not
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 6: to spend too much time on it.
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: He's still going on about the end of time. This
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: is one of the.
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 6: Areas where different– like Southern Baptists might look at it
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 6: a little differently than Pentecostals who might look at it
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 6: differently from Methodists who might look at it differently from Catholics.
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 6: And one of the things that I think that Catholics
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 6: are very focused on that I think is very good
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 6: for me is this idea that we are, we don't
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 6: know when God is coming, but we are commanded to
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 6: try to as much as possible, try to make the world,
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 6: the kind of world that God wants it to be. Right.
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: Try to make the world, the kind of world that
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: God wants it to be. And he knows what that is. And, um,
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: To me, that's what's scary. He's commanded to do that.
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: He's commanded as a Catholic and then as president. He
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: wants to make America the kind of country that God
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: wants it to be so that Jesus comes back one
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: day and fights the Antichrist and all that garbage. So
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: it's craziness.
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: You know, it's funny because I think I don't have
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: much to say about this because you should be listening
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: to this and it should be obvious. But maybe this
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: stuff I need to articulate about why it's crazy. But
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: I think you all know why I think it's crazy. Okay.
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: We are way, way, way, way behind on some of
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: this stuff. So let's jump forward. Let's talk about– let
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: me get back to the correct notes. Let's close that. Yeah,
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: I just want to mention, I'm still tracking what's going
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: on with the bond market, with U.S. debt that is,
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: of course, exploding. But more importantly, what is going on
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: with debt markets around the world, and it's become a
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: global phenomenon. Interest rates on long-term bonds all across the
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: world are going up significantly. The Japanese 10-year just hit 3%,
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: which doesn't sound high, but that's the highest it's been
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: since 1996. 1996, that's 30 years ago. And for decades,
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: Japan pretty much borrowed money at almost zero. People were
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: willing to lend the Japanese money without gaining much return.
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: The yen was relatively strong and the economy padded along.
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: It wasn't particularly good, They ran massive deficits because they
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: could keep borrowing at zero. Well, now they've got a
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: lot more debt than the U.S. does as compared to
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: the size of their economy. And their borrowing costs are
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: no longer zero. What does Japan do? How does it
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: fund its deficits? How does it pay all the old
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: people in Japan? Japan has a very, relatively speaking, a
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: very old population, very few young people. How does it
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: pay for all the benefits to the old people? How
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: does it build up its military, which it is committed
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: to doing? It's committed to building up its military because
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: it sees you know, the threat from China. You know,
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: how does the Japanese state continue when it has to
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: pay a huge amount of interest on its debt? It
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: has to raise money constantly from debt markets that are
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: becoming more and more skeptical about its ability to pay
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: it back. And Japan is a big economy, the third
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: largest in the world. So it's not trivial to the
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: rest of the world what happens in Japan. And of course,
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: at the same time, you know, the yen is going
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: down in value, even though interest rates are going up.
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: The yen is going down in value. Now, today it
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: went up in value. It went up in value a
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: little bit. But basically, it's close to, you know, really,
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: you know, what is it, 40-year lows versus the U.S.
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: 40-year lows. Even though the U.S. has been helping the
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: Japanese prop up the yen, the Japanese central bank has
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: been buying up yen to try to prop up its value.
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: It's still near 40-year lows. I guess it hit the
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: lows in late August. It's come off of those lows
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: in the last few days as interest rates have gone up.
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: But still, interest rate goes up. It means you're rewarded
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: for holding that currency more. You know, more likely to
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: people own yen, the higher the interest rates are. Same
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: with dollars. The higher the interest rate are, the more
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: that entices people to buy up, to buy dollar denominated
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: assets because they can get a higher interest return on them.
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: So it's going to be really interesting. I will continue
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: to watch. The U.S. 10-year was over 4.8, I think,
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: yesterday or the day before. which is again, relatively to
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: recent history, a very high number, not high relative to
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: 20 years ago, high relative to the last 15 years.
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: And the consequence of that is stocks were down, stocks
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: are up today because the bond yields have gone down
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: a little bit. Remember, asset prices and bond yields are
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: inversely related. All right, just keep an eye on it.
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: If there's going to be another crisis, if there's going
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: to be a financial crisis, if there's an economic crisis
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: coming down the road, it's going to be from the
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: bond market. It's going to be related to the bond market.
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: It might be banks that are holding bonds, but it's
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: going to be related to the debt, I think. That
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 1: is my guess. All right. Yeah. this is a story
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: that happened while I was away. So I didn't cover it.
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: It's a big story though. This is a big story.
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: And this is the deal. The Trump administration has cut
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: with Venezuela. It's a significant and very unusual deal. And very,
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: in my view, you know, very, very bad deal. But anyway, um,
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: Trump announced on August 28th, it was about a week ago. Um,
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 1: that he had come to an agreement with Rodriguez's interim government.
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: The basic agreement is that Venezuela has granted long-term development
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: rights over 17 oil fields containing roughly 65 billion barrels
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: of proven reserves. It's about one-fifth of Venezuela's reserves, which
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: are the largest in the world. They have more oil
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: reserves than Saudi Arabia, more oil reserves than we do
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: in the United States. They've granted this long-term development rights
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: to a private company called North American Blue Energy Partnership, NABEP. Now, NABEP,
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: as we said, got concessions of 17 oil fields. The
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: White House is claiming that the concessions run for 100 years.
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: although that has not been verified by the Venezuelans. You know,
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: these are rich fields. These are rich fields of that heavy, heavy,
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: and what's the opposite of sweet? Sour oil. Heavy and
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: sour oil that the Gulf refineries love, right? This is
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: basically oil that will replace our reliance on Canadian oil
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 1: once Trump embargoes Canada. Now, here's the thing that should
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: scare you. Here's the thing that should really, really horrify
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: you in terms of where the United States is heading.
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: The U.S. government, the government, gets a 35% equity interest
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: in NABEP's parent company. They do this through the Pentagon's
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: Office of Strategic Capital. The U.S. government becomes an owner
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 1: of a private oil enterprise. I don't think we've ever
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: seen that in American history. U.S.
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 3: Government.
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: The U.S. State Department gets the right to buy 20%
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: of NABEP's production at production costs. No profit. Not the
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: world market price, but at production costs. And then it
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 1: gets the rate of first refusal on the other 80%.
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: This is basically the U.S. government confiscating this oil at
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 1: production prices. Or having the right to confiscate this oil
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: at production prices. I guess production prices include the royalty
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: that will have to be paid to the Venezuelan government.
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 1: So this would, again, be the oil supply to those refineries.
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: in the Gulf that can only refine heavy, sour oil.
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: That's why the United States actually exports a lot of
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 1: the oil we frack because our oil is sweet and light.
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: Not good for the refineries we built. Refinery we built
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 1: was for Canadian oil and Venezuelan oil, not for US
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 1: oil coming out of the oil fields right now. So
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 1: we export that oil and we import from Canada the
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: heavy oil that we need in order to refine. That's
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 1: unbelievable that we can get a production cost. Washington, the government, U.S. government,
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 1: also receives corporate control rights. The U.S. can veto board appointments.
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: A majority of NABEP's directors must be American. And the U.S.
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 1: NABEP agreement falls under U.S. law and U.S. courts. So basically,
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: the U.S. government controls this entity, even though it only
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: owns 35%. Now, the idea is that NABEP will raise
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 1: and invest up to $ 100 billion in Venezuelan production infrastructure. Now,
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 1: that's a proposal. It's not $ 100 billion from the government.
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: The government just got 35% without an investment. And Venezuela
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 1: is projected to receive roughly $ 200 billion in royalties and
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 1: taxes over the first 25 years. Now, it's also the case,
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: and this is, I guess, good news, the Trump administration
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: broadly reopened Venezuela to Western energy investment. Chevron announced more
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: than $ 7 billion of investment over five years. But this
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 1: is not the same deal. This big deal, this NABEP,
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 1: It's a government deal. It's a government ownership. So there's
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: three stories here, really. Economically, you know, we're privatizing Venezuelans' oil,
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 1: but really handing it over to the U.S. government. So
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure it's private in that sense. Now, it's true.
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: There'll be private investment going in. It's not the U.S.
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: government investing. But the U.S. government controlling can't be a
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 1: good thing, guys. We'll talk about it in a minute.
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 1: This will increase dramatically the amount of oil coming out
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: of Venezuela, and that's a good thing. There's a geopolitical
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 1: aspect to this. Basically, we're pulling Venezuela's oil away from...
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 1: the people who were trying to gain control of it
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 1: and had control of it for many decades, even though
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 1: not a lot of oil came out of it, which
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 1: are the Russian and Chinese. So Venezuela is under the
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 1: Russian and Chinese sphere of influence. It is now under
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: the American sphere of influence. This is the new Monroe-Trump doctrine. And,
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 1: you know, we've sidelined the Russian and Chinese. There's also
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 1: another geopolitical dimension here, and that's Canada. Again, this Venezuelan
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: oil is going to replace Canadian oil as the oil
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 1: that our refineries use to produce the gasoline, the jet fuel,
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 1: all the rest of the stuff that we consume. So
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 1: it sidelines Canada. But third, This is the United States
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: government taking a 35% ownership interest in an oil company
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 1: and acquiring privileged below-market purchasing rights and taking corporate governance powers?
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: I mean, this is about as socialist as it gets?
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 1: And Trump is out there yelling communist, communist, communist at
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 1: his left-wing opponents? There's another red flag. I mean, this
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 1: deal is just, it just smacks of corruption. Just unbelievable.
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 1: And just the kind of the end of America in
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: a sense of America representing the last remnants of capitalism.
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 1: This is it. This just finishes it. Here's the other
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: red flag. NABBP is going to be some kind of,
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: is going to be The principal figure behind NABBEPB, the
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: guy running it, is a Venezuelan businessman by the name
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 1: of Alejandro Benicote. It's not Chevron, it's not Exxon, it's
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 1: not an American oil company. It's a Venezuelan businessman. Now,
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 1: you know, I don't know much about this Venezuelan businessman,
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 1: but I do know what the Human Rights Foundation thinks
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 1: of him. And the Human Rights Foundation is a good organization.
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 1: It's an organization that fights for individual rights against oppression
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 1: all over the world. Its founder and CEO, Thor Hovidsson,
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 1: is an acquaintance, I guess. You know, we're friendly. Very
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 1: positive about Ayn Rand. A good guy. Basically a good guy.
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 1: I mean, he has an unbelievably negative view of Benekert.
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know, Thor Hovidsson has been pursuing Benacord
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 1: and his business associates, Derek Associates, it's called, partners, for
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 1: more than a decade. So this is not new. In
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 1: a quote he provided to the Financial Times, think about this,
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 1: this is Thor writing in the Financial Times, quote, the
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 1: kind of scumbag you only come across once in a generation.
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 1: This is what he said about Alejandro Benacord. It's pretty
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 1: strong language from somebody who runs a nonprofit and is
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: quoted in their financial times. The Human Rights Foundation claims
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 1: that Derrick Associates, which is an electricity company that Benicourt
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 1: founded with several other young Venezuelan businessmen during the Chavez era,
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 1: they claim that this group has virtually no experience building
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 1: power plants, yet it obtained 12 Venezuelan government power generation
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 1: contracts in 14 months. Derrick subcontracted much of the actual
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: work and overbilled the Venezuelan government by more than $ 1 billion.
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 1: Thor has gone even further. He alleged that Derrick's businessmen
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 1: bribed Venezuelan government officials to obtain the contracts, moved proceedings
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 1: through US-Canadian and Endoran banks purchased extremely expensive real estate, aircraft,
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 1: and other assets abroad with the proceeds and benefited from
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 1: political protection inside the Chavez-Maduro system. Human Rights Foundation subsequently
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 1: presented testimony to the U.S. Senate describing Derrick's activities in
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 1: even stronger terms. Human Rights Foundation alleged that Derrick bought
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 1: secondhand power-generated equipment charged Venezuela far more than the equipment
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 1: and construction were worth, and that overall skimmed overbill exceeded
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 1: $ 2 billion. And it alleged kickbacks and a bunch of corruptions, right?
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 1: So they've been going after this guy for a long time.
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: So he's a corrupt scumbag. Uh, The Human Rights Foundation
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 1: claims that Benicode has tried to bribe them to stop
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 1: looking into the case. And, you know, this is going
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 1: through the courts, I guess, in international jurisdictions. But if
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 1: Venezuela is so corrupt, you're not going to get it.
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 1: So here's Trump putting something together. Why is Alejandro Benicode?
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 1: the guy who's leading this effort. I mean, Trump, you know,
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 1: Trump has basically handed this guy the keys. If you're
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 1: trying to dismantle the Chavez-Maduro economic order, why would you
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 1: take on this guy? So, I mean, this is just,
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: It's just unbelievable. It's hard to believe that this actually happened.
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 1: But the idea of 35% equity ownership on top of
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 1: all that, it really is a stunning development. And of course,
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 1: this is on top of all the golden shares and
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 1: equity positions that this administration has amassed. The administration is
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 1: approaching $ 30 billion in equity stakes, not including the Venezuelan one.
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 1: Equity stakes warrants and similar plans where the U.S. is
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 1: taking significant positions in American companies. Socialism par excellence. Not American. And,
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 1: of course, the Democrats are watching this. And there are
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 1: a number of democratic institutions that are saying, don't criticize us.
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 1: This is good because when we get control, when we
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 1: win the White House, we can use this. We can
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: take control over other companies and we can use these
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 1: equity stakes to impose our values on these companies. I mean,
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 1: imagine ESG on steroids when the Democrats, when you have
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 1: a Democratic president with another government controls the company and
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 1: tells them you need to have climate or ESG or
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 1: DEI or whatever that happens to be the agenda of
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 1: the left. It's, I mean, a July report from the
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 1: Roosevelt Institute, a think tank run by Elizabeth Wilkins. This
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 1: is a political article. Former chief of staff to Biden's
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 1: antitrust chief, Lena Kahn, evil Lena Kahn, argued that by
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 1: taking government stakes in companies and securing seats with voting
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 1: rights on corporate boards, the government could ensure that these
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 1: companies actually deliver on climate, energy and labor goals of
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 1: a democratic president. And they could do so at far
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 1: less government expense, more quickly than in the traditional federal
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 1: grant and loan process or with regulations, all this other stuff.
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 1: They're owners. They could just go directly. I mean, this
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 1: Trump taking equity positions in companies, is one of the
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 1: biggest things he's done. And, you know, this was all
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 1: set by Roosevelt in the 30s, but then by, you know,
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 1: the bailout of the banks in the 2000s. And then,
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 1: of course, Obama's bailout of the auto companies and equity
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 1: stakes in the auto companies. So this is not unprecedented,
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 1: but always in the past, it was assumed it was
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 1: short-term and they were going to divest. Short-term divest, short-term divest.
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 1: No indication, zero, nada, that Trump has any interest in
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 1: divesting these equity states. And of course, Trump is not
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 1: going to be president forever. And I guess it's possible,
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 1: but it's unlikely Republicans are going to be presidents forever.
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 1: And then what about other Republican ambitions? Will health care
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 1: provided by these companies cover, I don't know, private health
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 1: care plans, cover abortion, or other things that Republicans don't
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 1: like if somebody like J.D. Vance becomes president? We're mixing
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 1: politics and business on an unprecedented scale, unprecedented scale. What
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 1: Trump is doing is aimed at long-term industrial policy. It's
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 1: not a bailout. It's much, much, much worse. Now, the
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 1: bailouts made this possible. Our tolerance for bailouts made this possible.
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 1: But this is much worse. And the ramifications are going
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 1: to be felt for a long, long time. All right,
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 1: let's see, what do we have? That was our story
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 1: on golden shares. We'll talk about that another time. Yeah, quickly,
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 1: I came across this chart. It's pretty amazing. Here's some
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 1: data on immigrants and founding of companies. Almost half of U.S. unicorns,
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 1: unicorns are companies that have a valuable business. Almost half.
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 1: by first generation immigrants, first generation. 65 countries had produced
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 1: at least one unicorn founder. The most are from India, 90.
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 1: The second most, stunningly, are from Israel, 52 founders. Canada, ooh,
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 1: evil Canada, 42 founders. United Kingdom, 31. China, 27. Germany, 18. France, 17. Russia, 14.
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 1: These are immigrants in these countries. Taiwan, 12. If you
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 1: add Taiwan up with China, that's 39. That's more than
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 1: Great Britain. Now, if you adjust this by population, if
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 1: you adjust it by population, then You know, Israel is
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 1: by far, I mean, it's not even close. It's like,
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 1: what is it? Three times more than the closest next country.
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 1: Israel is by far, you get more founders per capita
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 1: than any other country. In America, Israelis who moved to
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 1: the US. The second is Ireland. And Israel is three
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 1: times more founders per capita, per capita than Ireland. And
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 1: basically somebody says, we should be inviting a lot more
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 1: Israelis to the United States. Yeah. So just another point
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 1: about immigration and the impact on the U.S. Half the unicorns.
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 1: We wouldn't have the billion dollar companies if we restricted
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 1: legal immigration, which is what this administration is trying to do.
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 1: We're not going to cover this story today. We'll do
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 1: another time. Yeah, I want to refer you to a website.
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 1: This is on the Good News Achievement site. I want
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 1: you to go to ordinaryabundance.com, ordinaryabundance.com, and just check it out.
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 1: It's a cool website that somebody put together that basically
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 1: takes a room in a house today and looks at
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 1: the different components of it. And it looks historically how
• 1:33:01
  Speaker 1: people would have viewed those components. Here's something that Edward
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 1: Bellany wrote in 1888. Edward Bellany was a utopian. He
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 1: wrote an utopian novel called Looking Backwards. It's set in
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 1: the year 2000. And he wrote, if we could have
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 1: devised an arrangement for providing everybody with music in their homes,
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 1: perfect in quality, unlimited in quantity, suited in every mood,
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 1: and beginning and ceasing at will, we should have considered
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 1: the limit of human felicity already attained. You imagine digital
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 1: music on demand. This is 1888, and he goes through
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 1: all of these, right? Light without fire. The people almost
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 1: with bated breath stood overwhelmed with awe. As if in
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 1: the presence of the supernatural, the strange, weird light exceeded
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 1: in power only by the sun, yet mild as moonlight,
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 1: rendered the courthouse square as light as midday. This is
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 1: a witness at Wabash, Indiana, 1880, the night Wabash, Indiana
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 1: became one of the first cities lit entirely by electric light.
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 1: He goes through a bunch of different stuff, right? And
• 1:34:28
  Speaker 1: he goes into the kitchen and it's just such a
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 1: tribute to the progress we've made over the last 150 years.
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 1: It's so beautiful and it's really well done. It's really nice.
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 1: He writes at the end, whoever wrote this, I guess
• 1:34:44
  Speaker 1: it's Jordan Dworkin. He writes at the end, all the
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 1: items in this room are once out of reach. some
• 1:34:51
  Speaker 1: not yet invented, others too rare or costly for the
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 1: vast majority of people. Today, most of us lucky enough
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 1: to live with them walk past without a second thought.
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 1: It is to humanity's credit that we remain relentless in
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 1: the midst of all this, sorry, that we remain restless
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 1: in the midst of all this progress. We continue to
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 1: look forward, pushing the frontier further with new treatments, new tools,
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 1: new instruments. that will help future generations in ways we
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 1: can't even picture yet. But our lives today are a
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 1: gallery of past generations' heroic efforts to do the same.
• 1:35:32
  Speaker 1: It serves us and honors them to recapture whenever possible
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 1: the old sense of awe at these wonders that have
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 1: long since become commonplace. I think it's a beautiful website.
• 1:35:48
  Speaker 1: I encourage you to go and check it out and
• 1:35:53
  Speaker 1: enjoy it and regain that sense of awe.
• 1:35:58
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 1:35:59
  Speaker 1: I had a few other stories, but I'm going to
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 1: cut it there. We're going long enough. And I know
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 1: you guys want me to answer your Super Chat questions,
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 1: so we will turn to that. And you guys have
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 1: been pretty generous with the Super Chat, so I appreciate that,
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 1: of course. Thank you to all of you guys. I'll
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 1: remind you, the Ayn Rand Institute is, you know, encourages
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 1: you to check out the new Ayn Rand University, ARU,
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 1: not Ayn Rand University, ARU, which is launching programs in
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 1: next month, including a three semester long course by Ankar Ghate,
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 1: designed by Ankar Ghate. There'll be a number of teachers
• 1:36:36
  Speaker 1: in the course on objectivism. If you want to kind
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 1: of get a in-depth understanding of objectivism, you can really
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 1: only get from a from a classroom, from a course,
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 1: from a teacher. You can get graded. You can have
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 1: homework and get graded. I mean, really, study. You can
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 1: do so. And indeed, you can do so for free.
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 1: Graded students in the course can be there for free.
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 1: There's $ 100 registration fee. That's it. Nothing else. No tuition.
• 1:37:08
  Speaker 1: Once you get accepted into ARU, or not accepted, once
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 1: you sign into ARU, you're in. So apply. Apply to
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 1: become a graded student. If you want to, you know,
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 1: just listen in, not participate fully, not be graded, you can.
• 1:37:24
  Speaker 1: You have to pay for that. And some graded students
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 1: will gain a scholarship of $ 500 cash. So we're paying
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 1: you to take these courses. So please sign up. Check
• 1:37:37
  Speaker 1: it out at ARU and you can find the link
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 1: to ARU at einman.org slash ybs, einman.org slash ybs. We really, really,
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 1: really want to find the next generation of young people
• 1:37:50
  Speaker 1: to really study objectivism in depth. And we want some
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 1: of you to become objectivist intellectuals. And if you become
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 1: objectivist intellectuals and you join, you know, we will invest
• 1:38:02
  Speaker 1: in you. You will join our educational programs and ultimately
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 1: Do the intellectual works that is necessary to change the world.
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 1: We're looking for you. If you're out there and you
• 1:38:19
  Speaker 1: want to change the world, the Ayn Rand Institute wants you.
• 1:38:24
  Speaker 1: Check out ARU. All right. Alec Epstein is the number
• 1:38:32
  Speaker 1: one authority. He's the sponsor of the show and the
• 1:38:34
  Speaker 1: number one authority on all things fossil fuels and energy
• 1:38:38
  Speaker 1: and power more broadly and environmental regulation and now is
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 1: becoming a world-class expert on data centers. And so check
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 1: him out. You'll learn so much. And you'll get talking
• 1:38:53
  Speaker 1: points so that you can make a better case on
• 1:38:57
  Speaker 1: these issues when you talk to people around you as
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 1: part of changing the world. Check out alexepstein.substack.com. alexepstein.substack.com. All right. Now,
• 1:39:06
  Speaker 1: I'll remind you that if you want to become a
• 1:39:08
  Speaker 1: monthly supporter of the Iran Book Show, a monthly supporter,
• 1:39:11
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• 1:39:17
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• 1:39:21
  Speaker 1: just put you on Bookshow and sign up. All right.
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 1: And finally, if you're here live, you can ask questions
• 1:39:29
  Speaker 1: and I will answer them. You can ask about anything
• 1:39:32
  Speaker 1: you want. You can also support the show, Value for Value,
• 1:39:35
  Speaker 1: trade with me by doing a sticker. Enric did a sticker.
• 1:39:40
  Speaker 1: Thank you, Enric. Two stickers. Roland, sticker. Thank you, Roland.
• 1:39:43
  Speaker 1: Let's see who else did stickers so I can thank them.
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 1: I'd like to thank everybody in person because I really,
• 1:39:50
  Speaker 1: really appreciate the support. I have to find a way
• 1:39:52
  Speaker 1: to thank all the people who give me money on Patreon. Robert,
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 1: thank you for the sticker on Patreon. And Bonnie and
• 1:39:59
  Speaker 1: Gail and Andrew, thank you guys for the sticker support.
• 1:40:07
  Speaker 1: We're still about $ 186 short of a third hour goal.
• 1:40:10
  Speaker 1: It definitely looks like we're going to go into the
• 1:40:11
  Speaker 1: third hour because we have a lot of questions. A
• 1:40:15
  Speaker 1: lot of $ 20 questions, which is great. So we'll probably
• 1:40:19
  Speaker 1: go there. Yeah, anyway, let's jump in with the questions
• 1:40:34
  Speaker 1: that we have. We'll start with those of you who
• 1:40:38
  Speaker 1: did questions at $ 50. Let's see, $ 50 is the max, right? Yeah, $ 50.
• 1:40:42
  Speaker 1: All right, so let's start with the $ 50 questions. We'll
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 1: start with Liam. Liam says, the resentment is towards those
• 1:40:50
  Speaker 1: who deal with reality more successfully than they do, than
• 1:40:53
  Speaker 1: they do. Not sure who we're talking about. What should
• 1:40:57
  Speaker 1: be your attitude towards those who deal with reality and
• 1:41:00
  Speaker 1: can accomplish more in life than you because they were
• 1:41:03
  Speaker 1: born with certain genetic gifts? I mean, you should be
• 1:41:08
  Speaker 1: thankful that such people were born and that such people exist.
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 1: And there's such people using those gifts, genetic gifts, in
• 1:41:19
  Speaker 1: productive ways. So there are many, many, many people much
• 1:41:23
  Speaker 1: smarter than me. And hopefully, they're advancing science. And they're
• 1:41:30
  Speaker 1: increasing the knowledge base that we all have. And that
• 1:41:34
  Speaker 1: knowledge base will be the basis for new technologies and
• 1:41:37
  Speaker 1: new innovations and new discoveries that I and all of
• 1:41:41
  Speaker 1: us will benefit from. I mean, some of them might
• 1:41:43
  Speaker 1: have genetic gifts that make them great basketball players, and
• 1:41:47
  Speaker 1: they will make a fortune on the basketball court, and
• 1:41:49
  Speaker 1: I will enjoy watching them. And if not me, other
• 1:41:52
  Speaker 1: people I know will enjoy watching them, whether it's in
• 1:41:55
  Speaker 1: football or basketball or baseball or whatever the sport, or soccer, football,
• 1:42:00
  Speaker 1: whatever the sport that you love. So my attitude is
• 1:42:04
  Speaker 1: gratitude to those people because this is what I know
• 1:42:08
  Speaker 1: for sure. Genetic gifts without hard work lead to nothing,
• 1:42:13
  Speaker 1: not that nothing. So people who actually have accomplished stuff
• 1:42:18
  Speaker 1: in life because of the genetic gifts, right? It's because
• 1:42:24
  Speaker 1: the genetic gifts plus their choices, the work that they
• 1:42:28
  Speaker 1: put in, their focus, their choice to focus their mind,
• 1:42:32
  Speaker 1: their choice to achieve, their ambition. And for that, I
• 1:42:37
  Speaker 1: am grateful because it is the geniuses, It is the
• 1:42:41
  Speaker 1: people like Ayn Rand. Ayn Rand was, I think, born
• 1:42:45
  Speaker 1: a genius. She had a capacity of mind, I think
• 1:42:49
  Speaker 1: from birth, probably, that exceeded most of us. I benefit
• 1:42:55
  Speaker 1: from that. I benefit from Einstein. I benefit from LeBron James.
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 1: I benefit from Steve Jobs. I don't know how genetic
• 1:43:03
  Speaker 1: that was. It doesn't matter. The point is, all of
• 1:43:08
  Speaker 1: us benefit from great achievers. So to be envious towards
• 1:43:14
  Speaker 1: them or to resent them is ridiculous. It's gratitude. Arthur,
• 1:43:24
  Speaker 1: objectivism doesn't have enough charismatic personalities that can become conveyors
• 1:43:28
  Speaker 1: of the message. If we can't emotionally connect with people,
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 1: we can't achieve exponential growth. Can our AIs start screening
• 1:43:37
  Speaker 1: for charisma rather than PhDs? But we don't screen for PhDs.
• 1:43:41
  Speaker 1: We've never screened for PhDs. We screen for interest in
• 1:43:45
  Speaker 1: the philosophy and motivation to become a professional intellectual. Also,
• 1:43:52
  Speaker 1: so we screen for ability. And somebody like Ankar Gache,
• 1:43:58
  Speaker 1: for example, maybe doesn't have charisma. But you don't get
• 1:44:03
  Speaker 1: me without it, without Ankar. You don't get Alex Epstein
• 1:44:07
  Speaker 1: without Ankar. So the idea that you should screen just
• 1:44:11
  Speaker 1: in charisma is absurd. You have to screen an ability.
• 1:44:16
  Speaker 1: And the other thing is, what is charisma? Do I
• 1:44:21
  Speaker 1: have charisma? Well, many people will say yes. Did I
• 1:44:24
  Speaker 1: have charisma 30 years ago when I was in my 30s,
• 1:44:30
  Speaker 1: when ARI looked at me? I don't know. I don't
• 1:44:34
  Speaker 1: think so. Did I have charisma in my teens? No.
• 1:44:42
  Speaker 1: Is charisma something you're born with? Is charisma something you
• 1:44:46
  Speaker 1: just have? Is charisma something you can easily identify? I
• 1:44:57
  Speaker 1: don't know. I don't think anybody knows. I mean, the
• 1:45:03
  Speaker 1: idea is to hire the best people. We don't hire
• 1:45:06
  Speaker 1: based on PhDs. We hire the best people, motivated people,
• 1:45:11
  Speaker 1: and then hope and help them gain charisma. Or if
• 1:45:18
  Speaker 1: it's somehow a character thing, allow it to flourish, allow
• 1:45:24
  Speaker 1: it to come out. The problem is not the lack
• 1:45:27
  Speaker 1: of charisma. The problem is the lack of people. The
• 1:45:31
  Speaker 1: problem is the lack of people. If we had a
• 1:45:33
  Speaker 1: thousand intellectuals today, if we had a thousand intellectuals today,
• 1:45:38
  Speaker 1: we'd be taking over the world. That's my number, 1,000. 1,000
• 1:45:43
  Speaker 1: intellectuals today. And we don't have any way close to that.
• 1:45:49
  Speaker 1: Maybe 10% of them. And 1,000 would need to be good.
• 1:45:55
  Speaker 1: And I don't think we have 10% good. We have
• 1:45:58
  Speaker 1: maybe 5% of that who are good at various levels.
• 1:46:03
  Speaker 1: And some of those will have charisma. Did Kant have charisma? No.
• 1:46:08
  Speaker 1: He changed the world, though. Did Marx have charisma? No. No,
• 1:46:13
  Speaker 1: not at all. Not at all. But you do need
• 1:46:18
  Speaker 1: some people with charisma.
• 1:46:22
  Speaker 3: And you need people who know the ideas.
• 1:46:34
  Speaker 1: Charisma without knowledge is useless. It's worse than useless. It's
• 1:46:39
  Speaker 1: goddamn damaging. It's destructive. So what we need is a
• 1:46:46
  Speaker 1: thousand people who really know these ideas and who are
• 1:46:51
  Speaker 1: interested in passion about intellectual careers. And some of them
• 1:46:55
  Speaker 1: will have charisma, and that's enough. That will be enough.
• 1:46:59
  Speaker 1: And then we need a lot of other stuff. We
• 1:47:02
  Speaker 1: need scientists that attribute their knowledge and their discoveries to objectivism.
• 1:47:07
  Speaker 1: We need Artists, lots and lots and lots of artists
• 1:47:13
  Speaker 1: who can project the sense of life and the kind
• 1:47:16
  Speaker 1: of world and the kind of values that objectivism makes possible.
• 1:47:22
  Speaker 1: We need a lot of stuff. And it's a numbers game.
• 1:47:24
  Speaker 1: We need a lot of people. We don't have one.
• 1:47:28
  Speaker 1: We're not even close. Michael. Oh, this is a part two.
• 1:47:35
  Speaker 1: This is part one. This is part one. Okay, Michael.
• 1:47:37
  Speaker 1: Two-part question. To what extent do societies need elites? If
• 1:47:42
  Speaker 1: you let populists of either side take over, you get
• 1:47:46
  Speaker 1: what you'd expect when the charismatic idiot can do whatever
• 1:47:50
  Speaker 1: he wants. The mob sees a bunch of AI data centers,
• 1:47:54
  Speaker 1: and they don't know what to think. It's like Peter
• 1:47:59
  Speaker 1: Keating when he designs a building. He could have been
• 1:48:02
  Speaker 1: told it was brilliant or the worst monstrosity ever built,
• 1:48:06
  Speaker 1: and he'd have believed either. Yeah, I mean, the societies
• 1:48:13
  Speaker 1: need elites, need elites. They need intellectual elites. Not everybody
• 1:48:19
  Speaker 1: can be an intellectual. Not everybody's going to study philosophy
• 1:48:22
  Speaker 1: and geopolitics and economics and science. You need people who
• 1:48:28
  Speaker 1: specialize in those. You need guidance. Doctors are an elite
• 1:48:33
  Speaker 1: when it comes to health care. I don't know. People,
• 1:48:39
  Speaker 1: the owners of... You know, sports commentators are the elite
• 1:48:44
  Speaker 1: when it comes to sports and understanding sports. Economists are
• 1:48:50
  Speaker 1: the elite when it comes to economics. We need those people.
• 1:48:54
  Speaker 1: We're too busy with our own lives to know all
• 1:48:59
  Speaker 1: the things that they know. And some of them are
• 1:49:01
  Speaker 1: smarter than us. And that's good. So elites, people who
• 1:49:08
  Speaker 1: know stuff, are crucial. Anti-elitism is anti-human life. It's anti-knowledge.
• 1:49:16
  Speaker 1: It's anti-specialization. It's anti-skills. It's anti-smart. So absolutely, elites are necessary. Necessary.
• 1:49:37
  Speaker 1: For a healthy society. and at least that are trustworthy.
• 1:49:44
  Speaker 1: One of the problems we have today is we have
• 1:49:46
  Speaker 1: elites that are untrustworthy. We have elites that, uh, economically
• 1:49:52
  Speaker 1: are driving us towards bankruptcy. We have elites that, uh,
• 1:49:56
  Speaker 1: you know, uh, uh, stab us in the back during COVID. Um,
• 1:50:01
  Speaker 1: we have with, with their lockdowns and their fear mongering, uh,
• 1:50:06
  Speaker 1: we have elites that, um, you know, during, that intellectually
• 1:50:15
  Speaker 1: have promoted ideas that are anti-American and anti-life and anti-reason
• 1:50:19
  Speaker 1: and anti-rationality and are destructive to human life. The problem
• 1:50:23
  Speaker 1: today is not that we don't have elites, it's we
• 1:50:25
  Speaker 1: have the wrong elites. We need elites. We just need
• 1:50:29
  Speaker 1: the right ones. We need ones that are guided by
• 1:50:32
  Speaker 1: reason and rationality and are courageous enough to stand up
• 1:50:36
  Speaker 1: to the authorities. Self-describer, $ 50 sticker. Thank you. Really, really
• 1:50:47
  Speaker 1: appreciate that. Paul, thank you for the sticker as well.
• 1:50:51
  Speaker 1: Appreciate it, guys. We're chipping away at the goals. I
• 1:50:54
  Speaker 1: love it.
• 1:50:57
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 1:50:58
  Speaker 1: Okay. That's the last $ 50 question. So let's go to 20.
• 1:51:00
  Speaker 1: And I do have a leftover question from last time
• 1:51:05
  Speaker 1: from Silvanus. I don't know if Silvanus is here. I
• 1:51:08
  Speaker 1: don't know if Silvanus is listening after the fact. but
• 1:51:12
  Speaker 1: this is from Sivanus. He says, asking for a friend.
• 1:51:16
  Speaker 1: Is it a bad idea to start up a romance
• 1:51:18
  Speaker 1: with a deist, no matter how reasonable they are otherwise? No,
• 1:51:22
  Speaker 1: I don't think it is, particularly if they're a deist.
• 1:51:25
  Speaker 1: Deists are pretty reasonable religionists. If you're going to start
• 1:51:30
  Speaker 1: up with somebody who believes in God, make it a
• 1:51:33
  Speaker 1: deist at least. Mysticism is a minor part of the world.
• 1:51:39
  Speaker 1: it's a minor part of their life, and you never
• 1:51:41
  Speaker 1: know what other values you might find in common. I
• 1:51:44
  Speaker 1: know a lot of people who married religious people, objectivists
• 1:51:46
  Speaker 1: who married religious people. I don't think you can have
• 1:51:49
  Speaker 1: the ultimate relationship, but I think you can have a
• 1:51:52
  Speaker 1: good relationship and you can build a life together with
• 1:51:55
  Speaker 1: the understanding that you're going to disagree about some pretty
• 1:51:59
  Speaker 1: basic stuff. A deist is better because a deist is
• 1:52:03
  Speaker 1: not a practicing Christian or practicing Jew. There's something There's
• 1:52:07
  Speaker 1: something more moderate than that. Suddenly checking out a relationship,
• 1:52:11
  Speaker 1: starting a romance, seeing out what it leads to, what happens,
• 1:52:14
  Speaker 1: how happy you can make each other or help make
• 1:52:17
  Speaker 1: each other is definitely something worth pursuing. All right, not
• 1:52:25
  Speaker 1: your average algorithm. You can't heal out of trauma or
• 1:52:31
  Speaker 1: negative emotions. You can only change the way you think
• 1:52:36
  Speaker 1: about them. Yes, but that's partially the healing, right? The
• 1:52:41
  Speaker 1: healing is in changing the way you think about them,
• 1:52:47
  Speaker 1: the trauma heals, and the negative emotions often go away,
• 1:52:50
  Speaker 1: or at least stop bothering you. So I agree, but
• 1:53:01
  Speaker 1: I don't think it contradicts the healing. Now, to average algorithm,
• 1:53:05
  Speaker 1: it is astonishing It is astonishing what the great work
• 1:53:10
  Speaker 1: ARI is doing and the growth of objectivism. The culture
• 1:53:13
  Speaker 1: is taking such a hard turn away from capitalism. Yes,
• 1:53:16
  Speaker 1: but it's not really astonishing. It's completing a system with
• 1:53:19
  Speaker 1: what's going on. As much work as ARI is doing
• 1:53:23
  Speaker 1: and as fast as objectivism is growing, it's still way,
• 1:53:29
  Speaker 1: way too small relative to the influence of generations now
• 1:53:34
  Speaker 1: of intellectuals who've undermined capitalism We are basically just reaping
• 1:53:45
  Speaker 1: the harvest of what's been sown, of what's been grown
• 1:53:47
  Speaker 1: and sown for generations now, for the last hundred years.
• 1:53:53
  Speaker 1: This is the consequence. And the fact that it hasn't
• 1:53:55
  Speaker 1: been fought rigorously enough beyond objectivism. Not your average algorithm.
• 1:54:06
  Speaker 1: Does feeling guilty about inheriting wealth come from an altruistic premise? Yeah,
• 1:54:10
  Speaker 1: I think it does. I mean, if it's guilt, why
• 1:54:12
  Speaker 1: would you feel guilty about it? I mean, I don't
• 1:54:18
  Speaker 1: know what there is about it. You might feel like
• 1:54:20
  Speaker 1: I didn't earn this, but in some sense you did.
• 1:54:23
  Speaker 1: You made yourself the kind of person that whoever left
• 1:54:28
  Speaker 1: you the money thought you were worthy of it. That's
• 1:54:32
  Speaker 1: you earning it. So, it's an anti-self-interest premise, which is
• 1:54:39
  Speaker 1: ultimately you get from altruism. And, you know, an anti-
• 1:54:48
  Speaker 1: undercutting self premise, which again you get from altruism. Liam says,
• 1:54:54
  Speaker 1: you've got to pick your battles. Can, you've got to
• 1:54:59
  Speaker 1: pick your battles can become self-sacrifice if, would it, If
• 1:55:04
  Speaker 1: what it really means, never pick any battles. Yes. Never
• 1:55:08
  Speaker 1: pick any battles is definitely self-sacrifice. And many, many people
• 1:55:12
  Speaker 1: sit out the battles waiting for the big one or
• 1:55:15
  Speaker 1: waiting for some battle that will really get to them
• 1:55:18
  Speaker 1: and land up never picking one and never fighting for
• 1:55:22
  Speaker 1: their values, never fighting for the kind of life they want,
• 1:55:26
  Speaker 1: you know, and letting the bad and evil take over
• 1:55:30
  Speaker 1: or letting life just slip away. All right. Liam says,
• 1:55:39
  Speaker 1: anti-Semitism and racism never left. It just became unacceptable publicly
• 1:55:43
  Speaker 1: for a short time. Now racism and anti-Semitic comments are
• 1:55:46
  Speaker 1: almost completely acceptable in modern human discourse. I don't know
• 1:55:51
  Speaker 1: if they never left. I think that they generally did
• 1:55:54
  Speaker 1: go away or marginalized into certain corners. And it's not
• 1:55:59
  Speaker 1: an accident that most of the new racist and anti-Semitic
• 1:56:03
  Speaker 1: comments are coming from young people. So these are people
• 1:56:06
  Speaker 1: who are raised in a new environment and are now
• 1:56:10
  Speaker 1: willing to embrace these ideas for the first time. Young
• 1:56:14
  Speaker 1: people 20 years ago and 30 years ago and 40
• 1:56:17
  Speaker 1: years ago, I think since the 1970s, 80s, were horrified
• 1:56:21
  Speaker 1: by racism and anti-Semitism, were genuinely horrified by it, not
• 1:56:28
  Speaker 1: suppressed it. Today they're not, and that's the big difference.
• 1:56:33
  Speaker 1: So it's a new generation And therefore, this is not
• 1:56:37
  Speaker 1: just that it did go away. It went away to
• 1:56:39
  Speaker 1: a large extent. It didn't go away completely, but it
• 1:56:42
  Speaker 1: went away to a large extent. Today, the remnants of
• 1:56:47
  Speaker 1: it are exploding, particularly among the youth. It's not people
• 1:56:56
  Speaker 1: who have always been racist now admitting it. It's young
• 1:57:00
  Speaker 1: people who haven't been anything, are growing up racist, because
• 1:57:04
  Speaker 1: that's hip and that's cool. That's cutting edge. Hopper Campbell,
• 1:57:12
  Speaker 1: one small positive thought in the morning can change your
• 1:57:15
  Speaker 1: whole day. I mean, generally, having positive thoughts in the
• 1:57:20
  Speaker 1: morning can make your day better, generally. I don't know
• 1:57:25
  Speaker 1: about one small positive thought and how much it can
• 1:57:30
  Speaker 1: change your day, but I think generally, having a positive
• 1:57:32
  Speaker 1: attitude in the morning I generally do not. I am
• 1:57:36
  Speaker 1: not good in the morning. I wake up tired. I
• 1:57:43
  Speaker 1: don't wake up in a positive mood. My wife is
• 1:57:46
  Speaker 1: all energy and she wants to do stuff and get
• 1:57:48
  Speaker 1: stuff done. And I'm like, I need an hour to
• 1:57:52
  Speaker 1: wake up. I need my coffee and I need an hour.
• 1:57:54
  Speaker 1: It's only after I work out that I actually wake
• 1:57:56
  Speaker 1: up and start thinking positive thoughts. So I find that
• 1:58:01
  Speaker 1: I manage... The mornings are like a write-off. I write
• 1:58:05
  Speaker 1: them off completely. I do start doing my research in
• 1:58:10
  Speaker 1: that kind of half asleep mode. I do. That's when
• 1:58:15
  Speaker 1: I start doing my research for the shows, start scanning Twitter,
• 1:58:18
  Speaker 1: Scott scanning the news, uh, putting together the stories that
• 1:58:22
  Speaker 1: are going to make the new shows. Um, James, is
• 1:58:28
  Speaker 1: being down to earth a good thing or is there
• 1:58:30
  Speaker 1: an egalitarian package deal baked into the face? It doesn't
• 1:58:34
  Speaker 1: have to be egalitarian. It's basically being connected to reality
• 1:58:37
  Speaker 1: and be connected to the context of the people around you,
• 1:58:40
  Speaker 1: not being aloof from that, not being detached from the
• 1:58:45
  Speaker 1: real world in a sense. So no, I don't think
• 1:58:48
  Speaker 1: it has to be egalitarian and it doesn't have to
• 1:58:51
  Speaker 1: be humble and it doesn't have to be behaving like,
• 1:58:55
  Speaker 1: you know, a simpleton or something like that. It just
• 1:58:58
  Speaker 1: means being connected to the facts, being connected to reality
• 1:59:01
  Speaker 1: and realizing the context. James, if the Democrats win big
• 1:59:10
  Speaker 1: in the midterms, are AI data centers at risk? Or
• 1:59:13
  Speaker 1: does big tech have more influence over Democratic Party than
• 1:59:17
  Speaker 1: our current front porch conservative GOP? It's really hard to
• 1:59:21
  Speaker 1: tell because opposition data centers cuts across the board. Right.
• 1:59:27
  Speaker 1: I mean, look at Paxton in Texas, who's running for
• 1:59:30
  Speaker 1: the Senate. The Republican. Is is more anti data centers
• 1:59:35
  Speaker 1: than anybody. You know, Texas has kind of a very,
• 1:59:41
  Speaker 1: very heavy regulations on data centers. It's red and blue.
• 1:59:46
  Speaker 1: It's not it's not uniquely democratic issue. Hard to tell
• 1:59:49
  Speaker 1: how it evolves. I also think it's an issue that
• 1:59:53
  Speaker 1: animates old people more than young people. I think most
• 1:59:57
  Speaker 1: of the activism against data centers come from old people.
• 2:00:00
  Speaker 1: Old people are afraid of change, who don't like change,
• 2:00:04
  Speaker 1: who AI and data centers seem like these alien, horrible,
• 2:00:08
  Speaker 1: scary things. Old people vote, what, Republican more than Democratic?
• 2:00:14
  Speaker 1: I don't know. We're in trouble with data centers no
• 2:00:18
  Speaker 1: matter who wins, I think. I don't think it's a
• 2:00:20
  Speaker 1: uniquely Democratic issue. Um, Arthur, will culture still vary after
• 2:00:28
  Speaker 1: the world becomes objectivist, or will everyone be equally rational
• 2:00:32
  Speaker 1: and benevolent? Visiting Shanghai will feel no different than visiting Berlin.
• 2:00:37
  Speaker 1: Will English become the only language spoken? No, I don't
• 2:00:40
  Speaker 1: think so. I think there'll still be unique features to
• 2:00:43
  Speaker 1: different places. They won't be as significant as they are today.
• 2:00:47
  Speaker 1: English will be, I think, the commercial language as it
• 2:00:50
  Speaker 1: is today. But, oh, you said Berlin, not? Oh, Shanghai
• 2:00:56
  Speaker 1: and Berlin, yeah. But I think there will still be
• 2:01:01
  Speaker 1: local languages. There'll be different countries. Different countries will have
• 2:01:04
  Speaker 1: different languages. I think there will have different cultures at
• 2:01:10
  Speaker 1: some level. There'll be more shared culture. You can see that,
• 2:01:14
  Speaker 1: for example, with classical music, right? Some of the best
• 2:01:19
  Speaker 1: pianists in the world doing Rachmaninoff concertos are from places
• 2:01:24
  Speaker 1: like I saw a concert with Uzbek from Uzbekistan pianists. Amazing. Japan, China.
• 2:01:34
  Speaker 1: So Asia has embraced classical music. And Asian performers have
• 2:01:42
  Speaker 1: embraced classical music. And I think you'll see more of that.
• 2:01:46
  Speaker 1: You know, pop, rock and roll was embraced across different cultures.
• 2:01:52
  Speaker 1: So I think art will become much more universal. There'll
• 2:01:56
  Speaker 1: still be some local popular art, folk art, but I
• 2:02:00
  Speaker 1: think the serious arts, the serious arts will be universal
• 2:02:05
  Speaker 1: and they'll be admired. I think architecture will become more similar,
• 2:02:10
  Speaker 1: but maintain local features. You go to Shanghai and you'll
• 2:02:13
  Speaker 1: see that the skyscrapers have a little Eastern spin on
• 2:02:17
  Speaker 1: them and they're more colorful, for example. And I think
• 2:02:20
  Speaker 1: that will be maintained. So I think there will be,
• 2:02:23
  Speaker 1: food will be different. So I don't think we become
• 2:02:26
  Speaker 1: a monolith culturally, but I do think the important stuff,
• 2:02:30
  Speaker 1: freedom of speech, individualism, and the arts, there'll be a
• 2:02:35
  Speaker 1: lot more commonality, a lot more commonality. Shazbat, this is
• 2:02:42
  Speaker 1: a quote from Captain Zap Brannigan from Futurama. Never seen him. Quote,
• 2:02:50
  Speaker 1: I've never asked for anything from my men. but they
• 2:02:54
  Speaker 1: complete loyalty. That's right. That's perfect. Turns out this translated
• 2:03:02
  Speaker 1: into his men staying on a doomed ship while he escaped.
• 2:03:08
  Speaker 1: That's perfect. I've never asked for anything from my men,
• 2:03:11
  Speaker 1: but they complete loyalty.
• 2:03:12
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 2:03:17
  Speaker 1: Clark. Have you seen Matt Walsh's disgusting hit piece of
• 2:03:22
  Speaker 1: Martin Luther King? It's like 1984. The new right is
• 2:03:26
  Speaker 1: rewriting the history to normalize racism. No, I haven't seen it.
• 2:03:31
  Speaker 1: I haven't seen it. It doesn't surprise me that it
• 2:03:33
  Speaker 1: would be Matt Walsh doing it. I'll look for it.
• 2:03:35
  Speaker 1: That sounds like something I might want to comment on. Clark, is, quote,
• 2:03:42
  Speaker 1: being the bigger man a package deal? Is there a
• 2:03:45
  Speaker 1: difference between being the bigger man and altruistically turning the
• 2:03:49
  Speaker 1: other cheek? I don't know. I mean, I think that often,
• 2:03:52
  Speaker 1: I think being a bigger man is a package deal.
• 2:03:55
  Speaker 1: I don't think it really means anything. It's, it's slop.
• 2:03:58
  Speaker 1: It's vague conceptually. You can imagine certain contexts where it
• 2:04:05
  Speaker 1: might not be altruistic.
• 2:04:07
  Speaker 2: It might just be, you.
• 2:04:10
  Speaker 1: Know, think, think about the long run, but, but it
• 2:04:15
  Speaker 1: can be, and often is used as just to another cheek. So,
• 2:04:21
  Speaker 1: I would never use the term. I don't think it's
• 2:04:23
  Speaker 1: worth using the term because I just think it's vague
• 2:04:26
  Speaker 1: and it doesn't really mean anything. And when it does
• 2:04:28
  Speaker 1: mean something, it seems to mean to another cheek. Arthur,
• 2:04:37
  Speaker 1: what is the path forward for people flipping burgers at
• 2:04:40
  Speaker 1: McDonald's or waiting or washing dishes to enter the middle
• 2:04:46
  Speaker 1: class if they can't afford an education or specific job training? Well,
• 2:04:55
  Speaker 1: you know, if they're really good at flipping boogers and
• 2:04:58
  Speaker 1: they're diligent at their job, then they'll manage a McDonald's
• 2:05:02
  Speaker 1: store one day and maybe they'll become regional managers of
• 2:05:06
  Speaker 1: a McDonald's, a series of franchises. And who knows? I mean,
• 2:05:12
  Speaker 1: maybe they can translate their management skills to another business
• 2:05:16
  Speaker 1: and there's nothing to prevent them becoming middle class. I mean,
• 2:05:19
  Speaker 1: the idea... that the only path to middle classhood is education.
• 2:05:24
  Speaker 1: I think it's wrong. You can be a middle class
• 2:05:27
  Speaker 1: today by going and learning how to weld. And I
• 2:05:31
  Speaker 1: don't think it costs much, if anything, to learn how
• 2:05:33
  Speaker 1: to weld because I think there are a lot of
• 2:05:35
  Speaker 1: companies who will pay you to go and learn how
• 2:05:37
  Speaker 1: to weld because there's a huge shortage of welders. There's
• 2:05:40
  Speaker 1: a huge shortage of plumbers. There's a huge shortage of electricians,
• 2:05:43
  Speaker 1: particularly now when we're kicking out all the hardworking illegal aliens.
• 2:05:49
  Speaker 1: illegal immigrants, there's going to be even a bigger shortage
• 2:05:52
  Speaker 1: of this. So I'm not sure, and I don't know
• 2:05:57
  Speaker 1: that they can't afford it. I think education is going
• 2:05:59
  Speaker 1: to get cheaper with alternative education. So maybe they won't
• 2:06:04
  Speaker 1: be able to get the diploma from Harvard, but you
• 2:06:07
  Speaker 1: can go to community college, but there's also online education.
• 2:06:10
  Speaker 1: There are lots of ways today to get education and
• 2:06:12
  Speaker 1: training that don't cost a lot of money. So I
• 2:06:16
  Speaker 1: think there are more opportunities now to go into the
• 2:06:20
  Speaker 1: middle class than maybe ever before because of technology. You're
• 2:06:29
  Speaker 1: taxed more, you're regulated more, but on the other hand,
• 2:06:32
  Speaker 1: tech opens up whole worlds for people. And there's still
• 2:06:36
  Speaker 1: the old way of just working hard. Thomas, what do
• 2:06:40
  Speaker 1: you think of Sam Harris' view that atheism is an
• 2:06:43
  Speaker 1: improper concept? He says you wouldn't talk about yourself as
• 2:06:48
  Speaker 1: an anti-astrology person if that was a bigger thing in
• 2:06:53
  Speaker 1: our culture. It should be about reason. Well, I mean,
• 2:06:57
  Speaker 1: of course it should be about reason. The emphasis should
• 2:07:00
  Speaker 1: be about reason. But there's no harm in having a concept.
• 2:07:04
  Speaker 1: Given the prevalence of religion, given the presence of theism,
• 2:07:09
  Speaker 1: there's no problem in having a concept that is, I'm
• 2:07:13
  Speaker 1: not one of them. I'm not a theist. If astrology
• 2:07:16
  Speaker 1: was dominant in the culture, Yeah, there would be a
• 2:07:18
  Speaker 1: concept to saying, well, I'm not, I don't, no, I'm
• 2:07:21
  Speaker 1: not that. I'm not that. And of course, while I
• 2:07:26
  Speaker 1: agree with him completely that the alternative should be reason,
• 2:07:32
  Speaker 1: there are a lot of atheists who don't take that seriously.
• 2:07:34
  Speaker 1: I mean, arguably, it's not clear what reason means if
• 2:07:38
  Speaker 1: you don't have free will. But, you know, so Sam
• 2:07:40
  Speaker 1: Harris is, it's problematic for Sam Harris. But yes, I
• 2:07:46
  Speaker 1: don't agree. I think atheism is a useful concept, but
• 2:07:53
  Speaker 1: it's not what you fight for. You fight for the positive,
• 2:07:56
  Speaker 1: and the positive is reason. Nietzsche Observer. I get the
• 2:08:04
  Speaker 1: impression that Trump is using Putin's playbook for taking over
• 2:08:10
  Speaker 1: the oil industry in Russia. It has a legal patina,
• 2:08:14
  Speaker 1: but amounts to expropriation. Yes, it's a Putin playbook. I
• 2:08:18
  Speaker 1: think all of these are Putin playbooks. I think a
• 2:08:21
  Speaker 1: lot of what Trump does are Putin playbooks. I think
• 2:08:24
  Speaker 1: the whole view of billionaires as oligarchs, as people that
• 2:08:29
  Speaker 1: owe me, that I give favors to, that I surround
• 2:08:32
  Speaker 1: myself with, but that are beholden to me is what
• 2:08:37
  Speaker 1: Trump would like to have. And I think you're right.
• 2:08:44
  Speaker 1: This smacks of expropriation although he's doing it in Venezuela,
• 2:08:48
  Speaker 1: not in the US, which is a little bit better,
• 2:08:51
  Speaker 1: I guess. Michael says, will Mamdani's goal be chaos and
• 2:08:59
  Speaker 1: destruction followed by seizure and control? Or is he one
• 2:09:03
  Speaker 1: of those unicorn leftists that's a socialist in name only,
• 2:09:06
  Speaker 1: but will actually engage in deregulation for some reason? I
• 2:09:10
  Speaker 1: think he'll do both. I think there's some things that,
• 2:09:12
  Speaker 1: like rent control, that he's adamant about and he's committed to.
• 2:09:16
  Speaker 1: But he's also deregulating in some places. I think he's
• 2:09:21
  Speaker 1: a mishmash of different ideas and different principles. I don't
• 2:09:28
  Speaker 1: think he's a nihilist, a complete nihilist. He's an evader,
• 2:09:33
  Speaker 1: and ultimately, you know, it could be he's driven by nihilism.
• 2:09:37
  Speaker 1: But I think it's a mixture of motivations, and I
• 2:09:40
  Speaker 1: think he's getting a mixture of ideas and recommendations from
• 2:09:44
  Speaker 1: different people. I think he also is limited, he's constrained
• 2:09:49
  Speaker 1: by what he can do as mayor. Mayors have very
• 2:09:52
  Speaker 1: little power ultimately. So it's going to be interesting to
• 2:09:57
  Speaker 1: watch kind of how he proceeds, but there's going to
• 2:10:03
  Speaker 1: be some, for example, there's real attempts to deregulate building
• 2:10:09
  Speaker 1: codes to get more building happening, I guess, so the
• 2:10:13
  Speaker 1: city can confiscate it later on. I don't know. We'll see.
• 2:10:23
  Speaker 1: If ChatGPT was asked about Directive 10-289, would it give
• 2:10:26
  Speaker 1: a different answer depending on who asks? I think so.
• 2:10:30
  Speaker 1: I think so. I mean, we could do the experiment.
• 2:10:33
  Speaker 1: But I think it would because it knows you. It
• 2:10:40
  Speaker 1: knows your context. And I think it would shape the
• 2:10:43
  Speaker 1: answer some extent to please you. To some extent, it
• 2:10:50
  Speaker 1: wouldn't be, for example, if he gave the answer to me,
• 2:10:52
  Speaker 1: it wouldn't be an answer that was critical of Ayn Rand,
• 2:10:55
  Speaker 1: but somebody he knew was just looking to denounce Ayn Rand,
• 2:10:59
  Speaker 1: he would give a critical answer. I think it's very
• 2:11:02
  Speaker 1: much the answers are tilted towards who you are. Chachamiki knows,
• 2:11:08
  Speaker 1: for example, it still wants to push its leftist agenda
• 2:11:12
  Speaker 1: with me, but it doesn't do it hard, it do
• 2:11:15
  Speaker 1: it soft. Right. Yeah, it depends. I mean, I'm assuming
• 2:11:20
  Speaker 1: memory is enabled. I'm assuming it knows who you are
• 2:11:23
  Speaker 1: and it has a memory of all your conversations. You know,
• 2:11:27
  Speaker 1: I have memory enabled all the time. It doesn't have
• 2:11:30
  Speaker 1: to be in the same chat in ChatGPT if memory
• 2:11:34
  Speaker 1: is enabled. And it could be in a new chat,
• 2:11:37
  Speaker 1: but it still it has memory across chats. Please, you know,
• 2:11:43
  Speaker 1: it does with me. So non-memory answers, I think Ian says,
• 2:11:50
  Speaker 1: would be similar. But also there would be different because
• 2:11:53
  Speaker 1: there's a random aspect to it. But the more it
• 2:11:57
  Speaker 1: knows about you, the more it customized the answer for you.
• 2:12:03
  Speaker 1: So if you don't want it to know who you are,
• 2:12:05
  Speaker 1: then turn off the memory. I really like that it
• 2:12:08
  Speaker 1: knows who I am because I want it to customize
• 2:12:11
  Speaker 1: answers for me. All right. Those were the $ 20 and
• 2:12:16
  Speaker 1: $ 50 questions. Still $ 100 short of our third hour goal.
• 2:12:18
  Speaker 1: We're into the third hour. So if you'd like to
• 2:12:22
  Speaker 1: help us get to the goal, now's the time. Stickers primarily. Jason,
• 2:12:27
  Speaker 1: thank you for the sticker. Appreciate it. Michigan Attorney General
• 2:12:31
  Speaker 1: Dana Nessel told Jewish Democrats they have a moral imperative
• 2:12:36
  Speaker 1: to put the world above their self-interest and even their
• 2:12:39
  Speaker 1: own survival. Do the stakes get more radiant than that? Yeah,
• 2:12:44
  Speaker 1: I mean, and Hassan Paika basically threatened Jews who support
• 2:12:49
  Speaker 1: Israel with really with violence. If they if they don't
• 2:12:53
  Speaker 1: stop supporting Israel, you know, don't be surprised if you're attacked, basically. So, yes,
• 2:13:00
  Speaker 1: I think it's the stakes about as high as they
• 2:13:03
  Speaker 1: can get. It's life or death. Oivind, arriving in Barcelona tomorrow.
• 2:13:09
  Speaker 1: Are you evading me? Did you send me an email
• 2:13:12
  Speaker 1: or something? Send me an email. Maybe we can get
• 2:13:14
  Speaker 1: some coffee. Do you got any advice to what to
• 2:13:19
  Speaker 1: see visit? Yeah. I mean, why don't you drop an
• 2:13:25
  Speaker 1: email and we can maybe get some coffee and I
• 2:13:28
  Speaker 1: can give you the advice in person. Definitely walk around
• 2:13:32
  Speaker 1: the old town. Go down to the beach. Walk around there.
• 2:13:38
  Speaker 1: There's some good museums. There's a couple of good art museums.
• 2:13:42
  Speaker 1: If you're interested in Dali, there's also a kind of a,
• 2:13:45
  Speaker 1: what do you call it? Multi, a kind of Dali
• 2:13:53
  Speaker 1: exhibit in Old Town, which is worth seeing if you
• 2:13:55
  Speaker 1: like Dali. And yeah, make some reservations at good restaurants.
• 2:14:03
  Speaker 1: The food here is spectacular. if you know which restaurants
• 2:14:06
  Speaker 1: to pick. So drop an email, let's get together. Rajiv,
• 2:14:14
  Speaker 1: how can horrible people like Tate Brothers and Nick Fuentes
• 2:14:18
  Speaker 1: have millions of followers when they disrespect women badly and openly?
• 2:14:22
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of pent up resentment towards women. There's
• 2:14:26
  Speaker 1: a lot of anxiety that men have about women doing
• 2:14:31
  Speaker 1: as well or better than they are doing. And the
• 2:14:35
  Speaker 1: Tate brothers and Nick Fuentes capitalize on that. They capitalize
• 2:14:38
  Speaker 1: on young men who have this resentment towards independent, successful women.
• 2:14:46
  Speaker 1: And there's a lot of men who are still caught
• 2:14:50
  Speaker 1: up in the Bronze Age. Clark, if you had FU money,
• 2:14:58
  Speaker 1: would you buy a boat, if so, what type? No,
• 2:15:01
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't buy a boat.
• 2:15:02
  Speaker 3: And Of course, it depends what you mean by FU money.
• 2:15:05
  Speaker 1: FU money to buy a boat is different than my
• 2:15:08
  Speaker 1: FU money. My FU money is, my FU money basically
• 2:15:13
  Speaker 1: boils down to, I could stop work tomorrow. I could
• 2:15:16
  Speaker 1: stop doing the show. I could stop doing Talks to
• 2:15:20
  Speaker 1: the Ironman Institute. I could stop doing Peterson Academy. I
• 2:15:23
  Speaker 1: could stop all of that. I could stop all my
• 2:15:25
  Speaker 1: income activities. And I wouldn't have to change one iota
• 2:15:30
  Speaker 1: of my lifestyle. That's FU money for me, right? So
• 2:15:33
  Speaker 1: a few money for me is not improving my lifestyle.
• 2:15:38
  Speaker 1: My lifestyle is exactly where I want it to be.
• 2:15:40
  Speaker 1: I don't need a boat. I mean, I'd like a
• 2:15:42
  Speaker 1: private jet, but that's so far away from where I
• 2:15:45
  Speaker 1: am that I wouldn't do it. I have a beautiful condo.
• 2:15:49
  Speaker 1: I don't really need a condo better than the condo
• 2:15:52
  Speaker 1: I have right now. A few money for me is
• 2:15:57
  Speaker 1: maintaining my current lifestyle without having to engage with any work.
• 2:16:01
  Speaker 1: And then any work I do do, Any income I
• 2:16:03
  Speaker 1: do generate is additive to my standard of living. I
• 2:16:06
  Speaker 1: can buy more art. I can take more trips. I
• 2:16:11
  Speaker 1: can trip for fun. I can stay at even nicer hotels.
• 2:16:15
  Speaker 1: I can do stuff like that. That way, my FU
• 2:16:20
  Speaker 1: money is a big number, but it's not that big.
• 2:16:24
  Speaker 1: It's not big enough for a yacht. If you were
• 2:16:28
  Speaker 1: going to buy a boat, it would be a big boat,
• 2:16:31
  Speaker 1: not a small boat. and it would cost a lot
• 2:16:34
  Speaker 1: more money than my FU number is. I mean, my
• 2:16:39
  Speaker 1: FU number is $ 10 million. It's not that much, right?
• 2:16:42
  Speaker 1: Because that's a number that I could live off of,
• 2:16:48
  Speaker 1: you know, we could live in, you know, comfortably, very,
• 2:16:53
  Speaker 1: you know, the way I live today, off of basically interest. But,
• 2:17:04
  Speaker 1: Somebody else's FU money might be a lot bigger than
• 2:17:06
  Speaker 1: that because they want a yacht, they want a huge condo.
• 2:17:11
  Speaker 1: But 10 million of investable, invested money would be my FU.
• 2:17:20
  Speaker 1: And I'm short of that. I'm short of that. I mean,
• 2:17:26
  Speaker 1: not hugely short. There's still a chance I can get there.
• 2:17:29
  Speaker 1: But I think I'm short. Michael, can you be an
• 2:17:34
  Speaker 1: altruist and not be a communist at heart? Yes. I mean,
• 2:17:37
  Speaker 1: you could be a fascist. You could be lots of
• 2:17:40
  Speaker 1: different things. Altruism does not necessitate one particular political outcome.
• 2:17:44
  Speaker 1: It necessitates collectivism. Or for that matter, you could be
• 2:17:48
  Speaker 1: an altruist and a fascist. of a nihilist. If you're
• 2:17:55
  Speaker 1: really an altruist, you don't have to be a communist.
• 2:17:58
  Speaker 1: You can be a whole variety of collectivists. There's lots
• 2:18:01
  Speaker 1: of different collectivists. Richard, my opinion of Charlie Rose plummeted
• 2:18:07
  Speaker 1: when I saw him interview William F. Buckley about Iron Man.
• 2:18:10
  Speaker 1: He took weak shots at Rand, chuckling like a schoolboy,
• 2:18:14
  Speaker 1: getting away with something. He only made Buckley look a
• 2:18:17
  Speaker 1: bit better. I never saw that. I never saw that.
• 2:18:21
  Speaker 1: But I can see why somebody like Charlie Rose would
• 2:18:25
  Speaker 1: view Ayn Rand as so threatening. If she was not important,
• 2:18:30
  Speaker 1: if she was not significant, why would he take potshots
• 2:18:31
  Speaker 1: at her? Only because he viewed her as threatening in
• 2:18:34
  Speaker 1: some way. He knew there was something there, yet he
• 2:18:38
  Speaker 1: could never live up to it. All right, last question
• 2:18:44
  Speaker 1: that I have on here, unless somebody jumps in. Michael says,
• 2:18:48
  Speaker 1: do you think Trump will attack Iran on 9-11?
• 2:18:51
  Speaker 2: Why?
• 2:18:54
  Speaker 1: No, I don't think any. I mean, he might because
• 2:18:57
  Speaker 1: it'll be one of the tit-for-tasks, but he won't attack
• 2:19:00
  Speaker 1: them because it's 9-11 to make a point. No, he
• 2:19:04
  Speaker 1: will not. Pretty confident in that one. All right, guys.
• 2:19:09
  Speaker 1: Thank you. I will see you all tomorrow. Same time.
• 2:19:14
  Speaker 1: I think same time. Tomorrow will be one of our
• 2:19:19
  Speaker 1: critics of capitalism shows, I think. That's either be tomorrow
• 2:19:26
  Speaker 1: or Saturday. I need to think about the progression of shows.
• 2:19:28
  Speaker 1: I might do a new show tomorrow just because I
• 2:19:30
  Speaker 1: haven't done many and do the critics of capitalism on Saturday.
• 2:19:35
  Speaker 1: But I do have one lined up. a particular critique
• 2:19:39
  Speaker 1: of capitalism that I'm going to review. And then Sunday,
• 2:19:43
  Speaker 1: don't forget, we're talking about Mike Mensah. Me and Nikos
• 2:19:46
  Speaker 1: are talking about Mike Mensah. Should be interesting. And I'm
• 2:19:49
  Speaker 1: not sure we'll agree about bodybuilding and stuff. So it
• 2:19:52
  Speaker 1: could be a fun show. All right, guys. I will
• 2:19:56
  Speaker 1: see you all tomorrow. Thank you. Thank you for all
• 2:19:58
  Speaker 1: the super cheddars and stickers. Bye, everybody.