Latest / The Mark Belling Podcast / Mark Belling Podcast #125: SpaceX has the potential to be the most important company in the history of the world; Mark analyzes on the eve of the big IPO (be wary about buying OR selling).  Milwaukee officials float their dumbest idea yet (and that's saying something.  And as the World Cup kicks off, the US still hasn't fully embraced soccer.

Transcript

Mark Belling Podcast #125: SpaceX has the potential to be the most important company in the history of the world; Mark analyzes on the eve of the big IPO (be wary about buying OR selling).  Milwaukee officials float their dumbest idea yet (and that's saying something.  And as the World Cup kicks off, the US still hasn't fully embraced soccer. · The Mark Belling Podcast

• 0:07
  Speaker 1: The Mark Belling Podcast is presented by you Line for
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: quality shipping and industrial supplies. You line has everything in stock.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Visit you line dot com. The Mark Belling Podcast is
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: a production of iHeartRadio Podcasts.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: We're doing this podcast on Thursday. That's important to lay that.
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: Out because tomorrow, Friday is the SpaceX IPO. It's when
• 0:38
  Speaker 3: it goes to market, so many of you will hear
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: this after that, so you get the context that we're
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: doing this the day before it, and I want to
• 0:47
  Speaker 3: spend We're going to do a little bit of a
• 0:49
  Speaker 3: different podcast today in which I only have a few topics,
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: and that's because I think all of them require a
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: little bit more time than we normally spend.
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: And the first one is SpaceX. I think.
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: This could I didn't say will would could be the
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: most important company ever ever. And again I didn't say
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: it will be said it could be. I want to
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: talk about that. I also want to talk about what
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: someone who's considering investing in this and all of the
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: other companies that will be affected by it, my thoughts
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: on how to approach all of that. When it comes
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: to shipping, packaging, industrial supplies, and equipment, many suppliers offer
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: endlessiles a product. You line knows what you can't do
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: with endlessiles a product. Test the quality of each product
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: and sure everything is in stock and ready to ship
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: the same day, and have a team available twenty four
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: to seven to answer your product questions.
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: You line only.
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: Carries supplies and equipment tested pride and often using their
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: own business experience. The you Line difference Today visit you
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: line dot com.
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: When you deal with a story like this, I realize
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: I have.
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: Listeners that come from all over the map in terms
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: of their knowledge base. There are some of you that
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: know everything about SpaceX and have been following it closely
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: and know the ins and outs of all of the
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: things that it does.
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: And there are others of you.
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: Who may know that Elon Musk starts it, it's going public,
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: and they send up rockets. So I'm going to try
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: to provide content here that helps those who don't know much,
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: while also offering a perspective that those of you that
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: know a lot may appreciate. First of all, I think
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: of all the misconceptions out there, the biggest one is
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: is that SpaceX is just Rocket Company. In talking to
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: friends of mine who are somewhat knowledgeable. They all wonder
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: why a company that has been successful in sending up rockets,
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: clearly a legitimate business and a growing business, would be
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: valued this high. SpaceX does three things. The rocket business
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: is only one of the three. Now, I think the
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: rocket business is critical because Musk, just as he's been
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: the first guy that has been able to successfully mass
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: produce an electric car, was the guy that was the
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: first that really came up with an alternative payment form
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: all the other things, revolutionized and saved free speech by
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: taking over Twitter and turning.
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: It into X.
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: He's been the first person who I think successfully turned
• 3:55
  Speaker 3: space into a viable economic venture. And the rockets and
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: the way that he's used the rockets making them reusable.
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: The key to all of it.
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: The whole problem with you know, doing any business with
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: regard to rockets and do it profitably is you always
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: get one use and you're destroying your product. The rockets
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: go up and they blow up and they drop in
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: the ocean. Musk figured out how to send the rocket
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: up and have a comeback to Earth and be caught
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: in this device so you can use it again and
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: again and again and again. Now that's the rocket business,
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: and it's the one that I think most people are
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: familiar with what And again, I know that many of
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: you know what I'm about to tell you, but.
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: Not everybody does.
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: Musk has folded into SpaceX his AI business. There are
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: two giant companies that are in AI right now. One
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: is Chat GPT and the other is Anthropic and Thropic
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: I think has passed up Chat GPT. Chat GPT is
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: owned by Open Ai. Their product is Chat GPT, and
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: Thropic owns Claude. Claude has just exploded in growth in
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: terms of people that are using AI right now. They've
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: been using Claude. Musk also has an AI business. He
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: calls it XAI. Musk loves the letter x.
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: X AI.
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: That business is in SpaceX. It's part of SpaceX. So
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: now you're starting to see why these valuations are as
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: high as they are. The best known product that XAI
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: has is Groc g r Ok.
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: Groc is like all of it. It's like Chat, GPT
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: and the others.
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: It's AI that well, you know, you can ask Groc
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: a question and Groc will give you an answer, and
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: it competes with the others. However, given Musk's remarkable ability
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: to turn everything he does into a success. You have
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: to be open to the notion that XAI will surpass
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: chat GPT and will surpass Claude, the two products from respectively.
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: Open AI and Anthropic. So part of the SpaceX.
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: Intrigue is how well Musk will take advantage of AI.
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: And AI is linked to not only everything that he does,
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: including continuing to make carr self driving, which he does
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: with his other company, Tesla, and all of the other
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: applications that he sees. Musk just has an ability to
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: see things beyond in a way that no one.
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: Else in the world does.
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: So you're not only getting the rockets, you're getting XAI.
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: And then the third business, the third one short term
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: I think is the most important starlink is in here.
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: Starlink is Musk's ability to deliver broadband from space. One
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: of the most will boxing problems that we had until
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: Musk came around it solved. It is how to get broadband,
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: which is obviously the way that you get the Internet
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: to people that aren't in populated areas. It's easy to
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: do it in populated areas. We put up all of
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: these towers, and the towers send out Wi Fi signals,
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: but what do you do when somebody lives in a
• 7:38
  Speaker 3: small town northwestern Wisconsin, where the next city is sixty
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: miles away, It doesn't make any sense to wire that
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: area up and rural broadband. I mean, the state and
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: federal government have spending a fortune on this forever, and
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: we still haven't gotten very far because it costs a
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: whole lot to reach out to old Charlie over here.
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: Now I'm talking about say Wisconsin. Now, let's get into
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: northern Canada, let's get into the Yukon, let's get into
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: the entire rest of the world. Musk came up with
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: a new way to do it. The broadband is simply
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: being sent down from space. That means it's not requiring
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: any electricity when power is down.
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: You saw, for.
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: Example, when we had the massive hurricane last year, when
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: power was out everywhere because of the flooding and so on,
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: starlink was up and running so rescue workers that were
• 8:40
  Speaker 3: using it in people who needed to get internet access.
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: Musk was handing out the units for free starlink.
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: It is possible.
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: I think that starlink will kill off all other broadband
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: delivery systems that everybody's simply going to get it from
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: space because it's the most reliable.
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: Way to do it, and it may in the end
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: be the cheapest.
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: So by the way, this is yet another example of
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: why you can never turn to the government to fix
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: a problem.
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: The government has.
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: Been working and spending a lot of money to get
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: broadband to all of the areas of the United States
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: that it doesn't currently exist, but they're doing it by
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: simply using the existing technology to do it. Government will
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: never come up with an innovative and better idea. Government often,
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: in fact, looks backward and turns to ideas that were
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: ideas of the past. Perfect example of that Milwaukee's idiotic
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: trolley that's their idea of mass transit run, a contraption
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: on trade on train tracks that's in it in the
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: forties and the fifties, and not even like high speed
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: ones like subways, some slow moven thing that runs down
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: the middle of the street and goes slower than the
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: bus backward. They don't have any ability to innovate or
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: look forward at all anyways. So getting back to SpaceX,
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: those three components are all in SpaceX, the rocket business,
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: his AI which is XAI, and Starlink. This is why
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: the company has the valuation that it does because you're
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: talking about three components here that all in and of themselves,
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: could make the case for being top ten or fifteen
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: companies in size.
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: In the world.
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: He's ahead of everybody else on the Rockets, Jeff Bezos
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: and Amazon.
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: They're all now trying.
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: To play catch up, just as everybody tried to play
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: catch up with the electric car. Musk shows that something
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: could work, but he gets there first, and it's really
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: hard to.
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: Topple him and knock him off. So that's where he
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: was with the Rockets.
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: With Ai, he's not there first, but who's going to
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: bet against him? In terms of I think, for example,
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: Anthropic has already passed up chat GPT, and when chat GPT.
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: Has its own.
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: IPO, I'm just not convinced that it isn't going to
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: be a flop. You know, in the early days of
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: dot com, some of the earliest companies there are owth
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: to remember Netscape and some of the others that were
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: quickly supplanted. Open Ai, which created chat chat GPT was first.
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: Maybe they're already knocked out of the box.
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: By Claude Fromanthropic.
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: Well maybe Musk knocks them off or even if he doesn't,
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: Musk may have enough of his own unique applications for
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: AI that that business explodes, and then the whole Starlink
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: thing bringing communication cheaply to the entire world, which is
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: what the potential for all of this is. So anyway,
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: that's what SpaceX is now considering the potential of all
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: of these things. And remember there's a energy and all
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: of them they're all connected. Starlink is sending broadband from space,
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: SpaceX sense rockets into space.
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: To do any of.
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: These things, you need AI to think faster and process faster,
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: so they all work together. Musk has a lot of ideas.
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: And one of the problems here with Musk is because
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: Musk is such a controversial and weird figure and because
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: some people can't see past the politics. Well you decide
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: he's not a liberal anymore, so I hate him.
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: But whether he is or he isn't, it doesn't mean
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: that the businesses that he yet.
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: That he's providing aren't unbelievably important and perhaps breakthrough.
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: We know that the biggest block and.
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: I've been talking about this for years. My old traffic
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: guy John Wyatt started talking about it with regard to
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: the electric cars and I've just been upping the addy
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: with regard to the data centers, artificial intelligence, gaming and
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: so on.
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: We have a crisis.
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: We don't have anywhere near enough electricity, not only in
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: that of states and in the world.
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: Well.
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: A big part of the problem is utilities are regulated,
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: and utilities if they went and went on a power
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: plant binge and started overbuilding so they'd be ready for this,
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: they'd have to drastically raise their rates, and nobody's going
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: to give them the ability to do that. Private sector
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: companies can obviously. You'll see, for example, a lot of
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: these tech and AI companies and companies like that.
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: They have very little reven or a very little profit right.
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: Now, but their stock is through the rough because see,
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: people see what the potential was. Remember when Amazon barely
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: had any profits, when the pe was like eighty seven million. Well,
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: the investors who kept driving up Amazon were right. They
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: were betting that in the future the company was going
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: to make.
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: A fortune, and it did. So.
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: The problem here is there's nowhere near enough electricity. These
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: data centers suck an incredible amount of electricity. AI is
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: a giant electricity sucker. This is why we need the
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: data centers. But with all of it, they need to
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: be powered, and there isn't enough electricity. One of the
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: things that's been happening is some of the data centers
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: are simply building their own power plans. There is a
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: company at the forefront of this. It's called Blue Energy.
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: I believe Bee is the stock symbol. I'm not giving
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: you an insight and anything that stock has exploded. What
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: they do as they come in and build a power
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: plant that serves only a data center, you get a
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: The power plant doesn't have to be massive, because it's
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: got to be pretty big, but it only serves the
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: one client have to worry about taking forever and waiting
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: for wee energies or wps or wherever you're located to
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: get going.
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: On one of this.
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: You're simply building your own power plant, eating the cost
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: of it, paying this company to go and do it,
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: and you've solved your electricity problem. But even with that,
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: how many of these many power plants.
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: Can we put up? Musk has a solution to this.
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: I'm telling you, this guy is so unbelievably smart. He
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: just keeps coming up.
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: We've got what eight billion people in the world right now,
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: any one of them can come up with some of
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: the ideas that must, as he's the only one that does.
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: Musk wants to put the data centers on the Moon.
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: I mean, just saying that sounds crazy. Does that sound crazy?
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: You don't think that sounds crazy, Jason says he doesn't.
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: I think it sounds crazy. What's on the moon right now?
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: Nothing.
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: We've gone to the Moon, We've planted a few stations,
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: we've put a flag there where, we have hit a
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: few gulf that on the moon. Musk wants to put
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: the data centers on the Moon. And here's the brilliance
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: of his idea. The one thing that the moon has
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: is total solar energy. If you're on the Moon, you
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: have nothing but sunlight. There's not even truly an atmosphere,
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: meaning clouds in all of this. The sun is going
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: to shine, and since there's not much else on the Moon,
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: the solar power that you're getting there is essentially free.
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: So he'd power the data centers that are on the Moon,
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: the data centers that would essentially be automated, that aren't
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: going to require lots of human beings to be sitting
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: there on the Moon running them, and they'd be powered
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: from the Moon. All of this comes in, Well, how
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: do we get the data centers in the moon.
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: How do we construct them?
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: Well, we need the rockets, and SpaceX, which is a
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: giant broadband company that has already used space has expertise
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: and all of that. Now there are clearly going to
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: have to be other companies that are involved in this.
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: And maybe this is far fetched.
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: The thing you can have data centers on the Moon
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: and you can be getting incredible amounts of electricity for free.
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: And by the way, it's going to be very hard
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: for the lefties to oppose to this because they love
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: solar energy and it's the ultimate renewable. We're not damage
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: the Moon's environment by sucking in the sunlight that's just
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: coming straight into the Moon. Again, maybe he's nuts, but
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: damn near everything that Musk is envisioned has come to reality.
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: So all of that would put together, and then imagine
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: all the other applications that could occur with space If
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: these things happened, there is no company ever more substantive
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: and important than SpaceX. It would solve numerous of our problems,
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: including the electricity generation problem, including the whole issue of
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: a lot of people don't want to have these giant
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: data centers and high voltage power lines. It solves a
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: huge chunk of the problems of power lines themselves. So
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: just starting to think about some of these things, you
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: see the magnitude of what space X can be. All Right,
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: the IPO, what's that? It's when the stock starts trading publicly.
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: People have been buying the stock for several years, but
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: they've been doing it through a private placement musk and
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: the managers of SpaceX and so on have taken on
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: private investors to grow. The reason that they've been able
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: to do all of this is that people have been
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: putting up the money to take in an ownership stake,
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: and given the fact that it hasn't traded publicly, there's
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: just been guesses as to how much this is worth.
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: So if some giant mutual fund and there's a few
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: of them that have been part of this since several
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: and hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars, what percentage
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: of SpaceX.
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: Is that worse? Well, they're just guessing.
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: But the estimate of the valuation, which comes of course
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: from SpaceX itself, it sets the IPO and it says
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: the share price you simply multiply the number of shares
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: that exist times the price that the IPO is going
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: to trade. Add that's the current estimated value in Many
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: of these that have been involved early on in getting
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: involved in SpaceX have already seen windfall profits, but they're
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: only on paper because you can't yet sell it until
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: the stock trades. You can't sell your stock in SpaceX.
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: There is what's called a lock up period, but Musk
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: has not applied it as much as you often see
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: in many other IPOs. A lockup period is some of
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: the early investors can't just flip their shares. I once
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: flip shares in an IPO. Everybody did the same thing
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: way back when all of the savings and loans were
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: from mutual associations to stock generating companies. The people who
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: had shares and a savings and loan, and way back
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: when I was my bank was security savings.
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: Converted to public So I.
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: Bought a huge chunk of them, not enough. I remember
• 20:16
  Speaker 3: Peter Lynch, a Magellan fan, famous investor. He said it
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: was the greatest investing opportunity in fifty years.
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: He said, you should open up a.
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: Checking account in every one of these savings and loans
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: in the United States because they were all going to convert,
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: and in fact, just about all of them did. How
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: many places do you see anywhere called savings and loans?
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: It almost exists. They all converted and became glorified. Banks
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: were taken over and so on. Well, I was part
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: of Security Savings, so I was able to buy it
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: at a certain price it went public, and.
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: Was.
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: When it went public, it was eighty percent higher than
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: my thing I sold the first day. I don't remember
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: the exact numbers, but if I had hung on, it
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: would have crippled beyond what I sold at.
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: And then it was bought by M and I.
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: The housing market crisis came in seven eight, where a
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: lot of these bangs and M and I stock cratered
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: and all of it became almost worthless. In any event,
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: that's what if you were an insider, and I was
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: an insider because I was, you know, I was a
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: member of the savings alone, which is what checking accounts and.
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: All of that were.
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: When the thing goes public, you can flip and get
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: out and cash in your gains and lock in the
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: sure thing. So some of that will happen when the
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: company goes public. But also some of it won't happen.
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: Some of these entities that got in early in the
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: private placement they believe in SpaceX. There are some people
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: who the case has been made by Ron Barron, who
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: is a big mutual fund investor, and he's been a
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: big backer of Musk. He's got a huge portion of
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: SpaceX in one of his funds. He says, SpaceX over
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: the next twenty years is going to grow fifteen to
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: twenty times. Given the fact that it's already valued at
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: a trillion dollars.
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: That's almost not imaginable.
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: Fifteen to twenty times would be about what the entire
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: gross domestic product of the United States is right now.
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: All right, So the thing goes out there, and I'm
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: doing this on Thursday. There's always you know, things can
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: get postponed, they can cancel it at the last minute,
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: you all, et cetera. What should a person do? What's
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: my advice? Should you buy it when it goes to market?
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: Should use shorted meaning a bet that it goes down?
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: My advice is to do nothing. I think that this
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: is the riskiest thing imaginable right now. I would wait
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: three months and see where it is then what happens
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: with many IPOs is the day that they open, they instantly.
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: I think one hundred and thirty five dollars is the
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: share price.
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: You could easily, say, within an hour.
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: At go to two hundred and forty, meaning you'd never
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: get the one thirty five. When it simply opens, the
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: price goes up, and I think it's possible it could
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: then crash that same day as everybody who made that
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: quick massive profit. I think I think it's possible that
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: after the first day of trading, the spacexipo could be
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: up as much as sixty percent or down as much
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: as sixty percent, because there are going to be so
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: many people that are not investing in the intrinsic value
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: of the company, but locking in a massive profit, or
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: locking in preventing themselves from the craft, etc.
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: I just think it's impossible.
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: It's beyond my capabilities to make a common unless you're
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: just talking about throwing in a tiny pittance for you
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: and gambling in the same way that you put it
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: into a slot machine. I just avoided for the first
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: couple of days. Over the long haul, we don't even
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: know if SpaceX will be worth these valuations. The current
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: revenue of SpaceX does not justify these prices. Even you
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: know he's making money setting the rockets up, he's making
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: some money on Xai, and he's certainly making some money
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: on Starlek, but it's not enough to justify a.
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: One trillion dollar market valuation.
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: This is all based on a the belief in Musk
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: being the ultimate genius. Just as you know, the people
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: who invested from the beginning in Tesla.
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: Made it an absolute fortune. They think the same thing
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: will happen here, but it hasn't happened. So I just
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: wouldn't be involved in buying into this on the beginning
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: days of the IPO. I would be way too chicken.
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: However, there are things, and again this requires people to
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: be involved in research and so on.
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: One of the.
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: Things throughout my life of investing that I always like
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: to do is buy the stuff that benefits from something else,
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: not alone. Everybody does this. It's one of the oldest
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: tricks in the world. If some company is hugely successful,
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: that means they've got a lot of suppliers who make
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: their parts and so on will invest in them, and
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: this whole area of rockets, ai and so on. This
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: is the reason the semiconductor stocks have exploded.
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: Why is Nvidia.
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: I don't know if they're still the most valuable company
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: in the world, but they're way up there because they
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: make the they make the semiconductors. If fuel gaming and
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: AI and so on. Well, there's a lot of others
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: that are in there as well, and other companies that
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: are going to get massive sales simply by satisfying the
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: needs of SpaceX. I think that they would be sure things.
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: And some of those companies right now are rather tiny.
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: I can I'm not enough of an and this is
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: you know, I pay attention to my money, and I
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: try to make money. I've been following this closely, but
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: I'm following it closely as en amateur trying to make
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: an formed, intelligent decisions. But I do think an amateur
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: who's following things closely can make better informed, intelligent decisions
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: than a lot of the financial professionals, who frankly have
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: to follow everything else in the world. Economically, if you're
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: an individual, you can focus on one er. I don't
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: need to know about all twenty five thousand socks that
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: are out there, but I can try to figure out
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: which two or three semiconductor socks people haven't yet figured
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: out are can still take you anyway.
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: So that's that. With regard to SpaceX. This brings me
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: to a transition topic right now. There is an idea
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: floating in Milwaukee.
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: That I contend is the stupidest idea anyone in Milwaukee
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: has ever come up with. Do you understand how much
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: ground that takes in? Do you not how many stupid
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: things have a been done or be proposed in Milwaukee.
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: This is unbelievably stupid and I just think would be
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: the ultimate disaster. And it comes again from ideologically driven Marxists.
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: Here's their idea.
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: They've been bitching about the fact that our utility rates
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: are high in Milwaukee.
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: Well they are. So their idea is.
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: To essentially nationalize, isn't the word, because Milwaukee isn't a nation,
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: essentially take over the operations of we energies in Milwaukee
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: and have Milwaukee run the utility. Wow, I'm trying to
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: come up with, off the top of my head something
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: that the city of Milwaukee runs well. And those are
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: all things that they've been running forever. That's their idea. Now,
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: many municipalities do run their own utilities. The city that
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: I grew up in Kakana is one of them. Kakana's
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: nickname is the electric City. When you're in Kakana, your
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: water and electricity both come from the city. Most cities
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: run their own water. Rare but not nonexistent for a
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: city to run their own electricity. The difference is Kakana
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: has a power plant. It has its own power plant.
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: It's a hydroelectric plant. You know, you use the water
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: from the Fox River and that generates electricity and it
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: generates enough to serve the service area of that utility.
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: Does Milwaukee own a power plant? We Energies has a
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: couple of plants in Milwaukee, small, but Milwaukee doesn't own
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: a power plant. Secondly, as I just went through and
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: what everybody accept these idiot Marxists and this by the
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: idea is coming from Alex Brower, who's a socialist member
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: of the city Council, and a couple of the others
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: are on it, and socialists believe in taking things over
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: and operating them themselves, a concept that virtually never works.
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: I will grant you that the monopoly status of utility
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: companies is flawed, but for the longest time was necessary
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: because the only way to deliver electricity is through power lines,
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: and you can't have twenty seven electric companies because you'd
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: have twenty seven different sets of power lines running around
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: and who owns the polls. It's simply impractical to have
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: more than one company provided. The result of that, though,
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: is as a monopoly, they have to be regulated by somebody.
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: You can't let a monopoly just do whatever they want,
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: because then they would charge rates whatever they want. But
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: being under the regulation of government and having monopoly status
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: that simply almost guarantees them a profit. They're required a
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: rate of return. It's a flawed system. Innovation doesn't occur,
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: and as I said earlier, there isn't the kind of
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: long term planning where you build way, way, way more
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: than you need now to be ready for the future.
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: The demand for a li electricity is going to explode,
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: and there's very little way to imagine how that doesn't
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: drive up costs. Why in the world would Milwaukee you
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: want to take that od The only way the handle
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: that would be for the city taxpayers. They have to
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: subsidize the massive losses that will come. Unless you want
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: to live in a city in which the power is
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: always up because you're having blackouts because of the demand.
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: In addition to that, because a listener has pointed out
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: to me, if you look at the entire WI Energies network,
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: and WE Energy serves much of southeastern Wisconsin. There are
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: parts where WPS comes in, and there's several other utilities
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: that serve the area, but most of the area that
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: we would describe as southeastern Wisconsin is WE Energies.
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: Seventy percent.
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: Of the deadbeat electric bills and WE Energy service areas.
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: Is the city of Milwaukee.
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: So obviously Milwaukee has big companies that are big uses
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: of electricity. They have to pay their electric bills. So
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: we're talking residential nonpayers. People that fall behind, can't pay,
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: they're poor. You can't cut them off of the winner
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: under the law et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: if Milwaukee takes this over, you know, again, if i'm
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: we Energies, I might be in favor of this. You
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: get to dump Milwaukee, where they're probably taking a loss on,
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: and instead provide all of the electricity to all of
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: the suburban areas and some of the biggest users of.
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: Electricity are outside the city.
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: They get to serve all the data centers, none of
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: which right now are proposed for the city of Milwaukee,
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: and get rid of Milwaukee where they've got a lot
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: of non payers. This is the absolute dumbest idea you
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: can imagine. Electricity is going to be an area that's
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: going to require incredible innovation and incredible capital expenditure, and
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: you want to turn it over to people who came
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: up with the idea of ripping up all the city
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: streets to put a train track on there because they
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: figured out that would be a better way of mass
• 32:08
  Speaker 3: transitting people than buses. You can't come up with a
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: dumber idea. One hundred years ago this might have been
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: a good idea, but even then Milwaukee would have had
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: to bite the bullet and build power plants. As I said,
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: the city I grew up in, Kakan, I had the
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: advantage of being on a river. River there has a
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: bitty big strong current and at a lock and damn
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: system in it.
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: I grew up.
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: I was talking about the first seven years of my life.
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: Everything was two blocks. It's because I lived in this
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: area of Kakana called the Island. Hardly anybody lived on
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: the island. The island was between the north and the
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: south side, right across the river from me was the
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: big giant mill. The mill still there. It was called Tilmoey.
• 32:54
  Speaker 3: It's something else now, but they still call it Tilbody.
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: Two blocks down on the other side of the island. Again,
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: this is all the river goes in two directions. And
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: because of the lock and dams creating this island was
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: the power plant. When I went to school in Kener,
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: every day I walked past the power plant.
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: There's the power plant.
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: It was cost effective way back then to build that
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: power plant because you were right on this raging river
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: and the size of the community was about appropriate for
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: how much electricity that power plant could generate. So way
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: back when a municipal utility that had a source of
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: electricity made some sense to get involved in this business.
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: Now, with such.
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: Massive demand coming forward, this is exactly the kind of
• 33:43
  Speaker 3: thing that if you were a city owned utility you
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: might consider getting out of. I believe the future and electricity,
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: and again this is no great insight because these companies
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: are popping up right and left. It's private companies generating
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: their own electricity. There are several companies that do this
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: in addition to being utilities to Minion one of them.
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: I mentioned this company, Blue Energy. There are companies that
• 34:09
  Speaker 3: are figuring out ways to simply build turbans and come
• 34:12
  Speaker 3: online in three to four to five months. That's what
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: the future is going to be in the expansion of
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: this for profit companies that are able to raise enough cash,
• 34:23
  Speaker 3: take massive short term losses to build the infrastructure to
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: then cash in forever and ever and ever.
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: Do you really want.
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: To turn this over to the socialists and the city
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: council and mayor Chevy much less there's an election coming
• 34:37
  Speaker 3: up in a couple of years. It's very good chance
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: me or Chevy's going to lose in one of the
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: Marxist is gonna win. The idea is being considered and
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: floating around and their scheduling and hearing on it.
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: There was a report on this.
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: On TMJ four's website. This is one of these things
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: that occurs. And let me explain here a liberal minds work.
• 35:02
  Speaker 3: Big cities have problems, as we all know, Leftists don't
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: know how to fix those problems. Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle,
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: all of these cities are going to hell. And the
• 35:14
  Speaker 3: leftist solution, well, we're not going to punish people that
• 35:18
  Speaker 3: doesn't work for crime. We're not going to force the
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: homeless off the streets, and now the homeless are.
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: All over the streets.
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: The thing, you know, the ideas for running the schools
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: overpay the teachers and put in place no standards and
• 35:30
  Speaker 3: never kick any bad discipline kids out and use the
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: schools for ideologizing.
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: That doesn't work.
• 35:36
  Speaker 3: So all the things that are actual problems they don't
• 35:39
  Speaker 3: know how to fix. So what they do is they
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: go after something else that they want to do instead
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: of dealing with the existing issues that are out there,
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: they come up with something else and decide to go
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: bleep that up. This is why often you'll see cities
• 35:55
  Speaker 3: passing resolutions on disconnecting from Israel and all it's nothing
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: to do with the municipality because okay, now I can
• 36:01
  Speaker 3: just go and bleep off on that issue rather than
• 36:05
  Speaker 3: address the problems that we have, because addressing the problems
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: we have would mean stopping doing the idiotic things that
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: they believe in.
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: You're listening to the Mark Belling podcast. I think.
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: The majority of Americans are ambivalent about this good word,
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: while some people are deeply passionate. And here's the thing,
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: there's nothing wrong with that. But what has happened in
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: the United States really, I would say ever since I
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: was about fifteen to twenty years old, is there has
• 36:48
  Speaker 3: been a determination on the part of many people, elitists
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: to make Americans love soccer. Mos Americans don't love soccer,
• 37:03
  Speaker 3: but soccer and loving soccer has been jammed down our throats.
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: There is zero need for this. Why do most of
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: us have to love soccer?
• 37:14
  Speaker 3: The people who love soccer, Why isn't that enough that
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: they love soccer?
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: And I know what, because.
• 37:20
  Speaker 3: Soccer was never an American thing but was huge in
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: the rest of the world. There are some people that
• 37:25
  Speaker 3: just insisted you have to love this total the entire
• 37:27
  Speaker 3: rest of the world does. Well, I'll tell you why
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: soccer was never the biggest deal in the United States.
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: The sports that we created are more fun. They're just reality.
• 37:40
  Speaker 3: Unless you're just somebody that was raised in the culture
• 37:42
  Speaker 3: of soccer, how in the world can you claim that
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: a soccer game is more interesting than an American football game?
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: You can't.
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: American football got all these different positions and all these
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: different complications and all of these things that go on.
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: What is soccer?
• 37:56
  Speaker 3: And I know it's more complicated than this. But it
• 37:59
  Speaker 3: isn't really much more than running up and down the
• 38:01
  Speaker 3: field and trying to kick the ball into this big
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: rectangular goal. And there's only two ways that I know
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: of that you can advance the ball.
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: You can kick it, or you can throw it. And
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: you can't always throw it. What are the other ways
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: you can move the ball? Kick it and throw it.
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: You can I think the goalie can throw it. Yeah,
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: that's right.
• 38:20
  Speaker 3: You can hit it wap it with your head, which
• 38:23
  Speaker 3: I still find to be an unbelievable athletic fe I
• 38:26
  Speaker 3: don't know how you can possibly do that. And I
• 38:28
  Speaker 3: also understand why CTE is almost as big as soccer
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: as it is in the other sports, because anyway, they've
• 38:36
  Speaker 3: been hell bent on making America love soccer.
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: What has happened is.
• 38:43
  Speaker 3: Soccer has become in the United States a way bigger
• 38:46
  Speaker 3: thing among girls and then women than men. And that's
• 38:50
  Speaker 3: because it's not been practical and they want to do
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: it for most girls and women to play tackle football,
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: I mean, you want to see a bunch of thirteen
• 39:01
  Speaker 3: year old girls smashing their jaws up. No, So soccer
• 39:05
  Speaker 3: became their sport to embrace. It was played in the
• 39:07
  Speaker 3: same kinds of seasons, and the United States has gotten
• 39:11
  Speaker 3: to be I think the strongest nation in the world
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: in women's soccer, and we've created true stars in that sport.
• 39:19
  Speaker 3: The men have lagged in part because there's all these
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: other countries that play soccer and we're competing against all
• 39:23
  Speaker 3: of them. And here in the United States, if you're
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: a great athlete, rarely does the best athlete in the
• 39:30
  Speaker 3: high school decide I'm going to play soccer. They often
• 39:32
  Speaker 3: go into some of the other sports that have a
• 39:34
  Speaker 3: greater draw where there's more of a history.
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: Here and there may be more potential money. So soccer
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: is what it is.
• 39:45
  Speaker 3: My own position on soccer, I pay attention to the
• 39:48
  Speaker 3: big stuff. When the American women are in the World Cup,
• 39:51
  Speaker 3: I watched it. When the World Cup goes on, I'll
• 39:55
  Speaker 3: watch some of the big matches. When soccer is being
• 39:58
  Speaker 3: played in the Olympics, I'll watch some of the the
• 40:00
  Speaker 3: big matches, especially if America is in it.
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: It's very similar to the way I guess I approach hockey.
• 40:09
  Speaker 3: The Stanley Cup's going on right now. It's a great series.
• 40:12
  Speaker 3: I'm watching those games. I rarely watch a hockey game
• 40:15
  Speaker 3: in the middle of the regular season. I could name
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: some hockey players, not a lot. That's all I alm
• 40:22
  Speaker 3: With soccer. I think almost everybody can name one men's
• 40:27
  Speaker 3: soccer player, but they'd all name the same one. They're
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: all gonna name Messi, and I'm not talking about players
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: of the past. Messi plays for Miami. The big thing
• 40:35
  Speaker 3: is when Messi decided to come to the United States
• 40:36
  Speaker 3: and play for Inner Miami, the soccer team there, they
• 40:39
  Speaker 3: gave him trillions and trillions of dollars, et cetera, et cetera,
• 40:41
  Speaker 3: et cetera. And Miami, being a city with all these
• 40:44
  Speaker 3: foreigners in there, is the perfect thing.
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: And he's a star, old but a star.
• 40:53
  Speaker 3: So what soccer is is like many many other sports.
• 40:59
  Speaker 3: I think it's very similar to NASCAR. Most Americans know
• 41:03
  Speaker 3: almost nothing about the top stock car racing circuit, know
• 41:08
  Speaker 3: almost nothing, but there's a percentage of people that are
• 41:11
  Speaker 3: really really into it.
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: What's wrong with that?
• 41:16
  Speaker 3: Why do we all have to like make soccer the
• 41:19
  Speaker 3: biggest thing in the world.
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: And why if you I don't care about soccer.
• 41:25
  Speaker 3: My old producer Paul used to just rail about this
• 41:27
  Speaker 3: and then, I mean he would just pride himself up.
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: I will never watch soccer, et cetera. And then it
• 41:33
  Speaker 3: was during I think the last Olympics, he's watching every
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: game and he's into the whole thing. Right. He's just
• 41:38
  Speaker 3: so predictable, though, But that's how things are when suddenly
• 41:41
  Speaker 3: becomes a big deal in people. And I think that
• 41:43
  Speaker 3: the ratings for the for the World Cup games will
• 41:45
  Speaker 3: be pretty good.
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: You've got this whole.
• 41:49
  Speaker 3: Thing going on now in the United States about the
• 41:51
  Speaker 3: affordability of the FIFA. It's FIFA, not FIFA, right, FIFA.
• 41:55
  Speaker 3: FIFA they run soccer.
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: Oh my god, they're ripping everybody off. No, they're actually not.
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: Let me explain something about anything that you sell, if
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: you can get it, you want to go get it.
• 42:10
  Speaker 3: If the ticket prices weren't this high, it would simply
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: mean that some people who could pay the prices wouldn't
• 42:17
  Speaker 3: be able to get it. There's always going to be
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: a market for this stuff, and it's gonna be set
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: by the price. If the price is too high for
• 42:23
  Speaker 3: somebody to go and afford it, they're not gonna go.
• 42:26
  Speaker 3: And the goal is to set It's the same of anything.
• 42:28
  Speaker 3: If we did the segment.
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: Earlier in the week about the brewers are gonna rip
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: out the first few.
• 42:31
  Speaker 3: Rows behind home plate and put it high und seating
• 42:34
  Speaker 3: and raise the price dramatically and let people go to
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: the club that they're gonna have on the right field line.
• 42:40
  Speaker 3: I'm just telling you right now, every one of those
• 42:42
  Speaker 3: seats will sell, even at the incredibly inflated price.
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: So that's what they do with it.
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: Well, regular fan, kid, if that's right, So you don't
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: sit behind there, you sit somewhere where you can't afford.
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: How else are we going to determine who's gonna sit there.
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: Furthermore, if they have the prices artificially lower, these people
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: would just go on stub Hub or seat geek or
• 43:03
  Speaker 3: one of the other ticket resellers and they would profit
• 43:05
  Speaker 3: the money. So FIFA's decided we're going to take the money.
• 43:09
  Speaker 3: I've looked at some of these prices. I think they're insane.
• 43:11
  Speaker 3: There's no way I would do it. But as I said,
• 43:15
  Speaker 3: I'm not that into soccer and.
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: I this is just me. Everybody else say, who am I?
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: I'm in horse racing.
• 43:25
  Speaker 3: You talk about a niche that hardly anybody knows anything about.
• 43:28
  Speaker 3: People pay attention to the Kentucky Derby because they have
• 43:30
  Speaker 3: their parties they watched that race. Other than that, people know.
• 43:33
  Speaker 3: I'm just telling you, people know nothing. The questions I'm
• 43:37
  Speaker 3: asked are in many cases so stupid.
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: So what what's roy with being into something that most
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: people aren't.
• 43:49
  Speaker 3: But this whole soccer thing we've just been You have
• 43:51
  Speaker 3: to be into soccer because soccer is a global sport.
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: So what.
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: So I think that there will be attention given to
• 44:02
  Speaker 3: this in part because it's being hype like crazy. The
• 44:04
  Speaker 3: better the United States does, and they could do anything
• 44:08
  Speaker 3: from being knocked out early on to go a distance.
• 44:12
  Speaker 3: The men's team has never been anywhere near with the
• 44:15
  Speaker 3: women's team of men, but they've had their moments. As
• 44:17
  Speaker 3: more men in the United States play soccer, look at
• 44:20
  Speaker 3: a following, and things will go on, and the games
• 44:22
  Speaker 3: will probably be well attended, in part because you've got
• 44:25
  Speaker 3: a country that has people from all over the world
• 44:27
  Speaker 3: that live here, and other people are coming here for this.
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: They'll go to see their countries play, et cetera, et cetera,
• 44:33
  Speaker 3: et cetera. But I mean, if I was FIFA, I
• 44:36
  Speaker 3: don't know that I see the upside of having it
• 44:38
  Speaker 3: in the United States, other than we are the center
• 44:41
  Speaker 3: of the world, and anything that happens here gets broad exposure.
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: A lot of them.
• 44:47
  Speaker 3: Written about this if on this piece and the Spectator
• 44:49
  Speaker 3: it's written by who wrote this, Bill Kaufman. He is
• 44:56
  Speaker 3: an anti he is somebody that is an anti snob Wards.
• 45:00
  Speaker 3: He's telling the snaps who say that we're supposed to
• 45:02
  Speaker 3: like Stocker.
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: To go jump in the lake.
• 45:03
  Speaker 3: He writes its World Cup time again, and Americans from
• 45:06
  Speaker 3: Bangor to Batavia don't even bother to stifle their quadrenial yawns,
• 45:12
  Speaker 3: while more fervent patriots are praying to the god who
• 45:15
  Speaker 3: adjudicates sporting events that the US team flames out early
• 45:19
  Speaker 3: as usual. It's been thirty two years since the World
• 45:23
  Speaker 3: Cup first tainted American soil. The nineteen ninety four invasion
• 45:27
  Speaker 3: was a colossal flop. Despite the corporate subsidies lavished by
• 45:31
  Speaker 3: Coca Cola, MasterCard and the usual suspects. The title game
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: will excuse Me match, a thrilling zero zero tie in
• 45:39
  Speaker 3: regulation between Brazil and Italy, did not win millions of
• 45:43
  Speaker 3: New fans.
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: The indifference of Americans to the World Cup will be
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: ascribed to our provincialism and ignorance of the wider world.
• 45:51
  Speaker 3: But in fact, it owes more to good old fashioned
• 45:54
  Speaker 3: American stubbardness and the vestigial resistance to homogenization that produced,
• 46:00
  Speaker 3: for instance, the popular rejection of the metric system. No
• 46:04
  Speaker 3: doubt there are pockets of enthusiasts for the tournament. Dweebs
• 46:08
  Speaker 3: in what my friend Jason Peters calls Silly con Valley
• 46:12
  Speaker 3: are likely to be extra amorous with their Ai girlfriends
• 46:16
  Speaker 3: should the USA defeat Paraguay.
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: In the home team's opener.
• 46:22
  Speaker 3: A lot in that sense, to the consternation of the
• 46:26
  Speaker 3: perpetually consternated. The soccer virus has never infected Americans. The
• 46:33
  Speaker 3: game was played by in a few immigrant heavy New
• 46:35
  Speaker 3: England textile towns in the nineteenth century, but the sons
• 46:39
  Speaker 3: of these immigrants learn to play wholesome American sports, such
• 46:43
  Speaker 3: as baseball and real football.
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: In nineteen twenty four, Thomas K.
• 46:47
  Speaker 3: Hills, secretary of the US Football Association, predicted that his
• 46:51
  Speaker 3: European enthusiasm soon would rank only second to baseball as
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: the leading pro game. But Americans remain so indifferent that
• 46:59
  Speaker 3: Cahills Association eventually gave up its preferred name and accepted
• 47:04
  Speaker 3: the demeaning term soccer. Why did soccer fail in our land,
• 47:09
  Speaker 3: setting aside the obvious fact that.
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: It is excruciating to watch.
• 47:14
  Speaker 3: And again, I get that if you're a dis's meino,
• 47:17
  Speaker 3: if you're a devote you don't think it's excruciating to watch.
• 47:21
  Speaker 3: But if you're a casual observer, it is often excruciating
• 47:25
  Speaker 3: to watch.
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: I mean, how long can you sit there?
• 47:31
  Speaker 3: It's nothing, nothing in the ball just gets getting kicked
• 47:33
  Speaker 3: back up and down the field. And I get that
• 47:35
  Speaker 3: most of us don't understand the nuances of the place
• 47:39
  Speaker 3: that they're running, et cetera. But this guy's point, excruciating
• 47:42
  Speaker 3: to watch, that's what it gets down to. Most people
• 47:45
  Speaker 3: think that this is boring. The usual explanation is its foreignness.
• 47:54
  Speaker 3: Local clubs of the nineteen thirties and forties had such
• 47:57
  Speaker 3: unlovely monikers as the Chicago Croatians and the San Pedro Yugoslavians,
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: not exactly the Yankees. It's an interesting point that he made.
• 48:08
  Speaker 3: By so many of these soccer teams embracing foreign roots,
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: it's turned off the majority of Americans who want to
• 48:16
  Speaker 3: be patriotic for it us not the homelands of a
• 48:19
  Speaker 3: handful of people.
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: Who came here from other places.
• 48:23
  Speaker 3: Even today, prominent quote American players are often foreign mercenaries
• 48:28
  Speaker 3: whose patriotism is no thicker than an American Express card.
• 48:32
  Speaker 3: In nineteen forty three, Time magazine asserted that the US
• 48:35
  Speaker 3: lack of interest in soccer is due mainly to us
• 48:39
  Speaker 3: this daste for sitting outdoors in wintry and wintry winds
• 48:43
  Speaker 3: and sleet, which does not explain why Green Bay's Lambeau
• 48:46
  Speaker 3: Field in Buffalo's high Mark Stadium are packed on December Sundays.
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: In nineteen fifty two.
• 48:52
  Speaker 3: The secretary of the National Federation of Secondary Schools ventured
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: it's hard to interest American kids in a sport in
• 48:58
  Speaker 3: which they can't use their head. Why Americans should be
• 49:02
  Speaker 3: more attached to their hands than the Brits are, He
• 49:04
  Speaker 3: did not explain. Two US professional leagues were launched in
• 49:07
  Speaker 3: nineteen sixty seven. Fewer than one percent of the players
• 49:10
  Speaker 3: and the larger of the two leagues were American. Teams
• 49:13
  Speaker 3: sent their players and coaches to Berlitz classes to learn English,
• 49:16
  Speaker 3: but the efforts were for not CBS actually broadcasts several games,
• 49:20
  Speaker 3: but the handful of fans were aghast when it was
• 49:23
  Speaker 3: revealed that play had been instructed that players had been
• 49:26
  Speaker 3: instructed to feign injuries in order to make time for commercials.
• 49:29
  Speaker 3: The North American Soccer League prospered for a mayfly's life
• 49:33
  Speaker 3: in the nineteen seventies, thanks largely to the applely named
• 49:36
  Speaker 3: Cosmo's team of New York, which featured the legendary Brazilian Pele.
• 49:40
  Speaker 3: The likes of Elton John and Henry Kissinger promoted the NASL,
• 49:44
  Speaker 3: but Hale and Hardy Hicks snubbed the Cosmopolitan sport as one. Tulsa, Oklahoma,
• 49:50
  Speaker 3: Cabby told the reporter when asked why he didn't follow
• 49:52
  Speaker 3: the NASL's Tulsa roughnecks. Soccer is quote for guys in
• 49:57
  Speaker 3: short pants, a communist game, too slow boring. After half
• 50:02
  Speaker 3: a century of incessant corporate promotion of soccer as the
• 50:05
  Speaker 3: next big thing, the game has yet to achieve much
• 50:09
  Speaker 3: spectatorial cachet outside of hipster enclaves. An alarming number of
• 50:14
  Speaker 3: small children have followed the pie piper onto the soccer
• 50:17
  Speaker 3: fields of suburbia, but most come to their senses once
• 50:21
  Speaker 3: puberty hits. I doubt that even in historic run by
• 50:24
  Speaker 3: the American squad of the World Cup would inspire an
• 50:26
  Speaker 3: outbreak of soccer fever.
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: But just in case, go Paraguay.
• 50:31
  Speaker 3: See no I uncle, as far as him, I don't
• 50:33
  Speaker 3: want the United States team to go bad because and
• 50:35
  Speaker 3: I don't have a dislike of soccer. I just thought
• 50:37
  Speaker 3: embrace it much. And I don't think we have to
• 50:41
  Speaker 3: embrace it. Why can't people who like it follow it?
• 50:46
  Speaker 3: And why do we have to go and try.
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: To jam this thing?
• 50:49
  Speaker 3: And even when you see the sports coverage saying on
• 50:51
  Speaker 3: ESPN they're constantly running the soccer scores on the crawl
• 50:54
  Speaker 3: and sports center devoted to so much to there aren't
• 50:58
  Speaker 3: that many people who want to say it. There were
• 51:00
  Speaker 3: still more people interested in baseball in this country than soccer.
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: It is the way it is. And I don't know.
• 51:11
  Speaker 3: What the inferiority complex is of soccer fans, in which
• 51:14
  Speaker 3: they have this insistence that everybody else like it. What
• 51:17
  Speaker 3: do you care if other people don't like it? As
• 51:21
  Speaker 3: for the whole thing of you know, kids in grade schools,
• 51:25
  Speaker 3: starting forty years ago, the whole term soccer mom soccer.
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: Became big in the schools.
• 51:29
  Speaker 3: The ever reason became big in the schools is it
• 51:31
  Speaker 3: was a great athletic activity. The one thing soccer requires
• 51:35
  Speaker 3: you to do is run. It was a great workout
• 51:37
  Speaker 3: for kids. Great that you got these as many kids involved,
• 51:40
  Speaker 3: unfortunately nowhere near as many are now because they're sitting
• 51:43
  Speaker 3: in their houses gaming and doing all of the other
• 51:45
  Speaker 3: things and just getting fat. Soccer got them to go
• 51:48
  Speaker 3: out there and run and compete. And it was a
• 51:51
  Speaker 3: great sport in that the skills set to at least
• 51:55
  Speaker 3: play wasn't as great to be really good, of course,
• 51:58
  Speaker 3: was very high, but almost edy kid could run up
• 52:01
  Speaker 3: and down the field and kick the ball when it
• 52:03
  Speaker 3: was on the ground. Harder to catch a baseball, Harder
• 52:08
  Speaker 3: as baseball went along, to know the rules of baseball.
• 52:11
  Speaker 3: How many seven year old kids know the infield fly rule?
• 52:15
  Speaker 3: How many catchers can catch a ball in baseball when
• 52:17
  Speaker 3: the batter swings and misses. Hard to adapt to those sports.
• 52:20
  Speaker 3: So soccer became a good sport for a lot of
• 52:22
  Speaker 3: kids that weren't really athletically inclined. And those that were
• 52:25
  Speaker 3: inclined were great in soccer because they were faster and
• 52:29
  Speaker 3: had more agility than the others, and they found some
• 52:31
  Speaker 3: sord a minute. But it hasn't translated as much to
• 52:34
  Speaker 3: full time fandom. The overwhelming majority of those kids who
• 52:38
  Speaker 3: in the eighties and the nineties were playing soccer and
• 52:40
  Speaker 3: the soccer mom thing, and they're taking of all of
• 52:42
  Speaker 3: those games, you know what. They followed on the Packers
• 52:45
  Speaker 3: and the Brewers and maybe the NBA finals and so on.
• 52:51
  Speaker 3: All right, next story, I want to turn my attention
• 53:00
  Speaker 3: to the resumption of the war with Iran. I think
• 53:05
  Speaker 3: this was inevitable. It was inevitable that this ceasefire would fail.
• 53:11
  Speaker 3: And the reason it has failed is Iran was not
• 53:15
  Speaker 3: seriously pursuing peace. From the perspective of Trump, he does
• 53:23
  Speaker 3: not want to be a Warmiger. He started this war
• 53:27
  Speaker 3: because he believed.
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: It was necessary. He didn't start this war because Israel.
• 53:31
  Speaker 3: Told him, doing all these you know cranks out there
• 53:34
  Speaker 3: claiming that was the motivation. I don't think Trump has
• 53:36
  Speaker 3: ever done anything that.
• 53:37
  Speaker 2: He didn't want to do. Ever, he felt it was necessary.
• 53:42
  Speaker 3: He then felt he inflicted enough damage on Iran that
• 53:46
  Speaker 3: if there was any sanity in the leadership of that country,
• 53:49
  Speaker 3: they then cut a deal. And Trump's the master deal maker.
• 53:52
  Speaker 3: He weakened the opposition and tried to then make a
• 53:54
  Speaker 3: deal on his terms because.
• 53:56
  Speaker 2: The other what are they going to do?
• 53:59
  Speaker 3: And Iran had as Iran always hands that the United
• 54:02
  Speaker 3: States jerked us around. Now there are some who have
• 54:07
  Speaker 3: been criticizing Trump for not finishing the job.
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: The counter to that is, what was the rush.
• 54:13
  Speaker 3: The only rush would be the fact that this is
• 54:15
  Speaker 3: caused an increase in the price of oil. Other than
• 54:19
  Speaker 3: that Trump had time on his side. It wasn't our
• 54:23
  Speaker 3: army and navy and submarines that were blown up. It
• 54:26
  Speaker 3: was at our infrastructure that was in shambles. It wasn't
• 54:29
  Speaker 3: the leadership of our nation that was killed. So now
• 54:35
  Speaker 3: Trump is going back to bombing and the statements. We've
• 54:37
  Speaker 3: had two nights of this that I'm doing this podcast
• 54:39
  Speaker 3: on Thursday.
• 54:41
  Speaker 2: They issued the statement today that we're gonna hit even
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: harder tonight.
• 54:44
  Speaker 3: I believe you can best describe this as more negotiation.
• 54:50
  Speaker 3: Trump is trying. Okay, the hammering you got before that
• 54:53
  Speaker 3: didn't convince you, I'm gonna hammer you more.
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: And what's the downside to us if they do the hammering? Remember,
• 55:00
  Speaker 2: Iran has been.
• 55:01
  Speaker 3: Violating the ceasefire, either by lobbing drones into some of
• 55:05
  Speaker 3: the Emirates states then lobbing drones at us. They attacked
• 55:10
  Speaker 3: an American helicopter in the strait. They kept breaking it anyway,
• 55:14
  Speaker 3: so I guess they can keep doing those things. But
• 55:16
  Speaker 3: even when the seafire was in place, they were doing it.
• 55:20
  Speaker 3: I don't see any downside and resuming this. Here's the problem.
• 55:28
  Speaker 3: There are some and the whole Iran thing is you've
• 55:31
  Speaker 3: got three sides of the issue.
• 55:32
  Speaker 2: There are some people who know, oh, don't do this.
• 55:34
  Speaker 3: You know there are a sovereign state, and oh, now
• 55:36
  Speaker 3: the gas prices are going up over that now, worrying
• 55:38
  Speaker 3: about whether or not would be nuke to death in
• 55:40
  Speaker 3: three years. And then there are those who say that
• 55:42
  Speaker 3: we need to finish the job and overthrow the government.
• 55:46
  Speaker 3: I do not believe the United States can overthrow the
• 55:49
  Speaker 3: Iranian government unless.
• 55:50
  Speaker 2: We do what you have to do to win a war.
• 55:54
  Speaker 3: Invade on the ground, take territory, kill everybody off, get
• 55:58
  Speaker 3: to the capital, take over control of the government in prison,
• 56:02
  Speaker 3: and kill the leadership there, and eventually get what's left
• 56:04
  Speaker 3: to sign surrender.
• 56:06
  Speaker 2: That's the went of war. There is no.
• 56:08
  Speaker 3: Stomach in the United States to do that, and there's
• 56:10
  Speaker 3: no stomach for me to do that because I don't
• 56:12
  Speaker 3: believe that we need to do that. I don't believe
• 56:16
  Speaker 3: that we need to put in place a puppet government
• 56:18
  Speaker 3: in Iran. What we do need to do is dramatically
• 56:22
  Speaker 3: weaken this country so that financially they can't keep bankrolling terrorism,
• 56:27
  Speaker 3: and that their nuclear program is set back terribly, not
• 56:32
  Speaker 3: only out of practicality, but because their finances are shot.
• 56:37
  Speaker 3: A couple of interesting stories in this. First of all,
• 56:40
  Speaker 3: Trump is now said We're going to try to take
• 56:42
  Speaker 3: over Carg Island. I've been telling people this forever. You
• 56:46
  Speaker 3: can't pay attention to the way what Trump says as
• 56:49
  Speaker 3: this is exactly what he means. Trump is his own
• 56:52
  Speaker 3: good cop bag cup. This is a negotiating statement. Carg
• 56:57
  Speaker 3: Island is Iran. I won't say only it's ninety percent
• 57:03
  Speaker 3: of their leverage. It's the big oil area right near
• 57:08
  Speaker 3: right adjacent to the Strait. If we take that over,
• 57:12
  Speaker 3: we take over their oil production capacity. And it would
• 57:15
  Speaker 3: also imply that it means that we've taken control of
• 57:17
  Speaker 3: the Strait of hermus. I think Trump in saying this
• 57:22
  Speaker 3: is telling Iran, you've pushed me far enough, I'll take
• 57:26
  Speaker 3: over Carg Island and you got nothing. In hopes that
• 57:29
  Speaker 3: this finally gets them to realize they have to reach
• 57:32
  Speaker 3: a deal with him, another component to the story. Trump said,
• 57:39
  Speaker 3: and again he might be making this up, and it
• 57:41
  Speaker 3: was Trump lies again. If you don't understand Trump after
• 57:45
  Speaker 3: all of these years, Trump states things because to Trump
• 57:50
  Speaker 3: everything is a negotiation.
• 57:51
  Speaker 2: The lefties all my life and said we should negotiate
• 57:53
  Speaker 2: and negotiate and negotiating. That's all Trump ever does.
• 57:57
  Speaker 3: Trump has said that we have been taking oil out
• 58:00
  Speaker 3: of Iran for the last number of weeks.
• 58:03
  Speaker 2: That's never been said before.
• 58:06
  Speaker 3: If we are, if we have the ability to get
• 58:10
  Speaker 3: oil out of Iran, it also means we might have
• 58:12
  Speaker 3: the ability to get some of the fissionable material out
• 58:14
  Speaker 3: of a Raan.
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: Now I don't know that this is true.
• 58:18
  Speaker 3: Again, it might be Trump sending these mixed signals in
• 58:21
  Speaker 3: all of these directions. But if we are already at
• 58:24
  Speaker 3: the point that we are taking some of Iran's oil,
• 58:27
  Speaker 3: we totally have the upper hand here. There's been Trump
• 58:32
  Speaker 3: also gave that he was on Fox and Friends and
• 58:34
  Speaker 3: he said he's so frustrated over the coverage of the war.
• 58:36
  Speaker 3: I don't plan for being frustrated over the coverage of Well,
• 58:38
  Speaker 3: we've lost the war. How in the hell have we
• 58:40
  Speaker 3: lost the war? Iran's bombed to the smithereens, their army,
• 58:46
  Speaker 3: and the navy has almost shot their entire military capacity.
• 58:49
  Speaker 3: Seems to be the lobbing of drones. They've had massive
• 58:52
  Speaker 3: infrastructure damage, much of the leadership of the country is dead.
• 58:55
  Speaker 3: They've been isolated and now loathed by everybody else in
• 58:58
  Speaker 3: the Middle East. I've lost the war now, whether or
• 59:03
  Speaker 3: not we've achieved sufficient goals as something else.
• 59:06
  Speaker 2: But also I just think.
• 59:07
  Speaker 3: Trump looks at this that if Iran's gonna jerk him
• 59:11
  Speaker 3: around with the ceasefire forever and ever, time is on
• 59:13
  Speaker 3: his side more than the other side. We have certainly
• 59:16
  Speaker 3: heard that there are many in the Iranian government, by
• 59:19
  Speaker 3: and large, the people who run the local areas, the
• 59:21
  Speaker 3: regional governors and so on, they want this over because
• 59:24
  Speaker 3: there's massive shortages.
• 59:27
  Speaker 2: Another report.
• 59:30
  Speaker 3: Trump has said, and again we don't know the truth
• 59:32
  Speaker 3: of this, that we have been trying to funnel arms
• 59:36
  Speaker 3: to the Iranian citizens. This is the key, of course,
• 59:39
  Speaker 3: to wall of it. If Iran can fall from within,
• 59:41
  Speaker 3: if the Iranian citizens are able to rise up and
• 59:44
  Speaker 3: kill their leaders and have an internal revolution such as
• 59:48
  Speaker 3: occurred in Romania and many of the countries in Eastern Europe,
• 59:51
  Speaker 3: it solves the problem without us having to do anything.
• 59:53
  Speaker 3: The problem, of course is the people that have any guns.
• 59:56
  Speaker 3: Trump has said, we have tried to arm the Iranian citizens,
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 3: but we have.
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 2: Been blocked by some of our so called allies in
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 2: the region.
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 3: Now I know why some of the Gulf States and
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 3: maybe the Saudis don't like the idea.
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 2: Of US arming the populace.
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 3: All of those countries are tyrannies themselves.
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 2: They don't like the no shit of anybody.
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 3: The reason curities all have absolute gun control is it's
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 3: the greatest way of preventing a revolution against them. And
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 3: their fear, of course, would be that if a lot
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 3: of people in Iran had weapons to overthrow that government,
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 3: you've now having a whole lot of more weapons that
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 3: are hanging around out there in the Middle East. Out
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 3: of this story we've been covering in several different segments
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 3: here in season two of the podcast. The issue of
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 3: autism I've been commenting on. Clearly, there's been a staggering
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 3: increase in autism.
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 2: But what I.
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 3: Don't know and we don't know, is how much of
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 3: it is simply exaggerated diagnoses of autism. Even you know
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 3: Larry David, by the way, I'm kind of ambivalent about
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 3: who wins the NBA Finals, to the extent that I've got.
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 2: A dog in the hunt.
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 3: I predicted that the Knicks would win. I have a
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 3: bet that the Knicks would win. They were an underdog,
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 3: get it. But beyond that, do I care about the
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 3: Knicks as opposed to san Antonio?
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 2: No, I don't.
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 3: I generally face my is I always oppose anybody that
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 3: is in a division of one of our local teams. If,
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 3: for example, the Cubs are in the World Series of
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 3: against them. If the Bears of the Vikings and the
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 3: Lions are in the Super Bowl, I'm against them. I'm
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 3: just against who we play if I'm not in there.
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 3: In this instance, neither of the Knicks or san Antonio.
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 3: There's nothing to do with the Bucks with regard to this,
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 3: so that I usually come down to whose fans do
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 3: I hate the most. The thing with Knicks fans is
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 3: they're not universally terrible. Spike Lee's a pain in the ass,
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 3: but I mean he has been humiliate I think whatever dislike.
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 2: I had a slight spike.
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 3: These annexs were killed thirty five years ago by Reggie Miller.
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 3: That is still to me the greatest fintagh to any
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 3: sporting event that I've ever watched, with the exception of
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 3: the end of the ice wol what it was Indiana
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 3: do Bay like eight or nine points of eighteen seconds
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 3: left and they won the game. Reggie Miller single handedly
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 3: won the game. And god, Spike Lee. It is a
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 3: great great you can find that on YouTube, so I mean,
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 3: they's Spike Lee. But other than that, it's not like
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 3: a Laker game where you've got all these like goofball
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 3: celebrities just sitting there and praying for the camera. The
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 3: celebrities that are sitting there are the Knicks games in
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 3: the front roads you think are actually basketball fans.
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: I mean, I.
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 3: Don't know that I needed though to see Larry David
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 3: last night. I mean I get that he you know,
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 3: even as he's from New York and he's always claimed
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 3: and he's doing show, he's.
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 2: A Knicks fan and he's some Los Angeles so.
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 3: He just comforts over there and gets a seat. He
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 3: wasn't even in the first row. He was in the
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 3: second row. So that's dislikable. I can't imagine disliking any
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 3: San Antonio fans. It just doesn't seem like there's enough.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 2: To them than that.
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 3: Anyway, this is a long way of getting around to
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 3: my point with regard to autism. You wonder I was
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 3: the reason I came up with Larry David is. Larry
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 3: David did a segment on Curb Your Enthusiasm his show
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 3: where he made fun of the notion that some kid
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 3: who he felt was just a brat is on the
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 3: spectrum that you know, that spectrum. They created this notion
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 3: and okay, you might not be fully autistic, but you
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 3: got a little bit of hind of its here on
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 3: the spectrum of it.
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 2: And he just rolled his eyes. He just thought that
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 2: the kid was.
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 3: A brat and the mom was using the spectrum as
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 3: an excuse for the fact that she couldn't control her brat. Now, again,
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 3: that's coming from a lefty many would have been a
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 3: Larry David is one of the few people that has
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 3: been able to do things that are just clearly offensive
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 3: that others would not have been able to get away with.
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 3: What started really was siintild, which he created. Anyway, I
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 3: am wondering how many of the numbers of kids that
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 3: are diagnosed with autism have exaggerated diagnoses. Jason and I
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 3: were talking earlier in the week. Was it you or
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 3: was it Dave Michaels.
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 2: I think you said, was it you that said you
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 2: knew one kid you're growing up? That might you didn't
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 2: know anybody?
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and maybe Dave said one, I didn't know anybody
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 3: when I was a kid, and I can say, well,
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 3: we didn't know, that's what it was. I don't remember
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 3: anybody that had even the characteristics you would described. I do, however,
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 3: remember there were some kids that were shy, some that
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 3: were quiet, some that were introspective, some that didn't have
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 3: exaggerated reactions. Would that be now on the spectrum?
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 2: I don't know. The conclusion that I won't say a conclusion.
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 3: What I believe and could be wrong on, is that
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 3: actual autism has in fact grammatically increased, and there's a
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 3: reason for it. Whether it's vaccines, whether it's processed foods,
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 3: whether it's all the hormones in our food I don't know,
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 3: whether it's all the drugs that mothers have in their
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 3: bodies and their pregnant I don't know, but I think
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 3: it has increased. But I also think that some of
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 3: this is hyped autism. The thing that is to me extraordinary.
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 3: I remember again, going back to when I was a kid,
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 3: if you told a parent that your kid had like
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 3: a problem or a condition, that they were the term
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 3: that at the time that was mentally retarded, which simply
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 3: meant you were slow and retired means slow to develop. No, no, no,
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 3: no he's not. Or your kid is HyperAct No, no, no,
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 3: he's not. No parent ever wanted to hear that there
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 3: was any flaw with their kids, any problem. Now, in
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 3: this vict society that we are in, where everybody wants
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 3: to be a victim, it sure seems like a lot
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 3: of parents are fighting to get their kids designated as autistic.
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 3: I want to have an autistic kid, and I don't
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 3: think it's just like bragging, like.
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 2: The trans saying, oh my kid is trans, and then.
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 3: Bragging about the fact that you've raised the kids so
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 3: screwed up that he thinks he's a girl even though
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 3: he's got a cladingis hanging between his legs. And I've
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 3: made some of these comments, and we've got some reactions here.
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 3: I want to share one of them.
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 2: Mark.
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 3: Your discussions on autism are great, but there is one
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 3: component that you didn't discuss. In most medical areas. The
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 3: parent patient is skeptical and may ask questions, ask for alternatives, etc.
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 3: The concern with autism is the parents in many cases
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 3: want their child to be diagnosed with autism as it
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 3: does several things for them. One and he makes good
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 3: points here. One gives them an excuse for the issues
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 3: at home with a child.
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 2: I think that's real.
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 3: You got a kid who acts up that you can't
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 3: control well, rather than admitting, maybe you got a kid
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 3: that you can't control.
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 2: Oh, it's the autism.
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 3: Rationalization is the second strongest human drive. You can unrationalize
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 3: the issues that your kids have. He's autistic. Two Again,
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 3: this is the letter writer. They get a government check
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 3: in many cases due to disability determination. This has been
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 3: going on for some time, not just with autism. The
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 3: number of people on the SSI children. This is why
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 3: Social Security is going bust. One of the reasons everybody
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 3: wants their kid to be described as some behavioral disability,
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 3: some learning disability.
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 2: Now the autism thing, you get paid for it.
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 3: They see the kid as a cash register. Now I
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 3: get then in many instances, the kid is autistic, which
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 3: creates challenges, and the money is there for a purpose.
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 3: But you dangle money around out there, and you can
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 3: certainly work your mind into a way in which I
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 3: rationalize that the autism is really I'm saying that some
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 3: of these diagnoses I think are hype, not all. And
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 3: then three, beyond the disability checks, many get a ton
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 3: of other benefits. For example, you get free or heavily
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 3: discounted family passes to the zoo museum.
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 2: I didn't know that.
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 3: Did you know that that artistic kids get passes? I
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 3: don't know that this is true. This is what the
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 3: guy is writing. If so, well, what about a kid
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 3: that's deaf in one ear, but does he get anything?
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 2: What about a fat cat? What about anybody any kind
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 2: of medical condition?
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 3: Discounted registration, discounted lunches at school, and so on.
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 2: I say this as an employee.
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 3: I'm not gonna name this person, obviously, as an employee
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 3: of Children's. The big medical complex in Milwaukee, Children's used
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 3: to be called Children's Hospital.
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 2: I think it. I'll call Children's Wisconsin.
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 3: As an employee of Children's, where I see parents all
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 3: the time discussing this, but also in my personal life,
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 3: where you hear Johnny has been having a tough time
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 3: in school. Think he has autism, maybe you should get
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 3: him checked. You can get a lot of good stuff. So, yes,
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 3: the fraud is real by the providers, but the parents
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 3: are also encountering it as they are seeking out the diagnosis.
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 2: Now that gets to my other point.
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 3: There is a vested interest in having lots of autistic
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 3: children because there are lots of people who make money
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 3: providing services to autistic children. This doesn't mean that there
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 3: aren't autistic children. But when there are autistic children and
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 3: you want to get in on the action the money
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 3: come from it, you become a provider of services for
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 3: autistic children. You have a vested in peston stamping this
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 3: kid is autistic, so that you can now get paid
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 3: to provide those services. This is a real phenomenon that
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 3: affects numerous things. When the government pays the bill, the
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 3: government doesn't do a very aggressive job of checking.
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 2: Now, I have heard from others.
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 3: Who have said this isn't true, that it can take
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 3: a long time, that the government doesn't accept some of
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 3: these diagnoses willy nilly. What we have lacked, however, is
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 3: any willingness to be open minded about what's caused the increase.
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 3: Just slapping down and rejecting theories like vaccines. I don't
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 3: reject that theory. I didn't say I embraced it, but
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 3: I don't believe it's disproven. We have kids getting so
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 3: many more vaccines now than they gave when I was
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 3: a kid. These vaccines are triggering immune responses. That's why
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 3: they get them. Could there be too many? Yeah, But
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 3: then I look at all the other things going on
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 3: with diet.
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 2: I look at how much hormones they put in the meats.
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 3: I think this is why you've got so many males
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 3: that are acting female and females that are acting male,
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 3: and maybe why they're willing to question, to embrace the
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 3: whole trans thing.
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 2: We're screwing up their hormones. And then you've got.
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 3: Mothers that are peaper dishes for drugs, powering drugs and
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 3: everything else out of their bodies while they're pregnant.
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 2: I think all of it comes into play.
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 3: And now this from the opposite perspective a parent, this
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 3: is pretty good stuff.
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 2: Mark.
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 3: Even though I wanted to write you about my experience,
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 3: he goes into something else.
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 2: I want to get into this.
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 3: To start with, my youngest son, eight years old, end
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 3: of the second grade, was just recently diagnosed with autism
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 3: with ADHD at.
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 2: The end of May.
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 3: My wife and I had always felt that there might
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 3: have been something, but we've dismissed some of it due
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 3: to his speech issues that he had early in life.
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 3: Our oldest two kids, nineteen and sixteen, both had some
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 3: sort of delayed speech but eventually grew out of it,
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 3: with even the oldest one having an IEP and worked
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 3: with a speech therapist until the fifth grade. That even
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 3: today you would never have known of these issues now
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 3: with the new diagnosis, just simply trying to obtain.
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 2: It was an effort all by itself.
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 3: So he's not pointing out it's not that easy to
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 3: just get your cod declared autistic. In Februar of twenty
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 3: twenty five, when we started the process of getting on
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 3: a waiting list to have my youngest son evaluated, simple
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 3: math even shows that, yes, we waited approximately one year
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 3: and two months before we were able to be screened.
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 3: Before we had our evaluation about three weeks after that.
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 3: It took about another week to find out our results. Now,
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 3: I still believe that autism is not a settled science,
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 3: not because I do not think autism doesn't exist. But
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 3: I do believe our ever changing environment is a bare
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 3: minimum causing the spike in cases. You have continued to
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 3: pose the question how many autistic children do you remember
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 3: growing up? For myself a dreaded millennial, I can confidently say,
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 3: prior to meeting my nephew who's autistic, and I met
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 3: him in late two thousand and nine, that my answer
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 3: is one. And he went to school with me and
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 3: was also a part of my graduating class. It was
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 3: also the first time I saw a paraprofessional being permanently
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 3: assigned to a student. But I do think our ever
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 3: changing environment is definitely having an effect, even if we
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 3: want to ignore any case, were any case work that
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 3: vaccines are causing, which is some part I feel that
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 3: they do. I do think nutrition and extra exposure to
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 3: radiation is also causing increase. And he makes a good
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 3: point with the radiation, all these screens and blue lights
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 3: the kids are exposed to. Do you not think that
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 3: this could be messing with their brains if we decide
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 3: to break down nutrition to just how kids ate lunch.
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 3: For the past one hundred years, it has changed. My
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 3: grandparents on my father's side, both were born during the depression.
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 3: But even at this time, school lunch was at its
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 3: infancy at best, and even recalling what my grandmother talked
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 3: about going home for lunch versus today, where students are
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 3: fitted into a cookie counter, a cookie cutter, calorie counted
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 3: meal is astounding, where fats and protein is often ignored
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 3: in favor of whatever the state deems is healthy. He
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 3: makes a good point about that. I think the evidence
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 3: is becoming overwhelming that many of the things that we
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 3: thought were healthy, primarily carbs, are not, and some of
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 3: the things that we thought were bad fats, in fact
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 3: are very.
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 2: Good for you.
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 3: Continuing not to mention every child has a different build
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 3: and makeup, so to believe that every meal is able
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 3: to account for every child's well being.
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 2: Is a bit far fetched.
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 3: I do credit some of my youngest son's accelerated speech
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 3: improvement to the diet I gave to the family. When
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 3: I started replacing processed foods with simple ingredient foods and
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 3: focusing on higher protein and higher fat foods for my
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 3: own health and recovery, I then saw bigger strides in
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 3: my son's speech development. The exposure of radiation has only
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 3: increased in our lifetimes and I do feel that this
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 3: is one of the biggest contributing factors to the increases
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 3: in autism cases. Even back thirty years ago, the amount
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 3: of power infrastructure, battery usage, screen usage was nothing in comparison.
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 2: To what it is today.
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 3: Everything has a screen emitting UV blue radiation from the phone,
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 3: the car, the TV, the computer, etc. Kids today go
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 3: to school and sit in front of a screen, go
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 3: home transported in a car with a screen, and they
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 3: sit at home in front of a screen. Prior generations,
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 3: including my own, never had this and of exposure it
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 3: it's hard to believe that this can't that this can't
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 3: be doing some sort of harm, even when it is
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 3: all deemed safe. Water is safe, but even too much
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 3: water is deadly. Let me interject to me. I think
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 3: the key is they're getting all of the screen exposure
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 3: when their brains are developing. I got all of the
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 3: screen exposure when I was an old fart. My incredibly
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 3: brilliant brain had already been developed. When you consider that
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 3: some of these kids are two and three, and you
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 3: can discuss how much radiation that's coming off a phone
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 3: or a laptop, and all of that is too much.
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 2: We can't just say that we're not going to consider
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 2: any of this stuff. We can't trust whatever.
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 3: Is said to be settled science by the quacks and
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 3: the public health community for that matter, the pharmaceutical companies,
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 3: which often have a linkage with the food companies. You've
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 3: got to be open to some of this stuff, which
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 3: is one of the points that this guy's raising.
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 2: Now, will they ever research this? And who knows?
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 3: I do not have a lot of faith in it,
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 3: as they already described with massive wait times, it already
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 3: shows me firsthand that there is obviously a lot of
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 3: money involved.
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 2: In the care site.
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 3: So it goes out to say that it's really not
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 3: that easy to get a kid designated to this, in
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 3: part because the line of kids to be able to
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 3: do so is overwhelming. And if one of the responses
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 3: to that is we're going to fund even more autism
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 3: training on people, you know, to provide autism services, it
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 3: becomes a snowballing effect and everybody wants to be a
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 3: claud autistic because of all the bennies that you get
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 3: with it, which again does not mean that there isn't
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 3: an actual dramatic increase in autism following The money explains
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 3: almost everything in life. You're listening to the Mark Belling podcast.
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 3: This is the Mark Belling podcast. As I do this podcast,
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 3: the NBA Finals are a three to one. We're doing
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 3: this one on Thursday afternoon. Wednesday night was Game.
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 2: Three, the biggest comeback in the history of the NBA Finals.
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 3: Now it's easy to say this, but when the score
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 3: was seventy six vooted out at halftime, I did have
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 3: a sense that the Knicks were still in it. And
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 3: the reason I have that sense is the NBA playoffs
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 3: right now, most games aren't close.
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 2: You'll have one team.
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 3: Blow out another and then two days later the same
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 3: team teams play, the other team blows out the other.
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 3: So why can't you have a half in watch one
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 3: team blows out the other and the second half of
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 3: the other team.
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 2: Blows out the other.
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 3: My belief going into this series, and it was a
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 3: minority belief, is that the Knicks are simply a better
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 3: team now, doesn't matter what they were during the season. Now,
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 3: teams get hot, teams get cold. The Knicks had won
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 3: like twelve games in a row going into the series.
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 3: I thought that they were a deeper team. They certainly
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 3: were a more experienced team, they have a more proven
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 3: head coach.
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 2: That was my thought.
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 3: They won the first two games in San Antonio semi decisively.
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 3: San Antonio came back and beat the Knicks. I didn't
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 3: think decisively. The stats are very very similar. Then san
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 3: Antonio makes their statement they're slaughtering the next in the
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 3: first half, and the Knicks.
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 2: Make this incredible comeback.
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 3: In the end, it was a dead even game and
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 3: a couple of breaks and who executed and who didn't down.
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 2: The stretch, A couple of quick thoughts.
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 3: I thought Victor Wombanyama disappeared the last six minutes of
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 3: the game for san Antonio.
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 2: Not a knockout him. It's a statement of fact.
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 3: As great a player as he is, he's young, and
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 3: one of the things that makes a great young player
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 3: a truly superstar is when he can come in and
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 3: step in and dominate in environments like that. He still
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 3: has three games to be able to do so they
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 3: could easily win the last three. The greatest game of
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 3: Giannis's career was Game six then when the Bucks won
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 3: the championship, when he scored fifty points in which he
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 3: simply dominated despite being the overwhelming focus of the opposition.
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 3: When Manyama didn't take enough shot shots down the stretch
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 3: other players did, and he was dominated by the guy
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 3: that was guarding him in many cases. Karl Anthony Townes
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 3: second point with regard to that, the Knicks have a
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 3: superstar that doesn't try all the time, and that's Karl
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 3: Anthony Towns. I think Towns, dating back to what he
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 3: was at college in Kentucky, is one of the most
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 3: talented basketball players I've ever seen, but he goes to
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 3: sleep and is unmotivated a lot. So far in the playoffs,
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 3: he's been playing spectacularly. He played like crap in the
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 3: first half, and he was very good in the second half.
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 3: And finally, when you have games like this, games decided
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 3: by a point either way, you usually have somebody screw
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 3: something up really badly one on one side, which happened
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 3: with san Antonio, and then you had a great somebody
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 3: else do a great thing. Oh, j Ananovi's tip in
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 3: with one second left was it was an iconic play
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 3: tip in sound like They're simple. He had to fly
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 3: to the bat first of all. Brunson shot a long three.
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 3: I thought that that was an odd play choice. It
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 3: was almost like they drew up the play hoping to
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 3: get the offensive rebound. If they did it worked. Brunson
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 3: was a good one. We'll just say eight feet behind
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 3: the third three point line when he shot it about
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 3: that and he's got Now he's a great shooter. He
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 3: put it up and it missed. But the defense wasn't
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 3: fully set up for the rebound because he shot so
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 3: early and everybody's crashing the board.
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 2: Anatob jumped in. Whether it was luck.
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 3: Or not, he timed his jump that he got to
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 3: the ball at the apex of his jump. In other words,
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 3: the highest point of his jump is right when the
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 3: ball came off the rim.
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 2: Partly like partly great.
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 3: Timing, but also his entire momentum is flying toward the basket.
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 3: He had to tip that ball so gently because it
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 3: was coming off the rim hard and his momentum is going.
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 3: He could have very easily tipped and not have it
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 3: go in or rattle off the rim.
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 2: And so it is a great tip it.
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 3: I think san Antonio can come back and win it.
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 3: I'm not going to predict that they're down three to one,
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 3: and I think that the Knicks of the better team,
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 3: but I think san Antonio will win the next game
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 3: and we certainly have an entertaining NBA Finals. Do you
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 3: care who wins? You want the next to see? As
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 3: I say, the hardest thing. The one thing I'll say
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 3: about this is I think Oklahoma City and San Antonio
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 3: have dynasty potential. The next have no dynasty potential. The
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 3: next do not have a transformative superstar. And you just
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 3: don't see the Knicks winning five of the next nine years.
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 3: If they win this one will be like when the
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 3: Bucks won went okay, that was the year that they
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 3: went out there in one one. Whereas you just assume
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 3: when Byama's gonna win several NBA titles and maybe Oklahoma
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 3: City is gonna do the same thing.
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 2: The fans for the next as they say, they're kind
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 2: of a load, but they're not the worst. There's a
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 2: few that get under your skin. But why do you
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 2: not want san Antonia to win? Well? Trump, let Trump lay.
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 2: I love that.
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 3: Also, they tried to blame Trump for the next losing game.
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 3: Just the left you're trying at Trump dearrangement syndrome is
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 3: so real. Yeah, Trump was at the game, that's where
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 3: they lost. Here's the other thing.
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 2: I make this point a lot, and I'm gonna throw
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 2: it in before we quit it. It'll be the end.
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 3: People continue and the betting lines get continue to reflect
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 3: something called home court advantage. I've been saying this probably
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 3: since about the year the Bucks wanted, maybe the year
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 3: that they played in the Bubble, which I think was
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 3: the year before. There is no home courted mantage in
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 3: the NBA playoffs.
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 2: None.
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 3: People just can't accept that because there used to be
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 3: an overwhelming one. There is it in terms of points spreads.
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 3: The road team covered all four games. It almost had
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 3: won all four games going into this. Sometimes the home
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 3: team wins more games. Sometimes the road team wins more games.
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 3: It doesn't exist. I don't think it exists in the
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 3: Stanley Cup playoffs in the National Hockey League either. My
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 3: theory on this because it used to be profound.
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 2: It used to be that you.
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 3: Always won game seven if you're at home. Now games seven,
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 3: if you're at home, you almost always lose. Look at
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 3: the numbers. I think the refereeing has gotten to be
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 3: more legit in the NBA, in particular, the referees used
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 3: to be stars in and of themselves, with larger than
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 3: life personalities, and I think the NBA wanted home teams
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 3: to win, and Homer calls happened all the time. What
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 3: changed all of that was the betting scandal when they
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 3: found that the referee Tim Donnah he was selling information
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 3: to gamblers and fixing games with his calls, and the
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 3: NBA clamped down on these refs. None of them have
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 3: any personalities anymore. You do recognize the handful of them
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 3: that get the big games, but by and large they've
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 3: neutered the referees, and they've also neutered any notion that
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 3: they are to be unfair. They are now mostly boring
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 3: and bland refs who may make mistakes. But I don't
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 3: think that the old kind of unwritten wink wink rule
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 3: that we're going to help out superstars or for instance,
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 3: Yiannis gets no calls in the old days, the Michael
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 3: Jordan thing.
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 2: It still happens with Lebron a bit. Superstars will get calls.
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 3: It didn't happen as much anymore, and the home teams
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 3: don't get any of the benefit of the doubt. So
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 3: therefore the game is just where the game is being played.
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 3: And I think that there's a regular season home court advantage,
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 3: and that has much more to do with travel comfort
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 3: and so on. But in these playoff games where the
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 3: stakes are so high, home court advantage just doesn't exist.
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 3: Yet the point spreads keep adjusting on the basis if
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 3: you did nothing but just bet road teams, you get
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 3: the advantage of the extra value you got in your
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 3: point spread from this false belief that home court advantage exists.
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 3: I'm just telling you I think it's not existed. And
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 3: because it used to be a really, really big thing,
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 3: it takes forever for people to recognize that something has changed.
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 2: And the one thing that hasn't changed is everything comes
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 2: to an end, including this podcast.
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 3: Back next week again we release new ones Mondays, Wednesdays
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 3: and Thursdays.
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 2: Talk to you then Byen.
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 1: The Mark Belling Podcast is a production of iHeartRadio Podcasts,
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 1: production and engineering by Jason Gotch. The Mark Belling Podcast
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 1: is presented by you Line for quality shipping and industrial supplies.
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 1: You Line has everything in stock. Visit Youlne dot com.
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 1: Listen to all of Mark's podcasts, always available on the
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 1: favorite podcasts.