Latest / The Chuck ToddCast / Full Episode - 2026 Will Be A Year Of “Living Dangerously” + Boom, Bust, or Meh? What To Expect From Trump’s Economy In 2026

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Full Episode - 2026 Will Be A Year Of “Living Dangerously” + Boom, Bust, or Meh? What To Expect From Trump’s Economy In 2026 · The Chuck ToddCast

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1:51
Speaker 1: They're happy January twelfth, and welcome to I guess what
1:55
Speaker 1: we could call the first sort of normal episode of
1:58
Speaker 1: the Chuck podcast for calendar year twenty twenty six, I
2:01
Speaker 1: say fourth normal. Obviously my schedule didn't change, but we
2:05
Speaker 1: had a few specials. We had some special mailbag episodes.
2:08
Speaker 1: I did a couple of what ifs in there. I
2:10
Speaker 1: will admit there were a few more what ifs we
2:14
Speaker 1: wanted to do, but you know, look there's only there's
2:17
Speaker 1: only a certain amount of content we can create and
2:20
Speaker 1: a certain amount of content that you guys want to consume,
2:23
Speaker 1: and you know you don't want to oversaturate anything in
2:26
Speaker 1: any particular category. But for the at the end of
2:30
Speaker 1: the day, this is sort of, you know, my first
2:34
Speaker 1: full week back fully folk, well, I say fully focused.
2:39
Speaker 1: I'll admit that I have a tiny part of my
2:43
Speaker 1: brain focused on January nineteenth, down in hard Rock Stadium,
2:46
Speaker 1: where the University of Miami will be taking on the
2:48
Speaker 1: Indiana Hoosiers, where we're going to find out if the
2:51
Speaker 1: University of Miami is simply a supporting cast member in
2:54
Speaker 1: the lifetime Hallmark movie Love Story between Fernando Mendoz and
2:58
Speaker 1: Kurt Signetti. Of course, that this is a different movie
3:02
Speaker 1: and that Kurt Signetti and Fernando Mendoza are supporting characters
3:06
Speaker 1: in one about the comeback of a great college football
3:11
Speaker 1: dynasty known as the University of Miamy. So yes, it
3:14
Speaker 1: is about the only positive thing I feel like I
3:18
Speaker 1: feel comfortable even celebrating in public these days. And I'm
3:21
Speaker 1: going to get to a full football report, including sort
3:24
Speaker 1: of my explanation of how Miami loses and my explanation
3:29
Speaker 1: of how Miami wins. And for those of you that
3:34
Speaker 1: keep very close track of my sports teams, let's just
3:39
Speaker 1: say my son is in the fetal position having to
3:42
Speaker 1: do with the disaster that is the Green Bay Packers.
3:45
Speaker 1: Nothing more embarrassing than to lose to the lowly Chicago Bears.
3:49
Speaker 1: We Packer fans don't have a lot of respect for
3:51
Speaker 1: that Bears organization. They've been nice little brothers for decades
3:55
Speaker 1: and decades to lose that way, to lose the way
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Speaker 1: they did, so I have a few strong feelings to
4:02
Speaker 1: share on that and to channel some of my son's rage,
4:04
Speaker 1: because he's very frustrated. He says, you're happy he doesn't
4:09
Speaker 1: live and die by the University of Miami the way
4:12
Speaker 1: I do. So he's jealous that I have something to
4:15
Speaker 1: be happy about in football, and he feels as if
4:17
Speaker 1: he has nothing to be happy about in football right now.
4:20
Speaker 1: But let's be honest, those are good problems to have.
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Speaker 1: I think we all would prefer to be focusing on that,
4:27
Speaker 1: And obviously I will get to that, but it's going
4:29
Speaker 1: to be at the end of the podcast. Let me
4:31
Speaker 1: give you a quick little sort of contents if you
4:33
Speaker 1: will table of contact of what you're going, what you
4:36
Speaker 1: should expect today. I have a little bit of my
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Speaker 1: thoughts on when I am deeming the year of living dangerously.
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Speaker 1: I think we, all of us, it's global citizens, are
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Speaker 1: living in the most tumultuous year perhaps that we've experienced yet.
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Speaker 1: I hope I'm wrong, but all the ingredients are there
4:58
Speaker 1: for what could be a year of life being dangerously,
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Speaker 1: whether it's domestically internationally. If we can get to the
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Speaker 1: end of this calendar year without significant number of lost
5:09
Speaker 1: lives somewhere around this globe, I think we will call
5:13
Speaker 1: that a win. But the bottom line is it feels
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Speaker 1: very unsteady, very uncertain, and there is no doubt with
5:21
Speaker 1: the entire globe. I think there's a lot of this anxiety,
5:25
Speaker 1: and I want to get at that anxiety. I also
5:27
Speaker 1: want to do a deep dive on the incident in Minnesota,
5:31
Speaker 1: with a little bit of reflection on another incident that
5:34
Speaker 1: took place some thirty five years ago that actually is
5:39
Speaker 1: worthy of some comparison. I'll also today is a Monday,
5:44
Speaker 1: which means we are going to have a Toddcast time
5:47
Speaker 1: machine and we're going to go back to nineteen eighteen
5:54
Speaker 1: and talk about sort of a moment that helped spark
6:02
Speaker 1: the idea that America was a global superpower and that
6:06
Speaker 1: America essentially could be the leading benevolent power in the world,
6:15
Speaker 1: and how we wanted to how we want, what kind
6:21
Speaker 1: of example we wanted to set, what kind of world
6:23
Speaker 1: order we wanted to build, and the success with which
6:26
Speaker 1: we did that. And now we're at the brink of
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Speaker 1: destroying everything that helped make this country so great for
6:32
Speaker 1: so long. We'll do a few q and as, and
6:36
Speaker 1: then of course we will get to my brilliant football
6:39
Speaker 1: takes that I know so many of you hang your
6:42
Speaker 1: hat on, more so perhaps than anything else. But I digress,
6:46
Speaker 1: But let me get to a large idea that I
6:51
Speaker 1: want to live with leave you with today, because look,
6:56
Speaker 1: I've been out and about traveling both on interstates around there.
7:00
Speaker 1: I've traveled a bit internationally over the last three or
7:02
Speaker 1: four weeks. I've run into a variety of people in
7:06
Speaker 1: different walks of life, different socioeconomic classes. And what's interesting
7:10
Speaker 1: is how common the questions I get when people recognize me,
7:14
Speaker 1: and the kind of questions that they throw at me
7:16
Speaker 1: that aren't specific with details, but all thematically pretty much
7:20
Speaker 1: the same whether they are on Team Blue or Team
7:25
Speaker 1: Red these days, and it's simply this, are we going
7:27
Speaker 1: to be okay? And my instinct when I get that
7:32
Speaker 1: question is simply to say, yeah, of course we are.
7:35
Speaker 1: We've been through this before, and you've heard me say this.
7:38
Speaker 1: And there are plenty of times in American history where
7:42
Speaker 1: we've been on the brink of something bad and we've
7:44
Speaker 1: pulled back. Sometimes we've pursued bad policies and we've eventually
7:48
Speaker 1: learned the hard way. That gives me optimism because I
7:53
Speaker 1: do think we are eventually going to get out of
7:55
Speaker 1: this and be in a better place. The question is
7:57
Speaker 1: how much damage is done before we get to that
8:00
Speaker 1: work in the road. And that's where I can't always
8:03
Speaker 1: provide full comfort to people. I have this sort of
8:11
Speaker 1: dark joke that I say at times about climate change,
8:15
Speaker 1: and I'll say this. I say, in two hundred years
8:17
Speaker 1: from now, if the world's population is cut in half,
8:22
Speaker 1: let's say the world's population is three billion in the
8:26
Speaker 1: year twenty two hundred, will you say we survived climate change?
8:34
Speaker 1: So the answer is, yes, the species did, but we
8:37
Speaker 1: lost a lot of lives. Our population shrunk quite a bit, right,
8:41
Speaker 1: You see where I'm going here, right. The point is
8:45
Speaker 1: we're going to survive all of this. The question is
8:50
Speaker 1: how much damage is done until we get to that
8:54
Speaker 1: point where we don't have the anxiety that we all
8:58
Speaker 1: feel today, Which is why I am deeming twenty twenty
9:01
Speaker 1: six the year in which the globe, but in particular
9:06
Speaker 1: the United States, isn't a year of living dangerously. We've
9:12
Speaker 1: had other dangerous years, and again I hope I'm wrong.
9:17
Speaker 1: I hope this proves not to be the case, but
9:20
Speaker 1: I think, unfortunately all of the circumstantial evidence is pointing
9:24
Speaker 1: in that direction. So the framing question I want to
9:30
Speaker 1: come back to isn't where should we be headed? It's
9:33
Speaker 1: more basin basic than that. It's simply where are we
9:37
Speaker 1: actually headed? Because the honest answer is, weren't some uncharted
9:42
Speaker 1: waters here? Right? We've had similar experiences with nationalism, We've
9:47
Speaker 1: had similar experiences with over exuberant, exuberant executive power. We've
9:55
Speaker 1: had all sorts of times when the federal government has
9:59
Speaker 1: done things that if that has harmed a class of
10:02
Speaker 1: people unfairly. So, yes, we've been down these roads before,
10:11
Speaker 1: but we always seem to have a moral compass that
10:14
Speaker 1: we would eventually follow The question is does that moral
10:17
Speaker 1: compass work. Some of these things I'm gonna are going
10:21
Speaker 1: to sound repetitive to some of you because I've talked
10:23
Speaker 1: about them in the past. You know, I think one
10:25
Speaker 1: of the ways to understand what has been now a
10:28
Speaker 1: quarter century of what I would describe as rolling, unresolved
10:32
Speaker 1: anxiety about the current shape of our economy and our
10:36
Speaker 1: economic outlook, our cultural transition. None of this is quite landed, right.
10:41
Speaker 1: We have not fully fully embraced what this new economy
10:45
Speaker 1: is going to look like. Globalization is certainly one where
10:49
Speaker 1: there's been a revolution against AI is only going to
10:53
Speaker 1: accelerate even more. Globalization, which is only going to accelerate
10:56
Speaker 1: more anxiety, identity status, all of that has been up
11:00
Speaker 1: in the air, and all of it's been playing out
11:02
Speaker 1: across the entire twenty first century. This isn't just an
11:05
Speaker 1: American story. It's been a global story as well, right,
11:08
Speaker 1: Bresit wasn't a trigger in this country, bregsit was one
11:10
Speaker 1: of the big triggers in Europe. You had a mass
11:13
Speaker 1: migration crisis in the Mediterranean Sea that helped trigger a
11:17
Speaker 1: lot of nationalism in Europe and a lot of xenophobia
11:21
Speaker 1: in Europe, and you know, of course we have not
11:24
Speaker 1: dealt with why are there so many Why is there
11:27
Speaker 1: so many surges from the Global South to try to
11:30
Speaker 1: come into the westernized world. Well, the global South is
11:33
Speaker 1: in deep, deep trouble for a variety of reasons, and
11:37
Speaker 1: that is something that has been unresolved. Look, globalization has
11:41
Speaker 1: created massive wealth, wealth we hadn't seen before, massive efficiency,
11:45
Speaker 1: massive displacement. Entire communities have been lost, not just not
11:51
Speaker 1: just on jobs, but a sense of purpose. So globalization
11:56
Speaker 1: created massive wealth, massive efficiency, and massive display. Entire communities
12:01
Speaker 1: lost not just jobs, but they lost a sense of purpose.
12:04
Speaker 1: You just go through the state of Iowa. I've told
12:06
Speaker 1: you those stories in the past, and for a while,
12:08
Speaker 1: the promise was, don't worry. All of this is eventually
12:10
Speaker 1: going to stabilize. The next generation will be fine. The
12:13
Speaker 1: system will catch up. This is what happened right in
12:15
Speaker 1: the early twentieth century. The system caught up and we
12:17
Speaker 1: had this thriving middle class economy by the nineteen fifties.
12:24
Speaker 1: That hadn't happened yet. Doesn't mean it still won't. But
12:27
Speaker 1: the problem is our anxiety is still there. Right. That
12:30
Speaker 1: is why we've been in this vote against mindset. We
12:33
Speaker 1: have not liked the system that's in place, and we
12:36
Speaker 1: have held political leaders accountable who are in charge when
12:39
Speaker 1: the system is in place. And now, of course we
12:42
Speaker 1: have AI, right that is about to pour gasoline on
12:46
Speaker 1: this globalization. In what globalization created some fear, AI is
12:51
Speaker 1: going to create a ton more fear. Globalization really impacted
12:55
Speaker 1: blue collar America. AI is going to impact all of
12:58
Speaker 1: America from blue collar jobs, pink collar jobs, white collar jobs,
13:03
Speaker 1: you name it. And that unease is only going to
13:08
Speaker 1: add more to this anxiety that is out there. So
13:13
Speaker 1: the fear is compounding and it's not replacing old anxiety,
13:17
Speaker 1: it's essentially stacks on top of it. And then when
13:20
Speaker 1: you combine economic fear with cultural displacement, right the sort
13:25
Speaker 1: of the changing look of America, if you will, you
13:29
Speaker 1: get a public that is unsettled enough to be persuadable
13:32
Speaker 1: and exhausted enough to be dangerous. And that's why I
13:37
Speaker 1: do think we are in a you know, one of
13:39
Speaker 1: the you know, we this could be the year that
13:41
Speaker 1: we are living and it's certainly a year that I
13:43
Speaker 1: feel like we're living dangerously. Then you layer on top
13:46
Speaker 1: what has been a really poor political response to this anxiety.
13:52
Speaker 1: Politicians have tried to respond to this anxiety, and we've
13:55
Speaker 1: seen policy making that I would argue, in my view,
13:58
Speaker 1: hasn't resolved the problem and in some cases has made
14:00
Speaker 1: the anxiety and the uncertainty worse. Not everyone may agree
14:05
Speaker 1: with me on that, but it's hard to argue with
14:07
Speaker 1: the results. Just look, we can just take the issue
14:11
Speaker 1: of tariffs right, Look at how that is destroyed and
14:14
Speaker 1: hurt this economy, impacted cost of living, all sorts of things.
14:19
Speaker 1: This has been a failure. This is an obvious failure
14:23
Speaker 1: of this policy. It has created all sorts of global instability.
14:28
Speaker 1: None of this has gone well for the United States
14:32
Speaker 1: because what we I think are learning here is trade
14:35
Speaker 1: policy that flexes muscle in the short term, leaves businesses
14:38
Speaker 1: unsure and out of plan. Immigration policy that's in strong
14:42
Speaker 1: signals but creates chaos without clarity that also hurts business,
14:46
Speaker 1: that's also impacted your budget at home. Economic nationalism can
14:52
Speaker 1: feel emotionally satisfying, we want these jobs in America, but
14:57
Speaker 1: it often raises costs and utility for the very set
15:02
Speaker 1: of voters that the policy was supposed to protect. And
15:07
Speaker 1: that's the world we're living in right now. So the
15:09
Speaker 1: intent may be to calm fear or to help people
15:12
Speaker 1: wherea no, no, no, no, somebody is going to get your back,
15:14
Speaker 1: and the outcome often does the opposite. When promises that
15:18
Speaker 1: are made go unmet or unfulfilled, then you haven't even
15:23
Speaker 1: angry or public and maybe they will no longer trust
15:26
Speaker 1: the political system to come up with those answers. And
15:30
Speaker 1: then that brings me to the international layer of this
15:33
Speaker 1: world and of this moment of a year that we're
15:37
Speaker 1: living in that I think is pretty dangerous because every
15:40
Speaker 1: day now feels like we're on almost a regime watch moment.
15:43
Speaker 1: Is there going to be real change in Menezuela? We
15:46
Speaker 1: haven't done regime change there. We just knocked out a leader.
15:48
Speaker 1: But did we just break it? We own it? What
15:50
Speaker 1: are we doing with it? We may have weakened the regime.
15:54
Speaker 1: If the regime is still in charge. There seems to
15:56
Speaker 1: be all sorts of crackdowns. There seems to be unsafe
15:58
Speaker 1: for Americans. How did that happen? What are we going
16:00
Speaker 1: to do when you're half in half out right again?
16:03
Speaker 1: The pottery barn rule we broke it? Are we going
16:06
Speaker 1: to go in there? And now? And fix it and
16:08
Speaker 1: what's hot? What you know the issues currently happening in Venezuela.
16:14
Speaker 1: Are we going to suddenly decide we're going to get
16:16
Speaker 1: involved in Iran? Right? The good news is these protesters
16:21
Speaker 1: are in the streets like never before. I will be
16:24
Speaker 1: shocked if the Iranian regime can last this calendar year.
16:29
Speaker 1: I think this is going to be one of the
16:30
Speaker 1: biggest stories in the on the planet is when the
16:35
Speaker 1: supreme leader falls in Iran? But how involved should the
16:40
Speaker 1: United States get? And if you get so involved, the
16:42
Speaker 1: actually help the regime stay in power longer. It is
16:49
Speaker 1: a really precarious moment the the you know, look, I
16:55
Speaker 1: remember when these when this protest movement in Iran sparked
16:58
Speaker 1: up in the early days of Obama. Obama said certain
17:01
Speaker 1: things and now there's in hindsight, should he have done more?
17:04
Speaker 1: But the more you do, the more involved you get America,
17:07
Speaker 1: the more involved we get the expectations that were suddenly
17:10
Speaker 1: in charge. Are we rebuilding? You know? It is? It
17:15
Speaker 1: is one of those that the more a global superpower
17:18
Speaker 1: tries to play the game of risk, tries to sit
17:22
Speaker 1: here and manipulate situations, the more it usually doesn't work.
17:27
Speaker 1: And I think given already what we've seen as an
17:32
Speaker 1: unsteady and uneven and we had no Okay, you're gonna
17:35
Speaker 1: get involved in Venezuela, what are you doing the next day?
17:38
Speaker 1: We had no plan. It's clear we don't have a plan.
17:41
Speaker 1: I mean, he is just winging it right now. There
17:43
Speaker 1: was no plan at all. Do we have a plan
17:47
Speaker 1: for Cuba because they're winging it there. There's no plan
17:50
Speaker 1: at all. And if you get involved in I run,
17:52
Speaker 1: what's your plan? Are we really going the irony that
17:56
Speaker 1: suddenly the United States and Donald Trump has decided if
18:01
Speaker 1: you're going to be a nation destructor, then you have
18:04
Speaker 1: no choice but to become a nation builder. And we
18:08
Speaker 1: have just we're trying to destroy the regimes in Venezuela, Iran,
18:12
Speaker 1: and Cuba, and if we are the ones that essentially
18:15
Speaker 1: help break the place, then we're going to have no
18:19
Speaker 1: choice but to play a role in it. Now. I
18:21
Speaker 1: happen to think that we should play a role in
18:23
Speaker 1: these places, but a benevolent role. We can't play the
18:27
Speaker 1: malevolent role. And the fact is history, look as much
18:31
Speaker 1: as there's yeah, I want to see this stuff happen,
18:36
Speaker 1: history says the more involved we get the more skepticism
18:39
Speaker 1: the public itself sometimes has with our involvement, and it
18:43
Speaker 1: actually can backfire. It can it can strengthen leaders that
18:47
Speaker 1: were weak at one point. In fact, we're seeing that
18:50
Speaker 1: Latin America already, the President of Columbia is not very popular.
18:54
Speaker 1: It's a he's overseeing economy that's not very popular. He's
18:56
Speaker 1: overseen a security situation that's not very popular. Political party
19:00
Speaker 1: that is a bit more aligned with the West, a
19:02
Speaker 1: bit more aligned with US priorities in the hemisphere, is
19:05
Speaker 1: favored to win. But all of a sudden, the more
19:11
Speaker 1: heavy handed we are taking with Venezuela, the more suddenly
19:17
Speaker 1: those that are seen as more friendly the United States
19:20
Speaker 1: are being met with more skepticism by the voter, because
19:23
Speaker 1: guess what, there's a history in Latin America of skepticism
19:26
Speaker 1: of United States power and how much they want to
19:29
Speaker 1: exert in those places. So these are good things. Morduro gone,
19:37
Speaker 1: that would be a great thing. The remnants of this
19:40
Speaker 1: Castro regime going away in Cuba, that could be a
19:43
Speaker 1: good thing. Getting rid of the Iatolin Iran that that
19:46
Speaker 1: is all a good thing for people that are being
19:49
Speaker 1: abused in those countries. These are undemocratic dictatorships where anybody
19:55
Speaker 1: that spoke out was thrown in prison, was mistreated, sometimes killed.
20:00
Speaker 1: These regimes have to go, but they have to you know,
20:04
Speaker 1: it has to be the people in these countries that overthrow.
20:09
Speaker 1: You know, if we are seen as the instigator, it
20:12
Speaker 1: will not go well. In fact, why are we having
20:15
Speaker 1: the situation that we have in Iran because of how
20:18
Speaker 1: involved we got in Iran's politics for so long in
20:21
Speaker 1: the fifties, sixties, and seventies. So the reason we have
20:25
Speaker 1: the regime we have in Iran is arguably due to
20:29
Speaker 1: our heavier hand in that country's politics in that country,
20:34
Speaker 1: going back decades and decades. This episode of The Chuck
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Speaker 1: three hundred and sixty five day returns quints dot com
22:20
Speaker 1: slash chuck. It doesn't take away the larger point that
22:27
Speaker 1: I want to make here about to twenty twenty six
22:30
Speaker 1: being the year we're living dangerous, because every headline now
22:34
Speaker 1: feels like a tipping one, like okay, this is going
22:36
Speaker 1: to be a big one, and it's not always clear
22:38
Speaker 1: whether the tip is going to be towards progress. Well,
22:41
Speaker 1: the tip will be disaster. Right, it's progress to get
22:44
Speaker 1: rid of a brutal dictator. It can turn into disaster
22:47
Speaker 1: if there's no plan for a regime that is more democratic,
22:53
Speaker 1: more free, and more responsive to the people. And of course,
22:57
Speaker 1: all of this is happening under an American president who
23:00
Speaker 1: clearly intends and I think this is the motivation, but
23:05
Speaker 1: you know, he just wants He just wants attention and
23:09
Speaker 1: wants to be involved and wants to put his historical
23:11
Speaker 1: stamp on this era whatever and whatever means necessary, if
23:16
Speaker 1: it means just acquiring somebody else's Nobel Peace Prize to
23:19
Speaker 1: say hey, I've got the Peace Prize that I should
23:21
Speaker 1: have gotten, you know, it's something silly like that, or
23:24
Speaker 1: going after Greenland so that somehow the history books will
23:27
Speaker 1: say he got Greenland, or who knows, maybe he does
23:32
Speaker 1: get serious about Canada again. I know Canadians are very
23:35
Speaker 1: nervous about this right, the suddenly embracing of the sphere
23:39
Speaker 1: of influence, the fact that you have people like JD.
23:42
Speaker 1: Vance trying to redefine America first as hemisphere first. That
23:47
Speaker 1: will suddenly rationalize taking the resources of another country, the
23:51
Speaker 1: oil in Venezuela, for instance. So that only adds to
23:58
Speaker 1: the anxiety. It only adds to the uncertainty, and it
24:01
Speaker 1: only I think makes us all a bit less safe.
24:05
Speaker 1: Are we are? We are less safe today than when
24:09
Speaker 1: Donald Trump wasn't president. The world is less safe. The
24:13
Speaker 1: world was safer before he took office. Maybe the world
24:17
Speaker 1: wasn't as it wasn't just in a lot of places.
24:20
Speaker 1: And this isn't to say he hasn't stumbled into doing
24:23
Speaker 1: the right thing in certain in certain points of his presidency,
24:29
Speaker 1: like getting the cease fire in Israel and gossm But
24:35
Speaker 1: his actions have put America more in harm's way, not less,
24:41
Speaker 1: And his actions domestically have goaded more Americans to go
24:47
Speaker 1: after each other. That's just a fact. Is it directly
24:53
Speaker 1: his fault or is it us? Is it us behaving
24:57
Speaker 1: this way? We don't have to take our cues from him,
25:01
Speaker 1: but he is certain creating an environment that he hopes
25:08
Speaker 1: this is what happens. He remembered what I think as
25:12
Speaker 1: a bug dividing America. Some in his administration see as
25:17
Speaker 1: a feature that division means more power and more influence.
25:25
Speaker 1: When division, all it does is eventually erode away all
25:29
Speaker 1: of our freedoms. So we'll see what happened. He's trying
25:35
Speaker 1: to remake parts of the world order. He's trying to
25:37
Speaker 1: redraw norms. He's trying to personalize power. He's trying to
25:41
Speaker 1: put a name on this era, from trade to alliances
25:43
Speaker 1: to rhetoric about borders and maps and sovereignty. This presidency
25:46
Speaker 1: is pushing hard to basically upend the entire post Cold
25:51
Speaker 1: War assumption that defined American leadership for the last forty years,
25:55
Speaker 1: arguably defined American leadership since post World War Two. History
25:59
Speaker 1: is going to render this verdict, and we'll see how
26:03
Speaker 1: it turns out. But here's the thing. It doesn't feel
26:05
Speaker 1: like there's a middle ground verdict available here, does it
26:08
Speaker 1: this era is going to be remembered either as the
26:10
Speaker 1: beginning of something necessary or the beginning of something destructive.
26:16
Speaker 1: And I think because we realize there's only probably two
26:20
Speaker 1: paths here, that binary choice only adds to the anxiety
26:26
Speaker 1: we're all feeling. And I'm sorry to add to your
26:28
Speaker 1: anxiety by sort of maybe giving you an explanation for it.
26:35
Speaker 1: But it's the it's the world we live in. We
26:39
Speaker 1: also have this split reality that we're all living in
26:42
Speaker 1: because there's an America that's on social media that looks
26:44
Speaker 1: like it is on the brink of civil war. Right,
26:47
Speaker 1: just watching the left and right go after each other
26:51
Speaker 1: arguing over the facts and the narrative of what happened
26:55
Speaker 1: in Minneapolis really makes you feel uncomfortable, like, oh my god,
26:59
Speaker 1: what is social media going to do to us? And
27:03
Speaker 1: then there's the America experience in the real world where
27:06
Speaker 1: it doesn't feel anywhere near that. Right, it does feel
27:11
Speaker 1: as if if we could all get off social media
27:13
Speaker 1: and touch grass, that maybe we would be in a
27:15
Speaker 1: slightly better place. But it isn't all now an online situation, right,
27:24
Speaker 1: because you have moments, flashpoints. The shooting in Minneapolis involving
27:30
Speaker 1: an ice officer at this protest. This one event has
27:34
Speaker 1: enormous symbolic weight. It's the kind of moment that makes
27:37
Speaker 1: people think, are we one more incident away from something spiraling?
27:42
Speaker 1: All of this feels like tender. It feels like the
27:47
Speaker 1: conditions exist where a spark could matter far more than
27:51
Speaker 1: it should. And you sometimes there are political leaders that
27:54
Speaker 1: almost seem to be embracing searching for this spark. Watching
28:00
Speaker 1: jd Vance go borderline unhinged in the White House press
28:03
Speaker 1: room trying to defend the the ICE officer's decision to
28:11
Speaker 1: respond to a protester with lethal force couldn't be any
28:17
Speaker 1: less American. And then we're going to sit here and
28:19
Speaker 1: lecture another country for killing protesters if we're if we
28:26
Speaker 1: are not protecting our own citizens' First Amendment rights, constitutional rights,
28:32
Speaker 1: we are no better than any of these other authoritarian regimes.
28:36
Speaker 1: And that is something that has gotten lost with some
28:38
Speaker 1: elected officials and that and look, you may not like
28:43
Speaker 1: the protesters who are protesting the policies that are behind
28:48
Speaker 1: these ICE rates. And I'm trying really hard here, and
28:51
Speaker 1: I would I would I would like I would like
28:57
Speaker 1: folks to try hard to The issue isn't whether there
29:01
Speaker 1: should be ICE or not ICE. ICE is not the problem.
29:05
Speaker 1: It's the leadership at Homeland Security. It's the policies that
29:09
Speaker 1: are being implemented that ICE is following. It's the recruitment
29:13
Speaker 1: process for ICE officers that clearly is training them to
29:19
Speaker 1: treat fellow American citizens as threats, not as constituents. But
29:29
Speaker 1: I do think you should separate out. This isn't ICE
29:34
Speaker 1: isn't the problem. It's the leadership of ICE that's the problem.
29:39
Speaker 1: We should have border patrol and we should be keeping
29:46
Speaker 1: track of who comes into our country and who isn't
29:49
Speaker 1: who shouldn't be in our country.
29:52
Speaker 2: But how we.
29:56
Speaker 1: Enforce the law well sends a message of who we
30:01
Speaker 1: are as a country, who we are as a people.
30:04
Speaker 1: Are we a democracy?
30:06
Speaker 2: And the way.
30:07
Speaker 1: These ICE officers at least are behaving, it is clear
30:13
Speaker 1: they have poor training because again, why did they immediate
30:20
Speaker 1: go to shoot to kill? And I understand that there's
30:22
Speaker 1: a pro you don't ever draw your weapon if you're
30:24
Speaker 1: not gonna shoot to kill. There's this mindset, right, which
30:27
Speaker 1: is a bit of a military mindset that shouldn't always
30:30
Speaker 1: be used for suburban neighborhoods. But there's not a lot
30:36
Speaker 1: of evidence, and again he feared for his life. The
30:42
Speaker 1: training should be to make sure that car can't be
30:47
Speaker 1: used to kill you if you're truly worried about that.
30:51
Speaker 1: But I don't think there's any evidence that anybody shot
30:54
Speaker 1: at the tires to disable the vehicle without having to
30:57
Speaker 1: kill more people. In fact, doing what this officer did
31:00
Speaker 1: actually put more people's lives in danger. By shooting the driver,
31:05
Speaker 1: her weight falls onto the gas pedal and then puts
31:08
Speaker 1: more people's lives in danger. So this is a situation
31:11
Speaker 1: where you're supposed to be a de escalator. If you're
31:14
Speaker 1: in federal law enforcement, any law enforcement, you're supposed to
31:18
Speaker 1: be a de escalator. But instead this person chose to escalate.
31:23
Speaker 1: And of course the recording that even DHS didn't hide,
31:28
Speaker 1: where an officer is heard calling the deceased woman and
31:32
Speaker 1: effing bitch. You now know the mindset that is in
31:37
Speaker 1: these officers. So again I understand the anger that's out
31:42
Speaker 1: there with some that says abolish ice, and I think
31:48
Speaker 1: some of you might argue it's the whole institution's been poisoned. Look,
31:53
Speaker 1: it is the leadership and the training. If we get
31:57
Speaker 1: rid of it, we're going to bring something similar in
32:00
Speaker 1: its place, and if you're not advocating for that, you're
32:04
Speaker 1: going to end up losing the larger argument on that too.
32:07
Speaker 1: I'm just making an obvious political point here. Whether you
32:12
Speaker 1: may not like that point, but it's I think it
32:16
Speaker 1: plays out as pretty factually correct. Now, here's the thing.
32:19
Speaker 1: We've been here before, kind of sort of right after
32:23
Speaker 1: the fall of the Berlin Wall. Through much of the nineties,
32:25
Speaker 1: the global order felt like it was shifting constantly. Old
32:28
Speaker 1: assumptions collapse, new systems emerged. There was a time we
32:31
Speaker 1: thought Russia was going to be one of our closest allies.
32:34
Speaker 1: There was real optimism. There was a lot of confusion
32:37
Speaker 1: as well. But here's another uncomfortable truth, and it's perhaps
32:43
Speaker 1: why we're in the situation we're in now. We didn't
32:46
Speaker 1: get that transition right. And I think now the longer
32:49
Speaker 1: we go, the longer the Ukraine War goes, the longer
32:55
Speaker 1: our instability grows, the longer we have questions about globalism.
33:02
Speaker 1: I think the fair that the critique is that we
33:05
Speaker 1: didn't get this right, because if we had, we probably
33:08
Speaker 1: wouldn't be living with this much unresolved anger and instability
33:11
Speaker 1: at the moment. Some of the assumptions we made about globalization, democracy, institutions, inevitability,
33:17
Speaker 1: they didn't hold. So look, history never offers clean handoffs.
33:21
Speaker 1: It offers messy middle chapters. And it's very possible that
33:25
Speaker 1: what we thought was an ending in the nineties was
33:27
Speaker 1: actually a beginning that we totally misunderstood, which brings me
33:32
Speaker 1: to the voters, because the voters are going to have
33:34
Speaker 1: their say during this year of living dangerously, because right
33:37
Speaker 1: now it feels like we're on a collective roller coaster.
33:40
Speaker 1: When you know that feeling when you're on a roller
33:43
Speaker 1: coaster for too long, especially one you didn't choose, you
33:47
Speaker 1: just wanted to stop. You just want to get off
33:49
Speaker 1: the ride because when you're on it, you don't feel
33:53
Speaker 1: in control of anything. So we've been living through this
33:56
Speaker 1: vote against politics roller coaster for almost two decades now
34:00
Speaker 1: that have been driven more by disgust than belief, more
34:03
Speaker 1: about stopping something than building something. And I think we're
34:05
Speaker 1: about to have another one yet again in twenty twenty six.
34:09
Speaker 1: But here's the deeper question beneath the service, and this
34:12
Speaker 1: is what I'm going to you know, in a year
34:15
Speaker 1: of living dangerously, hopefully we can find some leaders who
34:19
Speaker 1: have a vision of getting us through this, and hopefully
34:22
Speaker 1: we'll find a leader or two that can offer voters
34:25
Speaker 1: a version of change that doesn't feel like chaos. Donald
34:29
Speaker 1: Trump was a change agent, but he's been a chaotic
34:32
Speaker 1: change agent, and he's made more things worse than better.
34:37
Speaker 1: But he did shine a light on a lot of
34:39
Speaker 1: things that were broken that need fixing, that should have
34:41
Speaker 1: been addressed years ago. And you know, he may be
34:45
Speaker 1: nothing but a complainer, but it doesn't mean he's not
34:48
Speaker 1: right about some of these things to complain about. But voters,
34:52
Speaker 1: you know, we are fickle because we want two things
34:54
Speaker 1: at the same time that are very difficult to bring
34:56
Speaker 1: stability and change. Politicians are never good about build delivering
35:00
Speaker 1: both simultaneously. It's very difficult. You're either a change agent
35:04
Speaker 1: or you're a stabilizing force. It's hard to be both
35:07
Speaker 1: in this current way our politics work, especially in the
35:10
Speaker 1: communications side. So let me leave you with this thought,
35:16
Speaker 1: and that is, I think it's going to be bad
35:18
Speaker 1: politics to be on the side of chaos. And it's
35:21
Speaker 1: been true, right Donald Trump's chaos led to Democratic victories
35:25
Speaker 1: In twenty eighteen. Donald Trump's chaos and handling COVID led
35:27
Speaker 1: to Joe Biden's presidency in twenty twenty. But Joe Biden's
35:32
Speaker 1: chaos led to a return to Donald Trump. Right, we
35:35
Speaker 1: don't like chaos. It's going to be good politicans to
35:40
Speaker 1: be on the side of calm instability. Right now, Donald
35:42
Speaker 1: Trump is neither calm nor stable. That's a fact that
35:45
Speaker 1: is not going and so I would be hesitant to
35:49
Speaker 1: be on the side of a force that is trying
35:52
Speaker 1: to do their own version of disruption. You got to
35:55
Speaker 1: figure out how to create stable disruption if such a
35:58
Speaker 1: thing exists. That said, calm doesn't mean stasis, stability doesn't
36:05
Speaker 1: mean restoration, and forward doesn't mean reckless. So we'll see
36:09
Speaker 1: if there is anybody out there, any either political party
36:12
Speaker 1: that actually can articulate a vision that says, yes, the
36:14
Speaker 1: system needs to be changed. No, chaos isn't a strength. No,
36:19
Speaker 1: we're not going backwards. And yes, here's what forward actually
36:22
Speaker 1: looks like. Because if we don't get out of this loop,
36:27
Speaker 1: we're going to continue to be defaulting to vote against
36:29
Speaker 1: politics until at some point a group of voters decide
36:34
Speaker 1: politics isn't working. Let's go down the authoritarian route. We
36:37
Speaker 1: already have elements on the right that have given up
36:40
Speaker 1: on small D democracy. They are fully embracing Peter Thiel
36:44
Speaker 1: JD Vance are part of this Don't let them fool you.
36:48
Speaker 1: That is a wing of the part Elon Musk, this
36:51
Speaker 1: sort of the Silicon Valley red pillars. None of them
36:56
Speaker 1: believe in small DE democracy, not a single one of
36:58
Speaker 1: them a wan, you know, and that is should scare
37:03
Speaker 1: the but Jesus out of most of it. I don't
37:05
Speaker 1: think Donald Trump necessarily ascribes to all that, but he
37:10
Speaker 1: is so easily manipulated by money that he'll ascribe to
37:13
Speaker 1: whoever will fund him. But that is something that I
37:20
Speaker 1: think the more we fail at solving problems in a
37:23
Speaker 1: small D democratic society, the more you will see some
37:28
Speaker 1: of that anti you know, democracy doesn't work. Mindset take
37:34
Speaker 1: hold on the left, just as we've seen it take
37:36
Speaker 1: hold on the right. Because there's always political physics. What
37:41
Speaker 1: starts on one side of the aisle almost always shows
37:44
Speaker 1: up on the other side of the isle at some form.
37:46
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's reactive, but it always seems to show up.
37:51
Speaker 1: So are we going to be okay? I don't have
37:54
Speaker 1: any answer. I think America will eventually be okay. This moment,
38:00
Speaker 1: we're not so Okay, politics at twenty twenty six is
38:04
Speaker 1: going to change us a lot. How it changes us,
38:08
Speaker 1: I think is a total unknown. We are living in
38:12
Speaker 1: a year. We are going to live a year of
38:14
Speaker 1: living dangerously due to our domestic politics, due to the
38:18
Speaker 1: global uncertainty, due to this great power competition, a spark
38:25
Speaker 1: of some sort of violent military clash. The sparks are everywhere,
38:29
Speaker 1: and we don't know which one of them is going
38:31
Speaker 1: to turn into an out of control wildfire and which
38:34
Speaker 1: one of them proves to be a total and complete
38:38
Speaker 1: done So. It's not the greatest way to ring in
38:42
Speaker 1: the quote unquote new year, but I think it's the
38:45
Speaker 1: most honest way to ring in to start this year,
38:50
Speaker 1: because I think that's that's where we are. It's not
38:54
Speaker 1: where any of us want to be, no matter which
38:56
Speaker 1: side of the political eye, none of us, I think,
38:58
Speaker 1: enjoy living with this much anxiety. I don't doesn't appear
39:04
Speaker 1: we have the leaders to meet this moment. And this
39:09
Speaker 1: is not just to criticize Donald Trump. I don't see
39:13
Speaker 1: it on the left either right now. But guess what,
39:18
Speaker 1: twenty twenty six, we're holding auditions America. America's looking for
39:23
Speaker 1: a forward looking leader who will bring stability and change
39:28
Speaker 1: and actually gives a damn about all Americans, regardless of
39:33
Speaker 1: others they're super liberal or super conservative. That's something we
39:39
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39:51
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Speaker 1: life insurance is something you should really think about, especially
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Speaker 1: if you've got a growing family. Before I get to
41:28
Speaker 1: my interview today, which is with Mark Zandy, my sort
41:30
Speaker 1: of quarterly check in. As I joke, he is an
41:33
Speaker 1: SNL five timer now with me podcast five timer, probably
41:37
Speaker 1: even more than five times if you go back to
41:39
Speaker 1: the old podcast. But essentially we haven't talked with him
41:41
Speaker 1: since the start of the fourth quarter of the economic
41:44
Speaker 1: year last year, so we're starting with the first quarter,
41:48
Speaker 1: and he paints a I think you'll see he paints
41:52
Speaker 1: an unsatisfying picture of an economy that you know, it
41:56
Speaker 1: feels like it's going to keep on keeping on, but
41:59
Speaker 1: there is plenty of risk that we need to be
42:02
Speaker 1: aware of. But before we get to there, a reader
42:05
Speaker 1: sent me a note on social media that I thought
42:07
Speaker 1: was quite good and he said, and he said, you know,
42:12
Speaker 1: he's a fan of the historical context that I like
42:15
Speaker 1: to bring to this podcast. And he said, hey, have
42:18
Speaker 1: you thought there's an interesting thought exercise out there about
42:22
Speaker 1: what happened in Minneapolis that might be worth talking about?
42:26
Speaker 1: And it was Ruby Ridge. Well, I did my own
42:31
Speaker 1: deep dive on Ruby Ridge. I was sort of took
42:34
Speaker 1: place early in my political reporting career, literally the first
42:37
Speaker 1: year I started working full time covering politics. And I
42:42
Speaker 1: will say it's a pretty I think it's a worthwhile comparison.
42:47
Speaker 1: So I wanted to spend a few minutes putting the
42:52
Speaker 1: two stories together. It's a good thought exercise, and it
42:56
Speaker 1: isn't going to be an exercise that's here to declare
42:59
Speaker 1: heroes or villain but it's simply to examine how we
43:02
Speaker 1: process federal power depending on whose ox is getting gored.
43:07
Speaker 1: Because one of the hardest things in politics, right Now
43:08
Speaker 1: I was admitting when our own personal reactions are shaped
43:12
Speaker 1: less by facts than by what tribe we're a member of.
43:15
Speaker 1: So to do that, let's do a quick history lesson.
43:18
Speaker 1: This is not my official Toodcast time machine. I got
43:20
Speaker 1: something else for you after the Mark Xandy interview, but
43:24
Speaker 1: I want to do you know what's happening in Minneapolis.
43:28
Speaker 1: I think is something that if the federal government doesn't
43:34
Speaker 1: get religion about transparency and an investigation in honesty, soon
43:39
Speaker 1: it's going to do some lasting damage that will be
43:41
Speaker 1: hard to online. So I want to take you back
43:44
Speaker 1: to an incident that many on the right are well
43:47
Speaker 1: aware of. It's called Ruby Ridge. Ruby Ridge was not
43:50
Speaker 1: actually a single event. It was the end of a long,
43:53
Speaker 1: escalating standoff. It actually began in nineteen eighty nine nineteen
43:56
Speaker 1: ninety when federal authorities accused a gentleman by the name
43:59
Speaker 1: of Weaver of selling two sought off shotguns to an
44:03
Speaker 1: ATF in format. Weaver missed a court date. Now there's
44:07
Speaker 1: still a dispute over whether the notice was confusing or mishandled,
44:11
Speaker 1: but missing the court date triggered a warrant being issued
44:15
Speaker 1: for his arrest. The circumstances here matter because the original
44:23
Speaker 1: offense was nonviolent, and everything that followed escalated far beyond that.
44:29
Speaker 1: Sounds familiar right Minneapolis. The conversation between the ice officers
44:35
Speaker 1: and misgood. But I'll continue so. In August of nineteen
44:39
Speaker 1: ninety two, US marshals were surveilling Weaver's remote cabin in Idaho.
44:44
Speaker 1: A confrontation occurred involving Weaver's teenage son and a family friend.
44:49
Speaker 1: A federal marshal was killed, and that meant the FBI's
44:53
Speaker 1: hostage Rescue team took over. Now, the FBI adopted site
44:59
Speaker 1: specific rus rules of engagement. It was not standard policy,
45:03
Speaker 1: and it turned out to be very controversial once the
45:06
Speaker 1: investigation surfaced this fact. The rules effectively allowed agents to
45:12
Speaker 1: shoot any armed adult male seen outside the cabin. Eventually,
45:18
Speaker 1: the Justice Department would acknowledge that this was a constitutionally
45:22
Speaker 1: flawed policy. Then, on August twenty second, nineteen ninety two,
45:28
Speaker 1: an FBI sniper named Laan Harichi fired two shots. The
45:34
Speaker 1: second shot killed a woman named Vicki Weaver, Randy Weaver's wife,
45:38
Speaker 1: as she stood behind the cabin door holding her infant daughter.
45:44
Speaker 1: A mother holding a baby was killed by a federal sniper.
45:51
Speaker 1: Now let's get to the aftermath and the accountability. Unlike
45:56
Speaker 1: what we saw in Minneapolis this week, the federal government
46:00
Speaker 1: did not deny the need for an investigation. In fact,
46:03
Speaker 1: there were multiple inquiries the Department of Justice, congressional inquiries,
46:08
Speaker 1: internal FBI reviews. The Weaver family in fact received a
46:12
Speaker 1: three point one million dollar civil settlement. An FBI official
46:18
Speaker 1: would later go to prison for destroying evidence that was
46:21
Speaker 1: related to the case. Now it's worth noting, and some
46:25
Speaker 1: of you already know this if you're well educated about
46:29
Speaker 1: sort of different, sort of ideological fights between the right
46:35
Speaker 1: and the federal government. Ruby Ridge became a symbol, especially
46:38
Speaker 1: on the right, of federal overreach, secrecy, and a government
46:42
Speaker 1: circling the wagons. So here's why Ruby Ridge lodged so
46:48
Speaker 1: deeply in conservative memory. It reinforced the idea of a
46:51
Speaker 1: deep state abusing power. It fed militia movements and distrust
46:56
Speaker 1: of federal law enforcement. This incident was a recruiting tool,
47:00
Speaker 1: and importantly, even the federal government eventually conceded that something
47:03
Speaker 1: had gone wrong procedurally, which one could argue might have
47:07
Speaker 1: helped de escalate the situation. Unlike what we see right
47:13
Speaker 1: now with Homeland Security, the government George HW. Bush's government,
47:19
Speaker 1: by the way, Bill Barr's Justice Department, back in nineteen
47:22
Speaker 1: ninety two, ninety one, and ninety two, the government there
47:26
Speaker 1: accepted the premise that this incident demanded scrutiny. Now let's
47:33
Speaker 1: fast forward more than thirty years to Minneapolis. Obviously the
47:37
Speaker 1: cases aren't identical. There's different contexts, there's different agencies, there's
47:42
Speaker 1: different facts that should still be under investigation. But the
47:45
Speaker 1: reaction does tell us something. A federal agent kills a
47:48
Speaker 1: civilian during an enforcement action, video circulates almost immediately, and
47:53
Speaker 1: before investigations are complete, you have national political figures defining
47:58
Speaker 1: the victim, not just the incident, right, Christy Nome calling
48:02
Speaker 1: this person a terrorist, the domestic terrorist, and of course
48:07
Speaker 1: jad Evange pouring gasoline on this fire. So here we
48:12
Speaker 1: had a case where the narrative solidifies first. The fact
48:14
Speaker 1: finding comes later, if it comes at all. So at
48:18
Speaker 1: Ruby Ridge, the government, a Republican administration, eventually said we
48:25
Speaker 1: need to look at this. In Minneapolis, we have not
48:28
Speaker 1: yet seen the same institutional humility. There's been no equivalent
48:32
Speaker 1: of an independent commission. There's been no immediate acknowledgment that
48:35
Speaker 1: procedures themselves may be at issue here. That difference matters
48:40
Speaker 1: as much as the shooting itself. So here's the uncomfortable part.
48:45
Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety two, many on the right saw a
48:47
Speaker 1: victim of federal tyranny. In twenty twenty six, many of
48:51
Speaker 1: those same voices instinctively are defending the use of federal
48:55
Speaker 1: force because the target doesn't agree with them as a liberal.
49:02
Speaker 1: This is somehow she was protesting what Ice was doing. That,
49:07
Speaker 1: somehow for some people is serving as a well she
49:11
Speaker 1: got what she asked for. Of course, now many on
49:17
Speaker 1: the left who wants trusted federal institutions now see a
49:19
Speaker 1: victim where others see justification. There should be a huge
49:24
Speaker 1: moment for the libertarian right to welcome new adherents from
49:31
Speaker 1: the left. BENI, we had the same federal power, same
49:37
Speaker 1: legal shields, by the way, and a different political reaction.
49:41
Speaker 1: What change wasn't the law. What change was who we
49:44
Speaker 1: identify with. And this is the bigger lesson. This isn't
49:48
Speaker 1: about equating the two tragedies. Two mothers were killed by
49:52
Speaker 1: a federal officer, one in Ruby Ridge, one in Minneapolis.
49:58
Speaker 1: I'm just simply asking whether we still believe the same
50:00
Speaker 1: rules should apply no matter who's in the crosshairs. Ruby
50:04
Speaker 1: Ridge taught us a federal power demands scrutiny even when
50:07
Speaker 1: agents believe they're acting in good faith. The real question
50:10
Speaker 1: today is whether we still believe that or only when
50:15
Speaker 1: it's politically convenient. But the behavior right now, particularly of Christina,
50:24
Speaker 1: of Tom Holman, I mean, think about Tom Holman, putting
50:27
Speaker 1: him out there as a as a defender of this
50:30
Speaker 1: the minute you don't, the minute you politicize the rule
50:35
Speaker 1: of law, which Donald Trump has done. Right, if you
50:38
Speaker 1: attack cops at January sixth, you get pardoned by Donald Trump.
50:43
Speaker 1: If you simply protest a law enforcement action in Minneapolis,
50:50
Speaker 1: you can get killed. And it's okay. If Donald Trump,
50:58
Speaker 1: Christine no jd Vers want Americans to respect ice and
51:06
Speaker 1: respect their policy decisions, they have to respect the constitutional
51:11
Speaker 1: rights of every single person in this country. As guess
51:18
Speaker 1: who has constitutional rights, not just citizens, but everybody in
51:21
Speaker 1: this country. And if we can't show ourselves that we
51:25
Speaker 1: live by these truisms, who are we to tell Iran
51:30
Speaker 1: what they're doing is wrong? Who are we to tell
51:33
Speaker 1: Venezuela and the Maduro regime that what they're doing is wrong.
51:37
Speaker 1: Who are we to tell the Cubans that what they're
51:39
Speaker 1: doing is wrong? Who are we to tell the Chinese
51:41
Speaker 1: that we're there when we're exhibiting behavior that can be
51:46
Speaker 1: used as what aboutism by our international call them competitors
51:56
Speaker 1: or potential adversaries, then we lose who we are. So
52:15
Speaker 1: I put that one in there today because I thought
52:17
Speaker 1: it was a really smart thought exercise, And I would
52:21
Speaker 1: just challenge my friends and the right think about the
52:25
Speaker 1: facts of Ruby Ridge, think about everything, and tell me
52:27
Speaker 1: how the same level of scrutiny that many on the
52:30
Speaker 1: right demanded of the federal government and got from the
52:33
Speaker 1: federal government due to the actions at Ruby Ridge they
52:37
Speaker 1: applied directly right here at the actions and the questionable
52:41
Speaker 1: actions of what happened with Ice. And if you are
52:45
Speaker 1: not interested in a full, transparent investigation that includes both
52:50
Speaker 1: federal and state authorities, then you clearly have no interest
52:54
Speaker 1: in getting to the truth. And if you have no
52:58
Speaker 1: interest in getting to the truth, well I would argue
53:01
Speaker 1: you yourself have ceased to be an American in good standing.
53:06
Speaker 1: All right, let's sneak in a break, and when we
53:08
Speaker 1: come back, let's talk economy with my friend, mister Mark Sandy.
53:18
Speaker 2: Well joining me now?
53:20
Speaker 1: Is uh It's it's the equivalent of the SNL five
53:23
Speaker 1: time hosting club. It's the todcast guest club. Here it's
53:27
Speaker 1: Mark Sandy, cheap economist at Moody, mister Sandy. It's good
53:30
Speaker 1: to see you. Todd is a huge That's okay.
53:35
Speaker 2: It happens.
53:35
Speaker 3: This is the beauty of two first names. But you
53:38
Speaker 3: must get called Sandy. Hey, yeah, all the time, all
53:41
Speaker 3: the time. Hey Todd, Hey Chuck. Yeah, it's good to
53:45
Speaker 3: be with you. Sorry, it's been a long week.
53:47
Speaker 2: It's and this is you know, five pm Eastern Time
53:49
Speaker 2: on a Friday, so I'm a little burned.
53:52
Speaker 1: Here we are, and look, I've I've said this before
53:54
Speaker 1: about every quarter, you know, I'd love I like checking
53:58
Speaker 1: in with you to see where we are. And in fact,
54:00
Speaker 1: the last time was the beginning of the fourth quarter
54:02
Speaker 1: of last year. We're now at the beginning of the
54:04
Speaker 1: fourth quarter of the first year. And I'll be honest,
54:09
Speaker 1: sort of first week of October of twenty twenty five,
54:13
Speaker 1: it felt like this was an economy we're not sure
54:16
Speaker 1: where it's headed. It feels like recession was at an
54:20
Speaker 1: elevated level, fast forward three months later, it feels like
54:23
Speaker 1: there's a lot of optimism about the current state of
54:26
Speaker 1: the economy. Am I just reading the wrong headlines? What
54:30
Speaker 1: say you? What does the numbers say? How do you
54:32
Speaker 1: feel January of twenty twenty six compared to what you
54:36
Speaker 1: might have felt a quarter ago?
54:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's fair to say there's I feel
54:40
Speaker 2: a little bit better about the economy than I did
54:42
Speaker 2: three months ago. You know, it's hard. You know. The
54:46
Speaker 2: thing is, the stock market kind of colors perceptions, right,
54:50
Speaker 2: at least in my world, right and we've seen a
54:52
Speaker 2: lot of green on this screen. Stock market's just skyrocketed higher,
54:56
Speaker 2: a lot of that artificial intelligence stocks, But the broader
54:59
Speaker 2: market's up lat too, and that is powering a lot
55:02
Speaker 2: of growth and more than I The market's up more
55:05
Speaker 2: than I would have anticipated in the spending that's resulting
55:08
Speaker 2: from that, more than I thought. The other thing is
55:11
Speaker 2: policy is going to kick into high gear here. We're
55:15
Speaker 2: going to get a lot of fiscal juice. You know,
55:16
Speaker 2: the one big beautiful bill Act cut Taxes is cutting
55:21
Speaker 2: taxes for both the business and for individuals, and that's
55:26
Speaker 2: that's now going to come into the economy.
55:29
Speaker 1: How do you expect how is that going to show up?
55:31
Speaker 1: Because I've heard this too that a lot of you've heard
55:33
Speaker 1: Scott Passent say it and others trying to reassure the president, Hey,
55:36
Speaker 1: don't worry, your political fortunes are going to turn around
55:39
Speaker 1: because we're about to you know what you just said,
55:42
Speaker 1: The one big beautiful Bill is about to shoot a
55:44
Speaker 1: whole bunch of fiscal stimulus. Last time we had too
55:48
Speaker 1: much fiscal stim We had too much fiscal stimulus, and
55:51
Speaker 1: it gave us inflation. So how are how are you
55:54
Speaker 1: anticipating that we'll start to see this in the economy.
55:58
Speaker 2: Well, in two big ways. One, consumers will have more cash,
56:04
Speaker 2: so the refunt checks are going to be a lot
56:06
Speaker 2: larger this year than the last year, about one hundred
56:08
Speaker 2: billion dollars more in cash to low, middle, high income households.
56:13
Speaker 2: And that'll flow in here pretty quickly, beginning in February,
56:17
Speaker 2: but March April may obviously well timed to influence the
56:21
Speaker 2: economy in the lead up to the election. That's that's
56:24
Speaker 2: going to be a lot of juice. And then the
56:27
Speaker 2: benefit to business is expensing, so they invest and they
56:31
Speaker 2: can expense all of that upfront and that's a big
56:34
Speaker 2: cost saving to them, and that means they'll do more
56:36
Speaker 2: investment and you can already kind of feel it in
56:39
Speaker 2: the orders for investment goods. So those two things are
56:42
Speaker 2: going to provide a lot of support. Obviously, it's all
56:44
Speaker 2: deficit finance. That's how you get the Jews, right. This
56:46
Speaker 2: is added to the deficit. But and it's going to
56:50
Speaker 2: be temporary. You know, it'll start to fade.
56:52
Speaker 1: Prett Is this a one time thing? Are we going
56:55
Speaker 1: to or this tax savings? I don't get the sense
56:59
Speaker 1: that this is going to be long term.
57:00
Speaker 2: No, no, no, it's not going to do much longer run.
57:04
Speaker 2: I mean, you could argue that the investment should have legs,
57:07
Speaker 2: you know, because you're building the capital stock and that
57:10
Speaker 2: should help with productivity growth down road. But it's on
57:13
Speaker 2: the margin. It's really providing a temporary boost to the company.
57:17
Speaker 2: It's straight up fiscal stimulus, just like the fiscal stimulus
57:20
Speaker 2: we've provided during the pandemic. Same kind of deal here.
57:23
Speaker 2: And then also you've got the FED, who is predisposed
57:27
Speaker 2: to the lower inst rates. There's a lot of debate
57:29
Speaker 2: around what they're going to do and to what degree,
57:31
Speaker 2: but I think they will cut interest rates, you know,
57:35
Speaker 2: before the year is over, and that should provide some
57:37
Speaker 2: additional support.
57:38
Speaker 1: Do you expect those still they very cautious cuts more
57:42
Speaker 1: quarter points, no half points.
57:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so. It's certainly up until the time
57:49
Speaker 2: Chair Pale leaves the FED, and that's May of twenty
57:52
Speaker 2: twenty six. At that point we're going to get a
57:54
Speaker 2: new feed chair appointed by the President. The President has
57:57
Speaker 2: made it very clear that he wants lower interest rates
57:59
Speaker 2: and that he should have some influence, if not be
58:02
Speaker 2: able to dictate what interest rates should be. So it'd
58:06
Speaker 2: be surprising if we don't see someone who's there that
58:09
Speaker 2: isn't pushing hard for lower rates when they take that position.
58:13
Speaker 2: You know, obviously it's a committee decision, so there are
58:16
Speaker 2: other folks that aren't going to be on board with that.
58:19
Speaker 2: But I think at the end of the day, they'll
58:20
Speaker 2: probably get some more rate cuts and that should help
58:23
Speaker 2: support the economy also, And that's one reason why the
58:26
Speaker 2: stock market is up, because the stock market is also anticipating,
58:29
Speaker 2: you know, more rate cuts.
58:32
Speaker 1: I remember the last time we talked about trying to
58:35
Speaker 1: look at the stock market by disaggregating the AI companies
58:38
Speaker 1: from sort of the non AI influenced companies and as
58:43
Speaker 1: getting a sense of what is the health of the
58:46
Speaker 1: current economy versus essentially what people are anticipating to be
58:50
Speaker 1: the future economy. What do those two pictures look like.
58:54
Speaker 2: They're very different. I mean, the AI stocks have gone
58:58
Speaker 2: skyward and they're moving up, you know, very significantly. They're
59:04
Speaker 2: still still in heading higher here. So that's a big
59:11
Speaker 2: part of what's gone on in the equity market or
59:13
Speaker 2: the stock market over the past a little over a year.
59:16
Speaker 2: The other stocks, it's it's more kind of pedestrian, you know,
59:20
Speaker 2: it's kind of mid single digit kind of increases in
59:23
Speaker 2: stock prices, so kind of what you would typically see.
59:26
Speaker 2: But even there, you've gotten maybe a bit of support
59:29
Speaker 2: from the tax cuts, right, The tax cuts help business,
59:32
Speaker 2: it lowers their tax bill and the lower interest rates.
59:35
Speaker 2: So you know, even the non AI stocks are up
59:39
Speaker 2: pretty pretty strongly, but not you know, five six seventy
59:43
Speaker 2: nine percent something like that, not twenty thirty forty fifty percent,
59:48
Speaker 2: of which is what we've seen with the AI stocks.
59:52
Speaker 1: In the past. Fiscal stimulus, whether coming directly from the
59:56
Speaker 1: government or via the FED, the hope was it was
1:00:00
Speaker 1: going to trigger job creation, which then in turn, would
1:00:04
Speaker 1: obviously grow the economy. Where's the job creation coming from?
1:00:08
Speaker 1: Because that doesn't seem as clear, Like I see all
1:00:13
Speaker 1: the savings that companies are seeing, the investments that they
1:00:16
Speaker 1: want to make, but when you look at data centers,
1:00:18
Speaker 1: these are investments that create very few jobs, and a
1:00:23
Speaker 1: lot of the architecture that's being invested in the world
1:00:26
Speaker 1: of AI, other than the industrial part of building said
1:00:30
Speaker 1: data center, there isn't a lot of job creation with it.
1:00:34
Speaker 1: And I know before we've discussed about the only place
1:00:36
Speaker 1: that had been growing in twenty twenty five in the
1:00:38
Speaker 1: job front or home healthcare workers. Where is there you
1:00:43
Speaker 1: know in this last three months is job I mean
1:00:45
Speaker 1: that looked like pretty tepid job numbers to me that
1:00:48
Speaker 1: we saw in December. Are we going to have a
1:00:54
Speaker 1: jobless recovery? And I guess I don't know if we
1:00:57
Speaker 1: even call this or currently over now.
1:00:58
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I started the conversation by saying I
1:01:01
Speaker 2: feel a little bit better about the economy than I
1:01:03
Speaker 2: did three months ago, But if I completed the sentence,
1:01:07
Speaker 2: I would say I still don't feel that good about
1:01:09
Speaker 2: the economy. It still feels pretty fragile to me, and
1:01:13
Speaker 2: that goes to the job market. We are not creating
1:01:15
Speaker 2: any jobs, and that was the message in today's jobs
1:01:18
Speaker 2: numbers for the month of December. You know, not only
1:01:21
Speaker 2: did we not create many jobs during the month, but
1:01:23
Speaker 2: we sold downward revisions to previous months. And in fact,
1:01:26
Speaker 2: if you look, the job market in terms of job
1:01:30
Speaker 2: creation has going completely flatlined since Liberation Day, just you know,
1:01:34
Speaker 2: can look at the data month to month. Right up
1:01:37
Speaker 2: until April of twenty twenty five, when we had Liberation Day,
1:01:41
Speaker 2: we were creating one hundred and sixty hundred seventy hundred
1:01:44
Speaker 2: te thousand jobs per month in the wake of that day,
1:01:49
Speaker 2: Beginning in May of the of twenty twenty five, we've flatlined.
1:01:53
Speaker 2: You know, some months a little up, someone's a little down.
1:01:56
Speaker 2: And you're right, the job growth that we are getting
1:01:59
Speaker 2: is very concentrated in the healthcare sector, maybe a little
1:02:02
Speaker 2: bit in leisure hospitality, but that's it. You know. In
1:02:06
Speaker 2: the rest of the economy, we're not creating any jobs
1:02:08
Speaker 2: and businesses broadly just aren't hiring. And so I don't
1:02:13
Speaker 2: think that's a very comfortable place to be, you know,
1:02:18
Speaker 2: I said fragile, I think that's the right word. It's
1:02:20
Speaker 2: very fragile. Everything has got to stick to script here.
1:02:23
Speaker 2: If anything kind of goes off script a little bit,
1:02:26
Speaker 2: I think we got a problem.
1:02:28
Speaker 1: Is there even I mean in theory, where would job
1:02:33
Speaker 1: creation come from in the world of AI.
1:02:36
Speaker 2: Well, I mean one area would be the areas are
1:02:40
Speaker 2: getting rocked by tariffs. I mean manufacturing. Manufacturing is losing
1:02:45
Speaker 2: jobs plus eight thousand jobs in December, has been losing
1:02:47
Speaker 2: jobs pretty steadily all the year. You know, that's because
1:02:50
Speaker 2: of the tariffs and the impact that said on supply
1:02:53
Speaker 2: chains and manufacturing activity, agriculture, anything agg related because that's
1:02:57
Speaker 2: getting rocked by the terriffs. Transportation, distribution, wholesaling all in
1:03:03
Speaker 2: recession losing jobs because of those would be sectors that
1:03:07
Speaker 2: presumably would be adding to payrolls. And I think you
1:03:13
Speaker 2: have general concern across the economy around the uncertainty created
1:03:18
Speaker 2: by policy, by the terrors by immigration policy, by deglobalization
1:03:22
Speaker 2: more generally, and so businesses have just been sitting on
1:03:25
Speaker 2: their hands. So almost all industries are being affected by
1:03:28
Speaker 2: that to some degree or another.
1:03:30
Speaker 1: Is there any place where you have you know, think
1:03:32
Speaker 1: about let's let's take the immigration piece here a minute.
1:03:36
Speaker 1: There's been an obviously an aggressive effort by this administration
1:03:38
Speaker 1: to report folks that are undocumented. Has that? And I've
1:03:44
Speaker 1: seen the administration claim that US born new job you know,
1:03:48
Speaker 1: US born workers are getting more jobs today than they
1:03:53
Speaker 1: did a year ago. I don't know where they're getting
1:03:55
Speaker 1: that stat What is the truthiness of that claim? One too?
1:04:01
Speaker 1: Are we seeing any Are we seeing more construction job
1:04:05
Speaker 1: openings or not?
1:04:08
Speaker 2: Well, the number of foreign born workers is falling. The
1:04:14
Speaker 2: number of native born workers is rising, but on the margin.
1:04:18
Speaker 2: So you know, I don't know.
1:04:20
Speaker 1: And is that really is it really rising or is
1:04:22
Speaker 1: it more flatline and just native born as collapsing.
1:04:26
Speaker 2: It's more the latter, It's yeah, I mean, there might
1:04:29
Speaker 2: be a slight tilted up in native more and native born,
1:04:33
Speaker 2: but you know, I'm pressing, and it's certainly depressed relative
1:04:36
Speaker 2: to where it was the last year in the year
1:04:38
Speaker 2: before that. So it's not like we're seeing foreign native
1:04:42
Speaker 2: foreign born workers loser jobs and native born workers take
1:04:45
Speaker 2: those jobs. That's not what's happening. I think that's a
1:04:47
Speaker 2: false narrative. They're just not feeling the feeling the jobs
1:04:51
Speaker 2: that you know, foreign born workers would typically take. Uh
1:04:54
Speaker 2: and uh, you know that that is restraining growth in
1:04:58
Speaker 2: jobs because you know, if we don't have workers of
1:05:01
Speaker 2: folks looking for work, which we don't because of the
1:05:03
Speaker 2: immigration policy, they can't be hired. They can't they can't
1:05:06
Speaker 2: turn into a job. And that's part of the story.
1:05:08
Speaker 2: But the story goes beyond the labor supply. It also
1:05:12
Speaker 2: goes to labor demand, which we were talking about earlier.
1:05:14
Speaker 2: That's the terrors, that's the uncertainty, that's the that's also
1:05:18
Speaker 2: AI starting to play a role as well in terms
1:05:20
Speaker 2: of you know, labor demand. So that's why unemployment is rising.
1:05:23
Speaker 2: It's still low, but it's rising, right, I Mean.
1:05:25
Speaker 1: It seems logical if I ran a small business, I
1:05:28
Speaker 1: would our mid sized business I delay filling ahead for
1:05:33
Speaker 1: as long as I can until I figure out how
1:05:36
Speaker 1: viable AI is, right, I mean, it's a pretty logical
1:05:40
Speaker 1: mindset that that employers are are in right now, are
1:05:44
Speaker 1: they not.
1:05:45
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think that's more a large company thing though,
1:05:47
Speaker 2: than a small company thing. I think large definitely large companies.
1:05:51
Speaker 2: I can attest to that personally. I mean, I know
1:05:54
Speaker 2: that is what's going on. It's not that, And this
1:05:57
Speaker 2: is why the economy is not in recession and why
1:05:59
Speaker 2: you know, we're moving, we're growing. It's that they're laying off.
1:06:04
Speaker 2: It's not that they're doing that at least not.
1:06:06
Speaker 1: No, you don't see that. They're just not replacing. They're
1:06:09
Speaker 1: just not older workers that leave. Maybe they're they're they're
1:06:11
Speaker 1: getting rid of expensive people, right I've I've heard I've
1:06:15
Speaker 1: heard rumors of that at various large entities and publicly
1:06:18
Speaker 1: traded companies. But they're not they used to replace them.
1:06:21
Speaker 1: They're not actually replacing.
1:06:22
Speaker 2: These folks exactly. Hiring rates are, you know, way down
1:06:26
Speaker 2: that those are large companies, maybe some midsize coming smaller companies.
1:06:30
Speaker 2: I think they're they're getting you know, hit by things
1:06:34
Speaker 2: like the terriffs, they're hurt by the immigration policy. They
1:06:38
Speaker 2: they rely very heavily on immigrant workers. You know, think
1:06:40
Speaker 2: about all those small manufacturers that you know, operate in
1:06:43
Speaker 2: the country or constructing, the construction trades, retailing, you know, leisure, hospitality,
1:06:49
Speaker 2: these industries, A lot of small companies they rely on
1:06:52
Speaker 2: those the immigrant workers, and they can't they can't get them,
1:06:55
Speaker 2: they can't find them. So that's and they're and they're
1:06:58
Speaker 2: nervous about all of that. What does it mean? Is
1:07:00
Speaker 2: it going? How's it going? Is it going to change.
1:07:01
Speaker 2: Is it going to get worse? Is going to get better?
1:07:03
Speaker 2: So I don't in that in the small business world,
1:07:05
Speaker 2: I don't think it's a I I think it's these
1:07:07
Speaker 2: other things that are causing Yeah, I really think that
1:07:11
Speaker 2: that's the case.
1:07:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, So let's talk about the trade deficit. It went down.
1:07:18
Speaker 1: Is that really good for the economy or not? Well,
1:07:21
Speaker 1: I mean right, a shrinking trade deficit is not always
1:07:24
Speaker 1: translated into a positive economic uh output.
1:07:27
Speaker 4: No, yeah, you're you're referencing the last data point we
1:07:34
Speaker 4: got this week and was trade trade numbers for the
1:07:37
Speaker 4: I think it was the month of buck.
1:07:38
Speaker 2: Yes, the month of October really wacko. Uh. You know,
1:07:42
Speaker 2: we saw the trade deficit declined for two key reasons. One,
1:07:47
Speaker 2: the exports of so called non monetary gold, so gold
1:07:52
Speaker 2: that's held by h private individuals and companies, not the
1:07:56
Speaker 2: central bank, not the reserve exports of that surge. And
1:08:01
Speaker 2: the other thing is that imports of pharmaceuticals collapsed. And
1:08:05
Speaker 2: this goes all this goes to the tariffs and the
1:08:07
Speaker 2: scrambling of a trade as a result of that. So
1:08:12
Speaker 2: the month of October is just I don't know, I
1:08:14
Speaker 2: throw it out the window. The better thing to do
1:08:17
Speaker 2: is just take a look at the trade deficit through
1:08:21
Speaker 2: year to day through October this year in twenty twenty five,
1:08:25
Speaker 2: and compare that to twenty twenty four, and the trade
1:08:27
Speaker 2: deficit is actually a little bit larger.
1:08:30
Speaker 1: It's not suck, No, that's just you just think that's
1:08:33
Speaker 1: bad data. I mean, I used to in the polling world.
1:08:36
Speaker 1: We'd get a weird you know, sometimes you get a
1:08:38
Speaker 1: weird subgroup data. You know, you might get and our
1:08:41
Speaker 1: pollsters would say, unless you see it two months in
1:08:44
Speaker 1: a row, ignore it.
1:08:45
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, so I would ignore this, you know. I
1:08:48
Speaker 2: take year to date, you know, year to day throughout
1:08:51
Speaker 2: ten months. That probably gives that definitely gives us a
1:08:54
Speaker 2: clearer sense of what's going on, and the deficit has
1:08:56
Speaker 2: not changed so that the terriffs aren't if that was
1:08:59
Speaker 2: the goal. Right, so far, there's a lot of script
1:09:01
Speaker 2: to be written here. Obviously this is all early days,
1:09:04
Speaker 2: but least so far that's not that goal is not
1:09:06
Speaker 2: being achieved.
1:09:07
Speaker 1: Well, and then let's get to the reality of the tariffs,
1:09:10
Speaker 1: because if what he pledged to do on limited ration
1:09:15
Speaker 1: day is what he did, I'm guessing we would be
1:09:19
Speaker 1: in recession by now. Yeah, but because he's essentially created
1:09:23
Speaker 1: so many exemptions and he's pulled back some things, particularly
1:09:27
Speaker 1: on food. What has been the impact of the tariffs
1:09:34
Speaker 1: other than making private industry crazy trying to navigate him.
1:09:41
Speaker 2: Yeah. The way I totally agree, and the way I
1:09:44
Speaker 2: would articulate that is by looking at the stated tariff rate.
1:09:49
Speaker 2: What President Trump is saying the tariff rates are going
1:09:51
Speaker 2: to be, or what the administration says the tariff rates
1:09:53
Speaker 2: are going to be. You know, one hundred percent on China,
1:09:56
Speaker 2: one hundred and fifty percent on China, seventy five percent
1:09:58
Speaker 2: on China, thirty percent on Korea, twenty five percent on
1:10:02
Speaker 2: autos from Japan. Those are stated tariffs. That's kind of
1:10:05
Speaker 2: in what's being articulated. Then you go look at the
1:10:09
Speaker 2: actual tariff revenue that's being generated, you know, what actually
1:10:14
Speaker 2: is being raised, and you get a very different picture.
1:10:17
Speaker 2: It's ten percent effective teriff rate, which is not inconsequential, Chuck.
1:10:23
Speaker 2: I mean it was two percent at the start of
1:10:25
Speaker 2: twenty twenty five. So you go from two percent to
1:10:26
Speaker 2: ten percent. That means weaker growth. We talked about manufacturing
1:10:31
Speaker 2: and ag and transportation. It means higher inflation. That goes
1:10:34
Speaker 2: to the affordability problems. We're paying more for imported product.
1:10:37
Speaker 2: That's happening, but it's not twenty five percent, it's not
1:10:40
Speaker 2: thirty five percent, it's not one hundred percent. And it
1:10:43
Speaker 2: could easily change in the next few weeks because supremer
1:10:47
Speaker 2: is going to rule on the reciprocal tariffs and the
1:10:50
Speaker 2: legality of that, and it looks like they might strike
1:10:52
Speaker 2: that down and then the effect of tariff rate will
1:10:54
Speaker 2: go from ten percent to five percent. So that's a
1:10:55
Speaker 2: very different story, but it's happening an effect. But you're right,
1:10:59
Speaker 2: if we had actually got the stated tariffs, I think
1:11:01
Speaker 2: have been very difficult to avoid an outright economic downturn.
1:11:12
Speaker 1: A big picture, I mean, what what is this economy?
1:11:16
Speaker 1: And are we is it? Is it still? I mean
1:11:19
Speaker 1: it still feels like an economy. That is, if you
1:11:22
Speaker 1: have some savings, you're doing pretty well. That that the
1:11:25
Speaker 1: K that the K shaped the economy where if you're
1:11:29
Speaker 1: you know, if you're living paycheck to paycheck, it is harder.
1:11:32
Speaker 1: And if you've got a little bit of savings you're managing,
1:11:35
Speaker 1: you're probably doing okay. Is that still that your outlook
1:11:39
Speaker 1: for the next year? That this is what this economy
1:11:42
Speaker 1: is going to continue to look like.
1:11:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think if you look at the the economic elephant,
1:11:49
Speaker 2: its totality in an abstract from uh, you know what's
1:11:53
Speaker 2: going on across industry, sectors, regions, different parts of the
1:11:57
Speaker 2: income and wealth distribution. You know, the economy is is okay,
1:12:02
Speaker 2: although as I said, it's you know, very fragile. Things
1:12:05
Speaker 2: need to stick the script here otherwise we're going to
1:12:07
Speaker 2: have a problem. But then when you touch different parts
1:12:10
Speaker 2: of the elephant, you're going to get a different, you
1:12:11
Speaker 2: know picture. So you picked one part of the elephant,
1:12:15
Speaker 2: the income and wealth distribution, that's very skewed. And if
1:12:18
Speaker 2: you're at the top part of the income and wealth distribution,
1:12:21
Speaker 2: life is good financially, right. I mean, you have a job,
1:12:24
Speaker 2: your wages have been rising, you're getting a bonus, you
1:12:27
Speaker 2: don't owe anything except maybe a mortgage Liane that you
1:12:30
Speaker 2: locked in during the pandemic. At two and a half three,
1:12:33
Speaker 2: three and a half percent. You're getting more on your
1:12:35
Speaker 2: money market account than you're paying out on your mortgage.
1:12:38
Speaker 2: And you own a lot of stuff. You own your
1:12:40
Speaker 2: own home, you own stocks, you you know, you're you're
1:12:43
Speaker 2: sitting in a good spot. But if you're a folks
1:12:46
Speaker 2: in the bottom or middle part of the distribution, you know,
1:12:49
Speaker 2: it's a very different world. You don't stocks what I
1:12:51
Speaker 2: don't own any stocks, right, And if you're lucky to
1:12:53
Speaker 2: own a home, if you're in the bottom part of
1:12:55
Speaker 2: the distribution, very unlikely. So and you know, you know,
1:12:59
Speaker 2: people in the bottom part of the distribution owe money
1:13:01
Speaker 2: on cards, on auto loans, student loans, and so you
1:13:05
Speaker 2: know that part of what part of the elephant you're
1:13:09
Speaker 2: touching really does matter, you know, because you're getting these
1:13:13
Speaker 2: And that's why I think there's such why disparate views
1:13:17
Speaker 2: on how the economy is performing, and why there's such
1:13:19
Speaker 2: confusion around that, because it really does vary quite a bit.
1:13:23
Speaker 1: Well, and this, of course, you know when you hear
1:13:25
Speaker 1: about the phrase when I when you use a phrase
1:13:27
Speaker 1: like politically tone deaf a lot of times these days,
1:13:30
Speaker 1: if you only are interacting in your bubble, you may
1:13:32
Speaker 1: not really fully realize what the economy looks like. And
1:13:35
Speaker 1: of course that's this president is in a bubble. And
1:13:40
Speaker 1: you know, we know how he views a successful economy
1:13:44
Speaker 1: is not necessarily maybe how economist would view how the
1:13:49
Speaker 1: economy is going.
1:13:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally, And of course, we all have our own
1:13:53
Speaker 2: political prism as we look at the world through and
1:13:54
Speaker 2: that is influencing our perceptions here to a much greater
1:13:58
Speaker 2: degree than it has historically. And you can see it
1:14:00
Speaker 2: in this sentiment surveys that you know, you can look
1:14:03
Speaker 2: at how Republicans feel versus how independence or Democrats feel,
1:14:07
Speaker 2: and it's totally different.
1:14:10
Speaker 1: Yeah. I was just going to say that that is
1:14:12
Speaker 1: made polling on the economy I think worthless. I used
1:14:17
Speaker 1: to fight to get rid of the questions because I
1:14:18
Speaker 1: already know the result. Whoever is president, that party will
1:14:22
Speaker 1: think the economy is getting better, and then the other
1:14:25
Speaker 1: party will think it's getting worse. But consumer sentiment does
1:14:29
Speaker 1: strike me as different. I mean, I feel like that
1:14:31
Speaker 1: Michigan survey is a pretty honest, you know, it feels
1:14:36
Speaker 1: like it does sort of, at least directionally, let you
1:14:39
Speaker 1: know what people really think of this economy, and consumer
1:14:43
Speaker 1: sentiment continues to be kind of it's still underwater, right. Yeah.
1:14:49
Speaker 2: I think again, if you take a step back and
1:14:51
Speaker 2: look at the entirety of the elephant, and they'll get
1:14:53
Speaker 2: caught up in the parts of the elephant. You're right.
1:14:56
Speaker 2: I think the perceptions are that the economy is met,
1:15:00
Speaker 2: you know, it's just not doing what I expect it
1:15:02
Speaker 2: to do, at least not for me. And I think
1:15:05
Speaker 2: there's also a lot of ants around big picture issues,
1:15:10
Speaker 2: you know that you know, maybe because of the pandemic,
1:15:13
Speaker 2: we now are focused on things that are broader than ourselves.
1:15:16
Speaker 2: And when you do that, you get nervous pretty quickly.
1:15:19
Speaker 2: I mean, what's going on geopolitically?
1:15:22
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, well, how do you factor that
1:15:25
Speaker 1: into an economic outlook? I mean, let's I mean, you know,
1:15:28
Speaker 1: we have a showdown with Europe over Greenland and NATO
1:15:33
Speaker 1: is suddenly gone. That feels like it isn't good for
1:15:38
Speaker 1: our economy. But I don't know how you how you
1:15:41
Speaker 1: price that in.
1:15:42
Speaker 2: Now you can't accept through these sentiment surveys. I mean,
1:15:46
Speaker 2: if they, as you say, they are capturing that ants,
1:15:50
Speaker 2: then we are picking that up and that's in our modeling.
1:15:53
Speaker 2: And you know, but at the end of the day,
1:15:55
Speaker 2: that's what makes economic forecasting so difficult, right because it's
1:15:58
Speaker 2: it is driven by collogy sentiment. You know, events that
1:16:03
Speaker 2: are inherently unpredictable, and that's why it's so difficult to
1:16:05
Speaker 2: get it right. You know, at least on a consistent basis.
1:16:09
Speaker 1: So compare the American economy with the rest of the world.
1:16:13
Speaker 1: Who's doing better than us and who's doing worse than us?
1:16:17
Speaker 1: That should concern us. Uh.
1:16:21
Speaker 2: I think the entire world is kind of in the
1:16:23
Speaker 2: same place we are. You know, it's kind of growing.
1:16:26
Speaker 2: It's okay, it's growing, but it's just a very kind
1:16:30
Speaker 2: of fragile, tenuous kind of growth. I mean, China is
1:16:35
Speaker 2: obviously the second largest economic player on the planet. They
1:16:38
Speaker 2: they've got you know, they're growing just like us, but
1:16:40
Speaker 2: they got their problems just like us. Different set of problems. Europe,
1:16:45
Speaker 2: same deal. They're growing depends on you know, which part
1:16:50
Speaker 2: of Europe you look at where you get the growth
1:16:52
Speaker 2: or not.
1:16:53
Speaker 1: But the Eastern I'm still growing faster than Western Europe, or.
1:16:57
Speaker 2: Southern Europe is growing faster than Northern Europe, nor South
1:17:02
Speaker 2: Spain is doing great. Germany is still struggling, So very
1:17:09
Speaker 2: similar kind of dynamics there, and I think the same
1:17:11
Speaker 2: kind of general angs exists. And of course, you know,
1:17:15
Speaker 2: it's not surprising because the US is rapidly pulling away
1:17:19
Speaker 2: from the rest of the world, right, I mean, it's
1:17:21
Speaker 2: a big change or two in President Trump's first term.
1:17:26
Speaker 2: It was, we were all about integrating with the rest
1:17:29
Speaker 2: of the world, globalization. We developed all the institutions to
1:17:33
Speaker 2: support that, and here we are now moving away from
1:17:35
Speaker 2: that as fast as possible. And I think that's just
1:17:37
Speaker 2: unnerving for the rest of the world to watch.
1:17:40
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, it really is just right. We spent
1:17:43
Speaker 1: arguably the fall of the Berlin Wall right starting with
1:17:45
Speaker 1: Bush to Clinton to Bush to Obama. Every one of
1:17:49
Speaker 1: those presidents was for inte global integration. The right saw
1:17:54
Speaker 1: it as sort of inevitable, so let's be on the
1:17:57
Speaker 1: forefront of it. Obviously, Trump is the re spons is
1:18:00
Speaker 1: the whoa woa woe. And I always say, I've been
1:18:03
Speaker 1: saying nationalism is contagious. And when the largest, you know,
1:18:08
Speaker 1: when the largest economy in the world goes goes inward,
1:18:12
Speaker 1: don't be surprised if everybody else starts turning inward as well.
1:18:16
Speaker 1: Is is that happening? Are you seeing that? Are we
1:18:20
Speaker 1: seeing other countries decide, well, if we're going to start
1:18:22
Speaker 1: up in tariffs and we better protect this industry in
1:18:24
Speaker 1: our country.
1:18:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, same kind of dynamic. I mean, certainly China is
1:18:28
Speaker 2: a you know, obvious poster child for that. Sure, Yeah,
1:18:32
Speaker 2: but I do think that's happening everywhere in the world.
1:18:35
Speaker 2: And the other thing that's happening is the rest of
1:18:37
Speaker 2: the world is now trying to work with them each
1:18:40
Speaker 2: other independent of us. So you can see Europe striking
1:18:44
Speaker 2: free trade deals, you know, with other parts of the world,
1:18:47
Speaker 2: which they might have done anyway, but certainly takes on
1:18:50
Speaker 2: a greater love importance now that they can't rely on
1:18:54
Speaker 2: the US as a trading partner. And but that, you know,
1:18:57
Speaker 2: creates all kinds of dislocations and smiths and angst. And
1:19:01
Speaker 2: I think that's what we're in the middle of. And
1:19:03
Speaker 2: I think that's that's something that plagues the entire global economy.
1:19:07
Speaker 2: So when you ask who's doing well, hard to say
1:19:10
Speaker 2: anyone's doing all that well because they're all we're all
1:19:13
Speaker 2: dealing with this really dramatic change in the way the
1:19:16
Speaker 2: global economy is organized.
1:19:19
Speaker 1: And I assume, because look, I'm gonna I'm probably projecting
1:19:23
Speaker 1: my own feelings on this, so let me let me
1:19:24
Speaker 1: ask it that way, then, simply, which is is part
1:19:28
Speaker 1: of this unsettled this sort of what you just describe,
1:19:33
Speaker 1: in part because the rest of the world hasn't decided
1:19:37
Speaker 1: if this is a permanent stance of America or just
1:19:40
Speaker 1: a temporary blip while Trump's in charge.
1:19:43
Speaker 2: I think they've come to the conclusion, or quickly come
1:19:46
Speaker 2: in to the collusion conclusion, that they need to uh
1:19:49
Speaker 2: prepare for a world that is global deglobalizing, and that
1:19:54
Speaker 2: the US is not going to be in the center
1:19:56
Speaker 2: of that of that global economy or that global financial system.
1:19:59
Speaker 2: And they got to figure that out. You know, maybe
1:20:01
Speaker 2: we get lucky from their perspective, they get lucky, and
1:20:05
Speaker 2: things kind of reverse, you know, on the other side
1:20:08
Speaker 2: of the next presidential election. But I think increasingly they're
1:20:10
Speaker 2: not counting on that They're they're making They're making decisions
1:20:15
Speaker 2: that I think are going to be pretty difficult to
1:20:18
Speaker 2: reverse going forward. I mean, I think it's understandable that
1:20:22
Speaker 2: they are worried about the reliability of the US, you know,
1:20:26
Speaker 2: going forward. I mean, they're seeing the really, uh the
1:20:31
Speaker 2: kind of the fragility of the kind of the American governance,
1:20:35
Speaker 2: the way we govern ourselves. Who would have thought that,
1:20:38
Speaker 2: you know, a president could do some of the things
1:20:41
Speaker 2: that are being done here. And I'm not even debating
1:20:44
Speaker 2: whether they're good or bad, just the fact that they're
1:20:46
Speaker 2: being done, right, and they're saying, oh my gosh, well
1:20:50
Speaker 2: I didn't.
1:20:51
Speaker 1: Know the US was the poster child for rules based
1:20:53
Speaker 1: Well yeah, no, no, no, no, there are rules for for you know,
1:20:58
Speaker 1: when we decide to go into a country.
1:21:00
Speaker 2: Yeah. To be Frank Chuck, I, I'm also surprised by
1:21:06
Speaker 2: all this. And so the rest of the world is saying, oh,
1:21:09
Speaker 2: I thought the US was on more solid ground than
1:21:14
Speaker 2: it actually is. And if that's the case, I don't
1:21:17
Speaker 2: care who the next president is because the next one
1:21:20
Speaker 2: after that could take a very different turn.
1:21:23
Speaker 1: Have you Well, I feel like Europe, at least the
1:21:27
Speaker 1: Western European leaders, right Germany, France, in the UK to
1:21:32
Speaker 1: lesser extentedly, they seem to they seem to realize, hey,
1:21:37
Speaker 1: they've got to strength in the EU, they've got to
1:21:39
Speaker 1: strengthen what they're doing. But have you seen evidence that
1:21:45
Speaker 1: China has been able to take advantage of the US
1:21:49
Speaker 1: being in global retreat? Cannot No, I mean.
1:21:52
Speaker 2: They've got they have their own set of problems and issues, right,
1:21:56
Speaker 2: I mean, some cycle coal and some more structural. I mean,
1:22:00
Speaker 2: as they came into this with a real estate sector
1:22:03
Speaker 2: that was just a basket case that you know, we
1:22:05
Speaker 2: had our global financial crisis back fifteen years ago, the
1:22:08
Speaker 2: housing market collapse. They've been going through a similar kind
1:22:11
Speaker 2: of dynamic here in recent years and in the wake
1:22:14
Speaker 2: of the pandemic, and that has been a real problem for.
1:22:17
Speaker 1: This And they still have a youth unemployment problem too.
1:22:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, they do. I mean they've got all kinds of
1:22:21
Speaker 2: structural longer term structural issues. Is the demographic issues or
1:22:25
Speaker 2: the population is like they you know, those countries that
1:22:30
Speaker 2: embrace immigration, they are the most successful countries long run,
1:22:36
Speaker 2: and especially in a world where the demographics are such
1:22:39
Speaker 2: that everyone's aging and the population is declining. And that's
1:22:43
Speaker 2: now China's problem. So they've got that issue that, you know.
1:22:46
Speaker 2: And I also think they've got an issue with autocratic
1:22:49
Speaker 2: government and the ability to manage a complex economy with
1:22:52
Speaker 2: an autocratic leader. I think that's an issue. So, you know,
1:22:57
Speaker 2: I think China's got its own set of problems and
1:22:59
Speaker 2: they've been able to take advantage. But it's not like
1:23:01
Speaker 2: they're standing still, right. They're also now thinking about they're
1:23:05
Speaker 2: reornering their supply chains and where they're exporting to and
1:23:08
Speaker 2: who they're relying on. I mean, they're no longer exporting
1:23:11
Speaker 2: as much to US, but they're exporting a lot more
1:23:13
Speaker 2: to Europe, so you know, they're figuring it out and
1:23:15
Speaker 2: they're adjusting like everybody else. But they've got their issues
1:23:18
Speaker 2: as well, so it's made it more difficult for them
1:23:20
Speaker 2: to kind of And at the end of the day,
1:23:22
Speaker 2: no country benefited more from globalization than China, right, So,
1:23:26
Speaker 2: I mean, if you're going to deglobalize, you would think
1:23:29
Speaker 2: all else being equal, they'd be you know, one of
1:23:31
Speaker 2: the casualties of that into signal.
1:23:33
Speaker 1: Well and theory, that's why we're doing that, right, the
1:23:35
Speaker 1: whole motivation, that's what historical motivation, frankly left and right
1:23:39
Speaker 1: has been. Hey, the rise of China has been bad
1:23:41
Speaker 1: for America. We ought to slow their rise, right, And.
1:23:44
Speaker 2: I you know, I think there's some validity to that argument,
1:23:47
Speaker 2: although you know, I go back to Obama in the
1:23:51
Speaker 2: Transpecific Partnership deal. I mean, we there was a general
1:23:54
Speaker 2: sense that China was not playing fair, they didn't do
1:23:57
Speaker 2: what they promised to do if we allowed them to
1:23:59
Speaker 2: enter into the global economic system. Uh, And the result
1:24:04
Speaker 2: of the strategy was, Okay, we're gonna have this free
1:24:06
Speaker 2: trade deal with all the Pacific rim nations, including the
1:24:09
Speaker 2: US excluding China because they didn't play fair, and the
1:24:12
Speaker 2: idea was that that would force them to start playing
1:24:14
Speaker 2: by the rules. Of course, I got blown up right
1:24:16
Speaker 2: away on the President Trump's first term.
1:24:19
Speaker 1: What are you one of the potential big moments in
1:24:24
Speaker 1: the world of trade in the economy is going to
1:24:26
Speaker 1: be the renewal if there is one of the NAFTA,
1:24:30
Speaker 1: also known as UNA.
1:24:33
Speaker 2: By the way, they say Kuzma in Canada, they call
1:24:36
Speaker 2: it Kuzma USMC Mexico because.
1:24:40
Speaker 1: It's Canada, US sure, And is it MusmA and is
1:24:43
Speaker 1: it what MUSCA.
1:24:45
Speaker 2: That I don't know. I don't know, Yeah, I don't know.
1:24:49
Speaker 1: Obviously. I feel like both Mexico and Canada have decided
1:24:53
Speaker 1: Carne and scheinebamb are like, Hey, let's just preserve status
1:24:56
Speaker 1: quo for as long as we can, so whatever we
1:24:58
Speaker 1: can do to just know by another year before we
1:25:01
Speaker 1: negotiate by more time, which which I strategically get. But
1:25:05
Speaker 1: what are you going to be looking for in the
1:25:08
Speaker 1: US posture on the USMCA that will tell you a
1:25:11
Speaker 1: little bit more about what this economy starts to look
1:25:14
Speaker 1: like in the next couple of years.
1:25:16
Speaker 2: Well, you know this is going to come to a
1:25:18
Speaker 2: head here pretty quickly, right, because the USMCA has to
1:25:21
Speaker 2: be renegotiated in the next few months. So you know,
1:25:25
Speaker 2: if the if the administration president doesn't focus on Mexico
1:25:29
Speaker 2: Canada in the next month, two or three, then I
1:25:32
Speaker 2: would think we're going to sail through pretty quickly here.
1:25:36
Speaker 2: And you know, I'm increasing on the mind that that's
1:25:38
Speaker 2: what's going to happen, because this goes to the affordability issue, right.
1:25:43
Speaker 1: I'm with you. I assume sometimes they're not going to
1:25:45
Speaker 1: mess with something and then you're like, yeah, all of
1:25:48
Speaker 1: a sudden, we decide, you know what, I want to
1:25:49
Speaker 1: go after the Mexican cartels, and it totally blows up
1:25:52
Speaker 1: the entire trade deal.
1:25:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, that's true. But I think he's I think
1:25:55
Speaker 2: the kind of the the the key here is the election,
1:25:59
Speaker 2: and every thing is focused on the election, and there
1:26:02
Speaker 2: is a clear understanding I think politically that affordability is
1:26:07
Speaker 2: top of mind for the voter. You could see that
1:26:09
Speaker 2: the last you know, special elections and in the sentiment surveys.
1:26:13
Speaker 2: So if that's the case, you know, maybe I'm you know,
1:26:17
Speaker 2: tariffs are pretty obviously not good for affordability. I mean,
1:26:20
Speaker 2: it's pretty obvious, and everybody knows it, including the American electorate.
1:26:23
Speaker 2: They know that that's not a good idea. They're paying
1:26:26
Speaker 2: a lot more for everything that they're importing. Important. We
1:26:29
Speaker 2: import a lot of stuff. So in that context, you know,
1:26:32
Speaker 2: it doesn't feel like you'd pick a fight. You know,
1:26:35
Speaker 2: with China Mexico they're you know, big trading partners, you know,
1:26:39
Speaker 2: just nail that down. The USMCA, you know, put some
1:26:42
Speaker 2: pressure to make sure there's more US content in the
1:26:46
Speaker 2: production that occurs, tweak the rules, but don't, you know,
1:26:50
Speaker 2: don't pick a fight. That would be my sense of thing.
1:26:52
Speaker 2: So when you ask what am I looking for? I'm
1:26:55
Speaker 2: looking for whether that gets on the radar screen on
1:26:58
Speaker 2: true social anytime next, you know, four to six, eight weeks.
1:27:02
Speaker 1: Because you're saying you actually hope he's not focused on it.
1:27:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's focused. There's focused on other stuff when there's
1:27:08
Speaker 2: plenty of stuff, you know obviously.
1:27:10
Speaker 1: Right, all right, let me ask a few sort of
1:27:12
Speaker 1: parochial questions. I have a soon to be college grad.
1:27:19
Speaker 1: What's the job market look like for new college graduates
1:27:21
Speaker 1: these days?
1:27:24
Speaker 2: It's tough, chuck, I mean really tough.
1:27:26
Speaker 1: I mean, let's just say we're discovering this and we're
1:27:28
Speaker 1: still five months away. Yeah, it's stuff out there.
1:27:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, really tough. And he goes back to the hiring freeze, right,
1:27:35
Speaker 2: I mean, who needs to get hired. It's your your
1:27:38
Speaker 2: your your kid. You know that's graduating from school. I
1:27:42
Speaker 2: mean the last graduating class has really struggled. Unemployment is
1:27:47
Speaker 2: you know, up a lot, you know in that particular
1:27:49
Speaker 2: group twenty somethings. Oh, here's an interesting stat if you
1:27:54
Speaker 2: go look at unemployment by educational attainment, the increase in
1:27:59
Speaker 2: unemployment over the past couple of years has been entirely
1:28:04
Speaker 2: for college educated. If you look at folks with no
1:28:06
Speaker 2: high school degree or a high school degree or some college,
1:28:12
Speaker 2: they're unemployment rate. It hasn't gone down, but it has
1:28:14
Speaker 2: not really gone up. It's really college educated.
1:28:16
Speaker 1: There's still an income gap between having and not right, Yeah, okay.
1:28:21
Speaker 2: But it's just the historically that if you got the
1:28:25
Speaker 2: college degree, you're golden, right, your unemployment rate was going
1:28:28
Speaker 2: to be low, and it's going to be much lower
1:28:29
Speaker 2: than it and it's not going to rise more quickly
1:28:31
Speaker 2: in an environment like the current one. But that goes
1:28:34
Speaker 2: back I think to AI it's starting to have an
1:28:37
Speaker 2: impact that goes back to the hiring rates, and the
1:28:38
Speaker 2: college educated would be the folks that we could get
1:28:40
Speaker 2: substituted out by AI, and that's where the issues are.
1:28:43
Speaker 1: So you got all the parents and said, hey, we
1:28:46
Speaker 1: got to we got to make sure our kids know
1:28:48
Speaker 1: how to code.
1:28:50
Speaker 2: I know, I know. And now it's it's all about
1:28:53
Speaker 2: embracing artificial intelligence. It really is. You've just got to
1:28:57
Speaker 2: embrace it, and you know it's got to be yours.
1:29:00
Speaker 2: So yeah, and I'm not sure you know, kids are
1:29:02
Speaker 2: getting the right kind of education in school. I mean,
1:29:04
Speaker 2: the faculty just aren't there yet. And that's a problem.
1:29:07
Speaker 2: So you got to do it almost on your own.
1:29:09
Speaker 2: You got to go out and do it. But you
1:29:10
Speaker 2: got you got to embrace it. You got to. You
1:29:12
Speaker 2: gotta be able to use it effectively because that's that's
1:29:16
Speaker 2: definitely where the jobs are.
1:29:17
Speaker 1: You know. It's interesting and I again I'm projecting on
1:29:21
Speaker 1: my own personal experiences, but they the new college president
1:29:25
Speaker 1: of my younger, my youngest UH is at SMU and
1:29:30
Speaker 1: the new president there I heard him and it used
1:29:32
Speaker 1: to be at UT Jay he has j Hertzel, Jay Hartzell.
1:29:35
Speaker 1: He just got terrific he's a good guy. He's got
1:29:39
Speaker 1: a theory that classical education is actually going to make
1:29:43
Speaker 1: a comeback. That that with. You know, we went basically
1:29:47
Speaker 1: a generation of specialization, right You and I went to
1:29:50
Speaker 1: college and there were still English majors. Then all of
1:29:52
Speaker 1: a sudden we said, we're not going to have any
1:29:53
Speaker 1: more English majors. I mean, there's a university right down
1:29:55
Speaker 1: the street where I live. They you know, it was
1:29:58
Speaker 1: a headline when they just decided, hey, you can major
1:30:00
Speaker 1: in English anymore at Marymount here in Arlington. And suddenly,
1:30:03
Speaker 1: you know, that became an contagious thing. And his theory
1:30:07
Speaker 1: is that actually that's going to come back, and maybe
1:30:10
Speaker 1: that'll be it, that'll be a good outcome. But we're
1:30:14
Speaker 1: but essentially you've got to rewire universities to be able
1:30:16
Speaker 1: to do that, right.
1:30:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that there's a lot of validity to that.
1:30:21
Speaker 2: You know, getting that degree in philosophy might not be
1:30:26
Speaker 2: a bad idea. It's really about learning a framework for
1:30:30
Speaker 2: thinking and being creative. And I don't know you get
1:30:34
Speaker 2: that if you go to you know, undergrad business school,
1:30:37
Speaker 2: you know, or you're you know, it's just I don't
1:30:40
Speaker 2: think you get that or you trained for pre law,
1:30:43
Speaker 2: you know, that kind of thing. So I think the
1:30:45
Speaker 2: way we think about education is changing very rapidly, and
1:30:49
Speaker 2: I think there's some some real validity to that. But
1:30:51
Speaker 2: I think to answer your question, what should your kid do,
1:30:55
Speaker 2: it's really about, you know, go find something some project
1:31:00
Speaker 2: embodies AI, embrace it, and they show that, you know,
1:31:06
Speaker 2: you've mastered the ability to harness the power of AI.
1:31:09
Speaker 2: Because that's what I'm looking I'll tell you that's what
1:31:11
Speaker 2: I'm looking for when I interview potential can and we're
1:31:15
Speaker 2: not hiring a whole lot, but when we hire, that's
1:31:17
Speaker 2: the kind of person I want, you know, someone who's
1:31:19
Speaker 2: shown not so much that they got a degree from
1:31:22
Speaker 2: you know, X y Z university. That's not what I
1:31:24
Speaker 2: care about anymore. It's really do they show that initiative,
1:31:27
Speaker 2: that they've gone out and done something and proven that
1:31:29
Speaker 2: they have that skill.
1:31:38
Speaker 1: Let me shift the housing. I thought it was interesting
1:31:42
Speaker 1: to hear Donald Trump used language that I might have
1:31:46
Speaker 1: heard Bernie Sanders use, which is, corporations don't live in homes.
1:31:49
Speaker 1: People do when he wanted to talk about banning sort
1:31:54
Speaker 1: of corporate private equity from buying up single family homes. Right,
1:31:59
Speaker 1: I think, you know, that's the populace in him, right,
1:32:02
Speaker 1: he knows like be careful where you walk that I
1:32:05
Speaker 1: think he frankly politically, that's he's certainly articulating it, I
1:32:10
Speaker 1: think in the right way. Is this a good time
1:32:13
Speaker 1: to buy a home?
1:32:16
Speaker 2: It's still very unaffordable, right for most Americans. You know,
1:32:22
Speaker 2: even with the recent decline in mortgage rates. One of
1:32:26
Speaker 2: the proposals he made yesterday was for Fannie May and Fredimac,
1:32:30
Speaker 2: the big mortgage companies, to go out and buy mortgage
1:32:32
Speaker 2: bonds in an effort to bring down mortgage rates. And
1:32:35
Speaker 2: mortgage rates actually have fallen today and we're now closer
1:32:38
Speaker 2: to six percent on a three year fix. But even
1:32:40
Speaker 2: if that's where they settle six percent, you know, the
1:32:43
Speaker 2: monthly mortgage payment on a typical home, a median priced
1:32:46
Speaker 2: home is probably going to be two thousand, two thousand,
1:32:51
Speaker 2: two hundred and fifty in that ballpark. That's double what
1:32:53
Speaker 2: it was before the pandemic, and so for most Americans,
1:32:57
Speaker 2: that's still very unaffordable. So the answer your question, is
1:33:00
Speaker 2: it a good time to buy? You know not? You know,
1:33:04
Speaker 2: I don't want I'm gonna pain with a broad I'm
1:33:05
Speaker 2: painting with a broad brush. It really depends on where
1:33:08
Speaker 2: you are and what kind of helm you're looking for,
1:33:10
Speaker 2: But generally speaking, it's still better to probably to rent
1:33:13
Speaker 2: than to buy.
1:33:14
Speaker 1: Uh. Well, let's look at it from the other perspective,
1:33:17
Speaker 1: because you hear that this is actually kind of a problem.
1:33:19
Speaker 1: You have a lot of older folks who are not selling. Yeah, right,
1:33:25
Speaker 1: because it's not that they don't want to profit from
1:33:30
Speaker 1: their house. They can't. You might sell something, but you
1:33:33
Speaker 1: can't afford to go replace right where you live. Is
1:33:37
Speaker 1: this a good time to sell a house?
1:33:40
Speaker 2: Uh? Probably, Probably, it's a difficult time to sell because
1:33:46
Speaker 2: there aren't a lot of buyers. It's a pretty.
1:33:49
Speaker 1: Start, even though inventory is narrow and small, because in theory,
1:33:52
Speaker 1: you would think with a with you know, we still
1:33:54
Speaker 1: we still have a housing shortage in this country. Correct. Yeah, yeah,
1:33:58
Speaker 1: when theory right, by the law of supplying demand, should
1:34:01
Speaker 1: be a good time to sell.
1:34:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just that they're not a lot of you know,
1:34:05
Speaker 2: at the price points that you want to sell at,
1:34:07
Speaker 2: you're not going to find a lot of buyers that
1:34:09
Speaker 2: can afford it, at least not yet. I mean, there
1:34:11
Speaker 2: is a proposal, and I think it's a good one
1:34:14
Speaker 2: because I made it with a few other colleagues where
1:34:19
Speaker 2: you would raise the capital gains exclusion on homes, and
1:34:25
Speaker 2: I probably limited to seniors people over the age of
1:34:28
Speaker 2: sixty five, because one of the problems is you've got
1:34:31
Speaker 2: these older homeowners that are living in these big homes
1:34:34
Speaker 2: that they made sense when they had kids, but they're
1:34:36
Speaker 2: empty nesters. They don't want to sell. They're sitting in
1:34:39
Speaker 2: New York, they're sitting in California, they're sitting in Miami,
1:34:43
Speaker 2: and the capital gains just doesn't make sense. You know,
1:34:48
Speaker 2: if you wait and you die and you bequeath, you
1:34:50
Speaker 2: get stepped up basis, so you don't play that capital
1:34:53
Speaker 2: gains tax. So people are doing that, and so you
1:34:55
Speaker 2: got a lot of it's a lot more than I
1:34:58
Speaker 2: think as well. Well understood that a lot of those
1:35:02
Speaker 2: folks that are sitting in homes that they really would
1:35:04
Speaker 2: sell if they could reduce that capital gains exclusion. So
1:35:07
Speaker 2: I in that exclusion that.
1:35:09
Speaker 1: Is two fifty used to be two fifty per person, right.
1:35:13
Speaker 2: For an individual, five hundred k for a couple couple. Right,
1:35:16
Speaker 2: So that was said in nineteen ninety seven. So if
1:35:18
Speaker 2: you just index that to say inflation double to five
1:35:24
Speaker 2: hundred k and a million, and you would get a
1:35:26
Speaker 2: lot more of those homes being sold, and you get
1:35:30
Speaker 2: to start of the market movement. That's what I.
1:35:31
Speaker 1: Would seems like. I mean, given this, I mean that
1:35:34
Speaker 1: seems like a no brainer. Why is that a difficult
1:35:37
Speaker 1: policy to get proposed to?
1:35:39
Speaker 2: Chuck? I mean, you know everything well on this one,
1:35:42
Speaker 2: I don't. I mean, because this is one Now there's
1:35:44
Speaker 2: a lot of support, right who.
1:35:46
Speaker 1: I think this is a left right easy layout.
1:35:49
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I think there is a lot of support
1:35:51
Speaker 2: on both the Republican and Democrats. And in fact that
1:35:53
Speaker 2: there's a reconciliation bill. If we get another.
1:35:55
Speaker 1: Piece of and you would expect that in there, I
1:35:58
Speaker 1: think that might make it through. I think even yeah, Well,
1:36:04
Speaker 1: I'm torn on reconciliation, meaning I think Trump, it's my
1:36:08
Speaker 1: understanding Trump is just lost interest in Congress and that
1:36:12
Speaker 1: there's a lot of Republicans nervous that even though they
1:36:15
Speaker 1: want to do a reconciliation, he doesn't want to do
1:36:17
Speaker 1: the heavy lift this time. He already did it once.
1:36:20
Speaker 1: I don't need to. I don't want to have to
1:36:22
Speaker 1: do it. Let me just go around Congress. So I
1:36:25
Speaker 1: don't know if we're gonna like I assumed reconciliation was
1:36:28
Speaker 1: going to happen, right, Why wouldn't you? And I've been
1:36:32
Speaker 1: not i want to say, waved off, but like, don't
1:36:34
Speaker 1: be shocked. He isn't interested in the moment.
1:36:37
Speaker 2: Oh interesting. Interesting, that may change pretty quickly if the
1:36:40
Speaker 2: economy doesn't cooperate, if we start losing jobs as a
1:36:43
Speaker 2: the you know, holding you know where we are, and
1:36:46
Speaker 2: he started, and there's some worry about how the election
1:36:48
Speaker 2: plays out as a result. Maybe get a quick change here,
1:36:51
Speaker 2: But reconciliation might not be that easy either, right, Chuck,
1:36:54
Speaker 2: I mean, I mean not that all feels like it's
1:36:57
Speaker 2: getting more and more independent from you know, the executive
1:37:00
Speaker 2: branch now, and it's not clear that you can marshal
1:37:03
Speaker 2: the votes, you know, even to get a majority in
1:37:05
Speaker 2: the House. So it's not clear that that would happen
1:37:08
Speaker 2: even if they wanted to.
1:37:09
Speaker 1: I'm actually entertaining the idea that the current majority party
1:37:13
Speaker 1: could lose its status before November looking at all of
1:37:17
Speaker 1: the you know, just you know, you had a lawmaker
1:37:21
Speaker 1: and a car accident, you had somebody dropped dead. Surprise,
1:37:24
Speaker 1: you know, this is it. You know, it's called actuary tables.
1:37:28
Speaker 1: Stuff happens, you.
1:37:29
Speaker 2: Know, stuff happens interesting, right.
1:37:31
Speaker 1: And our margins are so close, so so who knows there? Well,
1:37:34
Speaker 1: let me get you out of here on this, which
1:37:36
Speaker 1: is you? You, I assume live in a world of
1:37:39
Speaker 1: always trying to understand there's always risk. There's always risk
1:37:42
Speaker 1: that can impact the economy. If you were to prioritize
1:37:46
Speaker 1: the levels of risk, that could just sort of up
1:37:49
Speaker 1: into our economy. You know what's concerning you the most
1:37:56
Speaker 1: at the moment.
1:37:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know, I have this what I call
1:37:59
Speaker 2: risk matrix. I have to show it to you one
1:38:01
Speaker 2: of these days. The horizontal axis is the loss economic
1:38:06
Speaker 2: loss if the risk were to occur. The y axis
1:38:08
Speaker 2: the probability of risk. Because there's so many it's hard
1:38:11
Speaker 2: to keep my mind around them, right, But I would say,
1:38:15
Speaker 2: you know, the thing that, aside from when I ask
1:38:20
Speaker 2: people that question, you know, what's bothering you? What's worrying you?
1:38:24
Speaker 2: When I hear the word geopolitical risk, I think, okay, sure,
1:38:29
Speaker 2: but that's a pretty amorphous kind of you know, risk,
1:38:32
Speaker 2: and that's always there, and I think that, but I
1:38:35
Speaker 2: think it's fair to say, at this point in time
1:38:36
Speaker 2: that feels elevated you know, given what's going on, what's
1:38:40
Speaker 2: going on in Venezuela, which you can see what's going
1:38:43
Speaker 2: on in Iran, you know, China and Taiwan, Russia and Ukraine.
1:38:48
Speaker 2: Feels like that that's pretty elevated risk. But I think
1:38:51
Speaker 2: more concretely, I worry about going back to the stock market, right,
1:38:56
Speaker 2: I mean, it is being driven by euphoria over this
1:39:01
Speaker 2: technology AI, and it's very unproven that this is actually
1:39:08
Speaker 2: going to cut these expectations are going to be fulfilled.
1:39:12
Speaker 2: I mean, investors expect a lot from AI. They expect
1:39:14
Speaker 2: big adoption and implementation by business, big productivity gains, and
1:39:19
Speaker 2: big profit gains and profitability. And I'm not so sure
1:39:23
Speaker 2: if the stock market were to correct, and I think
1:39:26
Speaker 2: that's a real significant possibility that knocks a big leg
1:39:29
Speaker 2: out of growth and potential for much weaker economy or research.
1:39:33
Speaker 1: I was reading it somebody's sort of right up of
1:39:37
Speaker 1: the history of the railroads and comparing the first run
1:39:42
Speaker 1: up of a railroad investment that actually all went belly up.
1:39:46
Speaker 1: Yeah and yeah, so yes, everybody was right the railroads
1:39:50
Speaker 1: were going to transform the economy, right, And they did
1:39:53
Speaker 1: transform the economy about ten years after a bunch of
1:39:57
Speaker 1: people lost early bets on that transformation.
1:39:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, that's the that's the I think that's the
1:40:02
Speaker 2: typical history of big technological changes, and so that you know,
1:40:07
Speaker 2: that may not happen to the same degree this go around,
1:40:09
Speaker 2: but you know, investors are expecting a lot, I mean
1:40:11
Speaker 2: an awful lot, and they may not get it.
1:40:13
Speaker 1: Is there anything out there that's like the housing crisis
1:40:16
Speaker 1: of nine that would create contasion? Right? Is crypto that
1:40:21
Speaker 1: way or is AI that way? Or are both of
1:40:23
Speaker 1: them small enough that it would be more like frankly,
1:40:26
Speaker 1: the Internet receptor, the Internet bubble recession of two thousand.
1:40:30
Speaker 2: No, you know what, Chuck. You know, if there's a problem,
1:40:34
Speaker 2: it probably will be in the plumbting of the financial system,
1:40:36
Speaker 2: the funding markets. I mean, if you look at how
1:40:40
Speaker 2: the government and businesses are funding themselves, you know, they
1:40:43
Speaker 2: borrow lots of money, and you look at that system,
1:40:46
Speaker 2: there's it just feels very fragile to me. And there's
1:40:50
Speaker 2: a lot of volatility in that market.
1:40:52
Speaker 1: What would be the call that's a that's sort of
1:40:54
Speaker 1: like who's who's making the margin call that all of
1:40:57
Speaker 1: a sudden crumbles.
1:40:58
Speaker 2: That well, I mean, it could It could simply be
1:41:03
Speaker 2: one of these AI companies do does default on some uh,
1:41:08
Speaker 2: some obligation, some debt, and that just changes the kind
1:41:11
Speaker 2: of psychology that you know that we're often running here
1:41:15
Speaker 2: that you know, there's more risk here than we think,
1:41:17
Speaker 2: and that's that's that's that kind of contagion that could
1:41:21
Speaker 2: cause creditors to stop lending and the markets to start freezing.
1:41:26
Speaker 2: Or it could be you know, uh, the Treasury decides
1:41:32
Speaker 2: to because the deficit is now very large and it's
1:41:35
Speaker 2: going to balloon here, you know, pretty significantly, they got
1:41:37
Speaker 2: to issue a lot of debt. Maybe they move from
1:41:40
Speaker 2: issuing a lot of longer term debt to shorter term
1:41:42
Speaker 2: debt because they want to keep long term rates down
1:41:45
Speaker 2: and there's so much debt that you know, people say,
1:41:48
Speaker 2: oh my gosh, we can't digest this. Uh and uh
1:41:52
Speaker 2: the hedge fund community, which is a big player in
1:41:55
Speaker 2: these markets, to side this isn't the an investment we
1:41:58
Speaker 2: want to make. They all run for the door the
1:42:00
Speaker 2: same time, and we got a funding crisis. So I
1:42:03
Speaker 2: think it's hard to answer that question because these things
1:42:06
Speaker 2: are off the radar screen, right. But the thing that
1:42:10
Speaker 2: makes me nervous is that part of the financial system.
1:42:12
Speaker 2: It's the literal plumbing where businesses and government get their
1:42:18
Speaker 2: short term cash, get their funding to you know, keep
1:42:21
Speaker 2: keep the doors open and keep things moving forward. It
1:42:23
Speaker 2: just feels tenuous to me, you know at this point.
1:42:27
Speaker 1: Well it's my understanding. Hemingway is the one who wrote
1:42:30
Speaker 1: the line that with bankruptcy first it happened slowly, then quickly,
1:42:33
Speaker 1: and like it feels like everything in the financial sector
1:42:36
Speaker 1: is that way. You're like, something's happening slowly and then
1:42:39
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, the hockey stick moment comes. Katy
1:42:44
Speaker 1: bar the door.
1:42:44
Speaker 2: Right exactly, exactly, Yeah, very much. So that's a great remark.
1:42:50
Speaker 1: Great to get an update. I don't feel as pessimistic
1:42:53
Speaker 1: as I did after the last time we talked, but
1:42:55
Speaker 1: I I definitely feel fairly uneasy.
1:42:59
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well that's an impresement. I wanted you, Todd, go.
1:43:03
Speaker 1: From being from being totally pessimistic to just fairly uneasy. Yeah.
1:43:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's what that's what I was going for. Yeah, exactly,
1:43:10
Speaker 2: I got you where I want you. Yeah, all right,
1:43:13
Speaker 2: did you see I have a glass of wine, so
1:43:14
Speaker 2: I'm a little bit more mellow than you are.
1:43:16
Speaker 1: So well, there you go, Uh, GDP growth over under
1:43:20
Speaker 1: three percent for calendar year twenty twenty six.
1:43:23
Speaker 2: Oh, definitely under two and a half percent. Yeah, definitely
1:43:26
Speaker 2: under I think that'd be my guess.
1:43:29
Speaker 1: Why pick three just because that's a Donald Trump I
1:43:33
Speaker 1: feel like three percent is the road, anything below is
1:43:36
Speaker 1: sort of static. No, got it?
1:43:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, that's fair. Two and a half percent would
1:43:40
Speaker 2: be consistent with the economy's potential stable unemployment.
1:43:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, there's sort of It's sort of like, right,
1:43:46
Speaker 1: the uh A cost of living adjustment versus a race. Yeah,
1:43:50
Speaker 1: but right, I feel like two and a half percent
1:43:52
Speaker 1: is cola. Three percent is growth as a race.
1:43:55
Speaker 2: That's good, But I caution using GDP, I'm not sure. Yeah,
1:43:59
Speaker 2: I mean gbgp's this weird thing we talked a little
1:44:02
Speaker 2: bit about that. I'd focus on those jobs, I mean
1:44:05
Speaker 2: in unemployment. So the question is hired a five percent
1:44:08
Speaker 2: or closer to four percent? You know my baseline.
1:44:11
Speaker 1: Let me ask you this raw jobs. Are we going
1:44:13
Speaker 1: to be net positive or net negative?
1:44:15
Speaker 2: You know, I want to say it's we're going to
1:44:19
Speaker 2: be tough to be in the positive. After all the
1:44:21
Speaker 2: revisions are in, It's going to be tough to be
1:44:24
Speaker 2: you know, in positive territory.
1:44:25
Speaker 1: Hey, very before I let you go, do you care
1:44:28
Speaker 1: about the prediction markets? Do you monitor them?
1:44:31
Speaker 2: I watched them, Yeah, I do. I mean for things
1:44:33
Speaker 2: like who they think the next bet chair is going
1:44:37
Speaker 2: to be. I think there's some value there, you know,
1:44:40
Speaker 2: some Yeah.
1:44:40
Speaker 1: It's interesting that Warsh's numbers get stronger, doesn't it.
1:44:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is right. I think he's I think last
1:44:46
Speaker 2: I looked, Tasset was forty four and he was forty percent.
1:44:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean all of the if you were just
1:44:51
Speaker 1: to judge by Washington commentary, it's hass it, it's acid. Yeah,
1:44:55
Speaker 1: I know. But I noticed that this is one of
1:44:57
Speaker 1: the few places where there's been a counter And you're right,
1:45:00
Speaker 1: that's I'm curious to see if that's said.
1:45:02
Speaker 2: Someone made a fortune betting on Venezuela getting in you know, yeah,
1:45:07
Speaker 2: I'd like to.
1:45:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is why I'm I find them interesting. Based
1:45:11
Speaker 1: on who's leaking information, I'm not sure whether they're trustworthy.
1:45:15
Speaker 2: Good point. That's good point. Good point.
1:45:17
Speaker 1: Anyway. Hey, well, thank you, I'll see you so well.
1:45:28
Speaker 1: Remember I am not here to give you investment advice.
1:45:31
Speaker 1: Mark Zandy is not here to give you investment advice.
1:45:33
Speaker 1: We are here to give you the factual look at
1:45:37
Speaker 1: what to think about as the year goes on, as
1:45:40
Speaker 1: you prepare. That's why I liked asking him certain questions.
1:45:43
Speaker 1: This is a good time to find a job or
1:45:44
Speaker 1: a hard time to find a job? Right, good time
1:45:46
Speaker 1: to buy a house, hard time. The fact that he
1:45:48
Speaker 1: said bad time to buy a house, bad time to
1:45:50
Speaker 1: find a job. That is the definition of a bad economy,
1:45:55
Speaker 1: just because it isn't technically a recession. To me, if
1:45:58
Speaker 1: those two things are difficult, you might as well. This
1:46:04
Speaker 1: is why Americans feel as if this economy is either
1:46:07
Speaker 1: going into recession or might already be in one. All right,
1:46:11
Speaker 1: let me go into the time machine, the podcast time machine.
1:46:19
Speaker 1: We're going to go back, as I said, little more
1:46:21
Speaker 1: than one hundred years ago, and as you know, I
1:46:24
Speaker 1: like to use the week that is, so it's January
1:46:26
Speaker 1: twelfth through the eighteenth. Okay, all right, I'm fudging fudging
1:46:31
Speaker 1: here a little bit because the event I'm going back
1:46:33
Speaker 1: to is actually in January eighth, nineteen eighteen. But it
1:46:37
Speaker 1: was the reaction to set event on January eighteenth that
1:46:40
Speaker 1: began trickling in on January twelve, thirteen and fourteenth. So
1:46:44
Speaker 1: I feel I feel like I can get away with
1:46:47
Speaker 1: this fudging of a day or two on it. So
1:46:52
Speaker 1: what am I talking about? January eighth, nineteen eighteen. It
1:46:56
Speaker 1: is the day that the sitting President of the United
1:46:59
Speaker 1: States at the time, would Or Wilson, decided to lay
1:47:03
Speaker 1: out a blueprint of what the world could look like
1:47:09
Speaker 1: for the rest of the twentieth century as a way. Essentially,
1:47:14
Speaker 1: what it was was a speech that outlined which eventually
1:47:16
Speaker 1: would become the twentieth century world order. So let's go
1:47:21
Speaker 1: back to it. It's a moment when the United States
1:47:27
Speaker 1: tried and it wasn't the first time we tried it
1:47:30
Speaker 1: at the time, but it was the fierce time we
1:47:32
Speaker 1: tried it in a more in its purest form, if
1:47:36
Speaker 1: you will, to define what kind of global power we
1:47:40
Speaker 1: wanted to be. And we didn't want to do it
1:47:43
Speaker 1: through conquest. We didn't want it to do it through
1:47:45
Speaker 1: empire building. We were trying to do it through ideas.
1:47:49
Speaker 1: And you have to understand, you know, we had just
1:47:52
Speaker 1: seen the fall of the Ottoman Empire, we had just
1:47:54
Speaker 1: seen the fall of other empires. We were still thinking
1:47:58
Speaker 1: an empire. We had a the Russian Revolution. It just
1:48:01
Speaker 1: sort of began, and it was doing its own form
1:48:05
Speaker 1: of empire building, and we were This was Woodrow Wilson
1:48:08
Speaker 1: making the case that we shouldn't have any more empires.
1:48:11
Speaker 1: So it's January nineteen eighteen. War War one is still raging.
1:48:15
Speaker 1: Millions have died from this great war. Europe is physically
1:48:19
Speaker 1: shattered and psychologically exhausted. Russia has just collapsed from its
1:48:25
Speaker 1: into its own revolution. No one knows how the war's
1:48:29
Speaker 1: going to end, or what replaces the old order when
1:48:33
Speaker 1: it does. So. Into that uncertainty stepped Woodrow Wilson, standing
1:48:37
Speaker 1: before a joint session of Congress. This was no state
1:48:40
Speaker 1: of the Union. This was a speech to a joint session.
1:48:44
Speaker 1: And what he delivers is not a battle plan. It's
1:48:47
Speaker 1: not even really a peace plan. It is a vision,
1:48:50
Speaker 1: his vision and how the world should work. And what's
1:48:52
Speaker 1: remarkable about it is is it essentially was the blueprint
1:48:57
Speaker 1: the time. The speech was radical. Wilson's speech, what we
1:49:00
Speaker 1: now call the Fourteen Points Speech, was radical not because
1:49:04
Speaker 1: it promised victory, but because it rejected the logic that
1:49:07
Speaker 1: had produced the war in the first place. Europe had
1:49:11
Speaker 1: spent centuries operating on the following premises, secret treaties, balance
1:49:16
Speaker 1: of power, politics, imperial competition, spheres of influence, if you
1:49:20
Speaker 1: will right well, Wilson thought the system was obsolete and dangerous,
1:49:26
Speaker 1: and he opens with a direct shot at old diplomacy.
1:49:28
Speaker 1: He said, this open covenants of peace openly arrived at,
1:49:31
Speaker 1: after which there shall be no private international understandings of
1:49:35
Speaker 1: any kind. That sentence alone was considered revolutionary. There were
1:49:40
Speaker 1: there would be no more secret deals, there'd be no
1:49:43
Speaker 1: more hidden clauses. There'd be no alliances that quietly obligated
1:49:47
Speaker 1: nations to die for decisions that were made behind closed doors.
1:49:52
Speaker 1: Wilson believed secrecy is what caused World War One, these
1:49:56
Speaker 1: bizarre alliances that forced countries in the war that some
1:49:59
Speaker 1: of whom didn't want to be in. So transparency, he believed,
1:50:03
Speaker 1: might have actually might prevent the next war. Yes, it's idealistic,
1:50:09
Speaker 1: but hey, that was America. That is what it is
1:50:12
Speaker 1: to be an American is to sometimes espouse the idealistic
1:50:16
Speaker 1: and see if you can find a path close to it.
1:50:19
Speaker 1: Immediately alarms. What's funny is that immediately his speech alarms
1:50:24
Speaker 1: the European powers who have been living and thriving on
1:50:27
Speaker 1: these secret arrangements. So The speech is called fourteen points,
1:50:33
Speaker 1: but really Wilson is advancing four big principles in this speech.
1:50:38
Speaker 1: The biggest one is openness and transparency. This is the
1:50:42
Speaker 1: moral core of Wilson. He argues that diplomacy should be
1:50:45
Speaker 1: accountable not just to governments, but to people. How radical right.
1:50:50
Speaker 1: This is the first time a world leader frames foreign
1:50:53
Speaker 1: policy is something that must be legitimate in the eyes
1:50:55
Speaker 1: of the public, not just effective for elites. E. It
1:51:00
Speaker 1: can't just be transactional just for people in power. Just
1:51:04
Speaker 1: because you get rich off of a deal President Trump,
1:51:07
Speaker 1: doesn't mean it's necessarily good for America in nineteen eighteen.
1:51:12
Speaker 1: That's a new idea because for much of the previous
1:51:16
Speaker 1: century the world worked the way Donald Trump wants the
1:51:19
Speaker 1: world to work today. The second big idea is economic
1:51:24
Speaker 1: interdependence AH and economic internationalism, not economic nationalism. So Wilson
1:51:31
Speaker 1: calls for free trade, freedom of the seas, and equal
1:51:34
Speaker 1: economic access all right, not outcomes, just access. He says
1:51:39
Speaker 1: this in the speech, the removal, so far as possible,
1:51:41
Speaker 1: of all economic barriers and the establishment of equality of
1:51:44
Speaker 1: trade conditions among all the nations consenting to the peace,
1:51:51
Speaker 1: free trade for those that want peace. This is the
1:51:54
Speaker 1: intellectual ancestor of globalization, the idea that shared prosper makes
1:52:01
Speaker 1: war irrational. There's a lot of truthiness to this, and
1:52:05
Speaker 1: what happens when you have When the biggest country on
1:52:08
Speaker 1: Earth decides to pursue economic nationalism, so does everybody else.
1:52:13
Speaker 1: And that's why I have my opening monologue in this episode,
1:52:18
Speaker 1: which is twenty twenty six, the year we're living dangerously.
1:52:22
Speaker 1: Back to Wilson, he's betting that capitalism plus rules will
1:52:26
Speaker 1: equal peace. Yes, it's idealistic, but guess what it is
1:52:30
Speaker 1: the whole point of who we are and what we
1:52:33
Speaker 1: claim that we want to be. It's a bet that
1:52:35
Speaker 1: the twentieth century keeps making with frankly mixed results. Though
1:52:40
Speaker 1: it had been it was really good for the free world.
1:52:43
Speaker 1: Third point of his speech was self determination. This may
1:52:46
Speaker 1: be the most explosive idea in the speech. At the time.
1:52:49
Speaker 1: Wilson is arguing that people, not empires, should decide their
1:52:52
Speaker 1: political futures. Not everybody has embraced democracy in nineteen eighteen. Okay,
1:52:56
Speaker 1: borders should reflect identity, language, and consent. This line electrifies Europe.
1:53:02
Speaker 1: It also quietly terrifies the imperial powers, because once you say,
1:53:06
Speaker 1: self determination. You can't easily limit it to Europeans. Colonized
1:53:10
Speaker 1: peoples in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East are listening
1:53:12
Speaker 1: quite closely and noticing in what parts of the world
1:53:17
Speaker 1: Wilson has chosen to stay silent. A League of nations.
1:53:23
Speaker 1: The final point is the most important one. Right Wilson
1:53:25
Speaker 1: proposes a general association of nations must be formed for
1:53:29
Speaker 1: the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and
1:53:32
Speaker 1: territorial integrity to great and small states alike. This is
1:53:37
Speaker 1: the heart of Wilsonianism. This is something the right. There
1:53:41
Speaker 1: are elements of the right that have hated Wilson. If
1:53:44
Speaker 1: those of you remember, Glenn Beck has been obsessed with
1:53:47
Speaker 1: being an anti Wilsonian for years. It's because of this right.
1:53:50
Speaker 1: It's the fear of a global world order. It's the
1:53:54
Speaker 1: fear that America isn't exceptional compared to everybody else on Earth.
1:53:59
Speaker 1: Our ideas are exceptional compared to a lot of people
1:54:01
Speaker 1: on Earth, but you don't accept the premise that we
1:54:06
Speaker 1: all should have equal access to the opportunity that we want.
1:54:12
Speaker 1: So there's been a fight over Wilsonianism for over one
1:54:16
Speaker 1: hundred years, ever since he said it He believed in
1:54:20
Speaker 1: collective security, permanent diplomacy, and an international body designed not
1:54:23
Speaker 1: to win wars, but to simply prevent them. It is
1:54:26
Speaker 1: the philosophical foundation of the United Nations, NATO, and the
1:54:29
Speaker 1: post World War two Liberal Order nineteen eighteen. Though it
1:54:32
Speaker 1: was just an idea. Now, look, we're going to get
1:54:36
Speaker 1: to the different comparisons. I mean, I think in the
1:54:39
Speaker 1: Wilsonian idealistic mindset, you know, those that would be in
1:54:43
Speaker 1: this League of Nations had to actually agree to these
1:54:45
Speaker 1: principles of freedom, of democracy, of power to the people.
1:54:49
Speaker 1: I think the flaw in the United Nations is accepting
1:54:52
Speaker 1: any country, no matter how they treat their people. But
1:54:55
Speaker 1: I digress. So why was the world listening? And here
1:54:58
Speaker 1: why did the speech matter so?
1:55:00
Speaker 2: Well?
1:55:00
Speaker 1: Here's why it mattered so much. Wilson isn't speaking as
1:55:03
Speaker 1: a defeated power or a desperate one. Right the United
1:55:06
Speaker 1: States enters World War One late, our economy is booming,
1:55:11
Speaker 1: our cities are intact, our population has not been traumatized
1:55:15
Speaker 1: the way Europe's was. Wilson wanted to position America not
1:55:20
Speaker 1: as a conqueror, but as an arbiter. He says, this
1:55:24
Speaker 1: what we seek is the reign of law based upon
1:55:26
Speaker 1: the consent of the governed, practice what we preach right now, Look,
1:55:31
Speaker 1: we hadn't We weren't a perfect union in nineteen eighteen.
1:55:33
Speaker 1: Not everybody had the right to vote nineteen eighteen. So
1:55:35
Speaker 1: I don't want to I don't want to sugarcoat that,
1:55:38
Speaker 1: but we certainly were trying to build a more perfect union.
1:55:42
Speaker 1: And in that principle was one that Wilson was articulating
1:55:45
Speaker 1: for the world, and the line landed to exhausted Europeans.
1:55:50
Speaker 1: Wilson sounded like the future to small nations. He also
1:55:54
Speaker 1: sounded like a protector to old empires. He sounded like
1:55:58
Speaker 1: a threat. So let's fast forward to nineteen nineteen. Right,
1:56:05
Speaker 1: this is a year after he gives the famous speech.
1:56:07
Speaker 1: The war is over, the Paris Peace Conference begins, and
1:56:11
Speaker 1: this is where Wilson's vision collides with power politics. France
1:56:14
Speaker 1: wants Germany weakened permanently. Britain wants to preserve its empire
1:56:19
Speaker 1: whatever was left. Italy wants territory. Everyone wants guarantees. Wilson
1:56:24
Speaker 1: wants principles. He famously says there must not be a
1:56:28
Speaker 1: balance of power, but a community of power. I know
1:56:31
Speaker 1: it sounds naive, but my gosh, it's good to know
1:56:34
Speaker 1: somebody tried. But Paris is not a seminar. It's a
1:56:37
Speaker 1: negotiation among traumatized nations. The result is the Treaty of Versailles,
1:56:42
Speaker 1: which of course essentially signs the death warrant for so
1:56:46
Speaker 1: many because it helps bring upon World War two. Germany
1:56:50
Speaker 1: is punished, borders are redrawn in perfectly, self determination is
1:56:53
Speaker 1: applied inconsistently, Resentment is baked into the peace. All Wilson
1:56:58
Speaker 1: got was an agreement on the legal nations, but it
1:57:01
Speaker 1: was at a steep cost elsewhere. And of course the
1:57:04
Speaker 1: ultimate irony was the United States, the country that proposed
1:57:10
Speaker 1: said League of Nations, never joins it. The Senate rejects
1:57:13
Speaker 1: the treaty, isolation is and wins. Wilson campaigns for it anyway,
1:57:17
Speaker 1: he collapses from a stroke. It looks like it's all over.
1:57:21
Speaker 1: America invents modern international idealism and walks away from it.
1:57:25
Speaker 1: Such an American thing to do, sometimes right, This is
1:57:28
Speaker 1: the moment, though, that the world something learns something lasting
1:57:31
Speaker 1: about the United States. American leadership is powerful, but it
1:57:36
Speaker 1: is not always permanent, and the American people sometimes don't
1:57:43
Speaker 1: always follow the path that a leader wants them to take.
1:57:49
Speaker 2: Anyway.
1:57:50
Speaker 1: It's an important speech because you could argue every major
1:57:53
Speaker 1: global debate that we have today traces back to this speech.
1:57:56
Speaker 1: Ukraine that self determination versus fears of influence, Venezuela, same thing, Taiwan,
1:58:04
Speaker 1: same thing. So look, it's an important speech. Widrow Wilson.
1:58:13
Speaker 1: I know there's there is plenty of stuff and plenty
1:58:23
Speaker 1: of his political views that are a little that are terrible.
1:58:27
Speaker 1: I think he was He dabbled in eugenics. He certainly
1:58:30
Speaker 1: was an avowed racist. A lot of Americans were avowed
1:58:35
Speaker 1: racist back then, Teddy Roosevelt, there were quite a few.
1:58:41
Speaker 1: But this is why you got to be careful of
1:58:42
Speaker 1: a racing history. Every political leader in America has had
1:58:48
Speaker 1: good and bad. The question is how much of the
1:58:51
Speaker 1: good outweighed the bad, how much of the bad outweigh
1:58:52
Speaker 1: the good. That's a debate that sometimes lasts forever with
1:58:55
Speaker 1: certain presidents, others not so much. But the bottom line
1:59:00
Speaker 1: is the world you know, the world order that did
1:59:07
Speaker 1: keep relative peace in the twentieth century, that essentially gave
1:59:13
Speaker 1: America soft power. One could argue it was Wilson himself
1:59:20
Speaker 1: that helped build it and sparked the idea that helped
1:59:25
Speaker 1: build the mechanism that gave us the soft power advantage
1:59:31
Speaker 1: that we've all benefited from. And we can find flaws
1:59:36
Speaker 1: in this system that have hurt certain communities at different times,
1:59:41
Speaker 1: but the overall trajectory for this country has been positive.
1:59:45
Speaker 1: Taking all of that away, completely, reversing everything we've pursued
1:59:50
Speaker 1: over the last hundred years puts America in a place
1:59:55
Speaker 1: that I think we are not going to like anyway.
2:00:00
Speaker 1: There's your there's your time machine for the week. Wilson's
2:00:05
Speaker 1: fourteen point speech. If you've never read it, go take
2:00:09
Speaker 1: a look. It's amazing how how both pressure it was
2:00:14
Speaker 1: and at the same time how naive it could sound,
2:00:17
Speaker 1: and at the same time how kind of a bummer
2:00:22
Speaker 1: it is that there's we're not really having any good
2:00:25
Speaker 1: debates like this today. It would be nice I do
2:00:36
Speaker 1: all right, let's do a little Ask Chuck, Ask Chuck.
2:00:44
Speaker 1: Remember Ask Chuck. You can email any questions to ask
2:00:48
Speaker 1: Chuck at thechucktodcast dot com. You can do it in
2:00:51
Speaker 1: the comments section of YouTube. You can do it. We
2:00:55
Speaker 1: will take a look at the replies and acts and
2:00:59
Speaker 1: Instagram and Facebook. It's a little harder to get those questions,
2:01:02
Speaker 1: but you want to leave questions there. Great. We really
2:01:05
Speaker 1: encourage you to add to so that we actually see
2:01:09
Speaker 1: these questions, to send them to ask Chuck at the
2:01:10
Speaker 1: Chuck podcast dot com. And with that, let's get into
2:01:14
Speaker 1: a few questions. I'm gonna read these first two straight
2:01:18
Speaker 1: up and then respond to both of them collective. They're
2:01:20
Speaker 1: both about Minneapolis. Number one, loving the fired up Chuck
2:01:24
Speaker 1: Todd this morning. Amen, everything you said on the podcast,
2:01:26
Speaker 1: Thank you for speaking out. We need more voices of
2:01:28
Speaker 1: reason like yours right now. Pat Ps, I live in Minneapolis.
2:01:31
Speaker 1: Of the episode hit especially close to home. Here's another comment, Chuck,
2:01:35
Speaker 1: thank you from the bottom of my heart for today's
2:01:36
Speaker 1: special episode on ice in Minneapolis. I'm heartbroken for my city.
2:01:39
Speaker 1: I'm terrified Trump will use this as an excuse to
2:01:41
Speaker 1: come in stronger and destroy our kindness. Please keep using
2:01:44
Speaker 1: your platform for this truth bomb. I appreciate you so much.
2:01:47
Speaker 1: All the best, Kim. Look, it's why I spend some time.
2:01:53
Speaker 1: I hope you've digested the Ruby Ridge comparison. You know
2:01:58
Speaker 1: everybody wants to quickly everybody's reaction to Minneapolis in a
2:02:02
Speaker 1: left prism or a right prism. I'm here what is
2:02:06
Speaker 1: right and what is wrong? All I am begging our
2:02:10
Speaker 1: elected officials to do is to put themselves in the
2:02:15
Speaker 1: shoes of Renee Good when they want to protest a
2:02:19
Speaker 1: policy they don't agree with, do they think responding with
2:02:22
Speaker 1: lethal force is the right answer here? Political views should
2:02:29
Speaker 1: not justify violence in the United States of America. We
2:02:33
Speaker 1: have constitutional rights for a reason. All right. Next question
2:02:41
Speaker 1: comes from Scott L. Navy veteran Jacksonville, Florida. He goes,
2:02:45
Speaker 1: I got a couple of questions I've been mulling over. First,
2:02:47
Speaker 1: I can't help but wonder why the US hasn't taken
2:02:49
Speaker 1: stronger action to remove the leader of Haiti. Does it
2:02:51
Speaker 1: all come down to a lack of strategic interest like oil?
2:02:55
Speaker 1: And Second, do you think Rob Emmanuel could realistically pose
2:02:57
Speaker 1: a challenge to Gavin Newsom for the Democratic presidential nomination?
2:03:01
Speaker 1: And Scott wants to also says hashtag Navy veteran from Jacksonville, Florida,
2:03:06
Speaker 1: You should also say Jaguar fail. Right, It's a let's
2:03:10
Speaker 1: hope this is a that that the Jaguars can get
2:03:15
Speaker 1: some positive vibes in the NFL playoffs. And I am fully.
2:03:20
Speaker 1: I will admit I am responding to this question in
2:03:23
Speaker 1: the middle of said game. But I digress. I'm with
2:03:29
Speaker 1: you on Haiti, right, I and your I have a
2:03:34
Speaker 1: your Your initial cynicism is my cynicism. Right. If there
2:03:38
Speaker 1: was a natural resource that was seen as incredibly important
2:03:43
Speaker 1: in the United States, do I think we'd be taking
2:03:47
Speaker 1: a stronger hand in Haiti? I would that, said man.
2:03:52
Speaker 1: Presidents of both parties have screwed up Haiti. It has
2:03:57
Speaker 1: been a hard thing to get at the right. There's
2:04:01
Speaker 1: we've we don't seem to ever get Haiti right. You know,
2:04:08
Speaker 1: you look, it's one of those you know, one of
2:04:10
Speaker 1: the great mysteries to me is this island of Hispaniola, right,
2:04:14
Speaker 1: this mountain range that separates the Dominican Republic from Haiti,
2:04:17
Speaker 1: and the Dominican Republic is in one of these great
2:04:20
Speaker 1: tourist spots, one of the great place many Americans I
2:04:23
Speaker 1: know love going to the Dominican have a great time.
2:04:26
Speaker 1: It's such a great stable country, producer of incredible baseball talent,
2:04:30
Speaker 1: and all sorts of other things. We you know, most
2:04:33
Speaker 1: of the if you're a cigar smoker, your favorite cigars,
2:04:36
Speaker 1: many of them are rolled in and grown and the
2:04:39
Speaker 1: tobacco grown in the Dominican and yet this mountain range
2:04:43
Speaker 1: and we have and then you have Haiti like it
2:04:45
Speaker 1: just it's it's it's heartbreaking and somebody grew up in Miami.
2:04:48
Speaker 1: The whole thing is heartbreaking and it's it's it's an
2:04:53
Speaker 1: amazing culture. The Haitian culture, art culture, food cultures is
2:04:57
Speaker 1: just it's a real treat. If you've if you've never
2:05:00
Speaker 1: experienced it, and I highly encourage it, but I've been.
2:05:10
Speaker 1: You know, this decision to outsource, you know, it's weird
2:05:13
Speaker 1: if if we're gonna, are we going to cherry pick
2:05:16
Speaker 1: what's America first? In the hemisphere? Right? Look, instability in
2:05:20
Speaker 1: Haiti is not good for stability in South Florida.
2:05:23
Speaker 2: You know.
2:05:24
Speaker 1: Instability in Haiti is not good for stability in the Caribbean.
2:05:27
Speaker 1: Instability in the Caribbean is not good for the United States. So, uh,
2:05:31
Speaker 1: I think we need to figure out how to be
2:05:33
Speaker 1: a better, uh, a better partner here in Haiti. But look,
2:05:38
Speaker 1: there's a lot of corruption. The gang issue is has been,
2:05:43
Speaker 1: you know, and and if it is sending the US
2:05:46
Speaker 1: military the answer, right like, is that really gonna work?
2:05:51
Speaker 1: The outsourcing to Kenya Uh. I know there's been some
2:05:57
Speaker 1: concern that their rules of engagement are not the same
2:06:00
Speaker 1: as maybe what the United States or what other American
2:06:03
Speaker 1: militaries would use. So it is I suspect we'll turn
2:06:10
Speaker 1: our focus to Haiti after we're done focusing on Venezuela
2:06:13
Speaker 1: and Cuba. And who's to say that even happens at all.
2:06:16
Speaker 1: But let me add one more cynical response to your
2:06:22
Speaker 1: question there, Scott, which is, if the Haitian political community
2:06:26
Speaker 1: had more political power in South Florida, would South Florida
2:06:33
Speaker 1: members of Congress care more about the issue itself and
2:06:36
Speaker 1: bring that attention right. The reason Venezuela is on top
2:06:40
Speaker 1: of the president's agenda, the reason Cuba's near the top
2:06:43
Speaker 1: of the president's agenda because Marco Ruby has made sure
2:06:46
Speaker 1: it has. Haiti's not a priority for him. So therefore
2:06:50
Speaker 1: Haiti hasn't been a priority for Donald Trump. So that
2:06:53
Speaker 1: would be another aspect of this. But unstable Haiti's bad
2:06:57
Speaker 1: for not just Haiti, but it's bad for the United States,
2:07:00
Speaker 1: it's bad for South Florida, it's bad for the Caribbean.
2:07:04
Speaker 1: But it does feel as if this shouldn't be an
2:07:06
Speaker 1: American alone answer right. You know, we need the help
2:07:09
Speaker 1: of everybody in the Caribbean on this one. As for
2:07:13
Speaker 1: your question on rom Emmanuel, I'm skeptical that either Ram
2:07:16
Speaker 1: or Gavin. Look, I don't know how much you know.
2:07:24
Speaker 1: I look at this is is Gavin Newsome the tortoise
2:07:29
Speaker 1: of the hair right if you want to use that.
2:07:32
Speaker 1: He looks like a hair to me, he's raced out
2:07:35
Speaker 1: in front by being the guy that will take on Trump.
2:07:39
Speaker 1: But I'm not sure being the guy that takes on
2:07:40
Speaker 1: Trump is the number one thing Democratic primary voters are
2:07:44
Speaker 1: going to want in January of twenty twenty eight. It
2:07:47
Speaker 1: may be what they want right now because Donald Trump
2:07:49
Speaker 1: is the threat that's in front of them. So you're
2:07:54
Speaker 1: asking me, I don't stand with the premise. I don't
2:07:57
Speaker 1: view Gavin as the front run. I view Gavin is
2:08:00
Speaker 1: sort of being the chief anti Trump spokesperson for the
2:08:04
Speaker 1: party right now, who's got the most credibility with the
2:08:06
Speaker 1: base of the party, being the anti Trumper. But I'm
2:08:10
Speaker 1: not sure I see him as I don't equate that
2:08:13
Speaker 1: with presidential frontrunner status that I know with polling shows,
2:08:15
Speaker 1: but I don't think it's there yet. That's for Roman
2:08:17
Speaker 1: Manuel you know, I tell you his his tenure in
2:08:22
Speaker 1: Chicago's aging. Well, we're about to have our second straight
2:08:25
Speaker 1: one term mayor in Chicago. He's the last two term mayor.
2:08:28
Speaker 1: So while you could argue that he didn't solve the
2:08:32
Speaker 1: problem with gangs in that city, and he didn't get
2:08:36
Speaker 1: at some of the sort of intractable problems that the
2:08:38
Speaker 1: daily machine had never been able to deal with, let
2:08:40
Speaker 1: alone wrong, he certainly seemed to manage the city a
2:08:43
Speaker 1: heck of a lot better than the two more liberal
2:08:45
Speaker 1: replacements that have had, So I do think his tenure
2:08:50
Speaker 1: in Chicago is aging better by the month. When it
2:08:53
Speaker 1: comes to the most recent mayors. You know, it's interesting
2:09:01
Speaker 1: will the next Democratic nominee. Can you be completely at
2:09:05
Speaker 1: war with the progressive left and get the Democratic nomination
2:09:08
Speaker 1: or do you need to accommodate the progressive left somewhere?
2:09:13
Speaker 1: And I think that the likely nominee is going to
2:09:16
Speaker 1: be somebody that isn't antagonistic to any wing of the party,
2:09:20
Speaker 1: but is seen as somebody who can quote unquote Win.
2:09:25
Speaker 1: I'm not sure rom can escape what will be a
2:09:30
Speaker 1: ferocious progressive left, and he may be the person they
2:09:33
Speaker 1: choose to take down almost as symbol, but he may
2:09:37
Speaker 1: serve an important you know, he may his candidacy may
2:09:42
Speaker 1: matter a lot because it forces conversations in the democratic
2:09:45
Speaker 1: debate that maybe others aren't having it. I think his
2:09:50
Speaker 1: commentary on school reform has been quite strong. You should
2:09:54
Speaker 1: take a look at it. And yes, you could say
2:09:59
Speaker 1: his record in Chicago mixed on school reform, but you
2:10:02
Speaker 1: know he's speaking with a clarity when it comes to
2:10:05
Speaker 1: social media and how much that's harming our kids. He's
2:10:08
Speaker 1: calling for the full ban of social media for anybody
2:10:10
Speaker 1: under the age of sixteen, really treating social media like smoking.
2:10:15
Speaker 1: I think he is going to be an important voice.
2:10:19
Speaker 1: I am skeptical that either Newsome or rom can overcome
2:10:23
Speaker 1: some of the negatives that I think will get exposed
2:10:26
Speaker 1: in a primary on that front. Next question comes from
2:10:30
Speaker 1: Adam from Wilton Manors, Florida. Hey, do you think an
2:10:33
Speaker 1: attack on Columbia or the arrest of President Petro would
2:10:37
Speaker 1: be a mistake for the administration. Columbia isn't like Iran
2:10:39
Speaker 1: or Venezuela. Americans live, work, and retire there. There are
2:10:42
Speaker 1: over fifty daily US flights or military has helped train Theirs,
2:10:45
Speaker 1: and their defense is strong, and he missedep to turn
2:10:47
Speaker 1: public sentiment against Americans and put are citizens at risk.
2:10:50
Speaker 1: President emboldened by the Venezuela operation might underestimate the fallout. Also,
2:10:54
Speaker 1: what if there were no smartphones or podcasts? Where would
2:10:58
Speaker 1: you be today? Thanks for the great podcast, glad you're
2:11:01
Speaker 1: an independent Adam from Wilton Manors. Well, then we would
2:11:07
Speaker 1: all be trying to write letters to the editor. Right,
2:11:09
Speaker 1: we'd go back to there if there were no h
2:11:12
Speaker 1: if there were no spot, smartphones or podcasts, imagine there's
2:11:17
Speaker 1: no people. Sorry, now I'm starting to make me think
2:11:20
Speaker 1: we should start singing.
2:11:21
Speaker 2: Imagine.
2:11:22
Speaker 1: I don't know, does that is that going to cost
2:11:24
Speaker 1: my That may cost me a lot of money to
2:11:27
Speaker 1: even sing that. That rights Paul McCartney will be beating
2:11:30
Speaker 1: down my door. I don't know who has the rights
2:11:32
Speaker 1: to imagine is it Yoko have the rights? But anyway,
2:11:35
Speaker 1: but I digress. Look you you uh. You surface an
2:11:40
Speaker 1: issue that I'm worried about, which is the tact The
2:11:43
Speaker 1: tactical event that extracted Maduro out of Venezuela was a
2:11:49
Speaker 1: huge success, was in a very effective military operation hard stop.
2:11:57
Speaker 1: Does that give the president comfort that he can just
2:12:01
Speaker 1: do this more willing, Nilly, I do fear he is
2:12:05
Speaker 1: going that he is going to accept more risk with
2:12:08
Speaker 1: his decisions than ever before. Right, And he's already been
2:12:12
Speaker 1: doing this what would have been seen as politically risky,
2:12:15
Speaker 1: pardoning everybody that participated in January sixth, he just went
2:12:19
Speaker 1: ahead and did it, pardoning the you know, anarco, you know,
2:12:25
Speaker 1: pardoning a former president of a country who was accused
2:12:29
Speaker 1: by his own justice department, and I remember It's Trump's
2:12:33
Speaker 1: justice department that and died of the former president of
2:12:35
Speaker 1: Honduras on drug charges. The fact that he pardoned him,
2:12:42
Speaker 1: and there's been no consequences, right, So, you know, he keeps,
2:12:46
Speaker 1: he keeps, you know, use the third rail, whatever you
2:12:48
Speaker 1: want to call it, keeps touching the hot stove. And
2:12:51
Speaker 1: he doesn't he doesn't think his hand's been burned. Now,
2:12:53
Speaker 1: maybe the reputation of the United States his hand has
2:12:56
Speaker 1: been burned, and that's going to be really hard to
2:12:58
Speaker 1: recover from long after Donald Trump is dead and gone.
2:13:02
Speaker 1: But he himself has not felt any punishment with the
2:13:06
Speaker 1: risks he's taken. So you are right to be concerned
2:13:10
Speaker 1: that he may feel more emboldened than ever. Look, I'm
2:13:15
Speaker 1: very worried, you know, Colombia. Look, Petro is less friendly
2:13:18
Speaker 1: to the United States. He kind of ran a campaign
2:13:22
Speaker 1: against you know, but Columbia has been a fairly normal
2:13:26
Speaker 1: democracy as it's finally come out right, it has been operating.
2:13:30
Speaker 1: It's been an important ally to the United States and
2:13:32
Speaker 1: down there. The Columbia Free Trade Agreement was one of
2:13:34
Speaker 1: the first ones we signed in Latin America that was binary.
2:13:38
Speaker 1: It's been good for both countries. You are correct. There's
2:13:42
Speaker 1: a lot of American businesses that have headquarters in various
2:13:47
Speaker 1: cities in Columbia. It is a It's also become a
2:13:52
Speaker 1: fairly popular place to vacation as well. Now Colombia has
2:13:57
Speaker 1: been you know, the the chaos and Metasa, which was
2:14:01
Speaker 1: there before we extracted. Maduro was creating all sorts of
2:14:04
Speaker 1: border issues for Colombian Columbia. Ironically, before Donald Trump started
2:14:12
Speaker 1: trash talking President Petro, it was pretty clear that the
2:14:17
Speaker 1: next election, which is you know, Columbia holds its presidential
2:14:20
Speaker 1: elections later this year, the next election was likely going
2:14:23
Speaker 1: to go to the political party that was a bit
2:14:25
Speaker 1: more friendly to the United States. It's somewhat of a
2:14:28
Speaker 1: right leaning party, you know. I know that there was
2:14:33
Speaker 1: a lot of concern when Petro won. I happened to
2:14:36
Speaker 1: be happen to know a little extra something about the
2:14:40
Speaker 1: politics of Colombia due to a friend of mine who's
2:14:42
Speaker 1: been very involved with charity in Columbia for decades, and
2:14:48
Speaker 1: so I've I've gotten to know some Colombian officials quite
2:14:53
Speaker 1: a bit. And so I guess my fear of what
2:14:58
Speaker 1: he's doing with Petro is that he ends up strengthening
2:15:02
Speaker 1: that you know, leftist party and then they and then
2:15:06
Speaker 1: he's succeeded by a fellow leftist just basically being able
2:15:10
Speaker 1: to run on anti Americanism. And I'd say that is,
2:15:14
Speaker 1: you know, in the same way running as anti Trump
2:15:16
Speaker 1: is so good inside certain primaries in America, and running
2:15:21
Speaker 1: as pro Trump is really helpful in certain primaries in America.
2:15:24
Speaker 1: Being an anti American running against anti americanism or American imperialism,
2:15:30
Speaker 1: it's a very powerful message to run on in Latin America,
2:15:37
Speaker 1: in parts of Asia, in parts of Europe, so certainly
2:15:42
Speaker 1: in Africa. So that is something that I fear is
2:15:45
Speaker 1: that this stuff boomerangs. I mean, look at Lula's ratings
2:15:48
Speaker 1: in Brazil. Right when Trump targeted Lula Lula, who was
2:15:53
Speaker 1: not being wasn't being overly embraced by the Brazilian population.
2:16:00
Speaker 1: It's kind of a mediocre economy. Things weren't going great.
2:16:04
Speaker 1: Suddenly saw his popularity surge after Trump attacked him over
2:16:09
Speaker 1: the Bolsonaro decision and just did the arbitrary tariffs on Brazil.
2:16:13
Speaker 1: It actually strengthened him politically and probably is going to
2:16:16
Speaker 1: be why he gets re elected later this year. Brazil
2:16:19
Speaker 1: also wholes election this year. So that's what I fear
2:16:23
Speaker 1: is what anti Americanism brings brings to that. I'm going
2:16:35
Speaker 1: a little lengthier than I want, but hey, it's football time,
2:16:40
Speaker 1: and I hope now you realize that no matter who
2:16:44
Speaker 1: you listen to about college football, Kirk Herbstreet, Paul Finebaumb,
2:16:48
Speaker 1: Josh Pate, Clay Travis, you name it, there is only
2:16:51
Speaker 1: one person that told you the University of Miami was
2:16:53
Speaker 1: probably the best team in football. Now we have one
2:16:57
Speaker 1: more chance to prove it January nineteen. I can't wait.
2:17:01
Speaker 1: I'll be there. So first I'm going to paint you
2:17:06
Speaker 1: the picture, the dream scenario in my head and how
2:17:09
Speaker 1: I have envisioned all of this. The last time Miami
2:17:16
Speaker 1: played for a national title on its home field, and
2:17:21
Speaker 1: we're an underdog. Was actually the very first time Miami
2:17:25
Speaker 1: played for a national title on its home field. The
2:17:29
Speaker 1: team they played was this juggernaut from the Midwest. The
2:17:34
Speaker 1: team colors were red and white. They were undefeated. They
2:17:40
Speaker 1: looked like a proceed They just never made mistakes. They
2:17:44
Speaker 1: were barreling through everybody. But they'd never faced the speed
2:17:51
Speaker 1: of the University of Miami. That team, of course, was
2:17:55
Speaker 1: the Nebraska corn Huskers. Go big red right now, imy,
2:18:00
Speaker 1: he didn't blow out Nebraska. Miami eventually would blow Miami
2:18:04
Speaker 1: in the Florida States. Eventually, Miami and the style of
2:18:07
Speaker 1: play Miami introduced to college football in nineteen eighty three
2:18:12
Speaker 1: would become the norm, and more schools would emulate how
2:18:16
Speaker 1: Miami built its program in order to go forward. So
2:18:19
Speaker 1: here we are again, Miami. It's been a long time coming,
2:18:24
Speaker 1: twenty three years, and we're the underdog, and in fact,
2:18:29
Speaker 1: we're an irrational underdog. People are recency biased. Look forget.
2:18:34
Speaker 1: You know, Miami may not win this game. I think
2:18:38
Speaker 1: it's a will. I will lay out the scenario of
2:18:41
Speaker 1: how they don't win this game. But I know one thing,
2:18:45
Speaker 1: they ain't getting blown out. Miami can't get blown out
2:18:47
Speaker 1: by anybody. Miami doesn't get blown out, not unto Mario Crystobal.
2:18:52
Speaker 1: You know, he MUCKs up a game when he doesn't
2:18:54
Speaker 1: have the talent to keep up with somebody, and sometimes
2:18:57
Speaker 1: he can muck up a game when we do have
2:18:59
Speaker 1: the talent to keep up with somebody. But I will
2:19:02
Speaker 1: promise you this, Indiana hasn't faced the physicality that is Miami,
2:19:08
Speaker 1: and maybe nobody believed it at the start of this
2:19:12
Speaker 1: playoff because of these preconceived notions about the ACC. Ask
2:19:18
Speaker 1: Ohio State, Ask the two SEC teams. My favorite stat,
2:19:23
Speaker 1: by the way, Miami has won more games against SEC
2:19:26
Speaker 1: opponents in twenty twenty five three than the University of
2:19:30
Speaker 1: Florida did in the SEC, who only had two. We
2:19:35
Speaker 1: loved little. We love little stats like that. So I am.
2:19:39
Speaker 1: I couldn't be more thrilled that Indiana is the heavy favorite,
2:19:42
Speaker 1: that Miami is being discounted again, although it is interesting
2:19:46
Speaker 1: that Miami is at least less of an underdog against
2:19:49
Speaker 1: Indiana than they were against Ohio State. I know I
2:19:53
Speaker 1: look at this through reading excuse me, through orange and
2:19:55
Speaker 1: green glasses.
2:19:58
Speaker 2: On.
2:20:01
Speaker 1: But when I look, you know there's there's let's go,
2:20:06
Speaker 1: let's look at this backwards. I'm gonna give you the
2:20:08
Speaker 1: result and then you and then I think we will
2:20:10
Speaker 1: start filling in the blanks. Miami wins this game, and
2:20:13
Speaker 1: it looks a lot like the Ohio State game, which
2:20:15
Speaker 1: I think if Miami wins this game, it has to
2:20:16
Speaker 1: look a lot like the Ohia State game. You're looking
2:20:19
Speaker 1: at something like twenty four to seventeen, twenty four to
2:20:21
Speaker 1: twenty one, you know that best twenty four fourteen. But
2:20:26
Speaker 1: really it's a one score game. Miami obviously tacked on
2:20:28
Speaker 1: a quick late score that put it out of reach,
2:20:31
Speaker 1: but it's a one score game, and it's physical, and
2:20:34
Speaker 1: it's it's messy, it's tough, all those things. Miami also
2:20:41
Speaker 1: played pretty mistake free in that. But if you look
2:20:44
Speaker 1: at Indiana, if Miami wins the game, then we will
2:20:47
Speaker 1: say this Indiana actually never faith that the that the
2:20:50
Speaker 1: only you know, the two games they almost lost. Two
2:20:55
Speaker 1: of the three games they almost lost Ohio State, Iowa,
2:20:58
Speaker 1: and Penn State. The Ohio State and Iowa games were
2:21:01
Speaker 1: the ones where they were physically beaten up and they
2:21:05
Speaker 1: had to essentially escape. Now they may escape a win
2:21:08
Speaker 1: against Miami This is a very well coached team. They
2:21:12
Speaker 1: don't make mistakes. Miami has thrived on making other teams
2:21:16
Speaker 1: make mistakes. You know, when you look at the Old
2:21:19
Speaker 1: Miss game, it's astonishing Miami won, but it shows you
2:21:21
Speaker 1: how much better Miami really was. And Old Miss Miami
2:21:24
Speaker 1: made a slew of mistakes and still won the game.
2:21:26
Speaker 1: Miami dropped three interceptions and still won the game. Right,
2:21:30
Speaker 1: Miami committed some penalties that shouldn't They shouldn't have committed
2:21:33
Speaker 1: that they didn't commit against Ohio State, still won the game.
2:21:35
Speaker 1: But Ole Miss had no business being there. God bless them.
2:21:38
Speaker 1: They had a great they had. They had, they had
2:21:40
Speaker 1: the one of the best players on the field in
2:21:42
Speaker 1: Trinidad Chambliss. But I think get's clear that they were.
2:21:46
Speaker 1: There is a small gap. It's not a big gap
2:21:48
Speaker 1: between Miami and Old Miss, but there's a gap. Miami
2:21:56
Speaker 1: has to play a nearly flawless game, and which they
2:22:00
Speaker 1: did against Ohio State. I think they only had one
2:22:02
Speaker 1: accepted penalty. That's a big deal. The other aspect to this,
2:22:12
Speaker 1: and that sort of has me is sort of okay.
2:22:22
Speaker 1: Has Indiana actually faced tough competition in the playoff versus
2:22:26
Speaker 1: what Miami's faced. Indiana faced Alabama, a team that now
2:22:30
Speaker 1: in eindsight, never belonged in Oregon, a team that never
2:22:34
Speaker 1: physically belonged. Look, they had the record. I'm not saying
2:22:38
Speaker 1: they shouldn't have been in the playoff eleven to one.
2:22:39
Speaker 1: They deserve to be in the playoff, but who did
2:22:42
Speaker 1: they be? And they should have lost to Iowa and
2:22:44
Speaker 1: they almost lost to Iowa. The toughest team they played.
2:22:47
Speaker 1: They didn't play Ohio State. They almost lost to Penn State,
2:22:50
Speaker 1: which turned out not to be that impressive of win.
2:22:52
Speaker 1: And of course, despite getting a pick six, they still
2:22:55
Speaker 1: lost by double digits to Indiana the first time, and
2:22:58
Speaker 1: they lost that game at home. So you know, as
2:23:02
Speaker 1: Indiana played anybody, and you know, again, I go back
2:23:05
Speaker 1: to the toughest team Indiana's played this year as Ohio State,
2:23:08
Speaker 1: a team we beat by ted that we have one
2:23:09
Speaker 1: common opponent team we beat by ten points, a team
2:23:11
Speaker 1: they beat by three points. So again, I just I
2:23:17
Speaker 1: say all that to say there's no the point spread
2:23:20
Speaker 1: here is absurd, But it doesn't matter. It's not about
2:23:23
Speaker 1: what the point spread should be. It's what gets you
2:23:25
Speaker 1: fifty to fifty money. And guess what there's a real
2:23:27
Speaker 1: opportunity here for smarter college football fans if you really
2:23:31
Speaker 1: want to dabble in gambling, because I think the numbers,
2:23:35
Speaker 1: eye test, everything shows Indiana shouldn't be a favorite like that.
2:23:40
Speaker 1: So don't be surprised if you see all the quote
2:23:41
Speaker 1: unquote sharp start taking Miami. Doesn't mean Miami's going to
2:23:44
Speaker 1: win this game, but it means I think that we
2:23:49
Speaker 1: have so we'll see. Look, I am hoping that Miami
2:23:52
Speaker 1: is not a supporting cast member in the in the
2:23:58
Speaker 1: Fernando Mendoza Hallmark of the Week movie and the whole
2:24:05
Speaker 1: He's coming home and he went to the same high
2:24:07
Speaker 1: school as Mario crystal Ball. I'm very curious how the
2:24:11
Speaker 1: Columbus High community is handling this. You know, are they
2:24:16
Speaker 1: are the houses divided about Mario? This is you know,
2:24:19
Speaker 1: Christopher Columbus High School is a hugely sort of almost
2:24:23
Speaker 1: symbolically important institution in the Cuban community in Miami. So
2:24:28
Speaker 1: it's going to be interesting to see see if there's
2:24:31
Speaker 1: a there's a real divide there or not. But look,
2:24:35
Speaker 1: regardless of what happens, this has been a very successful
2:24:38
Speaker 1: season for Miami. I think we now know this expanded playoff.
2:24:43
Speaker 1: Whoever wins the title, you can't say they didn't have
2:24:46
Speaker 1: to go through a juggernaut, right. If Miami wins the title,
2:24:50
Speaker 1: they will have had to have gone eight to zero
2:24:51
Speaker 1: against ranked teams. They will have beaten number one, number two,
2:24:55
Speaker 1: number six, number seven, and if you want to throw
2:24:58
Speaker 1: a Notre Dame in there also, so basically more than
2:25:01
Speaker 1: half of the top ten they would have had to
2:25:03
Speaker 1: defeat in order to lay claim to a national title.
2:25:06
Speaker 1: If that is not what we all envisioned what a
2:25:08
Speaker 1: playoff should do. You know, look, there's a lot of
2:25:12
Speaker 1: things we've got to fix with this sport. Obviously, I
2:25:15
Speaker 1: feel pretty good about it at the moment because my
2:25:17
Speaker 1: team is succeeding at the rules that they currently are,
2:25:20
Speaker 1: but ultimately this is serving its purpose nobody. Yes, Miami's
2:25:25
Speaker 1: playing on its home field now, but look at the
2:25:27
Speaker 1: juggernaut they had to go through in order to even
2:25:29
Speaker 1: get there, and this was kind of a random happenstance.
2:25:32
Speaker 1: I am a little nervous that Indiana might have more
2:25:34
Speaker 1: fans at that game than Miami, because Indiana's got a
2:25:36
Speaker 1: much larger fan base and they're they're doing you, They're
2:25:39
Speaker 1: going to spend Yolo money. I'm not sure Miami fans
2:25:43
Speaker 1: are going to spend Yolo money, okay, because I think
2:25:48
Speaker 1: we Miami fans are cocky enough to assume that we're
2:25:51
Speaker 1: just we're back and this is going to you know,
2:25:54
Speaker 1: we're going to be in this position sooner rather than later. Now.
2:25:57
Speaker 1: I hope we have a mindset the win it now,
2:26:00
Speaker 1: because you never know when you're going to be this
2:26:01
Speaker 1: close again. But there a few other things. Look, I've
2:26:07
Speaker 1: given Chanon Dawson a lot of grief. I nitpick, I
2:26:11
Speaker 1: pick a lot of knits at his play calling. It's
2:26:13
Speaker 1: been very good. It was you know, I think we
2:26:16
Speaker 1: all agreed. We knew that he had to open things up.
2:26:19
Speaker 1: If Miami was there was gonna if Mimi was gonna
2:26:21
Speaker 1: win a national title, Carson Beck was going to have
2:26:23
Speaker 1: to win one of the games. Well, Carson Beck just
2:26:25
Speaker 1: won a game, and there were some questions could he
2:26:28
Speaker 1: do it? Mario Chris Wall was going to have to
2:26:30
Speaker 1: manage the clockwile I think he managed the clock as
2:26:32
Speaker 1: well as he could. Down there, I think somebody was saying, oh,
2:26:35
Speaker 1: you shouldn't left sixteen seconds on. You had to score
2:26:37
Speaker 1: the touchdown. Okay, you know I don't think Carson Beck,
2:26:41
Speaker 1: you know, just taking a knee at the half inch
2:26:43
Speaker 1: yard line before I would have gone bonkers. You get
2:26:46
Speaker 1: the touchdown at that point, sixteen seconds was sixteen seconds.
2:26:51
Speaker 1: And if you're wondering about the pass interference, for those
2:26:53
Speaker 1: of us that have had the nightmare of pass interferences
2:26:55
Speaker 1: at the Fiesta Bowl, which by the way, that's a
2:26:58
Speaker 1: huge monkey off of Miami's back. We had been for
2:27:00
Speaker 1: the state of Arizona and we finally won a game
2:27:02
Speaker 1: in the state of Arizona. It's our first ever Fiesta
2:27:04
Speaker 1: Bol victory. And the irony that there's an uncalled pass
2:27:08
Speaker 1: interference penalty. Here's why I don't think it's that big
2:27:10
Speaker 1: of video. One, the ball was uncatchable. We don't talk
2:27:13
Speaker 1: enough about that. There was not a catchable ball. I
2:27:15
Speaker 1: don't care. Two, I think if the if if that
2:27:20
Speaker 1: had been a ten yard pass and not a thirty
2:27:22
Speaker 1: yard pass, it would have they would have flgged it
2:27:24
Speaker 1: for past interference. I think officials know that that last play,
2:27:27
Speaker 1: it's a close call, but guess what, so what if
2:27:31
Speaker 1: they had another shot at it, they'd have gotten one
2:27:34
Speaker 1: more shot from the twenty. Okay, I'm pretty confident. You know,
2:27:38
Speaker 1: I wouldn't have wanted to see one more play, don't
2:27:40
Speaker 1: get me wrong. And the crazy ole miss voodoo that
2:27:44
Speaker 1: may have been, they may have pulled off there, but
2:27:49
Speaker 1: I don't think you could say that's why Miami won
2:27:51
Speaker 1: the game. It's not like the past interference heard around
2:27:54
Speaker 1: the world back in January of two thousand and three
2:27:58
Speaker 1: when it did decide the national championship. And I think
2:28:04
Speaker 1: all of us agree, let the players decide these things.
2:28:08
Speaker 1: You don't want the refs having that much impact. One
2:28:12
Speaker 1: other thing that I hope Miami is very careful of.
2:28:15
Speaker 1: I feel like in our attempt to hit as hard
2:28:18
Speaker 1: as possible, and we definitely hit harder than most teams,
2:28:22
Speaker 1: we're walking the line on late hits. We got flagged
2:28:25
Speaker 1: correctly on a couple of late hits. We've not been
2:28:28
Speaker 1: flagged for a couple that I worry about. We need
2:28:31
Speaker 1: to be careful here. You don't want to stop aggressiveness,
2:28:34
Speaker 1: but you got to do it within reason, and that's
2:28:39
Speaker 1: the There's a fine line between toughness and undisciplined, and
2:28:42
Speaker 1: they've more They've been tough and disciplined just about all
2:28:45
Speaker 1: year long. There was a few moments in that Old
2:28:48
Speaker 1: Miss game I was concerned about I'm less concerned about
2:28:51
Speaker 1: it with Indiana. I don't think Indiana is a trust talker,
2:28:53
Speaker 1: I think, and I think this is going to be
2:28:55
Speaker 1: I think this is going to be a physically brutal game.
2:28:57
Speaker 1: I think it's going to be shockingly low scoring. Actually
2:29:00
Speaker 1: some people won't be shocked about it. And I do
2:29:03
Speaker 1: think it's going to be a bit of a war
2:29:04
Speaker 1: of attrition. I think when you're on your sixteenth game,
2:29:06
Speaker 1: as both teams are going to be, it is it
2:29:12
Speaker 1: is a You're going to have more players want and
2:29:15
Speaker 1: I think it's I think this is just a reality.
2:29:21
Speaker 1: One of the Indian or Miami is going to lose
2:29:23
Speaker 1: this game because a key player is going to get hurt.
2:29:26
Speaker 1: Because when you're doing this for sixteen games, that likelihood
2:29:30
Speaker 1: only gets higher, and especially as the stakes get higher.
2:29:34
Speaker 1: I do think a trie you know, how physically ready
2:29:38
Speaker 1: are they for this game? How hurt are both teams.
2:29:41
Speaker 1: My guess is that's one thing that Indiana has over Miami,
2:29:45
Speaker 1: which is they haven't had to play They've had two
2:29:48
Speaker 1: games where they got to basically take their foot off
2:29:50
Speaker 1: the gas in the second half Miami hasn't been able
2:29:53
Speaker 1: to do that. Does that wear and tear show up
2:29:57
Speaker 1: in the fourth quarter of a very close game. These
2:30:00
Speaker 1: are some of the things that I worry about there.
2:30:02
Speaker 1: As with my Packers, I have reluctantly concluded that Leafloor's
2:30:08
Speaker 1: got to go there. There's an interesting stat out there.
2:30:13
Speaker 1: Eighty five percent of Super Bowl winning coaches won the
2:30:16
Speaker 1: Super Bowl within the first six years of being the
2:30:18
Speaker 1: head coach, have said franchise. Laflour just finished his seventh year,
2:30:24
Speaker 1: still hasn't been to a super Bowl. His record is
2:30:27
Speaker 1: great the last three years, though the trend line is
2:30:30
Speaker 1: not in the good right direction. They just lose too
2:30:34
Speaker 1: many games, just like they lost that Bears game. Hot start,
2:30:37
Speaker 1: the scripted portion, the stuff they game plan does great,
2:30:43
Speaker 1: halftime comes, the other team adjusts, but Green Bay isn't ready.
2:30:49
Speaker 1: And every game, I mean that script that Green Bay
2:30:53
Speaker 1: game happened. Big lead, looks like it's over. Suddenly by
2:30:58
Speaker 1: the fourth quarter the other team has a shot at winning.
2:31:06
Speaker 1: I think it's it's you know, just like it was
2:31:08
Speaker 1: time with Harbaugh in Baltimore. Sometimes it's just time. This
2:31:14
Speaker 1: one feels like it's time. Look, I'd love to see
2:31:17
Speaker 1: Laflour with my with with with KM Moore down in
2:31:20
Speaker 1: Tennessee and and help Lafloor. And I think Laflour is
2:31:24
Speaker 1: a great quarterback tutor. He got two more MVP seasons
2:31:29
Speaker 1: for for uh Aaron Rodgers. He turned Jordan Love into
2:31:33
Speaker 1: an elite quarterback. So I I I think there's it's
2:31:37
Speaker 1: a tremendous coach, but he is stuck with a bad
2:31:40
Speaker 1: special teams coach for too long. He has made some
2:31:43
Speaker 1: questionable decisions. Halfley's been a great hire at d C,
2:31:47
Speaker 1: but he's stuck with the old d C too long.
2:31:50
Speaker 1: So I you know, I think that when you start
2:31:52
Speaker 1: to evaluate his work and then you start to realize
2:31:55
Speaker 1: that first stat I don't think that's an accident.
2:31:58
Speaker 2: Right.
2:31:59
Speaker 1: If you don't make at work in that first five
2:32:01
Speaker 1: or six years, it's hard to get there. And all
2:32:06
Speaker 1: the ingredients were there. Yes, we had injuries, but you
2:32:09
Speaker 1: have injuries every year. How many you know the best
2:32:12
Speaker 1: head coach has overcome them. He's a good head coach,
2:32:17
Speaker 1: but he's not been great because a great head coach
2:32:19
Speaker 1: would already have had Green Bay in at least one
2:32:21
Speaker 1: Super Bowl over the last seven years. So I think
2:32:24
Speaker 1: he's gone. I think that's the direction they go. They
2:32:28
Speaker 1: have a new president and Ed Policy, son of Carmen Policy,
2:32:31
Speaker 1: who ran the forty nine ers for years and at
2:32:34
Speaker 1: the end of their heyday, their first heyday back in
2:32:36
Speaker 1: the eighties and nineties. I'm intrigued by John Harball. I
2:32:43
Speaker 1: think bringing in you know he's going to want to go.
2:32:46
Speaker 1: And if you look at it, if green Bay does open,
2:32:48
Speaker 1: then suddenly the two best jobs on the board are
2:32:50
Speaker 1: green Bay in Baltimore, we know Harbaugh and going back
2:32:52
Speaker 1: to Baltimore. You know, Harball with Mike mcdanielis play caller.
2:33:00
Speaker 1: I just throw out a couple of ideas. We'll see
2:33:02
Speaker 1: what sticks. All Right, I've gone on too long. I'm
2:33:08
Speaker 1: not gonna say. I'm not gonna violate Larry David's rule.
2:33:11
Speaker 1: It's now January twelfth. It's no longer a new year.
2:33:14
Speaker 1: But welcome, unfortunately, to the year that we're living dangerously
2:33:18
Speaker 1: and let's hope it doesn't end as terribly as many
2:33:22
Speaker 1: of us fear this year could play out. So with that,
2:33:26
Speaker 1: I will see you forty eight hours when I unpload
2:33:27
Speaker 1: it down.