Latest / Yaron Brook Show / Tariffs, Taxes & Galt’s Gulch Fantasies, Supersonic Flight & Today’s Battles (AMA)| Yaron Brook Show

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Tariffs, Taxes & Galt’s Gulch Fantasies, Supersonic Flight & Today’s Battles (AMA)| Yaron Brook Show · Yaron Brook Show

0:18
Speaker 1: Oh, fundamental principles, out leaders, rational, self interest, and individual works.
0:30
Speaker 1: This is the Uran Brookshow. All right, everybody, welcome to
0:37
Speaker 1: your one book show on this Saturday, August twenty third.
0:41
Speaker 1: It's my final day in Lisbon, at least for this strip.
0:46
Speaker 1: Next time, next time you see me, I will be
0:49
Speaker 1: somewhere in Italy. You know exactly where I can do
0:54
Speaker 1: my show farm I'm not sure, but I'm flying to
0:57
Speaker 1: Naples tomorrow if I can get a show off. If
1:01
Speaker 1: I can do a show sometime while I'm in Naples,
1:03
Speaker 1: I'll do that. Otherwise, I'll be broadcasting from Florence, one
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Speaker 1: of my favorite places on planet Earth. So you know,
1:11
Speaker 1: within really within I don't know two hundred meters I
1:17
Speaker 1: think for Michelangelo's David. I'm literally down the road block
1:21
Speaker 1: and a half away from Michelangelo's David. So I'm gonna
1:25
Speaker 1: have a lot of fun in Florence. All right, let's uh,
1:29
Speaker 1: let's get rolling today is ask me anything, and we've
1:32
Speaker 1: got our panel lined up. And wait a minute, we've
1:38
Speaker 1: got we've got an echo killed. The echo echo is gone,
1:43
Speaker 1: and so let's uh, let's jump in with our panel.
1:47
Speaker 1: Of course, you guys who are not on the panel
1:51
Speaker 1: can still use the super chat to ask questions and
1:54
Speaker 1: uh and participates. I feel free to do so. And
2:00
Speaker 1: let's start. Uh, let's start with holding sure.
2:06
Speaker 2: So I watched a few videos of you on talking
2:10
Speaker 2: about taxes and uh. I one of the things that
2:14
Speaker 2: I don't have done quite a bit of research about
2:16
Speaker 2: is tax incidence theory. So I kind of wanted to
2:19
Speaker 2: challenge you a little bit on tariffs. So you seem
2:23
Speaker 2: to have kind of a view that I want to
2:26
Speaker 2: make sure like I don't like misrepresent you or something,
2:29
Speaker 2: but you kind of have a view that Okay, sometimes
2:31
Speaker 2: it gets passed on to consumers, but obviously the demand schedule,
2:37
Speaker 2: it will determine that you can only sell a certain quantity,
2:41
Speaker 2: and then sometimes it reduces net income for the firms
2:44
Speaker 2: that the tariffs are being imposed upon for their inputs
2:48
Speaker 2: or whatever. Ye is that kind of where you're at.
2:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it. I think over over time, it
2:55
Speaker 1: almost all gets past the consumers. It because because films
3:01
Speaker 1: can't afford to reduce their net income significantly, because they
3:05
Speaker 1: become less competitive with firms that are not importing, so
3:09
Speaker 1: they have to pass it on. They're less competitive for capital. Yeah,
3:16
Speaker 1: so it's basically shared between the company that inputs it,
3:20
Speaker 1: and it could be a variety of different companies inputting
3:23
Speaker 1: it because it could be part of a supply chain
3:25
Speaker 1: and consumers at the end. But most of it goes
3:27
Speaker 1: to consumers.
3:28
Speaker 2: Yes, So the thing I would say about that is like,
3:33
Speaker 2: if I'm a firm, then I sell this good or whatever,
3:39
Speaker 2: I have a profit maximizing price that I could sell
3:41
Speaker 2: given a demand schedule. You see what I'm saying, So like,
3:45
Speaker 2: if I raise the price, then I get lower net income,
3:49
Speaker 2: and if I lower the price, I get lower net income.
3:52
Speaker 2: So if you put a teriff on my inputs, the
3:55
Speaker 2: cost to produce it will increase. And of course we
3:58
Speaker 2: know cost of production theory is false. So if I
4:00
Speaker 2: try and raise the price, then my income goes that
4:03
Speaker 2: income goes down. If I lower the price, might my
4:06
Speaker 2: net income goes down. So basically, no matter what the
4:09
Speaker 2: firm does the the the net income goes down. Now
4:15
Speaker 2: that's assuming that they set their price already at the
4:18
Speaker 2: profit maximizing level, which obviously is not always the case.
4:22
Speaker 2: But no matter what, there is a profit maximizing price
4:25
Speaker 2: for whatever it is that you're selling.
4:27
Speaker 1: But you're annoying the behavior of its competitors. And it depends,
4:30
Speaker 1: of course on how competitive the industry is. But we know,
4:32
Speaker 1: for example, that as soon as a tarifon steel was set,
4:38
Speaker 1: US manufacturers of steel al raised their prices, not because
4:43
Speaker 1: they were inputing steel, but because they could because they
4:45
Speaker 1: knew their competition now was going to raise their price.
4:49
Speaker 1: And indeed, that's exactly what happens. So what happens is,
4:53
Speaker 1: you know, because it's a competitive market, as soon as
4:57
Speaker 1: you've placed a constraint on the importa on the price setter,
5:01
Speaker 1: because they're the more efficient producer, the domestic industry takes
5:06
Speaker 1: advantage of that raises prices, and as a consequence, the
5:10
Speaker 1: importer can also raise prices and pass pass that on,
5:14
Speaker 1: so it passes it on doubly, both in the tax
5:19
Speaker 1: on the import in imported material, but also on the
5:23
Speaker 1: fact that domestic domestic firms don't face competition or less competition,
5:29
Speaker 1: and and they fal can raise prices themselves. And empirically
5:34
Speaker 1: this was shown like when when Trump weighs tariffs on
5:39
Speaker 1: washing machines, which he did in his first term. Uh
5:45
Speaker 1: the increase the increasing prices of washing machines to consumers
5:48
Speaker 1: it was, it was well documented that it went up
5:52
Speaker 1: by you know, a sudden dollar amount.
5:54
Speaker 2: But you're on the thing is is that the empirical
6:00
Speaker 2: observations could have a bunch of different factors here, so
6:03
Speaker 2: that doesn't necessarily disprove what I'm saying. So like, if
6:06
Speaker 2: washing machine prices go up, that could be because marginal
6:09
Speaker 2: firms exit the industry whenever the tax is placed, so
6:13
Speaker 2: the supply curve would shift left and the equilibrium price
6:15
Speaker 2: would rise. But that doesn't mean that the.
6:17
Speaker 1: On the cost. Sure, But the point is that the
6:21
Speaker 1: consequence of the tariffs ultimately is passed on to consumers,
6:25
Speaker 1: whether it's passed on to consumers by the fact that
6:27
Speaker 1: some marginal films leave uh and and and therefore that
6:31
Speaker 1: shifts the supply curve, or whether it's because because they
6:36
Speaker 1: now have more room to raise prices because competition, because
6:43
Speaker 1: they know there again the price set, which is the
6:46
Speaker 1: importer is not forced to to then an income has
6:51
Speaker 1: gone down, so their incentive is to raise prices one
6:55
Speaker 1: way or the other. It's the consumers that are going
6:57
Speaker 1: to efface higher prices.
7:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, but that that doesn't mean that it's being passed
7:03
Speaker 2: through though it means that there, it means that there's
7:07
Speaker 2: now a different price given the different supplying demand dynamics
7:11
Speaker 2: caused by the tax. So, like, I think the thing is, like,
7:14
Speaker 2: we can't just say it's passed through to consumers because
7:17
Speaker 2: it's not passed through. It's but they do pay higher prices,
7:20
Speaker 2: but it's not because oh, we just increase the cost
7:23
Speaker 2: of production. So now we could just pass us on it.
7:25
Speaker 2: You see what I'm saying.
7:26
Speaker 1: So sure, but the reality is that one way the
7:30
Speaker 1: other consumers are paying a higher price because of the charity. Yeah,
7:32
Speaker 1: I know we have, but add to that the fact
7:36
Speaker 1: that you know a lot of the stuff we import
7:39
Speaker 1: from China is stuff that you don't have US competitors for.
7:43
Speaker 1: So let's say let's say we're putting toys, right, toys
7:47
Speaker 1: and foot sure which are not made in the US.
7:49
Speaker 1: There's no US competitive for those. Then you know, the
7:55
Speaker 1: importer is going to raise this price and take Yes,
7:58
Speaker 1: that's going to shift demand. So he's going to face
8:01
Speaker 1: lower demand, but he is going to demand a higher
8:04
Speaker 1: price on what he does actually sell. Yes, and he'll
8:09
Speaker 1: he'll get he'll get lower revenue, but he's not going
8:12
Speaker 1: to sacrifice his return and investment, investment in terms of
8:18
Speaker 1: his what what he bought the stuff from China with, right,
8:23
Speaker 1: he is going to raise the price, is.
8:24
Speaker 2: Going to pass it through to consumers, but ultimately.
8:27
Speaker 1: Face is no competition, so there's no nobody to compete
8:30
Speaker 1: him down because ever you're saying is facing the same
8:33
Speaker 1: increasing cost.
8:35
Speaker 2: So you're saying you have a toy and you have
8:37
Speaker 2: a producer of toys in the United States.
8:40
Speaker 1: That there is no producer toys in the United States.
8:42
Speaker 1: All producers of toys in China, all producers of toys
8:48
Speaker 1: of toys face a fifty tariff.
8:52
Speaker 2: Okay, So you're okay, got it. So you're saying that
8:55
Speaker 2: toys are an input or like what are you saying?
8:57
Speaker 2: Like there's no.
8:58
Speaker 1: More I'm saying. I'm saying, I'm a store in the
9:01
Speaker 1: United States to sales toys, and I buy those toys
9:04
Speaker 1: from China. Yeah, and now those toys fifty more than
9:10
Speaker 1: they did before, and there's no there's no US produce
9:13
Speaker 1: of toys that I can switch to. Then I just
9:17
Speaker 1: use prices and accept the demand will come down.
9:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. But the incidence is on your net income
9:23
Speaker 2: you're on if I you're the incidence of the of
9:27
Speaker 2: the If I try and pass on the cost, then
9:29
Speaker 2: I have lower net income. So yes, consumers are worse
9:33
Speaker 2: off because Yeah, but then I.
9:35
Speaker 1: Buy less, right, so I buy, I buy less product,
9:38
Speaker 1: and I sell less product. I know that. But I'm
9:40
Speaker 1: not giving up my return on capital, my return on
9:43
Speaker 1: investment on the inputs. Right, So I'm not spending I'm
9:46
Speaker 1: spending one hundred dollars to buy inputs. Now I can
9:48
Speaker 1: only buy five things instead of before I could buy ten.
9:52
Speaker 1: Right before I could buy ten, now I could buy five.
9:54
Speaker 1: I only have one hundred bucks to spend on inputs.
9:57
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna buy five, and I'm gonna sell those
9:59
Speaker 1: five at a higher part.
10:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, but the return on capital is lower now because
10:04
Speaker 2: of this.
10:06
Speaker 1: Look, business is a screwed. I agree with you. But
10:10
Speaker 1: prices that consumers face is higher.
10:13
Speaker 2: Yes, but that's not because it's passed through you're on.
10:16
Speaker 1: No, it's not the reason I'm raising my price is
10:20
Speaker 1: because of the tariff.
10:23
Speaker 2: You're on the teriff. But the thing is is that
10:27
Speaker 2: you're you're that demand schedule was there before the tariff,
10:30
Speaker 2: So I could have raised my price before the incidents
10:32
Speaker 2: on those they couldn't have.
10:36
Speaker 1: I didn't want to because it's not because raising the
10:38
Speaker 1: price is not revenue. Actually, it's not profit maximizing. Right.
10:43
Speaker 1: So but now I'm going to raise the price because
10:46
Speaker 1: now raising the price is profit maximizing.
10:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, but yeah, I agree. So now the price has
10:53
Speaker 2: pass through.
10:54
Speaker 1: It's exactly so if I raise corporate taxes, put aside
10:57
Speaker 1: tast If I raise corporate taxes, corporate taxes in the
11:00
Speaker 1: United States right now, what I don't know, Yeah, twenty percent,
11:05
Speaker 1: if I double them to forty two, Well, prices go.
11:07
Speaker 2: Up, yes, but not because they're passed through.
11:10
Speaker 1: Well, of course it is because they're passed to it.
11:13
Speaker 1: That's the cause. What is the cause of the price
11:15
Speaker 1: is going up.
11:16
Speaker 2: What's the cause of the price is going up? Is
11:18
Speaker 2: because of lower production?
11:20
Speaker 1: What is less cause of lower production.
11:23
Speaker 2: Because it's less profitable to invest.
11:25
Speaker 1: What's the cause of it is less profitable to.
11:28
Speaker 2: Invest because of the tax?
11:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, So the tax of the ultimate cause of the
11:33
Speaker 1: fact that the prices went up. I agree with you
11:35
Speaker 1: on all the intermediate steps, but the primary cause of
11:39
Speaker 1: all these steps have occurring is the tax went up.
11:43
Speaker 1: And the tariff is just a quote a tax in
11:45
Speaker 1: this sense, it's the same you're on.
11:47
Speaker 2: We don't agree. We don't disagree that the price is rising.
11:50
Speaker 2: This is we obviously are vote there. The thing is,
11:53
Speaker 2: I'm saying, like, it's not just that it's passed on,
11:55
Speaker 2: it's that the like there's a there's a change in
11:58
Speaker 2: what's being produced. I agree with, I agree with consumers
12:03
Speaker 2: pay higher prices. We agree consumers, we're confused.
12:07
Speaker 1: But I'm asking what the cause of confuse. And we'll
12:10
Speaker 1: end it here, but I'm asking what the cause the
12:12
Speaker 1: ultimate cause of consumer paying higher prices is? What the tax?
12:18
Speaker 1: That's it? That's all I'm saying. I'm not I'm not
12:21
Speaker 1: talking about the mechanism. The mechanism which has passed through
12:25
Speaker 1: is the complex mechanism that you described. That is, you've
12:28
Speaker 1: got to change, and you've got to change in production,
12:31
Speaker 1: and a change in demand in the supply cove the
12:33
Speaker 1: results in a change of prices. But the cause of
12:36
Speaker 1: all that, the thing that spurs all that, the thing
12:38
Speaker 1: that generates all that is the tax. And therefore the
12:41
Speaker 1: taxes caused the price increase.
12:44
Speaker 2: We're We're with the entire time. I'm with you, but
12:46
Speaker 2: we'll talk about this more later.
12:48
Speaker 1: So it's all a question of some man, it's all
12:50
Speaker 1: a question about what its passed through mean. And all
12:52
Speaker 1: I mean by pass through is caused by I'm not
12:56
Speaker 1: saying literally passed, it's caused by that's all.
12:59
Speaker 2: Okay, Sure I can get behind that, right, I can
13:01
Speaker 2: get behind that.
13:02
Speaker 1: Okay, Okay, good online.
13:07
Speaker 3: I don't know how to follow that great discussion. So
13:12
Speaker 3: mine is a is a much more lighthearted and a
13:15
Speaker 3: silly kind of thing. So I was at a funeral
13:18
Speaker 3: recently and there was people there that were dressed very casually,
13:23
Speaker 3: like shorts and T shirt kind of casual. And I
13:27
Speaker 3: guess my question would be is like there was a
13:29
Speaker 3: part of me that was bothered by it, but then
13:31
Speaker 3: there was another part of me that was asking, like objectively,
13:34
Speaker 3: why am I bothered by this? Like the family, you know,
13:37
Speaker 3: I mean, if the family has a concern, they could say, okay,
13:39
Speaker 3: here's a dress code. Obviously in the workplace, you know,
13:42
Speaker 3: the employer can set a dress code. But is it
13:46
Speaker 3: is it rational to be kind of like, okay, like
13:49
Speaker 3: this this seems off to me? Or is it just
13:51
Speaker 3: that I show my age here or what's.
13:53
Speaker 1: What's I mean? I think I think it's rational because
13:58
Speaker 1: I think that you know what you wear reflects some
14:03
Speaker 1: element of respect towards the event or towards the situation
14:08
Speaker 1: that you're in. You know, how you present yourself. If
14:12
Speaker 1: you come all ruffled and everything and you know, sweaty
14:16
Speaker 1: from the gym to a to a formal event, it's
14:19
Speaker 1: just not right. You're not showing the kind of respect
14:22
Speaker 1: that the event deserves, or that a workplace deserves and
14:26
Speaker 1: so on. Now, what are the boundaries of that? Obviously
14:31
Speaker 1: you don't have to do somewhere with convention, there's no
14:35
Speaker 1: there's nothing I can do, you know, give you in
14:39
Speaker 1: terms of you know, etiquette is a question of particularly
14:43
Speaker 1: cultural norms at a particular point in time. You know,
14:45
Speaker 1: we don't wear three piece or seven piece suits anymore
14:49
Speaker 1: for just every day, every day occurrences. But yeah, something
14:53
Speaker 1: like a funeral or a wedding, unless it's a hippie
14:55
Speaker 1: wedding at the beach or something, it doesn't have to
14:58
Speaker 1: be a hippie wedding. A beach wedding required different attire
15:02
Speaker 1: than a formal wedding in a Now, what are the rules?
15:07
Speaker 1: How do we define them? You know, I don't know.
15:10
Speaker 1: I think it's it's incumbent upon the person putting on
15:12
Speaker 1: the event to give people guidance because otherwise it can
15:16
Speaker 1: be confusing, particularly today. But yeah, there was a certain
15:21
Speaker 1: reflection of aspect that comes across from what you.
15:24
Speaker 4: Wig, right, So so honor related. Then, like a few
15:28
Speaker 4: years ago, I.
15:30
Speaker 3: Was in a startup and I was looking to hire
15:32
Speaker 3: an interview with somebody, a very small company. We had
15:36
Speaker 3: a very casual dress code. I mean, I would go
15:38
Speaker 3: to work, you know, in shorts and a color shirt
15:42
Speaker 3: kind of thing. But this young guy he came in
15:45
Speaker 3: it job, and he came in like very somewhat scruffy
15:50
Speaker 3: looking like shorts and a T shirt and again within
15:54
Speaker 3: our dress code. But you know, and I didn't let
15:58
Speaker 3: it kind of influence my decision, but I was kind
16:01
Speaker 3: of like, well, my feeling was, hey, you could have
16:04
Speaker 3: put a little bit of effort into putting on something
16:07
Speaker 3: a little bit more appropriate for an interview. But again,
16:11
Speaker 3: you know, I was wondering after, you know, like, Okay,
16:12
Speaker 3: is this boomer talking here or what you know.
16:15
Speaker 1: I mean, at the end of the day, a lot
16:16
Speaker 1: of companies would not would would eliminate him based on
16:20
Speaker 1: the fact that he didn't show any effort in doing that.
16:23
Speaker 1: So it's it's kind of shows a lack of thoughtfulness
16:27
Speaker 1: or not caring if you got the job on not
16:30
Speaker 1: because I think that even if you don't care, suddenly
16:34
Speaker 1: lots of other people in the marketplace do care. And
16:37
Speaker 1: he's suggesting he doesn't give a shit, you know, you know,
16:40
Speaker 1: and I think so that says something about him. Yeah,
16:44
Speaker 1: maybe some people would viewed as positive rather than negative,
16:47
Speaker 1: you know, but it's definitely you know, what you wear
16:50
Speaker 1: in circumstances like that is definitely saying something about your attitude.
16:56
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was That was kind of my feeling too,
16:58
Speaker 3: And I was always taught, you know, like it's always
17:00
Speaker 3: better to be dressed more than less.
17:04
Speaker 1: Well, it depends on the circumstances.
17:06
Speaker 3: Again, a circumstance within reason, within reason, Yes, you don't,
17:10
Speaker 3: as you say, you don't go to.
17:11
Speaker 1: Care about a job, then you'd rather overdressed than underdressed
17:14
Speaker 1: for a job. Yeah, if it's a if it's a
17:17
Speaker 1: social occasion, you might you might not care an underdress.
17:20
Speaker 1: So it really depends on the on the context. But yeah,
17:23
Speaker 1: I mean, dressing says something, you know. It might not
17:27
Speaker 1: be the deciding factor, but it definitely says something.
17:30
Speaker 5: Right, you're wrong given how much you hate ties. Would
17:33
Speaker 5: you wear a tie to a funeral?
17:35
Speaker 1: No? And you know, unless they said it was required.
17:38
Speaker 4: Mhm.
17:39
Speaker 1: I mean why would a tie? I mean that's the point.
17:42
Speaker 1: I don't consider a tie adding anything. Right, If I
17:47
Speaker 1: wear a jacket and and a nice shirt, button down
17:51
Speaker 1: shirts and and and nice slacks, I mean that to me,
17:55
Speaker 1: that's just as formal as a tie. Tie. It is
17:57
Speaker 1: just an an excessive that's strangling me.
18:01
Speaker 4: Yeah.
18:02
Speaker 5: Do you think it's kind of silly when the sportscasters
18:05
Speaker 5: all wear suits and ties?
18:08
Speaker 6: Yeah?
18:08
Speaker 1: I mean I think they need to wear something nice
18:10
Speaker 1: on television, But yeah, I don't think they need to
18:12
Speaker 1: weart a tie. But I don't like ties and ties
18:19
Speaker 1: are more. I mean, there's an aesthetic to it. I
18:21
Speaker 1: get it. It creates some symmetry. It's to extented esthetics
18:27
Speaker 1: and beauty or related to symmetry. A tie does create
18:31
Speaker 1: a certain nice, you know, symmetrical thing, but I think
18:36
Speaker 1: you can create that other ways. As I get why
18:41
Speaker 1: people wear it, it's just I find it, you know,
18:44
Speaker 1: I find it constraining and uh, and it's also kind
18:49
Speaker 1: of a remnant of a one hundred years ago where
18:55
Speaker 1: wearing something abound your neck was really important. I mean,
18:58
Speaker 1: fashion changes all the time. The funniest thing is I
19:02
Speaker 1: find is you watch TV shows about I don't know,
19:05
Speaker 1: the West, or like that they'll be in Nevada, or
19:08
Speaker 1: they'll be in Texas and they're wearing three pe suits
19:12
Speaker 1: and ties, and or they'll be like it's Brazil in
19:16
Speaker 1: the nineteenth century and everybody's walking on Reo Degenairo and
19:20
Speaker 1: a suit and tie and everything, and like I would
19:23
Speaker 1: be drenched. It would be so horrible for me and
19:26
Speaker 1: for everybody else around me, because I would literally be
19:30
Speaker 1: dripping sweat if I was in Reo Degenaio with three
19:32
Speaker 1: pepe suit.
19:33
Speaker 3: So and especially when you tie that to eighteenth century hygiene.
19:39
Speaker 1: Yes, oh oh my god.
19:41
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, I guess everybody's stinking, so it probably didn't matter.
19:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess they didn't smell it because because it
19:48
Speaker 1: was just the standard smell. But it's more than that.
19:50
Speaker 1: It's just I would literally be dripping water all over
19:54
Speaker 1: the place because I do anyway, I'm right now, you know,
19:57
Speaker 1: I am wet because it conditioning's not working in this
20:02
Speaker 1: Lisbon office because it's the weekend and it's human and
20:07
Speaker 1: you know that's just me so put me now in
20:10
Speaker 1: a suit and tie, and god, I'd be dying. So
20:14
Speaker 1: and somehow, you know, I I remember walking in New
20:18
Speaker 1: York City on a summer day, you know, many times
20:22
Speaker 1: with a suit and tie on, and just being miserable,
20:27
Speaker 1: just being hot and sweaty and miserable. And what's the point? So, yes,
20:35
Speaker 1: there's a there's a time and place for everything. It's
20:38
Speaker 1: also what does it mean to to show a little
20:42
Speaker 1: bit of a show of respect. That doesn't necessarily mean
20:44
Speaker 1: you have to wear a jacket or tie. It just
20:46
Speaker 1: means you have to be cleaned up and and and
20:49
Speaker 1: look nice and and and the same as true of
20:52
Speaker 1: a job interview. It doesn't mean you have to follow
20:55
Speaker 1: the the particular standard usted wash Feed dictated I don't know,
21:02
Speaker 1: fifty years ago. But you have to show that you
21:05
Speaker 1: put a little bit of effort and a little bit
21:07
Speaker 1: of care into it. That's all.
21:08
Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, that's okay. So I feel validated.
21:12
Speaker 4: Thanks, sure, Jennifer.
21:16
Speaker 7: That's sort of this conversation sort of relates to something
21:20
Speaker 7: I was thinking about the other day when you talked
21:22
Speaker 7: about showing respect with different things, like with language, for example.
21:29
Speaker 7: It's a similar type of thing like I had to
21:31
Speaker 7: ask an engineer at work for some information. He had
21:33
Speaker 7: just come back from vacation and I was waiting on something,
21:37
Speaker 7: and I thought, what I need is a certain thing.
21:40
Speaker 7: So I could have written, when are you going to
21:43
Speaker 7: have this for me? I need this? And I thought, well,
21:45
Speaker 7: you don't say.
21:46
Speaker 4: It like that.
21:47
Speaker 7: That's rude, right, I'm not sure why it's rude, So
21:51
Speaker 7: instead I said something like, Hi, I hope you had
21:53
Speaker 7: a good time on your vacation. When do you think
21:56
Speaker 7: you might have this information for me? Maybe later this week?
22:00
Speaker 1: Question?
22:01
Speaker 7: Right, I'm asking for the same thing. But yeah, I
22:03
Speaker 7: was like, what's exactly the difference. I'm still asking for something.
22:07
Speaker 1: It's completely a cultural norm. If you were if you
22:10
Speaker 1: were working in Israel, you would you would write him
22:13
Speaker 1: an email saying when when? When? When am I going
22:17
Speaker 1: to get this?
22:18
Speaker 7: Oh?
22:19
Speaker 1: I mean you know how you know, how is your vacation?
22:23
Speaker 1: You were just I mean, Israelis are super direct, and
22:27
Speaker 1: and now I'm I don't do that. I write nice,
22:30
Speaker 1: polite emails because that's this is the culture I'm in,
22:33
Speaker 1: And generally i'm a little bit more I don't know
22:37
Speaker 1: culture than most Israelis, but most Israelis you know, my
22:40
Speaker 1: friends who have been very successful in the US. One
22:43
Speaker 1: of the reasons they've been successful in the US is
22:46
Speaker 1: they bring that Israeli kind of let's just get stuff done.
22:50
Speaker 1: Forget about all this small talk and this smoothing and
22:52
Speaker 1: being polite. When am I going to have it? And
22:55
Speaker 1: once you get used to that, you know, it becomes fine. Right,
22:59
Speaker 1: So it's really an issue of convention. Like in the
23:02
Speaker 1: world in which we live today, if you'd written the
23:05
Speaker 1: guy the engineer, hey, when am I going to get this?
23:08
Speaker 1: He would have been insulted. But if you got to
23:11
Speaker 1: know you and realize, oh, that's how she always talks,
23:14
Speaker 1: and she's really nice and she's not trying to offend
23:16
Speaker 1: me in any way, then he would accept it. So
23:19
Speaker 1: it's it's very contextual, and it's contextual to the relationship
23:23
Speaker 1: and to what people know about each other. And in
23:26
Speaker 1: American society and most I think European societies, although not all,
23:32
Speaker 1: you expect it to be less direct, and I.
23:35
Speaker 3: Would I would just offer one other aspect on that, though,
23:38
Speaker 3: which is which is I think there's a there's an
23:42
Speaker 3: escalation aspect too, that if most of the time you
23:46
Speaker 3: have a good relationship and things are getting done and stuff,
23:49
Speaker 3: you don't need to be as direct. But occasionally, and
23:52
Speaker 3: when people get to know you and they say, oh, okay,
23:54
Speaker 3: he's getting a little bit short here, or he's getting
23:56
Speaker 3: a little bit direct without having to really ramp it up,
24:00
Speaker 3: you know, to that next level after you know, you
24:03
Speaker 3: can get people's attention, and it still comes across as Okay,
24:07
Speaker 3: you're not being an asshole, You're you're getting it done.
24:09
Speaker 1: But you know, sure, But again I think it's what's
24:12
Speaker 1: what expectation? You said. So if I'm direct from day
24:15
Speaker 1: one and this is just my style and it's not
24:18
Speaker 1: reflecting me pissed off or anything like that, I just
24:20
Speaker 1: want to know where the stuff is. I'm not you
24:24
Speaker 1: know everything, Jennifer said, but I skipped that high house
24:29
Speaker 1: your vacation, and whenever you know, I'm just Then people
24:33
Speaker 1: learn that that's who you are, and that's how you
24:35
Speaker 1: communicate to fine, and they don't escalate. But you if
24:39
Speaker 1: you're usually polite and and and and then suddenly you're
24:44
Speaker 1: very direct, then people notice the change and they wonder
24:48
Speaker 1: what's going on. But again, in Israeli culture is a
24:52
Speaker 1: direct culture, and therefore nobody raises an eyebrow. When you say, hey,
24:56
Speaker 1: where is it, they just go, yeah, I'll have it
24:59
Speaker 1: to you, to my whatever. They don't get excited by that,
25:02
Speaker 1: and they don't escalate it. Now, I think that's how
25:05
Speaker 1: it functions in Israel. I might be wrong, but oh
25:09
Speaker 1: it's okay.
25:10
Speaker 7: I mean it's a personal taste though, what you've like, right, Like,
25:13
Speaker 7: I remember I told you I work with that guy
25:14
Speaker 7: in Brazil and he's a real sweetheart. He always says, oh,
25:16
Speaker 7: no problem, and I'll get that dumb for you, and
25:19
Speaker 7: I like that. I enjoy that interaction. That's okay, right,
25:22
Speaker 7: And that's my personal.
25:23
Speaker 1: So it's it's completely personal preference and the culture of
25:28
Speaker 1: the organization and the relationship you have with different people
25:34
Speaker 1: as established by past communications. So if you switch suddenly,
25:38
Speaker 1: if suddenly you're behaving differently than you have any past,
25:40
Speaker 1: then people think, oh, what happened? Why is she talking
25:43
Speaker 1: to me differently?
25:43
Speaker 4: Now?
25:44
Speaker 1: Yeah.
25:45
Speaker 3: The only time I really hate it is when people
25:47
Speaker 3: have one approach with people who work for them and
25:50
Speaker 3: another approach.
25:51
Speaker 4: With people they work for. Yes, I think that really
25:54
Speaker 4: gets my goat.
25:55
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like, okay, you're an asshole with the people
25:58
Speaker 3: who work for you, but everybody else exactly who are
26:02
Speaker 3: you really?
26:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's yeah, and that's that's bad. So you've got
26:06
Speaker 1: to be consistent, and it's wrong if you're one way
26:09
Speaker 1: with some people and another way with other people. You know,
26:12
Speaker 1: just if you're a manager, come in and set expectations,
26:15
Speaker 1: and if you're the direct type and tell people, look, guys,
26:18
Speaker 1: I'm direct. I'm just going to ask you for stuff.
26:21
Speaker 1: You know. I'm just not. I don't spend a lot
26:24
Speaker 1: of time on politeness and chit chat and stuff. Don't
26:27
Speaker 1: take it personally. I'm with like this with everybody, including
26:29
Speaker 1: my bosses. This is how it's going to be, and
26:32
Speaker 1: and and don't read anything into it. Then I think
26:35
Speaker 1: you said a certain expectation and people will get used
26:37
Speaker 1: to it. But you're right. If you're inconsistent, there's a
26:40
Speaker 1: real challenge. Yeah, thank you, yep, thanks Jennifer Adam.
26:51
Speaker 8: I have a very different kind of question for you.
26:55
Speaker 8: Can you hear me?
26:56
Speaker 1: Yep? Yep.
27:00
Speaker 8: You mentioned ones that you are on the board of
27:04
Speaker 8: the condo you live in.
27:07
Speaker 1: I was, I no longer I am.
27:10
Speaker 8: Okay, I'm on the board of the condo i'm in,
27:19
Speaker 8: and we're down to two members. Because our finance guy,
27:27
Speaker 8: who was a former I R. S Tax agent UH,
27:33
Speaker 8: decided to completely retire and leave the board.
27:38
Speaker 1: Yep.
27:39
Speaker 8: And now we're down to two. And I know that
27:44
Speaker 8: if I quit also, which I don't intend to do,
27:48
Speaker 8: but if only one person is left on the board,
27:54
Speaker 8: then the state secretary, then the Secretary of State in
27:59
Speaker 8: California takes over and charges a fee for running your condo.
28:05
Speaker 1: Yep.
28:10
Speaker 8: How were you persuaded to join the board when you
28:14
Speaker 8: were on it? And how can I persuade other people
28:20
Speaker 8: to join the board?
28:24
Speaker 1: I mean, I was persuaded by the fact that I
28:27
Speaker 1: thought that board decisions had an impact on me. I
28:30
Speaker 1: have a pretty big investment in this condo building because
28:35
Speaker 1: I own a condo there. But a lot of my
28:38
Speaker 1: net worth is tied up in this condo, and if
28:43
Speaker 1: I have a very selfish interest to help make sure
28:47
Speaker 1: the decisions that are made there are not against my interests.
28:52
Speaker 1: And you know, boards condos make a lot of different decisions,
28:57
Speaker 1: and they affect They really to affect the value of
29:02
Speaker 1: your condo, They affect the quality of your life. They
29:04
Speaker 1: affect a lot of things. So I wanted to be
29:08
Speaker 1: involved because I was worried that otherwise my interest would
29:11
Speaker 1: not be represented. Uh And and I think that's the
29:15
Speaker 1: way to convince people. They've got a massive investment here,
29:20
Speaker 1: and the decisions are being made. It doesn't take up
29:23
Speaker 1: a huge amount of time. But somebody needs to do it.
29:29
Speaker 8: I know that somebody needs to do it, and we
29:33
Speaker 8: Jews have as saying if not I, then who.
29:39
Speaker 1: But but the question is nobody's going to represent your
29:44
Speaker 1: interest unless you're the right That would be what I
29:46
Speaker 1: would convince people. That would be my line to try
29:49
Speaker 1: to convince people.
29:54
Speaker 8: Now, is there a specific reason why you were not
30:00
Speaker 8: elected again or decided to step down or.
30:04
Speaker 1: They changed the whole board changed, the chairman of the
30:07
Speaker 1: board changed and they changed the whole board and they
30:09
Speaker 1: elected a whole new board. And I wasn't in the
30:12
Speaker 1: country when it happened, and I didn't, you know, care
30:16
Speaker 1: that much because some of the issues at least that
30:21
Speaker 1: I was considered about were resolved. But but yeah, no reason.
30:25
Speaker 1: If I was asked, or if there was an opportunity
30:27
Speaker 1: to join the board again, I would probably do it.
30:33
Speaker 8: Okay, I guess that's the best argument. Yeah, But somehow,
30:43
Speaker 8: most people that I meet are not truly convinced that
30:50
Speaker 8: they're in that it's in their interest if they already
30:53
Speaker 8: have a board that does a good job.
30:58
Speaker 1: And well, I mean, all you can do is try
31:02
Speaker 1: to argue that it's in this self interest. You can't
31:04
Speaker 1: do more than that. I don't think there's a better
31:07
Speaker 1: argument than that. And of course there is the risk
31:10
Speaker 1: that the state of California takes it over, so they
31:13
Speaker 1: should want at least one more board man, but just
31:15
Speaker 1: in case somebody something happens to them and they have
31:18
Speaker 1: to leave the board. So the building, everybody in the
31:22
Speaker 1: building should have an interest that somebody one more person joined,
31:25
Speaker 1: and the way to guarantee that is for one of
31:28
Speaker 1: them to volunteeve and to do it. So again, it's
31:31
Speaker 1: self interest.
31:34
Speaker 8: Yes, and that has to be Frank and center.
31:37
Speaker 1: Thank you, Thanks, Thanks Adam Andrew here you're on. Hey,
31:47
Speaker 1: can you.
31:50
Speaker 5: Explain the hatred of Israel in terms of anti Semitism
31:57
Speaker 5: versus egalitarianism or if you think that they're coming from
32:00
Speaker 5: the same place.
32:04
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, I don't think they're necessarily coming from
32:06
Speaker 1: the same place, but there's there's certainly I mean, it's
32:10
Speaker 1: it's a big topic, but there's certainly a a there's
32:16
Speaker 1: anti Semanim, anti Semitism in global culture. I think that
32:21
Speaker 1: emanated emanated primarily from originally from Christianity, that is, its
32:27
Speaker 1: source that has been transported to all over the world,
32:32
Speaker 1: from from the Middle East all the way to China.
32:34
Speaker 1: There is this general suspicion of Jews and successful Jews,
32:42
Speaker 1: although anti Semitism also exists when Jews are not successful.
32:46
Speaker 1: That is, you find anti semitism against poor, unsuccessful Jews
32:52
Speaker 1: in in in Middle Ages, Europe so or pre Enlightenment Europe.
32:58
Speaker 1: So there is a there is a general old background
33:01
Speaker 1: of anti Semitism. And then add to that, which I
33:05
Speaker 1: think impacts the right mostly but also is the background
33:10
Speaker 1: to the left. And then add to that the element
33:15
Speaker 1: of Israel and Jews more broadly being successful, wealthy which drives,
33:21
Speaker 1: and the enemy of Israel being weak and poor and
33:27
Speaker 1: suffering and now supposedly starving. That all adds to the hatred.
33:32
Speaker 1: So if you it's a mixture of just a straight
33:36
Speaker 1: anti semitism, you can see that with Taka, you can
33:39
Speaker 1: see that with with Fuentes and others. You know, as
33:45
Speaker 1: Jews is the way to explain all the bad things
33:48
Speaker 1: in the world without having to I don't know, actually
33:52
Speaker 1: confront the actual issues that cause the bad things in
33:55
Speaker 1: the world, and a mixture of that with this kind
34:00
Speaker 1: of egalitarianism, this idea that if you are successful and
34:04
Speaker 1: if you are strong, you must have sinned, which is
34:08
Speaker 1: prevalent primarily on the left, but of course it's also
34:15
Speaker 1: on the right because of Christ was going to ask,
34:18
Speaker 1: but it's primarily on the left. It's it comes from intersectionality,
34:21
Speaker 1: and egalitarianism generally is much more of an ideology of
34:24
Speaker 1: of the left. The right is offended by the fact
34:27
Speaker 1: that Jews are higher in the hierarchy. They believe in
34:31
Speaker 1: higherarchys right, they believe in and and they're offended by
34:34
Speaker 1: the fact that Jews are higher on the hierarchy when
34:36
Speaker 1: they should be, when they should be, uh, you know,
34:42
Speaker 1: put in their place given you know, given uh, their
34:52
Speaker 1: rejection of Christ and and all of that. So thank you,
35:01
Speaker 1: love it.
35:04
Speaker 9: Yeah, first of all, real quick, because I mentioned on
35:06
Speaker 9: the show yesterday on a super chat that our interview
35:09
Speaker 9: with Augustin Augustina Virgara SID was going to be postponed.
35:13
Speaker 9: Turns out it's not. She's feeling up to it, and
35:15
Speaker 9: that is going to happen tomorrow six pm. If anybody's
35:18
Speaker 9: not already subscribed, is look up my name on YouTube
35:21
Speaker 9: and meet us there tomorrow at six pm. And the
35:24
Speaker 9: only thing that came to mind from you is I
35:25
Speaker 9: was listening to Hold and Talk, and I thought, this
35:28
Speaker 9: reminds me of an objection, and let me know what
35:30
Speaker 9: you think of this. When conservatives would say that costs
35:35
Speaker 9: are passed on to consumers, it sounded like a way
35:40
Speaker 9: to say, well, well, let me explain. Left leaning hosts,
35:43
Speaker 9: people like Tom Hartman people like that would say, when
35:49
Speaker 9: taxes are raised, the only problem with that is that
35:52
Speaker 9: costs are passed on to the consumers, and we don't
35:54
Speaker 9: want to hurt consumers, we want to hurt the business man.
35:56
Speaker 1: Yep.
35:56
Speaker 9: And then I would hear right leaning you know, Rush
35:58
Speaker 9: Limbaugh type say the same thing. I thought, Well, costs
36:02
Speaker 9: or passed out to the consumers in the way that
36:04
Speaker 9: you suggest it makes businesses have to do that. But
36:10
Speaker 9: kind of maybe it's the verbiage. Maybe I'm thinking that, well,
36:12
Speaker 9: Holden's giving a more sophisticated version of it. It sounds
36:16
Speaker 9: like we're saying, well, businesses aren't hurt at all by this.
36:18
Speaker 1: But that's well, no, I mean, hold is making the
36:24
Speaker 1: point that they all hold by it.
36:25
Speaker 9: Well, I make that point too. I mean, I think
36:27
Speaker 9: his objection might be the same.
36:28
Speaker 1: As money economically. He's saying, just Pew economics of it,
36:32
Speaker 1: that they are hoard by.
36:33
Speaker 9: It exactly, which is which is why I kind of
36:36
Speaker 9: agree that the phrase passed on to consumers makes it
36:40
Speaker 9: sound frictionless like that, like there's no harm to the business.
36:43
Speaker 9: It's all on the consumers and it's not friction business.
36:48
Speaker 9: And yeah, and you can take an extreme example of
36:51
Speaker 9: you know, imagine a seventy five percent tire of one
36:53
Speaker 9: hundred percent. It sounds ridiculous, like a bad example, but
36:56
Speaker 9: Tarrett Trump is doing that, and you can say, well,
37:00
Speaker 9: present care if nobody will buy the stuff anymore. But
37:02
Speaker 9: the business isn't hurt because the one that he can
37:03
Speaker 9: still sell the can jacket up one thousand percent, he can't.
37:06
Speaker 9: Businesses are hurt when costs are passed on to the consumer.
37:09
Speaker 9: They're not all paid by the consumer. The business is hurt.
37:12
Speaker 1: Too well, but they might not be okay, So I mean,
37:17
Speaker 1: if you really want to get into the weeds of
37:18
Speaker 1: the economics, I mean, here's an example. I think I
37:21
Speaker 1: covered it yesterday. Amazon is in a position. Amazon is
37:25
Speaker 1: in a position to basically not pass the cost on
37:30
Speaker 1: if you will, not to change its pricing, to keep
37:33
Speaker 1: the pricing the way it is, to take a hit
37:35
Speaker 1: on that income. In the short run, competitors the competition
37:39
Speaker 1: out of business, rite the competitors out of business very quickly,
37:43
Speaker 1: because this is an exogenous shock that is produced by
37:48
Speaker 1: the government. And long term, Amazon might be better off.
37:52
Speaker 1: You know what, it's not an issue of you know,
37:56
Speaker 1: the world is worse off. Some people are better off.
38:00
Speaker 1: People will make of some people will you know, this
38:03
Speaker 1: American steel industry certainly in the short run, is better off,
38:08
Speaker 1: you know, to the extent that there is such a thing,
38:09
Speaker 1: is better off in terms of in terms of and
38:13
Speaker 1: this is why they lobby for it, They lob before
38:14
Speaker 1: it because they think they're better off. So it's it's
38:18
Speaker 1: who is better off, who is worse off. We're all
38:21
Speaker 1: worse off in the sense that, you know, we don't
38:24
Speaker 1: live in a free market and and and we don't
38:27
Speaker 1: have the right level of competition. But it's it's the
38:38
Speaker 1: reality is that that you know, prices go up for consumers. Uh,
38:45
Speaker 1: some businesses will go out of business and I keep
38:47
Speaker 1: saying that on my show. Right, small businesses will go
38:50
Speaker 1: out of business because they they they can't handle the
38:54
Speaker 1: extra table. They can't compete, they can't handle it. Other
38:57
Speaker 1: businesses will expand their market share. You know, different things
39:00
Speaker 1: will happen to different businesses. Overall, to the extent we
39:04
Speaker 1: can measure, overall, we're worse off. But I think that
39:12
Speaker 1: I think the you know, the main reason we're talking
39:16
Speaker 1: about pass it on to consumers with tariffs in particular,
39:19
Speaker 1: but this is colpate taxes as well. The main reason
39:22
Speaker 1: I say that is because the alternative to that that's
39:27
Speaker 1: presented by the Trump administration is the company in China
39:32
Speaker 1: will will pay for it. Right, So who cares about
39:36
Speaker 1: companies in China? Screw them? Right, Well, we should care
39:39
Speaker 1: about them because but that's the attitude. The attitude is,
39:42
Speaker 1: screw them. American companies don't hurts and American consumers don't hurt.
39:46
Speaker 1: But that's just untrue. It's it's the price. You know,
39:52
Speaker 1: it is reflected in prices in the United States, whether
39:55
Speaker 1: you want to call it passed on or out, and
39:59
Speaker 1: the business suffers, and the consumer suffers, and the Chinese
40:04
Speaker 1: company suffers too. I mean that's the other thing about
40:06
Speaker 1: tevs and taxes. Broadly, the lose, lose, lose, lose, lose.
40:11
Speaker 1: Maybe at themology there's somebody who wins, but generally they lose, lose.
40:15
Speaker 9: Lose, all right, I think like holding, I agree with
40:18
Speaker 9: everything that you were saying. It's just the semantics of
40:21
Speaker 9: suggesting a frictionless business isn't hurt at all only the consumer.
40:25
Speaker 1: No, no, no, I don't think that's gone. Okay, And again,
40:29
Speaker 1: the winners and loses, even within business, the winners and loses,
40:32
Speaker 1: they all businesses that will win.
40:34
Speaker 9: And I've got to think that on principle, the businesses
40:37
Speaker 9: that are winners in the long runner going to pay
40:38
Speaker 9: for that too, because.
40:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, because we'll we'll all poor, they face less competition,
40:47
Speaker 1: they will ultimately become, you know, because they face less
40:50
Speaker 1: competition lazy and inefficient. Uh, And we will consume few
40:55
Speaker 1: of their products. And we could go on and on
40:57
Speaker 1: and on. But so so you say yes, but again
41:01
Speaker 1: in the short run, the effect is that they gain
41:04
Speaker 1: market share. And and this is this is the reality
41:07
Speaker 1: of regulations, This is the reality of taxes. And and
41:11
Speaker 1: you know, this is the other thing when when corporate
41:13
Speaker 1: taxes are raised. The idea is that what is a corporation, right, corporation?
41:19
Speaker 1: Who is paying the taxes? You can say, okay, it's
41:21
Speaker 1: a shareholders, but the reality is the reality is the
41:26
Speaker 1: shareholders pay very little of the tax. That the tax
41:29
Speaker 1: is mostly paid by consumers and employees. I mean, study
41:36
Speaker 1: have to study after study shows this that what happens
41:39
Speaker 1: when corporate taxes are raised is wages go down and
41:42
Speaker 1: prices go up, and the return on capital doesn't change
41:46
Speaker 1: that much. So the the the the the investors are
41:51
Speaker 1: not hurt that much, and the same they have of
41:53
Speaker 1: their way around when corporate taxes are lowered as they
41:56
Speaker 1: were by Trump the first time, one of the few
41:59
Speaker 1: good things he's done on what really happened. And if
42:02
Speaker 1: you saw, the result was less a massive increase in
42:06
Speaker 1: the stock market and a return to investors and much more.
42:10
Speaker 1: Wages went up and prices went down, and uh and
42:19
Speaker 1: and and you can see this. You can see this
42:22
Speaker 1: as the ultimate effect where you know how that is
42:26
Speaker 1: passed on Olden is right, it's not passed on directly,
42:29
Speaker 1: but that is the ultimate effect. The ultimate effect is
42:32
Speaker 1: a change to wages and a change to prices, and
42:36
Speaker 1: uh and and capital capital, the return of capital changes
42:41
Speaker 1: very little. The shohoulders do not bear the burden because
42:48
Speaker 1: you know, they are not going to invest unless they
42:51
Speaker 1: required rate of return is satisfied, so they you know,
42:57
Speaker 1: and if if if again, uh, you're you're changing the
43:02
Speaker 1: cost throughout the economy, then the shoholder is not going
43:05
Speaker 1: to bear the burden of this. Shoulders be a very
43:12
Speaker 1: small post of the buden, the burden and the benefit
43:15
Speaker 1: depending which they all right, uh to be continued. I guess, uh, yeah,
43:20
Speaker 1: thank you, Stephen. Alright, okay, hey, you got you're wrong.
43:39
Speaker 10: I uh, I wanted to say that when we were
43:42
Speaker 10: at ok my speaking right, Okay, when we were come on,
43:48
Speaker 10: I al Mi Deutscha gave a concert all around the
43:51
Speaker 10: biggest cities in Japan, and I couldn't go because I
43:55
Speaker 10: was going to Ye and uh, I would have I
43:58
Speaker 10: would have gone to Japan for and she ate, she
44:01
Speaker 10: gave a she she wrote an original piece of music,
44:05
Speaker 10: fantasy on themes of Japanese music that you shouldn't miss
44:09
Speaker 10: if you get a chance to see.
44:10
Speaker 4: It on YouTube.
44:11
Speaker 1: Okay, take it out and you're breaking up a little.
44:18
Speaker 1: And I don't know if it's if it's the.
44:21
Speaker 11: I and also she did an improvisation, an improvisation.
44:27
Speaker 1: There was so much better that she did when she
44:29
Speaker 1: was a child. She Oh, I'm on my cell phone.
44:34
Speaker 1: I had to switch to my cell phone because it's better. Now,
44:37
Speaker 1: whatever it is, it's probably not as good. Has that better?
44:43
Speaker 11: Yeah, the microphone's probably being probably blocked.
44:46
Speaker 1: I'll hold it up.
44:47
Speaker 11: An improvisation there was so much more, better, better than
44:52
Speaker 11: she used to do when she was a child. That
44:53
Speaker 11: people people remember, and it was a big hit among
44:56
Speaker 11: the Japanese.
44:58
Speaker 1: And I guess that's great. Japan is great for music.
45:02
Speaker 11: And what I wanted to bring that forward to is
45:05
Speaker 11: it would it be possible for UH for her to
45:08
Speaker 11: perform at okon sometime? Would that be something that would work,
45:12
Speaker 11: especially if I paid.
45:15
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm not going to ask. I don't see
45:18
Speaker 1: why not.
45:19
Speaker 11: Yeah, yeah, I would think that would be a big
45:21
Speaker 11: hit at OCONN, just like the Yeah.
45:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, you should approach tal Or it ta all about
45:27
Speaker 1: that and see what he thinks.
45:28
Speaker 11: Yeah, I can do that at the next door in
45:31
Speaker 11: in UH New Orleans.
45:33
Speaker 1: Yep, that would probably Yeah. Good. Okay, thanks Steven.
45:38
Speaker 11: That's it then, I guess, unless you have some more
45:41
Speaker 11: comments on no.
45:43
Speaker 1: I mean I I think that's fabulous. I mean, she
45:45
Speaker 1: she's obviously an amazing musician, and it's great to see
45:49
Speaker 1: a romantic like her thriving in this world. And and
45:54
Speaker 1: uh yeah, the the Japanese, the Japanese have a real
45:59
Speaker 1: appreciation for class music, which is great.
46:02
Speaker 11: Yeah, I'd like you to ever do something like that
46:04
Speaker 11: in the United States, but it hasn't happened, you know,
46:08
Speaker 11: tour in the United States like that.
46:10
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's much harder. Thanks Steven John, Yeah.
46:18
Speaker 12: Rowan, thanks for all you do. Uh my question, Uh.
46:24
Speaker 6: You know, millions and millions of books have been sold,
46:27
Speaker 6: yet relatively few numbers of people show up on you know,
46:32
Speaker 6: ybs or aar I and what. In talking to people,
46:37
Speaker 6: I find that one of the most interesting things is
46:40
Speaker 6: how many people have read and are influenced by the
46:44
Speaker 6: novels and the nonfiction literature. H but and the butt
46:51
Speaker 6: is this the the people who have become celebrities and
46:57
Speaker 6: uh acknowledge the fluents of of ein Rand I don't
47:04
Speaker 6: believe are connected in any way to aar I and
47:08
Speaker 6: I would you know, one of the interesting things is
47:11
Speaker 6: the first question is to ask people is you know,
47:13
Speaker 6: when did you read it and.
47:15
Speaker 12: And how did it affect you? And uh?
47:18
Speaker 6: If uh prominent celebrities the I don't know, I made
47:23
Speaker 6: the list, the Jimmy Wales, the Mark Rubins, the Paul Ryans.
47:30
Speaker 12: Uh.
47:31
Speaker 6: It doesn't have to be, you know, full commitment to
47:34
Speaker 6: the integrated philosophy. It just needs to be and you know,
47:39
Speaker 6: and here's this, I'll come to the end of the statement. Uh,
47:43
Speaker 6: it doesn't need to be full commitment in any way.
47:46
Speaker 6: It's just the fascination, uh, and the excitement of of
47:51
Speaker 6: these of these ideas.
47:54
Speaker 12: And I believe that.
47:56
Speaker 6: Okay, So why hasn't the AAR I why has and
48:00
Speaker 6: ybs reached out to celebrities to try to bring them
48:06
Speaker 6: in just.
48:06
Speaker 12: To share their what you know, how what happened?
48:10
Speaker 6: What caused you to read the book in the first place,
48:12
Speaker 6: and how did it influence you?
48:15
Speaker 1: How do we how do you know we haven't reached
48:16
Speaker 1: out to them?
48:18
Speaker 12: I don't know, because I don't know.
48:20
Speaker 1: Because they have it. There isn't There isn't a prominent
48:24
Speaker 1: person on planet Earth who we know is red Ironman
48:28
Speaker 1: that is not being reached out to.
48:33
Speaker 12: And what's the response?
48:35
Speaker 1: Usually none, no response at all?
48:39
Speaker 12: And why why?
48:42
Speaker 1: Because they don't want to be affiliate associated with the philosophy,
48:49
Speaker 1: the ideology. You know, they make the statement they they
48:57
Speaker 1: were influenced by Ironman, but they do not do is
49:00
Speaker 1: they respond to them an institute or something like that.
49:03
Speaker 1: They feel like they now are sanctioning the institute and
49:07
Speaker 1: are now are in one way or another affiliated with
49:11
Speaker 1: the broader philosophy. And they don't want that.
49:14
Speaker 6: Yeah, and I could understand that, and I think that
49:17
Speaker 6: the easy statement of you don't have to.
49:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, we've tried it all. We've tried it all,
49:26
Speaker 1: thank you. I mean, and I've met with a lot
49:28
Speaker 1: of those people, you know, and I've met with a
49:32
Speaker 1: lot of them, so a lot of them will take
49:33
Speaker 1: a meeting, but you can't get them to more than that.
49:37
Speaker 1: Well they make a statement about it, and that it
49:41
Speaker 1: appears in an AARI publication, No, because then they associated
49:45
Speaker 1: with themselves with AOI will they come to Okan and
49:48
Speaker 1: say something no, because that again the same thing. So
49:51
Speaker 1: they they don't want to sanction the full philosophy. They
49:54
Speaker 1: think it will hurt them and and you know, so
49:58
Speaker 1: they stay away from it. So but yeah, I've we
50:03
Speaker 1: have lists of long, long lists of all the people
50:06
Speaker 1: who have said stuff that is positive by an iron Rand,
50:10
Speaker 1: and we approach every single one.
50:12
Speaker 12: Of them, Okay, just to follow up on it. What
50:17
Speaker 12: is it? Then?
50:19
Speaker 6: Yeah, the affiliation will hurt. So how do we overcome
50:27
Speaker 6: that fear of affiliation?
50:31
Speaker 1: I don't think. I don't know that there's a way
50:34
Speaker 1: to overcome it. I mean, the reality is we have
50:38
Speaker 1: to wait for there to be celebrities that are not
50:42
Speaker 1: afraid of the affiliation because they're not afraid of the philosophy.
50:45
Speaker 1: They're not afraid of being associated with the philosophy. So
50:49
Speaker 1: you know, there will come a time as we soften
50:53
Speaker 1: this culture up around iron Rand, that they will be
50:56
Speaker 1: quite happy to be associated with us and won't be
51:00
Speaker 1: fearful of it.
51:01
Speaker 12: Okay, thank you.
51:03
Speaker 1: I can't compromise the institute's position in order to attract celebrities,
51:08
Speaker 1: which is what I think that atle society to some
51:10
Speaker 1: extent does, right. I think they are willing to compromise
51:13
Speaker 1: their position to say things like, well, Iinman wasn't really
51:17
Speaker 1: anti religious, religion and objectivism. We can all get along
51:21
Speaker 1: on the big nice blue you know, tens, so please
51:24
Speaker 1: come along, and then people feel more more free to
51:28
Speaker 1: associate with them. I can't do that because it's not true.
51:34
Speaker 4: Okay, thank you, Sure, Ian, you're doing a positive or
51:43
Speaker 4: a negative.
51:45
Speaker 1: You'll get an opportunity to do one of each.
51:48
Speaker 4: Okay, let's let's do the negative first.
51:50
Speaker 7: Then.
51:50
Speaker 4: So this John Bolton thing, I heard your thoughts about it,
51:54
Speaker 4: and my initial thought was actually less condemnent of a
51:58
Speaker 4: Trump Trump, even though you know how much I despise Trump,
52:02
Speaker 4: and the reason is because they had to go through
52:03
Speaker 4: a judge and I generally respect the courts, and so
52:07
Speaker 4: my initial thought was, Okay, well, we should see what
52:09
Speaker 4: it plays out, see what comes out. But on the
52:12
Speaker 4: other hand, I think it's just an interesting commentary that
52:15
Speaker 4: it is where we are that everybody raises the question
52:19
Speaker 4: is this is this a real thing? Or is this
52:21
Speaker 4: him just going after people? That's like under Biden that
52:26
Speaker 4: happened but only on like the fairly extreme right and
52:30
Speaker 4: the Trump is right right. No, no rational person was
52:33
Speaker 4: thinking the document's case was anything but a real case.
52:39
Speaker 1: There were cases literally was I mean, even New York
52:43
Speaker 1: basically ran and I ran a campaign saying I'm going
52:46
Speaker 1: to go after Trump if I get elected, you know, so.
52:49
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean there were there were obvious ones of
52:51
Speaker 4: things he was actually guilty of, but they were clearly
52:54
Speaker 4: brought because he was Trump.
52:56
Speaker 1: And this is the thing. We live in a world
53:00
Speaker 1: which almost all of us are guilty of something, just
53:04
Speaker 1: the reality of a heavily regulated, heavily controlled, lots of
53:09
Speaker 1: laws world. And then a lot of what district attorneys
53:14
Speaker 1: do is they decide who to bring charges against and
53:19
Speaker 1: who not to bring charges against. And you know that
53:24
Speaker 1: can easily and is I think it always has mean politicized.
53:28
Speaker 1: It's Giuliani in the Southern distinctive of New York in
53:32
Speaker 1: the early nineteen eighties, you know, going after Wall Street
53:35
Speaker 1: because it was politically the thing to do. It was
53:38
Speaker 1: the way to get attention and to get to get
53:42
Speaker 1: himself politically for that. I think almost all attorney generals,
53:47
Speaker 1: I mean, I like the series Billionai. I don't know
53:50
Speaker 1: if you ever sawd the series Billionaire, not because of
53:54
Speaker 1: the way it portrayed the hedge fund guy, because I
53:56
Speaker 1: think it didn't understand hedge funds at all and was
54:00
Speaker 1: he distortive. But it presented the distinctity of the Southern
54:03
Speaker 1: distinct of New York brilliantly in terms of the kind
54:06
Speaker 1: of pressures that are placed on him and how political
54:10
Speaker 1: that all is and how infused it is with corruption.
54:15
Speaker 1: But yeah, we become a cynical culture, and we become
54:18
Speaker 1: a culture. And with Trump, he basically says it right
54:21
Speaker 1: in his press conference yesterday, he kind of said, you know,
54:24
Speaker 1: I might have had something to do with going after Bolton.
54:27
Speaker 1: I might not have had something to do with going
54:28
Speaker 1: after Bolton, like he wouldn't commit. You know, he likes
54:33
Speaker 1: to play it because he realizes that that has power.
54:37
Speaker 1: Then even ambiguity, because he wants his enemies to be
54:41
Speaker 1: afraid of him. He's just like any other authoritarian thug.
54:46
Speaker 1: He wants them to know he can come after them.
54:52
Speaker 4: The whole thing is so corrosive.
54:54
Speaker 1: Yep, it's horrible. All right, let's see. I think we've
54:58
Speaker 1: got Jacob.
55:01
Speaker 13: And I have two questions. I'll have to leave after
55:04
Speaker 13: this one. So the question is the more I think
55:09
Speaker 13: of the economy and where it's going. So for a reference,
55:12
Speaker 13: my bonus for this year was cut by like sixty
55:15
Speaker 13: percent or more just because of numbers are coming in flat.
55:18
Speaker 13: I wanted to see your opinion for stackflation economy, which
55:22
Speaker 13: I think what we're roughly getting into is where you
55:25
Speaker 13: would pivot your career if you would. So for me,
55:29
Speaker 13: I'm trying to focus on the next three to five
55:31
Speaker 13: years of getting my technical expertise as a process engineer.
55:35
Speaker 13: That way it can be more dangerous and whatever feel
55:38
Speaker 13: I go to. And then also, besides career, would you
55:41
Speaker 13: pivot your investment in any way? So right now I'm
55:45
Speaker 13: like sixty five percent US S and P five hundred,
55:48
Speaker 13: twenty five percent international and about ten percent where I
55:51
Speaker 13: can just play with in the market. And it's if
55:54
Speaker 13: I lose it, it's fine. If I don't lose it,
55:55
Speaker 13: it's all fine. Would you change any of your investment
55:59
Speaker 13: if you were years old in this market?
56:04
Speaker 1: I mean, it's very difficult to say. And it's not
56:09
Speaker 1: a cop out. I mean, I think it's just a reality.
56:12
Speaker 1: I think we're heading towards stagnation. How much inflation in
56:16
Speaker 1: terms of prices going up again, I don't know how
56:21
Speaker 1: much we're going to get. It's it's it's definitely not zero.
56:25
Speaker 1: The FED wants it to be at two percent. I
56:27
Speaker 1: don't think it'll be a two percent. I think it'll
56:28
Speaker 1: be higher. The M two numbers increasing after period where
56:33
Speaker 1: they were decreasing, which suggests to me that they, you know,
56:36
Speaker 1: we're seeing monetary inflation, which ultimately will be reflected in prices,
56:42
Speaker 1: so you know, stackflation. But I don't think we'll get
56:45
Speaker 1: the staflation of the nineteen seventies where you had, I
56:48
Speaker 1: forget double digit inflation, double digit you know, price increases
56:53
Speaker 1: and at the same time, you know, just no economic growth.
56:56
Speaker 1: I don't know that we're gonna I don't think we're
56:58
Speaker 1: going to get the double digit price is will be
57:00
Speaker 1: increasing at a higher rate than any of us like
57:03
Speaker 1: and and and that is a challenge. It's the it's
57:07
Speaker 1: the stagnation that is the bigger problem, particularly if you're
57:11
Speaker 1: invested in the stock market. And uh, you know, hold
57:14
Speaker 1: they might disagree with me in a minute, but uh,
57:18
Speaker 1: companies can deal with inflation, right, they deal with inflation
57:20
Speaker 1: by they deal with monetoring inflation by raising prices. It
57:24
Speaker 1: hurts them, and it hurts them certainly in the long run,
57:27
Speaker 1: and the stock market stagnates. But the stock market typically
57:29
Speaker 1: doesn't crash because of inflation. The stock market crashes because
57:33
Speaker 1: of because of uh, you know, real damage to credit,
57:41
Speaker 1: uh you know, credit crisis or what leads to stock
57:44
Speaker 1: market crashes and and we could get something like that.
57:47
Speaker 1: I mean, I I've mentioned the fact that I think
57:51
Speaker 1: bitcoin these weird, these weird structures where uh what do
57:59
Speaker 1: they call them? Treasury companies where they're they're just buying bitcoin,
58:02
Speaker 1: and then the evaluations that double the value of the bitcoin.
58:05
Speaker 1: That suggests to me that we're in a period that
58:10
Speaker 1: is there's going to be a significant, you know, down
58:13
Speaker 1: move in those stocks that could easily spill into other
58:17
Speaker 1: technology stocks and other stocks, and you could see a
58:20
Speaker 1: real attraction in the stock market. But that's so hard
58:23
Speaker 1: to tell. I mean, it's also you know, if you're
58:26
Speaker 1: going to invest in fun companies like international stocks, what
58:33
Speaker 1: are you saying about the dollar? Do you think the
58:34
Speaker 1: value of the dollar is going to go down to
58:36
Speaker 1: go up? Why is it going to go down? Why
58:37
Speaker 1: is it going to go up? It's not It's it's complicated,
58:40
Speaker 1: not generally, I you know, it's you know, if you
58:47
Speaker 1: tilt your put folio towards more international stocks, what do
58:50
Speaker 1: you tilted towards? Are you tilting it towards emerging markets?
58:54
Speaker 1: Are you tilting it towards Europe? I think Europe is
58:57
Speaker 1: a mess. The euro might be doing might be doing
59:00
Speaker 1: pretty good. Against the dollar. But the European Union is
59:03
Speaker 1: an economy is the mass, and I don't know what
59:06
Speaker 1: valuations are like of stocks in Europe. I haven't looked
59:08
Speaker 1: at them. Emoji markets, they might be opportunities there, like
59:14
Speaker 1: you know the money you're playing with, put it in Argentina.
59:22
Speaker 13: Yeah, My emerging markets was just more of a hedge.
59:25
Speaker 13: As a US slows down, I could get it to.
59:28
Speaker 1: Close down so well, EMOGENI markets.
59:32
Speaker 13: True, what about for a career? So it was I
59:36
Speaker 13: was planning to jump companies, but then the market slowed
59:39
Speaker 13: down dramatically, so everything's hyper competitive. So I was thinking
59:44
Speaker 13: of next three or five years, stay with my current company,
59:47
Speaker 13: developed some advanced skills, and then maybe relook at it later.
59:52
Speaker 13: I don't know if you have any feedback on that.
59:55
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that probably makes sense. Although if
59:57
Speaker 1: you don't like your job, of you know, you and
1:00:00
Speaker 1: always start looking and seeing what's available out there. What
1:00:03
Speaker 1: is the market like? But what you want to do
1:00:07
Speaker 1: right now is really develop advanced skills. Not so much
1:00:10
Speaker 1: just because of the economy is in such flux, but
1:00:14
Speaker 1: also because AI is coming and AI is going to
1:00:18
Speaker 1: restructure a lot of the way jobs are done. And
1:00:22
Speaker 1: and kind of the skill sets that people are looking for.
1:00:25
Speaker 1: And I think it's worth really thinking about how to
1:00:29
Speaker 1: kind of think about your career developing skills that are
1:00:36
Speaker 1: AI resistant at least in the short run.
1:00:41
Speaker 13: Okay, sounds great, Thanks Eron, all right.
1:00:45
Speaker 1: Thanks Jacob. Let's see all.
1:00:52
Speaker 2: Right, holding, Hey, guys, I guess that I have to
1:01:05
Speaker 2: talk about the corporate tax. I'm sorry you just out there.
1:01:09
Speaker 2: So basically I want, let's just do a thought experiment. Right,
1:01:15
Speaker 2: If you've got one hundred percent corporate tax profit tax,
1:01:19
Speaker 2: every investment becomes unprofitable. Right, So there's there's no the
1:01:24
Speaker 2: value of the investment is based on the future free
1:01:26
Speaker 2: cash flows and producers from now and until judgment day
1:01:28
Speaker 2: does kind of backed by an interest rate. So every
1:01:31
Speaker 2: investment yields no more profits. So every investment is zero. Right,
1:01:35
Speaker 2: So the corporate tax ultimately is directly changing the profitability
1:01:40
Speaker 2: of an investment. So let's say I'm a pizza firm
1:01:45
Speaker 2: and I make pizzas. If my profit margin is five
1:01:50
Speaker 2: percent on these pizzas and it's above the natural rate
1:01:52
Speaker 2: of interest, I'm making economic profits. But if they slap
1:01:56
Speaker 2: a corporate tax on of say two percent and the
1:01:59
Speaker 2: interest rate is for percent than I'm making economic losses now.
1:02:04
Speaker 2: So basically, the corporate tax is changing the profitability of
1:02:07
Speaker 2: an investment. So the shareholders are now earning lower returns
1:02:12
Speaker 2: on the capital invested. Now, you can have an empirical
1:02:15
Speaker 2: study that says, oh, the wages are going down or
1:02:19
Speaker 2: whatever it is, and that's all great, but it doesn't
1:02:22
Speaker 2: change the the theoretical fact that the investment is based
1:02:26
Speaker 2: on the future cash that it produces, and you're changing
1:02:29
Speaker 2: the cash that it produces.
1:02:32
Speaker 1: So so if if if if my company is listed
1:02:36
Speaker 1: on the stock exchange, and you raise the corporate taxes,
1:02:40
Speaker 1: then what would you expect. What would you expect the
1:02:43
Speaker 1: stock price to do?
1:02:47
Speaker 2: Oh, it would definitely fall, It would definitely fall. Yeah,
1:02:52
Speaker 2: And if it doesn't, then there's some other factor. It's
1:02:56
Speaker 2: you got to hold Sinteri's parabus, right, So the future
1:02:59
Speaker 2: cash is less so discounted back by a lower interest rate.
1:03:04
Speaker 2: Maybe it's more. Maybe something happens in your interest.
1:03:08
Speaker 1: No, nothing's happened. Let's let's assume nothing's happened because I
1:03:11
Speaker 1: change it today and it's the only thing that's really
1:03:13
Speaker 1: changing right now and nothing else is changing. And you know,
1:03:18
Speaker 1: the fact is that so you know, let's say, you know,
1:03:24
Speaker 1: i'd have to run a numbers example. I'd have to
1:03:27
Speaker 1: run an example with numbers with you. But yeah, the
1:03:32
Speaker 1: reality is so, the reality is that the the the investors,
1:03:43
Speaker 1: the investors bear a small part, a very small part
1:03:49
Speaker 1: of the actual cost of the tax. So profitability doesn't
1:03:57
Speaker 1: go down that much because the the the cost can
1:04:01
Speaker 1: be you know, passed through. You don't like that to
1:04:04
Speaker 1: pass through. But because all my competitors are bearing the
1:04:08
Speaker 1: same the same cost prices, all of us will raise prices. Right, So, yes,
1:04:17
Speaker 1: you know, the way of profit will go down, but
1:04:19
Speaker 1: it won't go down by the same amount as the tax. Right,
1:04:24
Speaker 1: So shareholders will pay part of the tax. Consumers will
1:04:28
Speaker 1: pay part of the tax. And if I can cut
1:04:30
Speaker 1: my costs by cutting my my if I can cut
1:04:33
Speaker 1: costs by cutting my employees, then employees will pay part
1:04:37
Speaker 1: of the tax.
1:04:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're going to employ fewer factors of production because
1:04:41
Speaker 2: it's by definition less profitable now.
1:04:43
Speaker 1: So all of them affected by the tax. And you
1:04:46
Speaker 1: can divide the cost of the tax between the different
1:04:50
Speaker 1: factors of production, and you can say consumers make part
1:04:54
Speaker 1: of it, employees make part of it. Capital goods make
1:04:57
Speaker 1: part of it, and shareholders pay part of it to
1:05:00
Speaker 1: be part of it. And when you run them and
1:05:02
Speaker 1: when you run the actual numbers, it turns out the
1:05:04
Speaker 1: shareholders paid. The damage to shareholders is the smallest of
1:05:10
Speaker 1: all the different factors of production.
1:05:13
Speaker 2: We have to distinguish between the short and the long run.
1:05:16
Speaker 2: So like in the short run, the investment is now
1:05:19
Speaker 2: it has been, this marginal firm now is a sub
1:05:23
Speaker 2: marginal firm or a super or not.
1:05:25
Speaker 1: Because all films are sub All films are affected the
1:05:28
Speaker 1: same by the same exactly the.
1:05:30
Speaker 2: Same way, but firms have different profit margins, so it changes.
1:05:35
Speaker 2: It changes whether or not a line of production is
1:05:38
Speaker 2: worth taking on or not. So for if I'm making
1:05:41
Speaker 2: thirty percent profit margins and it brings brings my profit
1:05:43
Speaker 2: margin down to fifteen percent, I could still do fine,
1:05:46
Speaker 2: but you know it'll change based on.
1:05:48
Speaker 1: The given that everybody bears it, everybody can then look
1:05:52
Speaker 1: at the costs and therefore increase their profit margin.
1:05:56
Speaker 2: So but we have to distinguish between the short and
1:05:59
Speaker 2: the long run. So the short run, you're going to
1:06:01
Speaker 2: see ferns exiting your in the in the short run,
1:06:04
Speaker 2: you're going to have lower profit margins. The ferns that
1:06:06
Speaker 2: are making profit margins lower than the cost of capital
1:06:09
Speaker 2: are going to leave the industry because it's ineffective.
1:06:13
Speaker 1: Unless they can cut their cost to such an extent
1:06:16
Speaker 1: that they now have a higher profit market.
1:06:18
Speaker 2: Sure, yeah, I'm just say yes, yeah, sure, if you
1:06:21
Speaker 2: could cut your cost, great, that's awesome. But with the tax,
1:06:25
Speaker 2: you could have done that without. I mean with the tax.
1:06:27
Speaker 1: You know, you couldn't have done it without because without
1:06:30
Speaker 1: the increase in the tax, Without the increase in the tax,
1:06:35
Speaker 1: there is a certain equilibrium a cost the industry of
1:06:39
Speaker 1: where the costs of being determined. So you'll go somewhere
1:06:42
Speaker 1: else if you cut their wages. Yes, now everybody in
1:06:44
Speaker 1: the industry is cutting wages.
1:06:46
Speaker 2: Yes, but well, the wage is valued at the marginal
1:06:49
Speaker 2: value product, so the discount and marginal value product, so
1:06:53
Speaker 2: the discount of marginal value product is Yes, it'll change
1:06:57
Speaker 2: in the long Yes, the wage.
1:07:00
Speaker 1: Mean determined by competition for labor, right, the wages being
1:07:03
Speaker 1: desmed by competition for labor. And the reality is that
1:07:06
Speaker 1: you've just changed the equilibria the competition for that labor
1:07:10
Speaker 1: because everybody now has an incentive to cut labor to
1:07:12
Speaker 1: cut the cost.
1:07:14
Speaker 2: Well, it's ultimately, no matter what your competition is, your
1:07:17
Speaker 2: your you can't pay more than marginal value product if
1:07:19
Speaker 2: you make losses on labor if you pay more. So
1:07:23
Speaker 2: it doesn't even if you're a monopoly, it's the same thing.
1:07:26
Speaker 2: So basically, uh, what we're running into here is that
1:07:31
Speaker 2: the effective marginal value product of the line of production
1:07:36
Speaker 2: is lower. Okay, So the rent of everything, the rent
1:07:42
Speaker 2: of capital goods, the wages of labor are all lower
1:07:45
Speaker 2: because the effective the effective profit that it generates is
1:07:49
Speaker 2: now lower. Okay, So the marginal firms will go out
1:07:53
Speaker 2: of the industry because they earn lower profit margins. Now,
1:07:56
Speaker 2: so the return on capital has now been lower, so
1:07:59
Speaker 2: we have less investment in capital goods, they depreciate, they
1:08:03
Speaker 2: go out, and then the firm leaves the industry. So
1:08:06
Speaker 2: now those shareholders have to find new investments to go
1:08:10
Speaker 2: because the investment that they previously had was no longer
1:08:14
Speaker 2: profitable under current tax rates. If we had one hundred
1:08:18
Speaker 2: percent tax rate, to make it super simple and a
1:08:20
Speaker 2: thought experiment, there's there's no profitability. Absolutely, we go to autarchy,
1:08:27
Speaker 2: complete autarchy. So so basically, uh, the incidence is in theory,
1:08:34
Speaker 2: and basically the incidence ultimately is on the investors. But
1:08:39
Speaker 2: it's true that the discount and marginal value product of
1:08:42
Speaker 2: labor is now lower and factor, and that's going to
1:08:48
Speaker 2: go down to every factor because they buy the inputs
1:08:50
Speaker 2: and they buy the so every factor of production throughout
1:08:53
Speaker 2: the structure is going to face lower marginal value product.
1:08:56
Speaker 2: And because land, labor, land and labor and polist interests
1:09:00
Speaker 2: interested and change, but land and labor ear in lower
1:09:03
Speaker 2: marginal value products, so they they they face the incidents too.
1:09:06
Speaker 2: But the shareholders also face incidents here because you're.
1:09:10
Speaker 1: Saying shareholders don't don't bear any of the costs they
1:09:13
Speaker 1: be they bear the cost I'm saying that empirically. Again, UH,
1:09:19
Speaker 1: A majority of the the you know, the pain here
1:09:26
Speaker 1: is ultimately in small, relatively small changes in capital gains taxes.
1:09:31
Speaker 1: Now again, if you increase it one hundred percent, clearly
1:09:34
Speaker 1: everybody goes bankrupt and everybody suffers the consequence of everything.
1:09:37
Speaker 1: But it's small changes of capital gains. Most of the
1:09:41
Speaker 1: impact is is felt by labor and UH and by
1:09:47
Speaker 1: UH and by consumers.
1:09:50
Speaker 2: Ultimately, you're gonna change the profit stream of the investment.
1:09:54
Speaker 1: So the investment is shareholder's still bea some of it,
1:09:58
Speaker 1: but they they build less than what what you know,
1:10:01
Speaker 1: they don't baye their entire amount. Is the point actually
1:10:05
Speaker 1: be as a percentage less than labor and consumers.
1:10:10
Speaker 2: I mean, it's going to be hard to do this
1:10:12
Speaker 2: in an empirical study because you're not holding the factors constant.
1:10:15
Speaker 1: So it's very there are ways in which you can
1:10:16
Speaker 1: do an imperical study to hold fact this constant. You know,
1:10:19
Speaker 1: there are ways in which you can unentangle this and
1:10:22
Speaker 1: figure it out, and people have done.
1:10:23
Speaker 2: It, but well to share it with me. But I
1:10:27
Speaker 2: guess ultimately what's going on here. This is a fundamental point.
1:10:31
Speaker 2: The future profits of the business is is what it's worth,
1:10:34
Speaker 2: so a discounted by interest. So so you change the
1:10:38
Speaker 2: future profits of the business. It's very simple.
1:10:41
Speaker 1: How much have I changed the profits of the business?
1:10:43
Speaker 1: And then we'll kind of by the rate of the tax.
1:10:46
Speaker 1: So Terris Parabis, no, because because as you've said, my
1:10:50
Speaker 1: labor costs have gone down and and and and spince,
1:10:54
Speaker 1: I faced less competition, my my, my my revenue has
1:10:58
Speaker 1: gone up and uh, and so my profitability in the
1:11:02
Speaker 1: future goes down, but not by the weight of the
1:11:05
Speaker 1: tax by something the weight of the tax.
1:11:07
Speaker 2: But what if, but what if now that you have,
1:11:10
Speaker 2: labor has gone out of the industry, So now law
1:11:14
Speaker 2: of diminishing returns you you don't have to pay more
1:11:17
Speaker 2: for labor because the marginal value product is higher. I mean,
1:11:21
Speaker 2: it's like it's it's you can't just say like in
1:11:24
Speaker 2: every scenario, like and then you're going to change, like
1:11:26
Speaker 2: how many factors you employed. This is going to change,
1:11:28
Speaker 2: like you know, the rents of them for the law
1:11:30
Speaker 2: of return, so like you you know, you're going to
1:11:32
Speaker 2: have like a bunch of different factors here. But ultimately
1:11:35
Speaker 2: the investment is less profitable now for the shareholders.
1:11:39
Speaker 1: So they yes, not but but not by the amount
1:11:43
Speaker 1: of the tax, like something smaller than that.
1:11:46
Speaker 2: If if if the costs are the same, which they're
1:11:49
Speaker 2: not going to be. I understand that if the costs
1:11:51
Speaker 2: are the same, then yes, but the same of the tax.
1:11:53
Speaker 2: But that's not going to happen obviously.
1:11:58
Speaker 1: Yes, that's right. So it's it's less than the tacks
1:12:03
Speaker 1: given that the costs are going to shift and revenues
1:12:07
Speaker 1: can shift.
1:12:08
Speaker 2: I don't want to like take up the whole thing.
1:12:12
Speaker 1: To be continued, I guess, let's see, Jennifer.
1:12:23
Speaker 7: Well, I was thinking the other day, you know how
1:12:25
Speaker 7: people when they'll make an argument for God, and they'll say,
1:12:28
Speaker 7: there's obviously there's an intelligent design in reality, so it
1:12:34
Speaker 7: must be a god. And when I was a kid,
1:12:37
Speaker 7: I used to think it wasn't it's not very intelligent.
1:12:42
Speaker 7: Of orse, she had to define that. But if there's
1:12:45
Speaker 7: a god, why why are things so difficult, you know,
1:12:48
Speaker 7: like for living things to survive and all the pain
1:12:51
Speaker 7: and everything. That's not very intelligent now, And then, of
1:12:53
Speaker 7: course when I get older understood that's not philosophical argument.
1:12:56
Speaker 7: I mean, it could be a god who's just a
1:12:57
Speaker 7: jerk or whatever. But when they're saying intelligent design, what
1:13:02
Speaker 7: they're referring to is the law of identity, right, that
1:13:04
Speaker 7: there's a law of identity, so they're trying to equate
1:13:07
Speaker 7: that with intelligent design. Is that what they're referring to.
1:13:10
Speaker 1: When they say that, I do think, yeah, I'm not
1:13:18
Speaker 1: sure I understand the question.
1:13:21
Speaker 7: Well, do you know when people say intelligent design and
1:13:23
Speaker 7: that there must be a god?
1:13:24
Speaker 1: Because yeah, I mean the argument they use is you
1:13:28
Speaker 1: pick up a claw, you look at a watch or clock,
1:13:32
Speaker 1: and you immediately know that somebody designed it, somebody made it,
1:13:35
Speaker 1: because it's it's so intricate and it works so well,
1:13:38
Speaker 1: and there's no and you look at nature and you go, well,
1:13:42
Speaker 1: somebody must have created this, must have must have made it,
1:13:45
Speaker 1: because it's so complex and it's so you know, functions
1:13:49
Speaker 1: by these by these laws. This doesn't look like it's
1:13:52
Speaker 1: arbitrary or random.
1:13:54
Speaker 7: Well, that's what I'm saying that because the law of
1:13:56
Speaker 7: identity exists, they're trying to equate. Well, because things are
1:13:59
Speaker 7: what they they are, they they act the way they're
1:14:02
Speaker 7: supposed to act.
1:14:02
Speaker 12: Now there was a law of.
1:14:03
Speaker 1: Identity, if somebody must have designed them, Yeah, that's right. Okay,
1:14:07
Speaker 1: I never thought of it that way, but yes I
1:14:09
Speaker 1: think that.
1:14:09
Speaker 7: Yeah, that's that's what they're trying to refer to. Is
1:14:11
Speaker 7: of course is wrong and.
1:14:13
Speaker 1: The way entity causality. Yes, that they through reference that
1:14:17
Speaker 1: for something that violates the law of identity and violates
1:14:20
Speaker 1: the love cuzale, right, and yeah, that's who designed the designer? Right.
1:14:26
Speaker 1: They never have an answer for that.
1:14:28
Speaker 7: When I was a kid, I did used to think,
1:14:30
Speaker 7: though that's not very intelligent.
1:14:32
Speaker 12: If I was I could make donue.
1:14:35
Speaker 5: Donahue asked rand about that, was saying like, yeah, he's saying,
1:14:40
Speaker 5: aren't you impressed by the order in the universe?
1:14:43
Speaker 1: And she was saying no.
1:14:45
Speaker 5: And she said no, she said, what would a disorderly
1:14:49
Speaker 5: universe mean? It would mean like basically the violation of
1:14:51
Speaker 5: the law of identity, right, Yeah.
1:14:55
Speaker 7: The Greeks used to call chaos. They thought there was
1:14:57
Speaker 7: chaos and somehow it this doesn't make sense either, But.
1:15:04
Speaker 1: No, I mean it's it's the kind of excuses people
1:15:07
Speaker 1: come up with, you know, to justify God is is
1:15:10
Speaker 1: pretty amazing.
1:15:12
Speaker 7: Yeah, it is. They get pretty creative sometimes.
1:15:16
Speaker 1: Thank you, all right, thanks Jennifer Adam.
1:15:24
Speaker 8: There's something puzzling about the entire intellectual community in history
1:15:35
Speaker 8: and cultural philosophy ignoring scientific evidence. For example, I've encountered
1:15:45
Speaker 8: over and over the argument that the German concentration camps
1:15:57
Speaker 8: and death camps were industrial and that's an argument against industry. Now,
1:16:10
Speaker 8: the fact is, and it's absolutely solid science, that during
1:16:18
Speaker 8: the Crusades, by the end of the Crusades, the ancestral
1:16:23
Speaker 8: population of Ashkenazi Jews, that is, essentially the entire Jewish
1:16:30
Speaker 8: population north of Spain and Italy, was reduced to between
1:16:37
Speaker 8: two hundred and seventy and three hundred and fifty individuals.
1:16:43
Speaker 8: Now before that, we don't have the exact numbers, but
1:16:49
Speaker 8: we know from the less Roman censuses that Jews constituted
1:16:58
Speaker 8: about ten percent of the population in the Roman Empire,
1:17:04
Speaker 8: including the areas where the ancestral population of the Jews lived.
1:17:13
Speaker 8: So during the Crusades, an overwhelming number, more than ninety
1:17:25
Speaker 8: nine point nine percent of all the Jews in Europe
1:17:31
Speaker 8: north of Spain and Italy were murdered without any resort
1:17:39
Speaker 8: to industry or modernity. In the Showa, the Germans killed
1:17:51
Speaker 8: about between one third and one half of all the
1:17:57
Speaker 8: Jews in the territories they containg. So why is this
1:18:07
Speaker 8: still being used in the anti industrial argument? Why is
1:18:13
Speaker 8: the scientific evidence being ignored?
1:18:18
Speaker 1: I'm not sure what the scientific it's being I know
1:18:20
Speaker 1: the reality is that the Germans in World War Two
1:18:26
Speaker 1: did it more efficiently and did it on an industrial scale.
1:18:30
Speaker 1: The Crusades killed maybe a greater percentage of Jews, but
1:18:35
Speaker 1: they did it less systematically and with less efficiency, and
1:18:40
Speaker 1: in a much more bloody in a much more bloody way,
1:18:45
Speaker 1: in a much more personal way. They literally had to
1:18:48
Speaker 1: go up and kill one at a time. So I
1:18:51
Speaker 1: think there's complete justification for talking about the fact that
1:18:54
Speaker 1: this was done in an industrial way. I also think
1:18:59
Speaker 1: the other thing about the Crusades is that it was
1:19:03
Speaker 1: very much done, as far as I can tell, very
1:19:07
Speaker 1: much done kind of on the ground by the people
1:19:14
Speaker 1: who are participating in the Crusades. They were inspired by
1:19:19
Speaker 1: the the you know that in the moment to kill
1:19:22
Speaker 1: as many Jews as they could, versus a a a plan,
1:19:28
Speaker 1: a regimented plan to rid the world of Jews, which
1:19:32
Speaker 1: I think is what the nazis, what the Nazis implemented.
1:19:36
Speaker 1: So while they killed more as a percentage, it was
1:19:39
Speaker 1: just done differently, and and I think pointing out the
1:19:43
Speaker 1: differences between them is is not invalid.
1:19:48
Speaker 8: Well, first of all, the evidence is from DNA, we
1:19:55
Speaker 8: can trade.
1:19:56
Speaker 1: Yeah. No, we're not. We're not. We're not. I'm not
1:19:59
Speaker 1: challenging the evidence. The evidence is clearly that the Crusade
1:20:02
Speaker 1: killed more, but they did it differently. And and the
1:20:06
Speaker 1: point of industrializing the fact that they did the Nazis
1:20:09
Speaker 1: did it in an industrialized way is not to suggest
1:20:13
Speaker 1: that they killed more Jews. It's just to suggest that
1:20:15
Speaker 1: they did it in a you know, in a particular way,
1:20:20
Speaker 1: which is different than the way it was done during
1:20:22
Speaker 1: the Crusades.
1:20:24
Speaker 8: But if they killed a match match match lower fraction,
1:20:31
Speaker 8: how can it be argued that it was more efficient.
1:20:37
Speaker 1: Oh, because they they expended less energy to do it.
1:20:44
Speaker 1: They didn't have to. They didn't have to, you know, uh,
1:20:48
Speaker 1: wheeled swords and roam around and different little villages. And
1:20:54
Speaker 1: it didn't take them hundreds of years to do Remember
1:20:56
Speaker 1: the the the the Crusades were not one crusade. There
1:21:00
Speaker 1: were there were three, four, five of them and they
1:21:02
Speaker 1: and they each one of them killed more Jews and
1:21:05
Speaker 1: more Jews. So it was just it was a much
1:21:09
Speaker 1: big expedition of energy. It wasn't a systematically planned It
1:21:14
Speaker 1: was much more uh, the emotion of the moment. And
1:21:19
Speaker 1: again it was it was not industrial. It wasn't a
1:21:22
Speaker 1: conveyor built. So I mean it killing is killing, But
1:21:27
Speaker 1: there's a difference between the two. It's just a descriptive
1:21:30
Speaker 1: of the difference. Uh. Now, it's also true that people
1:21:35
Speaker 1: don't know, ignore evade the brutality of the Crusades, particularly
1:21:42
Speaker 1: towards Jews, than not interested in it, because that would
1:21:48
Speaker 1: blame that would that would blame Christianity for it. They
1:21:51
Speaker 1: don't want to hear.
1:21:52
Speaker 3: But you also say that the the Crusades, like I mean, okay,
1:21:56
Speaker 3: a lot of that that was taking place was a bloodlust.
1:21:58
Speaker 4: Kind of thing.
1:21:59
Speaker 3: I'm not excusing it, whereas the Nazi thing just it
1:22:03
Speaker 3: seemed to be kind of beyond bloodlust. It was just Okay,
1:22:07
Speaker 3: we have a job to do, let's go do it.
1:22:09
Speaker 1: Yeah. I definitely think that that is a difference. And
1:22:12
Speaker 1: you know, the Crusades, a lot of it was local
1:22:18
Speaker 1: preachers revving people up and getting people excited in or
1:22:21
Speaker 1: to get them motivated to go to the Crusade, and
1:22:24
Speaker 1: the Jews being the first victims that they encountered, that
1:22:27
Speaker 1: they that they used up the bloodlust if you will.
1:22:32
Speaker 1: On where's the Nazis had a systematic plan? I don't
1:22:36
Speaker 1: think the Crusades had a plan. It just happened. So
1:22:39
Speaker 1: I think I think that is part of the difference.
1:22:42
Speaker 1: I do not know if we know how many Jews
1:22:47
Speaker 1: were live during the Crusade and what percentage of the
1:22:50
Speaker 1: total global Jewish population they killed. They clearly killed, as
1:22:56
Speaker 1: as Adam says, you know, ninety nine percent or whatever
1:23:00
Speaker 1: the number is of Central and Western Europe Western Eupean
1:23:07
Speaker 1: non including Spain and Italy of the Jews. And it
1:23:09
Speaker 1: is interesting that Italy you didn't see this going on,
1:23:13
Speaker 1: and Italy is where the Pope was, and the Pope
1:23:15
Speaker 1: was actually opposed to killing Jews during the crusade, So
1:23:19
Speaker 1: the Pope actually objected to it. And it was local
1:23:21
Speaker 1: preachers who traveled with the crusaders who got them wild
1:23:25
Speaker 1: up and got them going. At least that's true of
1:23:27
Speaker 1: the first Crusade. I'm not sure what happened in the
1:23:29
Speaker 1: others in terms of the Pope's involvement. I thanks, Adam,
1:23:36
Speaker 1: let's see, I'm lane.
1:23:41
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's the question, like small question again, what rule
1:23:47
Speaker 4: do police have to maintain.
1:23:50
Speaker 3: Law and order at private events things like concerts, sport,
1:23:54
Speaker 3: sports events and things. I mean, one would think that, okay,
1:23:57
Speaker 3: that's their job is to protect the individual rights. But
1:24:01
Speaker 3: on the other hand, you know, like you know, like
1:24:04
Speaker 3: I give us an example, like years ago, I went
1:24:06
Speaker 3: to an ACDC concert in Montreal and when we came out,
1:24:09
Speaker 3: the Riots squad was lined up there. That nothing happened,
1:24:12
Speaker 3: but given that it was Montreal, I could certainly see
1:24:14
Speaker 3: their their exercising caution because they love to riot there.
1:24:18
Speaker 1: Yep, So was that.
1:24:21
Speaker 4: I mean, obviously that costs a lot more, you know,
1:24:23
Speaker 4: you have please, I.
1:24:24
Speaker 1: Mean, I think that's legitimate. If they if they worry
1:24:27
Speaker 1: about the potential for a violation of rights at scale,
1:24:32
Speaker 1: then they need to be prepared for them. They need
1:24:34
Speaker 1: to be ready for that. So I think absolutely the
1:24:37
Speaker 1: police have now whether they are going to enter the venue.
1:24:40
Speaker 1: They would enter the venue only if there's real evidence
1:24:43
Speaker 1: of something already happening in the venue, right, so they're
1:24:47
Speaker 1: not you know, if riots break out during a football game,
1:24:52
Speaker 1: then the police will come in, but they won't. They
1:24:55
Speaker 1: won't and if there's rumors that riots are going to happen,
1:24:59
Speaker 1: they might stay. Police inside the venue already in advance, Okay.
1:25:03
Speaker 3: But I mean in general, though, like when you have
1:25:05
Speaker 3: these venues and let's say you have thirty, twenty thousand,
1:25:08
Speaker 3: whatever number of people, is it unreasonable to say, okay,
1:25:13
Speaker 3: you know, we want to have some police presence because
1:25:16
Speaker 3: you know, in the general population, let's say you have
1:25:18
Speaker 3: one officer for every thousand people whatever. You know, now
1:25:21
Speaker 3: you've got twenty thousand people in one place. I mean,
1:25:24
Speaker 3: just it doesn't even have to be a place where
1:25:26
Speaker 3: you say, Okay, there's a riot that's likely to happen.
1:25:28
Speaker 3: It could just be Yeah, that many people together in
1:25:31
Speaker 3: a place, you're more likely to get some confract it
1:25:34
Speaker 3: might result in some fights and stuff.
1:25:35
Speaker 1: Strikes me it's very reasonable, and the police's job is
1:25:38
Speaker 1: to try to anticipate these things to figure out how
1:25:41
Speaker 1: to deploy the resources.
1:25:42
Speaker 4: And there shouldn't be an extra charge for that, right,
1:25:45
Speaker 4: Like the venue shouldn't have to pay for that.
1:25:48
Speaker 1: No, I mean, that's an interesting question. I mean, maybe
1:25:54
Speaker 1: the venue does pay for it. Maybe that's part of
1:25:55
Speaker 1: the cost of business in a free society. If you
1:26:00
Speaker 1: want the police on your property to secure it, maybe
1:26:05
Speaker 1: they do. But if they're outside, certainly not.
1:26:11
Speaker 4: And if something happens and the police have to come in,
1:26:13
Speaker 4: you should.
1:26:14
Speaker 1: And then they come in. But if you want to
1:26:15
Speaker 1: secure it in advance, maybe you do pay for it.
1:26:17
Speaker 1: Maybe it's a part of how the police fund themselves,
1:26:20
Speaker 1: right that in certain circumstances they.
1:26:22
Speaker 3: Do charge your fee for that, because you'd want to
1:26:25
Speaker 3: be careful with that, right because you don't want cops
1:26:27
Speaker 3: starting to like shake down people want us there, you
1:26:30
Speaker 3: got to pay because everything's private, the roads are private,
1:26:33
Speaker 3: all that stuff.
1:26:35
Speaker 1: Okay, Yeah, and you'd have to think about how do
1:26:37
Speaker 1: you create laws that allow the police to access private roads?
1:26:42
Speaker 1: Can they access private roads? When do they have the
1:26:45
Speaker 1: authority to move and to cross people's property. It becomes
1:26:50
Speaker 1: more complicated. In a fully private society, it becomes much
1:26:54
Speaker 1: easier and much simpler, But there's a sense in which
1:26:57
Speaker 1: you have to rewrite laws and rethink about those laws.
1:27:00
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, there's a there's a related question I have,
1:27:03
Speaker 3: which I'll ask is a separate question.
1:27:05
Speaker 1: Thanks, sure, Andrew, And I need to go down I
1:27:08
Speaker 1: forgot to do the super chet so yeah, Andrew, Hi.
1:27:15
Speaker 5: I used to get so pissed off at public infrastructure
1:27:19
Speaker 5: and riding the you know, subway and just getting stuck
1:27:24
Speaker 5: on the tracks and all the stuff that comes along
1:27:28
Speaker 5: with like a state owned, you know, infrastructure product like that.
1:27:34
Speaker 5: But now I do see it as kind of cool,
1:27:37
Speaker 5: Like when I'm on the subway that it's you know,
1:27:42
Speaker 5: on a bridge for example in New York City, like
1:27:46
Speaker 5: it's still Western know how and engineering, and it's a feat,
1:27:51
Speaker 5: you know, it's a modern feat that I'm riding that subway,
1:27:56
Speaker 5: and I feel much more benevolent about it.
1:27:58
Speaker 1: Yep.
1:27:59
Speaker 5: But I also am you know, it's it's a little
1:28:02
Speaker 5: bitter bitterness too that it could be so much better.
1:28:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, I think that's absolutely right. You've got to
1:28:08
Speaker 1: acknowledge the you know, the engineering success and and that
1:28:14
Speaker 1: somebody built this and of course the original New York
1:28:16
Speaker 1: subway was built by private enterprise, but but then resent
1:28:20
Speaker 1: the fact that it's now state owned and they're full
1:28:25
Speaker 1: primitive as compared to what it could be. I think
1:28:29
Speaker 1: that's that's absolutely right. And and it's you know, it's like,
1:28:33
Speaker 1: you know, you you travel in China on a high
1:28:36
Speaker 1: speed rail and uh, this thing goes unbelievably fast and
1:28:41
Speaker 1: it's a completely smooth ride and it's amazing, and it's
1:28:46
Speaker 1: a beautiful train and the tracks amazing. Uh. And on
1:28:50
Speaker 1: the one hand, it's wow, the engineering is amazing and
1:28:53
Speaker 1: what an achievement. On the other hand, the Chinese government
1:28:57
Speaker 1: built this, and and that's that's horrific. So but you've
1:29:00
Speaker 1: got it, you've got to be able to appreciate the
1:29:03
Speaker 1: positive value associated with it as well.
1:29:06
Speaker 5: Yeah, Like I I feel much more benevolent looking at
1:29:10
Speaker 5: it from that angle than just being pissed off.
1:29:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, yep, all right, thanks sure. Ian.
1:29:22
Speaker 4: So on the on the more positive side. So I'm
1:29:25
Speaker 4: a little more mixed on AI than most people. And
1:29:28
Speaker 4: I think I agree with what you said that your
1:29:31
Speaker 4: thoughts that we're probably in a bubble, but that doesn't
1:29:34
Speaker 4: mean that still won't be important things done and there's
1:29:39
Speaker 4: great things happening, yep. And I use I use AI
1:29:43
Speaker 4: every day in my job as a as a developer
1:29:46
Speaker 4: writing code, and I'm working in code that I really understand,
1:29:49
Speaker 4: so I can see if it's doing something right or
1:29:50
Speaker 4: if it's doing something wrong, and then manually fix it
1:29:52
Speaker 4: things like that. But one thing I've been doing lately,
1:29:55
Speaker 4: which I don't know if you ever code or look
1:29:57
Speaker 4: at this stuff, but it's fun to play around with,
1:29:59
Speaker 4: is what's called vibe, where I'm working in a language
1:30:01
Speaker 4: I don't know, I don't understand the package is, I'm
1:30:03
Speaker 4: working out to understand any of the guts of it,
1:30:06
Speaker 4: and you take one of these agents and you tell
1:30:08
Speaker 4: it this is what I want as an output. And
1:30:11
Speaker 4: the really neat thing is it's not like check GPT
1:30:13
Speaker 4: where you're typing something and it gives you response and
1:30:15
Speaker 4: then you cut and paste it. It will modify the
1:30:18
Speaker 4: code that is sitting in your area. It will run tests.
1:30:22
Speaker 4: It will, and it looks the way. They've done a
1:30:24
Speaker 4: really good job of presenting it, so it looks like
1:30:26
Speaker 4: it's thinking, yeah, oh I changed this. But if the
1:30:29
Speaker 4: test failed, let me see if there's a syntax error.
1:30:31
Speaker 4: I found a syntax error. I'm fixing that. And it's
1:30:34
Speaker 4: like watching a person. I'm walking to it like it's
1:30:36
Speaker 4: really spooky and really powerful, like I've made more progress
1:30:40
Speaker 4: in this thing that I don't Again, I'm not even
1:30:43
Speaker 4: looking at the code. I don't understand what it's doing
1:30:45
Speaker 4: beneath it. I'm just saying, this is what output I want.
1:30:48
Speaker 4: The output doesn't match.
1:30:49
Speaker 1: Can you change this?
1:30:50
Speaker 4: And it's not perfect, it's not doing it exactly, and
1:30:52
Speaker 4: it can be very frustrating, and it's still very limited,
1:30:55
Speaker 4: but for where we are, it's a really interesting thing
1:30:58
Speaker 4: and everybody should try it. Try something you always wanted
1:31:02
Speaker 4: to write, and you don't understand programming, Try one of
1:31:04
Speaker 4: these agents and see what it does. And it's it's fun.
1:31:07
Speaker 1: And there agents now that'll create a website for you.
1:31:10
Speaker 1: I mean, you tell them what you want on the
1:31:12
Speaker 1: website and what the goal is and and they'll they'll
1:31:14
Speaker 1: just build a website for you. And then you can
1:31:16
Speaker 1: change it. You can you can have it make changes
1:31:18
Speaker 1: to it depending on the output. As you said, I
1:31:20
Speaker 1: mean it, it really is. It really is cool. I
1:31:25
Speaker 1: just asked chat GPT actually to take one of my
1:31:28
Speaker 1: shows and turn into an essay. I haven't looked at
1:31:31
Speaker 1: the results yet, but I'm curious. I did it to
1:31:35
Speaker 1: the phone policy one. I did it last week about
1:31:38
Speaker 1: what America First, proper America first POM policy would look like.
1:31:42
Speaker 1: So I'm curious what chat GIPT did with that.
1:31:44
Speaker 4: But I guess we'll say to me the fascinating there's
1:31:47
Speaker 4: two fascinating things. One is the things it can do,
1:31:50
Speaker 4: and two of the things is it can't do. Because
1:31:51
Speaker 4: that's also really super interesting, like why can't you do
1:31:54
Speaker 4: this one?
1:31:54
Speaker 1: Obviously, Yeah, and it's only going to get better. I
1:32:00
Speaker 1: don't know what the upper limit is. I don't know
1:32:01
Speaker 1: how much better it can get given that it's constrained
1:32:05
Speaker 1: by the fact that it's not thinking. But you know,
1:32:08
Speaker 1: it is going to get better, and it is going
1:32:11
Speaker 1: to be fascinating to see how all this works out.
1:32:14
Speaker 1: And there's no question that just has to increase productivity.
1:32:20
Speaker 1: You know, productivity is going to go up, which means ultimately,
1:32:25
Speaker 1: canomic growth will go up everything else al constant, which
1:32:28
Speaker 1: is not. But you don't this is what's going to
1:32:30
Speaker 1: save us from that stagnation. Right, We're heading to stagnation
1:32:34
Speaker 1: and this might this might just allow us to get
1:32:37
Speaker 1: through it.
1:32:38
Speaker 4: I mean, I think I'll borrow from a Holden said,
1:32:40
Speaker 4: which is sometimes you got to think of the short
1:32:42
Speaker 4: term in the long term, because in the short term,
1:32:43
Speaker 4: I'm not sure productivity is going to go up because
1:32:45
Speaker 4: you can waste a lot of time trying to get
1:32:47
Speaker 4: this stuff to do what you want, like it can
1:32:50
Speaker 4: you can go to the weeds and consume more time
1:32:52
Speaker 4: than it would to fix it because you're like it's
1:32:54
Speaker 4: so close. Let me just keep trying. And it's like, okay,
1:32:56
Speaker 4: I get fixed this manually in one minute, but I
1:32:58
Speaker 4: want to get it to do it it takes me.
1:32:59
Speaker 1: In the Yeah, and that's true of technology. I mean, yeah,
1:33:06
Speaker 1: when when you know, there was this big mystery in
1:33:09
Speaker 1: economics during the during the nineteen eighties and into the
1:33:14
Speaker 1: nineteen nineties that, in spite of the introduction of the
1:33:17
Speaker 1: PC and everything else, productivity couldn't see any growth in
1:33:21
Speaker 1: productivity in the numbers. There was nothing and then suddenly,
1:33:24
Speaker 1: like I forget the exact year, ninety three and ninety four,
1:33:27
Speaker 1: productivity just starts shooting up. And it's like the cumulative
1:33:31
Speaker 1: effect of all this. People finally figured out how to
1:33:34
Speaker 1: use it and it starts appearing in the numbers, and
1:33:37
Speaker 1: you suddenly see us see and you see, you see
1:33:40
Speaker 1: that happen as a consequence. You see what happens is
1:33:43
Speaker 1: you've got stagnation and wages throughout the eighties and early nineties,
1:33:48
Speaker 1: and then starting in ninety four, wages start going up,
1:33:52
Speaker 1: you know, pretty much in every in every profession, and
1:33:56
Speaker 1: that it's a product of Finally, technology has had an
1:33:59
Speaker 1: impact on productivity increasing and uh and ultimately that good
1:34:04
Speaker 1: reflated in wages.
1:34:05
Speaker 4: Yeah, every everything is slower than people think it is,
1:34:08
Speaker 4: both on the good side and the bad side.
1:34:10
Speaker 1: And yet everything is also faster and people think.
1:34:12
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's slower, until it's faster.
1:34:15
Speaker 1: Yes, it's slow, and it's slow in some dimensions and
1:34:17
Speaker 1: faster than others. Who would have thought we'd be talking
1:34:20
Speaker 1: about AI the way we're talking about it now, I
1:34:23
Speaker 1: mean three four years ago, nobody it was. It was
1:34:27
Speaker 1: a joke.
1:34:28
Speaker 4: I used the early versions of the chat GPT type stuff.
1:34:31
Speaker 1: It was a joke.
1:34:31
Speaker 4: It was pathetic, you know, like this is never going
1:34:33
Speaker 4: to be interesting, and then now.
1:34:34
Speaker 1: It's and it suddenly became interesting. And it happened very quickly,
1:34:38
Speaker 1: very very quickly. Yeah, thanks Ian, Uh Steven uh?
1:34:50
Speaker 14: And when's these Wall Street Journal on the point of Yes,
1:34:54
Speaker 14: you read the sh the end of the deion, the
1:35:06
Speaker 14: end of the wet Delusion.
1:35:09
Speaker 4: Maybe you didn't.
1:35:11
Speaker 1: Maybe you missed that one. Maybe it was a video, Yeah, Steven,
1:35:16
Speaker 1: turn off your video and maybe end of the green Delusion,
1:35:21
Speaker 1: end of the Green Delusion. No, I haven't. I didn't
1:35:23
Speaker 1: read that.
1:35:23
Speaker 6: No.
1:35:26
Speaker 1: Oh m, it was a good yeah, very good. I
1:35:34
Speaker 1: really wanted your opinion with it. I don't know.
1:35:35
Speaker 11: I thought it was I thought I didn't understand all
1:35:37
Speaker 11: of it, but I thought if you would read.
1:35:41
Speaker 1: No, I haven't read it, although I usually like Homa
1:35:44
Speaker 1: Jenkins and stuff. I'll check it out. I'll check out,
1:35:47
Speaker 1: all right, do that better? Now you there? Oh? I'm sorry,
1:35:55
Speaker 1: Yeah I am. It didn't make any difference. That's a
1:36:01
Speaker 1: little better. Now, that's a little better. Ah, Now it's
1:36:09
Speaker 1: no good.
1:36:11
Speaker 11: Utah before the next show and windows with Windows eleven
1:36:15
Speaker 11: and I'll.
1:36:15
Speaker 1: Be Okay, I lost you. All right, let me let
1:36:20
Speaker 1: me take some super chats here. Let's see we've got Michael.
1:36:25
Speaker 1: Michael says, uh, do you think many young objectivists believe
1:36:29
Speaker 1: if we actually lived in golds Coach, I would obviously
1:36:32
Speaker 1: be super successful and happy. But because the world is
1:36:35
Speaker 1: so corrupt, it's everyone else's fault, my life sucks. I
1:36:40
Speaker 1: think quite a few objectivists think that, young and old,
1:36:43
Speaker 1: not just young objectivists, but yes, I think a lot
1:36:47
Speaker 1: of people who attracted to objectivism use the state of
1:36:51
Speaker 1: the world as justification for their own failures. Sadly, Stephen
1:36:57
Speaker 1: Pettit's I recently re watch Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
1:37:02
Speaker 1: It was amazed how its theme of communication was conquitized
1:37:06
Speaker 1: in every frame. If directors haven't read RAND regarding abstractions
1:37:12
Speaker 1: and concretes, where do they get it from? Well, I
1:37:18
Speaker 1: mean the idea of abstraction and concretes. And it's not
1:37:21
Speaker 1: just directors, right, I mean that exists in novels, that
1:37:24
Speaker 1: exists in in in in painting, and so I don't
1:37:31
Speaker 1: think you have to no philosophy to have that. So
1:37:39
Speaker 1: you know, people artists get that, They get it directly
1:37:47
Speaker 1: from reality without necessarily even having a complete understanding of
1:37:53
Speaker 1: what it means. Uh, And they and they use it
1:37:57
Speaker 1: to they use it as a tool to communicate ideas.
1:38:01
Speaker 1: You know, there's a lot of implicit, if you will,
1:38:03
Speaker 1: implicit knowledge out there that is that people have. It's
1:38:11
Speaker 1: the same as to say, is I mean it was
1:38:14
Speaker 1: nobody ever self interested before Ann came up with the
1:38:17
Speaker 1: concept of self interest for rational self interest, Well, people
1:38:20
Speaker 1: were to some extent. I mean, they weren't consistently just
1:38:23
Speaker 1: like I don't know that people have an understanding of
1:38:30
Speaker 1: art that is as extensive ogn RAN's. Yet they still
1:38:33
Speaker 1: produced arts, right, So, even without having the full philosophical understanding,
1:38:38
Speaker 1: still use and understand at some level these concepts. And
1:38:43
Speaker 1: of course rand is not the first person to understand
1:38:46
Speaker 1: the relationship that there is a relationship between abstractions and concretes.
1:38:52
Speaker 1: That is, that was I mean, she has a particular
1:38:56
Speaker 1: understanding of how you form abstractions from concretes, but the
1:39:00
Speaker 1: relationship between the two, I don't think is something she
1:39:06
Speaker 1: is the first to come up with. Right, hopefully understood
1:39:11
Speaker 1: that question, Michael, are you going to interview Blake Showl
1:39:17
Speaker 1: or does he want to keep his objectivism on down low.
1:39:21
Speaker 1: If he becomes successful and turns the personic flight into
1:39:25
Speaker 1: Norman credits objectivism for it, that's a game changer. Well,
1:39:29
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know if it's a game changer,
1:39:31
Speaker 1: but it would be great if that happened. The reality is,
1:39:36
Speaker 1: I've tried to interview Blake shows. I don't think he
1:39:38
Speaker 1: wants to right now be interviewed. But hopefully once he's successful,
1:39:44
Speaker 1: that goes away and he's happy to be interviewed. So
1:39:47
Speaker 1: we will see whether any one thing is a game changer.
1:39:50
Speaker 1: I'm skeptical, right, I don't think there's one game changer
1:39:53
Speaker 1: to anything. I think this is just a lot of
1:39:56
Speaker 1: hard work and there's a lot of things that have
1:39:58
Speaker 1: to happen for the game to change. All right, let's
1:40:02
Speaker 1: go through some of these other ones and then we'll
1:40:04
Speaker 1: turn back to the panel. Now that Israel is being
1:40:06
Speaker 1: accused of starving guzins, do you regret advising Israel to
1:40:09
Speaker 1: starve guzins earlier this year? Now they should have starved guzens,
1:40:14
Speaker 1: you know, right after October seventh, and then we'd be
1:40:17
Speaker 1: all over this and it'll be you know, we'd be
1:40:20
Speaker 1: past this and we could, we'd be beyond the victory
1:40:23
Speaker 1: and we'd be talking about solutions rather than still talking
1:40:27
Speaker 1: about this. But no, the reality is that the notion
1:40:31
Speaker 1: that you have to feed your enemy while you're fighting
1:40:34
Speaker 1: the enemy is bizarre and altruistic and ridiculous and stupid.
1:40:39
Speaker 1: And Israel should have never done it, and starting October eighth,
1:40:43
Speaker 1: they should have turned off the water, turned off the electricity,
1:40:46
Speaker 1: turned off the internet, and stop delivering food aid and
1:40:50
Speaker 1: then gone in and finished the job. And I think
1:40:54
Speaker 1: ultimately fewer people would die. However, many would die, would die.
1:41:02
Speaker 1: You know, they started a war, you need to finish it.
1:41:05
Speaker 1: Michael is evolutionary psychology a rehash a BS Nazi eugenics determinism? No,
1:41:11
Speaker 1: I don't think so. I mean it's a rehash of determinism.
1:41:14
Speaker 1: It's a form of determinism. But don't look to everything
1:41:18
Speaker 1: you don't like as being originating with the Nazis, And
1:41:22
Speaker 1: eugenics of us didn't start with the Nazis. Eugenics was
1:41:24
Speaker 1: a movement that started in the United States, and the
1:41:28
Speaker 1: Nazis only picked up on it much much later. No,
1:41:32
Speaker 1: I mean evolutionary psychology is an attempt to explain human
1:41:38
Speaker 1: behavior in terms of our genes, and it's very tempting,
1:41:43
Speaker 1: and it's very seductive, particularly if you don't believe in
1:41:46
Speaker 1: free will. Then your behavior has to come from somewhere,
1:41:49
Speaker 1: and your genes is probably how it comes. And if
1:41:52
Speaker 1: you understand how evolution works, you can come up with
1:41:55
Speaker 1: lots of just so stories to justify current behavior based
1:42:00
Speaker 1: on your genetic makeup. I don't think there's any greater
1:42:04
Speaker 1: agenda than that going on here, Michael, Have Israel have
1:42:10
Speaker 1: Israeli's lost a portion of the altruism since October seventh,
1:42:14
Speaker 1: All these Raelis I've spoken with one Gaza wiped out,
1:42:17
Speaker 1: no mercy. Yeah, I mean, I don't know who you
1:42:20
Speaker 1: talk to. But the reality is that something like seventy
1:42:23
Speaker 1: five percent of Israelis, I think the last poll I saw,
1:42:26
Speaker 1: want the water end and and now don't want the
1:42:30
Speaker 1: water continue. Don't want Israel to occupy Gaza City. I
1:42:34
Speaker 1: want a deal to feed the hostages. I don't see
1:42:37
Speaker 1: any reason to assume that altruism is completely gone suddenly.
1:42:42
Speaker 1: When altruism, when being altruistic causes you to face an
1:42:47
Speaker 1: existential threat directly in the short run, imminently, then yeah,
1:42:54
Speaker 1: Altruism usually is put to the side and you do
1:42:56
Speaker 1: what you have to do to survive. And that's what
1:42:59
Speaker 1: Israel experience. Instant to some extent, is still experiencing. But
1:43:02
Speaker 1: autism has staying power, and I don't think it's it's
1:43:07
Speaker 1: completely gone. I think it's still there. Sadly Neo says,
1:43:12
Speaker 1: if you would that celebrity, would you take a chance
1:43:16
Speaker 1: knowing potentially it might hurt your career. I don't know.
1:43:22
Speaker 1: I've never thought of being a celebrity. Maybe not. I'm
1:43:26
Speaker 1: not blaming the celebrity. I'm not saying that they were
1:43:30
Speaker 1: irrational or wrong for doing what they're doing. I'm just
1:43:32
Speaker 1: saying that's the fact, that's the reality of it, without
1:43:36
Speaker 1: a value judgment on it. But I think at some
1:43:40
Speaker 1: point you've got to be willing to stand by your value.
1:43:44
Speaker 1: So maybe early in your career you don't do it,
1:43:46
Speaker 1: but at some point you have to be. Look at
1:43:48
Speaker 1: John Allison, he was a CEO of a bank in
1:43:52
Speaker 1: a heavily, heavily regulated industry, and at some point he said, no,
1:43:55
Speaker 1: I'm standing up for what I believe. I'm gonna talk,
1:43:57
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say what I believe. I'm going to say
1:43:59
Speaker 1: what I think and let the chips fall where they may. Uh,
1:44:04
Speaker 1: you know, and and uh, that's what he did. He
1:44:07
Speaker 1: gave lectures, he gives talks. He uh and on a
1:44:11
Speaker 1: number of occasions he talked told the regulators to take
1:44:14
Speaker 1: a hike. So it's difficult to do, but at some
1:44:18
Speaker 1: point you need to reach a point in your career
1:44:20
Speaker 1: where you you can do that, and you're willing to
1:44:22
Speaker 1: do that, you need to have the coverage to do it.
1:44:26
Speaker 1: Robert had to jump off the panel. Another busy Saturday.
1:44:30
Speaker 1: But I'm listening while getting things currently tuning one of
1:44:34
Speaker 1: my pianos, and I always appreciate these MUNTI contributors sessions.
1:44:38
Speaker 1: Thanks thanks Robert, thanks for participating. Appreciate that. Let's do
1:44:42
Speaker 1: a quick round with the panel. Uh let's start withholding.
1:44:48
Speaker 2: All right, So you're basically saying that the you say
1:44:52
Speaker 2: that the corporate tax incidents is on consumers wages and
1:45:00
Speaker 2: very small portion is investors, right.
1:45:03
Speaker 1: I'm saying, Yeah, I'm saying, you know, relatively to consumers
1:45:08
Speaker 1: and and and uh employees, a small portion is on investors. Okay,
1:45:13
Speaker 1: So I don't know how how vary it is, but yeah.
1:45:16
Speaker 2: Right right, So yeah, I mean I so for me,
1:45:21
Speaker 2: I have investors in uh, and wages and investors in
1:45:28
Speaker 2: the marginal product of of labor and revenue is lower,
1:45:35
Speaker 2: and then and entrepreneurial profits are lower in the short term.
1:45:41
Speaker 2: And uh so basically that that's where I have the incidents,
1:45:47
Speaker 2: and then I have it going of course like back
1:45:49
Speaker 2: throughout the back to the early stages of production. So
1:45:53
Speaker 2: those those entrepreneurs will eventually earn lower profits and the
1:45:57
Speaker 2: wages and land owners will own we'll we'll both have
1:46:02
Speaker 2: lower net value product. So the the consumer, of course,
1:46:08
Speaker 2: you're changing the cost to produce it. So the consumer,
1:46:13
Speaker 2: that's going to change the profitability of producing it. So
1:46:16
Speaker 2: and of course, like to the extent that your value productive,
1:46:18
Speaker 2: the more you get taxed. So so uh basically the
1:46:24
Speaker 2: most the most value productive firms pay the most tax.
1:46:28
Speaker 2: And basically, uh, you you'll get a scenario where with
1:46:35
Speaker 2: a corporate tax, you'll get a scenario where the consumer
1:46:40
Speaker 2: is going to pay a higher price. Of course, again
1:46:43
Speaker 2: not because they are passing the cost on right like
1:46:47
Speaker 2: in that the net income is now lower for the
1:46:50
Speaker 2: firm because of the corporate tax. So they produce fewer
1:46:54
Speaker 2: factors of production, they employ fewer factors of production to
1:46:58
Speaker 2: undergo this project, and therefore the output is lower. So
1:47:03
Speaker 2: the the good in existence is now lower because of
1:47:06
Speaker 2: the corporate tax. So now you're bidding up. The demand
1:47:10
Speaker 2: schedule intersects with the supply of the good in existence
1:47:13
Speaker 2: at a higher equilibrium price, so the prices are higher.
1:47:17
Speaker 2: Like we this is the very first conversation we had
1:47:19
Speaker 2: because you brought up the corporate tax. The price is
1:47:21
Speaker 2: higher for the good because the equilibrium price is higher
1:47:25
Speaker 2: because you're moving along the demand curve. So basically I
1:47:31
Speaker 2: agree with you that if you're if you mean like
1:47:34
Speaker 2: you said in the first part that the if you
1:47:38
Speaker 2: mean by pass through that they simply pay higher prices
1:47:40
Speaker 2: because of the tax, like you want to emphasize, yes, true,
1:47:44
Speaker 2: I'm with one hundred percent there, and that way, resources
1:47:48
Speaker 2: are not allocated in the most value productive uses because
1:47:51
Speaker 2: of the tax, and consumers will pay for that or
1:47:55
Speaker 2: will will be worse off. Consumer welfare will be worse
1:47:57
Speaker 2: off because the very value productive firms are being taxed
1:48:01
Speaker 2: the most, so consumers are worse off for that. But
1:48:05
Speaker 2: I want to make sure you don't think that like
1:48:07
Speaker 2: the simply like some people like you're, You're not saying that, oh, well,
1:48:13
Speaker 2: now we have a higher cost of production, so now
1:48:16
Speaker 2: we're just going to have that the consumer pay that,
1:48:19
Speaker 2: so our net income is the same. Like we're on
1:48:21
Speaker 2: the same page here, that the net income is less,
1:48:23
Speaker 2: the consumer pays more because of the decreased production, et cetera.
1:48:29
Speaker 1: Yes, but I also think that you have to take
1:48:32
Speaker 1: into account, you know, how competition works in a market
1:48:36
Speaker 1: like this, the fact that some uh that that some
1:48:40
Speaker 1: of the producers are going to go out of business
1:48:41
Speaker 1: because of this, so there's less competition, and that since
1:48:46
Speaker 1: everybody is facing the same increasing cost, the same increasing,
1:48:50
Speaker 1: the same increase in tax, the competitive pressure is that
1:48:55
Speaker 1: the increase prices. Okay, the thing that translates through, as
1:49:03
Speaker 1: you said, a shift in the in the supply code,
1:49:06
Speaker 1: which generates a higher price acquesting the entire industry and
1:49:10
Speaker 1: between competitors. Yeah, like in the Norman environment, I can't
1:49:15
Speaker 1: just raise prices because obviously people just shift to my competitors.
1:49:20
Speaker 1: But my competitor has exactly the same it is facing
1:49:24
Speaker 1: exactly the same situation I am, and therefore he is
1:49:27
Speaker 1: not going to he is going to match my price.
1:49:30
Speaker 1: He's not going to decrease the place.
1:49:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I'm I I agree that they're raising the price,
1:49:37
Speaker 2: but we and we agree. I guess that for the reason.
1:49:40
Speaker 2: But I guess it also is important to understand that
1:49:42
Speaker 2: the best you know, Google is paying, you know, pays
1:49:47
Speaker 2: more tax than you know, some marginal Google search or
1:49:51
Speaker 2: knockoff search, right, even though they're competitors or whatever. Google
1:49:55
Speaker 2: is going to face a higher burden because of the tax.
1:49:59
Speaker 2: Like you agree with that, right, because like basically what
1:50:03
Speaker 2: I'm saying is it's not all created equal for the
1:50:05
Speaker 2: corporate tax, like I wouldn't go so, yeah, it's.
1:50:08
Speaker 1: Not created equal. But again it's a well, you know,
1:50:13
Speaker 1: Google is tricky because where does Google generate the profit from, right,
1:50:16
Speaker 1: It's generated from advertising, So they have to think about
1:50:19
Speaker 1: who who the competitive is. But but yeah, I mean
1:50:22
Speaker 1: Google's paying more taxes because Google's bigger and it generates
1:50:25
Speaker 1: more revenue. Uh, and it's going to affect every aspect
1:50:29
Speaker 1: of Google's business.
1:50:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's tax pro rata to the profit. So
1:50:34
Speaker 2: you know, you got you got like uh, you know,
1:50:37
Speaker 2: it's it's like super productive. And then so like Google,
1:50:41
Speaker 2: you know, is going to employ much fewer factors in
1:50:45
Speaker 2: production than say Firefox or I don't know, whatever company.
1:50:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you know, the the the point I was
1:50:52
Speaker 1: making about Amazon yesterday was Google could probably afford not
1:50:56
Speaker 1: to rage prices for a while, right where whereas its
1:51:00
Speaker 1: smaller competitors probably just gonna raise prices and thus be
1:51:06
Speaker 1: driven out of the market.
1:51:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you can raise prices all you want, but
1:51:11
Speaker 2: the question, of course, is someone going to pay it?
1:51:14
Speaker 1: Profitability exactly, So you're not gonna nobody's gonna pay it
1:51:16
Speaker 1: because Google. So the good example right now is Amazon.
1:51:20
Speaker 1: Amazon is not raising prices because of tariffs because it
1:51:25
Speaker 1: can afford to absorb them for a while. Walmut is
1:51:28
Speaker 1: doing the same thing. Long term, they have to raise
1:51:31
Speaker 1: the price, but in the short run they can absorb
1:51:33
Speaker 1: them for a while. And a lot of the small
1:51:34
Speaker 1: competitors are going out of business because they cannot afford
1:51:38
Speaker 1: to absorb those prices increased.
1:51:40
Speaker 2: Sure, yeah, we're with each other on that, but of
1:51:44
Speaker 2: course we have to make sure that we say, well,
1:51:47
Speaker 2: Amazon and every firm has a profit maximizing price for
1:51:51
Speaker 2: whatever they sell. If they go above it, they earn
1:51:53
Speaker 2: lower net income if they go.
1:51:54
Speaker 1: So they're going below it right now, They're going below
1:51:56
Speaker 1: that price and they're driving competitors out of the big
1:52:00
Speaker 1: business as not as a consequence of that, as a
1:52:02
Speaker 1: consequence of the taos yes, yeah.
1:52:04
Speaker 2: And terrorifts reduced net income too, so yes, so like
1:52:09
Speaker 2: we're you know, in sales taxes reduced that income and.
1:52:12
Speaker 1: Value added taxes and so on and so forth.
1:52:13
Speaker 2: Absolutely, Okay, cool, I think yeah. Basically the point is
1:52:18
Speaker 2: like a lot of people like if we just say
1:52:21
Speaker 2: pass through, then a lot of people will think, like
1:52:23
Speaker 2: the firm is employing the same amount of factors it
1:52:25
Speaker 2: would in the counterfactual.
1:52:26
Speaker 1: No, I mean, of course not yeah, yeah, of course
1:52:29
Speaker 1: not right.
1:52:29
Speaker 2: So like they think, oh, we just it's in your
1:52:31
Speaker 2: potato chip, you know, like it's like okay, well let's
1:52:33
Speaker 2: see like the underlying mechanisms that makes this the price.
1:52:36
Speaker 1: Right, But yeah, I think forget and this is why
1:52:39
Speaker 1: it tas cause you know, economic slow down. They don't
1:52:43
Speaker 1: cause you getomic slow down just because consumers are paying
1:52:45
Speaker 1: high prices. They could they cause you getting on slow
1:52:47
Speaker 1: down because businesses at the point fuel means you know few, Yeah.
1:52:53
Speaker 2: The marginal product of the economy is lower. Now you're
1:52:56
Speaker 2: producing stuff, so you know, and then yeah, and then
1:52:59
Speaker 2: a bunch of firms that would be producing stuff for
1:53:01
Speaker 2: no longer doing it. So I guess like, yeah, okay,
1:53:04
Speaker 2: I think we're good. Yeah, I just like yeah, sorry.
1:53:09
Speaker 1: No, that's fine, that's fine. It's good. It's good to
1:53:11
Speaker 1: get these things that get these things accurate. And it's
1:53:15
Speaker 1: interesting because we're not we're not yet seeing a flowy
1:53:19
Speaker 1: of bankruptcies. Like I expect to see that, but we're
1:53:21
Speaker 1: not yet seeing it, and it's going to be interesting
1:53:24
Speaker 1: to see if it happens. Yeah, it happens, you know,
1:53:27
Speaker 1: and of course.
1:53:28
Speaker 2: Like in small businesses and some firms like you know,
1:53:32
Speaker 2: like they it's like really different and how much they import,
1:53:37
Speaker 2: so like you know, they will be disproportionately hurt by this.
1:53:39
Speaker 2: And you know, maybe they add really high profit margins before,
1:53:42
Speaker 2: but now they're going way down.
1:53:43
Speaker 1: Well, I mean it's small retail is in toys and
1:53:48
Speaker 1: in furniture never had high profit margins. And we'll see
1:53:52
Speaker 1: how they survive. It's going to be really interesting to
1:53:55
Speaker 1: see how they survive this and whether what happens is
1:54:00
Speaker 1: that the big retailer is just pick up that product
1:54:04
Speaker 1: and the small retails just go out of business. But
1:54:06
Speaker 1: I don't know how it plays out. It'll be interesting
1:54:08
Speaker 1: to see. Yeah, all right, cool, all right, let's see. Uh, Jennifer.
1:54:16
Speaker 7: Ginger Clark on the chance since she sent you along.
1:54:20
Speaker 1: Email, Yeah, let me find it. I'll answer it.
1:54:25
Speaker 7: Yeah, you can answer that. I'm done for today.
1:54:27
Speaker 2: Thank you.
1:54:27
Speaker 1: Okay, let me find Ginger Ye, thanks, Jennifer. Where is it? Um?
1:54:41
Speaker 1: Maybe I got it to Angela once it Let me
1:54:44
Speaker 1: find it. Yes, it is all right, Ginger as this
1:54:49
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about I've been thinking about this for a
1:54:51
Speaker 1: long time. I truly don't understand it. Would be very
1:54:53
Speaker 1: grateful to your opinion. My thinking. Nikki Hailey was very
1:54:57
Speaker 1: It was the most knowledgeable and polite of all the
1:54:59
Speaker 1: political candidates we've been offered, perhaps even in my lifetime.
1:55:04
Speaker 1: She is physically savvy, was an accountant, nose feign affairs,
1:55:08
Speaker 1: was in the UN and she's polite to alternate positions.
1:55:11
Speaker 1: Was sensitive to the fact that abortion is a personal
1:55:14
Speaker 1: issue and said it would not be politicized, even though
1:55:17
Speaker 1: she felt strongly. She campaigned hard, and she seemed to
1:55:21
Speaker 1: think dispassionately. When her campaign lost steam, she threw her
1:55:25
Speaker 1: support to Trump, but she didn't endorse him. She said
1:55:28
Speaker 1: only that he was the better choice. And that alternative
1:55:30
Speaker 1: was worse. I saw her position as being in the
1:55:33
Speaker 1: spirit of loyalty to the country, not to the party.
1:55:37
Speaker 1: It was a strength that Trump was as weakness and
1:55:41
Speaker 1: made her pay foot. Why do you think she didn't win?
1:55:45
Speaker 1: Am I not seeing this person clearly? Am I just
1:55:49
Speaker 1: making up someone to admire? Or did we just throw
1:55:53
Speaker 1: over the best candidate ever? And if so, why what
1:55:56
Speaker 1: does that say about the country? Well, it says the
1:55:58
Speaker 1: country's in bad shape. I was a supporter of Nikki Heley.
1:56:06
Speaker 1: I thought she was the best candidate among the Republicans.
1:56:08
Speaker 1: I don't know if she's the best candidate ever. She
1:56:10
Speaker 1: had a lot of weaknesses, you know, and I can't
1:56:14
Speaker 1: remember all of them. But she had something on privacy
1:56:17
Speaker 1: which was terrible. She had a number of things that
1:56:19
Speaker 1: were pretty bad. But overall, she was the best candidate
1:56:22
Speaker 1: by far, much better than Trump, much better than Kamala,
1:56:24
Speaker 1: much better than other Republicans up there on stage. And
1:56:28
Speaker 1: she didn't win because the country isn't a bad place.
1:56:32
Speaker 1: It's in a bad position. The electoral doesn't want rational, reasonable, thoughtful. Indeed,
1:56:39
Speaker 1: it blames all its problems on rational, reasonable, thoughtful, which
1:56:42
Speaker 1: is what they think the previous candidates were all it wanted.
1:56:47
Speaker 1: An irrational, thuggish British president. That's what America wanted. So
1:56:58
Speaker 1: you're implying here that the best candidate wins, and I
1:57:02
Speaker 1: think it's it's really rare that the best candidate wins.
1:57:05
Speaker 1: I don't know that Bush was the best Republican on
1:57:08
Speaker 1: the Republican side in the primaries in nineteen you know,
1:57:12
Speaker 1: in two thousand, I don't know that the George Bush
1:57:15
Speaker 1: Senior was the best Republican available after Ronald Reagan. I
1:57:20
Speaker 1: you know, none of these Bob Dole in nineteen ninety six.
1:57:23
Speaker 1: Bob Dole was a hopable candidate. So I don't think
1:57:27
Speaker 1: elections are determined by who's good. Elections are determined by
1:57:33
Speaker 1: what the public things is good or what the not
1:57:35
Speaker 1: even the public, what the committed partisan within the Republican
1:57:42
Speaker 1: Party in this case think is good. And they love
1:57:44
Speaker 1: Trump and they hated Nikkihley because Nikkiyeley represents everything they
1:57:49
Speaker 1: think went wrong with this country. You know, they think
1:57:52
Speaker 1: she's too good, too tough in farm policy. They don't
1:57:55
Speaker 1: want toughness in fall policy. They want peace. She's she's
1:58:00
Speaker 1: relatively pro capitalist, they don't want capitalism. They think capitalism
1:58:04
Speaker 1: is what screwed them, right, it's what's made they lost
1:58:08
Speaker 1: their jobs and the income is lower. All the mythologies
1:58:12
Speaker 1: that they have around economics they hold as as caused
1:58:19
Speaker 1: by capitalism. So they didn't want somebody who stood for
1:58:24
Speaker 1: relatively speaking, free markets and a tough America. They want
1:58:29
Speaker 1: a America that retracts from the world and an America
1:58:34
Speaker 1: that abandons capitalism explicitly and implicitly. And they got what
1:58:40
Speaker 1: they wanted. And Nikki Healey's finished. I mean, I don't.
1:58:44
Speaker 1: I don't think she has a chance in the Republican
1:58:45
Speaker 1: Party because the Republican Party is no longer that party anymore,
1:58:49
Speaker 1: or if it ever was, right, never really was.
1:58:53
Speaker 3: And also you're on and I think you've said this
1:58:55
Speaker 3: many times. I think they wanted people that would tell
1:58:57
Speaker 3: them that none of this is their fault, even if.
1:59:01
Speaker 1: Definitely anythink Nikki tried to do that, but she she
1:59:04
Speaker 1: just doesn't. She's I don't think she's dishonest enough. Yeah. Yeah.
1:59:09
Speaker 3: And if you and if you support capitalism, even the
1:59:11
Speaker 3: lukewarm like people like her, do you you are saying, well, okay,
1:59:15
Speaker 3: get off your button.
1:59:17
Speaker 1: Yeah.
1:59:17
Speaker 4: I think that people didn't want to hear that they
1:59:19
Speaker 4: want to like.
1:59:19
Speaker 3: Okay, I just I can sit back and Donnie is
1:59:22
Speaker 3: going to take care of.
1:59:23
Speaker 4: It for me.
1:59:23
Speaker 1: I think that's right, all right, Adam.
1:59:31
Speaker 8: Yes, this may be a question I asked before, but
1:59:36
Speaker 8: it's at the top of my mind, so I'll ask
1:59:39
Speaker 8: it again and see if your answer is any different.
1:59:47
Speaker 8: Most Americans by this time have been systematically disminded by
1:59:53
Speaker 8: the comprachicos, that is, by the pragmatist anti philosophy of education.
2:00:03
Speaker 8: And we now have a president who exemplifies the disminded brain.
2:00:14
Speaker 8: I don't know how far you can call it a
2:00:17
Speaker 8: mind even and he was educated in very expensive private schools.
2:00:29
Speaker 8: And yet when I listen to objectivists talk about education,
2:00:36
Speaker 8: they keep down playing the anti philosophy and advocate for
2:00:45
Speaker 8: private schools against government schools. And yet if I go
2:00:52
Speaker 8: to Europe, for example, many people in Poland were educated
2:00:59
Speaker 8: in government schools. I got my early grades in government schools,
2:01:07
Speaker 8: or at least the cooperative that was totally under government control,
2:01:11
Speaker 8: as everything was in a communist country. And yet all
2:01:19
Speaker 8: the Kindred, all the child care and kindergartens were Montessori.
2:01:27
Speaker 8: The schools from then on were very conceptual.
2:01:35
Speaker 1: There was no.
2:01:38
Speaker 8: Pragmatist influence. And if I go there, every service that
2:01:44
Speaker 8: I encountered is much more mindful, not in the Buddhist sense,
2:01:55
Speaker 8: but in a realistic sense. Then we get here in America,
2:02:03
Speaker 8: and recently I've been through at bad time dealing with
2:02:12
Speaker 8: the installation people from a business that is generally very
2:02:20
Speaker 8: well run. But all they can tell me is, well,
2:02:25
Speaker 8: we sub contracted our installation to this small business because
2:02:32
Speaker 8: that's what the tax laws encourage us to do. Ye,
2:02:37
Speaker 8: and don't blame us.
2:02:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I think it's a few things. One is,
2:02:43
Speaker 1: I think you're romanticizing Poland in a way that's not justified.
2:02:47
Speaker 1: So I need to Poland many times. And yeah, the
2:02:50
Speaker 1: educational system in Europe is better than it is in US,
2:02:53
Speaker 1: and in Poland is better than US. It's not great though.
2:02:56
Speaker 1: They still don't know a lot of stuff. They're still
2:02:58
Speaker 1: quite ignorant. They're very Catholic, they're very religious, and it's
2:03:05
Speaker 1: a real obstacle to their thinking. And that has not really, unfortunately,
2:03:11
Speaker 1: not changed that much in other parts of Europe. Each
2:03:17
Speaker 1: place has its own problems. But I don't get a
2:03:20
Speaker 1: sense and you can see this economically, you don't have
2:03:25
Speaker 1: anywhere near the level of entrepreneurship and the level of
2:03:28
Speaker 1: personal initiative that you do in the United States in
2:03:30
Speaker 1: spite of its bad education. So first I'd say there's
2:03:33
Speaker 1: no good education in the world anyway. I don't buy
2:03:36
Speaker 1: the Singapore model, don't buy China, I don't buy Europe.
2:03:40
Speaker 1: They're all mediocre. The United States is mediocre minus right,
2:03:44
Speaker 1: the United States, and in some areas it's damn right awful.
2:03:48
Speaker 1: It's horrific the education in the US in ways that
2:03:52
Speaker 1: it isn't in overseas, you know, sort of a complete
2:03:57
Speaker 1: philosophical revolution. I don't think you're going to get good education.
2:04:04
Speaker 1: But even then, I still think that in order to
2:04:09
Speaker 1: figure out what good education is, you need competition. You
2:04:15
Speaker 1: need private education to compete with one another. You need
2:04:18
Speaker 1: to be able to experiment and test different models. I
2:04:23
Speaker 1: don't think we know yet what the ultimate model, what
2:04:26
Speaker 1: a perfect curriculum looks like, and whether kids learning different ways,
2:04:31
Speaker 1: and whether different children might go to different types of schools,
2:04:35
Speaker 1: whether or not to so it can be extended to
2:04:37
Speaker 1: third or sixth grade or not. You know, some people
2:04:40
Speaker 1: think it does something. You know, and what we get
2:04:43
Speaker 1: in the United States today is not competition. Yes, you
2:04:46
Speaker 1: have a few private schools, but the private schools don't
2:04:49
Speaker 1: face competition. Rich parents send their kids to one or
2:04:54
Speaker 1: two private schools that are available in their neighborhood. Everybody
2:04:57
Speaker 1: else sends their kids to the government school. Manas in
2:05:00
Speaker 1: a world in which all the schools are constantly competing
2:05:03
Speaker 1: for their kids, they have to constantly make adjustment to
2:05:06
Speaker 1: the curriculum. You know, in a world like that, if
2:05:11
Speaker 1: you encourage competition, parents now care about what service is
2:05:15
Speaker 1: being delivered to them in terms of the quality of
2:05:17
Speaker 1: the education they I think, at least in some neighborhoods,
2:05:22
Speaker 1: in some places now they evaluate the different schools based
2:05:26
Speaker 1: on the quality of the education that they're producing, and
2:05:29
Speaker 1: they move their kids around, and they fowe money moves
2:05:32
Speaker 1: to the schools that are doing a better job in
2:05:34
Speaker 1: terms of outcome. And even if there's no you know,
2:05:39
Speaker 1: a systematic philosophical approach to this is a better education,
2:05:44
Speaker 1: you'll get a better product ultimately. So I think competition
2:05:49
Speaker 1: is the only way we're going to change things. If
2:05:52
Speaker 1: we're going to change things in and I think that
2:05:56
Speaker 1: you will see Poland. I mean, Poland's done a phenomenal
2:05:59
Speaker 1: job economic growth, but you will see Poland hit a
2:06:05
Speaker 1: limit to that growth soon, sooner than later, because it
2:06:10
Speaker 1: is not as capitalist as everybody would like to believe.
2:06:14
Speaker 1: It's still got too many regulations, too many controls, and
2:06:17
Speaker 1: the educational system is just is not yet as good
2:06:20
Speaker 1: as it needs to be. And the only way for
2:06:21
Speaker 1: it to become as good as it needs to be
2:06:23
Speaker 1: is through competition or through a complete philosophical revolution. But
2:06:28
Speaker 1: I think competition is more likely than a philosophical revolution.
2:06:31
Speaker 1: Maybe I'm wrong, but I think I think you need
2:06:34
Speaker 1: a competition in order to bring the best we're capable
2:06:38
Speaker 1: of in terms of education to the forefront.
2:06:42
Speaker 8: I do have one, perhaps tanngential remark on the Polish economy,
2:06:55
Speaker 8: which is that I heard the the Prime Minister of
2:07:01
Speaker 8: Poland talk about the regulation and he says that he
2:07:09
Speaker 8: eliminated the thirty percent of the regulation of the EU
2:07:14
Speaker 8: regulations that he could get away with eliminating without losing
2:07:22
Speaker 8: EU compensation for adherence to the regulations. He needs the
2:07:28
Speaker 8: other seventy percent to keep taxes low because he's being
2:07:35
Speaker 8: compensated for compliance reg.
2:07:38
Speaker 1: Also, if he deregulates beyond what the EU allows then
2:07:43
Speaker 1: he's going to have a hard time training with the
2:07:45
Speaker 1: rest of the EU, because the EU will start putting
2:07:47
Speaker 1: sanctions on Polish products because they don't live up to
2:07:53
Speaker 1: the regulatory standard of the EU. So they went a bind.
2:07:56
Speaker 1: They can only go so far without leaving the EU,
2:07:59
Speaker 1: which think they want to do, because the EU still
2:08:02
Speaker 1: has enormous benefits for Poland. But you know, we can
2:08:06
Speaker 1: hope that this attitude that Poland has is exported to
2:08:10
Speaker 1: the EU and maybe the EU starts deregulating at the
2:08:13
Speaker 1: EU level. That is the one, the one hope for
2:08:17
Speaker 1: Europe because you have some mass, you have some disaster,
2:08:20
Speaker 1: and Poland's one of the few bright, you know, bright
2:08:25
Speaker 1: lights within within Europe. It's it's the one economy that's
2:08:27
Speaker 1: still growing. Uh. Germany just shrunk again by by you
2:08:32
Speaker 1: know this last quarter economically, all right, let's see. Thanks
2:08:36
Speaker 1: Adam online.
2:08:39
Speaker 3: Yeah, just a quick question around castle doctrine and trespass.
2:08:45
Speaker 3: Does maybe not a castle doctrine as such, but you know,
2:08:48
Speaker 3: if you how do you how do you set up
2:08:51
Speaker 3: a laws that allow for let me call it inadvertent trespass.
2:08:55
Speaker 4: So I give you this an example.
2:08:56
Speaker 3: I'm a I'm a private pilot, And one of the
2:08:58
Speaker 3: things we learned is that, Okay, if I have an
2:09:00
Speaker 3: ancient failure, you know, a farmer's field is probably the
2:09:03
Speaker 3: safest place to land. Now, obviously, you know, if there's
2:09:06
Speaker 3: any damage to crops and all that kind of stuff,
2:09:09
Speaker 3: loss of use, you know, my insurance company needs to
2:09:11
Speaker 3: compensate the farmer. But I am trespassing. And you know,
2:09:16
Speaker 3: does the farmer have the right to come out and
2:09:18
Speaker 3: shoot me because he says, well, you're on my land.
2:09:20
Speaker 4: You shouldn't be here.
2:09:21
Speaker 1: No, obviously not. I mean, the trespasses is I mean,
2:09:25
Speaker 1: there has to be you right to self defense is contextual, right,
2:09:30
Speaker 1: And if there's no threat to you, you can't just
2:09:32
Speaker 1: shoot somebody. And if somebody's on your land by accident
2:09:37
Speaker 1: they lost their way, you know, there was an emergency
2:09:41
Speaker 1: and they have to land, or they crashed their car
2:09:44
Speaker 1: and the call flew into your field, I mean, yeah,
2:09:47
Speaker 1: you're obviously liable for the damages. But they you know,
2:09:51
Speaker 1: they can't just they can't put your jail because you
2:09:53
Speaker 1: trespassed when it was clearly accidental. Yeah, And there's my
2:09:59
Speaker 1: guess is there's a lot of existing law that's probably
2:10:02
Speaker 1: pretty good about these things that I don't think we
2:10:04
Speaker 1: need new law about. They're probably cases where we'd have
2:10:08
Speaker 1: to write new laws, particularly given that their roads are private,
2:10:11
Speaker 1: and yeah, you know, if the roads are private, then
2:10:14
Speaker 1: you get all kinds of other complexities associated with it.
2:10:17
Speaker 1: But I think a lot of the trespass laws probably
2:10:19
Speaker 1: today take into that all that into account and are
2:10:22
Speaker 1: probably pretty good.
2:10:23
Speaker 3: Okay, So even even the states with the let's say
2:10:27
Speaker 3: strong castle doctrine type laws and stuff, they're still pretty
2:10:30
Speaker 3: good about that stuff.
2:10:31
Speaker 4: I mean, I like, you can think so, I mean,
2:10:34
Speaker 4: we have the opposite right, like the trespasser has the
2:10:36
Speaker 4: rights and the.
2:10:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think, I think so. I think even even
2:10:41
Speaker 1: though now again I don't know, I'm not going to
2:10:43
Speaker 1: vouch for every set of laws, but I think that
2:10:46
Speaker 1: I'd say that the generally, the the things that have
2:10:50
Speaker 1: come up through common law regarding property rights.
2:10:54
Speaker 4: Are pretty good. Okay, Okay, thanks, yep uh.
2:11:00
Speaker 1: I think this is the last question we'll take.
2:11:05
Speaker 5: Do you think cryptocurrency would exist under capitalism?
2:11:13
Speaker 1: Something would exist under capitalism. I don't think it would
2:11:16
Speaker 1: look the way it looks right now, but look, I
2:11:21
Speaker 1: think an aer capitalism you would have digital gold coins
2:11:27
Speaker 1: and to keep track of those coins, like there would
2:11:30
Speaker 1: be ademability gold let's say, or adeem to something you
2:11:33
Speaker 1: might blockchain might be a pretty cool way of keeping
2:11:36
Speaker 1: track of who owns what and where and make sure
2:11:41
Speaker 1: that you know that the claims are all taken care of.
2:11:47
Speaker 1: Blockchain might have other uses for other kinds of transactions. So,
2:11:53
Speaker 1: but you wouldn't have bitcoinqua bitcoin because you wouldn't you know,
2:11:58
Speaker 1: money would be you have good money, you would need
2:12:02
Speaker 1: bitcoin to solve. There's no problem represented by let's say
2:12:06
Speaker 1: a gold standard, a free banking gold standard that bitcoin
2:12:10
Speaker 1: is there to solve. It doesn't solve any problems. That
2:12:12
Speaker 1: actually creates more problems than it solves. So to the
2:12:18
Speaker 1: extent that crypto can, I don't know, token eye or
2:12:25
Speaker 1: it's a way to financialize certain assets or to raise capital,
2:12:30
Speaker 1: an easy, simple, quick way to raise capital for certain projects. Yeah,
2:12:34
Speaker 1: I mean, I think crypto would exist for those kind
2:12:38
Speaker 1: of things. And it's hard to tell how would have
2:12:40
Speaker 1: evolved if it's divorced from a function of money, how
2:12:45
Speaker 1: it would evolve. But I see no reason quad technology
2:12:49
Speaker 1: that it wouldn't evolve and would be a lot better
2:12:51
Speaker 1: and a lot more useful than it is today, and
2:12:55
Speaker 1: we don't know how crypto would have evolved even today
2:12:57
Speaker 1: because so much elation was putting in its way. Right,
2:13:03
Speaker 1: so the regulatory state blocked the development of crypto, particularly
2:13:10
Speaker 1: during the Biden administration. All right, thank you, But I'm
2:13:16
Speaker 1: not against the technology. I just don't think it's money.
2:13:19
Speaker 1: But I'm not against the tech that stands at the
2:13:22
Speaker 1: background and the possibilities of having different types of smart contracts,
2:13:28
Speaker 1: different ways of you know, identity verification, different you know,
2:13:36
Speaker 1: it's a database. Theologis that the blockchain some more efficient
2:13:39
Speaker 1: databases and the most secure databases. All that is good stuff.
2:13:44
Speaker 1: It's just I think that the delusion that mainly exists
2:13:49
Speaker 1: around bitcoin doesn't quite exist the same way around other cryptos.
2:13:54
Speaker 1: I mean, some crystals is crazy, right, They're just they're
2:13:57
Speaker 1: just I mean people call them shit cooins or whatever
2:14:00
Speaker 1: coins because they're meaningless. But but Bitcoin has created this
2:14:04
Speaker 1: mythology around it that wouldn't exist. But something like ethereum,
2:14:08
Speaker 1: which is probably an actual business, versus Bitcoin, which is
2:14:13
Speaker 1: not a business, I think I think would probably exist.
2:14:22
Speaker 1: All Right, guys, thank you. I have a great, great
2:14:26
Speaker 1: rest of your weekend. I will be back. Not sure
2:14:31
Speaker 1: exactly when. We'll see we'll see what the Wi Fi
2:14:35
Speaker 1: situation is in Naples, and we'll see when I can
2:14:37
Speaker 1: get an office in in Florence. But I will be
2:14:42
Speaker 1: back towards the end of the month early next month.
2:14:46
Speaker 1: Have a great weekend and the rest of your week
2:14:49
Speaker 1: by everybody.
2:14:50
Speaker 4: Take care of and saying you're on.
2:14:53
Speaker 1: Thanks.