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Elections: Brazil, Israel, USA; France Riots; Starlink | Yaron Brook Show · Yaron Brook Show

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: The Radical Fundamental Principles of Freedom, Rational Self-Interest, and Individual Rights.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: This is the Yaron Brook Show. All right, everybody. Welcome
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: to the Yaron Brook Show on this Sunday, October 25th. Oops,
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: we've got an echo. We'll get rid of that. There
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: we go. It's gone. All right. Hopefully everybody had a
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: good week. It's been a while since I saw you guys.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: I think since, what was it, Tuesday? I've been traveling
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: since then, so hopefully everybody's doing well. Let me know
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: if there are any bugs, audio issues. I assume you
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: can hear me. I assume all is good. Oh, it's Halloween?
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: It's not Halloween. It's the 25th. Halloween's in a week.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: Robert is very, very eager for Halloween. I'm actually in
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: an office here. in Porto Alegre, Brazil, which is decked
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: out for Halloween. They really are taking Halloween seriously. So
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: that is great. And they've been incredibly gracious to let
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: me use their office today for the show. So where
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: have I been since we last spoke? Oh, my God.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: So I was in New York for meetings and... We
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: had the Atlas Shrugged Essay Contest Finals where five of
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: the contestants made presentations. There was a panel of judges.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: I was on that panel, which asked them questions. And
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: then we went and we graded them and fed the
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: grades into a computer, and the computer decided on the winner.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: And anyway, yeah, it was a lot of fun. The
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: presentations were really good. The five students, super smart and
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: nice people. So that was exciting and a lot of fun.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: I saw a lot of people there. I know some
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: of you were there. So it was great to see
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: some of you and say hello. So, yeah, good events,
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: I think, all around. And hopefully this will now become
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: a regular event uh, you know, yearly, uh, event. Uh, and, uh,
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: you know, the top price was $ 100, 000. Second price was 25.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: Third price was 10,000. And then the fourth and fifth
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: places each got $ 5, 000 each. So everybody walked away with
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: real money. Uh, the winner got a hundred thousand. Uh,
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: she was terrific. And, uh, yeah, you know, really, really good.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: I think interesting presentations. Um, and, uh, I was happy
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: with really how that went. Then on Friday, today's Sunday,
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: Friday I flew from New York to Porto Alegre, Brazil.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: Porto Alegre is in the south of Brazil. And it's
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: not an easy place to get to. So I flew
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: from New York to Panama City. I changed planes to
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: Panama City and flew directly into Porto Alegre. The whole
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: thing was, you know, I started, left my hotel at
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: 7 in the morning, and arrived in my hotel in
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: Porto Alegre at about 1 a.m. local time, which would
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: have been New York time an hour earlier. So what
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: is that? You know, 12 plus 5, 17 hours. It
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: was not fun. And so, yes, so that was good.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: Arrived in Porto Alegre yesterday, a whole day of talks
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: on capitalism. It was me and Ricardo Brick, who's a local,
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: he actually lives in Porto Alegre, he's a Brazilian, who
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: is one of our junior fellows in the Ayn Rand
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: Institute incubator, so an up-and-coming objectivist intellectual. And he did
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: two presentations, I did two presentations, and we had about
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: 25 really smart, kind of young executives, so young business
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: people and entrepreneurs in the room, And it was a
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: lot of fun. So great questions, great Q & A.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: And I think part of the goal of these is
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: to identify people who might be interested in studying objectivism
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: more in depth. And I think we identified several and
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: are excited to see how they pursue this interest. And
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: hopefully we beef up the number of business people interested
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: in objectivism. And then maybe some of the people there
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: will become one day intellectual. So yes, and the reason
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: we do this all over the world is because the
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: talent pool is global. Today in the incubator at the
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: Ayn Rand Institute, there are more people outside the United
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: States than from the U.S. itself. So Europe is very good.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: South America is very good. So we are working on
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: all of that. Later today, after the show, I'm going
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: to jump over to the airport here in Porto Alegre
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: and fly to Santiago with Ricardo, and Ricardo and I
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: will be delivering another full day on capitalism in Santiago.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: I think there it's going to be more students, college students,
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: so we'll be doing that. Then tomorrow evening I'll be
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: giving a talk at the Mises Institute Chile, not to
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: be confused with the Mises Institute in Alabama, different institutions.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: And then... And then we fly to Buenos Aires. And
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: on Thursday, we'll be again doing the whole capitalism day
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: in Buenos Aires for students. And then on Friday morning,
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: I'm giving a talk on Buenos Aires on the threats
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: of civilization and what to do about them. And then
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: I go on vacation in Rio de Janeiro. I do
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: plan to do some shows while I'm on vacation. So
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: I will be. And I expect this week, no show tomorrow,
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: but Tuesday, Wednesday, I should be able to do shows.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: We'll see. I'm hopeful. I think I should be able
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: to do shows Tuesday, Wednesday. One from Santiago and one
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: from Buenos Aires. And then no show Friday. And then
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: maybe on and off the following week. And then after
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: the vacation in Rio, I go to Mexico City to
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: give a talk. And that will be a week from Friday.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: And then I go home for two days. And then
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: I'll see some of you guys in Michigan. Okay. Yeah,
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: you have to be careful. Michiganders, Michiganders, something like that, right?
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: All right, so what else do I want to tell
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: you about my travels? Can't think of anything right now,
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: but all is good. I'm in this office space with
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: windows all around me. I purposefully put you looking away
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: from the window so the light wasn't in your face,
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: but that means I get the view. I get put out.
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: Porto Alegre, basically, is right in front of me here.
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: We're on the 10th floor, and it's really cool. One
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: of the exciting things about being in Brazil right now
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: is that today is election day in Brazil, and this
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: is a significant election. And, indeed, I've been coming to
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: Brazil since, I think, 2013 or so. And it's really interesting.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: I was talking to this with one of my friends
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: here in Porto Alegre, that every time I came to Brazil,
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: something dramatic happens in Brazil. I am kind of the,
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: I don't know, the vanguard of dramatic change in Brazil.
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: The first time I came to Brazil was in 2013.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: In 2013. And 2013 is remembered as the beginning of
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: mass protests that begin in Sao Paulo and then spread
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: across the entire country. They start out being protests against,
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: I don't know, hiking hike in bus fares, but ultimately
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: they become massive demonstrations against corruption and against the size
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: of government and government overreach. And one of the things
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: that characterizes this is that at the time there was
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: this huge push of, I guess, free markets in Brazil.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: And kids used to show up at these demonstrations, 2013
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: with a t-shirt saying, less marks, more Mises. And 2013
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: in my career is important because it was the first time,
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: it was really the first time that I realized the
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: global reach of what I was doing. I showed up
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: here in Porto Alegre. It was right here in Porto Alegre.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: And I was taken to give a talk to students.
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: And I remember it was like in this theater. It
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: was dark, you know, kind of a theater space. I
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: was up on stage. And as I'm going up to
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: the stage, everybody yells to me from the audience, are
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: you going to use your iPhone in your talk? Are
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: you going to use your iPhone? And I'm like, how
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: do you guys know about my iPhone? How do you
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: guys know who I am? What the hell? And this
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: is 2013. And they'll say, oh, we've seen your talks
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: on YouTube. And it just struck me at that moment. Oh,
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: my God. I do a talk somewhere in the United States.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: In those days, I wasn't traveling much internationally. I do
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: a talk in the United States. I film it. I
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: put it up on YouTube. I don't know who's watching it.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: It turns out that the audience for it is global.
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: It's no longer just the United States. And I think
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: the power of the internet and YouTube video and the
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: power of these ideas to reach a global audience really
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: struck me at that point. you know, we kind of
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: in theory knew that before, but now it's real. Here
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: were people right in front of me who knew who
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: I was, never met them, never knew anything about them.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: And here they were talking because they, you know, about
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: the talks that they had seen of me online. And
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: that was, you know, in many respects, that was a
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: real revelation and, you know, to some extent, a change
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: in strategy for me in terms of consciously going global
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: with what we do and seeking our talent on a
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: global scale and going out there and trying to get
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: people to read Ayn Rand at a global scale. It
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: was always, to some extent, there, but now it became
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: much more explicit. So Porta Alegre, I will always have
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: my thanks for that observation, for that perspective. for the
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: reality of that. So in 2013, I came in massive
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: demonstrations out in the streets. I came, you know, also
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: in 20, the next year, the big anti-corruption starts with
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: something called Operation Car Wash. And there's actually a Netflix
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: television series about Operation Car Wash that is quite good.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: Operation Car Wash was run by a group of police
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: ultimately under the guidance of Judge Sergio Moro. And it
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: was a scandal of kickbacks from the national oil company
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: here to basically every major political party in Brazil was
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: on the dole. And, you know, from the oil company
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: in Brazil and a bunch of major contractors around Brazil.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: And Sergio Moro, who would ultimately be, for a very
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: short period of time, a justice minister under Bolsonaro, but
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: he was way too independent, and Bolsonaro ultimately, I think,
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: fired him or he left the government. He is today,
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: I think, a governor. He just got elected to a
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: governorship in one of the states here in Brazil. So
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: it's going to be interesting to watch him, a real
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: anti-corruption rule of law guy, really, really important. during the
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: 2013 protests, they very much became protests against Dilma Rousseff,
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: the at the time president. You know, they became more
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: and more anti the government and anti Dilma. And in
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: October 2014, she gets reelected. But a very narrow margin.
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: Brazil goes into a deeper session. More demonstrations come out.
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: And ultimately, you know, she is, you know, we'll see that.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: But before she's impeached, I arrived back in Brazil in 2016.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: And again, I'm in Porto Alegre, and I'm giving a
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: talk in front of students in 2016. And at the
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: end of my talk, they project the television onto a
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: screen that's behind me on the stage. I don't know
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: what's going on, right? And on the screen, on the television,
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: we see pictures of the police going up to Lula,
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: who had been the president before Dilma. He had been
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: the president. A real socialist, a real leftist. And we see,
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: as the police handcuff Lula and put him into the
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: backup police car. And the auditorium in which I'm speaking,
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: the students, it just erupts. And somebody comes out with
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: a bottle of champagne, and they open up the champagne,
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: and everybody is celebrating Lula's arrest. This is in 2016. And,
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: of course, the protest movement just gets emboldened by this,
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: and now there are active calls for Dilma to be arrested.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: So I was there at the beginning of the protests.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: I was there when Lula was arrested. And then the
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: same year Lula was arrested, Dilma is impeached. by the Senate, right?
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: And her vice president becomes president. In 2017, Moro, the
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: same famous judge, actually convicts Lula and sends him to jail.
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: And then in 2018, I'm again in Brazil. I arrive
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: in 2018. Two things happened in 2018. One is Lula
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: is imprisoned after the appeals court upholds his conviction, and
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: he is barred from running in Politics for Life. And
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: in October of 2018, again, this is the AM here,
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: Bolsonaro defeats the leftist candidates, and Paulo Guedes, Paulo Guedes
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: is a real free market economist, becomes minister of the economy,
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: in the United States Secretary of Treasury, and Moro, the
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: anti-corruption guy, becomes Justice Minister. And I think a lot
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: of people are optimistic. Bolsonaro is no big deal, but
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: Goetz is amazing, and Moro, you know, there's a lot
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: of hope. So again, every time I'm here, something dramatic
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: happens in Brazil. Just to give you the history of
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: what happens next, in 2019, Goetz passes pension reform, but
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: there's a bunch of scandals that happen Lula is freed
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: by the Supreme Court which becomes important so Lula is
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: freed in November after the Supreme Court bars imprisonment before
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: appeals exhausted in April of 2020 Moro resigns accuses Bolsonaro
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: of interfering with federal police it turns out Bolsonaro is
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: really really corrupt as well And then, of course, COVID happens,
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: and COVID is a disaster in Brazil. 700,000 people die.
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: Bolsonaro dismisses the virus, dismisses, you know, Bison, all the
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: conspiracy theories, dismisses the vaccines. And, you know, ultimately, the
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: Supreme Court annuls Lula's conviction. And to this day, everybody's
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: basically convinced the Supreme Court had been bought out. and
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: makes it possible for Lula to run again, right? They
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: claim that Moro was biased when he convicted him, but
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: it's much more likely the Supreme Court was biased. The
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: Supreme Court is basically, you know, occupied by a bunch
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: of Brazilian, you know, people from the left and Lula's supporters. In,
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: you know, so... You know, in October 30th, 2022, there
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: were elections here again. And this time Lula actually beats Bolsonaro.
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: I think primarily because of Bolsonaro's performance during COVID. He
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: was just floundering. And it was really, really close. So
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: Lula beat him 50.9% of 49.1%. The closest result since
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: re-democratization of Brazil. Bolsonaro refuses to concede, and truckers block
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: the highways, supporters camp out the army headquarters. In January 2023,
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: Bolsonaro supporters storm the Supreme Court. Congress, right, but Lula's inaugurated,
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: and 1,500 people are detained, and yeah, so kind of
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: January 6th kind of event here in Brazil. As a
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: consequence of that, in June 2023, electoral court bars Bolsonaro
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: from office until 2030 for abusing power. And in 2024,
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: the federal police report that there was a coup plot,
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: including plans to kill Lula and a Supreme Court judge.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: And anyway, you know, the Supreme Court judge, this is
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: also when the Supreme Court judge Morales clashes with Musk
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: over ex-suspension. And, you know, you again see how activist
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: the Supreme Court is in Brazil. Very, very activist Supreme Court.
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: In 2025, Bolsonaro is indicted, then convicted by the Supreme
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: Court of orchestrating the coup plot. He's placed under house arrest.
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: as a consequence, Trump imposes 50% tariffs on Brazil. And,
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: you know, Bolsonaro is basically convicted for a coup, something
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: Trump never had the opportunity to be. In a consequence,
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: Bolsonaro cannot run. So his son, Flavio Bolsonaro, runs in
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: his stead. And on October 4th, earlier this month, they
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: had the first round of the presidential elections. Flavio Bolsonaro
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: got 47%, Lula got 45.2%. Again, a very narrow margin
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: and large numbers of people not voting. So a very
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: high percentage of Brazilians didn't vote. And in addition, a
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: number of members, we talked about this on the show
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: at the time, a number of members of the Bolsonaro
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: family get elected to Congress and the Senate, to Parliament.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: So Bolsonaro family gets a real stronghold. The party behind
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: Bolsonaro gains significant membership in Congress, and they become, I think,
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: the largest political bloc in Congress. So that's where we are.
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: Today is the runoff between Flavio Bolsonaro, Bolsonaro's son, and Lula,
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: the guy who beat the father four years ago, Lula is,
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: as we saw, was arrested. He is believed to be
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: thoroughly corrupt. The Supreme Court here is believed to be
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: thoroughly corrupt and basically beholden to Lula. The Supreme Court
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: is very leftist, very activist. It's not a Supreme Court
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: that just waits for things to happen, but a Supreme
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: Court that goes after its perceived rivals. A lot of
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: this campaign right now is not just about the future
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: direction of Brazil economically. Lula is an explicit socialist. He
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: is pro-China and pro-Russia. And Bolsonaro is explicitly pro-the United States. And,
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: of course, Trump has endorsed Bolsonaro, the son, after he
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: endorsed Bolsonaro, the father, last time. Lula is also 80
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: years old. He's a traditional leftist. and Flavio's 45 years old,
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: so a young guy. And so, you know, this is
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: where we, this is the election. It's a big deal
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: here because the country is really split. There is a
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: real split. For example, I'm in here in Porto Alegre. Supposedly,
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: Porto Alegre itself, the city, like in the United States,
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: the city's tend to be democratic, tend to be left,
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: is Lula. But everything outside the city is Bolsonaro. The
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: northeast of Brazil, Salvador, Bahia, that area of Brazil, which
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: is the poorer part of Brazil, is very much a
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: Lula stronghold. Sao Paulo, Curitiba, the wealthier parts, and Belo Horizonte,
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: The more business-oriented parts of Brazil are very much Bolsonaro
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: on the Bolsonaro side. This is about the economic direction
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: of the country, although let's be very, very clear. Flavio
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: Bolsonaro is no millet. He is no capitalist. He is
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: no free marketer. He, too, is a statist. He's just
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: less of a statist than socialist Lula. Both are probably corrupt.
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: There's plenty of reason to believe that the Bolsonaro family
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: is corrupt and uses government to enrich itself, just like
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: Trump and others. And now the whole family's in politics.
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: But Lula, we know he's corrupt, and he sat in
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: jail for that corruption. He just managed to get the
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: Supreme Court to undo all that. So it's very much
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: going to dictate the future direction of the country Uh, and, uh,
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: I think, you know, most people that I know, and
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: I know a very, you know, very select group of
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: people here, uh, you know, they, they're voting against Lula.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: They hate Lula. They've, despite Lula for 20 years, uh,
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: Lula was, was again, president in the, in the, in
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: the 2000s. And, uh, you know, they, they view him
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: as representing the old left that has really harmed Brazil.
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: They also view him as corrupt. But they don't love
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: Flavio Bolsonaro. They don't love the Bolsonaro family. The time
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: of his father was not particularly good. Even though he
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: had a great economy minister, they didn't get as much
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: done as they promised, as they should have. Now, there
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: is more opportunities now because they have more control over Congress. Remember,
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: One of the things that prevents Mele from doing more
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: than he's doing is he doesn't have control of Congress.
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: Here they will have much more support in Congress than
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: the father did. But then will Flavio find somebody like
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: Goetz to be his economic minister, a real free market type? Again,
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: there's some optimism here that maybe he will, that there
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: will be real reforms. But for example, there was a
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: debate two nights ago, and You know, they both committed
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: to keeping the oil company state-owned. So neither one of
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: them wanted to say in the debate, I would privatize,
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: just to give you a sense. Nobody here is really
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: that pro-markets. And if they were, they couldn't win, because
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: the Brazilian people are not pro-markets. Now, it's interesting, because
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: when you look at American media, as I did this morning,
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: American media is basically calling this a toss-up. It could
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: go either way, right? And according to the polls, let's see,
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: one poll has it 51-47 for Flavio. Another one has it.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: Everybody has Flavio winning, but the margin is very small. 51-49, 50-49, 50.1-49.9.
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: That is unbelievably small. 50.7-49.3. You've got two polls that
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: say Lula is going to win. Vox Brazil has him
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: up 50.6%. Data rankings have added him up 50.4. The
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: average of all the last set of polls is Flavio 51,
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: Lula 49, right? And everything, it was in the margin
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: of error. So if you listen to American media or
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: if you listen to the media more broadly, it looks
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: like a toss-up. Now, I've spoken to a bunch of
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: people here. Now, granted, they're all, you know, Bolsonaro, pro-Bolsonaro.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: They're all going to vote today for Bolsonaro. But they're
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: all pretty attuned to Brazilian politics. And they all think
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: Bolsonaro is going to nail this, that he's going to win,
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: you know, maybe by two percentage points, maybe by three
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: percentage points. But I haven't heard anybody thinking that Lula
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: is going to win this. Now, maybe that's wishful thinking.
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: I don't know. But we'll see. You know, Bolsonaro's Liberal Party,
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: as I said, won the largest Senate bloc. during the
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: parliamentary election, October 4th. And they really think that if
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: he wins, they can do stuff because of that. Four
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: Bolsonaro relatives won seats. You know, so the Senate is
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: clearly to the right of Lula, which is good for Bolsonaro,
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: would not be good for Lula. Just to give you
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: a quick rundown on Lula, this is his fourth term
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: bid to be president. As we said, jailed for corruption
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: in 2018, set aside, that conviction was set aside in 2021.
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: Now it is true the economy is doing pretty well.
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: Unemployment is at record lows. The economy is largely doing
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: okay in spite of massive U.S. tariffs. But there is,
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: you know, cost of living, what people talk cost of living.
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: Food is up in terms of cost, household debt, There's
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: a real crisis in household debt. He wants to, his
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: kind of sales pitch in the campaign trail was income
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: tax exemption for poor people, anybody earning less than 5,000
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: riyas a month. That is, what is that, around $ 1, 200
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: a month. And increased taxing on the very rich, which
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: is what you'd expect. He wants the government to buy
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: billions in delinquent consumer loans, so a bailout of people's
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: household debt, free weekend public transportation, you know, a ban
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: on online betting, a new public security ministry. That's a
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: little scary. And, you know, you know, we will see,
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: we will see, uh, uh, I'm sure there's a bunch
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: of other goodies being handed out. Uh, part of his pitch,
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: which I think works is he stood up to Trump
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: and he will continue to stand up to Trump. I
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: think Trump hurts a lot of, a lot of, uh,
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: you know, decent candidates. He certainly hurt them in, um,
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: in Canada. Flavio Bolsonaro, on the other hand, is 45
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: is a senator, and he promised to pardon his father.
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: So that's part of his platform, is to pardon his father.
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: And he got a giant pair of scissors. Like, instead
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: of Millet's chainsaw, he bought a bunch of scissors. I
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: don't think he's serious about cutting the way Millet was.
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: But he says he will cut $ 40 billion worth in
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: spending cuts. He wants 10 fewer ministries. He wants to
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: create surpluses to cut the standing debt, a cap on
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: discretionary spending, low consumption taxes, more privatization, $ 900 billion RIAs
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: infrastructure through private concessions. lower age on criminal responsibility to 16.
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: One of the things he's running on is tough on crime.
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: So he wants to really go after the gangs. He
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: wants to define them as narco-terrorists, the same way Trump
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: has defined them already as such. And he's got some
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: ideas about Bukele-style maximum security prisons, build these big prisons.
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: And he wants to, importantly, I think, he wants to
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: rein in the Supreme Court and particularly individual justices, the
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: rulings of individual justices he's going after, particularly Moraes, the
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: guy who went after, what's his name, Musk. We talked
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: about that a couple of years ago when it happened.
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: He is under investigation for corruption, as all, I think,
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: Brazilian politicians are. You know, Trump is clearly on that side.
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: So we will see. You know, Javier Bolsonaro is not
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: very smart and was corrupt, rightly populist. His one virtue
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: was handling, handing the economy to Paulo Guedes and to
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: some extent getting out of the way. Couldn't get much
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: done because of Congress, the Senate. Flavio is, strikes me
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: as less dumb, but like his father, not that interested
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: in economics. But so then the question is, who does
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: he hand the economic portfolio over to? He's after judicial
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: reform and crime. Two good issues. I mean, think about
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: it this way. The primary function of government is to
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: protect us from criminals. And the Brazilian government has failed.
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: Brazil is a very violent place. And if they can
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: get crime under control, that would be a huge issue.
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: And I think people should vote for Flavio just on that, right? Now...
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: You know, the fact that he's going to cut ministries,
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: that he's going to cut spending, if it actually happens,
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: is great. That he wants privatization, that's great. So, you know,
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: if I had to choose, I would definitely vote for Flavio.
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: I would definitely vote against Lula. This is a case
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: in which, you know, leftism here in Brazil has to
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: be defeated. The good thing about the left in Brazil,
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: there's no backbench. as far as I can tell, there's
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: nobody to replace Lula. When Lula is gone, this is
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: why the left is running an 80-year-old. He has the charisma.
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: He has the unions. He has the poor. It's not
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: clear that anybody, any other leftist can come into his place.
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: If he's defeated, to a large extent, the left is
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: defeated in Brazil. So, it could be a killing blow.
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: And then, maybe you could start thinking about some free
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: market competition to the kind of populist right. Uh, you know,
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: both are corrupt, but if I had to choose, and,
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: you know, I'd want Brazil to have a more independent,
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: but also less powerful Supreme Court, a constrained Supreme Court,
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: and I want crime to be reduced. 130 people died
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: in Rio de Janeiro last year, and it's time for
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: Brazil to get serious about the one most important function
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: of government, and that is crime reduction. So, yeah, I'm
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: for Bolsonaro. Markets want Lula out. I want Lula out. And,
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: you know, it's not that I'm excited about Flavio Bolsonaro,
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: but I'm excited about seeing Lula out. I am here
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: in a historical moment in Brazil, as it seems I
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: always am. So let's see what happens. You know, particularly
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: in Brazil, when it comes to here, to Porto Alegre,
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: that's when history seems to happen. I hope history happens
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: today and Lula and the Brazilian left are finished, defeated
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: thoroughly and for a long, you know, maybe forever. Who knows?
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: So we will see. You know, this week is pretty,
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: the next two weeks are pretty busy election-wise. We do
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: have an election right today in Serbia. Again, this is
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: a significant election for the Serbian state. There is a
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: massive student movement that has arisen to oppose the existing,
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: you know, political regime, if you will. The president, who
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: is Leen's authoritarian, has resigned the presidency to run for
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: the prime minister's job. It's one way to evade term limits. But,
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: you know, hopefully he will be defeated today and there
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: will be an alternative in Serbia. I don't know much
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: about Slovenian politics, but I do know that the current
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: government is not good, quite authoritarian, and it would be
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: good to have them replaced. So I will fill you in.
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: You probably open up the news later tonight and find out.
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: I mean, the good thing about Brazilian elections is that
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: the results are known very, very quickly. Unlike the United States,
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: everybody votes electronically. you put in the vote, it's tabulated
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: instantly because it's electronic. It's all done by computers. Now,
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: that does open it up to, you know, claims of fraud.
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: You know, somebody could interfere, I guess, in the middle,
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: in the system. Yeah, all right. Hopefully, there won't be
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: any fraud today. I think if Lula wins, a lot
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: of people are going to be very, very, very suspicious
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: and they're going to be arguments about it. But, We'll
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: know very quickly what the decision of the Brazilian people
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: is short of fraud. All right, so today is Brazil
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: and Serbia. On Tuesday, we have a very significant election
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: in Israel that will ultimately determine the political fate of
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: Benjamin Netanyahu. So I'm really looking forward to seeing what
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: the Israeli people decide on this issue. This is really
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: a referendum on Netanyahu to a large extent. As I've
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: told you many times before, the major political parties in Israel,
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: there's not a big difference between them. The main difference
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: is the leadership. The main difference is, are you going
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: to form a government led by Netanyahu or is they
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: going to form a government led by somebody else? And
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: this will be decided on Tuesday. There is the main
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: government block that is kind of the block of people
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: that constitute the government as it is today And then
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: there is the opposition bloc. These are people who do
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: not want Netanyahu as prime minister. Many people in the
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: opposition bloc share almost, almost, not quite, the same positions
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: as Netanyahu on a bunch of things. Again, it's about
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: the personality, but it's also about do you want the
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: ultra-Orthodox to be part of the government? And that means...
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: that the ultra-Orthodox will be immune from serving in the military,
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: get huge subsidies from the state. And do you want
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: the nationalist right, the religious nationalist right in the government?
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: And that's really, to a large extent, that's the election.
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: It's about Netanyahu, the ultra-Orthodox, and the nationalist right. So
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: it's about whether Netanyahu forms a government with them, or
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: whether you get some other combination. That's everything. Because on
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: all the kind of national security issues, I don't think
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: there's much of a disagreement. On economic issues, there's not
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: much of a disagreement. They're all mixed economy, leaning to,
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: they all say they want to liberalize the Israeli economy.
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: They all say they want to open it up to
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: more competition by mellowing tariffs. They all say they want
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: to deregulate None of them will actually do anything, is
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: my prediction. But that's what they say. All right. So
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: let's quickly look at the political parties and where they
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: stand according to the polls. So the largest political party
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: coming out of this is probably going to be, again,
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: according to the polls. Now, let me say this. The
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: polls in the past have usually underestimated Netanyahu. They usually
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: underestimate his power, underestimate his performance on Election Day. So
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: usually Netanyahu does better than the polls. for whatever that's worth.
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: I don't know if that'll happen this time, but I
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: won't be surprised if Netanyahu does better than his polls.
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: All right, so right now, Yashal is projected to be
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: the largest political party coming out of this. Now, just
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: to understand how it works, 120 seats in the parliament.
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: You have to get 3.25% of the vote in order
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: to be eligible to enter parliament. If you get 3.25%
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: of the vote, you get four seats. So there's no
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: political parties with one, two, or three seats. The minimum
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: is four. In order to govern, you need 61 seats.
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: 61 seats. The covered government, I think, has 61 or 62.
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: Just a small majority. This last parliament served a full term,
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: which is the first time since 1988 that that's happened.
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: Governments in Israel fall pretty frequently and get replaced pretty frequently.
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: If nobody can form a government If nobody can form
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: a government because they can't get 61, then there will
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: be elections in early 2027, a second round. But the
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: reality is there's no reason to believe that in a
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: second round you get any different outcome. Between this election
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: and the next election, there will be a caretaker government
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: led by Netanyahu because he's the prime minister today. All right.
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: So the political party that is probably going to get
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: the most seats in parliament is Yashar, which is led
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: by Gadi Eizenkot. Who leads these is really, really important
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: because Israeli politics is about personalities more than it's about issues,
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: with the exception of some of the extremes. Gadi Eizenkot
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: was the ex-IDF chief. He was the IDF chief during
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: the early 20-teens. His party is considered centrist. And it
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: leads the what's called the change block, the anti-Netanyahu block,
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: the block that wants not to have the ultra-Orthodox and
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: not to have the nationalist right and won't serve under Netanyahu. So,
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: you know, they want a universal draft. They want a
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: state commission of inquiry on October 7th. They say they
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: want independent courts. They want a written constitution. They'll never
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: get that. They say Hamas must be destroyed. They want
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: cost of living reforms, whatever the hell that means. It
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: depends on who you speak to. And they say no
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: Arab or Haredi party should be in a coalition with them.
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: Second party is the Likud. So if Yashar is considered center...
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: I think in most of the world it would be
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: considered center-right. The Likud is right. And, you know, it's
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: running on its war record. Of course, it was also
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: there during October 7th. It didn't prevent it. It didn't
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: do a particularly good job during October 7th. It opposes
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: an independent October 7th inquiry, which is already suspect and
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: should be reason enough not to vote for the Likud.
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: It would keep the exemptions for the ultra-Orthodox, uh, and
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: it will keep the ultra-Orthodox as partners in the government.
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: It wants judicial reform. I, uh, you know, I've opposed
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: the kind of reform that they want. I don't oppose reform.
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: I oppose the reform that they want, which, you know,
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: which is basically gives Parliament veto power over the judiciary. Uh, and, um,
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: you know, uh, It opposes Arab parties in the coalition,
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: but it has no published platform. It's basically running on Netanyahu.
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: That's it. Biyahad, which is Bennett and Lapid. It's a
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: joint list. Bennett was leading at some point. He joined
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: with Lapid and dropped. Bennett is leading. Clearly, right of center,
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: Lapid is more center, the party itself is considered center-right. So,
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: if Yashau is going to get 22-23 seats in the parliament,
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: Likud is going to get 19-21, Be-Yachad is going to
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: get 14-15, again, these are polls. They're for universal draft,
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: or at least draft for the Haredim, the ultra-Orthodox. They
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: want a state inquiry. They want housing overhaul. They want
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: to break up monopolies. But a lot of that means
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: just opening up a lot of state enterprises to private
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: enterprises that have effective government-protected monopolies. They want to open
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: them up to foreign competition, which would be great. They
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: rule out a coalition with the Arabs, and they're not
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: committed to who they would back for prime minister. Then
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: you have the Democrats. Democrats are center-left to left. This
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: is the remnants of the old Labor Party together with
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: the more left-wing Meretz. They focus on secular civil marriages.
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: They want more social services. They're more lean in a
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: socialist direction. They want more of a diplomatic track with Palestinians,
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: although they do not explicitly support a state for the Palestinians.
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: Notice even the left in Israel is not ready to
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: commit to a Palestinian state. It tells you how far
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: to the right Israeli society has moved since the Second
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: Intifada 20-something years ago. Okay, the joint list is an
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: Arab list. This is the Arab left. This is an
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: Arab nationalist left, socialist left. And they want to end
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: the fighting in Gaza, Syria, and Lebanon. They support a
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: Palestinian state. They want to end settlement spending. They want
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: to double the minimum wage. They want to nationalize big
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: parts of the economy. The only real socialists in Israel
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: right now are the Arabs, right? They are remnants of
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: kind of the old Arab left-wing political parties. Yisrael Beiteinu
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: is a secular right political party led by Avigdor Lieberman.
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: A lot of Russian immigrants vote for this party. They
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: want universal service. They want a constitution. This party is
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: particularly against the ultra-Orthodox. They're very secular. They want civil marriage.
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: They want all the restrictions on activities because of the ultra-Orthodox,
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: like bus service on Saturday. They want all the eliminated
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: restrictions on bus service. And they will not sit in
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: a coalition with the ultra-Orthodox. And they will not sit
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: in a coalition with the Arabs. And they will not
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: sit in a coalition with Netanyahu. They'll sit in a
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: coalition with Netanyahu's political party, but not with Netanyahu. So
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: they feel betrayed by Netanyahu going back. Otzma Yehudit is
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: a far right. This is Ben-Gavir's political party. You know,
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: they want to be able to override anything the court
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: rules with a simple majority in the parliament. They encourage
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: Gaza and West Bank immigration, kick the Arabs out. They
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: want a death penalty for terrorists. which already passed. They
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: want Jews to be able to pray at the Temple Mount.
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: That would piss off the Muslims. And they're pretty soft
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: on the Haredi draft. They kind of would like them
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: to be drafted, but they're not going to make a
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: big deal out of it. Then you've got the Haredis,
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: first Ashkenazi Haredis. They would get seven to eight. The
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: Uthman Yudit would get eight. You know, they want codified
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: draft exemptions, and they want subsidies for the ultra-Orthodox. Then
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: you have the religious Zionists and Zehut. This is an
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: interesting political party where you have Feiglin. Feiglin, who is
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: a number two on the list, so he will be
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: a member of parliament, Israeli parliament. Feiglin is very free market,
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: probably will be the most free market member of the
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: Israeli parliament, but he's also a religious fanatic. He's a
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: cradle listener. He claims to be for separation of state
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: and church, but I don't really believe him. And he
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: also wants to build the third temple where the Aksar
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: Mosque lies today. He wants to raise it, destroy it,
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: and build the third temple there. That strikes me as
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: not very separation of church and state. He wants to
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: legalize Marijuana. But Smoltich, who they run together, wants to
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: annex Gaza. He wants to, you know, he wants judicial reform,
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: the bad judicial reform. Not a good guy, in my view.
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: So with Feiglin, you know, on economics, you would love him.
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: On everything else, you would not, probably. You know, his
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: argument for defending Israel in terms of, is very good.
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: It's the closest you will find to my arguments about Israel,
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: particularly about, in terms of just war theory. So Feiglin's,
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: you know, good, and he ran the Zahoud party independently
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: a few elections ago, and he had objectivists on his list.
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: He had Libby Moulad, a friend of mine, was an objectivist.
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: She was number three on the list. He had a
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: free market economist, a very good free market economist on
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: the list. But they lost, and partially they lost because
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: he couldn't keep his religion. He emphasized religion in the
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: final days of the election cycle, and I think a
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: lot of people were turned off by that. Then you've
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: got the spotty. notice how many political parties there are.
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: The Sephardi, ultra-Orthodox, that are very similar to Ashkenazi Orthodox.
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: Then you've got who would get 78 votes. Then you've
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: got Ram, which is an Islamist. So this is a
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: religious Arab political party. But interestingly enough, They are political
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: parties that recognize that Israel is a Jewish state and
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: will be a Jewish state. They are primarily concerned about
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: crime inside the Arab towns, and they want to see
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: a government that is willing to fight that crime. Actually,
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: number two on the list is actually an Israeli Jew
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: who is a centrist, not even a far leftist. So
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: they are conservatives, Muslims, but you know, kind of recognize
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: in some way the state of Israel. Then you've got
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: a couple of political parties that are on the threshold
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: of whether they will pass or not. One is called
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: the Reservists, which has, you know, some good people on it,
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: I think. The woman, God, I forget her name right now,
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: that we talked about on the show like a couple
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: of days ago is on this list. They are pretty
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: strong in terms of national security. and they are pretty
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: good on economics, and they're secular. But they might not pass.
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: They might not get in. I would like them to
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: get in. I think it would be good if they
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: got in, because I think there would be a force
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: that would allow the creation of a government independent of Netanyahu.
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: And then there's a party called People of Israel that, again,
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: is borderline and probably will not get across the finish line.
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: And again, they want to draft everybody. They want a
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: decisive victory in Gaza. And they are very good in
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: terms of national defense, national security. They left Alikud because
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: of Netanyahu's compromises with the ultra-Orthodox. They will only recommend
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: a government led by Netanyahu, but they don't want the ultra-Orthodox.
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: So how that all comes together, but of course there's
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: a good chance that they don't even get in. right?
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: So right now, it looks like the anti-Netanyahu bloc, minus
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: the Arab parties, will get about 52 to 56. Again,
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: you need 61 to form a government. The Netanyahu bloc
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: is probably around 50. The Arab parties are probably between
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: 14 to 16. Supposedly, I mean, what's expected is huge
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: a lot of voting by the Arab parties. Arabs in
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: Israel are very motivated to vote. A lot of it
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: is because there's a lot of crime in the Arab communities,
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: and they want something not about it, and they think
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: that this is an opportunity because they're kind of sitting
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: in a position where they can hopefully get some leverage.
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: So neither side reaches 61 without the Arabs. Neither side
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: is willing to take on the Arabs in order to
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: get to the 61, right? So, you know, you've got
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: the Eisenkot, Bennett, Lieberman on one side, and they can
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: form a government either by taking the Arabs or by
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: going with the ultra-Orthodox, but they don't want the ultra-Orthodox.
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: And then you've got Netanyahu, and, you know, it's not
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: clear how Netanyahu forms a government. He would go with
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: the Arabs, but he's committed to not going with the Arabs,
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: so it's not clear how he could form a government, right? Now, again...
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: A lot of this will depend on whether some of
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: these small parties get in or not, because if they
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: don't get in, their votes are redistributed, and all of
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: that affects the ultimate outcome. But there's no math that
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: suggests that either bloc can get in. Now, here's my
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: ideal for what happens. My ideal for what happens is
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: that Likud does worse than expected. Netanyahu does worse than expected.
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: I'm not talking about the right. But the opposition cannot
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: form a government. They still do not have 61 votes.
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: And my ideal government, my ideal scenario is that after
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: the election, and I don't think this will happen, by
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: the way. The chance of this happening is basically zero,
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: is Netanyahu basically resigns. Netanyahu says, I am leaving the
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: leadership of the Likud, of his political party. And then
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: what happens is, because he's left, now the Likud can
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: become a coalition member with some of its opponents. And,
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: you know, I would like to see a coalition of
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: what's called Yashau, which is Eisenhower, the Likud, Biyahad, Bennett
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: and Lapid, keep the Democrats out, keep the leftists out,
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: keep the joint list out, and Yisrael Beiteinu, so those
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: four political parties, right? Four political parties, that would give
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: you 22, let's say, that could get to 18. That's
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: 54 with Be'ahad, and then with Yisrael Beiteinu, that's 62.
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: And that's it. You don't need anybody else. And now
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: you have a generally right of center, secular... basically secular
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: government that can start treating the ultra-Orthodox, you know, without
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: giving them special favors. This is a right-of-center government that
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: I think would be tough on national security issues. It's
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: a right-of-center government that might be able to muster the
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: courage to actually do something about the economy. So you
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: would keep out the ultra-Orthodox, you would keep out the leftists,
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: and you would keep out the nationalist, religious nationalists. And
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: you would focus on where most Israelis are, which is
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: on a secular center-right. The only reason that combination, which
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: gets you a majority easily, and which makes a lot
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: of sense from every perspective, on every issue. Again, given
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: where Israel is, the only reason that coalition will not
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: come about, or is unlikely to come about, is Netanyahu.
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: Nobody's willing to actually share power with Netanyahu. Netanyahu won't
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: join a coalition unless he's prime minister. It's all about
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: Netanyahu's power lust. It's all about Netanyahu's insistence of being
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: prime minister and not being willing to take a more
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: minor role. or retiring. It's time to retire. He's done it.
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: He's been around. The first time he was prime minister,
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: I think, was 1996. So what is it? 30 years. Enough. Enough.
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: It's time for a new generation, a younger generation of
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: people within Likud to rise up. It's time for other
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: political parties to... I think if Netanyahu goes, you would
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: see other political combinations arise. And, you know, Israeli politics
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: becomes a lot more dynamic, a lot more interesting, and
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: you get a lot more new voices. And, yeah, you
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: don't get the great Netanyahu speeches at the UN. That's
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: what you lose. But you don't lose much more than that,
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: because Netanyahu, as I've said many, many times, I won't
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: repeat it here, is weak, and while he's executed well
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: post-October 7th, not really post-October 7th, He's executed well since
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: the beepers. The beeper attack and everything since then is
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: pretty good. But before that, very weak. And, of course,
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: he was prime minister during October 7th, and that should
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: disqualify him right off the bat. So that's who I
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: think you are. That's what I think would be the ideal.
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: And I'd like to see, again, the nationalist right and
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: the ultra-Orthodox right be kept out of the government. I'd
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: like to see the left, the Democrats, out of the government.
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: I'd like to see the Arabs out of the government.
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: I would like to see, you know, an emphasis by
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: the next Israeli government on reducing crime in the Arab community.
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: I think one of the reasons Arabs are less than
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: enthusiastic about the Israeli government is because, again, the government's
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: primary job is to keep them safe and it's not
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: doing so. It's not doing so in the Arab cities
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: and they should Also, a few other things that are
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: worth talking about. The violence of settlers in the West
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: Bank is very, very bad. I think it's wrong because
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: it's violence. They're initiating violence. They're doing so with impunity.
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: The Israeli state is not willing to really penalize them.
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: And the rule of law is breaking down. And the
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: reason for that is that the Netanyahu government is beholden
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: to the nationalist right. And the national right is supportive
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: of these vigilantes on the West Bank going after Palestinians
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: and trying to kick them off their land. So Israel
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: needs to stop that. And the only way to stop
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: that is to basically shut down the Ben-Gurion's of the
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: world and to keep them out of the future government.
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: So that's another, I think, really, really important issue is
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: to get rid of these young people who are fanatics
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: and who have no qualms about being violent towards the...
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: the Arab population in the West Bank and initiate force.
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: And they need to be stopped. They just need to
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: be stopped. You know, Netanyahu has this plan now. You know,
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: it's hard to make any sense of it, of somehow
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: creating some kind of crypto fund that would allow Israel
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: to be immune from sanctions so he's already preparing for
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: the day when the United States will sanction Israel and
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: not make it possible for them to get money I
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: don't know how the crypto fund helps them in that
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: you know we'll see what happens everybody all the leading
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: political parties want to increase defense spending and want to
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: increase national security and they all want to prepare for
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: the day where they won't get any help from the
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: Americans I think they should they should have done it
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: decades ago but whether any of them really have a plan,
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: I mean, I know what the plan should be. The
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: plan should be to massively increase economic growth. Now, economic
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: growth is strong in Israel. It's over 5%, over 5%
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: for a relatively rich country. That's amazing. But if you
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: take out NVIDIA, here's the amazing thing about the Israeli
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: economy right now. NVIDIA has a real presence in Israel.
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: If you take out NVIDIA, economic growth in Israel drops
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: from 5.6%, I think it is, to 3.4%. NVIDIA is
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: 2% of GDP, which is pretty amazing, right? Now, it's
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: still amazing that Israel can grow at 3.4% without NVIDIA
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: at a time of war and can grow with 5.something
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: with war and is projected to grow At 7%, I think,
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: next year. So economic growth is amazing in Israel. Imagine,
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: just imagine, and it's hard to imagine, what would happen
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: if you actually liberated the Israeli economy? And here's the
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: other part of it. 100,000 people are leaving Israel every year.
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: And some of these 100,000 are some of the most
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: productive people in Israel. I think liberalizing the economy would
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: keep many of those in Israel. So... liberalizing the economy
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: should be a big deal I don't know that any
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: of these political parties would do it but again if
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: you form a solid right of center coalition that is
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: not dependent on the left and is not dependent on
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: nationalists maybe you can actually have you know some economic
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: reforms that are good and then you've got again you've
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: got West Bank problems you've got tons of problems that
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: I think a right wing coalition government a center right
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: coalition government can actually actually solve I mean, I'm not
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: going to say much about this, but of course, in
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: just over a week, we've got elections in the United
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: States and, you know, for Congress and the Senate. It's
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: really hard to tell what's going to happen. I don't
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: know if we can trust the polls. And it's hard
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: to get polling data, particularly on the House. It does
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: appear the Democrats will take the House. That's fairly likely.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: And then the Senate is up for grabs in a
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: year or two. where Democrats should not have had any
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: chance to take the Senate, they seem to have a
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: reasonable chance to take the Senate. They might win Texas.
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: They might not. It's very close. They certainly will win Georgia,
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: even though, again, they shouldn't. And there are a number
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: of other, you know, Michigan, we'll see what happens in Michigan.
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: We'll see what happens in Maine. We'll see what happens
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: in Alaska. The Trump administration has already sued to disqualify
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: the vote in Alaska if the candidate loses, if the
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: Republican loses, because there's another candidate on the ballot with
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: exactly the same name as he has, and they think
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: that is confusing to people, and he will lose because
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: of it. So, yeah, I think that election is going
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: to be a mess, and of course, we're all going
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: to be in suspense about what else Trump has up
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: his sleeve in terms of trying to somehow save the
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: Senate and or the House in terms of questioning some
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: of the elections that happened. So U.S. elections to look
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: forward to, which is going to be a real nail-biter,
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: I think, because of the Senate and then also just
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: to see how big the Democratic victory is and also
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: in terms of the Trump administration's response to the Democrats winning.
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: So in Israel, they won't be able to form a
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: government And in the U.S., there'll be a divided government,
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: which I actually like. And then we'll start giving up
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: for 2028. In the meantime, in France, we had, again,
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: massive numbers of people going out into the streets. A
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: week ago, 550,000 people came out into the streets. There
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: were clashes from 2 p.m. on. 1,500 to 3,000 shops
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: were looted. More than 300 just in Marseille. The Limongier
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: City Hall was burnt. 1,000 officers were injured. 2,500 arrested
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: over the week. 700 fast-track trials. And basically officials later
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: admitted that the policing was not very competent. Not very competent.
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: Yesterday was a different story. So the police came out
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: in force, 70,000 police and gendarmes, 10,000 more than last week.
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: They had helicopters on vehicles and soldiers guarding buildings. They
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: engaged in preemptive searches at train stations and on roads
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: to the marches, seized improvised weapons and gas masks. Paris
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: banned the Bastille Nation route and confined the marches to
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: the southeastern edge Museums were closed. Storefronts were boarded up.
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: A hundred plus towns actually enforced curfews. And they had
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: gathering bans or protest bans. Good for them. Marseille tried
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: to have a blanket ban, but the courts overturned it.
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: And so they were both... So did Limoges, where the
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: city hall was burnt down. The turnout, according to the ministry,
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: was 410,000 at 289 marches, 110,000 in Paris. According to,
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: I guess, the media, there were 800,000 and 250,000 in Paris.
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: Clashes seemed to come at the end of the marches,
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: not at the beginning. And, you know, the increased police
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: presence Again, the use of helicopters and everything else prevented
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: the kind of major looting that happened last week. It
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: didn't happen this week. You know, the Chamber of Commerce
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: facade in Bordeaux was again attacked. 400 mass attackers were
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: in Chernobyl. Crashes outside the gutted Lemongrass City Hall. Tigas
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: in Lyon, Lille, Rennes, Toulouse, Montpellier, you know, over 100,
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: about 1,000 arrested by Saturday night. 1,300, I think, by
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: Sunday morning. So, yeah, it continued. It continued, but as
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: you'd expect, increased police presence, increased police toughness, increased, you know, muscularity,
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: if you will, if that's a word, changed the outcome.
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: You know, everybody hates the police and down with the state,
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: the cops and the fascists, these placards that read all
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: over the place. No truth to the insurrection. These are
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: the nihilists. These are the left-wing radicals. These are the
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: people that are really spurring at this point these protests
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: on the movement's demands. They don't really have any, really.
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: They want the state just to spend more money. The
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: students don't want more teachers, school repairs. But these protests
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: are now being taken away from the students. You still
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: see Palestinian flags here and the Algerian flags. But I
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: do not think that these protests are primarily driven by
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: Islam or an Islamist cause or first-generation immigrants to the
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: extent that the immigrants here, the second and third-generation immigrants.
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: And then you have to ask yourself, why have they
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: not been assimilated? Why are they all part of the
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: radical left? What is it about the French state that
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: does not permit assimilation? And I think that is the
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: right way to think about it, does not permit assimilation. So, yeah,
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: I mean... you know, versus 300 stores last week, only
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: two stores were looted this week. So police presence makes
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: a difference. Being tough makes a difference. Standing up to
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: these monsters makes a difference. And it's about time the
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: French state understood that what is going on, and it's
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: shocking that they didn't prepare for last week's events. All right,
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: you know, finally, well, maybe not finally, but, you know,
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: another big story of the day is Musk and Starlink. And, God,
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: I mean, this just portrays Musk in a very, very
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: bad light. On October 14th, if you remember, the night
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: Russia fired 39 ballistic missiles at Ukraine's grid, The Ukrainian
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: military Starlink and Starshield lost speed without any warning. Drones
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: lost connection above 160 kilometers an hour. Kiev said Washington
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: ordered it as leverage over the Ukrainians' refinery strikes. Trump
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: denied it. Musk denied it. At some point, Musk said
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: Trump did it. On Wednesday, this week, no, it was
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: last week, U.S. officials said that Trump called Musk and
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: asked him to restore service. On Saturday, the defense minister
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: of Ukraine, right, said the connection was stable, drones were
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: tested above 400 kilometers an hour. Zelensky said speeds were
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: where they need to be. Trump said he told Musk
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: to put it back, right, And this is after, you know,
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: Trump said he didn't know anything about it and he
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: didn't know what happened. And Musk said it wasn't me.
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: It was probably Trump. And only the Defense Department can
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: do this. And then Musk on Saturday, yesterday, says on X,
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: using Starlink, a civilian commercial service for offensive drone strikes
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: to kill people has never been allowed. He says Ukraine
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: military violated Starling's terms of service and used it for
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: offensive drone strikes to kill people. That loophole was closed
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: last week. Now, no, let's say that's true. Let's say,
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: you know, there was a terms of service violation. It's
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: in the middle of a war. People are dying. People
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: are relying on this right now. Why not tell the
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: Ukrainians to fix it? Tell the Ukrainians you're going to
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: shut it down. But give them notice. Not to give
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: notice is so disgusting, so offensive. So, you know, it
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: was Musk. Musk decided. Now, it's not yet clear if
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: Musk has any authority over Star Shield, which is a
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: government program run by SpaceX, but a government program. Whether
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: that also slowed down, who was responsible for that? Starlink,
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: that's Musk's responsibility. It's a private company, he can do
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: what he wants. He can ban it from Ukraine. But
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: we can also morally condemn him for doing so. And
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: even if they violate terms of service, I morally condemn
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: him for not giving him notice. Musk claims that SpaceX
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: has done more to defend Ukraine than any private company
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: on Earth. That's probably true. That doesn't mean you can
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: arbitrarily just shut stuff down. That's just wrong. And he
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: says Starlink can be used for infrastructure that is military,
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: but it cannot be used for unequivocally offensive strikes. On Starshield,
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: it's the military version of Starlink. The Pentagon pays for it.
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: It turns out the Europeans pay for it, actually. And
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: it's controlled by the U.S. government. What they decide to
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: do is up to them. Supposedly, Germany pays for Starshield,
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: not the Pentagon. So, Everything's restored back. Again, unclear what
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: really happened. We don't know, which is pretty spooky. Now,
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: you know, this is at the same time as we
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: got a Russian diesel deal, the waiver of new Russian sanctions,
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 1: a hold on Patriot's missiles to Ukraine, also a dispute
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: about intelligence sharing. So let me just say I don't
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: believe Trump when he says it's all about Musk. This
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: is all coordinated. It was clearly a joint effort. So
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: we will see. Supposedly, again, this is all back online now.
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: We will see if it stays online, and we will
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: see how the Trump administration continues to navigate this. Clearly...
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: Trump is on Russia's side, but I don't know, people
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: in his party, maybe people in the administration, they keep
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: drawing him away from that. Let's see what this is
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 1: all about. Okay. So this is where we are. Again,
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: SpaceX has a right to do what it wants to do.
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: The Trump administration does not. The Trump administration has a
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: fiduciary obligation to the American people to side against those
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: who would hurt America, that is to side against Russia.
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: And the fact that the Trump administration is violating that,
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 1: but can't really make up its mind either, you know,
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: it's just par for the course, I guess, for Trump.
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: Notice that Musk has lied to us. He first denied throttling,
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 1: then said the loophole was closed last week. Trump said
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 1: it wasn't him, but then he told Musk to turn
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: it back on. Musk shifted the blame to Trump, and
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: then Trump shifted the blame to Musk. This is in
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: terms of service agreements. Who knows what really happened there?
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 1: I think this was Musk in coordination with Trump, supporting
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 1: Trump's effort to put pressure on Ukraine. And again, I
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 1: would say that this should promote the Europeans to think
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: about an alternative to Starlink, if they can, and not
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 1: having to rely on America anymore. America is an unreliable
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: defense partner. That's true of the Israelis, and that's true
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: of the Americans. All right. Just some quick things. According
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: to two Iranian officials in the New York Times, Tehran
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: is preparing to target U.S. diplomats and personnel. It claims
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 1: they're fair game because the U.S. and Israel killed Iranian
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: officials and relatives. U.S. official says Iran has operatives in
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 1: the United States, not just simply Iranian nationals, but Iranian operatives.
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 1: So we will see. Rubio got a memo saying these
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 1: plots to attack U.S. diplomats are in advanced stages. Staff
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: has been cut at embassies in places like Jordan, Lebanon, Qatar,
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 1: and UAE. Non-essential staff is out of Saudi Arabia. Personnel
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 1: has moved off regional bases. There are advisories out for
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: 13 different countries. And according to Wall Street Journal, strikes
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: are being prepared by the United States for after the midterms.
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: You know, the George Washington-loaded bunker-busting bombs in the Arabian Sea.
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 1: As we said, a carrier, a third carrier, you know,
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 1: aircraft carrier, is en route to the area, will arrive
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 1: in mid-November. So we're going to see. Iran is threatening attacks.
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: The U.S. is rattling its sabers. What actually happens? I
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 1: do not know. Right. Um, as I mentioned, uh, Trump
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: has already ordered a lawsuit in Alaska, uh, to block
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 1: Alaska from certifying a Senate race. If Dan S. Sullivan
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: loses citing the same name challenger, Dan J. Sullivan, Alaska's
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 1: courts has already allowed Dan J. Sullivan to be on
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 1: the ballot. Trump confirmed Friday. He personally ordered it. Um,
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: You know, there's a move to dismiss the lawsuit. It's
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 1: going to be fought. You know, the current Republican Senator
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: Murkowski says the Department of Justice should have never filed.
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 1: Early voting is already underway. Yeah, I mean, Trump, again,
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 1: will find any crack that he can to do this.
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 1: In British Columbia, there was also an election in British
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: Columbia and Canada. They voted for the first conservative majority
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 1: in 98 years. It's pretty amazing. They got 64 of
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 1: 93 seats. That's a pretty decisive majority. And the current,
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: I guess, premier called for a snap election. Lost. and
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 1: has resigned. I wish all politicians, when they lose, they
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: just resign. So we will see what happens. But the
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 1: Conservatives won in British Columbia. That's great for Canada. Canadian
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 1: Conservatives are far better than American Conservatives. We talked about
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 1: the Sylvania election earlier. Let's skip that. Let's skip that. Yeah,
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 1: so I think we're all good. Just a few on achievements.
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 1: Amgen has a new drug that cuts the risk of
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 1: death from particular cancer by 58%. in a phase three
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 1: trial of this small cell lung cancer. Patient lived eight
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 1: months longer. Again, we're continuously getting more and more good
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 1: results from cancer treatments. When this will actually result in
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 1: a major cancer curing treatment, hard to tell. But we're
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 1: getting more life out of the drugs. We're getting more
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 1: life out of more years to be alive. uh, out of, uh,
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: out of the treatments that are coming, uh, coming forward.
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 1: All right. What do we want to do? Uh, I
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: think we'll stop there because we've got a lot of questions,
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: which is great. So thank you to all the super chatters.
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: We've got a bunch of questions. So we're going to
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 1: move to those. Uh, and I'm going to move pretty
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 1: quickly because, uh, I do have to go to the
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 1: airport at some point here and I want to get
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 1: through all your questions and you guys have been generous.
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: So we've made our second hour goal. So that is, uh,
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: that is, uh, that is Cool. Thank you, guys. I
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 1: guess me not being here for a while, you saved up.
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: That's good. Nature Observer did a sticker. Thank you. Michael Dial,
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 1: thank you for the sticker. And let's see. Wes did $ 50.
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: Thank you, Wes. That really, really helps. I really appreciate it.
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 1: Mary Aline and Bonnie did stickers. And Jeffrey, it was
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: great to see you in New York. I hope you
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: enjoyed the proceedings. Robert and Matthew, thank you guys. Thank
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 1: you all for the stickers. Really, really appreciate it. All right.
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 1: We have got a bunch of 20s and 50s. Then
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: we've got a few 10s and 5s. That's good. I
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 1: like that balance of more 20s and 50s than that.
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: All right. Let's see. Lucretian Objectivist. This is actually a
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 1: question from last time that came in late. So I
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 1: try to answer all the questions, even ones that come
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 1: in late and I don't have a chance to answer them.
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 1: SpaceX Starship had its first orbital flight yesterday. It delivered
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 1: 26 Starlink satellites. The Starship live stream never ceases to
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 1: amaze me. Yes, you know, really, really, you know, amazing
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 1: what SpaceX is doing when it comes to bringing satellites
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 1: out there. I just would like to see competition because
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 1: I'd like to see alternatives to Starlink. So you would
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 1: have a choice. And I think the competition would be
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 1: good for SpaceX and for the competitor. So competition is good.
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 1: I'd love to see Jeff Bezos' company or somebody else's company,
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 1: a European company, a Japanese company, I don't really care,
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 1: as long as it's not Chinese, start to put up
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 1: real alternatives to Starlink and start up also compete on
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 1: payload to space. All right, let's go to some of
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 1: the $ 50 questions. We have three of those, so let's
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 1: start with Arthur. Arthur says, you say feelings are not
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 1: the standard of action, but positive states of consciousness, which
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 1: embodied feelings and sensations, are the only reason to engage
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 1: in effort and work. Reason is only useful insofar as
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 1: it gets us to those positive feelings. Yes, and I
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: say that. I say that feelings are the way we
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 1: experience life. So that's good. We want the experience that
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: feelings provide. And in that sense, they're motivators, but they're
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 1: not standards. And they're not tools of cognition. They're not
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 1: deciders of action. So I can guarantee you that if
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 1: you snort a line of cocaine you will feel good.
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 1: You will feel really good. You know, the way it
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 1: works by, you know, engaging the hormones in your brain
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 1: that cause you to feel really good, there's just no
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 1: way around that. You know, you will feel amazing. Why
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 1: don't you do it? If achieving positive feelings is the standard,
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 1: then why don't you do it? Because there's something about
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 1: the long term, There's something about we don't know what
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 1: kind of damage this might do to our brain. There's
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 1: something about, yeah, I'll feel good, but during that period
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: I'll be detached from reality, and I know that's dangerous
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 1: and bad for me. So feelings are important, but they
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 1: can't be the standard. So I want to feel good,
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 1: but I want to make sure that what I'm doing
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 1: is rational, is truly in my self-interest, promotes my life
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 1: over the long run, And yeah, if I do all
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 1: those things, I'll feel good because ultimately good feelings, good
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 1: feelings that are sustainable, that are in a sense real, right,
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 1: not chemically induced, come from achieving my values. And to
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 1: achieve my values, I need reason. And even you might say, well,
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 1: but picking your values requires emotions. Yes, but again, it's
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 1: not the standard. Let's say you introspect, okay, what am
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 1: I passionate about? I'm passionate about X. I'm passionate about skydiving.
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 1: But skydiving is dangerous. I'm passionate about it. How much
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 1: of my energy should I really put in skydiving? I
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: get a thrill, but is it worth the danger that's involved?
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 1: So you rationally evaluate your passions. You rationally evaluate your emotions.
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 1: And you make a decision to act, not based on
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 1: the emotion, based on the rational evaluation. I mean, there's
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 1: something even scarier than, it's the one where you have
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 1: this suit on and you fly, like you have wings
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 1: and you catch the air and you fly with these things.
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sure the sensation is unbelievable. But the
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 1: number of people who die doing that is really, really high.
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 1: Only reason can make that decision. Only you can make
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 1: that decision. You have to use reason to make that decision.
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 1: And your emotions, yeah, I'm doing it. Hell with it.
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 1: It's fun. So the standard has to be thinking. Part
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 1: of what you're trying to achieve is a positive state
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 1: of consciousness. But you want it to be sustained, you
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 1: want it to be non-fleeting, and you want to make
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 1: sure you're not doing damage to yourself and your ability
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 1: to be happy long-term by engaging in activity now. I
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 1: think of a lot of things that are pleasurable and
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 1: fun in the moment, not so much in the long run.
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 1: And you can only discover that by thinking. Liam, also $ 50.
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 1: Thank you, Liam. Would socialized medicine in the U.S. be
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 1: even more of a disaster than what it is in Europe?
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 1: Because Americans don't take care of themselves as well as Europeans.
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 1: Europeans don't have near the levels of obesity and diabetes
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 1: we do. Yeah, I mean, I think that's right. I
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 1: think it would be worse on many respects, right? I mean,
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 1: obesity is one which I've never thought of, and I
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 1: guess you're right. But here's maybe the response to that.
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 1: would be Americans taking better care of themselves because they
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 1: couldn't rely on the health care system bailing them out.
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 1: So that's one possibility. I don't know. But the deeper
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 1: issue is if America socialized with medicine, the number of
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 1: innovations in medicine, the number of new drugs, new treatments,
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 1: new medical interventions, new medical devices would plummet. And it's
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 1: a concept that consequence of that, not only would the U.S. suffer,
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 1: but the whole world would suffer. I mean, the reality
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 1: is that Europe and Asia and Africa and the rest
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 1: of the world basically free ride off of American innovation.
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 1: And that's fine. I'm all for free ridings. It happens
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 1: all the time, and it's a positive externality, and that's fine.
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 1: I'm all for positive externalities. But if you get rid
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 1: of that positive externality, they all suffer. They get less
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 1: of everything. So I think that's a deeper damage that U.S.
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 1: socialized medicine would cause. Right now, being the only semi-free
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 1: health care system is also the reason why it's the
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 1: most innovative, the most productive, the most creative, the most
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 1: imaginative healthcare system as well. So, thank you, Liam. All right,
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 1: let's see. Hopper Campbell. They say there's a great British
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 1: exodus taking place. taxes, housing costs, and terrible health care
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 1: are driving young Brits away. I don't experience that while
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 1: I was touring the UK recently. Is the doom and
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 1: gloom around Europe sensationalism? Not completely. There's definitely an exodus
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 1: out of Britain. There was a brain drain from Britain
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 1: in the 60s and 70s. Ayn Rand talked about it.
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 1: And I think there's a brain drain going on right now,
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 1: primarily among the wealthy. So rich Brits are leaving. And
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 1: if the Labour government imposes a capital gains tax, as
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 1: they're threatening to do, an increase in the capital gains tax, many,
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 1: many more Brits are going to leave. Now, some of
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 1: them are not Brits. Some of them are foreigners who
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 1: came to London because it was a great place for
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 1: tax reasons to live. The tax burden was very low there,
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 1: so they were expats living in London, and they all
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 1: left when the Conservatives, I think it was the Conservatives
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 1: who raised the taxes on them. And then the taxes
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 1: have since gone up more, and now British millionaires and
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 1: billionaires are leaving. I don't know how many of young,
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 1: talented Brits are leaving, but I wouldn't be surprised if
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 1: they are. The UK economy is not doing well. It's stagnating.
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 1: Innovation is not high. Entrepreneurship is not high. And salaries
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 1: are taxed, and they're going to be taxed even more Heavily.
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 1: And it's very, very expensive to live in a place
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 1: like London. Not outside London, but in London. So, yeah,
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 1: there is a brain drain. There's definitely people living in
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 1: the UK. And I think the rest of Europe is struggling.
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 1: The dumourism about France is justified. We've talked about that.
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 1: You know, France is the sick man of Europe right now.
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 1: Its debt is out of control. The interest rates it
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 1: has to pay on that debt are very high. They
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 1: just make the debt worse. There's no political answer to that.
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 1: The left and the right would only make it worse.
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 1: Germany is in trouble. It's based on economy and manufacturing.
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 1: Manufacturing is going away. They cannot compete with the Chinese
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 1: right now. I mean, the only healthy economies, it seems
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 1: to me, right now in Europe are the northern European countries,
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 1: like the Scandinavian countries and maybe the Netherlands. So there
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 1: are real challenges in Europe, absolutely. Oh, and the Eastern
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 1: European economies, Poland has a good economy, and maybe Czech
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 1: Republic and a few other countries, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia. So
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 1: it's Eastern Europe and Northern Europe that are doing well.
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 1: You know, Western Europe is really, really, really struggling. Thank you,
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 1: Harper Campbell. That was also $ 50. So those are the
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 1: three $ 50 questions. Thank you, guys. Really appreciate it. Let's
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 1: go to our $ 20 questions. Let's see. Arthur, do both
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 1: objectivism and Marxism seek to break apart the nuclear family?
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 1: Objectivism seeks to because it's often surrounded by altruism and
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 1: duty whereas Marxism view the family as a selfish institution
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 1: not sacrificial enough. No, I don't think that's true at all.
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 1: I don't think objectivism seeks to break apart the nuclear family.
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 1: It seeks to make the nuclear family based on the
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 1: right values and based on rational egoistic values. It doesn't
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 1: want to break it up. It wants to grounded. It
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 1: wants to make it stronger. It wants to make it more,
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 1: I think, ultimately more sustainable. It wants to make it
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 1: healthier by basing it on reason and on egoism. Marxists
• 1:32:45
  Speaker 1: want to get rid of it. Why not share everything,
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 1: including your sex life, right, according to the Marxists. And
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 1: objectivists want to say, you know, make sure it's grounded
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 1: in self-interested pursuits, make sure it's grounded in the trader principle,
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 1: mutually beneficial relationship, and a relationship that benefits both parties,
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 1: and in the case of kids, benefits the kids as well. Paul,
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 1: do you think that Russia... Putin is behind the riots
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 1: throughout Europe. The riots seem quite coordinated. No, I don't
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 1: think he's behind the riots, but there's no question in
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 1: my mind that Putin is encouraging them, and potentially financially.
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 1: They are very coordinated. They're coordinated by a bunch of
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 1: left-wing groups. I have no doubt in my mind that
• 1:33:47
  Speaker 1: Putin is funding some of those left-wing groups, as are
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 1: people like Soros and other left-wing promoters. So it's not
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 1: so much that he's behind them, that he's encouraging them
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 1: and supporting them financially. And the infrastructure to create those
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 1: rights has been created by a network of left-wing groups
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 1: that both Russia and other leftist funders have made possible
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 1: over the decades. Anomalous. Did you see the comments made
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 1: by United Airlines CEOs supporting a wealth death tax policy?
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 1: and tax on capital gains. He later defended his comments
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 1: by saying it's a matter of basic fairness. I didn't
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 1: see that, but it doesn't surprise me at all. A
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 1: lot of CEOs hold this. A lot of rich people
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 1: hold this. Look, rich people often, often, not sometimes, often,
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 1: vote for tax increases on themselves. This idea that people
• 1:34:44
  Speaker 1: vote their economic interest is false. Rich people often feel guilty,
• 1:34:51
  Speaker 1: guilty for the amount of wealth that they have, Guilty
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 1: for the fact that they don't give enough for charity,
• 1:34:57
  Speaker 1: and therefore they encourage the state to take more money
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 1: from them. There would be no high taxes today in
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 1: the U.S. or in Europe if rich people didn't support it.
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 1: The rich have always supported greater taxation on themselves. You
• 1:35:12
  Speaker 1: can see that in California. I mean, some are leaving.
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 1: Those make the headlines. Most are not. Most are staying.
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 1: So it doesn't surprise me at all. And it's much
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 1: more prevalent than you would think. Not your average algorithm.
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 1: Why are there people in this world who believe in
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 1: lying as a way of life? Well, because they're pragmatists.
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 1: Because they believe that what matters is getting your way
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 1: in the short run. Because they've never been taught about
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 1: principles and they've never embraced the idea of thinking in
• 1:35:45
  Speaker 1: principles and engaging with principles and living a principled life.
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 1: And therefore, they believe in expediency and they believe in emotions.
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 1: And a lot of the culture reinforces expediency. Reinforces the
• 1:35:59
  Speaker 1: idea that expediency is good. Now that you have a
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 1: jugger with them, imagine if Aristotle hadn't been there to
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 1: answer Plato what the world would look like now. Yeah,
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 1: I mean, it would be, I mean, we'd still be
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 1: in the Middle Ages, in the Dark Ages. We'd still be,
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 1: we'd be screwed. So, you know, the birth of Aristotle,
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 1: I mean, the existence of Aristotle made possible the Renaissance,
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 1: the Enlightenment. Those don't happen. You're still living in a
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 1: hut somewhere. Most of you are dead. Most of us
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 1: don't exist. It's not clear we even discover America. Harper Campbell,
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 1: two-part question. Being evil is good now amongst the youth.
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 1: Being an anti-Semite is all the rage and the right.
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 1: Marxism has become dominant among the youth on the left.
• 1:36:54
  Speaker 1: Hamas are viewed as anti-colonial freedom fighters. How are philosophies
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 1: of failure and seething resentment able to take over the
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 1: minds of the youth in a post-Ayn Rand world? Well,
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 1: I don't know what post-Ayn Rand world means, right? Because
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 1: people have not been exposed to Ayn Rand. Even if
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 1: they have, they have not adopted Ayn Rand. They have
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 1: not embraced Ayn Rand. Ayn Rand requires you to consciously
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 1: adopt our ideas, or at least to be inspired by
• 1:37:22
  Speaker 1: our ideas, to have an influence. These people have not
• 1:37:25
  Speaker 1: been influenced by our ideas. They've embraced these other ideas
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 1: because of altruism, because of altruism and some form of mysticism,
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 1: because of rejection of reason and embrace of self-sacrifice. And
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 1: in a world that still elevates mysticism and self-sacrifice, it
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 1: doesn't surprise me at all. that anti-Semitism and Marxism and
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 1: Hamas worship are elevated, are values that are elevated, because
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 1: they fit perfectly into this scenario of irrationalism, mysticism, rationalism,
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 1: and self-sacrifice. So, yeah, not surprising, because Ayn Rand has
• 1:38:11
  Speaker 1: not had enough of an influence on the culture. And
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 1: you can ask why she hasn't, But you can't say
• 1:38:16
  Speaker 1: there's a post-Ayn Rand world. There's never been an Ayn
• 1:38:19
  Speaker 1: Rand world. So there's no post-Ayn Rand world yet. You
• 1:38:24
  Speaker 1: want to say post-Renaissance when there's been a Renaissance. Now,
• 1:38:27
  Speaker 1: Ayn Rand existed, but not an Ayn Rand world. Clark,
• 1:38:34
  Speaker 1: to what extent does Ayn Rand get credit for the
• 1:38:36
  Speaker 1: West not collapsing into fascism and Marxism? It was really,
• 1:38:40
  Speaker 1: really hard to tell. I think she got credit for
• 1:38:45
  Speaker 1: delaying the collapse, and I'm not sure it's going to,
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 1: you know, delaying the collapse. in the 1980s, I think
• 1:38:52
  Speaker 1: she had a lot of influence on the delay in
• 1:38:56
  Speaker 1: the kind of shift to the right, the Reagan, but
• 1:39:01
  Speaker 1: general respect for free markets that happened during the 80s
• 1:39:03
  Speaker 1: and 90s. But then it all went away because it
• 1:39:06
  Speaker 1: wasn't a deep, a deep change. But she does get
• 1:39:10
  Speaker 1: credit for the postponement of the collapse into fascism, you know, Marxism.
• 1:39:17
  Speaker 1: Can she, can she Have enough impact on the existing
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 1: culture to prevent it again? I don't know. But she
• 1:39:23
  Speaker 1: certainly had it back then. Her and a bunch of
• 1:39:27
  Speaker 1: other people. It wasn't her alone. Anomalous. Do you think
• 1:39:32
  Speaker 1: the next generation will be better? Do they take ideas
• 1:39:35
  Speaker 1: more seriously? Even if the ideas are bad, would the
• 1:39:39
  Speaker 1: fact that ideas are becoming more relevant open the doors
• 1:39:42
  Speaker 1: to good ideas crowding out bad ideas? I don't think so.
• 1:39:45
  Speaker 1: I don't see why. It's not like they take ideas seriously.
• 1:39:50
  Speaker 1: They take their passions seriously. Most of this is motivated
• 1:39:52
  Speaker 1: by emotion, not by taking ideas seriously and really thinking
• 1:39:56
  Speaker 1: them through. I don't think the next generation is going
• 1:39:59
  Speaker 1: to be better. You know, to look at the next
• 1:40:01
  Speaker 1: generation and to look at our educational institutions, one has
• 1:40:04
  Speaker 1: to conclude that it will get worse, not better. I
• 1:40:08
  Speaker 1: just don't see it. I don't see why the next
• 1:40:10
  Speaker 1: generation is better. And I don't see an open door.
• 1:40:13
  Speaker 1: I don't see an invitation in. what I see is
• 1:40:17
  Speaker 1: we have to knock down the door, and we will
• 1:40:18
  Speaker 1: continue to have to knock down the door. The hope
• 1:40:20
  Speaker 1: I have is not with the world out there. The
• 1:40:23
  Speaker 1: hope I have is with objectivism. The hope I have
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 1: is that we train, every decade we train more intellectuals,
• 1:40:30
  Speaker 1: and every decade there are more people advocating for the truth.
• 1:40:34
  Speaker 1: And when we reach a thousand of those advocates, that's
• 1:40:37
  Speaker 1: when we'll know we're on the right path. Okay, Molten Splendor.
• 1:40:44
  Speaker 1: Registered and ready to attend Rand's day conference. I'm looking
• 1:40:47
  Speaker 1: forward to seeing you in person. That'll be fun. That's great.
• 1:40:49
  Speaker 1: I will be there. So please make sure to introduce
• 1:40:52
  Speaker 1: yourself as Molten Splendor. So I know. Andrew. Too bad question.
• 1:41:00
  Speaker 1: What do you think of this theory? Metaphysical collectivism is
• 1:41:04
  Speaker 1: yielding mass culture mal-emotionalism. Mass culture mal-emotionalism. I base this
• 1:41:13
  Speaker 1: on introspection and cultural phenomena. The popularity of brutal combat
• 1:41:19
  Speaker 1: sports and growing crude discourse on acts in any way,
• 1:41:24
  Speaker 1: social political issues are discussed. Social metaphysicians experience massive insecurity
• 1:41:29
  Speaker 1: and frustration. We live in a society of social metaphysicians
• 1:41:34
  Speaker 1: suffering from anger and sadness. Yeah, I think that's right.
• 1:41:36
  Speaker 1: This is what we call, in simpler terms than social metaphysicians, Tribalism.
• 1:41:43
  Speaker 1: Tribalism is basically the ultimate manifestation of social metaphysics. Social
• 1:41:50
  Speaker 1: metaphysics is when the group decides what's true. The group
• 1:41:54
  Speaker 1: decides what reality is. And of course, there is no
• 1:41:57
  Speaker 1: such thing as groups. Ultimately, it's the leader, the authoritarian
• 1:42:00
  Speaker 1: leader who decides what is. And you're seeing that. You're
• 1:42:03
  Speaker 1: seeing that in MAGA. You see that in the left.
• 1:42:05
  Speaker 1: You see that in so many different ways in which
• 1:42:08
  Speaker 1: we split the country. The one thing that unites them
• 1:42:12
  Speaker 1: all is a lack of independent thinking and the embrace
• 1:42:15
  Speaker 1: of the social metaphysics, the embrace of tribalism. So think
• 1:42:20
  Speaker 1: of tribalism as the political implication, application of social metaphysics.
• 1:42:25
  Speaker 1: And the anger is a consequence of the fear, the
• 1:42:29
  Speaker 1: fear that they all feel because they don't understand the world,
• 1:42:33
  Speaker 1: they don't know how they fit, they don't know what
• 1:42:37
  Speaker 1: to do. And that's one of the reasons they latch
• 1:42:40
  Speaker 1: on to the group to begin with. So yes, absolutely.
• 1:42:46
  Speaker 1: Mary Elaine, I've read that Trump may use ICE and
• 1:42:49
  Speaker 1: the National Guard to influence the coming election. It sounds scary.
• 1:42:53
  Speaker 1: How likely do you think is that Trump will use
• 1:42:55
  Speaker 1: violence if he thinks he's losing both houses? Look, I
• 1:42:59
  Speaker 1: think it's unlikely. I think it's unlikely. But that doesn't
• 1:43:04
  Speaker 1: mean it's zero probabilities. I also think that if he does,
• 1:43:07
  Speaker 1: people will go on into the street to try to
• 1:43:09
  Speaker 1: stop them. I think it could get very violent and
• 1:43:13
  Speaker 1: very ugly and very messy. Again, I put a low
• 1:43:16
  Speaker 1: probability on it, but not a zero probability on it.
• 1:43:20
  Speaker 1: So I guess we'll have to wait and see. And
• 1:43:22
  Speaker 1: this is why I said there's a lot of suspense
• 1:43:30
  Speaker 1: around the coming election. with regard to what will Trump
• 1:43:35
  Speaker 1: do and what won't Trump do, and how will he
• 1:43:38
  Speaker 1: respond to losing or potentially losing the election. Evan, I
• 1:43:45
  Speaker 1: arrived here late. Looking forward to another news episode. Thank
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 1: you for doing another show today. I appreciate it, Evan.
• 1:43:50
  Speaker 1: Thank you. Shazbat, according to Google, there is one death
• 1:43:56
  Speaker 1: per 500 wingsuit jumps. Yeah, and think about these people.
• 1:43:59
  Speaker 1: Maybe they do 50 jumps in their life. That's one
• 1:44:02
  Speaker 1: in 10 deaths. opportunities to do a 1 in 500.
• 1:44:05
  Speaker 1: I forget the statistics and how you calculate this. But yeah,
• 1:44:10
  Speaker 1: it's scary. It's not good probabilities for human activity. 1
• 1:44:18
  Speaker 1: in 500 per jump. I'm curious how many jumpers there are.
• 1:44:24
  Speaker 1: How many people have ever made a jump? How many
• 1:44:27
  Speaker 1: people have ever made the jump? And how many of
• 1:44:30
  Speaker 1: those have died? Andrew, isn't it silly for conservatives like
• 1:44:41
  Speaker 1: Mark Levin to ban Democrats as the party of Jim
• 1:44:43
  Speaker 1: Crow Southern racism? The parties have shifted a lot over time.
• 1:44:47
  Speaker 1: It's counterproductive to blame the party for a distant past.
• 1:44:51
  Speaker 1: It's terrible now. Yes, absolutely. But I think it works.
• 1:44:57
  Speaker 1: I mean, he knows what he's doing. He's got a
• 1:44:59
  Speaker 1: bigger audience than I do, so he obviously knows what
• 1:45:02
  Speaker 1: he's doing. It's irrational, but maybe it's good marketing. I
• 1:45:06
  Speaker 1: don't know. Maybe it's good politics. I don't know. But
• 1:45:10
  Speaker 1: it's irrational. The Republican Party is the party of Lincoln. Oh, God.
• 1:45:14
  Speaker 1: You've abandoned Lincoln a long, long time ago. And certainly
• 1:45:17
  Speaker 1: people like J.D. Vance are abandoning Lincoln now. Lincoln was
• 1:45:21
  Speaker 1: the whole idea of America is a creed built on
• 1:45:25
  Speaker 1: the Declaration of Independence. J.D. Vance doesn't believe that. So history,
• 1:45:31
  Speaker 1: parties change. You have to judge the party by what
• 1:45:34
  Speaker 1: it believes today, what it holds today. not by what
• 1:45:37
  Speaker 1: it held in the past. It's irrelevant to your decision today.
• 1:45:42
  Speaker 1: All right. Heretic. I would love to explore the mountains
• 1:45:46
  Speaker 1: of Brazil. Where are the mountains of Brazil? Brazil is
• 1:45:49
  Speaker 1: very flat. There are mountains. I know there are. But
• 1:45:52
  Speaker 1: mostly it's flat, although there are mountains. Like Rio de
• 1:45:55
  Speaker 1: Janeiro is filled with mountains, so I take that back. Okay.
• 1:45:57
  Speaker 1: I would love to explore the mountains of Brazil. Would
• 1:45:59
  Speaker 1: you recommend renting a car, leaving it, and hike whenever possible?
• 1:46:04
  Speaker 1: I choose, like in the United States, would I need
• 1:46:05
  Speaker 1: to plan more? You need to plan more. Definitely need
• 1:46:08
  Speaker 1: to plan more. I mean, there's a language barrier. Crime
• 1:46:13
  Speaker 1: is much higher here than in the United States. You
• 1:46:16
  Speaker 1: have to take crime into account. You have to be very,
• 1:46:19
  Speaker 1: very careful. I would definitely read up about driving in Brazil.
• 1:46:24
  Speaker 1: I don't know how corrupt the police are. I would
• 1:46:27
  Speaker 1: definitely read up about stolen cars. I would read up
• 1:46:32
  Speaker 1: on areas that are dangerous and areas that are not.
• 1:46:34
  Speaker 1: I would, yeah, I would plan 10x what you would
• 1:46:37
  Speaker 1: plan in America, maybe even 100x what you would plan
• 1:46:40
  Speaker 1: in America. I'm not saying don't do it. I'm saying really,
• 1:46:42
  Speaker 1: really plan for it and know what you're doing. And
• 1:46:44
  Speaker 1: maybe get a Brazilian guide. Molten Splendor says $ 50. Thank you,
• 1:46:53
  Speaker 1: Molten Splendor. Regarding diplomatic services, Penn's G7 speech, frames the U.S.
• 1:46:59
  Speaker 1: Navy's deployment in the North Sea as a mission to
• 1:47:03
  Speaker 1: protect the U.S. and its allies from Russia, and the U.S.
• 1:47:07
  Speaker 1: is preparing to fire on any country that interferes with
• 1:47:11
  Speaker 1: its mission. Sound like Trump thoughts. I mean, I'd have
• 1:47:17
  Speaker 1: to listen to the speech, but yeah, I mean, I
• 1:47:19
  Speaker 1: think that that is a legitimate thing. It's a legitimate purpose.
• 1:47:28
  Speaker 1: to defend the North Sea. Whether Russia is the enemy,
• 1:47:35
  Speaker 1: perceived as the enemy, or whether it's China on the
• 1:47:38
  Speaker 1: North Sea, you know, I don't know. It would be
• 1:47:42
  Speaker 1: interesting to find out. You know, look, the government, our government,
• 1:47:49
  Speaker 1: is constantly speaking out of both sides of its mouth.
• 1:47:53
  Speaker 1: I mean, Trump sometimes sounds really tough on Iran and
• 1:47:55
  Speaker 1: other times is completely negotiating. I mean, there were weeks
• 1:47:58
  Speaker 1: in which Trump was really pissed off at Putin and
• 1:48:01
  Speaker 1: sounded really tough on Russia. And then he completely appeases him.
• 1:48:04
  Speaker 1: So there's no consistent party line. There's no principle. There
• 1:48:10
  Speaker 1: are statements. And here, because the U.S. seems to be,
• 1:48:15
  Speaker 1: because Trump made a big deal out of Greenland and
• 1:48:19
  Speaker 1: is going to expand, the military presence in Greenland, there is,
• 1:48:26
  Speaker 1: maybe this is the kind of rhetoric that they need
• 1:48:28
  Speaker 1: to use in order to justify that. You know, I
• 1:48:31
  Speaker 1: don't know. I do think the military likes having more
• 1:48:36
  Speaker 1: of a military presence in Greenland. Because of China and
• 1:48:39
  Speaker 1: Russia's ability to come in from the North Pole, from
• 1:48:44
  Speaker 1: kind of the Arctic. Whether that really motivated Trump or not,
• 1:48:49
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know what motivates Trump. Not
• 1:48:53
  Speaker 1: to have a juggler with him. As France is showing us,
• 1:48:55
  Speaker 1: democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of
• 1:48:58
  Speaker 1: individual ignorance. Yeah, I mean, democracy is not our ideal
• 1:49:03
  Speaker 1: political system. It's not the American political system. Majority rule
• 1:49:06
  Speaker 1: is very, very dangerous. Whether that's the lesson we should
• 1:49:09
  Speaker 1: take out of France, maybe one of them, there are
• 1:49:12
  Speaker 1: many lessons one can take from France. But, yeah, leftist
• 1:49:19
  Speaker 1: redistributive policies that benefit the old and penalize the young
• 1:49:25
  Speaker 1: are going to cause the young to implode at some
• 1:49:27
  Speaker 1: point and explode and come after you. And that might
• 1:49:29
  Speaker 1: happen in the U.S. as well. Eric says, haven't had
• 1:49:34
  Speaker 1: a chance to listen in a while, but still thankful
• 1:49:36
  Speaker 1: for what you do. I appreciate that, Eric. I'm glad
• 1:49:38
  Speaker 1: you listen when you have a chance. Clark, and thank
• 1:49:42
  Speaker 1: you for the support. Are there any luxury high-end neighborhoods
• 1:49:46
  Speaker 1: in Brazil, or is it largely an impoverished mess? Oh, no.
• 1:49:49
  Speaker 1: There's some beautiful homes here. There's some luxury condos. Pretty
• 1:49:53
  Speaker 1: much in every city in Brazil, there's some amazing neighborhoods.
• 1:49:57
  Speaker 1: Rio de Janeiro has some amazing homes and amazing condos
• 1:50:00
  Speaker 1: and I was just looking at one that cost $ 5 million. No,
• 1:50:05
  Speaker 1: $ 3 million. $ 3 million that I was looking at because
• 1:50:10
  Speaker 1: it really is beautiful right on the ocean. No, absolutely.
• 1:50:14
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of wealth. I once visited somebody in
• 1:50:17
  Speaker 1: a condo in Sao Paulo. I don't know, it was 6,000
• 1:50:20
  Speaker 1: square feet, 550, 600 square meters. Massive condo, beautiful views. So, oh, no.
• 1:50:29
  Speaker 1: I mean, a lot. Here in Porto Alegre, A lot
• 1:50:32
  Speaker 1: of wealth is here. There's a lot of people living
• 1:50:34
  Speaker 1: in luxury here. And then, thoughts on the bulwark wanting
• 1:50:42
  Speaker 1: Musk sent to the Hague. Well, that's ridiculous. I don't
• 1:50:46
  Speaker 1: believe in the Hague. I don't believe in international law.
• 1:50:48
  Speaker 1: I don't believe in the International Court of Justice. I
• 1:50:51
  Speaker 1: think that's ridiculous. It's ridiculous of the bulwark. It's ridiculous,
• 1:50:54
  Speaker 1: you know. I mean, we should morally condemn Musk without
• 1:50:58
  Speaker 1: arguing that it's criminal, because it's not criminal. When is
• 1:51:03
  Speaker 1: ARI going to talk about Atlas Prize? I just did
• 1:51:06
  Speaker 1: earlier in the show. I don't know when ARI will.
• 1:51:09
  Speaker 1: I'm sure they will. I'm sure they'll have a write-up
• 1:51:11
  Speaker 1: about what happened and who won and a profile of
• 1:51:13
  Speaker 1: the winners at some point. I don't know exactly when.
• 1:51:20
  Speaker 1: Roland says, enjoy Rio. I will. I'm pretty sure I will.
• 1:51:23
  Speaker 1: Thank you, Roland. Ryan says, what are your thoughts on
• 1:51:27
  Speaker 1: private for-profit prisons in the U.S. currently should the state
• 1:51:31
  Speaker 1: take them over? Yes, I don't believe in private prisons.
• 1:51:34
  Speaker 1: I think it is a function of the state to
• 1:51:36
  Speaker 1: run prisons. I think private prisons create all kinds of
• 1:51:40
  Speaker 1: incentive problems. It's not clear to me that inmates should
• 1:51:44
  Speaker 1: be working when they work for the state, and therefore
• 1:51:49
  Speaker 1: they create competition for private enterprise that is unjust. Maybe
• 1:51:57
  Speaker 1: if they worked for private businesses and they worked at
• 1:52:00
  Speaker 1: the prevailing wages, maybe it would be okay. But private prisons,
• 1:52:04
  Speaker 1: I think, are wrong. This is a state function. It's
• 1:52:06
  Speaker 1: a function related to force, the implementation of force. It's
• 1:52:09
  Speaker 1: a function related to justice, the implementation of justice. I
• 1:52:13
  Speaker 1: think this is a function of the monopoly over the
• 1:52:15
  Speaker 1: use of retaliatory force, not a private endeavor. Jeffrey, who
• 1:52:21
  Speaker 1: was at the Atlas Prize, says, Thursday was a fantastic experience.
• 1:52:26
  Speaker 1: First time in a group like that, it was hard
• 1:52:28
  Speaker 1: to leave. Yeah, well, you should come to OCONN. Ocon
• 1:52:32
  Speaker 1: in Colorado, in the mountains of Colorado this year, and Denver. Hey, Jeff,
• 1:52:36
  Speaker 1: if you come to Ocon, we should fly in early,
• 1:52:40
  Speaker 1: and there's some really, supposedly really, really good restaurants in Denver.
• 1:52:46
  Speaker 1: You know, there's, I think, a two-star Michelin and a
• 1:52:48
  Speaker 1: few one-star, and there's some really good restaurants in Denver
• 1:52:51
  Speaker 1: we should try out. So come to Ocon. Greg, thank you, Jeffrey.
• 1:52:59
  Speaker 1: Echoing a couple of others in appreciation, we're keeping the
• 1:53:01
  Speaker 1: flames of rationality burning. I appreciate that, Greg. Thank you,
• 1:53:05
  Speaker 1: thank you, thank you. All right, guys, thank you. Really
• 1:53:09
  Speaker 1: appreciate the support. Appreciate you being here. I know I
• 1:53:12
  Speaker 1: do these in odd hours when I travel, and it's
• 1:53:15
  Speaker 1: sometimes hard to keep up. I will be on again,
• 1:53:19
  Speaker 1: but I don't know the hours, on Tuesday and on Wednesday.
• 1:53:23
  Speaker 1: So expect shows on Tuesday from Santiago, Chile, on Wednesday
• 1:53:27
  Speaker 1: from Buenos Aires. Maybe I'll have something to say about
• 1:53:31
  Speaker 1: Millet on Wednesday. And then we'll see after that. I'll
• 1:53:36
  Speaker 1: be in Rio, and we'll see when I can do shows.
• 1:53:39
  Speaker 1: It also depends on Wi-Fi. I'm pretty sure San Diego
• 1:53:43
  Speaker 1: and Buenos Aires, the Wi-Fi will be good. I'm not
• 1:53:45
  Speaker 1: convinced about Rio. I seem to remember being at this
• 1:53:48
  Speaker 1: hotel and having problems with the Wi-Fi. So we will see.
• 1:53:51
  Speaker 1: I will let you know if the hotel Wi-Fi is problematic.
• 1:53:56
  Speaker 1: I'll try to find a different solution. But, yeah. Oh, wait,
• 1:54:00
  Speaker 1: one more question came in. Can you explain in more
• 1:54:03
  Speaker 1: detail why affordability is an anti-concept? This messaging is important
• 1:54:08
  Speaker 1: for many Americans to understand. Well, because what does it
• 1:54:11
  Speaker 1: actually mean? What does it mean to say there's an
• 1:54:15
  Speaker 1: affordability crisis? For whom? I mean, I can afford the
• 1:54:22
  Speaker 1: stuff that I want. And what is affordable? I mean, God,
• 1:54:29
  Speaker 1: I resent the fact that private jets are not affordable.
• 1:54:33
  Speaker 1: I mean, I would love to be able to fly
• 1:54:35
  Speaker 1: a jet on my travels, a private jet, and if
• 1:54:39
  Speaker 1: they were affordable, I mean, if they could cost, you know,
• 1:54:43
  Speaker 1: if I could own a jet like that for a
• 1:54:45
  Speaker 1: million bucks, then, you know, I'd find a way to
• 1:54:49
  Speaker 1: raise a million bucks and have it a private jet. But,
• 1:54:52
  Speaker 1: you know, to get a private jet, you probably need
• 1:54:55
  Speaker 1: I don't know, several, lots of millions, and then you
• 1:54:57
  Speaker 1: probably need, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars of
• 1:55:00
  Speaker 1: maintenance every year. So, you know, affordable to whom and
• 1:55:06
  Speaker 1: for what? What is affordable? When? For whom? To pursue
• 1:55:11
  Speaker 1: what end? Right? To pursue what end? So, is bread affordable?
• 1:55:18
  Speaker 1: It is to me. I mean, it's fine. I can
• 1:55:21
  Speaker 1: afford lots of bread. I don't eat bread, so Okay,
• 1:55:24
  Speaker 1: so milk I don't drink. You know, a steak. Steaks,
• 1:55:28
  Speaker 1: the price of steak is going up. I've noticed that
• 1:55:30
  Speaker 1: at restaurants, the price of steaks has been going up.
• 1:55:33
  Speaker 1: It's still affordable to me, but maybe to some of
• 1:55:35
  Speaker 1: you it's not. Or maybe to some people it's not.
• 1:55:39
  Speaker 1: Is that an affordability crisis? A Wagyu, you know, Wagyu,
• 1:55:44
  Speaker 1: if you've had, not Wagyu, Kobe beef, Kobe beef. I mean,
• 1:55:48
  Speaker 1: you could spend easily $ 200, $ 300 on for a very
• 1:55:52
  Speaker 1: small steak of Kobe beef. Is that an affordability crisis?
• 1:55:58
  Speaker 1: Because most of us can't afford it. Can't afford it.
• 1:56:04
  Speaker 1: Even something affordable enough, what does that mean? You have
• 1:56:08
  Speaker 1: to have a context. So there can't be an affordability
• 1:56:12
  Speaker 1: context because you're dropping the person. You're dropping relative to what?
• 1:56:19
  Speaker 1: Because every time you buy something, You're foregoing buying something else.
• 1:56:23
  Speaker 1: You're deciding to spend your resources on this, and maybe
• 1:56:26
  Speaker 1: as a consequence you won't spend it on that. So
• 1:56:28
  Speaker 1: each one of us have different values. We're willing to
• 1:56:30
  Speaker 1: spend different amounts on different things. So you can argue
• 1:56:35
  Speaker 1: that prices are going up too fast. Yeah. That there
• 1:56:39
  Speaker 1: is price inflation, and that's bad. Yes. You can even
• 1:56:43
  Speaker 1: argue that home prices are going up, and young people,
• 1:56:47
  Speaker 1: specifically young people, are finding it hard to afford homes.
• 1:56:51
  Speaker 1: Even then, you have to specify where. Because there's no
• 1:56:54
  Speaker 1: affordability crisis regarding to homes in Austin, Texas. There is
• 1:56:58
  Speaker 1: one in California. Even in California. Is there one in Bakersfield?
• 1:57:02
  Speaker 1: Probably not. But is there one in San Francisco? Yes.
• 1:57:06
  Speaker 1: So to whom, for what, where, when? It's a generalization
• 1:57:12
  Speaker 1: that means nothing. Doesn't add up to anything. Sounds spooky.
• 1:57:20
  Speaker 1: and is aimed at a political end, the government has
• 1:57:23
  Speaker 1: to intervene. The government has to stop it. Andrew says,
• 1:57:27
  Speaker 1: you're a dynamo, you keep spreading the light. Thank you, Andrew.
• 1:57:32
  Speaker 1: Ryan says, what is your favorite Pokemon? I'm speechless. I
• 1:57:40
  Speaker 1: don't have a favorite Pokemon. I don't, I mean, I
• 1:57:43
  Speaker 1: know the Pokemons are those little doll things. I don't
• 1:57:46
  Speaker 1: know what they are. I don't know who they are.
• 1:57:48
  Speaker 1: I don't have a favorite. I don't have a, not favored.
• 1:57:51
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm ignorant of the phenomena beyond knowing
• 1:57:56
  Speaker 1: that there is such a phenomena. I'm ignorant of the
• 1:57:59
  Speaker 1: details of the phenomena. Thank you, Ryan. All right, now
• 1:58:02
  Speaker 1: I should say goodbye. I'm going to pack up my
• 1:58:05
  Speaker 1: equipment here, head to the hotel, head to the airport,
• 1:58:09
  Speaker 1: and fly to Santiago, Chile. We're going to go over
• 1:58:12
  Speaker 1: the Andes. It's pretty spectacular, though I don't think we'll
• 1:58:15
  Speaker 1: see anything. It's very cloudy. But who knows what it's
• 1:58:19
  Speaker 1: like over there in the Andes. And, yeah, we land
• 1:58:22
  Speaker 1: in San Diego. San Diego is a pretty city because
• 1:58:24
  Speaker 1: it has the Andes in the background, the mountains in
• 1:58:27
  Speaker 1: the back. Thank you, guys. I will see you Tuesday. Bye, everybody.