Latest / Yaron Brook Show / Economy; Meta; Galliano; Clancy; Piacenti; Volkswagen; Falkland; Achievement | Yaron Brook Show

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Economy; Meta; Galliano; Clancy; Piacenti; Volkswagen; Falkland; Achievement | 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 Yaron Brook Show on this Friday, September 4th. I
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: hope you guys are having a great week. Ready for
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: the weekend?
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: I am, although, you know, we've got a show tomorrow
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: and we've got a show on Sunday. So I've got,
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: I'm working all weekend. So tomorrow's show will be on,
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: we'll be analyzing a talk Hasan Paika did where he
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: criticizes capitalism. So it'll be critics of capitalism. We'll be
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: responding to that tomorrow. So Hasan Paika video. Not easy
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: to stomach, but we'll get over it. And then on Sunday,
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: it should be fun. We're talking about Mike Mensah, the bodybuilder,
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: Mike Mensah. I'm talking with Nikos, of course, with Nikos.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: So we'll be doing that. It's late here. It's 9 p.m.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: I'm ready for bed. But anyway, I'm still in Barcelona,
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: here for a while. Uh, Jennifer's on a picnic tomorrow.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: All right, cool. All right. So just to remind you,
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: ask questions. Um, the super chat is open. I answer
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: all the questions, all of them, no matter how much
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: money you put into them, $ 2, $ 1, $ 50, $ 500. I
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: answer all of them. So please consider doing that. And, uh,
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: let's see, what else do we want to say before
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: we get going? Uh, next week that we show is
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: most of the week. No show on Thursday. I'm going
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: to see Camino Buruna, if you've ever seen, by Carl Orff.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: Camino Buruna should be a lot of fun at a
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: beautiful theater here in Barcelona. And then on Saturday, I'm
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: going to see the Opera Common, kind of a limited
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: production also at the same theater. And that's going to
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: be a lot of fun. So no show on Saturday
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: and no show on Thursday. But the rest of the week,
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: we should be good on shows. And then after that,
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: who knows? Well, I'll be I'll be filming the documentary
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: that you guys so generously funded. I'll be filming that
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: next week. And then we'll be in post-production. And then
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: hopefully by the end of the year, we'll release the videos.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: But yeah, I'm excited about the filming. We're going to
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: film in location over London. We're going to film in
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: a studio. And it's cool. It's going to be a
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: lot of fun. All right. Let's start with the economy. Today,
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: we had the August employment report, and it landed up
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: being significantly stronger than expected. The economy added approximately 162,000 jobs,
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: and July's numbers were actually adjusted. So this happens regularly, right?
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: They recalibrate. They can consistently recalibrate the numbers. And July's
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: numbers were a 23,000 loss and now a 21,000 gain.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: Unemployment stayed at 4.1%. So overall, good news. I mean,
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: the economy, the U.S. economy is still chugging along. It's
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: still doing okay. It's certainly not falling off a cliff
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: or not heading towards, it seems that it's not heading
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: towards a recession yet and that the labor market is
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: not just about to collapse and that AIT does not
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: seem to be destroying every job out there in the world. But,
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: you know, it's one data point. It's one month. 162,000
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: jobs is pretty good, but it's not great. It's not
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: a stunning number. Those, you know, good numbers over 200,000.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: But it's not bad, again, particularly given the fact that
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: we're also deporting a bunch of illegal immigrants. largest share
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: of employment increases came from restaurants? That must be me. No,
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: I'm not in the U.S. Oh, but I was there in, no,
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: I wasn't there in August. So in spite of the
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: fact that I was not eating at restaurants in the
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: United States in August, employment in restaurants went up, maybe
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: because they saw me eat in July and they thought
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: I'd come back in August. It turns out I'm not
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: the sole driver of employment in restaurants in the And hotels,
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: which again suggests that, you know, consumption in the United
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: States continues to be strong. American consumers still eating out,
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: going on vacations because tourism is down. So it's Americans
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: doing it. Increases in employment also came from local government,
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: particularly education. So hiring new teachers maybe or maybe new
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: administrators just before the school year. Maybe it's that. Manufacturing
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: added a little bit of jobs, not a huge number.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: Information sector employment fell. And labor force participation improved a
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: little bit, 61.6%. Which is pretty good. But it's still
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: below what it was at the beginning of the year.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: So again, a good number, not bad results. Employers are
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: still hiring. Private demand seems resilient. The economy... In spite
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: of all the crazy political shocks, tariffs, deficits, higher interest rates,
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: higher energy prices, and a war with no end, the
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: economy's doing great, but it's okay. It's okay. Which is, again,
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: a massive testament to the American economy. I mean, the
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: American economy is truly extraordinary. It's truly extraordinary, the flexibility,
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: its ability to adapt and ability to continue. I mean,
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: this is, at the end of the day, the resilience
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: is an achievement of the market. It's an achievement of producers, workers, investors,
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: because we know that the government's not helping. It's hurting. Now,
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: it could be that some deregulation by the Trump administration
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: is helping here, but.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: We don't see the evidence yet, and it's not clear
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: how much deregulation is really happening. Clearly, Trump is not
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: focused on that. Maybe his people are. Maybe his people are. Now,
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: one of the issues that comes out of this report
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: is that now this changes kind of, or at least
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: reinforces part of the interest rate discussion. I mean, some
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: investors before these numbers came out were still hopeful that
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: that the Federal Reserve would cut interest rates. Typically, here's
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: typically what happens. When the economy slows, when things are
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: not going well, typically the Fed will cut interest rates
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: in order to make money easier to borrow, and in
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: that sense, stimulate economic activity, and hope that that stimulus
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: of lower interest rates will actually increase economic activity and
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: therefore increase prevent a recession or prevent a lot of
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: people from being unemployed. Remember, the Federal Reserve has, as
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: one of its mandates, employment. It's supposed to guarantee full employment.
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: The other mandate is price stability, and its goal is
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: 2% inflation. Why 2%? Don't ask me. It makes no sense. Okay, 2%.
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: So be it. But typically when the economy is... doing well.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: And certainly when prices are going up, the typical Federal
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: Reserve response is to increase interest rates, thus to try
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: to slow demand for goods and thus put downward pressure
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: on prices. Now, it's debatable whether that kind of policy
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: helps when a lot of the prices are going up
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: because of a war or because of supply shortages resulting
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: from the war. or because of oil prices going up,
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: but that is typically what the Fed does. And because
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: the jobs numbers were strong, suggesting the economy is going well,
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: it's very, very, very unlikely, given the history of the Fed,
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: that they would lower rates. Indeed, the possibility that they
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: will increase rates, maybe even as soon as September, i.e.
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: this month, has increased significantly. Citigroup has postponed its forecast
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: for the next rate cut until 2027. So the market
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: is now saying interest rates are going up. Short-term interest rates.
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: The interest rate that the Fed actually controls. It doesn't
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: control the long-term rate. That is said by supply and demand.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: That long-term rate has been going up for a long time.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: And we saw Was it earlier this week or last week?
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: It hit record levels or record levels for the last
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: 20 years. Not really record levels. Record levels are much higher. But,
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: you know, highest level in a long time, in 20
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: years or 18 years. But the Fed might increase that
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: short-term rate. Now, the consequence of that is interest rates
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: go up. What have I told you? Interest rates go up.
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: What happens to asset prices? They go down. So I
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: was checking out the stock market. Let me just pull
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: up the stock market again. Yeah, stock market's down, right?
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: NASDAQ is down, you know, less than half a percent.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: The Dow over 0.5%, S & P just under 0.5%.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: But it's down. Interest rates go up. Stock market goes down.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: Expectations about interest rates going up will cause the market
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: to go down. All else held constant, of course. Now,
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: of course, given the employment numbers and given everything else
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: going on, our.
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: Our economically ignorant president went on Twitter, the equivalent of Twitter.
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: What is it? Truth Social or whatever. The opposite of truth,
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: it should be. But he went on Truth Social and demanded,
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: demanded that the Fed immediately respond to the strong job
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: numbers by lowering rates. by decreasing the Fed funds rate.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: It's not really the Fed funds rate. It's the rate
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: at which the Fed pays banks for the reserves that
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: they hold at the Fed. Technical and complicated. I jump
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: out that rates should be lowered because the United States
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: is now a stronger credit. It's a great place. But
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: of course, that's completely confusing everything. The Fed funds rate
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: or the rate the Fed controls is not the credit rating.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: It's not affected by the credit rating. Well, I mean,
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: it's not. It's a short-term interest rate determined by a Fed. And,
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: you know, the Fed is supposed to make monetary policy
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: not based on the president's whim, not based on how
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: good the president thinks the credit rating is. But they're
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: supposed to make decisions based on inflation, employment, and financial conditions. Now, granted,
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: it's impossible, right? Because as I said many, many times
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: in the past, right? Remember this. It's impossible for the
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: Fed to set interest rates, quote, right. There is no
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: right interest rate. Central planning doesn't work. Price controls don't work.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: And the Federal Reserve sets the price of the most
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: important product, interest. loans in the economy. It sets interest rates,
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: the most important price in the economy, as a central
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: planner would, and it can't get it right. But it's
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: supposed to do it based on inflation, employment, and financial conditions.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: It's supposed to have the models to get it, quote, right.
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: It doesn't. But anyway. So conventional... Protest economics suggests that
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: if hiring is stronger than expected, while energy prices and
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: tariffs are putting renewed pressure on inflation, not really inflation,
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: on prices, right, then you don't lower interest rates. You
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: don't provide a monetary stimulus. Now, Trump wants a lower
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: interest rate because it makes everybody feel good. It's politically good.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: He thinks that by lowering interest rates, stock market will
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: go up. True. Although, Long-term rates might not go down.
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: If the Fed lowers the rate that they control, the
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: long-term rate, the 10-year or 30-year bonds, their rates might
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: go up because the market might say, ooh, they lowered rates.
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: That's just more economic activity, more demand, which might increase
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: prices even more, which might be reason to increase long-term
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: interest rates because inflation will be higher in the future
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: than it is today, inflation in terms of prices. So
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: it's not clear, and the Fed doesn't control long-term interest rates.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: We've said that already. So he wants higher asset prices,
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: which come with lower interest rates, although, again, it depends
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: on whether that is off of the long-term rate or
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: the short-term rate. Economics is complicated. Interest rates are complicated.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: Asset prices are complicated. Presidents shouldn't have an opinion. They
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: shouldn't intervene. They shouldn't be involved. separation of state from
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: economics starts with the president zipping his mouth on economic issues,
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: particularly when he's as ignorant as this one. So, yeah,
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: I mean, borrowing costs are lower. Then people feel better
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: and asset prices are going up. And this is exactly
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: what Trump wants. He wants people to feel better about
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: the economy before the election. It ain't happening. The Fed
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: will not decrease interest rates, even though the guy at
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: the Fed now is the guy Trump nominated to the Fed.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: he will turn against them very quickly because he is
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: actually a pretty responsible guy. And the rest of the
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: board at the Fed is not going to go along
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: with Trump anyway, even if his man wanted to. So, yeah,
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: presidents don't, I mean, their demands do not, change the
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: economic path. Their actions do, but not the demands. So
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: we'll see. If the markets expect more inflation, more federal borrowing,
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: which they have to expect because the deficit is not...
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: I mean, the one thing the president could do, the
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: one thing Besson could do, the one thing our politicians
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: could do to get interest rates to be lower is
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: to say, we are formulating a plan to reduce the deficits.
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: to cut spending, maybe even increase taxes, to cut spending
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: so that we will stop borrowing as much money as
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: we are and so we can get to some kind
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: of fiscal sanity, maybe even run a surplus one day.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: If they said that, not even did anything, just said it,
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: interest rates would come down because the markets would at
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: least partially believe them. But nobody's saying that. Nobody cares
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: in politics. Not a single person is saying that. Anyway,
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: the consequence of all this, for example, is mortgages up.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: Freddie Mac's weekly survey put the average 30-year fixed rate
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: mortgage at approximately 6.71. The highest weekly reading of 2026.
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: The highest in more than a year. The 15-year rate
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: rose to roughly 6.04. So, houses are becoming less affordable,
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: not because prices of houses are going up, but because
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: the price of financing those houses is going up. And
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: mortgage rates do not follow the Fed's, the interest rate
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: the Fed controls. Mortgages follow the 10-year and maybe, you know,
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: the 30-year bond. Remember, mortgage is a long-term fixed rate.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: So even if the Fed cuts rates, 30-year investors are
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: not necessarily going to see lower rates. And that means
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: your mortgage is still going to be expensive. I mean, again,
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: if the administration wants lower long-term borrowing costs, if it
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: wants rates to go down, long-term rates, it needs to
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: pursue lower deficits. Or how about no deficits? greater fiscal credibility,
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: freer trade, and maybe a foreign policy that actually achieves
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: victory rather than destabilizing one of the most important regions
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: in the world for oil and oil products, which brings
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: us to the final economic point or news, and that
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: is the diesel prices. Diesel prices have reached $ 5. 85 a gallon.
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: regular gasoline is 4.15. Diesel was near 3.76 before the
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: war and the disruptions around the state of Hormuz happened. Now,
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: why has diesel increased more than gasoline? It has. Because diesel,
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: you know, is a, it's part of a refining, it's
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: what's called a middle distillate part of the middle distillate.
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: It's the same part of the refining barrel that supplies
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: heating oil and jet fuel. So when war disrupted Gulf
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: shipping and refining supply.
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: You know, diesel is competing now with a limited number
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: of barrels that are going to aviation or to heating oil.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: It's also competing with industry and power generation and, of course,
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: winter heating. the heating oil. It's not just that it's
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: competing with all these other, all of these are going
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: up in price, right? It's the fact that when you
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: shut down the state of home oils, you don't only,
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: you don't only restrict the amount of oil flowing out
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: of the Gulf, right? Oil can be substituted for. You
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: can produce more oil elsewhere in the world, the United States, Argentina, Venezuela.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: And you can also get around the state of Hormuz, right?
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: The Saudis are pumping oil through a pipeline to the
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: Red Sea. The UAE is pumping oil down into the
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: Sea of Oman, the Gulf of Oman, away from the Iranians.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: You know, as we talked about yesterday, about 70% of
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: the pre-war oil flow has been resumed. But here's the problem.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: A lot of the shipping out of the Gulf was
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: not oil. It was oil products. The Gulf itself has
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: massive refineries that use the oil that they pump out
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: of the ground to produce things like diesel. And then
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: they ship the diesel. That is almost shut down. That
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: is not back to 70% of what it was before
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: the war. And again, you've got limited supply, demand as
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: high as ever, and the consequence of all of that
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: is prices go up, prices go up. Demand is not
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: that flexible. So, you know, for gasoline, you could not
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: go on the family trip. You could skip the summer
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: vacation or something. But a trucking company still has to
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: move groceries. Farmers still need machinery, construction equipment, ships, backup generators,
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: freight networks. Can't switch. And, you know, on top of that,
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: the fact that, again, people need heating oil and they're
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: accumulating inventories for the winter season. It's around the corner. So, yeah,
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: the economy is still a challenge in spite of the fact,
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: and it's pretty amazing, that the job market is as
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: strong and robust as it is. All right. Let's see.
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: What are we doing here? All right. let's move on
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: from the economy. This is a story from last week, but,
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: of course, I wasn't doing shows last week, and we
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: kind of skipped it, and I didn't get to it yesterday.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: But this is the fact that MATA, the parent company
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: of Facebook, has settled, has settled with the government. You
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: remember we talked about on the show, we talked about
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: the big lawsuit, the attorney general's, 47 states were suing
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: Meta for like a trillion dollars or something ridiculous like
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: that over the harm, the harm that Meta had produced
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: among young people. Well, Meta, while not admitting to wrongdoing,
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: has settled with the states for about somewhere between 12
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: to 18 billion dollars. Hard to tell exactly what that
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: number is and it depends on you know how the
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: agreements are going to pan out, but it settled the lawsuit.
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: I mean, the exact accounting matters less than the scale
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: of this. That's a lot of money. It's one of
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: the largest settlements ever. Remember, the state's accused man of
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: deliberately designing Instagram and Facebook to keep children compulsively engaged
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: while misleading parents and the public about the resulting risks.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: And the sentiment is not just about money. Supposedly, the
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: sentiment also involves limits that Meta has agreed. For example,
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: combined two-hour daily limits for users under 18, nighttime restrictions,
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: notification controls, parental tools, age assurance requirements, and options to
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: escape purely algorithmic feeds. So supposedly Meta is going to
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: reconstruct Facebook and Instagram to accommodate all of this. So,
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: you know, so there are really two issues here, right?
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: Did Meta construct Instagram and Facebook to encourage people to
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: use it, to provide them feedback that encourages more use? Well, yes,
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: of course. Every business does that. Like, why do stores
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: make themselves design their windows and everything inside, particularly high-end stores,
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: really pretty and really beautiful? They encourage you to come
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: in and stay and hang out and buy stuff. Why
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: do they give you points? Airlines give you points. So
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: you keep coming back. It's addictive. Flying is addictive. I mean,
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: accumulating points on credit cards is addictive. I'm addicted to it.
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: You have all these points. You can use them for
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: different things. You keep accumulating them and accumulating. And how
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: do you accumulate them? By spending money. It's addictive. It
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: won't matter. was addictive, we are told. Now, you could
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: make the argument that some deception was involved. I don't
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: know that Meta lied to parents and that there's real
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: fraud here or some kind of negligent product liability. I'm
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: skeptical about all of that, but maybe And that's why,
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: you know, a trial would be good. But, of course,
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: you can't really trust these days for a trial to
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: actually come out positively. But, okay, but are 51 attorney generals,
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: you know, is the threat of a lawsuit? Is there
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: imposing regulations, controls over meta, the solution? I mean, if
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: you can prove fraud, prove it. we now have basically
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: regulations of social media. Not through Congress, not through deliberation,
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: not through public discussion, but through a bunch of attorney
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: generals dictating terms to matter to a private business. It
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: really is disgusting that this is how anything gets settled.
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: It shouldn't be allowed. I mean, I don't think Congress...
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: should regulate private business. But I prefer Congress regulating private
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: business and having the debate and the discussion and the
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: vote than the regulation of private business being negotiated between
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: attorney generals and the business in closed rooms somewhere under
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: the threat of massive legal liability. I mean... If you
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: worry about unlimited government, well, you're getting unlimited government. You're
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: getting unlimited government. I mean, parental responsibility for their kids? No,
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: the government's going to tell you how many hours your
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: kids should be on Instagram. The government knows best. Not
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: even the government. The attorney generals know best. They've read
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: the research. They've got consultants. They're going to Use coercion, force.
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: So the government is getting polls, hourly limits, whether you
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: can scroll up or down, I don't know, whatever the
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: restrictions are. Parents have no say. What about parents who think, no,
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: I think my child should have four hours of social
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: media every day. No, those are irresponsible parents. We cannot
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: allow it in the free, you know, in the freedom.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: We need to curtail the parents' ability to let the
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: kids do what the parents want. I mean, this should
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: really be a negotiation between parents and Facebook, between parents
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: and Instagram. Parents are the customers. And they should be,
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: you know, they should demand meta changes ways if they
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: think they're so horrible. And it should be negotiated between them.
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: Attorney generals should stay out of this. But this is
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: One of the many ways in which government is aggressively
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: intruding into private enterprises, into private businesses. All right. And now,
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: as they say. But something completely different. So John Galliano.
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: John Galliano is considered, I have no opinion about this
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: because I don't know anything really about it, but John
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: Galliano is considered one of the, you know, really great
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: fashion designers in the world today. Revolutionary and really a
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: a genius fashion designer, if there is such a thing.
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: And the Metropolitan Museum of Art planned a major John
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: Galliano retrospective called John Galliano Horizons. It was going to
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: anchor the 2027 Met Gala and make Galliano only the
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: third living designer given a solo Met exhibition. But then
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: came the backlash. It turns out that in 2011, Galeano
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: was recorded during a drunken confrontation, making vicious anti-Semitic and
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: racist statements. Actually, my understanding is there were two such confrontations.
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: Twice he was drunk in the same place with the
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: same kind of comments. He declared, for example, that he
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: loved Hitler and told people that their ancestors should have
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: been murdered in the Holocaust. He told people they were
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: ugly and, you know, and their ugliness was a product
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: of their Jewish, you know, Jewish origins. The consequence of
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: this to him were the Dior, D-I-O-R, the big fashion house,
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: fired him. And indeed, a French court convicted him under
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: France's laws against racism and anti-Semitic speech. and he had
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: to pay a fine. I mean, that's ridiculous. That's a
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: violation of free speech, right? Criminal conviction is a real
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: free speech problem, but that's Europe, where there is no
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: free speech, right? You'd think that a civilized government would
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: not imprison somebody or fine somebody, even if they expressed
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: repulsive opinions, but not Europe, not Europe today. Anyway, Duaro, customers, colleagues,
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: private institutions, they all condemned him, and they have every
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: right to condemn him. And they even refused to associate
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: with him. Galeano apologized. He entered treatment. He claimed he
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: didn't remember any of it. This is all during a
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: drunken stupor. He became sober. He went to work with
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: Jewish educators and rabbis. He spent years rebuilding his professional life.
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: He returned to fashion a few years ago through Maison Margiela.
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: I don't know who that is, but anyway, some Maison,
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: some important fashion house, and eventually produced work that has
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: again been widely acclaimed, right? So he resurrected himself. But
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: when the man announced the exhibition, which constituted basically an
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: institutional celebration of his work, in his life, in a sense.
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: People freaked out. Now, part of it was that the gala,
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: the planned gala, fell at the beginning of the Holocaust
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: Remembrance Day, which is unbelievably insensitive, just stupid in terms
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: of scheduling. But Jewish organizations, public officials, donors, but the mad,
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: I mean, the mad probably has a lot of Jewish
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: patrons and a lot of Jewish donors. basically objected to
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: doing this. Now, the men initially insisted that the exhibit
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: would address Galliano's entire history. It won't hide anything. It
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: would also address his, you know, the comments he made. But,
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: you know, this created a huge, a huge uproar. And
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: Galliano ultimately withdrew, saying he did not want the exhibition
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: to cause additional pain or distract from the museum. And Winter,
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: was a big shot, right? Called that decision courageous, his withdrawal. Anyway,
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: I mean, here's the thing, right? This whole year was canceled.
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: Cancel culture, alive and well. Look, I'm not against cancel culture.
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: I'm not against canceling people. And being an anti-Semite is
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: a pretty good reason to cancel somebody. Particularly from an
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: institution that has a lot of Jewish patrons and a
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: But the guy apologized. He went to treatment. He tried
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: to redeem himself. I mean, is something you say 15
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: years ago, is it such that you can never live
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: it down? Is it such that it will always haunt you?
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: That you can never recover from it? I mean, is
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: it the case that no degree of apology, sobriety, education,
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: changing your conduct and continuing to be productive is a
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: people you can't forgive? I mean, if that's the case,
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: what's the point of demanding an apology? Now, I think
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: the person should apologize anyway because it's for them, but
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: it really does, I mean, Really, are we all going
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: to be judged by everything we've ever said? And we
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: can never, we can't, we can never change? Now, I
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: don't know what he really thinks. I don't know if
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: he's an anti-Semite or not. I don't know if it's
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: all a show. But I don't think, unless presented with
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: evidence that he still is an anti-Semite and he still
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: holds these beliefs, I think you have to give somebody
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: like this the benefit of the doubt. So I am
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: against this cancellation. I think he's wrong. I think it's
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: bad for the Met. Now, look, given how many donors objected,
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: I get what they did it and they probably did
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: the right thing. But should the donors have objected? You know,
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: suddenly the Met had the right to cancel. Donors have
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: a right to object. Canceling is, you have a right
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: to cancel somebody. But I'm not sure it says, you know,
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: positive things about a culture in which we live. Where
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: we cannot, we cannot forgive somebody. Again, maybe there's stuff
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: I don't know. Maybe there's more evidence of his continued anti-Semitism.
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: But that evidence, as far as I can tell, has
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: not been presented. All right. We talked about Lindsay Clancy,
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: the mother who has admitted to killing her three children,
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: a five-year-old, a three-year-old, and an eight-month-old in her Massachusetts home.
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: January 2023. She strangled them one by one and then
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: attempted suicide by jumping from a window and leaving herself paralyzed.
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: And she's been on trial. The trial has lasted weeks, right?
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: And the jury deliberated for 38 hours and could not
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: come to a verdict. Now, the verdict here is not
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: did she do it or didn't she do it. She
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: clearly did it. She's admitted to it. Her defense is
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: lack of criminal responsibility. She argues that she was suffering
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: from postpartum psychosis, possibly connected to an undiagnosed bipolar disorder,
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: and could not properly understand or control her actions. The
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: prosecution says she was severely depressed and suicidal, but not psychotic.
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: Prosecutors point to apparent planning. She sent her husband on errands,
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: used the resulting opportunity to kill the kids, and had
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: been observed by medical professionals who did not identify bipolar
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: or mania or psychosis. So the jury deliberated 38 hours,
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: and they could not reach an unanimous verdict. The defense
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: claims that the split was 11-1 in favor of finding
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: Clancy not criminally responsible, which I find pretty shocking. But
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: I didn't sit through the whole jury testament, so maybe
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: there's a basis for that. But that's, again, the defense.
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: We don't know if that's true. Now, it's a mistrial.
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: It's not acquittal. It means the jury could not reach
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: a beyond reasonable but doubt decision. You know, one juror
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: who stood out, who insisted it, appears that she was
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: guilty of murder, was interviewed by the judge to make
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: sure that they weren't ignoring the law. And the judge
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: came to the conclusion, no, they really did believe that
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: she was legally responsible. And therefore, now, I guess, prosecution
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: are going to have to figure out what to do.
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: They can retry the case, right? You can retry after mistrial.
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: You can negotiate a resolution with the defense. And you
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: can see. So we'll see what the prosecution decides. I mean,
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: I didn't. listen to all the testimony. And so it's
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: hard to make a decision. It's hard to make a call.
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: But I find it very difficult to believe that, you know,
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: a woman who has three kids, who's being, who's under
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: psychological observation at the time, who is clearly depressed and
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: acknowledges that depression and tells her husband and tells her
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: mother-in-law and whatever, and then kills her children one at
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: a time, three of them. Like, I get she goes
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: into some kind of crazy thing. She kills one. She
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: looks at what she's done. She can't kill the other ones.
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: She kills all three. I don't know. That is more
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: than just... to me, a psychosis episode. I'm not a psychologist, psychiatrist. So,
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: I mean, I'm worried that, hey, I killed this person
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: because I was depressed and had been depressed for a
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: year and here are the receipts and I was really,
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: really upset and I couldn't control myself and I killed him.
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: I mean, it opens up the whole mental illness thing
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: as a defense. It opens up too many possibilities for people.
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: I don't think it's objective enough. And again, I don't
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: know what the jury heard. 11 people in the jury
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: seems to think that it was, that she was not responsible.
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: There was a reasonable doubt that she was mentally incapacitated. Again,
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: I'm skeptical. And I worry about a culture that produces
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: that result. But I'm not going to be adamant about
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: this because I wasn't there. I don't know. It's frustrating
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: that there's a jury deadlock. It would have been, I think,
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: very frustrating if they found her not guilty. Anyway, we'll see.
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: It could be that this holdout juror in some ways
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: saved the day and maybe there'll be another trial and
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: maybe there'll be another consequence. But it's hard to tell.
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: If it's 11-1... it's hard to imagine that in the
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: culture in which we live, a different jury would come
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: to a different conclusion. But I don't know. I don't know. Let's,
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: let's now see what the prosecutors decide. The, the, the,
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: the horror for those children is just unimaginable. And, you know,
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: the whole thing is, is, is incredibly sad. But I, I, I,
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: I worry about elevating mental illness. Crimes like this that
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: seem to be at least premeditated. And again, three, not one, three.
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: Giving the out of a psychotic episode seems wrong. Seems wrong.
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: There has to be something in between. All right. One
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: more story about a crazy woman, sadly. Was it last week,
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: I think? A crazy woman. A crazy woman in Times Square,
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: near Times Square, with two knives, killed a woman by
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: the name of Erin Piancetti and injured another woman. She
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: then tried to attack the police, the woman's name was
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: Pamela Cisneros. She threatened police officers with knives. After the
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: tasers failed to put it down, officers then shot and
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: killed her as she was a threat to them and
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: to people around. Now, Erin Piancetti was a 32-year-old. She
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: was a lawyer. She was a vice president at Bank
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: of America. She had recently returned to work following five
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: months of maternity leave and was the mother of an
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: infant daughter. There's no evidence the killer knew Ben Keddie.
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: It's pretty clear that she didn't. And so this was
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: not some kind of assassination or anything like that. So
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: what really is disturbing about this, beyond the fact that
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: there are crazy people that we allow in the streets,
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: this is about whether we should bring asylum institutions back,
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: but there are crazy people out there in the streets
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: who could have a psychotic episode and kill people. It
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: doesn't happen very often, but it's pretty tragic when it does,
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: very tragic when it does. But no, the reason this
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: came to my attention was the reaction to this. Some
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: people viewed this as an occasion to celebrate. Why celebrate? Well,
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: because the woman who was killed was a vice president
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: at Bank of America. And not only she was a
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: nasty banker, but Bank of America had recently put a
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: buy recommendation on five Israeli banks. Was it five Israeli banks?
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: I didn't even know there were five Israeli banks. Anyway,
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: they put a buy recommendation on Israeli banks. And that
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: That justifies murder. According to filmmaker Lexi Alexander, Lexi Alexander
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: circulated a Batman-style image in which the signal in the
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: sky had been replaced with the face of Louie Mangiano,
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: the guy who is accused of murdering UnitedHealthcare executive Brian Thompson.
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: Alexander linked Pancetti's death to Panic America and Israel and
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: dismissed critics It's just propaganda accounts. I mean, think of
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: the evasion here, right? Piketty was not Bank of America.
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: She was not the banking system. She's not Israel. She's
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: not responsible for every loan investment recommendation, ratings, or whatever.
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: Individual human being. Randomly murdered. After returning from work, she
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: just had a baby, got a husband, got a family,
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: and was celebrating because she worked at a bank we
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: don't like. And it's okay to kill people from a
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: bank we don't like? I mean, these people are monsters.
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: I mean, no matter what Bank of America did, no
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: matter who they gave a positive recommendation to, it just
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: shows the extent of the anti-Semitism, the extent of the
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: hatred of Israel. If you even say something positive about
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: Israel as a bank, your employees, okay to kill them.
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: I mean, Piketty had nothing to do with that assessment,
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: nothing to do with any of those decisions. It doesn't
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: matter though. So what, the guy who actually gave the
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: Israeli banks a high rating, he's okay to kill? But
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: the reality is today, if you're a banker, corporate executive,
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: or if you happen to be an employee of a
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: company that's not sufficiently anti-Israel, then your individual life ceases
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: to matter. Your murder is reason to celebrate. It becomes
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: political theater. I mean, this is exactly what happened after
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: Brian Thompson was murdered. I mean, you could criticize insurance companies,
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: you could criticize their activities, but murdering the CEO? And yet,
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: the murderer, Luigi, has become a celebrity, become somebody to
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: be admired. I mean, people are willing to go to
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: war about their hatred, are willing to kill, murder, around
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: their hatred of business. It just is, it's horrifying. It
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: really is horrifying. And, you know, It wasn't just this filmmaker, right?
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: She got thousands of likes. Thousands of likes to her
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: posting this image and to her commentary. All right. Again,
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: to something completely different. Volkswagen. Volkswagen has just announced that
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: it has approved a restructuring that could eliminate approximately 100,000
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: positions by 2030, about 15% of its global workforce. Volkswagen
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: is a cornerstone of German industry. Now, the new plan
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: adds roughly 50,000 reduction to another 50,000 that already is underway.
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: So we're talking about 100,000 job cuts over several years.
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: A lot of that will be attrition, Some will be
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: agreed upon retirements, and some of it will be layoffs.
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: Focus Organosa intends to half its model portfolio, that is
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: the number of model cars that it has, reduce organizational complexity,
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: flatten management, and address European production capacity that exceeds demand,
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: European capacity exceeds demand by 500,000 vehicles. Now, why Volkswagen
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: allowed the situation to get this bad? Why Volkswagen couldn't
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: anticipate what is going on in the auto industry right now?
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: It's horrific. I'm actually reading right now a book, which
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: I will review in a couple of weeks. I think
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: John Glue asked me to review this book a while ago.
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: It's a book on the transformation of Ford following the
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: hiring of a new CEO in 2006. And it's, it's
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: really interesting book. It's a really good book to read.
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: And it's a pretty heroic effort, what they do. And
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: they did a lot of what Volkswagen is doing here.
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: And they too, you know, should have done it years earlier.
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: And for a variety of reasons that I'll talk about
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: when I review the book, they didn't. Anyway, you got
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: four German plants face uncertain future. Their present models are
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: going to reach the end of production between 2031 and 2034.
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: There are no successive vehicles for those sites, so people
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: are wondering if those factories will shut down. And look,
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: the economic forces are not mysterious, and could have been predicted.
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: Volkswagen has lost ground in China. Chinese manufacturers are producing
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: competitive electric vehicles with lower costs, faster development cycles. Volkswagen
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: carries high labor and organizational costs. It struggled with software
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: and with its electric vehicle strategy. European regulations raise production costs,
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: while American tariffs make exporting more difficult. I mean, management
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: deserves a big chunk of the blame. But Volkswagen's governance
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: structure also demonstrates the cost of politicized politicization of business.
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: Labor representatives hold enormous influence on their board. The state
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: of Lower Saxony is a major shareholder in Volkswagen with
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: special powers. Remind you of something? American government owning stocks,
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: not good, not good. Political leaders treat factories as regional entitlements.
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: They're not, for them, productive assets that have to continuously
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: earn a profit. So the resulting system postponed restructuring, postponed restructuring,
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: and postponed it, evaded the economic realities and the business
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: realities around them. There are too many cars being manufactured
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: in the Western world. China's got us beat. And if China,
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: we were already beaten by the Japanese and the Koreans.
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: And yeah, there's some role for, I don't know, Mercedes
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: and BMW maybe, and Ferrari certainly, and Lamborghini. And maybe
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: there's a role for a U.S. car manufacturer to build
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: SUVs and pickup trucks. But American and European car companies
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: can't compete with Asian car companies. They just can't. They
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: haven't been able to. Asians produce cars more efficiently, at
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: a lower cost, more productively, with better designs, with better reliability,
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: better customer service. And now with China, forget about it.
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: So something has to give. Renault and Peugeot in France
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: are being propped up by the French government. I don't
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: know the situation of Fiat in Italy, but anybody want
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: to guess about who's propping them up? I know U.S.
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: auto companies have been in the past propped up by
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: the U.S. government. There should be three auto companies in
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: the U.S. And it's not clear whether... And right now, U.S.
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: auto companies are being protected from Chinese autos with 100%
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: tariff on Chinese electric cars. So the reality is there's
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: massive overcapacity in the auto industry. And it's not because...
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: of a failure of markets, it's completely the consequence of politics.
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: It's governments not allowing the auto companies in their territories
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: to adjust, adapt, shrink, shut down, file for bankruptcy as
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: they should. So yeah, Volkswagen is shrinking as I think
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: all European car companies are going to have to do. Right?
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: Of course, the response of politicians or the politicians are
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: going to be encouraged to and is going to be
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: somehow to subsidize or put on tariffs or make employment
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: compulsory or something like that. The solution is to liberate
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: and allow for competition. Allow capital and labor to move
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: towards their most productive uses. And to do that, you
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: need to deregulate, get out of the way, eliminate tariffs,
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: let the market work. Now, the consequence of this is,
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: of this delayed layoffs and the shock of the layoffs,
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: and the very fact that German industrial capacity is on
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: the decline. By the way, a big reason for that,
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: a big, big reason, not just the employment deals and
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: the fact that the unions sit on the boards. But
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: a big reason for this is what? It's the fact
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: that Germany has one of the highest costs of energy
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: of any country in the world. Makes it very difficult
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: to build cars cheaply when you have to pay so
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: much money for electricity. Why is that? Because they shut
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: down their nuclear pipelines. So if you want to blame
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: anybody for the decline in Germany industry, it's regulations, it's controls,
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: it's labor regulations, and it's Energy, energy, energy. China has
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: no problem building coal power plants, has no problem building
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: huge quantities of nuclear energy plants, natural gas plants. Indeed,
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: China has no problem in creating more and more and
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: more electricity. Build, build, build. And electricity is really cheap then.
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: And surprise, cheap electricity produces You know, competitive cars, competitive manufacturing.
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: It's more the West killing itself, committing suicide, than China
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: killing it. Okay, a quick reminder to support the show
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: with stickers, value for value, a trade, and to ask questions. Questions,
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: you get to shape the show. You get to shape
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: the content that I talk about on the show. I'll
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: answer all the questions that you ask. So use the
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: Super Chat feature, ask questions. Not a lot of questions today. Yeah,
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: it's kind of slow. All right, a unfortunate story coming
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: out of Argentina. I mean, Millet got disappointing. Millet has
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: picked up the idea of we're going to get Falklands back.
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: Millet says Argentina must recover them, the Falkland Islands. He's
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: threatening tougher sanctions against companies involved in the Sea Lion
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: offshore oil project, including British and Israeli interests. He's also
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: proposed more defense spending and funding for a naval base
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: in Tegu del Fuego, which is in the south of Argentina,
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: which could potentially be used against Falkland. Now, Trump is
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: not helping here. Trump, in his attempt to kind of
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: discipline Europeans, and in particular the British, is saying he's
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: reviewing the U.S. 's position about Falkland, which has always
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: been siding with the British. So, you know, Millet senses
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: a geopolitical winds of change that are blowing in Argentina's favor,
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: and he's using that. But more than that, you know,
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: Millet is losing popularity in the polls, sadly. His economic
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: changes are are being hampered in the courts and by
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: the legislature. And the results are slow to affect the
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: day-to-day lives of Argentinians. Unemployment is up, for example. Even
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: though poverty is down, inflation is down, it's not down enough.
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: And people are starting to get impatient, sadly. So Millet
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: is doing what, sadly, many political leaders do. They shift,
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: they turn, they pivot to nationalistic interests, rile up the people.
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: Now here's a little bit of history in the Falklands.
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: I thought you'd be interested. The Falklands had these islands
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: in the South Atlantic Ocean. And they had no indigenous
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: human population. They were unsettled. France established the first lasting
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: settlement in 1764. Britain claimed and settled part of the
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: islands soon afterwards. France transferred its colony to Spain, which
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: governed from Buenos Aires. Britain withdrew its own settlement in
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: 1774 while maintaining its sovereignty claim. Spain left in 1811.
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: So remember, Spain had a pretty strong empire into the
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: 19th century. After Argentinian independence, the United Provinces of Rio
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: de la Plata, this is Argentina's predecessor, claimed the islands
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: and attempted to govern them. Louis Vered established a settlement
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: and was appointed governor in 1829. Conflict over sealing rights.
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: I guess this is the trade in seals. led an
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: American warship to raid the settlement in 1831. In January 1833,
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: Britain returned and forced Argentinian military authorities to leave. Now,
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: that event gives Argentina a historical grievance. Britain reasserted control
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: by force over territory Argentina claimed and had attempted to administer.
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: British title is not morally, you know, so.
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: The title is They Claim, Argentinians, Question. But one frequently
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: repeated claim is misleading. Britain did not simply expel every
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: Argentinian civilian and replace the population wholesale. A number of
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: Venet settlers remained. Britain then administered the islands continuously from
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: 1833 until today, with the exception of a 1982 Argentinian occupation.
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: In 1965, the United Nations recognized that a sovereignty dispute existed,
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: urging Britain and Argentina to negotiate. It did not award
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: the islands to Argentina. Then in 1982, Argentinian militaries, Junta, invaded.
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: That war killed 400, sorry, that war killed 649 Argentinians,
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: 255 British personnel, and three island civilians. Britain retook the
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: island after 74 days of war. This was under Bogota.
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: The junta invasion was not an act of liberation. It
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: was a junta. It was a dictatorship. They were a
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: dictatorship using nationalism and war to distract from repression and
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: economic failure. And the reality is that 99.8% of voters,
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: on the islands, chose in a referendum in 2013 to
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: remain a British overseas territory. Turnout was approximately 92%. Only
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: three people voted against the existing status. You know, Argentina
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: rejects that vote and describes the island's population as implanted population.
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: But of course, any population on that island is, quote, implanted.
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: It has no, quote, indigenous, but there is no such
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: thing as indigenous, really. The people living there have lived
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: there for many generations. They have homes, they have property,
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: they have institutions, they have lives. They're not just, you know,
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: something that you play around with on a map. I mean,
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: even if Argentina possesses a historical claim, who cares? The
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: territory is free. It's under control. the authority of a
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: free country, and the population rejects Argentinian rule. And that's
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: really disappointing for Millet to be claiming Falkland. He's supposed
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: to be for freedom, individual freedom. He presents himself as
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: a defender of liberty and private property, yet he's threatening
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: the private companies, the private property of the people who
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: live there, He's threatening the private companies for developing resources.
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: And he's subordinating some kind of nationalistic historical claim above
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: the private choices of the people on the Falkland Islands. Now,
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: Trump is just using this to piss off the British
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: and to assert that America could turn against a European country.
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: That's all it is. All right, let's see. Did we
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: cover all the stories I listed? Oh, achievement. All right,
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: so a few stories related. I mean, a couple of
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: quick stories, and then we'll go to your questions. Waymo, Waymo,
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: company I love, is now completing about half a million, 500,000
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: paid rides each week across 10 U.S. cities, up from
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: roughly 10,000 weekly rides in 2023, and about 50,000 two
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: years ago. Now, these are level four vehicles. Level four
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: means driverless within mapped operating territories. They can't drive everywhere
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: and under every condition, at least not yet. They haven't
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: been approved to do so. So this is an industry.
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: This company is part of an industry that is slowly maturing.
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: that is developing, that is growing. It's still small scale,
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: but there is consumer demand. The cars are operating. They're
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: operating well. They are safe. They receive some regulatory approval,
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: but we need a lot more regulatory approval. We need
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: to get the regulations out of the way. Capitalism is
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: moving forward with applying AI, using AI in physical services,
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: to improve human life. And yeah, I mean, I love
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: my rides in Waymo. I think they're amazing. Now on
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: the same kind of front, NISA has begun deploying autonomous
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: mobile robots in its Smyrna, Tennessee plant to move loads
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: weighing up to approximately 4,190 pounds. These robots use LIDAR
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: cameras and a shared task management tool. And they allow
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: the machines to reroute around congestion, summon assistance. And while
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: early on when they were first deployed, they had a
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: lot of traffic problems that required human operators and backup forklifts.
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: These have gone away and now the factory is running smoothly.
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: So human beings and autonomous mobile robots working together to
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: move stuff. And, you know, working in the same factory,
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: in the same place. This is the first phase. It's
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: only first phase. It's not finished. Nissan says the 64
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: forklift and tugger rolls affected will disappear. So the jobs
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: of forklifting and tuggers are going to disappear through reassignment
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: and retaining rather than layoffs. But we'll see what happens
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: as automation continues. I mean, this is a beautiful thing
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: to see More and more companies using these autonomous robots
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: and vehicles. And again, it improves productivity. It improves safety.
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: It will make Nissan more profitable. It's the kind of
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: response an auto company has to have to, you know,
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: the threat of Chinese automakers to competition. You know, capital
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: will substitute for particular tasks. And workers will move to
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: more valuable uses. More jobs are created than lost because
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: of technology. Always been the case. Always will be the case. Unless, unless,
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: there's a caveat. Government intervenes to stop the market from working.
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: All right, my friends. That is the news for this
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: September 4th. It's a Friday. And yeah, thanks for listening.
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: Thanks to all the Super Chatters. And we will move
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: to the next portion of our show, which is answering
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: the questions that you have submitted. That you have submitted.
• 1:09:12
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• 1:09:20
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• 1:09:24
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  Speaker 1: anybody out there interested in studying objectivism. Just check out einman.org
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  Speaker 1: slash YBS, einman.org slash YBS. Defenders of Capitalism. Defenders of
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: Capitalism is a program of courses, lectures, and a website,
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: of course, defendersofcapitalism.com. You should check it out. That promotes
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: a moral, philosophical, political, economic, social, what am I missing?
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: Historical defense of capitalism. And Michael Williams says, who is
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: responsible for Defenders of Capitalism, has done an amazing job.
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: And I've helped with the project. Michael's a good friend.
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: And yeah, check out defendersofcapitalism.com and sign up for the
• 1:10:55
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• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: defense of capitalism. Hendershot, Hendershot Wealth, hendershotwealth.com slash YBS. Hendershot
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: Wealth has a variety of different programs Wealth management, Hendershot Wealth, right?
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: Wealth management tools available. Among them are tools that can
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  Speaker 1: reduce your capital gains exposure, particularly if you have a
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  Speaker 1: shares of Anthropic or OpenAI, they're going to go public soon.
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  Speaker 1: You're going to have a huge tax liability unless, you
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• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: Hendershot Wealth have such products. So check them out. Check
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  Speaker 1: out the interview I did with Robert Hendershot where we
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: discussed this. It's on my website, on the playlists, under sponsors,
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: and check out my interview with Robert. Robert is always
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: a good interviewee. All right. And finally, as Epstein is
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: the world authority, on all things energy, environmental regulations, strict
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: ability to produce energy, and lately, a lot of work
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: on data centers. Check out his Substack, alexfstein.substack.com. You'll find
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: incredible information. They're valuable in all of our fight to
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: bring freedom and liberty to business in America. And right now,
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 1: to defend the data centers from the barbaric attempts to
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: stop them and to block them. from being built. The
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: one part of our economy that's growing significantly, we want
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: to strangle. It's just mind-boggling. All right. I'll also remind
• 1:12:52
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• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: a sticker, which is just a monetary contribution. It's a
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• 1:13:46
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• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: And let me see who else do we have here.
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: That is it. That's all the stickers we have today.
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: A thin day for stickers. And you can also ask
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: a question. And I answer all the questions. So let
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: me start with the questions. Let's see. We've got a
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: bunch of $ 20 questions. So let's start with those. Not
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 1: your average algorithm. What exactly made anti-Semitism and racism hip
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: and trendy again amongst the new generations? There was just
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: a big kickboxing match in Orlando, Florida, between a neo-Nazi
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: and an Israeli kickboxing. Audience members were waving swastika flags. Oh,
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: my God. Is this an indication of coming societal collapse
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: or a minor reversal or setback? Well, I mean, what
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: prompted it? So there's a sense in which anti-Semitism and
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: racism have always been out there. They were marginalized. particularly
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 1: after the 60s civil rights movement. And they became unacceptable socially.
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: And while some people, I think a small minority, still
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 1: held on to those beliefs, they were tucked away somewhere.
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: But look, America's always had elements of xenophobia and racism.
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: And you can see that in the debates about illegal
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: immigration for, what, 20 years now. They've just become more
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 1: explicit in the last few years. And what led to that?
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: What led to that was really the left's embracing of
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: identity politics. Whereas the left has always stood up against
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: racism and against anti-Semitism, or at least in civil rights,
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 1: American civil rights history, they did so. The left suddenly
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: shifted to racial politics, to racial resentment, systemic racism. and
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: the idea that everybody was divided into oppressor-oppressed groups, and
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: that the oppressors, if you were non-minority, not in a
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: minority group of some kind, they were the bad guys.
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: So the non-minorities would be definition bad, minorities would be
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 1: definition good. And that spread Because of intersectionality and post-colonialism
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: and post-modernism and really the entire educational establishment that spread
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: through the entire educational establishment like wildfire during the 2000s
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 1: and really became dominant in the 20-teens. And kids bought
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: into it. That was the hip, cool thing. That's what
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 1: the professors were saying was the right, noble thing to
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 1: fight for. Now, it's not a majority of kids. It's
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: a minority. But I remember saying in 2015 and 2016,
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 1: when I first noticed this, the alt-right, they were called
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 1: in those days, I said, beware. Well, sorry, the alt-right
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: was the right wing, but I said to the woke,
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: I said, beware. Because what you are going to make
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 1: acceptable is racist, because you are racist. You're making identity politics,
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: racial identity politics. You're making it important. Well, the majority
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 1: group in America, whites, are going to recognize that. They're
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 1: going to embrace it, and they're going to think, okay,
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 1: we can play this game too. And they will. And
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 1: it's exactly what's happened. People who oppose woke partially, you know,
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 1: started out just opposing their ideas from a kind of
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: a non-racist perspective, but then said, hey, Why not just
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 1: become racists? It's now okay, our academics tell us. And
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: those people who had been kind of in the closet,
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 1: who had been hiding their anti-Semitism and racism came out,
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 1: and it suddenly became hip and cool on the right. So,
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: you know, it's like identity politics play out. The same kids,
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: some kids went to these university classes and came out
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: of it saying, yeah, identity politics, they can play that game.
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 1: I'm white and I'm superior to you guys, and the
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: majority is with me. That's the game they played. They
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 1: abandoned the whole idea of colorblindness, the whole idea of anti-racism,
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 1: real anti-racism, was completely abandoned in the name of my
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: race versus your race. And it was started, this round
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 1: was started by the left. So that's where now, is
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 1: this an indication of coming society collapse? Maybe, maybe. It's
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 1: hard to tell if Tamay and Aruba will say that.
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 1: We will see how it plays out. Now, I want to,
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 1: mention the fact that in spite of what everybody thinks,
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 1: you know, Trump supported this development on the right, not explicitly,
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 1: with dog whistles, with a wink and a nod, but
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 1: he supported it. He certainly didn't stand up against it. And,
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 1: you know, the whole MAGA movement basically maybe didn't completely
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 1: adopt anti-Semitism and racism. kind of did. Suddenly, when it
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 1: comes to immigrants, they did. So it became a part
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 1: of the MAGA identity. It became part of the identity
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 1: of the President of the United States. It gained respectability.
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 1: It gained respectability. And we're suffering the consequence of that today.
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 1: So part of it is going to depend on what
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: happens to MAGA when Trump is out of the picture. Jason,
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 1: thank you for the sticker. Really appreciate it. Ian, was
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 1: there ever a point in history when intellectuals weren't trying
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 1: to organize a society within an altruistic framework? Well, I mean,
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 1: the founding of America, the Enlightenment, they still held altruistic beliefs,
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 1: but they weren't organizing a political framework around altruism. The
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: creation of America, the Declaration of Independence, is a self-interested
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 1: document The Constitution is to protect the ability of individuals
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 1: to pursue their self-interest. So, you know, they had rejected
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 1: the worst of altruism, but they didn't know how to
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 1: replace it. They didn't know what to replace it with.
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 1: They had a vague notion of pursuit of happiness, right
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 1: to life, but they couldn't bring it into actual systematic
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 1: moral terms. Greece is another period in history where the
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 1: intellectuals were not altruists. Altruism is a post-Greek development. It's
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 1: a primarily Christian development. So again, the Greeks were imperfect
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 1: in the sense that they didn't have a worked-out, rational, selfish,
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 1: rational self-interest morality. But their whole culture was built around,
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 1: in a sense, self-interest or the pursuit of The Pursuit
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 1: of Excellence. And so you've got two. You've got Greece
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 1: and you've got the Enlightened. The Enlightened was tougher because
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 1: certainly in the background was altruism everywhere. Liam, Rand's ethical
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 1: theory is truly unique and takes altruism head on. But
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 1: philosophy will not take hold quickly. Absolutely. Absolutely. But it's
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 1: going to need to grow significantly if we want the
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 1: lights in the West to keep turning on. Well, we
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 1: need to grow significantly. Absolutely. I'm working on it. I
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: keep doing these shows. I keep going out there trying
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: to get engaging with the world. I have many students
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 1: working on it. Need help, guys. We need help. Sign
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 1: up for ARU. If you're young, you're ambitious, you want
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 1: any kind of intellectual career, sign up for ARU. become
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 1: part of our network. Michael, we've reached a point in
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 1: the matrix where a jury can't agree that a mother
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 1: killing her own children is a crime. Well, I mean,
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 1: there is legal theory to justify coming to that conclusion.
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: That is, we have a legal system that allows for
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 1: declaring somebody too insane to be responsible for their actions.
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 1: I doubt it's justified in this case. But I wouldn't
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: completely blame the jury. It's partially the judge's instructions and
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 1: the law, the way the law is faced today. Ryan,
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 1: half of Trump's MAGA base make below 50K a year.
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 1: Is that true? Trump is enriching himself and his family
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 1: at rates never before seen. I can't believe the base
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 1: is this stupid. Eventually the script has to flip Can
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 1: this go on forever? Well, it won't go on forever,
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 1: but it'll go on for another two years. They love him.
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 1: They truly love him. And the fact that he's making
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 1: money off of them, they don't seem to care. They
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 1: really don't. They're getting the value of seeing a guy
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 1: say the stuff that they once said, behave the way
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 1: they want people to behave. They're getting payment for it.
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 1: They voted for this. They voted for this. It shouldn't
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 1: be a surprise to anybody. This is what they want.
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 1: They want a strong man. They don't care about his corruption.
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 1: Just like the Russians don't care about... Putin might be
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 1: the richest man in the world. Or one of the.
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 1: He's certainly many times a billionaire. Producing what? Doing what? Stealing.
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 1: Stealing from the Russian people. Do they care? Doesn't seem
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 1: like it. Wes, $ 50 sticker. Thank you, Wes. Really, really,
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 1: really appreciate it. All right. We got a few questions.
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 1: Just a few questions left. All right. Rafael, this is
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 1: from yesterday. Raphael wrote, I see you got some really
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 1: positive comments on your art video. This is a video
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 1: I put up. You've probably seen it on my channel
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 1: of me talking about arts about, um, uh, and it
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 1: was inspired by Raphael was the guy who put it together.
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 1: He actually gave me the title and we, I did
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 1: the talk in, um, that he organized in Lisbon, uh,
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 1: a few weeks ago. So check it out if you
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 1: haven't seen it yet. Um, He says, I think it
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 1: ended up really, really great. Could we do more of
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 1: these next time? Yeah, absolutely. We can do more. I mean,
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 1: at some point I'll run out of things to say
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 1: about art, but we can test that out and keep
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 1: pushing and seeing. Michael says, where's the best place to
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 1: live in Orange County? Well, it depends. I mean, if
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 1: you can afford it, Laguna Beach is probably the best place.
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's pretty amazing. It's right on the ocean.
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 1: It's stunning. It's stunning. Laguna Beach. I lived in a
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 1: place called Corte de Casa, which was away from the ocean,
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 1: but just a gorgeous community. There's a lot. It depends
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 1: on your particular preferences. Orange County is a great, particularly
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 1: South Orange County, is a great place to live. Just
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 1: a great place to live. Michael, who is your big
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 1: debate in San Francisco? Steven Pinker? No. When is it?
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 1: It's not Steven Pinker. It's two right-wing anti-capitalists. It's November,
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 1: I think it's 14th. It's a Saturday. So it's that weekend.
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 1: So maybe the 13th or the 14th. I'm not sure
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 1: what the date is. But that's when it is. And
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 1: it's against, I think, two kind of right-wing anti-capitalists. Matt,
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: the psychology experts explain why we ought to be very
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 1: skeptical of a story about the kind of command hallucinations
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 1: she claimed to have had. Yeah, but so why is
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 1: the jury... I mean, there must have been other psychiatrists
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 1: who claimed something different. I don't know. Again, I didn't
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 1: follow all the testimony. Roland says, Volkswagen was founded in
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 1: 1937 by the German Labour Front, its name meaning the
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 1: people's car. not my kind of company.
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 1: I mean, and it was, it was endorsed by Hitler.
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 1: Hitler had a Volkswagen. There's a famous picture of him
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 1: riding in a Volkswagen convertible. Um, I get it. I,
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 1: you know, I can't blame the current shareholders and current
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 1: CEO or whatever, common workers for what happened in 1937. But, uh,
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 1: and it also owns Audi and I'm a big Audi fan.
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 1: I like Audi cars. So, um, I get it. I
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 1: wouldn't buy a Volkswagen for a variety of reasons. Thank you, guys.
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 1: Really appreciate it. I will see you all tomorrow where
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 1: we'll talk about Hassan Paika's critique of capitalism and my
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 1: response to it. You know, I hope you tune in.
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 1: And then on Sunday, it'll be me and Nikos talking
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 1: about bodybuilding. Maybe some bodybuilding. You know, we will talk about... Yeah,
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 1: we'll definitely get into the discussion of bodybuilding. All right, guys.
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 1: I will see you tomorrow. Bye, everybody. Have a good day.
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 1: Good night. Good weekend. Great weekend. Bye.