Latest / Normally / Normally Podcast: Immigration Reality Checks, Exit Tax Panic & the Collapse of Blue-State Economics

Transcript

Normally Podcast: Immigration Reality Checks, Exit Tax Panic & the Collapse of Blue-State Economics · Normally

0:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, back only to chill a little more.
0:10
Speaker 2: It's weird. I am Mary Cathern. I'm Karl Marco.
0:13
Speaker 1: It's how's it going, Mary Catherine?
0:14
Speaker 3: It's going all right.
0:17
Speaker 4: I took the kids on a the two littles on
0:19
Speaker 4: a preschool field trip this morning.
0:21
Speaker 3: So nice.
0:21
Speaker 1: Where'd they go?
0:22
Speaker 3: A little walk to the library, learn how to treat
0:25
Speaker 3: your books? Get a little too.
0:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's really cute.
0:30
Speaker 2: I missed the young the young years where you got
0:33
Speaker 2: to come along on field trips. They do not let
0:35
Speaker 2: you come along on field trips as they get older.
0:39
Speaker 4: Well, I have learned that having this, having this second
0:41
Speaker 4: set of kids as mine become tweens and pushed me
0:44
Speaker 4: away right and teens and whatnot. That on the way home,
0:48
Speaker 4: I played my littles free bird and taught them to
0:51
Speaker 4: say play some skinnered and yellow window, and they were
0:54
Speaker 4: really game for it, whereas my ten and twelve year
0:57
Speaker 4: old'll be like, what.
0:58
Speaker 2: Are you doing. I remember teaching that very important lesson
1:02
Speaker 2: to my children as well, and my husband who had
1:05
Speaker 2: never heard of it, like I was like, yeah, you
1:07
Speaker 2: have to scream out freebird at random shows that are
1:10
Speaker 2: not Leonard skinnerd so like sounds skinnerd.
1:15
Speaker 3: Yeah, my four year old, very convincing. She's got it
1:19
Speaker 3: in her soul.
1:20
Speaker 1: Good.
1:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really It's an important trait to have. So
1:25
Speaker 2: I'm going to Buck Sexton's having a book party tonight
1:28
Speaker 2: in South Florida. His book Manufacturing Delusion New York Times bestseller.
1:33
Speaker 1: It's really good. Like I can't tell you I finished it.
1:36
Speaker 2: I'm about halfway through, which for me is like a
1:39
Speaker 2: miracle because I never never get to read it.
1:42
Speaker 1: But it's really good. It's very, very well written.
1:45
Speaker 2: You can completely hear Buck in it, you know, like
1:47
Speaker 2: those political books you read and.
1:49
Speaker 1: You can't hear the author at all. It just sounds
1:51
Speaker 1: like AI. But before AI was.
1:54
Speaker 2: Really a thing, you could hear books like Turner phrases
1:59
Speaker 2: and just the way he speaks.
2:00
Speaker 1: It's excellent. Manufacturing Delusions. People very nice at it.
2:05
Speaker 3: Well, Manufacturing Delusion. I'm excited to check out that book.
2:10
Speaker 4: We have speaking of delusions manufacturing thereof we have some
2:16
Speaker 4: immigration check ins, because the thing about the immigration narrative
2:22
Speaker 4: is that if you don't check back on every story,
2:25
Speaker 4: you're going to miss some pretty major developments. Because there
2:28
Speaker 4: is a tendency of the press which is very like
2:31
Speaker 4: basically pro open borders to say that any pickup of any.
2:35
Speaker 3: Person is some huge violation.
2:38
Speaker 4: As you know, kilmar Abrego Garcia has like has like
2:41
Speaker 4: a year and a half of due process now going on,
2:44
Speaker 4: as did Mark Khalil and uh. In this update, we
2:51
Speaker 4: have appeals court orders judge to end contempt investigation of
2:56
Speaker 4: Trump administration deportation flights. So this is a year ago
3:00
Speaker 4: about when the Trump administration sent some Venezuelan immigrants migrants
3:05
Speaker 4: out of the country and they were illegally here and
3:09
Speaker 4: basically there was a fight over when they needed to
3:13
Speaker 4: come back because the judge Boasburg, who's a DC judge,
3:16
Speaker 4: decided that they needed to come back and whether the
3:19
Speaker 4: administration had violated a court order when they continued in
3:24
Speaker 4: flight out to wherever they sent them. Well this decision,
3:31
Speaker 4: he then decided to hold them in contempt and to
3:33
Speaker 4: do this criminal contempt investigation, and a higher court says
3:38
Speaker 4: the legal error at the heart of these criminal contempt
3:40
Speaker 4: proceedings demonstrates why further investigation by the district court is
3:43
Speaker 4: an abuse of discretion. One of the judges wrote, criminal
3:47
Speaker 4: contempt is available only for the violation of order. That
3:49
Speaker 4: is clear and specific Bosburg's March twenty twenty five order
3:53
Speaker 4: did not clearly and specifically bar the government from transferring
3:56
Speaker 4: plaintiffs into Salvador and custody. The ACLU value to continue
4:00
Speaker 4: fighting this.
4:02
Speaker 1: Just like the ACLUS on this huh.
4:04
Speaker 4: Just like they actively fought for all of us during COVID,
4:07
Speaker 4: remember I do remember.
4:08
Speaker 1: Very very well.
4:10
Speaker 4: Yeah, so that didn't work out for Bohsburg, as several.
4:14
Speaker 3: Of his orders have not, and it will go to
4:17
Speaker 3: a higher court again.
4:19
Speaker 2: So it's a bit of a white pill, as the
4:21
Speaker 2: kids say, because it's a three judge panel and they're
4:24
Speaker 2: in DC, this US Court of Appeals, you kind of
4:28
Speaker 2: don't think they're going to vote in the direction of
4:30
Speaker 2: Trump no matter what. And the fact that they did is, look,
4:34
Speaker 2: it's it's encouraging. It means that there are some judges
4:37
Speaker 2: out there that are not going to let their political
4:40
Speaker 2: opinions weigh their you know, decisions.
4:44
Speaker 1: So white white pill.
4:46
Speaker 3: I like it well.
4:47
Speaker 4: And also again I I am I want to be
4:50
Speaker 4: careful of violating people's civil rights.
4:53
Speaker 3: And also not every.
4:55
Speaker 4: Single illegal immigrants, oh yeah, needs an expedited to the top,
5:02
Speaker 4: super ridiculously thoroughs three year process before we can get
5:08
Speaker 4: them out of the country.
5:09
Speaker 3: That is not a workable situation. That doesn't make any sense.
5:13
Speaker 4: Frankly, many of the people who have gotten their cases
5:17
Speaker 4: heard way up high and quickly get better service in
5:21
Speaker 4: the US justice system than Americans do.
5:24
Speaker 1: Right, it's us that our system against us.
5:27
Speaker 2: Really, it's saying like, you have the system that we're
5:30
Speaker 2: going to completely jam up with these cases. And again,
5:35
Speaker 2: the idea that every person who entered illegally during during
5:38
Speaker 2: the Biden years should have their day in court is
5:41
Speaker 2: it's going to take, you know, decades, And that's entirely
5:44
Speaker 2: the point.
5:46
Speaker 4: By the way, the tell is that at the end
5:48
Speaker 4: of the line, like when Kilmar Alberto Garcia has had
5:51
Speaker 4: due process like every single kind you could possibly imagine,
5:54
Speaker 4: because he already had tons of process before they tried
5:57
Speaker 4: to get him out after another year of process, the
6:01
Speaker 4: people who want open borders are still like, no, you can't, Yeah,
6:04
Speaker 4: you can't.
6:06
Speaker 3: I feel like we can't.
6:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not it's actually not the due process that
6:09
Speaker 2: they have a problem with. It's the policy of not
6:12
Speaker 2: having open borders. And it always bothered me so much
6:15
Speaker 2: and it continues to bother me that Democrats largely agree
6:19
Speaker 2: with open borders, but could never ever run on it,
6:22
Speaker 2: and so they do it this way. It's like have
6:26
Speaker 2: some you know, I'm not going to say, you know
6:28
Speaker 2: the male anatomy, but.
6:31
Speaker 1: Run on what you actually believe.
6:33
Speaker 2: It just always seems like Democrats run to their right
6:37
Speaker 2: and Republicans also run to their right, and everybody governs
6:40
Speaker 2: to the left.
6:41
Speaker 3: Yes, it's annoying. Another great update. Do you remember the
6:46
Speaker 3: story about an Illinois woman who claims she was detained.
6:49
Speaker 4: By ice for three hours and she's a She's a
6:53
Speaker 4: US citizen, So we were like, Okay, I'm listening.
6:57
Speaker 1: Happen.
6:58
Speaker 4: Yeah, Well, an Illinois woman who claims she was detained
7:02
Speaker 4: by Ice for nearly two days was actually relaxing at
7:04
Speaker 4: a hotel getting SPA treatments, according to a one million
7:07
Speaker 4: dollar defamation suit filed by a county sheriff. US citizen
7:11
Speaker 4: Sunny Knakvie twenty eight, gained national attention last month when
7:14
Speaker 4: she and a band of supporters, including Cook County Illinois
7:17
Speaker 4: Commissioner Kevin Morrison, publicly insisted she was unlawfully detained by
7:21
Speaker 4: Ice officers for roughly forty three hours. But no, it
7:25
Speaker 4: turns out they have a surveillance of her in a hotel, but.
7:32
Speaker 2: That they had to go through all of this to
7:33
Speaker 2: prove that this woman was lying and trying to say
7:37
Speaker 2: that ICE is detaining American citizens. I remember the story
7:40
Speaker 2: so well because I remember all the people on my
7:41
Speaker 2: Facebook feed who fell for it. And look, they're detaining
7:44
Speaker 2: American citizens now, and I have like, you know, acquaintances
7:47
Speaker 2: and friends who are like, I travel with the passport
7:50
Speaker 2: now because of this kind of thing, and it's like,
7:53
Speaker 2: you really don't have to actually, so.
7:55
Speaker 4: Yes, mss Knockfee departed CBP within ninety minutes of her
7:58
Speaker 4: arrival in the United States. D just wrote at the time,
8:02
Speaker 4: and it looks like there is evidence that she checked
8:05
Speaker 4: into the Hampton Inn in sweets in Rosemont, Illinois.
8:08
Speaker 2: I mean, you can do a little better over the
8:11
Speaker 2: SPA if you're already faking being detained.
8:15
Speaker 1: I don't know that I would go to a Hampton din. Yeah,
8:19
Speaker 1: but all right, all right, you know.
8:22
Speaker 2: You and I can definitely pick a different spot to
8:25
Speaker 2: pretend to have, you know, been detained too.
8:28
Speaker 4: Yes, they also obtained texts from her to someone else,
8:31
Speaker 4: so she may have been spying not at the hotel,
8:33
Speaker 4: because I agree with you Hampton and see a weird choice.
8:36
Speaker 3: May I use your card to order some food?
8:38
Speaker 4: She asked someone during these forty three hours going to
8:41
Speaker 4: check out the gym. In like five, she texts someone,
8:44
Speaker 4: may I use your card to pay my spa lady?
8:47
Speaker 4: These are all during the period in which she's supposed
8:50
Speaker 4: to be detained.
8:51
Speaker 3: Apparently, you know.
8:52
Speaker 2: With all the crime documentaries, people still don't know how
8:56
Speaker 2: to really commit crimes. They just put everything in a text.
9:02
Speaker 4: The whole thing where you shouldn't put these things in
9:04
Speaker 4: writing has escaped two generations of America.
9:07
Speaker 2: Baffling because you feel like they should know by now,
9:10
Speaker 2: but they still don't.
9:12
Speaker 3: They just don't. Right, She's a twenty eight year old woman.
9:14
Speaker 4: You know she watches True Crime girl god right, And yeah,
9:19
Speaker 4: she's wearing the same clothes in the the reunification photos
9:23
Speaker 4: that went public as she is in the hotel wandering
9:26
Speaker 4: around seemingly not being detained. So look, ma'am, it's just
9:30
Speaker 4: always worth checking in on these things. I have another
9:32
Speaker 4: update by the way from Fairfax County where if you'll remember,
9:35
Speaker 4: an adult if you guys have I can't remember, we've
9:37
Speaker 4: addressed this in the show, But an adult illegal immigrant
9:41
Speaker 4: who has enrolled in Fairfax County schools. At a high school,
9:44
Speaker 4: had been accused by some I believe about a dozen
9:47
Speaker 4: female students of groping them in pretty serious ways in
9:51
Speaker 4: the hallways. And of course in Fairfax County because we
9:55
Speaker 4: have a Soros funded lefty prosecutor, Steve Discano, who doesn't
9:59
Speaker 4: like to prosecute people, particularly illegal immigrants, because they might
10:02
Speaker 4: face deportation and ice consequences for that. They of course,
10:07
Speaker 4: uh like, didn't really try to get him in trouble,
10:11
Speaker 4: downgraded his accusations or charges, and then he's going to
10:16
Speaker 4: be like just doing his thing again.
10:19
Speaker 1: That's horrific.
10:21
Speaker 3: Actually, this is the place that you pay all your
10:25
Speaker 3: tax money for.
10:26
Speaker 2: If you break the law to come here and then
10:28
Speaker 2: you break some more laws, you're treated better than somebody
10:31
Speaker 2: who's from here.
10:32
Speaker 4: That's and the local reporter Nick Manok also dug up
10:36
Speaker 4: on Discano's website an explicit expression of that. He said
10:41
Speaker 4: on the on the site he since wiped it clean.
10:44
Speaker 4: He said on the site, it is not a fair
10:46
Speaker 4: adjudication in our justice system if someone faces more consequences
10:52
Speaker 4: due to their crime that they committed the other crime
10:56
Speaker 4: they committed and therefore because of that, he cuts back
10:59
Speaker 4: on the the punishing of the crime.
11:02
Speaker 2: You know, I'm not going to say it every episode,
11:04
Speaker 2: but if you wanted to move to Florida, we are
11:08
Speaker 2: here for you, Mary Catherine keeps happening. You know who
11:15
Speaker 2: else is really good at following up on the stories
11:17
Speaker 2: is Bill Malugin. I just I think he deserves all
11:20
Speaker 2: the shout outs. He's always on top of these stories.
11:22
Speaker 2: He's never letting them just slide, and he's always like,
11:25
Speaker 2: remember this big story, this is how it turned out.
11:28
Speaker 1: I think he's just excellent.
11:30
Speaker 4: Yes, he does a great job. He and Griftenkins were
11:33
Speaker 4: all over the Biden era and they have continued to
11:35
Speaker 4: follow us. They know exactly how these things happen and
11:39
Speaker 4: what the really bad stories look like.
11:42
Speaker 3: And by the way, I saw this stat the other day.
11:44
Speaker 4: This was from Cato, so they were reporting it as
11:47
Speaker 4: a negative, but it's the number of asylum seekers coming
11:50
Speaker 4: to the border because of the policy which has changed
11:55
Speaker 4: from literally anyone ye, yeah, from some more restrictive come
12:00
Speaker 4: on into don't like yeah, that number is way way down,
12:04
Speaker 4: which again I am somebody in the past who would
12:07
Speaker 4: have been like, yes, asylum seekers, I want to be
12:10
Speaker 4: able to take them.
12:11
Speaker 3: But when you abuse the asylum system as Biden did,
12:14
Speaker 3: to make it into anyone and everyone, I then become
12:17
Speaker 3: much more skeptical and say, hey, as Trump might say,
12:21
Speaker 3: let's stop while we figure out what the hell is
12:23
Speaker 3: going on.
12:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you should have a process. It's really not
12:28
Speaker 2: that complicated. I you know, I was that asylum seeker.
12:32
Speaker 2: There was a process in place, we had to do
12:34
Speaker 2: certain things. I mean, I don't think that's a crazy
12:36
Speaker 2: thing to ask for. And the thing is that that position,
12:39
Speaker 2: our position, where you know, asylum seekers should be able
12:42
Speaker 2: to apply for, you know, to be refugees in the
12:46
Speaker 2: United States, that's such an unpopular position now because of
12:49
Speaker 2: the last few years of ahem, Americans are over it,
12:52
Speaker 2: and it's unfortunate people who believe in legal migration.
12:56
Speaker 4: You abuse the system and people lose trust in the system,
12:58
Speaker 4: and then you get backlash against the things you want.
13:00
Speaker 1: I feel like we've seen this somewhere before. Indeed, all right,
13:04
Speaker 1: we're going.
13:04
Speaker 2: To take a short break and be right back with
13:06
Speaker 2: more on normally. We are back on normally, where a
13:14
Speaker 2: growing number of blue states are trying to charge wealth
13:19
Speaker 2: exit taxes, and it's really mind boggling, because again, I
13:23
Speaker 2: think we've seen this somewhere before. The whole putting up
13:27
Speaker 2: a wall so people can't leave. It feels very familiar. Actually,
13:32
Speaker 2: California has this Billionaire Tax Act that is potentially going
13:36
Speaker 2: to be on the ballot. We've talked about this one
13:38
Speaker 2: before because it's such a crazy tax. It would be
13:42
Speaker 2: a retroactive five percent tax on your total net worth,
13:45
Speaker 2: not on your income, on your total net worth, so
13:47
Speaker 2: it could be your house is your total net worth,
13:50
Speaker 2: it could be anything, and you would have to pay
13:52
Speaker 2: five percent of that. Some people wouldn't have the money
13:54
Speaker 2: to pay that because their money is in other things.
13:57
Speaker 1: So a lot of billionaires.
13:58
Speaker 2: Are making their way to the exit. California has lost
14:01
Speaker 2: a couple of really big name billionaires like Sir Gabrinn
14:05
Speaker 2: and some other ones. And the thing is that they
14:08
Speaker 2: don't even know if this is going to get on
14:10
Speaker 2: the ballot, and then if it does get on the ballot,
14:12
Speaker 2: they don't know that the governor is not going to
14:13
Speaker 2: veto But as we've talked about on the show, these
14:16
Speaker 2: people don't trust their fellow voters not to get it
14:20
Speaker 2: on the ballot, and they don't trust their politicians not
14:22
Speaker 2: to enact it.
14:23
Speaker 1: So they're leaving.
14:25
Speaker 2: Multimillionaires are leaving two because they understand what's going to happen.
14:28
Speaker 2: As soon as the billionaires are out the door, who's
14:30
Speaker 2: five percent are they going to try to take? It's
14:31
Speaker 2: going to be the next tax bracket down now. Washington
14:36
Speaker 2: State they passed a nine point nine percent tax on
14:39
Speaker 2: incomes over a million dollars, and they're now saying that
14:44
Speaker 2: maybe they're going to have this kind of wealth exit tax.
14:48
Speaker 2: And it happens, you know, happens right around the time
14:51
Speaker 2: that Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, he had an estimated net
14:54
Speaker 2: worth of over three billion dollars, he announced his move
14:58
Speaker 2: to Florida, which lot of these guys are doing. And
15:01
Speaker 2: I'm always here to say, please vote correctly when you
15:04
Speaker 2: get here. You did this to your own state, and
15:07
Speaker 2: maybe don't do this to our state.
15:10
Speaker 4: Yeah, to your point, Carol, if you are needing to
15:13
Speaker 4: economically checkpoint Charlie, your people and not let them escape
15:19
Speaker 4: the burning economic situation you have created, there's something wrong.
15:25
Speaker 4: You should look at yourself. You should look at your policies.
15:27
Speaker 4: You should not look at the people who are leaving
15:30
Speaker 4: and blame them. And this is this seems to be
15:32
Speaker 4: a frequent left wing contention, is like, there can't possibly
15:37
Speaker 4: be anything wrong with what we're doing.
15:39
Speaker 3: Right, Like on the date when I someday.
15:41
Speaker 4: Moved to Florida, no one in northern Virginia will be like,
15:45
Speaker 4: did we get it wrong?
15:50
Speaker 3: No one thinks that.
15:51
Speaker 4: They think, how can we get them on the way
15:53
Speaker 4: out if they're going to leave? And the thing that's
15:56
Speaker 4: so funny to me is that, as we mentioned before,
15:59
Speaker 4: HOC in particular in New York treated these people and
16:03
Speaker 4: treats them while they live there. Yeah, it's such open contempt.
16:08
Speaker 4: And then you're surprised when they want to leave. And
16:11
Speaker 4: then as they're leaving, you remind them, yes, we hate
16:15
Speaker 4: you and we want your stuff.
16:17
Speaker 2: But once you've left, she's like, you owe it to
16:20
Speaker 2: us to come back, and everyone's like, I'm never coming back.
16:23
Speaker 2: What are you even talking about. I don't understand how
16:25
Speaker 2: any of this is constitutional.
16:27
Speaker 1: I don't get it. I'm not a lawyer.
16:29
Speaker 2: Therefore, I only understand the big picture of it that
16:34
Speaker 2: taking somebody's percentage of their net worth in general, I
16:38
Speaker 2: don't understand how that's constitutional because it's not realized gains.
16:42
Speaker 2: It's already been taxed when it was your income. I
16:46
Speaker 2: just don't get that at all. But then also confiscating
16:50
Speaker 2: money from people who want to move interstate just makes
16:54
Speaker 2: no sense to me.
16:55
Speaker 4: It's like an estate tax, except you haven't died. You're
16:58
Speaker 4: just going right for state. And the estate tax also
17:01
Speaker 4: is unfair because all of that income has been taxed
17:03
Speaker 4: as well before you die. But again, getting you on
17:08
Speaker 4: the way out, it's just you know, the way out
17:09
Speaker 4: the mortal coil versus the way out of the state.
17:13
Speaker 4: But I just at some point, can't people see how
17:17
Speaker 4: much their governments hate them. I like, in a I
17:22
Speaker 4: experienced this during COVID, where it was just like, wow,
17:27
Speaker 4: this school board really is not just not helping parents,
17:32
Speaker 4: is actively opposed to parents.
17:37
Speaker 3: They dislike us, they don't want.
17:40
Speaker 4: To have anything to do with us, and in fact,
17:43
Speaker 4: we'll just like our children delivered unto them.
17:46
Speaker 3: For the indoctrination. I mean, it's just like, yeah, okay, so.
17:50
Speaker 2: It's I mean, to get no services for what you're
17:54
Speaker 2: getting is you know, it is an added bonus of that.
17:57
Speaker 2: The other thing is that, of course these people who
18:00
Speaker 2: are leaving, they don't just leave, they take their companies
18:03
Speaker 2: with them, So you're not just losing one rich guy,
18:07
Speaker 2: You're potentially losing much more. In an article about Howard
18:10
Speaker 2: Schultz leaving for Florida, they say that he is moving
18:14
Speaker 2: his entire company out of state.
18:16
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's truths.
18:18
Speaker 2: I've only seen it in this one news piece, but
18:21
Speaker 2: you know that easily could be true. Other high profile
18:24
Speaker 2: companies relocating Exit Mobile apparently moving from New Jersey to Texas,
18:29
Speaker 2: Uber from California, also in Texas, Yamaha Motor from California
18:33
Speaker 2: to Georgia, and then JP Morgan CEO. I mean, they
18:36
Speaker 2: haven't moved yet, but he keeps taking shots at New
18:39
Speaker 2: York and being like.
18:40
Speaker 1: We could move, because you definitely could. He made the comment.
18:45
Speaker 2: The truth is that while New York City has much
18:47
Speaker 2: going for it, particularly for financial companies because of extraordinary talent,
18:51
Speaker 2: it also has the highest city in state corporate taxes
18:54
Speaker 2: and the highest individual income and state taxes.
18:57
Speaker 1: It's doable to move a financial firm. People are doing it.
19:01
Speaker 2: I mean, wes Palm is becoming a financial hub in Florida.
19:07
Speaker 1: These states are really going to lose out.
19:09
Speaker 2: And again, for me, I'm welcoming to all these companies
19:13
Speaker 2: that are coming, But understand why you left.
19:16
Speaker 1: You did not leave because they got to left. They
19:20
Speaker 1: were that the whole time. They just had no power.
19:23
Speaker 1: So make your decisions, vote correctly. Don't do here what
19:28
Speaker 1: you did there.
19:29
Speaker 3: Because eventually there will be nowhere to escape to. That's
19:33
Speaker 3: really the issue.
19:34
Speaker 4: But I do, I think, and when every time I'm
19:36
Speaker 4: Nannie talks about it, you can tell there is this
19:39
Speaker 4: cognitive dissonance where they know they need the money from
19:42
Speaker 4: these icky billionaires and millionaires, so like, I know I
19:45
Speaker 4: need your money, right, But somehow in their heads that
19:49
Speaker 4: money simply is and was stolen from someone else or
19:54
Speaker 4: ill gotten in some way. Look, all companies have some
19:56
Speaker 4: sort of ethical laps at some point. I'm not arguing
19:59
Speaker 4: that they're.
19:59
Speaker 3: Perfect, but this money isn't ill gotten.
20:02
Speaker 5: Right.
20:02
Speaker 4: Bezos has a bunch of money because he gives a
20:06
Speaker 4: bunch of services to a bunch of people. And I
20:07
Speaker 4: would wager that everyone who complains about him has in
20:10
Speaker 4: the last three days got something from him.
20:12
Speaker 3: Right.
20:12
Speaker 4: That's right, revolutionized the way you live your life and
20:15
Speaker 4: can get products at your home. So that's why he
20:18
Speaker 4: has that money. To Mom Donnie, who grew up with
20:21
Speaker 4: wels from his parents and doesn't really think about how
20:24
Speaker 4: it takes risks and smarts and real bravery to create
20:30
Speaker 4: these things. He just thinks it's there, it's there, and
20:33
Speaker 4: now it's ours. It's there and now it's ours, just
20:36
Speaker 4: like mommy's money was. And that's not how it works. Yeah,
20:38
Speaker 4: but the whole step.
20:40
Speaker 2: Yeah. He actually talked about Margaret Thatcher when talking about
20:43
Speaker 2: his new city run grocery store that's going to cost
20:46
Speaker 2: like ten times the amount of any other grocery store.
20:48
Speaker 2: And it's interesting because you know, Margaret Thatcher was the
20:51
Speaker 2: daughter of a grocer.
20:52
Speaker 1: He's talking about.
20:53
Speaker 2: Somebody who actually understands the problems and how to solve them.
20:57
Speaker 2: And he said something like, you know, it takes to
21:00
Speaker 2: socialists to clean up the problems.
21:02
Speaker 1: It's like, I know, I've seen that happen.
21:04
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's actually never But okay, if you say away,
21:08
Speaker 5: if at some point he can stand up and say, look,
21:12
Speaker 5: this bag of Royce costs less at this grocery store
21:15
Speaker 5: than at this government grocery store than.
21:17
Speaker 3: The capitalist one. Let me just inform you that.
21:20
Speaker 4: That government grocery store doesn't have to pay rent. There's
21:25
Speaker 4: a huge part of its operating costs.
21:27
Speaker 3: The good guy us.
21:30
Speaker 1: And it's gonna cost thirty million dollars for one grocery store.
21:33
Speaker 2: Everyone who's ever lived in New York is like, how
21:37
Speaker 2: is that even possible? It's you can buy a grocery
21:39
Speaker 2: store for like five million. What's happening here? James Morrow,
21:43
Speaker 2: he's an excellent guy at the Daily Telegraph. He commented
21:48
Speaker 2: about that years from now there'll be an iconic photograph
21:51
Speaker 2: of mom Donnie visiting a supermarket in the American heartland
21:54
Speaker 2: being stunned by the selection of goods.
21:57
Speaker 3: It's very funny.
22:01
Speaker 1: I kind of can't get enough of these. Jesse.
22:02
Speaker 2: Kelly is like, I'm legit so excited to watch this
22:05
Speaker 2: whole predictable story play out. It's like watching Old Yeller
22:08
Speaker 2: for the twentieth time. You know what's coming, but you're
22:10
Speaker 2: still watching.
22:13
Speaker 4: Oh, by the way, free buses, we're informed will not
22:15
Speaker 4: happen this year, just way. My friend, my friend Kelly
22:18
Speaker 4: and I always say the problem with the Invisible Hand
22:20
Speaker 4: is that it's simply too invisible because all these idiot
22:23
Speaker 4: left us.
22:24
Speaker 3: You're like, I've got an idea. Can we orchestrate away
22:28
Speaker 3: to get a bunch of products into one store that
22:31
Speaker 3: everyone needs and have like the right amounts and price
22:34
Speaker 3: them at the right point.
22:35
Speaker 4: It's like, yes, we have a system for that. Capitalism
22:39
Speaker 4: does it almost magically over here, and you're going to
22:42
Speaker 4: try to do it with your dumb brain and it's
22:44
Speaker 4: not gonna work.
22:45
Speaker 1: It's not gonna work.
22:46
Speaker 2: I was actually thinking about this, like, there's a lot
22:48
Speaker 2: of issues that I would care if my kids were
22:50
Speaker 2: on the opposite side of me about, but the one
22:53
Speaker 2: that really would bug me would be if they were
22:55
Speaker 2: anti capitalists, because it would show that, like our whole
23:00
Speaker 2: education was for not Like again, I wouldn't love if
23:04
Speaker 2: they opposed other things that I care about, but that being.
23:07
Speaker 1: Anti capitalists would be like, oh, you're stupid. That would
23:11
Speaker 1: be hard to And not.
23:14
Speaker 4: That I should show too much sympathy for those who
23:16
Speaker 4: don't understand capitalism while living at the benefit of it
23:19
Speaker 4: at every second of their lives. But I am shocked
23:22
Speaker 4: by how little emphasis is given in our society, in education,
23:27
Speaker 4: particularly for young people, about any of this, just the
23:30
Speaker 4: underpinning of literally everything we have, and people are like, oh, no,
23:35
Speaker 4: I've never thought about how velveta ends up on the shelf. Well,
23:38
Speaker 4: you should think about that, and I will I will
23:40
Speaker 4: recommend once again both the TV show and the books,
23:43
Speaker 4: the Tuttle Twins books because my kids run through them
23:46
Speaker 4: and they have learned very important concepts, and I try
23:49
Speaker 4: to teach them as we're out shopping when they have
23:52
Speaker 4: questions about why things have prices on Aha.
23:55
Speaker 3: Prices a signal children, let me tell you about it.
23:59
Speaker 1: Another good one is eye Pencil.
24:01
Speaker 2: It's like you can watch a short video about how
24:03
Speaker 2: the pencil is made and how many different people are
24:06
Speaker 2: involved in it and why the government couldn't do it.
24:09
Speaker 3: Yeah, shut out Milton Friedman.
24:12
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Milton.
24:13
Speaker 4: I'd love his old famous series Is It Free to Choose?
24:18
Speaker 4: I believe starts with eye Pencil, which is a really
24:21
Speaker 4: helpful and very simple way to understand, which you would
24:24
Speaker 4: think all of these ivy league educated people would have heard.
24:28
Speaker 4: They can't just magically recreate what capitalism creates.
24:31
Speaker 2: They try it every time, they keep just trying it.
24:35
Speaker 3: Side like old Yeller.
24:38
Speaker 1: We're going to take a short break and be right
24:40
Speaker 1: back with more on Normally.
24:45
Speaker 4: All right, guys, We're back on Normally with some fertility
24:48
Speaker 4: talk again, because we like kids and we like families,
24:51
Speaker 4: and we want a lot of them, and that somebody
24:55
Speaker 4: flagged for me the Institute of Family Studies, who I
24:58
Speaker 4: follow and get a lot of interesting information from, but
25:02
Speaker 4: they flagged Bethany Mandel column that noted their research on
25:06
Speaker 4: the gap and childbearing between liberals and conservatives has grown
25:09
Speaker 4: dramatically over the past several decades, to the point where
25:11
Speaker 4: it now represents one of the most striking demographic divides
25:15
Speaker 4: in the country. And these divergence in like red state
25:20
Speaker 4: kids versus Blue state kids, or ideological parents having more
25:25
Speaker 4: kids than blue.
25:26
Speaker 3: Is quite astonishing.
25:27
Speaker 4: I mean that blue line just going down, down, down,
25:31
Speaker 4: and the red line either steady or quite a bit
25:35
Speaker 4: up in some cases.
25:36
Speaker 1: Right.
25:37
Speaker 2: And the question becomes do conservatives have more children because
25:41
Speaker 2: they're conservative or do you become conservative when you have children.
25:46
Speaker 1: It's sort of the line of like which right. But
25:51
Speaker 1: also there was this thing, do you remember, the row effect.
25:54
Speaker 1: James Toronto coined it in the early two.
25:56
Speaker 2: Thousands, about how it was liberal women have abortions at
26:01
Speaker 2: a much higher rate than conservative women, and he was like,
26:04
Speaker 2: they're going to have kids that also lean conservative, So
26:09
Speaker 2: you know, it doesn't always work out that way, but
26:10
Speaker 2: it's it's the trend line, right, a liberal parent will
26:13
Speaker 2: have liberal children, a conservative parent will have conservative children.
26:17
Speaker 2: And you could see it in you know, happening in
26:19
Speaker 2: action twenty years or so later.
26:22
Speaker 3: Well, I think a lack of children.
26:24
Speaker 4: So if you grow up in a liberal area where
26:26
Speaker 4: everyone has one or two kids, right, it's gonna seem very.
26:30
Speaker 3: Outside the norm.
26:31
Speaker 4: For someone to have even three or four, four would
26:33
Speaker 4: be crazy. We re look at us around here like
26:35
Speaker 4: we're crazy.
26:37
Speaker 3: But because of that.
26:38
Speaker 4: It's a it's a reinforcing cycle because the fewer kids
26:43
Speaker 4: that are around, the less comfortable you are doing more
26:46
Speaker 4: with your kids, because people are less used to having
26:49
Speaker 4: kids around, and then it becomes harder to be a parent,
26:51
Speaker 4: which means you don't want to be a parent. Four
26:53
Speaker 4: times over, it's it really reinforces itself. This is something
26:57
Speaker 4: that you know, I think companies Disney and the past
27:00
Speaker 4: has dealt with a bunch of adult patrons at Disney parks,
27:05
Speaker 4: and they want adult patrons, but they also are trying
27:08
Speaker 4: to be careful of the fact that if you diminish
27:11
Speaker 4: the number of kids, the number of families will go
27:13
Speaker 4: down because you were kids equals less easy to have
27:17
Speaker 4: kids in that space, right, right, And so I think
27:19
Speaker 4: that happens in communities, and Conservatives surround themselves often by
27:25
Speaker 4: communities and people who have more kids, who make it
27:28
Speaker 4: easier to have more kids around.
27:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, you could see it in Europe, you know the
27:32
Speaker 2: fact that hotel rooms are really not designed for you
27:34
Speaker 2: to come there with kids or everything there is not
27:38
Speaker 2: really designed for you to have more than one child.
27:41
Speaker 1: You can also see it.
27:41
Speaker 2: You know, there's a story right now Hampshire College is
27:45
Speaker 2: closing its doors. Hampshire is like I actually visited it
27:49
Speaker 2: when I was touring colleges.
27:50
Speaker 1: It's at the super hippie school in.
27:53
Speaker 2: Rural Massachusetts, and it was I mean, it looked like
27:56
Speaker 2: the nineteen sixties, even in the nineteen nineties.
27:59
Speaker 1: Super super liberal school, no grades.
28:01
Speaker 2: I mean it's you know, it's that kind of school.
28:03
Speaker 2: And it's like nobody's talking about the fact that could
28:06
Speaker 2: it be that there just aren't enough liberal kids to
28:10
Speaker 2: go there anymore because the birth rate has fallen so far,
28:13
Speaker 2: and no conservative is like pushing their kids to go
28:16
Speaker 2: to Hampshire.
28:17
Speaker 1: So the readings themselves out of things that they like well.
28:22
Speaker 4: And I've seen people writing on x sad about how
28:28
Speaker 4: their kids don't have cousins because only one of the
28:31
Speaker 4: kids in a family of two or three ended up
28:34
Speaker 4: having kids, and so every family function you go to
28:37
Speaker 4: ends up being harder because you're.
28:39
Speaker 3: The only one with young kids.
28:41
Speaker 4: You don't have that passle of cousins, which I'm very
28:43
Speaker 4: thankful that we have for our kids to run around with.
28:47
Speaker 4: And the thing that's challenging about this is that many
28:50
Speaker 4: European countries have implemented many, many government programs to make
28:53
Speaker 4: it quote easier to have more kids, and the fact
28:57
Speaker 4: is that a lot of the programs and the subsidies
28:59
Speaker 4: don't do the trick. Bethany has a great line, which
29:02
Speaker 4: is if there's a if there's a path forward, it
29:05
Speaker 4: begins with recognizing that the fertility crisis is not just
29:08
Speaker 4: about what people can afford, but about what they believe
29:11
Speaker 4: is worth doing. And that's that's the part where I
29:15
Speaker 4: try to help, because like I'm I try to be
29:17
Speaker 4: a pr campaign for like this same on I'm.
29:20
Speaker 3: Enjoying myself best.
29:21
Speaker 1: Actually it's so good.
29:24
Speaker 2: Do you remember there was a thing in Spain gave
29:27
Speaker 2: men extended paternity leaves to increase their birth rate, and
29:31
Speaker 2: it had the opposite effect because men were like.
29:33
Speaker 1: This is really hard.
29:34
Speaker 2: I go back to work to work, which listen, there's
29:39
Speaker 2: also a difference between men and women. You know, men
29:42
Speaker 2: having an extended paternity leave. It's not the same as
29:44
Speaker 2: a woman having excited maternity leave.
29:47
Speaker 3: It is true, but yeah, worth doing.
29:50
Speaker 4: I think that's the that's the thing is that you
29:52
Speaker 4: and again, I think during COVID and I learned how
29:56
Speaker 4: valuable cultural norms like going to restaurants that are open,
30:02
Speaker 4: that's important, going that are open like that, those.
30:06
Speaker 3: Are important things.
30:07
Speaker 4: To movie theaters and everybody kind of thought you could
30:10
Speaker 4: pull the plug and just plug everything back in. But
30:13
Speaker 4: if you lose a habit, that's hard to get back,
30:17
Speaker 4: and if the habit is procreation, that's gonna be pretty
30:20
Speaker 4: bad for your society.
30:22
Speaker 1: Yeah.
30:22
Speaker 2: So if only somebody had known, Yeah, I feel like
30:26
Speaker 2: we're somebody had said something.
30:31
Speaker 1: That's right. Up, more babies.
30:34
Speaker 3: We will applaud you all the.
30:35
Speaker 4: Way and pray for you if you're not there yet,
30:38
Speaker 4: because those who want to, I want them to.
30:40
Speaker 3: Be able to.
30:41
Speaker 1: Absolutely.
30:42
Speaker 2: Thanks for joining us on normally normally airs Tuesdays and Thursdays,
30:46
Speaker 2: and you could subscribe.
30:47
Speaker 1: Anywhere you get your podcast.
30:48
Speaker 2: Get in touch with us at normallythepod at gmail dot com.
30:52
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening and when things get weird, act normally