Latest / Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar / 8/18/26: Tariff Refunds Boost Corporations, MAGA Sheriffs Revolt On Border Wall, Screens Ruining Education

Transcript

8/18/26: Tariff Refunds Boost Corporations, MAGA Sheriffs Revolt On Border Wall, Screens Ruining Education · Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar

0:00
Speaker 1: Hey, guys, Saga and Crystal here.
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0:33
Speaker 2: Everybody here remember a Liberation Day and Trump randomly announced
0:38
Speaker 2: this whole chart of tariffs that we're going to be
0:40
Speaker 2: charged on, including some island that only had penguins on
0:42
Speaker 2: and it was the whole thing was ultimately struck down
0:45
Speaker 2: by the Supreme Court. And so now all of the
0:48
Speaker 2: companies that pay those tariffs are coming to the government
0:51
Speaker 2: at hand saying, hey, pay us back to put this
0:54
Speaker 2: up on the screen wall. Street Journal reports that tariff
0:57
Speaker 2: refunds are here and they are turbo charging earning earnings Apple, Nike,
1:02
Speaker 2: and FedEx. Are just a few companies recovering big sums
1:05
Speaker 2: relatively quickly. Some are passing at least a share on
1:10
Speaker 2: to customers. Well that's rather interesting, isn't it. So we've
1:12
Speaker 2: got billions of dollars that are changing hands here. Apple
1:15
Speaker 2: alone is getting two point two billion dollar tariff refund,
1:18
Speaker 2: Nike is getting nine hundred eighty six million FedEx, about
1:22
Speaker 2: eight hundred million, Amazon six hundred and forty million, GM
1:25
Speaker 2: five hundred million. Have you received any tariff refunds for
1:30
Speaker 2: the additional prices that you paid, because, of course, the
1:33
Speaker 2: way this worked is yes, the companies paid the tariffs,
1:35
Speaker 2: they then passed on much of them. There's been a
1:37
Speaker 2: lot of analysis of this. Much of that price Sike
1:40
Speaker 2: went straight to you, the consumer. So you do have
1:44
Speaker 2: a handful of companies that are saying that they're going
1:46
Speaker 2: to provide their customers with refunds. Most of them are
1:49
Speaker 2: not consumer facing companies. They're companies that sell to other businesses,
1:53
Speaker 2: or it'll be the businesses that get those refunds.
1:56
Speaker 4: Down the line.
1:57
Speaker 2: But meanwhile, this is really hadding quarterly earnings for these
2:02
Speaker 2: large businesses, so as if they weren't already reaching record
2:06
Speaker 2: profits in many instances, they're getting even more profitable, profitable
2:10
Speaker 2: because of this whole tariff situation.
2:12
Speaker 4: Apple said it's.
2:13
Speaker 2: Tariff refunds contributed eleven cents to per share earnings in
2:17
Speaker 2: the most recent quarter. That's about five percent of the
2:19
Speaker 2: quarter's total. Ge Healthcare Tech said tariff refunds had contributed
2:24
Speaker 2: eighteen cents of their dollar twenty four share it reported
2:27
Speaker 2: in earnings for the quarter end of June thirtieth. Companies
2:29
Speaker 2: said it had received one hundred and seven million in
2:32
Speaker 2: refunds and expected thirty eight million more. So got to
2:36
Speaker 2: love the way that just once again consumers left here
2:39
Speaker 2: holding the bag for all of this.
2:41
Speaker 3: Right, and by the way, the thing is, have you
2:44
Speaker 3: ever needed money from the government. It's right like, if
2:47
Speaker 3: you ever overpay your taxes, they.
2:49
Speaker 1: Owe you some money. I think I once waited ten months.
2:53
Speaker 3: This was rolled out in a matter of months to
2:56
Speaker 3: get as much cash from the government's hands back into
3:00
Speaker 3: the S and P five hundred fortune five hundred companies
3:02
Speaker 3: as quickly as humanly possible. It's kind of like when
3:05
Speaker 3: you pay your taxes, they take that money the day
3:07
Speaker 3: that you submit it. But if you ever need anything back,
3:10
Speaker 3: good luck to you, and it's amazing that whenever it's
3:12
Speaker 3: a big company and they need a bunch of money,
3:15
Speaker 3: they get it instantaneously. The top line is that forty
3:18
Speaker 3: s and p five hundred companies have reported nine point
3:20
Speaker 3: six billion in terra free funds over ten billion dollars.
3:24
Speaker 3: By the way, that's not even the most amount that
3:27
Speaker 3: is left to be doled out. As of now, one
3:30
Speaker 3: hundred and twenty eight billion in refunds being processed and
3:34
Speaker 3: a total of one hundred and sixty six billion in
3:37
Speaker 3: tariffs have been invalidated under the IEPA Emergence International Emergency
3:42
Speaker 3: Economic Powers Act, So there's still billions more dollars that
3:45
Speaker 3: are left to flow into the economy. Almost none of
3:49
Speaker 3: that is coming back. What's even crazier is how it
3:52
Speaker 3: shows that these companies, it's all financial engineering. It's all
3:55
Speaker 3: literally based on a tari free fund that they're boosting
3:57
Speaker 3: in terms of their bottom line, and we're getting nothing
4:00
Speaker 3: from it. I mean, many of these firms, they say
4:03
Speaker 3: refunds are dwarfed by the tariffs that they still pay
4:06
Speaker 3: is what they claim in some cases. But in general,
4:09
Speaker 3: especially for a lot of these technology companies, they are
4:12
Speaker 3: not lowering their prices whatsoever. Will actually will really know
4:16
Speaker 3: when iPhone. I think iPhone comes out. The new iPhone
4:19
Speaker 3: is going to come out next month at the Worldwide
4:22
Speaker 3: Developer Conference.
4:23
Speaker 1: Let's see what the price is. Yeah, at retail, if
4:25
Speaker 1: it's still higher, bullshit? Okay, because you got your refund.
4:28
Speaker 4: Yeah.
4:29
Speaker 2: That's the other thing is they raise prices to reflect
4:32
Speaker 2: the tariffs. When the tariffs go away, do they bring
4:36
Speaker 2: the prices back down?
4:38
Speaker 5: Maybe?
4:38
Speaker 2: I haven't seen any evidence of that. I would like
4:41
Speaker 2: to see some statistical analysis of whether or not that
4:43
Speaker 2: is happening. But we know when it came to inflation,
4:46
Speaker 2: especially the COVID era inflation, they would raise prices not
4:50
Speaker 2: only to deal with the inflation of their inputs, they
4:53
Speaker 2: would raise it beyond that. And then once inflation goes down,
4:56
Speaker 2: they don't lower the prices for you. The prices only
4:59
Speaker 2: go one way. And then they're getting their refunds and
5:02
Speaker 2: they're still not bringing the prices down, and they're certainly
5:04
Speaker 2: not sending, you know, a little kick back to all
5:06
Speaker 2: of their customers who help them float this thing up front.
5:10
Speaker 4: So it is very illustrative of.
5:13
Speaker 2: How our economy seems to work, and also really important
5:17
Speaker 2: now because Trump is still holding on to some there's
5:20
Speaker 2: some terror regime in place, so it continues to be
5:22
Speaker 2: relevant there. But also as we head into another period
5:25
Speaker 2: of increased inflation due to the Iran War. You know
5:28
Speaker 2: how all of these companies will operate. They will do
5:30
Speaker 2: the exact same thing. And that's why if you look
5:33
Speaker 2: at trends historical trends, corporate profits as a percent of
5:37
Speaker 2: GDP are at an old time high. That means they
5:40
Speaker 2: are eating more of the economy and there is less
5:43
Speaker 2: left for you. So this is just one more example
5:46
Speaker 2: of how even though initially they were you know, pitching
5:49
Speaker 2: fit and they're suffering, et cetera, at the end of
5:51
Speaker 2: the day, now they're getting these TERRF refund checks and
5:53
Speaker 2: they're using it to pad their earnings, and you still
5:55
Speaker 2: were able to charge you higher price.
5:57
Speaker 1: And I just checked.
5:58
Speaker 3: So for example, remember because at the time Baby Year
6:02
Speaker 3: went sky high with tariff, so I just checked, the
6:04
Speaker 3: price of the stroller that I bought is still well
6:07
Speaker 3: over one hundred and fifty dollars more today than it
6:10
Speaker 3: was at the time I bought it.
6:11
Speaker 1: This is fourteen months ago.
6:13
Speaker 3: That's so Razoicly, it's not that long ago that I
6:16
Speaker 3: bought the stroller. The car seat is also one hundred
6:18
Speaker 3: and twenty dollars more than what I bought it for,
6:20
Speaker 3: so same thing. They incorporated it in the tariff, but
6:24
Speaker 3: the teriff price they just never lowered. So I mean,
6:27
Speaker 3: and I've talked about this before, you can't buy a
6:29
Speaker 3: used car. I mean, you can if it's on secondhand
6:32
Speaker 3: market like in terms of Facebook, Marketplace or something.
6:34
Speaker 1: You're not supposed to.
6:35
Speaker 3: Buy a used car seat. It's one of the few
6:37
Speaker 3: things that you can't recycle in terms of baby gear.
6:40
Speaker 3: So new stroller, new cars, a lot of new parents
6:43
Speaker 3: these days. You're getting slammed because over ninety percent of
6:46
Speaker 3: this stuff is all made in China, and all of
6:48
Speaker 3: it was hit initially by tariff. They increased the price.
6:51
Speaker 3: Now they're getting the refund. I just checked their website.
6:54
Speaker 3: There isn't shit shown up on the website of the stroller.
6:56
Speaker 3: And these are all the stroller companies from what I
6:58
Speaker 3: can see, there's a website which actually put them side
7:01
Speaker 3: by side for where they are. Many of them are
7:04
Speaker 3: either one to two to three hundred dollars more than
7:07
Speaker 3: they worry. I mean, back in the nineties, that's the
7:09
Speaker 3: entire cost of a stroller, not just surprise increase.
7:12
Speaker 2: Right, We're there, that's exactly right now, not even then,
7:14
Speaker 2: I mean it's not that long ago then maybe're right. Yeah,
7:17
Speaker 2: there's a term for they call it taking price, and
7:20
Speaker 2: it just means like what they can get away with.
7:22
Speaker 2: And so they found they could get away with this.
7:24
Speaker 2: People accepted the prices because they had no other alternative,
7:27
Speaker 2: and so they're going to continue paying forcing you to
7:30
Speaker 2: pay those prices even though they no longer have to
7:33
Speaker 2: pay the tariff. There are a couple other economic stories that
7:35
Speaker 2: we wanted to get in here as well. So as
7:39
Speaker 2: prices go up for you and consumer budgets continue to
7:42
Speaker 2: be stretched, debt, personal debt reaches new all time high levels,
7:47
Speaker 2: let's see what our president is doing to help alleviate
7:51
Speaker 2: the burden. He's thinking about reducing capital gains tax. Of course,
7:57
Speaker 2: this would be overwhelmingly if it would go to who
8:01
Speaker 2: the rich, So he's literally this is how out of
8:05
Speaker 2: touch this guys.
8:05
Speaker 4: It really is incredible.
8:06
Speaker 2: He's seeing this as a way to boost his position
8:09
Speaker 2: in the midterms by calling for cutting the capital cutting
8:14
Speaker 2: the taxes of the rich. He thinks that is going
8:16
Speaker 2: to be a winning midterm strategy.
8:19
Speaker 1: Country club boomers around the world celebrate.
8:22
Speaker 2: Your working class billionaire at work here, guys, congratulations.
8:25
Speaker 3: Country club men across the United States celebrate this potential.
8:31
Speaker 3: So I'll explain it, because it's actually even crazier. Trump
8:34
Speaker 3: has expressed interest in indexing capital gains and exemptions for
8:40
Speaker 3: homes of sale worth two million dollars or less. So
8:45
Speaker 3: you know this is the great This would be the
8:48
Speaker 3: greatest boomer tax cut in the history of the United
8:51
Speaker 3: States to extend and increase.
8:53
Speaker 1: Cap gains up to two million for these people.
8:56
Speaker 3: Who probably bought it like a couple hundred thousand, and
8:58
Speaker 3: make them pay nothing. In addition to making it, Remember
9:02
Speaker 3: who owns the vast majority of these stocks, and who
9:04
Speaker 3: are these people doing capital gains sales up to fund
9:08
Speaker 3: their lifestyle On the it's all the retired people, rich retirees,
9:12
Speaker 3: So those are the people who it would be a
9:14
Speaker 3: dramatic cut for. Also, I think it would have a
9:16
Speaker 3: cyclical effect where some idiot, your idiot nephew who's a
9:21
Speaker 3: day trader on his way to going broke, well, I
9:23
Speaker 3: got to do it because capital gains are going down,
9:26
Speaker 3: and so he would be even more encouraged to lose
9:28
Speaker 3: all of his money. I just saw a steady yesterday
9:30
Speaker 3: that it's quote. Day trading is directly correlated with IQ
9:34
Speaker 3: and education. So if you are a modern day day
9:36
Speaker 3: trader and you do not work for Susquehanna Partners are
9:40
Speaker 3: one of these, you're probably an idiot and you should
9:42
Speaker 3: probably stop.
9:43
Speaker 2: Okay, Wait, the more likely you are to day trade,
9:46
Speaker 2: the lower your IQ is.
9:47
Speaker 1: Lower your IQ and lower your education level. So it is.
9:50
Speaker 1: It is a direct correlation of education and IQ.
9:53
Speaker 4: It makes ten because because it's quick, riginal.
9:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like it is gambling, exactly.
9:58
Speaker 6: What it is.
9:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, so okay. The Steelman argument for the capital
10:03
Speaker 2: gains reduction for the two million dollar houses is that
10:06
Speaker 2: this would help encourage boomers to sell those homes and
10:11
Speaker 2: move and downsize and move. And I'm just thinking, like,
10:14
Speaker 2: you can't think of any other way to accomplish this
10:16
Speaker 2: goal than giving them another tax cut, than giving rich
10:20
Speaker 2: people even more money. Look at the taxes, like they
10:23
Speaker 2: have broken the progressive taxes. It does not exist, especially
10:27
Speaker 2: for the actual like ultra wealthy, it does not exist
10:30
Speaker 2: for them. But yeah, if you are homeowner, you're already
10:33
Speaker 2: getting a much sweeter deal than renters from the tax code.
10:37
Speaker 2: And so the only way you can think of to
10:39
Speaker 2: try to gently encourage people to downsize and move on
10:42
Speaker 2: to these homes is to give them yet another tax cut.
10:45
Speaker 2: Like there's got to be another way that's going to
10:48
Speaker 2: be more effective than what we're talking about.
10:50
Speaker 3: Right, And again, I might be some CPA might come
10:53
Speaker 3: after me, but I'm pretty sure that if you're married
10:55
Speaker 3: filing jointly, yeah, you're right around. So that's what you're
10:58
Speaker 3: married filing jointly, and if all of your long term
11:01
Speaker 3: gains are if you make less than let's say, withdraw
11:05
Speaker 3: ninety eight thousand dollars from the market, if you're married
11:08
Speaker 3: filing jointly and that's your income, you pay zero dollars
11:11
Speaker 3: in capital gains, you pay nothing. And then even in
11:15
Speaker 3: terms of the capital gain, I don't know if he
11:17
Speaker 3: mentioned short term and long term, because obviously that's a difference,
11:20
Speaker 3: but dropping it down to seven, I mean that would
11:22
Speaker 3: be a massive win. Like these are for people who
11:25
Speaker 3: are extraordinarily wealthy, Like we really can't comprehend how much
11:30
Speaker 3: wealth these people are sitting on. I was reading a
11:32
Speaker 3: story about the number of people with five million dollars
11:35
Speaker 3: in their vanguard accounts. Is like millions of people now,
11:39
Speaker 3: like millions of Americans are in the five and the
11:42
Speaker 3: ten million range. More power to I'm happy for you, you saved,
11:45
Speaker 3: he retired. I'm not saying we're going to take it,
11:47
Speaker 3: but it's like, fifteen percent ain't all that much to
11:50
Speaker 3: ask for whenever we're talking about a cow long term
11:53
Speaker 3: capital gain, especially when you and I are sitting here
11:55
Speaker 3: paying i don't know, after tax income rate of something
11:58
Speaker 3: like twenty thirty whatever percent just W two income. And
12:02
Speaker 3: then for average Joe, I mean, especially if you're a
12:06
Speaker 3: normal middle class guy between FIICA and but yeah, between
12:10
Speaker 3: FIKA health insurance and the progressive income tax rate and
12:14
Speaker 3: you get your paycheck, especially if you live in New
12:16
Speaker 3: York or something like that, you're looking at look sixty
12:18
Speaker 3: percent of your money. That's crazy, Yeah, it's crazy.
12:20
Speaker 2: Yeah.
12:21
Speaker 6: No.
12:21
Speaker 2: And and these are the people, by and large, you know,
12:23
Speaker 2: when we're talking about older people with these multimillion dollar
12:26
Speaker 2: homes who benefit the most from the most prosperous for
12:29
Speaker 2: the middle class exactly like time period in American history,
12:33
Speaker 2: so to you know, to pay the capital gains, the
12:35
Speaker 2: launch term capital gains, tax on your multimillion dollar residence.
12:37
Speaker 2: Doesn't seem too much to ask.
12:39
Speaker 4: But don't worry.
12:39
Speaker 2: It's not only rich people that this administration is looking
12:42
Speaker 2: out for. They're also looking out for money launderers and
12:45
Speaker 2: other variety of con artists. Let's put this last piece
12:48
Speaker 2: up on the screen. This is very significant. So it
12:52
Speaker 2: sounds very technical, it's pretty straightforward. Actually, finn Sen is
12:56
Speaker 2: permanently ending beneficial ownership reporting requirement for the frame it
13:01
Speaker 2: of millions of small business owners. So previously, when you
13:05
Speaker 2: were setting up a business and LLC something of the sort,
13:08
Speaker 2: you had to report out who actually was the owner
13:11
Speaker 2: of this business. So you couldn't and this is a
13:14
Speaker 2: relatively new regulations passed by Congress bipartisan way.
13:17
Speaker 4: They wanted more transparency here.
13:18
Speaker 2: Why because LLCs tend to be used extensively for money
13:22
Speaker 2: laundering and financial fraud. So you would have all of
13:25
Speaker 2: these series of shell companies of various LLCs that would
13:29
Speaker 2: hide the true owner, which would end up being some
13:33
Speaker 2: like Russian mobster or something of that nature. Okay, So
13:37
Speaker 2: they put this in place to try to crack down
13:39
Speaker 2: on that, and by all accounts, it was somewhat successful,
13:42
Speaker 2: and there was a whole registry of who are the
13:44
Speaker 2: actual beneficial owners of these companies, so who actually owns them,
13:47
Speaker 2: who's actually benefiting them. It also comes into play in
13:50
Speaker 2: terms of real estate transactions and major cities that become
13:54
Speaker 2: the playgrounds not only for global elite, but ways of
13:57
Speaker 2: them laundering money from illicit crimes they're committing around the world. So, anyway,
14:02
Speaker 2: Trump decided we're not doing that anymore, at least not
14:04
Speaker 2: for domestic businesses.
14:05
Speaker 4: Foreign businesses still have to do it.
14:07
Speaker 2: And not only are we not doing that anymore, we
14:09
Speaker 2: are going to delete the entire previous registry that existed,
14:13
Speaker 2: so that all of the information that was already collected
14:16
Speaker 2: is now going to be disappeared and impossible for law enforcement,
14:20
Speaker 2: for example, to use to try to crack down on
14:23
Speaker 2: various money laundering and other fraud schemes.
14:25
Speaker 3: Yeah, and look, small business guys, I get it. You
14:28
Speaker 3: and I had to fill this out. It took me
14:30
Speaker 3: an hour.
14:30
Speaker 1: It was a pain in the ass.
14:31
Speaker 2: It's an hour, all right, It's not that big a deal.
14:33
Speaker 2: Let's be honest.
14:34
Speaker 1: It's still annoying. It was annoying. You know, why why
14:36
Speaker 1: do they need all this information for me?
14:38
Speaker 6: I get it.
14:38
Speaker 3: I hear you, I'm with you, the paperwork, all the taxtics,
14:41
Speaker 3: it's super annoying. That said, that said, we should consider
14:46
Speaker 3: that as small business people, that it's actually us who
14:49
Speaker 3: are the most screwed by this type of system because
14:52
Speaker 3: predominantly we're mostly the people who actually comply, whereas a
14:56
Speaker 3: lot of these loopholes are being used by the old
15:00
Speaker 3: rich or shady vehicles to hide around and to move
15:04
Speaker 3: money for beneficial ownership status, specifically to evade the taxes
15:08
Speaker 3: which again most of us law abiding small.
15:10
Speaker 1: As most people actually pay.
15:12
Speaker 3: And so in the long run, it's actually to our benefit,
15:15
Speaker 3: you know, the more of the the more that I
15:17
Speaker 3: looked into it, because you're like, well, by not capturing that,
15:20
Speaker 3: you know, you're actually giving them much more.
15:22
Speaker 1: You're basically giving them the.
15:24
Speaker 3: Free pass while you go through all the regulatory compliance,
15:27
Speaker 3: which most of us do. And I think that's why
15:30
Speaker 3: it really pissed me off, is because looking into it,
15:33
Speaker 3: this was quote sold as a victory for common sense
15:37
Speaker 3: and for American small business. Like they said, this CTA
15:40
Speaker 3: was to unmask domestic shell companies. The problem, though, is
15:43
Speaker 3: that the shell company problem was very real. Part of
15:46
Speaker 3: the reason why Congress passed this law in the first place. So, yeah,
15:50
Speaker 3: it is ridiculous. And I know that this has been
15:52
Speaker 3: a bugaboo for the ultra rich in particular and some
15:55
Speaker 3: small business guys who just don't want to fill out
15:57
Speaker 3: any paperwork, but just generally like the cap gains thing.
16:01
Speaker 3: And this to me, I was just like, how you've
16:03
Speaker 3: got even the Ken Paxton is out there being like
16:08
Speaker 3: twenty five thousand dollars tax deduction for health insurance. You know,
16:11
Speaker 3: all these crazy doubling the child tax crit and Trump
16:14
Speaker 3: is like, let's have the cap gains rate for boomers.
16:16
Speaker 6: Yeah.
16:17
Speaker 2: Well, and last thing on the fraud part, right, this
16:19
Speaker 2: is administration that talks a lot about fraud when it's
16:22
Speaker 2: convenient for them, when the targets are convenient for them.
16:24
Speaker 2: For example, in Minneapolis, right, Jade Vance is the czar
16:27
Speaker 2: of rooting out fraud or whatever DOGE was supposed to
16:31
Speaker 2: be about rooting out fraud. They found literally there were
16:34
Speaker 2: no prosecutions that came out of their gutting the federal government.
16:38
Speaker 2: It's supposedly to try to root out this kind of fraud.
16:41
Speaker 2: The reality is number one, Trump has gone on a
16:44
Speaker 2: pardon spree. Of many high level fraudsters who have ripped
16:49
Speaker 2: off Americans to the tune of millions of dollars. And
16:52
Speaker 2: not only are they're not having to serve their prison time,
16:54
Speaker 2: they're not having to pay back.
16:56
Speaker 4: The people that they defraud.
16:57
Speaker 2: It is just reading a story about a guy who
17:00
Speaker 2: was ripped off by some pyramid scheme. That fraudster was pardon,
17:04
Speaker 2: No longer is he going to get that restitution.
17:06
Speaker 4: And this is a guy who voted for Trump. Was like,
17:08
Speaker 4: what the hell?
17:09
Speaker 2: Federal white collar prosecutions are at a forty year low,
17:14
Speaker 2: So if you're a white collar criminal you can just
17:16
Speaker 2: basically get away with it at this point, especially if
17:19
Speaker 2: you know, slip some money to Magar, to the Trump
17:22
Speaker 2: campaign or the ballroom or whatever particular thing he's raising
17:25
Speaker 2: money for now and now you have this action which
17:28
Speaker 2: blatantly makes it easier to commit fraud and financial crimes.
17:33
Speaker 2: So this is not just this isn't a standalone action.
17:38
Speaker 2: This is very consistent with a widespread pattern of enabling
17:42
Speaker 2: and encouraging frankly white collar crime from this administration.
17:46
Speaker 3: Yeah, all right, let's get to big bend. Sorry, we
17:49
Speaker 3: film out of order.
17:50
Speaker 1: Sometimes Isaac standing.
17:52
Speaker 3: By he definitely didn't just record it. Very excited now
17:58
Speaker 3: to be joined by friend of the show. Isaac's all.
18:00
Speaker 3: He's the founder of tangle News. Great friend of the show.
18:02
Speaker 3: Good to see you man, Thanks for joining us.
18:04
Speaker 6: Yeah, thanks for having me. Always glad to be here, Siger.
18:06
Speaker 3: So, Isaac, you I've been at the forefront of highlighting
18:09
Speaker 3: the construction of a border wall, or at least that's
18:12
Speaker 3: what they're saying that it is that's going down in
18:14
Speaker 3: Big Bend National Park. Let's go and put this up
18:17
Speaker 3: here on the screen, some of the video of the
18:20
Speaker 3: destruction in the national Park. This is particularly drawn scrutiny because,
18:26
Speaker 3: as you have pointed out, this is a very low
18:28
Speaker 3: traffic area, significant amount of destruction to the park is happening.
18:34
Speaker 3: In addition, it appears that some Trump contractors are involved.
18:38
Speaker 3: So before we get to the Trump administration pausing construction,
18:43
Speaker 3: it appears at the request of the governor of Texas,
18:45
Speaker 3: give us the background about what led to this national outcry.
18:50
Speaker 7: Yeah sure, so, I mean, as you probably know in
18:52
Speaker 7: your audience find knows, President Trump has promised to build
18:55
Speaker 7: a contiguous wall across the southwestern border, and they have
18:59
Speaker 7: made some prime rest in California and Arizona and parts
19:01
Speaker 7: of Texas, and now they're moving down into southwest Texas,
19:06
Speaker 7: which is the Big Bend region. So there are plans
19:09
Speaker 7: right now for these thirty foot steel ballard walls actually
19:12
Speaker 7: outside the National Park.
19:14
Speaker 6: In some of the counties that run into the National
19:16
Speaker 6: Park and are.
19:16
Speaker 7: On both sides of the park, they had plans for
19:19
Speaker 7: thirty foot steel ballared walls inside the park. There was
19:23
Speaker 7: such an outcry when those plans were released that they
19:25
Speaker 7: sort of updated their maps to say, no, actually, we're
19:28
Speaker 7: just doing vehicle barriers, which are these four to six
19:31
Speaker 7: foot tall walls and roads, and we're going to put
19:35
Speaker 7: some fencing in and some new technology, but we're not
19:37
Speaker 7: going to put in these thirty foot steel ballard walls.
19:39
Speaker 7: Then there was a bunch of outcry and rage about that, because,
19:43
Speaker 7: as you mentioned, there are basically no migrants who cross
19:48
Speaker 7: through the National Park. There's about one hundred to two
19:51
Speaker 7: hundred a year we're found inside the park. And just
19:54
Speaker 7: for context, in a single month in October fiscal year
19:59
Speaker 7: twenty twenty five, in the Swanton border sector, there were
20:02
Speaker 7: about a thousand migrants who are apprehended. The Swaton border
20:05
Speaker 7: sector is the border sector with Canada. It's Vermont and
20:08
Speaker 7: New Hampshire and parts of Massachusetts. So that's one thousand
20:13
Speaker 7: migrants there in Big Ben National Park. In the entire
20:15
Speaker 7: last fiscal year there were one hundred to two hundred
20:17
Speaker 7: migrants who were found in the national parks. So, you
20:21
Speaker 7: know people who are outdoorsmen, Republican sheriffs, hunters, local businesses.
20:27
Speaker 7: You know, my family lives on the border ive property there.
20:31
Speaker 7: My cousins have a river guiding business. They're about to
20:34
Speaker 7: be blocked off from the Rio Grand. They won't be
20:37
Speaker 7: able to do tours down the river because there's going
20:39
Speaker 7: to be border wall outside the park and fencing in
20:42
Speaker 7: vehicle thereas inside the park, cutting off their access.
20:45
Speaker 6: So there's been a huge bipartisan outcry.
20:47
Speaker 7: And finally yesterday the CBP commissioner said that he was
20:51
Speaker 7: pausing construction and heading down to the park to put
20:54
Speaker 7: boots on the ground, which I'm grateful for you you
20:56
Speaker 7: would think he would have done that before the construction start,
21:00
Speaker 7: but I'm glad at least for now there's a pause.
21:03
Speaker 4: Let's put D two up on the screen.
21:05
Speaker 2: There's a Trump donor that was awarded some of these
21:08
Speaker 2: construction contracts within the park.
21:11
Speaker 4: What can you tell us about this?
21:12
Speaker 7: Yeah, so this is a big part of the story
21:15
Speaker 7: and something a lot of people are focusing on, which
21:17
Speaker 7: is this construction company, Barnard Construction, is owned and operated
21:22
Speaker 7: by a guy who gave over a million dollars to
21:24
Speaker 7: the Trump campaign in twenty twenty four and then got
21:28
Speaker 7: awarded this one point seven billion dollar contract to bring
21:32
Speaker 7: construction of the border wall down to the Big ben region.
21:35
Speaker 7: And obviously, for anybody who's paying attention, this looks like
21:40
Speaker 7: somebody who just bought a billion dollar grant from the
21:44
Speaker 7: President for a border wall that's unnecessary and unwanted in
21:48
Speaker 7: this part of the country. So one of the big
21:51
Speaker 7: things that we're trying to figure out now is what
21:55
Speaker 7: they're going to do.
21:56
Speaker 6: With all that money.
21:57
Speaker 7: This CVP says, you know, we're not putting this border wall,
22:00
Speaker 7: this thirty foot tall border wall up in the park,
22:03
Speaker 7: but the roads and the pathways that they're constructing in
22:06
Speaker 7: the National Park follow the exact same line on the
22:09
Speaker 7: original map that they release showing where the thirty foot
22:12
Speaker 7: steel bollered walls were going to be. So I want
22:15
Speaker 7: to take the government at its word, but a lot
22:17
Speaker 7: of people down in this area are obviously skeptical that
22:20
Speaker 7: this is just going to be a road or just
22:22
Speaker 7: going to be some four to six foot tall vehicle barriers.
22:25
Speaker 7: A lot of people think they're going to clear this
22:27
Speaker 7: land and then eventually this wall is going to come in,
22:30
Speaker 7: and you know, it just looks like a cash grab
22:32
Speaker 7: by these contractors who are just taking a bunch of
22:35
Speaker 7: federal money, our tax dollars, to go destroy a national
22:39
Speaker 7: park and then destroy this region outside the park, which
22:42
Speaker 7: it should be said, in the lower forty eight is
22:45
Speaker 7: the most pristine, untouched part of the United States. It
22:48
Speaker 7: is literally the wild West. Four to five hours from
22:51
Speaker 7: the closest airport. You can drive on roads for two
22:54
Speaker 7: hours without seeing a single person. It is a treasure
22:58
Speaker 7: of you know, America's pastime and especially of Texas, and
23:01
Speaker 7: it's why so many tourists go there every year.
23:03
Speaker 6: It's just kind of escape and go off the grid.
23:06
Speaker 7: And now it's that risk of becoming part of the
23:08
Speaker 7: big security state.
23:09
Speaker 3: Right, and I want to underscore this is not, you know,
23:12
Speaker 3: some liberal outcry. The governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, gave
23:16
Speaker 3: a press conference yesterday saying there will be no border
23:19
Speaker 3: barrier built on Big Ben National Park. It appears like
23:23
Speaker 3: what you're talking about. Family members West Texas ranchers and others,
23:27
Speaker 3: hardcore Republicans in R plus forty districts are the people
23:31
Speaker 3: who are pushing heavily against this. We do have a
23:35
Speaker 3: video of the CBP commissioner talking about the pause.
23:38
Speaker 1: Let's go ahead and take a listen, guys, we'll get
23:40
Speaker 1: your reaction.
23:40
Speaker 6: Isaac, I just.
23:42
Speaker 5: Landed in Texas headed to Big Ben National Park last night.
23:46
Speaker 5: I put a pause on all activity in.
23:49
Speaker 8: That park as far as construction goes, until I.
23:51
Speaker 5: Can get down there and do a personal evaluation, talk
23:54
Speaker 5: to some stakeholders, talk to local law enforcement in that area,
23:58
Speaker 5: and more to follow this.
24:01
Speaker 3: So the pause, obviously, this was you know, from I
24:04
Speaker 3: don't know. You tell me, what do you think that
24:06
Speaker 3: the eventual outcome was. It seems to me that the
24:08
Speaker 3: governor and much of the tech at Texas Agriculture Commissioner,
24:12
Speaker 3: many of these other officials seemed to be the ones
24:14
Speaker 3: who really pressured the Trump administration on this.
24:17
Speaker 7: Yeah, Governor added is taking credit for Rodney Scott, the
24:20
Speaker 7: CBP Commissioner, heading down to Big Ben and pause and construction.
24:24
Speaker 6: He said, that he had a conversation with.
24:25
Speaker 7: Him over the weekend and that he believes this is
24:28
Speaker 7: a direct consequence of that conversation. He said that publicly,
24:31
Speaker 7: so I have no reason to doubt that story. I mean,
24:34
Speaker 7: the interesting parts of that video are a the CDP
24:38
Speaker 7: commissioner conceding that construction is happening in Big Ben.
24:41
Speaker 6: We all know this because, as you showed, there's.
24:43
Speaker 7: Videos and photos of bulldozers and backos, you know, running
24:47
Speaker 7: across the Big Ben National Park ground.
24:48
Speaker 6: But it's worth saying the CDP for the last couple.
24:51
Speaker 7: Of weeks has denied in court and in their public
24:53
Speaker 7: statements that any construction was underway. They were saying that
24:56
Speaker 7: they were surveying and assessing the land and hadn't actually
24:59
Speaker 7: broken ground yet, you know, despite the videos going viral online.
25:03
Speaker 7: So I think it's notable that he acknowledged the construction
25:05
Speaker 7: was real and that he's pausing it. The other thing
25:07
Speaker 7: I'll just say is there is a process for all
25:10
Speaker 7: of this, for this kind of thing, you know, in
25:12
Speaker 7: national parks and outside national parks, which is, you know,
25:15
Speaker 7: as much as I sometimes loathe government regulation, there are
25:18
Speaker 7: things like environmental reviews, there are stakeholders who have meetings.
25:22
Speaker 6: They get to meet with the CBP.
25:24
Speaker 7: Business owners say look, we need this access point on
25:27
Speaker 7: the river, or this piece of private property has.
25:29
Speaker 6: This value to so and so economy. They didn't do
25:33
Speaker 6: any of that.
25:33
Speaker 7: They waived all the environmental laws, they waved all the
25:36
Speaker 7: processes that are normal in this situation, and they just
25:39
Speaker 7: started building. And that's why the outcry has been so crazy.
25:42
Speaker 7: I mean, people on the border want border security, they
25:45
Speaker 7: just want it to be done in a way that's smart.
25:47
Speaker 7: And as you mentioned, we have MAGA Sheriff Statius Cleveland,
25:50
Speaker 7: who I mean his Twitter feed is literally him posting
25:53
Speaker 7: pictures of migrants he's capturing in the desert and he's
25:57
Speaker 7: on CNN, he's going on National News, he's posting on
26:00
Speaker 7: Twitter about how stupid the border wall in the Big
26:03
Speaker 7: ben region is because you don't need it. What you
26:05
Speaker 7: need is technology to be notified that somebody has crossed
26:09
Speaker 7: the border, a movement, heat sensors, those sorts of things. Yeah,
26:12
Speaker 7: if you bring border wall stuff out there, you're just
26:14
Speaker 7: going to destroy the landscape and build a bunch of
26:17
Speaker 7: roads by the way that the cartel and migrants can
26:20
Speaker 7: then use to escape into the United States, which is
26:22
Speaker 7: one of the crazy ironies of this whole story.
26:25
Speaker 4: Just put up some flot cameras.
26:28
Speaker 1: Y No pointed at us, pointed that way on iron.
26:31
Speaker 4: Well, last question for you.
26:33
Speaker 2: I saw something about US seating hundreds of thousands of
26:36
Speaker 2: acres to Mexico as part of this project.
26:39
Speaker 4: What is going on there?
26:40
Speaker 7: Yeah, So the story there is pretty simple. All across
26:44
Speaker 7: the Rio grand which is the most precious water stores
26:48
Speaker 7: in West Texas, there are private properties that all bunt
26:51
Speaker 7: the river that are cattle ranchers. They're river guides like
26:55
Speaker 7: my family. They're outfitters who take people on these you know,
26:57
Speaker 7: off road journeys or horseback riding or whatever. The map
27:02
Speaker 7: of the wall is right now lace you know oftentimes
27:06
Speaker 7: hundreds of yards, if not quarter half a mile in
27:10
Speaker 7: from the river on the Texas side. So you can't
27:13
Speaker 7: just put a wall in the middle of the Rio
27:14
Speaker 7: Grande River. It floods the construction being possible. So they
27:17
Speaker 7: have to put the wall on the American side. And
27:19
Speaker 7: what that means effectively is that they're cutting Americans off
27:23
Speaker 7: from this critical water source. They're cutting Texans off from
27:25
Speaker 7: this critical water source, and they're putting a bunch of
27:28
Speaker 7: American texting land on the other side of the border wall.
27:33
Speaker 7: And so what I did through an assessment of the
27:35
Speaker 7: map and putting it into Claude. One of the very
27:37
Speaker 7: few positive use cases I found with AI, by the way,
27:41
Speaker 7: is figuring out how many acres of land is actually
27:44
Speaker 7: going to end up on the other side of the
27:46
Speaker 7: thirty foot steel bollered wall according to the DHS maps,
27:49
Speaker 7: and it's about two hundred and eighty thousand acres of
27:51
Speaker 7: Texas land that's going to be on the opposite side
27:54
Speaker 7: of that wall. And once the walls are built, the
27:56
Speaker 7: access points are controlled entirely by the federal government by
28:00
Speaker 7: DHS there. You know, we've had stories in the past
28:03
Speaker 7: the people who get key codes to get into the river,
28:07
Speaker 7: you know, to get through the wall there's like a
28:09
Speaker 7: gate there, and then they become a target not just
28:12
Speaker 7: of the cartel but of locals because they're the person
28:14
Speaker 7: with the key code and the access creates all these
28:17
Speaker 7: crazy dynamics and scary things for these people who own
28:20
Speaker 7: this land privately that are facing eminent domain threats to
28:24
Speaker 7: have their land taken from the federal government. So you know,
28:26
Speaker 7: it's not a sovereignty we're still going to control the
28:29
Speaker 7: two hundred and eighty thousand acres of land on the
28:31
Speaker 7: other side of the border wall, but private US citizens
28:34
Speaker 7: are going to lose access to it.
28:35
Speaker 6: And for me, that is just an insane thing to.
28:38
Speaker 7: Do in this moment, is to give away three hundred
28:41
Speaker 7: thousand acres of precious American land to Mexico, which I
28:44
Speaker 7: think is what the administration is doing.
28:46
Speaker 3: Yeah, Isaac, you've been at the forefront.
28:48
Speaker 1: Matthew McConaughey, where are you, man? You know you're all
28:51
Speaker 1: in Texas.
28:52
Speaker 3: You got nothing to say.
28:54
Speaker 6: I got to say.
28:55
Speaker 7: There's a lot of ride or die Texas brand people who.
28:59
Speaker 6: Have not spoken.
29:00
Speaker 1: I'm just saying, you know, we've got our eyes on you.
29:02
Speaker 3: Yeah, no doubt you're sipping beers with Shane Gillis in
29:05
Speaker 3: some bullshit soccer game.
29:06
Speaker 1: You don't have ship to say about Big Ben. Get
29:08
Speaker 1: the fuck out of here, man. You know I don't
29:10
Speaker 1: want to see you down.
29:11
Speaker 3: I don't want to see you when Longhorns gear come
29:13
Speaker 3: college football season unless you.
29:15
Speaker 1: Guys speak up for the Texas silent No, Crystal, this
29:21
Speaker 1: is a this is a big deal down in Texas,
29:26
Speaker 1: all right.
29:26
Speaker 3: Yeah, the stars at night, Thank you very much, Isaac.
29:29
Speaker 3: We appreciate you man, thanks for having me man. Very
29:34
Speaker 3: excited now to be joined by Jared Cooney Horvath. He
29:37
Speaker 3: is the author of The Digital Delusion, a tremendously influential
29:41
Speaker 3: book how classroom technology harms our kids learning and how
29:45
Speaker 3: to help them thrive again. He is a neuro scientist
29:49
Speaker 3: and has extensively studied this issue, and I'm excited to
29:52
Speaker 3: talk to him. Jared, thank you so much for joining us.
29:54
Speaker 8: Appreciate it, Thank you for having me on.
29:56
Speaker 3: So Jared, you have been again one of the leaders
29:59
Speaker 3: in this movement to move technology from the classroom. We
30:02
Speaker 3: have seen examples of this purveyed both from K through
30:06
Speaker 3: twelve all the way up to college. F two guys,
30:09
Speaker 3: just the latest example of something we're seeing. College kids
30:12
Speaker 3: are using AI agents to take entire online classes for them,
30:17
Speaker 3: logging themselves directly into course management software so they get
30:20
Speaker 3: the grade, but they're not actually doing the work. We
30:23
Speaker 3: see cascading in different types of these effects as technology
30:27
Speaker 3: has entered the classroom. So big picture, why'd you decide
30:30
Speaker 3: to write this book?
30:31
Speaker 1: What data?
30:32
Speaker 8: What is spared?
30:32
Speaker 6: You? Yeah?
30:33
Speaker 8: My background is just in human learning. How do humans learn?
30:36
Speaker 9: So I've worked with schools for fifteen years on just
30:39
Speaker 9: if this is what learning is, what does that mean
30:41
Speaker 9: for teaching? What does that mean for students studying and parents?
30:44
Speaker 9: And it was really around COVID. We've known for a
30:46
Speaker 9: long time that digital tech wasn't great for learning, but it.
30:49
Speaker 1: Was always somewhat peripheral.
30:51
Speaker 9: Until COVID hit, everyone went digital rightly, so you had
30:55
Speaker 9: to do something. But when COVID ended, no one ripped
30:57
Speaker 9: that band aid off. Everyone stayed heavy digital and kept
31:00
Speaker 9: pushing forward. And all we've seen is literacy numeracy scores
31:04
Speaker 9: really just continue to drop lower and lower. So that's
31:07
Speaker 9: why I figure now is the time to just put
31:08
Speaker 9: the data out there and say, look, we know that
31:11
Speaker 9: tech isn't great for learning, we know why tech isn't
31:13
Speaker 9: good for learning.
31:14
Speaker 8: Maybe we make different decisions in schools now.
31:16
Speaker 4: So let's put F three up on the screen.
31:18
Speaker 2: This is some of the latest data about the way
31:21
Speaker 2: US test scores in most states in the Union have
31:24
Speaker 2: been declining. Why US test scores are any generation long decline?
31:29
Speaker 2: And there's only a handful of states, It's like Mississippi, Hawaii,
31:33
Speaker 2: maybe one more that have bucked this trend. Over the
31:36
Speaker 2: past decade and a half. You're pointing to the advent
31:39
Speaker 2: of ed tech in the classroom. How do you separate that, though,
31:43
Speaker 2: from there's a lot that's happened over that time period.
31:45
Speaker 2: We had a reduction in the No Child Left Behind standards.
31:48
Speaker 2: We've had the introduction of personal smartphone use outside of
31:53
Speaker 2: the classrooms, so kids are on their screens in an
31:55
Speaker 2: unstructured way outside of school. So how do you look
31:59
Speaker 2: at all You of course had COVID and you pointed
32:01
Speaker 2: to the more significant learning loss that occurred during that
32:04
Speaker 2: time period. So how do you look at all of
32:07
Speaker 2: those things that happen and pinpoint in classroom ed tech
32:11
Speaker 2: as the single most significant factor here?
32:14
Speaker 9: Well, this is, to be fair, everything you've just said
32:16
Speaker 9: completely matters for emotional development, for social development when we
32:21
Speaker 9: just focus on cognition. I think an important thing to
32:24
Speaker 9: remember is we're not stuck in the US. We've got
32:26
Speaker 9: data from over ninety countries now over the last about
32:29
Speaker 9: twenty five years from international exams from their own countries
32:32
Speaker 9: testing regimes, and what you can see is in each country,
32:37
Speaker 9: as digital technology moves from a peripheral to a central
32:40
Speaker 9: feature in education, that's when their scores will start to
32:44
Speaker 9: go down, so it's not tacked to any one year.
32:46
Speaker 9: It's unique to win schools and in the US as well,
32:50
Speaker 9: when those states adopt digital technology, we can.
32:52
Speaker 8: Also then go back.
32:54
Speaker 9: Since nineteen sixty two, we've been doing academic research which
32:56
Speaker 9: is causative, directly linking digital tech and LFE learning and
33:00
Speaker 9: showing that when a screen enters learning learning compared to
33:03
Speaker 9: say analog methods, tends to go down.
33:06
Speaker 8: And then you can also with COVID, you.
33:07
Speaker 9: Can start to see do what we call regression analyzes
33:11
Speaker 9: where you can take the hit of COVID, remove that
33:14
Speaker 9: from data sets and say is there anything left remaining?
33:17
Speaker 9: Take sees out of the equation, take non classroom tech.
33:21
Speaker 9: Use be very specific about where you're using UTH statistics,
33:24
Speaker 9: and we still find the same thing. But I always say, look,
33:27
Speaker 9: the data is one thing, and that's very much in
33:30
Speaker 9: our favor, but it's the mechanisms. Once you get down
33:33
Speaker 9: to biology, we have better explanations for why tech doesn't
33:37
Speaker 9: work than anyone else does, and that seems to be
33:40
Speaker 9: the kind of the ceiling factors. We can kind of
33:42
Speaker 9: explain why it's happening, and no one else can really
33:45
Speaker 9: do that as well as we can.
33:46
Speaker 1: Can you go into that?
33:47
Speaker 3: So, like I think, I in particular, so I'm thirty four,
33:50
Speaker 3: so when I was coming through K through twelve, that
33:53
Speaker 3: was really the height of every student gets a laptop,
33:56
Speaker 3: the interactive PowerPoint. This was seen as a boon to
34:00
Speaker 3: the teacher in the classroom. I was telling you before
34:02
Speaker 3: the segment, my own mother's first professor of early childhood education,
34:05
Speaker 3: a big proponent of educational technology, has some challenging questions.
34:10
Speaker 1: She wants me to ask you, but.
34:12
Speaker 3: Just generally, what's wrong with that mechanism that you just
34:16
Speaker 3: talked about about technology itself as a medium for learning.
34:21
Speaker 3: Why isn't it the hope that we thought, let's say,
34:23
Speaker 3: twenty years ago.
34:25
Speaker 9: So there's going to be dozens of different mechanisms, but
34:28
Speaker 9: let's just stick with kind of the reading one. A
34:31
Speaker 9: big aspect of human memory is spatial location. Where in
34:35
Speaker 9: space does something occur, becomes a massive aspect of our
34:39
Speaker 9: memory for that thing, and ultimately determines how we can
34:41
Speaker 9: access that information later. Now, think of a book until
34:45
Speaker 9: this book here burns into dust. Every word has a clear, rigid, unchanging,
34:49
Speaker 9: three dimensional location till this book disappears. The word saddle
34:52
Speaker 9: will be ten percent of the way through left page, top,
34:54
Speaker 9: left hand side, It ain't going nowhere. That will become
34:57
Speaker 9: part of the memory I form and will ultimately determine
35:00
Speaker 9: what I learned from it. So this is why if
35:02
Speaker 9: you're an avid reader of books, you know, when you
35:04
Speaker 9: finish a book, you might not know verbatim everything you read,
35:07
Speaker 9: but you will know where in the book everything occurred.
35:10
Speaker 9: Like there's a quote you're looking for, you can almost
35:11
Speaker 9: flip right to it. Now take that same thing to
35:14
Speaker 9: a screen. All of a sudden, the words saddle is
35:17
Speaker 9: going to start at the bottom.
35:18
Speaker 8: Of the screen, pull through the middle, disappear out the top.
35:21
Speaker 9: There is no three dimensional location, so an entire aspect
35:24
Speaker 9: of human memory gets dumped. So this is why when
35:27
Speaker 9: people read from a screen, at about the four or
35:29
Speaker 9: five minute mark, the brain will send you a signal
35:32
Speaker 9: saying I'm not getting this, like I don't know where
35:33
Speaker 9: any of this belongs, and we just start skimming rather
35:36
Speaker 9: than actually reading.
35:37
Speaker 8: We just start looking for keywords. Off we go.
35:39
Speaker 9: So this is one of those easy mechanisms where we
35:42
Speaker 9: can say, if you have the exact same thing on
35:45
Speaker 9: a piece of paper versus a screen, people will remember
35:48
Speaker 9: more comprehend better from the piece of paper than the screen,
35:51
Speaker 9: just by the way biology and memory works.
35:53
Speaker 6: It's super interesting.
35:54
Speaker 2: So let me get you to respond to what are
35:56
Speaker 2: the critiques?
35:57
Speaker 4: I read?
35:57
Speaker 2: This is from chalkbe we can put this up on
36:00
Speaker 2: the screen. So they were talking about the way you
36:03
Speaker 2: analyzed the impact of ed tech specifically, and the writer
36:08
Speaker 2: says that the overall impact of ed tech in the
36:11
Speaker 2: studies that you cite is actually positive. Horvat says the
36:14
Speaker 2: effect is too small to justify the use of tech
36:17
Speaker 2: because it's smaller than the effect of typical classroom instruction.
36:21
Speaker 2: Taking that into account turns the ed tech results negative.
36:24
Speaker 2: He says, this is a key methodological decision on which
36:27
Speaker 2: your conclusion rusts. But according to Elizabeth Tipton, who's a
36:31
Speaker 2: Northwestern University statistician counts herself as an ed tech skeptic,
36:35
Speaker 2: she says this is not the right approach. Your benchmark,
36:38
Speaker 2: she says, is wildly unrealistic and carefully designed studies in
36:41
Speaker 2: which two groups are both receiving some sort of instruction,
36:44
Speaker 2: most effects are quite small. In that context, an effect
36:48
Speaker 2: above zero would be encouraging. So my understanding of this
36:51
Speaker 2: critique is basically, when you just look at the impact
36:54
Speaker 2: of ed TECH without comparing it to what would be
36:58
Speaker 2: happening if you weren't using the ed tech, the impact
37:01
Speaker 2: is either negative or somewhat positive. And so it's your
37:04
Speaker 2: choice to say, okay, but instead of the aed tech,
37:06
Speaker 2: if we were doing this other instructional method, that the
37:09
Speaker 2: learning gains would be more. That leads to the result.
37:12
Speaker 2: And again this statistician is saying that this is not
37:15
Speaker 2: the right approach to do the study. So what is
37:16
Speaker 2: your response to that critique.
37:19
Speaker 9: There are multiple ways to run statistics, and I hear everyone,
37:23
Speaker 9: but the point we're trying to make is every educational study.
37:29
Speaker 9: Oh so, there's a man named John Hattie down in
37:31
Speaker 9: Australia who's looked at over three hundred and fifty thousand
37:34
Speaker 9: studies in education. Over ninety five percent of them have
37:37
Speaker 9: a positive effect. Basically, his argument is everything works and
37:42
Speaker 9: this is why, because learning is biological. If you change
37:45
Speaker 9: your hat, a kid will learn. If you sing a song,
37:47
Speaker 9: a kid will learn. If you put a kid in
37:49
Speaker 9: a closet for a day, take them out, they will
37:51
Speaker 9: come out cognitively more developed than when they went in.
37:54
Speaker 9: Because biologically you can't stop it. So the argument from
37:57
Speaker 9: that side of the equation is always we cannot use
38:00
Speaker 9: as a baseline and education, otherwise everything goes. So you
38:03
Speaker 9: have to have some sort of different baseline in our
38:06
Speaker 9: field to figure out what's better than average. And in
38:11
Speaker 9: his argument, and if you look at any statistician, that
38:13
Speaker 9: value is going to sit somewhere between point four and
38:15
Speaker 9: point five. Now that number doesn't have to mean anything
38:18
Speaker 9: to anyone, just know that ed tech really undershoots that value.
38:22
Speaker 9: Whereas things like reading from a book, having a discussion
38:25
Speaker 9: with a teacher, doing a pair and share with your peers,
38:28
Speaker 9: those have values way above that. So you get start
38:30
Speaker 9: to see when we compare different strategies, yeao, some are
38:33
Speaker 9: going to be far better than others. But if you
38:35
Speaker 9: can go down to a study where you are comparing
38:38
Speaker 9: one tool to something without that tool in an equivalent condition,
38:42
Speaker 9: you hit what's called a randomized control trial. Now those
38:45
Speaker 9: are really really easy to do, not easy, but doable
38:49
Speaker 9: in fields like medicine, in fields like physics. They are
38:53
Speaker 9: almost impossible to do in social level fields like school.
38:57
Speaker 9: So imagine you give one school group a bunch of
39:01
Speaker 9: laptops and you don't give another school a bunch of laptops,
39:04
Speaker 9: then you can say laptops were better or worse than
39:06
Speaker 9: no laptops. Right, wrong, Because now we've got to worry
39:09
Speaker 9: about what were the pedagogies each school was using. Were
39:13
Speaker 9: these teachers asking kids to recall and these weren't. Were
39:16
Speaker 9: these teachers giving homework and these weren't. There are so
39:19
Speaker 9: many competing variables that when you want to look at
39:22
Speaker 9: the social level, you have to use these higher level
39:24
Speaker 9: values and use more averaging because we just can't drill
39:27
Speaker 9: down far enough to the specific random control trial mechanism.
39:31
Speaker 6: Right.
39:31
Speaker 8: So I it sounds like like I'm skirting the issue,
39:33
Speaker 8: but it's not.
39:34
Speaker 9: It's just a different form of analysis, and social sciences
39:37
Speaker 9: require one more so than the other.
39:39
Speaker 1: Right.
39:39
Speaker 3: And one of the challenges I saw Jared is he
39:42
Speaker 3: right across the west IQ scores and began to fall
39:45
Speaker 3: even as time spent in school kept rising. The answer
39:48
Speaker 3: lies in the meteorize rise of educational technology. But kind
39:52
Speaker 3: of to come back to Crystal's original point, which is
39:55
Speaker 3: really impossible to ignore. How do we separate out the
39:58
Speaker 3: technology from the digital milieu that we swim in as
40:02
Speaker 3: in these children, especially twenty twelve onward are inundated with
40:08
Speaker 3: screen time at home, either from television on the iPhone,
40:12
Speaker 3: and then you add educational technology onto that. Why is
40:15
Speaker 3: that not a modest effect and a significant effect, Because
40:19
Speaker 3: to my eye, what's happening in the home and in
40:21
Speaker 3: the rest of the world and all of that general
40:23
Speaker 3: screen time, which we know reduces general IQ, should actually
40:27
Speaker 3: be more of a significant factor. Or please challenge my
40:31
Speaker 3: general line of questioning.
40:33
Speaker 8: No, and it absolutely is.
40:34
Speaker 9: For general level IQ, it's going to be very difficult
40:36
Speaker 9: to parse things out. But we're lucky in school we
40:39
Speaker 9: can do these specific measures where we can flat out
40:41
Speaker 9: ask kids how often do you use tech at home?
40:44
Speaker 9: How often do you use tech for these purposes at home?
40:47
Speaker 9: And we can also ask them how often do you
40:49
Speaker 9: use tech in schools? How often do you use tech
40:51
Speaker 9: for these purposes in schools? So in a lot of
40:54
Speaker 9: our data sets are international ones. Anyway we can differentiate
40:57
Speaker 9: between those two modes again, account for one on and
41:00
Speaker 9: say what's left. And probably the biggest example of that
41:03
Speaker 9: would be East Asian countries. Is everyone knows East Aging
41:06
Speaker 9: countries are highly technological, their economies are based on technology,
41:10
Speaker 9: their kids are spending more time on tech for gaming
41:13
Speaker 9: purposes than anywhere else. Believe it or not, those are
41:17
Speaker 9: or pre COVID were the least tech using countries in
41:20
Speaker 9: the world when it came to school Singapore, Japan, China, Korea.
41:25
Speaker 9: These people were not using tech in schools. They said,
41:29
Speaker 9: use tech outside of the classroom. But when you're in
41:31
Speaker 9: a classroom, we're going with analog methods that we know work.
41:34
Speaker 9: And it's no surprise that up until COVID they had
41:37
Speaker 9: always peaked out on literacy, numeracy, science scores. They were
41:41
Speaker 9: always beating everyone else, even though their kids used more
41:44
Speaker 9: tech in the real world than kids, say in the US,
41:48
Speaker 9: they used less tech in school, and they still saw
41:50
Speaker 9: better cognitive growth than we did.
41:52
Speaker 2: HOWD do Where I get hung up on some of
41:53
Speaker 2: this as a parent in particular, is understandably we tend
41:57
Speaker 2: to talk about just tech as a broad bucket or
41:59
Speaker 2: just screen time as a broad bucket, where obviously, like
42:03
Speaker 2: when my kid is just mindlessly scrolling YouTube shorts, that
42:07
Speaker 2: is a really terrible brain rotting thing. Whereas to be honest,
42:11
Speaker 2: I think there's an argument that some of the video
42:13
Speaker 2: games that they play that require a lot of like
42:16
Speaker 2: language and social interaction and problem solving, et cetera, which
42:19
Speaker 2: is what a lot of the East Asian screen time
42:22
Speaker 2: you know, is centered around. I'm not sure that that's
42:25
Speaker 2: bad for them in terms of brain development, at least
42:28
Speaker 2: in some level of reasonable moderation.
42:31
Speaker 4: So how do you think.
42:32
Speaker 2: About, like you know, the quality of screen to do
42:35
Speaker 2: you have a hierarchy of which times, which types of
42:39
Speaker 2: device time are better or worse for kids developing minds?
42:43
Speaker 8: Yeah?
42:44
Speaker 9: So again, I won't focus on out of school. So
42:46
Speaker 9: anytime you use a screen for entertainment letter rip, go
42:49
Speaker 9: for it. I'm just talking about straight learning. So in
42:51
Speaker 9: our context, when we're talking about digital technology and learning,
42:54
Speaker 9: it's any internet connected student facing device that is going
42:59
Speaker 9: to lead them down a path of non learning. But
43:03
Speaker 9: if you twisted my arm on the other stuff, you're right.
43:07
Speaker 9: I mean something like video game where you can hear
43:10
Speaker 9: another person's voice. And I didn't know this till recently,
43:13
Speaker 9: but that's what kids are doing. They have headsets on them,
43:15
Speaker 9: they're actually talking to other human beings. If you can
43:17
Speaker 9: hear another person's voice and you're actually communicating with them,
43:20
Speaker 9: that's fine. I mean it's not great, but I mean
43:23
Speaker 9: go to town with it.
43:25
Speaker 8: It's versus like texting.
43:26
Speaker 9: So we can do this kind of hierarchy right where
43:29
Speaker 9: if a group of human beings are hanging out together,
43:32
Speaker 9: we can measure the type of chemicals that are being
43:34
Speaker 9: released to demonstrate what kind of social bonding they're showing.
43:38
Speaker 9: And as you'd expect, when they're hanging out together, you
43:41
Speaker 9: get a lot of these social bonding chemicals. When kids
43:44
Speaker 9: are interacting via text, you get none of those social
43:47
Speaker 9: bonding chemicals, which is a good sign that text based
43:49
Speaker 9: communication isn't recognized as actual social interaction biologically. It's more
43:54
Speaker 9: recognized as isolating and threatening, which is one of the
43:56
Speaker 9: reasons why kids who use a lot of texting based
44:00
Speaker 9: tech like social media and stuff usually have lower scores
44:03
Speaker 9: on sense of belonging those things. But if you can
44:06
Speaker 9: hear someone's voice, so like when we were growing up,
44:08
Speaker 9: we used to call each other all the time. You
44:10
Speaker 9: have that long chord on the phone, you'd go sneak
44:12
Speaker 9: into the pantry. We didn't know it, But when you
44:14
Speaker 9: hear somebody's voice, you can get the same type of
44:17
Speaker 9: chemicals you get from social interaction. They're not as strong,
44:20
Speaker 9: but they're definitely there. They're not absent like texting. So
44:23
Speaker 9: I'd say, if you had to do a hierarchy'd say, look,
44:25
Speaker 9: if you're going to play video games, sit on the
44:27
Speaker 9: couch next to the person like we used to do
44:29
Speaker 9: n sixty four. You're going to get the best benefit
44:32
Speaker 9: next to that. As long as you can hear people
44:33
Speaker 9: in your talk new them, that's going to be next
44:35
Speaker 9: down the line. And then if you're just gaming by
44:37
Speaker 9: yourself quietly, that might be third.
44:39
Speaker 4: Down theap line right ectly.
44:40
Speaker 8: You're right, it's it's kind of how we're using them.
44:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, And there's also just like a modern reality of
44:44
Speaker 2: some of my son's in middle school and you know,
44:47
Speaker 2: he's a gamer, and this is what he and his
44:49
Speaker 2: friends do. You know, if I was to tell him,
44:51
Speaker 2: like no video games, that would cut him off from
44:54
Speaker 2: a lot of his social life that he has now,
44:57
Speaker 2: because this is just sort of the reality of the
44:59
Speaker 2: world that we live in.
45:00
Speaker 4: So reflect on that.
45:01
Speaker 2: But also, you know, how do you and I know
45:03
Speaker 2: you focus more on tech deployment in school specifically, but
45:07
Speaker 2: you've also spoken in thought some about how parents should
45:10
Speaker 2: approach technology in their home as well. How do you
45:13
Speaker 2: approach that conversation without putting the entire burden on parents
45:18
Speaker 2: and shaming them at a time when look, everybody's doing
45:22
Speaker 2: their best and we're up against these like multi billion
45:24
Speaker 2: dollar companies that spend a lot of money trying to
45:28
Speaker 2: make their tech addictive and make sure that your kids
45:31
Speaker 2: are glued to the screen.
45:33
Speaker 9: Yeah, and that's it's one of the hardest things we
45:36
Speaker 9: have to face is it's the cigarette problem all again.
45:41
Speaker 9: We're giving something to our kids that we know is dangerous.
45:44
Speaker 9: I don't think there's a parent out there that's thinking,
45:46
Speaker 9: you know what, my kid needs more tech. We all
45:49
Speaker 9: kind of know that as soon as they're done with tech,
45:51
Speaker 9: we're going to have this half hour window where they're
45:53
Speaker 9: just crazy. They're going to have to get off of that.
45:57
Speaker 9: But you're right, it's how they built their social life.
45:58
Speaker 9: We basically lost that battle. So what I tend to
46:02
Speaker 9: say with two families when it comes to learning, anything
46:05
Speaker 9: that has to do with learning, if it's homework, if
46:07
Speaker 9: it's a reading, if your kid has to do a worksheet,
46:10
Speaker 9: print it out, buy a printer, do everything learning based analog.
46:14
Speaker 9: The first thing we have to do is separate the
46:16
Speaker 9: screen from learning. Kids view the screen as an entertainment
46:20
Speaker 9: medium and rightly.
46:22
Speaker 8: So that is what they do.
46:22
Speaker 9: They spend over two thy five hundred hours every single
46:25
Speaker 9: year using this machine to rapidly switch between media content.
46:31
Speaker 9: When we now say now use the same exact tool
46:33
Speaker 9: to learn, which requires sustained focus, they can't do it.
46:37
Speaker 9: Most of them only make it about six minutes before
46:38
Speaker 9: they go right back to Well, I'm just going to
46:40
Speaker 9: open this tab. I'll check this out. So anytime it
46:42
Speaker 9: comes to learning in your house, make it analog by
46:45
Speaker 9: a printer, get it out.
46:47
Speaker 4: Beyond that, print it out is a very strategy.
46:50
Speaker 8: Yeah, I would say beyond that too.
46:53
Speaker 9: Just start with a tech audit and totally non judgmental
46:56
Speaker 9: for all the entertainment based tech. Just spend one or
46:59
Speaker 9: two weeks with you and your kid. They do it,
47:00
Speaker 9: you do it? How often do you use it? What
47:02
Speaker 9: are you using it for? And as a parent, does
47:05
Speaker 9: my kids see me use it? What message is that sending.
47:08
Speaker 9: Just get a sense of the lay of the land,
47:09
Speaker 9: see what's going on, and then make small changes as
47:12
Speaker 9: you see fit. If you try and change everything at once,
47:14
Speaker 9: it's always going to bomb. It's like trying to change
47:16
Speaker 9: your workout regime in one minute. Doesn't work, right, Just
47:18
Speaker 9: change one thing. Say maybe next week, let's see if
47:20
Speaker 9: we can't shoot for an evening where the family watches
47:24
Speaker 9: a movie together instead of does text something like that,
47:27
Speaker 9: and then you just build your own values.
47:28
Speaker 1: That's my last question, Jared.
47:30
Speaker 3: One of the things I love about America, if you
47:32
Speaker 3: live in a locality, you can actually have immense impact
47:34
Speaker 3: in your school system. Like Crystal was telling you, they
47:37
Speaker 3: parents band it together. They're like, hey, we want our
47:39
Speaker 3: kids off machines. School board actually did it. So my
47:42
Speaker 3: daughter's going to be in school in a few years.
47:44
Speaker 3: I'm going to start going on to the school board meetings.
47:46
Speaker 3: What should I start demanding of my school board around
47:49
Speaker 3: this conversation about technology? What kind of guidelines if you
47:52
Speaker 3: were to design it from scratch, what should I push for?
47:55
Speaker 9: Go in first, get a coalition. One parent talking is
47:58
Speaker 9: always going to be viewed as a nuisance. Ten parents talking.
48:01
Speaker 9: Now we're going to start paying attention at schools. That
48:03
Speaker 9: just seems to be how it is. Don't go on
48:06
Speaker 9: the attack. Go with a level of curiosity. If you
48:09
Speaker 9: go there saying you're doing it wrong, they're going to
48:10
Speaker 9: push back.
48:11
Speaker 8: Nothing happens.
48:12
Speaker 9: Say look, do you guys know how much and what
48:15
Speaker 9: type of tech is being used in schools, And what
48:17
Speaker 9: you'll find is ninety percent of the time the answer
48:19
Speaker 9: is no, No one tracks this data.
48:21
Speaker 8: So say, cool, let's just do a tech audit for
48:23
Speaker 8: the next month.
48:24
Speaker 9: Can you just track what programs are kids using at
48:27
Speaker 9: what year level and for how long? And maybe we
48:29
Speaker 9: can even just if they have their own iPads that
48:32
Speaker 9: they've been given, we can just plug in a program
48:34
Speaker 9: that'll do that for us. Then we can say, okay,
48:37
Speaker 9: where's the data. So once we know where kids are
48:40
Speaker 9: using it and they say maybe they use this program
48:42
Speaker 9: but not that one, we can say, okay, do we
48:43
Speaker 9: have data that that is an effective way of learning?
48:47
Speaker 9: And what you'll see is ninety nine percent of ed
48:50
Speaker 9: tech tools have no data with them. Ed tech was
48:54
Speaker 9: the one field that was never regulated at any level.
48:56
Speaker 9: Your toaster has gone through more clearances than the pros
49:00
Speaker 9: we put in front of our kids tomorrow at school.
49:03
Speaker 9: So we can just say, cool, what's the data, and
49:05
Speaker 9: then we can make it clear that Okay, if there
49:07
Speaker 9: is no data, then either we've got to collect it,
49:10
Speaker 9: in which case, don't give it to every kid, do
49:12
Speaker 9: a small experiment, or b we wait till they collect
49:16
Speaker 9: the data improve it to us. If the focus of
49:19
Speaker 9: school is learning, then at the end of the day,
49:21
Speaker 9: every decision we make has to hinge on does this
49:23
Speaker 9: improve learning? And if there is no evidence that it
49:26
Speaker 9: is doing that, and if there is evidence that it's
49:28
Speaker 9: harming on the other side, then by all means we're
49:30
Speaker 9: in a good spot to say maybe we pull that back,
49:32
Speaker 9: divest a bit until we have better data to say
49:35
Speaker 9: this is something for our kids.
49:36
Speaker 3: I think it's a very smart approach that you just
49:38
Speaker 3: laid out. I hope everybody goes and buys the book,
49:40
Speaker 3: engages with the work.
49:41
Speaker 1: Thank you very much, Jar. We really appreciate your time.
49:43
Speaker 8: Thank you Jared, Oh, thank you both.
49:46
Speaker 3: Thank you guys so much for watching. I hope you
49:47
Speaker 3: enjoyed it. AI Block, it just went too long. Today
49:50
Speaker 3: we're talking with Jared quite a bit, so Crystal and
49:53
Speaker 3: Emily will be doing that tomorrow, so you get a
49:55
Speaker 3: special trade then and we're about to do the AMA
49:57
Speaker 3: so we'll see you on a bit.
50:00
Speaker 5: Spot. People to British