10/30/25: AI Mass Layoffs, Nvidia Bubble, Healthcare Costs Spike, Kash Patel Freaks Over Kirk Assassin Probe

Krystal and Saagar discuss mass AI layoffs, Nvidia bubble watch, healthcare costs spike, Kash Patel rages over Kirk foreign ties probe.

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey guys, Saga and Crystal here.

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Speaker 3 (00:25):
We need your help to build the future of independent
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dot com. Good morning, everybody, Happy Thursday. Have an amazing
show for everybody today. When do we have Crystal in need?

Speaker 2 (00:37):
We do so. Mass layoffs have begun. We've got the
list of large companies that are laying off thousands of workers.
The FED also announced that they're going to be doing
another rate cut, but future rate cuts are uncertain, so
a lot to dig into there. In terms of economics,
we're also getting a look at the health insurance premium
rates for next year, and boy, oh boy, does not
look good for literally anyone. We've got some interesting revelations

(01:02):
with regard to the investigation in Charlie Kirk's murder assassination.
So Cash Battel pissed off at Joe Kent because Joe
Kent was looking at some of the evidence and exploring
potential outside ties, including potential foreign national ties. So we're
going to take a look at that. Also, some good news,
a man who had been arrested for posting a Charlie
Kirk meme has been released after public pressure and some

(01:25):
local reporting, So some good news there, but he did
spend a month in prison plus before he was released.
Absolute insane situation. We're going to do a little bit
of a dive into the races that are happening, the
electoral races that are happening next week. We got New Jersey,
we got Virginia. We of course have New York City
mayoral race. We've got some new, brand new polling out
this morning that is very interesting, so you definitely want

(01:46):
to stay tuned for that. We're also taking a look
at Jade Vance confronted over Israel at a TPUSA event
and Jane Huger threatened with deportation by Steven Miller's wife,
Katie Miller live on Piers Morgan. So that's an interesting moment.

Speaker 3 (02:02):
I'm saving perhaps one of the most sexist public comments.

Speaker 2 (02:06):
I might be there.

Speaker 1 (02:08):
I think you will be there with me.

Speaker 3 (02:09):
I think I think even the most radical feminists will
be there with me. Thank you to every eve it's
been subscribing Breakingpoints in dot com for our premium membership.
We deeply appreciate it. By the way, while we're on that,
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(02:32):
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I was like, these are actually incredible.

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Speaker 2 (03:07):
Yeah, not saying they're cheap, but you know, at costs.
If you're going to make up in America yeah, and
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twenty That's exactly right.

Speaker 3 (03:21):
No ten move shopping over here, right, No ten move socks.
These are actually high quality socks that you.

Speaker 1 (03:26):
Can wear anywhere.

Speaker 3 (03:27):
And I've gotten organic compliments about the people who didn't
even know who I went, like, those are nice socks.

Speaker 1 (03:31):
Those nice socks.

Speaker 3 (03:32):
The shoe salesman, which I guess he's incentivized to say,
he's like, hey, he's a pretty nice socks over here. Okay, Okay,
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the show. But let's go ahead and start, as you said, Crystal,

(03:53):
with the economy. There is a lot going on here
in terms of the Federal Reserve. Let's put this up
here on the screen your own. Powell, the Chairman of
the Federal Reserve, lowered interest rates for the second meeting
so far, but it was not a lot, and he
also cast out on expectations of a further rate cut
later this year. This sent markets into a little bit
of turmoil immediately after.

Speaker 1 (04:15):
He uttered the phrase quote far from it.

Speaker 3 (04:18):
Whenever he was asked specifically about market expectations from a
rate cut of the next gathering in December. This was
a little bit of a surprise, erasing some of the
gains on the day.

Speaker 1 (04:27):
It wasn't a crash or anything like that.

Speaker 3 (04:29):
But the point is is that Powell's comments, as they write,
underscore the easiest part of unwinding the Central Bank's aggressive
rate increases might be over as he navigates a committee
with what has identified as a growing course of officials
who are also wondering whether rate cuts are even warranted.
All of this results entirely on the back of inflation,
but also the data blackout. So this is really important

(04:51):
for people to understand the data blackout because of the
government's shutdown. So right now, the immense amount of data
gathered by BLS and others from the federal government has
now been shut down, what is it, twenty five to
twenty six days, something like that, So they're actually kind
of flying blind. That's part of the reason why he
said in December, I genuinely don't know. In addition to

(05:11):
tariff policy is all over the map, President Trump and
President she met this morning or whatever this evening in
South Korea recently for some hour and a half meeting.
They did announce a reduction in the overall number of
China tariffs, still waiting for some market reaction. Things look
flat right now. In terms of the futures, it was
relatively expencted, probably Briston. It was effectively they kind of

(05:33):
we're telegra graphing some of that. We'll get to that
in the Nvidia chapter. But the whole point really around
all of this is per carity, lack of data, flying
a bit blind, and when you combine it with some
of the job data, things are not looking particularly good
right now.

Speaker 2 (05:47):
Yeah, let's put a two up on the screen. Speaking
of that, you know, we covered earlier in the week
some of the Amazon and the UPS layoffs. We can
add to that list. Just look at this UPS forty
eight thousand employees, Amazon up to thirty, Intel twenty four k,
Nestle sixteen, Accenture eleven, Ford eleven, Novo Nordisk nine thousand,
Microsoft seven thousand, PwC fifty six hundred, Salesforce four thousand,

(06:10):
Paramount two thousand, Target eighteen hundred, Kroger one thousand, Applied
Materials one thousand, four and forty four Meta six hundred.
We can go to the next one. GM is also
announcing thousands of layoffs. This is specifically in their electric
vehicle plants, which you know makes some sense since we've
been on again, off again with the push towards electric vehicles. Obviously,

(06:32):
the Biden administration was in favor set up some incentives
both for consumers and also for automakers to move in
that direction. Trump administration running one hundred and eighty degrees
in the other direction. So GM now laying off thirty
three hundred of their workers associated with evs, and you know,
one of the one of the reasons is that the

(06:52):
Wall Street rewards, you know, all their stock prices surge
when they can show that they're able to get rid
of human beings. Another piece is that you have AI
coming in, and especially with white collar jobs, they're thinking, okay,
well we can we can push some of our you know,
spreadsheet jockeying and analysis and some of that basic level work.
We can push that onto AI and have fewer people

(07:12):
actually at the organization. As people leave, we also are
not going to rehire. And then the other component here
is that you have a massive amount of uncertainty because
of the because of a variety of reasons, but one
of them certainly being the erratic nature of this presidency
and never knowing what the hell this man is going
to do next. So that doesn't exactly inspire confidence. If
you are a business owner, something we can attest to

(07:33):
as well in the future and in you know, making
large scale investments, are certainly building out your workforce. So
for all of those reasons, you have companies not only
putting a pause on hiring, but actively laying off thousands
of workers at this point in what appears to be
a very troubling trend.

Speaker 1 (07:51):
Yes, that's right, let's go ahead and please put a
five on the screen. This is from the Wall Street Journal.

Speaker 3 (07:56):
Tens of thousands of white collar jobs are now disappearing
as AI starts to bite.

Speaker 1 (08:01):
What they say is and you know, they point to some.

Speaker 3 (08:04):
Of the job losses that we already covered in our
last show from Amazon from Ups. However, they highlight a
few that I actually wasn't even necessarily aware about, target
cutting some eighteen hundred jobs. They also said white collar
workers from companies like Rivian, Molten Cores, booz Al and
Hamilton General Motors and others all receiving pink slips just
ahead of the holidays, adding up to absolutely tens of

(08:26):
thousands of jobs now so far.

Speaker 1 (08:29):
Exactly as you said, a lot of this is just.

Speaker 3 (08:30):
Like grunt work, and you know, administrative cost, HR, legal etc.
Behind the waves, they say, is the embrace of artificial intelligence.
Executives now hoping they can handle more of that work
than the well compensated white collar employees. Investors have pushed
the C suite to work more efficiently with fewer employees.

Speaker 1 (08:48):
Altogether.

Speaker 3 (08:49):
The factors are remaking what office work looks like in
the United States, leaving managers that remain with more workers
to supervise less time to meet with them while saddling
the employees fortunate enough to have jobs with much heavier workloads.
So you're going to work more money? Are more hours
for the same amount of pay?

Speaker 1 (09:06):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (09:06):
Not more money?

Speaker 1 (09:07):
Not great?

Speaker 3 (09:07):
Well somebody who's making more money and yeah, the people
of the job, you know, the investors.

Speaker 2 (09:11):
Stolar made a good point about that. He was like, well,
they're claiming all of this, you know, increase in productivity
and decrease and costs from AI, but you know you're
not seeing them lower prices now, are you any know?

Speaker 1 (09:21):
Of course not.

Speaker 2 (09:22):
There was an interesting statistic here in this Wall Street
Journal piece. They say the college class of twenty twenty
five submitted more job applications than the class of twenty
twenty four, so putting more work into the job search
while receiving a smaller number of offers cour to the
National Association of Colleges and Employers. So they're having to
send out more applications and they're getting fewer job offers.

(09:44):
We continue to see that unemployment rate for new college
grads tick up again. There's a variety of reasons, but
AI is certainly one of them. You know, as companies. Look,
the entry level work is exactly the sort of thing
that you could potentially use AI. And even companies I
think that haven't fully figured out how to incorporate AI

(10:04):
in a way that does save labor and you know,
makes their employees more productive such that they don't need
as many human beings. They anticipate being able to do that,
and they want to get the Wall Street rewards from
a big headline saying that they're laying off a bunch
of workers because you know, our society structured such to
that sort of thing as a rewarded.

Speaker 1 (10:21):
Actually, yeah, you know. They highlight a really sad case.
Here a thirty three year old guy.

Speaker 3 (10:24):
So this guy's exactly the same age as me, He
has three children, He has spent ten months looking for work.
He's a technologist, has requisite experience. They say that he
applied to over one thousand jobs to make ends meet,
covering food, gas, utilities. He emptied his four oh one
K sold stocks, crypto and the Pokemon cards he collected
with his son. His home was put into foreclosure when

(10:46):
he couldn't make the mortgage payment this summer. A friend
referred him now to a dealership job. He commutes two
hours or more each day, hustles on the floor from
the stores eight thirty to nine on Tuesday, he's weighing
weather to drive in on his day off. Three year
old father of three, basically bankrupt by the way in
New bron Folds, Texas.

Speaker 1 (11:05):
No disrespect in New bron Files. I like it there.

Speaker 3 (11:07):
It's a nice place, but you know, it's not exactly
a very high cost of living area. This is a
place where houses shouldn't be no more than a couple
hundred grand for a reasonable house for a family at four.
So consider you know what the mortgage payment and all
of that would look like. It would be a different
stories living in a two three million dollar house. But
that's not you know, anybody who's done anything particularly wrong.
So if you're effectively bankrupt and you have at least

(11:28):
a number of skills and you end up working at
dealership sales job, I mean, that's that's rough. No disrespect
to that job either at all, but just shows you,
you know that, He's like, I have no work life, mounts,
I have three children, I have a two hour community
each way.

Speaker 1 (11:40):
Okay, I mean that's a nightmare scenario.

Speaker 3 (11:42):
It reminds me of I forget this, this documentary about the
GM plant that closed back in two thousand and eight
and the workers where they're like, yeah, you have a job,
but it's not here.

Speaker 1 (11:50):
You have to go somewhere else, remember that.

Speaker 3 (11:52):
And they all had to go live in like housing together,
like temporary housing together, and then try to commute back.

Speaker 2 (11:59):
On the weekend generational residence UNI area.

Speaker 3 (12:02):
Exactly right, and then their families just boom gone. The
entire decimation of the town happened within a decade, and
now it's almost been two decades at this point, I
actually would like to go back and to check on
some of those areas. I'd be willing to bet you know,
the soul got basically sucked out of all of them.
And they also, he says, they say in the piece
about recruiting firms where they have seen quote a number

(12:23):
of forty year olds are now surging in terms of
people who have been let off.

Speaker 1 (12:28):
They can't keep up with the technology.

Speaker 3 (12:29):
It's outpacing their skill set, and they are now looking
for jobs that are out there. So maybe some twenty
five years twenty seven years I think technically from retirement, right,
so they staw have thirty prime age, working years almost
ahead of them.

Speaker 1 (12:41):
That's really really devastating.

Speaker 3 (12:43):
They highlight people genuinely across the income spectrum, across the
skill spectrum, and across age, just to show you the
way that this is all, you know, coming together, and
it's also being manifested not only in the job loss,
but also in the higher prices for all of us,
through power, through data centers, through the out of concentration
in our stock markets. We're we've taken an entire bed

(13:04):
on AI. If it fails, we're done, Like we will
have a full on great recession.

Speaker 1 (13:09):
Actually it might be worse.

Speaker 2 (13:10):
We're also done. Yeah, Like I mean serious, Like this
is the beginning, right AA still really kind of sucks,
and you're seeing these level of layoffs and uh job
joblessness skyrocketing for college grads and them, you know, filing
a thousand applications and getting no job offers, and forty
year olds getting kicked out of their jobs and not
being able to restart, and people unable to change career

(13:33):
like we are just at the beginning. You will never
meet a more radicalized person than the person who like
did all the things, went to business school, took on
all this debt, or went to law school, took on
all this debt, and then there is nothing for them.
Like that's that is the reality now, and that is
the accelerating future that these companies are aiming for, and like,

(13:55):
what are we going to do about this? I mean genuinely,
what are we going to do about this? As I've
said before, the best case scenario is that they never
get beyond the phase they're at now of like, you know,
it kind of sucks and you can't really do all
that much with it, and so there's some labor force disruption,
but it's not cataclysmic. I don't know, you know, the
path that they're heading on what they want to achieve

(14:17):
looks like it is a revolution from the top that
they are trying to achieve. And I know that there
will be a reaction from people who are looking at
this landscape for themselves and their kids, and like, I
literally don't know what to do to survive now because
there's no entry level positions. You know, certain categories are
eliminated completely. And it's not sector bisector. It's like, you know,
a lot of it is the jobs that we were

(14:38):
all told, oh, going to learn to code, that's the
job of the future. Those are some of the first
jobs that are going so, I don't know, it's pretty
dire and we can see, you know, Republicans, this is like,
you know, maybe the least important storyline, but Republicans starting
to take on water here a four on their economic
handling because of this whole confluence of events. For the

(14:58):
first time in quite a while, we have the Democrats
taken the lead in the party better to keep the
country prosperous. I doubt how anyone has a whole lot
of confidence in either party to really guide the ship
and steer the courses. We head into an incredibly uncertain
era here, and like I said, I think it's just
starting to set in for people what AI is actually

(15:22):
intended to do, which is to replace every single one
of you.

Speaker 3 (15:25):
Let's think about the UPS story. Did you really hear
about it anywhere? I mean, if we covered on this
show it was our a blog, did you hear about it?
I mean, it's forty eight thousand people who are in
an industry where it's management and operations. Like a lot
of these people, this is middle class, normal people.

Speaker 1 (15:44):
MO probably did everything right and they're out of a job.

Speaker 3 (15:48):
Ahead of the holidays ahead of the busiest season of UPS.
What is UPS telling the entire market? We don't need
these people to function. We'll still be able to deliver
all these packages on time, and maybe they can. But
nobody even particularly cares about any of these. Like, did
I see a major national politician or anybody actually come
and speak out.

Speaker 1 (16:05):
Not really, not one, right, I mean, instead everybody.

Speaker 3 (16:08):
This was I'm borrowing a little bit from Tucker's mologe
because you mentioned this specifically. He recently did one about
Venezuela and he's like, I'm sorry, I don't care about
Venezuela right now. In particular, Lindsey Graham was talking about
how Venezuela supports Hesbola or something like that as part
of the reason why we need to overthore. He's like,
I'm sorry, Like he's like, that is just something I
don't care about right now. It's not an imminent threat,

(16:28):
like this is actually an unironic imminent threat to the
very foundations of who we are.

Speaker 1 (16:33):
So it's really it's really just concerning the politics. The politics.

Speaker 3 (16:38):
I think what it highlights, as you're talking about there
about the GOP, the GOP advantage on the economy is
going away. That's probably a reflection of because they're in
power right now. The reason it was high in twenty
twenty three is because Biden was.

Speaker 1 (16:50):
They were out of pound right said so now.

Speaker 3 (16:52):
But even if the Democrats like plus four, it's not
that high. It just shows you like nobody has any
real vision or attention to the actual things that make
society tick.

Speaker 1 (17:02):
It just seems like it's on autopilot.

Speaker 3 (17:04):
It's completely in the hands we covered yesterday of sam
Altman literally gets to decide whether he's responsible enough to
introduce mass ai pornography into the entire system. Sam Altman
gets to decide, and open Ai personally gets to decide
whether they are responsible enough in their handling of mental
health and of suicidal ideation. And it's completely amoral and

(17:28):
also undemocratic. Like no, that is singularly a subject an
issue which should be entirely up to the people. If
we decide ultimately that yes, this is how they should
handle it, I mean I won't like it, but so
be it. But we never got to weigh in on
any of this. And I think that that is the
foundation of our economic relationship to labor since the post

(17:50):
nineteen hundred Gilded Age era is we decided no, it's
actually ridiculous to say that these large companies get to
run every fast of our life. We will take back
to crewdit control one last thing that we have, which
is the current government, and we see absolutely none of
that which just want them to let them do whatever
they want. It's putting all of us in a tremendous
amount of risk, especially with retirement, which we're about to
get to with nvideo.

Speaker 2 (18:10):
Look, guys, this is the real great replacement theory, genuinely.
I mean, the politicians in charge right now are funneling
money and favors to a few giant corporations and a
few oligarchs who want to replace make your labor irrelevant.
Like it's not hidden, it's not a conspiracy. It's out
in the open. And you know, it's only a matter

(18:32):
of time before people connect the dots between their electricity
bill going up right now and these data centers going
up all across the country and these increasing you know,
layoffs that are starting now, especially in white collar work.
But also we talked about Amazon runs to replace six
hundred thousand of their blue collar warehouse workers. Yeah, that's
one of the few jobs you can get now where
it's like you can come out with a high school degree.

(18:53):
It's not a great it's a very difficult physical job,
but you can earn twenty twenty five bucks an hour.
At least it's something of it bailable to you. And
they're trying to automate all of that out of existence.
So it is a very dire landscape. But should we
check in on how the financial bubble is doing today?

Speaker 3 (19:12):
Soger, Yeah, let's let's let's hope it's not a bubble
because we're screwed fit.

Speaker 2 (19:16):
I mean, it's definitely a bubble. I don't think, genuinely,
I don't think there's anyone who denies that it's a bubble.
It's just a matter of how much the damage is
going to be.

Speaker 3 (19:23):
Let's put it up here, and Vidia has now become
the first five trillion dollar company. Shares have been boosted
by the AI boom. You can see there. The market
cap now five trillion dollars just two hundred and seventy
three days ago.

Speaker 1 (19:36):
It was four trillion just sixty six days.

Speaker 3 (19:38):
It took sixty six days to go from two trillion
to three trillion, and it took some one hundred and
eighty days to.

Speaker 1 (19:42):
Go from one trillion to trillion.

Speaker 3 (19:44):
But you can see the absolute gigantic increase in the
overall stock price and the market cap. Shares have been boosted,
they say, by AI's potential and recent flurry of deals.
Remember that these deals are not actually cash deals. A
lot of them are circular. Round trip finance is the
way that they call it. Vendor finance is another term
that goes back several decades. You can go watch our
segment with David Dan if you're interested for the exact mechanics.

(20:05):
And Video is now larger than AMD, arm ASML, Broadcom, Intel,
LAMB Research, Micron, Qualcom, TSMC combined, combined all of those
juggernaut semiconductors manufacturers. Remember also, TSMC actually makes the d
video chip, not that a lot of people even know
that now. According to the Dow Jones Market its value

(20:26):
also exceeds entire sectors of the S and P five hundred,
including utilities, industrials, and consumer staples. Santa Clara Company designs chips,
as they say about GPUs.

Speaker 1 (20:39):
Has shipped some six million of the Blackwell chip.

Speaker 3 (20:41):
It released just last year, has orders for fourteen million
more that's part of the reason why. And this is why,
you know, saying it's a bubble implies that they don't
sell anything. They actually do sell a lot of stuff,
Like they have a lot of orders on the books.
That's part of the reason why the stock is so high.
The question is are those orders going.

Speaker 1 (20:56):
To continue in the you know, the medium to.

Speaker 3 (20:59):
Long run to sustain this level of growth and to
finance all of the deals that are you know, propped
up by these insane valuations. Just again, to stick with this,
the market value of Nvidia now exceeds the entire S
and P five hundred industrials. It exceeds consumer staples, it
exceeds broadcom it, it exceeds the S and P five

(21:22):
hundred utilities a m d asml micron I meant, I mean,
just consider like what percent that that makes up of
the entire S and P five hundred.

Speaker 1 (21:31):
Ironically, I use chat GPT to calculate this.

Speaker 3 (21:33):
It's some eight percent alone, just of the entire S
and P five hundred, So just the whole. So if
you know, you're a normal investor, you have your four
oh one K, your roth Ira whatever, and you're just
on auto buy for a Vanguard s and P five
hundred fund, which is what most people responsibly should do.
You're betting on Nvidia a lot more than you think.
Now you're not totally you know, exposed to the risk.

(21:56):
But yeah, let's say it goes down, then that will
drag the entire index down.

Speaker 1 (22:00):
It literally has that power.

Speaker 3 (22:02):
Like I mean, I don't think it's an exaggeration to
say that the retirement portfolio of the entire country is
big banking on the stock.

Speaker 2 (22:09):
Well, and I've got some more for you. So Jacob
King crunched the numbers. He says in nvidia' is now
worth more than two Canada's one hundred and sixty six icelands,
a Germany and a half. Every US regional bank combined
the world's billionaires three times over the entire NFL thirty
five times, every piece of sold in history, every item

(22:30):
on Amazon, Visa, Massacard and PayPal, Nasa, SpaceX and Boeing, Toyota,
Sony and Nintendo, Europe's four biggest banks, every oil company
on Earth, all of global gold reserves combined, all of
La real estate, Manhattan real estate, the whole crypto market,
and all fifty four African countries combined. Okay, let's think
about this whole quote unquote vendor financing thing again. So basically,

(22:54):
the idea is that in Nvidia loans money to a
company and or stock or stock, and then they buy
the Nvidia chips. So they give the money and you know,
to the company, and the company sends the money back
to them and gets their chips in exchange, and everybody's
stock price goes up, right, even though you're just round
tripping this money effectively. Okay, So not only do they

(23:17):
have to maintain their order flow in order for this
stock price to continue going up or even maintain its
current value evaluation, they also have to maintain their price.
So let's say that there's some sort of market hit
where the price of these chips goes down, and or
there's some sort of a hit in the AI market
where all of these companies go down. Well, not only

(23:39):
is Nvidia taking the direct hit because now their chips
are worth less than they're able to sell them for less,
but now all of these investments, all of this vendor
financing that is going out to these companies, they're being
hit there too, because the value of those companies is
going down as well. So you're getting hit twice just

(24:00):
from one market movement. So that's when you look at
the precarity of this. I mean, it's some of the
same like domino type effects that we all experience firsthand,
or those of us are old enough to experience firsthand
during the Great Recession. So you know, you're set up
for something very troubling here. And it also begs the

(24:21):
question like, Okay, if these chips are so amazing, there's
so much demand for them, and oh my god, the
price just keeps going up and up and up. Why
do you need to do these deals if there is
so much organic demand for this thing. So a lot
of big questions, And like I said, I don't even
think there are many people that deny that it's a bubble.
There's just all sorts of cope around it of like, Okay, yeah,

(24:43):
it's a bubble, but you know what, even though it's
a bubble, when it crashes, there's gonna be a lot
of good that comes down of it, or you know,
it's not going to pop for a long time, so
don't worry about it. I mean, there are very few
people who are actually like this is fine in this
market actually makes sense.

Speaker 1 (24:57):
Did you put a six B up on the screen.

Speaker 2 (24:59):
No, yes, the infamous now vendor financing charge.

Speaker 3 (25:02):
Look how beautiful this is, right, It's like a gorgeous
graphic where it shows Nvidia, it shows companies investing in
video and Nvidia investing in back and then various different
open AI is kind of the nexus of a lot
of these deals. But each arrow shows either investment services, capital,
hardware or software.

Speaker 1 (25:20):
And how intra related the entire thing.

Speaker 2 (25:22):
This is like our whole economy right here, guys. This
is it right here.

Speaker 3 (25:25):
It's entire GDP spending, it's everything, and all of it
is being powered by data centers. By the way, you
know there is a huge China angle already. Let's go
ahead and put that one please up on the screen,
a seven just to show you all.

Speaker 1 (25:38):
So Bloomberg is now reporting.

Speaker 3 (25:40):
And remember I mentioned the Blackwell chip, which is one
of the more advanced chips here. The AI chip will
be on the negotiating table now in the US China
trade talks. Any substantial deal here would balance the AI
compute balance of power.

Speaker 1 (25:53):
Trump has suggested he is open to.

Speaker 3 (25:55):
Providing Nvidia with the Chinese access as part of a
larger trade deal. Which will represent a major concession, and
it would quote rile up national security hawks in Washington.
AI Blackwell is basically like the last element of our
economy where we have some strategic advantage over the Chinese.
And Trump is basically worried about the soybean farmers in

(26:15):
the Midwest, and so he's decided, I'm happy to give
them access to the best technology in the world in
our last moat, as long as they can bail out
my trade war on soybeans, even though, by the way,
we could have also forced Argentina, who we were bailing out,
to buy said soybeans if we wanted to. We didn't
even have to do any of this. So let's put
the next one up on the screen too, because here's

(26:37):
the thing, guys and Video gen saying, he is one
of the Jensen is one of the most sophisticated political
actors I've seen in quite a long time. He understands
this place exactly. He's here in town actually right now
for the Nvidia conference, laying the groundwork for trying to
sell as many chips in China.

Speaker 1 (26:54):
He's a business That's what he wants to do, right,
So what do you do?

Speaker 3 (26:57):
He is now joining everyone in and donating to the
Trump ballroom. I will also remind you that one way
he was able to get access to Trump is he
donated a significant amount to some superpack which held a
dinner at mar A Lago. And immediately after that dinner
at mar A Lago, it's not confirmed exactly spoke to Trump,
it's almost certainly he must have, right because immediately afterwards

(27:20):
there was an announcement of a concession. He has been
meeting with every Ai figure in Washington over the last
like several months because he is desperate to preserve the
Chinese bottom line for his business. He even traveled recently
to Beijing and said that he would be working as hard.

Speaker 1 (27:35):
As he could to sell the Blackwell chip.

Speaker 3 (27:37):
Now, what's crazy about this entire thing is that the
Chinese now openly say they go, yes, we want access
to the Blackwell chip for now. At the very same
time they're like, this is a strategic problem for us,
so we are going to massively surge development to make
sure that we're not reliant on the Blackwell chip. He
doesn't care, neither does America. Trump needs a soybean bailout

(28:00):
so we could buy more soybeans. We're gonna give away
part of our economic the last thing that we really
have on top of them. And then at the same time,
it's all just a juice the Nvidia stock price in
the short term because the Chinese, who are smart, as
I always say here, are like, yeah, in the long run,
this is a problem for us. They're like, we can't
be having this, and they have open orders in their

(28:23):
entire economy which are being massively state funded to find
an alternative in the immediate So this is it.

Speaker 1 (28:29):
And we had Ben Smith on our show, and it
bears a longer discussion.

Speaker 3 (28:32):
The era of trying to beat China or any of
that on trying to beat China in terms of full
on decoupling from the US side is over. My current
theory is that if China and the US d couple,
it will be because the Chinese want.

Speaker 1 (28:46):
To and they're like, they're like, you guys are a problem.

Speaker 3 (28:49):
You know, you have a degenerate market, volatile economy.

Speaker 1 (28:52):
They're like, we can't deal with this. You're too unreliable
of a supplier to all.

Speaker 2 (28:56):
And by the way, they're in a lot of ways
they are. They have been taking the steps to do
that both in terms of their financial system. You know,
they're looking at our sanctions really going like, okay, this
is not we don't want you to have this leverage
over us. I Arna Bertrand had written up that whole
thing about helium. They realized that they've had this vulnerability

(29:16):
and relied on us for helium, which is apparently really important,
and they're all right, well, we got to figure that out.
You know, they have been thinking about how actually to
become less dependent on us and decouple from US for
years now. And you know, this is the Chips piece
is a really critical piece. You know, I'm not even
sure I disagree with the decision from the Trump administration

(29:37):
at this point. Like the corrupt part of it is
obviously disgusting, and I actually think what it really comes
down to as well, is that Trump also realizes that
the stock market is wholly and completely dependent on in VideA.
So he's like, he wants that arrow line to keep
going up, so he's going to do whatever in Vidia
wants him to do to continue increasing their orders, et cetera.

(29:58):
But you know, when we had these sorts of export
controls on, what that did is it did force China
into Okay, well, we got to be creative, we got
to do our own innovation, We've got to do our
own development. You know, that's actually what helped you in
some of the backstory for development of deep Seek. They
realize how to be more innovative with the chips that
they did have access to, et cetera. So you know,

(30:18):
I'm not even sure, like I don't know that the
export controls were really working at this point. What Nvidia's
argument is, and of course this is a self interested argument,
but their argument is effectively like, no, you don't want
to keep the American tech stack out of China. You
want them to be dependent on our tech. And so
that's the argument that they've been making. Basically, if you,

(30:39):
you know, don't allow them to purchase these chips, they're
just going to go and develop their own and it'll
be a direct competitor. And then you know, that's more
of an issue for you at this point. Now, like
you said, I'm sure what China is going to do
is both to purchase these chips in the short term
and also continue their development and racism at this level
of advanced technology, right, But I mean, I think like

(31:00):
they're racing towards that, whether we provide them with you,
allow them to buy these chips or not.

Speaker 3 (31:04):
At the time, don't sell somebody the rope to hang you. Okay,
at least make it a little bit more difficult. And
this look, I mean, the problem is talking about this
in a vacuum.

Speaker 1 (31:12):
It's not supposed to be in vacuum. The right is.

Speaker 3 (31:14):
This is what's so frustrating and honestly deeply sad. Eight
years of talk about industrial policy, about competition, about decoupling,
about reforming American manufacturing, and it's basically over, guys, like
it's over this trade deal.

Speaker 1 (31:29):
Put the nail in the coffin.

Speaker 3 (31:30):
Ironically, it's Trump himself who ten years ago was the
person who ushered in a new consensus on China where
a lot of people agreed. But the point of our
discussion with Ben Smith yesterday is he's also the person who,
because of political convenience, corrupt, whatever you want to call it,
has decided actually, it's not going to happen.

Speaker 1 (31:47):
It's not entirely his fault.

Speaker 3 (31:48):
The Biden administration tried, but the truth was, as we
always said at the time, it's just not enough.

Speaker 1 (31:54):
Like the piecemeal approach, it was never going to work.

Speaker 3 (31:56):
It would have literally had to take in what the
Chinese did, made a commitment made in China twenty twenty five.

Speaker 1 (32:02):
Like I said, I went through their plan.

Speaker 3 (32:04):
You would be amazed how their ten year plan actually
came to fruition on a number of counts.

Speaker 1 (32:10):
They have still a few.

Speaker 3 (32:11):
Strategic areas which they're very open about, and they're moving
towards it. And their system is not only not only
it's not only not collapsing as people predicted and said, oh,
they'll never be able to do it. Instead, it's going
the opposite. It's consolidating. You know, it looks even more
legitimate for the eyes of people. Of course, they have
a lot of problems. No one's saying that they don't.

(32:31):
It's a gigantic country with over a billion people in it.
But their trajectory is on the right track. You can't
say that about our current economy, and so AI is
the last thing that we have. And yeah, if they succeed,
I guess it'll destroy us. If it doesn't succeed, it'll
also destroy us.

Speaker 2 (32:50):
I mean, if we're going in the strip, can we
at least get to buy the BYD cars?

Speaker 1 (32:53):
Yeah, Well, something you can in Mexico.

Speaker 3 (32:56):
I was actually speaking with a friend recently and because
I was very against allowing these Chinese cars into our market,
and he made this point. He said, look, I agree,
I understand where you're coming from, but the truth is
is that the American automakers are so just so bad,
and that there's not enough competition currently in the US,

(33:18):
and that the only way that we could potentially spur
things is to allow byd Zhaomi and all of these
other companies here access, but consumers would flock and it
would actually put organic market pressure on four GM and
others to actually try and compete.

Speaker 1 (33:32):
In that second. I said, you know what, I don't.
I'm not there one hundred percent.

Speaker 3 (33:36):
But it's not a bad argument because they're cheaper, it's
better technology. And I mean, again, if we're going to
live in this world where decoupling and all that's not
going to happen, then yeah, we might as well be
able to drive a cheap car, right. You know, I
want to know if the Japanese cars, sorry, it's better,
it just is. I saw the new version of the Corolla.
Oh my god, I'm like salivating.

Speaker 2 (33:53):
Well here's here's in fairness, to the American automakers, especially
with the EV development is like, you know, if you
were a Chinese automaker, you knew my government is in
for the long term on EV's and you know, and
by the way, there were a lot of EV Chinese
EV automakers that failed, you know, they it wasn't just
this one company. There are many of them. There's some

(34:15):
of them was very interesting, some of them have failed,
some of them have succeeded, et cetera. But they they
all had the confidence of Okay, this is a priority
of my government, not oh, this is a priority of
this four years, but next four years who the FuG knows.
And that's the reality for the automakers here. So you know,
like I said before, you had four years of Biden
saying Okay, this is something we want to do, and

(34:35):
we're going to try to build out the charging infrastructure,
and you know, which is a major pain point as
someone who is an EV owner. And by the way,
I love I actually love my board Mustang Mockys.

Speaker 1 (34:44):
I really like it.

Speaker 2 (34:44):
I'm not saying it's better than BYD It's probably not.
I know it's not.

Speaker 1 (34:47):
But it depends just roomy, well, it depends on the BYD.

Speaker 2 (34:50):
I mean they you know, the bhyd's they have longer.
The battery technology alone is better. But in any case,
you know, one of the pain points is a not
fully built out charging infrastru Sure, Biden administration was all right,
we're going to work on that, We're going to give
some subsidies, we're going to help people to be able
to make the transition, We're to support these automakers. And
then you know, four years go by and the Trump
administration pulls all of that aggressively, is like, Nope, we

(35:13):
don't want to do absolutely any of that. So you know,
in a sense, it's like it really hobbles their ability
to have any sort of business certainty and invest for
the long term. So I do have some sympathy for
them in terms of their trajectory.

Speaker 1 (35:25):
No, it's not their fault.

Speaker 2 (35:26):
Yeah, well, I mean, I'm not saying it's none of
it's their fault, but it's also a very uncertain policy.

Speaker 3 (35:31):
Lands You're definitely right. But even on the outcome, this
is why outcomes are so important. You know, everyone's like, oh,
the Biden administration appropriate funds the actual chargers that were
built out, even with the enormous amount of funds.

Speaker 1 (35:41):
It was scant.

Speaker 3 (35:42):
It was like one in one thousand of the amount
of infrastructure, right, and the ones that were built, you know,
they had long wait times, many of the times that
they were down. We just don't have the requisitibility to
just go in bulldoze build new stuff, put in some transformers.

Speaker 1 (35:56):
I will say credit to Tesla.

Speaker 3 (35:58):
The new stuff that they're putting in the Northeast Corridor
with their transformers and the super charging network is actually
very cool. But that's still that's only for Tesla owners
and some you know, the other companies that have done
deals with them. It's not even close, you know, to
to what's the current market penetration of EV. I don't
even think it's ten percent in terms of the number
of Right, maybe in California, right, you're right, maybe in California,

(36:18):
But here in the Northeast, I would have to I
would have to look immediately, but it's it's still not
even close to where it is. And by the way,
even the power if you try to charge at a
supercharger in the middle of the day, it can get
a little pricey there for a couple hundred miles. I mean, yeah,
I'm preaching to the choir for people who have to
pay for gas like that's it's obviously a lot more.

Speaker 1 (36:38):
But in China they don't have necessarily that issue.

Speaker 3 (36:41):
By the way, you know, I was in London about
a year ago or so, and you know those pylons
that like stick up out of the street in a
lot of places in London, they have charging supports inside
the pylons for street parkers. So you can just roll up,
you can park right there, and you can actually charge
your car directly from one of those street piss it's
just sitting there on the sidewalk. I mean, London's an

(37:03):
ancient city. If they can figure it out, why can't
we figure it out.

Speaker 2 (37:06):
I mean, I will tell you guys, it is a
superior technology, like not only not having a patient. Yeah,
the acceleration is meantagical. The way it drives is great.
No maintenance, right, you're not good. You don't have to
go get your oil change because there's no oil circulating through.
It's much cleaner. It just requires a lot less upkeep,
so last longer you're going to the you know, the
dealer or the auto mechanic much less. You obviously don't

(37:28):
have to deal with the ups and downs of how
much gas costs and whatever like.

Speaker 1 (37:31):
It is a.

Speaker 2 (37:32):
Superior technology, but not if you don't have the infrastructure
built out, then it just becomes impractical for most people.
You know, I wouldn't have an electric vehicle if it
was my sole vehicle. I'm not going to take it
on long trips because it's a frickin paign in the butt,
you know, to have to Okay, where's my charging station?
Where am I? You know, let me plan it all out.
Then I'm gonna have to sit there for twenty minutes
while the thing gets a charge. Oh, this one's broken,

(37:54):
it doesn't work. What am I going to do now?
You know? That's that is the current reality of EV ownership.
And since our government can't you know, build anything, and
couldn't get us act together to you know, really invest
in this charging infrastructure and as schizophrenic about what they
want even want to do in this direction, it means
that our automakers are you know, falling behind and sort

(38:17):
of we're being left in the past. I looked it up.
The new EV penetration for new car sales is seven
to eight percent. Okay, so that's just with new car
sales even seven to eight percent. Yes, look, it's not nothing,
but you know it's still and you get why because
it's inconvenient, right, Yeah, of course I've driven.

Speaker 3 (38:32):
I've driven twelve hours in the in the electric car,
and I mean, I will say, if you have a
new baby, it's not the worst thing in the world
because you pretty much have to stop every two hours anyway.

Speaker 1 (38:41):
But yeah, if it was, if it was just.

Speaker 3 (38:44):
Me, I would be I would definitely have found it
a little bit inconvenient. But I mean, you know, the
full self driving can make up for that. It depends
on your own preference for the technology and et cetera.
But yes, look, the fact of the matter is they
have abundant, cheap power over there, They have a huge
amount of government infrastructure and investment behind their technology.

Speaker 1 (39:05):
It just continues to progress. The people there love it.
You know, there's no real.

Speaker 3 (39:10):
Organic complaint generally, and it would be nice if we
could see something like that, and instead all of us
are just praying to the Nvidia God that it continues
to go up, because when it goes down, we're all
going to suffer the consequences. Yeah, all right, let's get
to insurance.

Speaker 2 (39:27):
So we are now getting more of a preview for
just how much healthcare premiums are going up in the
Obamacare marketplaces for next year. We can put this tear
sheet up on the screen. The news is very grim.
Obamacare price has become public highlighting big increases. So the
Trump administration has released a preview of the available plan
sold through Obamacare marketplaces in thirty states, giving Americans who

(39:50):
buy their own health insurance a first look at just
how much prices would go up. Insurers have increased rates
significantly for next year, an average of about thirty percent
for a typical t in the thirty states where the
federal government manages markets, and an average of seventeen percent
in states that run their own markets. That's according to
a new analysis from Kaiser Family Foundation. Biggest impact for

(40:12):
nearly all Americans covered by Obamacare plans will occur with
the expiration of generous subsidies at the end of the
year and less Congress extends them. Prices on the government
website healthcare dot gov reflect that change using calculations based
on a return to the lower subsidy levels offered before
twenty twenty one. So you have you know across the

(40:32):
board hit in terms of prices going up, and Sager
part of what they point to and we can get
into because I think it's still very murky why prices
are going up so much at this point. Certainly some
of it has to do with the ozembic style weight
loss drugs, which have become incredibly popular and also, by
the way, incredibly impactful. The obesity rate is actually going

(40:53):
down for like the first time in modern history. But
you also have with this they talk about how with
the laws of the subsidies and prices going up, healthier
people are going to drop out. That makes the cost
higher for them. Sicker people stay in the pool, and
so they are pricing in that expectation that healthier, younger

(41:13):
people are going to drop out of the pool, and
so everybody who remains is going to have.

Speaker 1 (41:18):
To bear more.

Speaker 3 (41:18):
I mean, it's rational. So ours are not yet public.
They will be public by the way November first. I
will personally post for all of you what it will
cost for me, because I'm very curious actually to see
what the actual increase will be. But I mean, this
is a rational calculus. Let's say it starts to get
to the thirty thousand dollars a year range, and you
include a fourteen thousand dollars deductible, which is what I

(41:40):
currently have right now for the plan that's forty four grand.

Speaker 1 (41:43):
In the event of a bad thing happening.

Speaker 3 (41:47):
To you, maybe roll the dice, just pay it in cash,
I mean, honestly, and by the way, with cash, can't
you negotiate. I've heard that before that if you have
a cash bill at hospital, you can call them up
and be like, hey, listen, I'll pay you fifty cents
on the dollar, and they'll be like, oh, okay, you know,
we'll take it something like which shows you how fake
the prices the entire time.

Speaker 1 (42:06):
Yeah, around forty fifty thousand bucks.

Speaker 3 (42:08):
I mean, it seems reasonable to just say, I'm not sure,
not so sure that we shouldn't just basically be self insured.

Speaker 1 (42:14):
I mean, that's a horrible place to be. You're gonna
be you're out.

Speaker 3 (42:16):
If you're gonna be out the whole anyway, for such
an insane amount of money, you're basically buying like ultra
disaster insurance at that point.

Speaker 1 (42:23):
And I don't think that.

Speaker 3 (42:24):
The disaster insurance should cost forty thousand dollars a year right,
or forty five thousand dollars potentially in the event of
a really bad situation, that is an entirely rational choice
that would not fall really anyone from making. And I think,
you know what we just can't get away from is
this just shows you how bad Obamacare is like. And
it's one of those where with the whole subsidy conversation,

(42:46):
it just seems missing for this entire It just seems
missing from this entire discussion, like the subsidies only existed
because of COVID. I think that better than nothing. Rationally,
people look at the subsidy and said, oh, that's not affordable,
but it's like or affordable. Yeah, sound, so they signed
up and they actually had HELT insurance for the first time.
What I do find very objectionable is not the GLP one,

(43:08):
but it does appear that many of the hospitals have
been taking advantage of the newly amount of insured to
increase their overall price for the services and including for
some of the drugs that have been negotiated, because remember
over the PBMs and the interlockators between all of this
are squeezing every dollar that they possibly can, so the
overall price has actually gone up as more people have

(43:30):
entered this market based insurance subsidy system.

Speaker 1 (43:33):
And so the ultimate.

Speaker 3 (43:35):
Reality that you arrive at is healthy people may leave
the pool the remaining number of people in the pool,
or are they going to be sicker who are going
to consuming more healthcare? That healthcare price is completely untethered
from any market based demand. And you had how you
end up with twenty percent of your GDP spent on
keeping people sick. It's an insane system and it makes

(43:56):
me so angry when I think about it. From housing
and to this, I just don't know, Like if you
are we talked previously twenty five thousand dollars per year
family of four, What are we doing here?

Speaker 1 (44:09):
That's usury? At a certain point.

Speaker 2 (44:12):
Where are my AI savings? You know, when when's that
going to hit? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (44:17):
If you're going to deny people care, at least save
me a fucking buck.

Speaker 3 (44:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (44:20):
Where I'm Mike, I can't deal with this anymore.

Speaker 2 (44:22):
Where are the health insurance layoffs and then the accompanying
reduction in premiums from all the money that you're saving.
Somehow that's not filtering down to the consumer level. And
you know, they dig into who is going to be
most affected. So you have this group that makes, you know,
four times the poverty level. They were the ones that
were really the subsidies were expanded towards. So they're making

(44:43):
sixty five thousand dollars a board that's all going to
go away. So their premiums are the ones that are
really going to gyrock at the most, from like a
few hundred dollars to multi thousands of dollars. But people
who are at the poverty line or near the poverty line,
they are also going to see their costs go up significantly.
Now it's, you know, still an affordable amount if you
make a reasonable income, but if you're at the poverty level,

(45:06):
any sort of an increase is potentially dire for you.
Potentially means the difference between you being able to have
health insurance and not being able to have health insurance.
The other thing that they're pointing to here, Sager, is
they're saying that this weekend, November first, is a kind
of a key deadline, because if you don't have some
sort of a deal figured out in the shutdown, then

(45:27):
you are they're going to price in the expectation that
the subsidies are not going to continue that the healthy
people are going to drop a ount, that these premiums
are in fact going to become reality. So you know,
they're looking towards this weekend as really sort of like
a key moment in order to you know, determine what's
going to happen for the year going forward. Now, I
will say the expansion of the subsidies was under during

(45:51):
COVID was very successful in terms of, you know, the
uninsured rate is the lowest that it's ever been. I think,
you know, there were huge numbers of people who got
into the Obamacare marketplaces because of these subsidies that were offered,
So it was very successful in that way. But it
means now that if those subsidies go away, you're going
to have millions and millions of people who are really impacted.

(46:13):
Not to mention, like I said, the follow one effects
of premiums going on.

Speaker 3 (46:16):
Yeah, let's go to the next one, because this highlights
something that I'm very passionate about which we did not
even know chrysal until we became self employed. So Marginie
Taylor Green highlights this. This is for self employed married
parents in their thirties with four kids. They talk about
Obamacare she says, Democrats of this Obamacare fifteen years ago.
Johnson says, Republicans have a mystery plan that has yet
to be revealed to fix it. No one knows what

(46:36):
it is. We're told to stay home in our district.
She highlights this post from a guy Mark Meredith. He says,
these are the nine options for health insurance in my
zip code. Here are the three silver plans. The plans
that he posts range from three thousand, six hundred and
fifty dollars five dollars per month to three thousand, eight
hundred and ten dollars per month. If you look at

(46:58):
the deductible, it's eighty six hundred, twelve thousand, and three thousand.
The out of pocket maximum ranges from from the low
of seventeen thousand, eight hundred to twenty one thousand, two hundred.
This is a blue Cross Blue Shield plan for a
family of six people.

Speaker 1 (47:16):
Now, notice she mentions they're self employed.

Speaker 3 (47:19):
I mean, one of the things that you and I
discover right when you're self employed is not only that
nobody's going to give you health insurance, but you also
have to pay like the full freight of Medicare and
Social Security tax. So think about what this means for entrepreneurship. Like,
if you are somebody who wants to be an entrepreneur
and to start your own business, which is allegedly the
American dream, you actually are a lot worse off statistically

(47:42):
in a lot of ways by taking this gamble. Because
thirty six hundred per year, how much is that annualized?
I can't even do the math in my head. That's
what like forty K year or something like that. Okay,
so that's like forty thousand dollars a year in after
tax income.

Speaker 1 (47:57):
Yes, it's tax deductible.

Speaker 3 (47:59):
You know off of the top that you have to
be able to bring home to make this, not before
you make your mortgage or any of your other built
not to mention profitability and paying for your employers or employees.
So if you're self employed, what is that or if
you were thinking about being self employed and you're looking
at this, what does that tell you?

Speaker 1 (48:18):
Healthcare cash?

Speaker 3 (48:19):
My job is worth a shitload of money to me,
I may be better off staying at this W two.
That makes me miserable because at least I don't have
to carry the burden of the payroll tax and of
the overall healthcare that's really I think so bad because
it means it will just incentivize more concentration. Of course,

(48:40):
Amazon and those other people they can they have great
healthcare because they can negotiate with the insurance company. They
can provide preferential rates, so can any other large fortune
five hundred company. Part of the reason why in American
mythology we're always like, oh, you know, go work at
a big companies because of the benefits, right, but the
benefits are chained slavery, basically saying that you can't leave.
And that what I think we really need to highlight

(49:02):
because the lack of support. At the very least, it
should be easier to start a new business with the
concentration of banks, health insurance, payroll tax, a lot of
the other tax problems that exist for people who are
small business owners, which we've discovered every single one of
those in running this. It is not it is not simple,
it is not easy, and it can very easily drive

(49:23):
you to a place of madness.

Speaker 2 (49:24):
Yeah, it definitely takes out some of the dynamism from
the economy, both in terms of you know, people not
being able to switch jobs because they're so terrified about
their benefits not wanting to go out on their own
because they have to have health insurance. There is no, absolutely,
no doubt about it. I appreciate Marjorie Taylor Green, you know,
sounding the alarm on these things. I will say the
solutions she's offered are the typical like price transparency was

(49:46):
just like sure, that is not going to solve the problem.

Speaker 1 (49:49):
I think we need it.

Speaker 2 (49:50):
It has to be. It has to be a much
more radical solution. And listen, the left has been right
about Obamacare from day one. Doesn't have some improvements over
the priors, and when you could just like get kicked
off for any old reason and pre existing conditions and
all this not sense. Yes, but if even if it
had a public option, that would have at least provided
some competition in the marketplace. But what you really need

(50:12):
is to go back to square one. And I understand
how difficult that would be, given how entrenched all of
these interests are in our system, how much is built
up around it. You know how much I've seen people
make the point of basically like you know, countries, Yes,
we're the only developed country that doesn't have universal healthcare,
but other countries developed this one. Things were simpler and
you know, so it's going to be more difficult for

(50:33):
us to do it. I'm sure that there is something
to that, but we can. But how is this simple?
Like this is not sustainable either, So we're going to
have to figure something out, and it's going to have
to be something a lot more radical than like we
need price transparency, which is the only thing Republicans can
really ever figure out.

Speaker 3 (50:47):
In the United to spend seventy percent more of its
GDP on healthcare than any other high income country in
the world without corresponding improvements in life expectancy or outcomes.

Speaker 2 (50:58):
Spend more, get less worse outcomes, and the literal incentive
in the system is for you to be chronically ill.

Speaker 1 (51:05):
Oh yeah, that makes money.

Speaker 2 (51:07):
That is the incentive because that's how you make money.
So if you have a healthcare system that is driven
around making money, you are going to have a lot
of sick people. And lo and behold, we have a
lot of sick LIFs.

Speaker 1 (51:16):
I'll talking about with dialog.

Speaker 3 (51:17):
I mean, I know it may sound like a broken
record on dialysis, but does anybody appreciate how crazy it
is that one percent of the entire US federal budget
is dialysis? One percent hundreds of billions of dollars a
year spent on dialysis with no nobody is thinking or
doing anything about that. By the way, do you know
how fucked up you have to be to have be

(51:38):
on dialysis in the first place? That means like fifty
things have gone wrong, from obesity to I mean so
preventive care you're an nd stage renal disease at that point.
That is how bad things And that's how much money
we have to spent. How much cheaper would it be
to make sure, hey, listen, make sure people aren't fat
in the first place. Over forty percent of people on

(51:59):
dialysis are more obese. The vast majority are extremely unhealthy
in many other areas, many have not had any health
care in the previous number of years.

Speaker 1 (52:08):
It would be so much cheaper just to make.

Speaker 3 (52:10):
Sure, hey, never go on dialysis in the first place,
and instead these dialysis clinics, I forget the name exactly
of it. These are multi billionaires who are running this place.

Speaker 1 (52:18):
You know, sick that is statins.

Speaker 3 (52:20):
You know, and all the other drugs that people have
to take for the rest of their lives after they
already have blood pressure or heart problems. Yeah, who's paying
for that, right, it's just better not to have that
problem in the first place. Diabetes insulin, we know what, Yes,
insulin prices are bad. You know what's better not needing
insulin in the first place.

Speaker 1 (52:36):
How do you do that?

Speaker 3 (52:37):
Don't get fat, have some preventative pre diabetic work. Something
like seventy percent of the US population is on the road.

Speaker 1 (52:43):
To pre diabetes one help with that.

Speaker 3 (52:45):
Yeah, that's interesting though, because but this also highlights the
cost issue.

Speaker 1 (52:49):
B five please on the screen.

Speaker 3 (52:51):
So for the first time, actually ever, this is about
the US obesity rate. It peaked at forty twenty twenty two,
it's now at thirty seven. How did it get to
thirty sive? Well, a number of people are using these
golp one drugs. Is now it's some twelve percent of
the overall US population.

Speaker 2 (53:07):
I think it's the beef tallow fry.

Speaker 1 (53:09):
Yeah, it's staking ship actually seaked shape.

Speaker 3 (53:13):
However, you can still see it only dropped by two percent.

Speaker 2 (53:18):
Okay, we're kind of in the right direction.

Speaker 3 (53:20):
Did you notice how it went from thirty three before
the pandemic to thirty nine after the pandemic and now
it dropped by two So what does that mean? It's like, yeah,
it's nice. We dropped by two. We're still not even
on track to get down to thirty three. And a
lot of these golp one drugs are being paid for
out of pocket by people who have obviously a modest

(53:41):
amount of income. I mean, from what I've seen from
the ads, it's what is it like a couple hundred
bucks a month. I mean, it's a lot of money,
but it's not it's not going to break the bank.

Speaker 1 (53:50):
Like, it's not like plastic surgery or.

Speaker 2 (53:51):
Something like health insurance.

Speaker 3 (53:54):
Exactly right, and you know, if anything, it probably could
save you for it. So insurance is not covering it.
It is covering it in some instances, but they're paying
absolutely insane amounts of money for that covers. It's still
not shit showing up from where we are. And I
think it makes sense because the obesity rate was something
with forty percent and now it's only dropped to thirty seven.

Speaker 1 (54:13):
It used to be at thirty three something like six
seven years ago. We can get back to that. Maybe.
You know, I'm not at this point. I used to
be against ylp one.

Speaker 3 (54:21):
I still think I am for children, for anybody under
like twenty five years old, just because I think messing
with the guts of children and all of that is
still very scary and we don't know the long term
implications of that, but I do think it is clear,
like for obesity, it and just needs to be all
hands on deck to make sure that this is crushed
as soon as humanly possible, because it will bankrupt us,

(54:42):
will bankrupt you beyond the money, which you know, whatever
that's replaceable is, it will destroy your health. And there's
just not again, you know, for all the talk of
maha and all of that, et cetera, this is the
structural stuff that actually keeps people deeply, deeply unhealthy.

Speaker 1 (54:56):
Yeah, it's really bad.

Speaker 2 (54:57):
Yeah, No, you're you're absolutely right. A golf YouTuber actually
young guy and there are thirty thirty five something like
that that Kyle, I know you're talking about.

Speaker 1 (55:06):
Yeah, the guy from barstool, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (55:08):
Big guy and just just died and.

Speaker 3 (55:11):
So yeah, I don't know what that was about, but
they didn't release the cause of but they did say
it was an unexpected medical issue.

Speaker 2 (55:16):
Yeah. So I mean it's look the health consequences in
the way that being you know, morbidly obese limits what
you're able to do in the world. You know, it
is absolutely an emergency. So I'm glad to say that
at least there's some movement in the right direction, because
it just felt hopeless for so long. And but and
I was just looking. The cost out of pocket for

(55:39):
the generic versions is like a few hundred dollars a month.
Insures mostly only cover it when it's like directly linked
to diabetes or something like that. So if it's like,
you know, a vanity project.

Speaker 3 (55:48):
Do you understand how stupid that is. It's only once
you're diabetic that they'll pay for it. Better to get diabetic. Yes,
this is the sickness in the system. It's like this
for everything. Uh ah, man, I could go on forever,
but it is something that's just you know, from the dialysis,
from the amount of money that is spent every year.

(56:10):
And it's not just it's not like it's abstract money.

Speaker 1 (56:14):
It's taxpayer dollars in a lot of ways.

Speaker 3 (56:16):
That funnels this entire system, the billionaires and the multi
millionaires that it mints all throughout, you know, all of
this for what end? And yeah, I get it, it's trite.
We've been talking about it for twenty years. But it's
literally an imminent crisis. With this healthcare premium expiring, there
are going to be vast numbers of people that are
just going to be uninsured, period. And like I said,
if it comes to the forty five thousand dollar mark.

Speaker 1 (56:38):
I'm probably gonna roll the dice. I probably just go
on insured. And I really, I mean, why you'd be
stupid not to.

Speaker 2 (56:43):
And life expectancy continues to go down, and like this,
you know, this ties into that story as well.

Speaker 3 (56:51):
Turning now to the Charlie Kirk investigation, in some very
strange developments happening at the very top of the US
intelligence community and the FBI. Let's go and put this
up here on the screen. Officials access to FBI files
in Charlie kak case droa pushback. That's a very New
York Times way of putting some of the details here.
So let me set the stage. So the person who

(57:11):
is in front of you, if you're just watching, is
Joe Kent. He is the National counter Terrorism Center Director.
He is a deputy to Tulci Gabbert the od and
I the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Now,
currently there is a long brewing fight apparently in the
administration over the Charlie Kirk case because Joe Kent examined

(57:32):
FBI files in the last several weeks to quote investigate
whether the man charged with assassinating Charlie Kirk had support
from someone else, a foreign power, or another entity. The
inquiry by Kent, the director of the National counter Terrorism Center,
alarmed Cash Pattel, the director of the FBI. Mister Patel
and other senior official believed mister Kent was overstepping, treading

(57:55):
on FBI responsibilities and potentially interfering with the investigation and
the pecution of the suspect, Tyler Robinson. But supporters of
mister Ken say was just doing his job running down
leads making sure no foreign or domestic groups were linked
to mister Kirk's death. Robinson was accused of killing Kirk
last month. Mister Kent is the confirmed Senate director of

(58:16):
the counter Terrorism Center.

Speaker 1 (58:18):
Quote.

Speaker 3 (58:18):
Mister Patel was troubled that Kent had gone through FBI
material related to the case. Mister Kent's efforts were a topic.
Then at a White House meeting, a top meeting with Patel, Kent, Gabbard, JD. Vance,
and the White House Chief of Staff, the people interviewed
by The Times with granted anonymity, They say FBI and
the DOJ generally keep tight control over these evidence in

(58:38):
criminal cases when they're preparing for trial, where the government
documents may have to be turned over the defense and
could be used to poke holes in the prosecution's case.
So what they say specifically is that while Robinson is
currently only facing state charges, they were concerned that his
effort could provide fodder to defense lawyers, who could use
the notion that there more than one person was involved
to raise reasonable doubt in the minds of jurors about

(59:01):
the case itself.

Speaker 2 (59:03):
Cash has raised plenty of reasonable.

Speaker 3 (59:09):
Look, I mean, I gotta trea lightly here. There's so
much conspiracy stuff, you know, around all of this. I
will say, it's pretty weird that they're getting. First of all,
is a state case. Okay, so this doesn't even have
anything to do with the fence.

Speaker 1 (59:24):
Now.

Speaker 3 (59:25):
Number Two, like, technically would they even have a subpoena
power over what the National counter Terrorism Director is doing?

Speaker 1 (59:30):
Like?

Speaker 3 (59:30):
No, right, I mean, would technically be a secret inside
this entire time? Two Again, I mean I can see
how if you look at this, you're like, wait, so
Cash Battel freaked out at Joe Kent for saying, are
there any foreign.

Speaker 1 (59:44):
Governments or powers involved in this? That's what he freaked
out at him for.

Speaker 3 (59:48):
That's a legitimate question, right, I mean, look, it could
be a turf war and a pissing match over the
FBI and the counter Terrorism Director. But the very fact
that this came out is a really bad look I
think for Cash Batel. It also just I mean, you know,
considering the circumstances of the case, like we have not
learned anything new in weeks, and there's still a lot
of people, obviously Candice and others who are like raising

(01:00:11):
questions about the whole thing. I do think a lot
of it goes pretty insane far, you know, I mean,
like Israel killed Charlie Kirker, any of that. I don't
think there's a lot of evidence to back that up.
But you and I both know that when something like
this is happening and the agencies are acting sketchy, maybe
I'm not saying that happened. I'm saying maybe something sketchy
is happening behind the scenes. We have no genuinely, no

(01:00:33):
earthly idea, and I think the fact that it was
leaked to by the way, and you can only leak
something like this if the people directly involve are the
ones who can confirm it does tell us that people
inside the building are trying to sound the alarm.

Speaker 1 (01:00:45):
And that also makes me ask a lot of questions
about the circumstances here.

Speaker 2 (01:00:49):
This is another interesting section, by the way, this is
the first mainstream outlet that I've seen publish any new journalism. Yeah,
with regard to Charlie Kirk's assassination, you know, in weeks,
if not months. So that to me has been frustrating
as well, because you know, you had Ken Clippenstein immediately
after able to get in touch with people around Tyler

(01:01:10):
get some understanding of who was he, how did this happen, like,
you know, at least glean some sense of who this
person is, and no mainstream outlet has done that kind
of legwork in any case. Listen to this section of
the New York Times report. They say in the hours
after mister Kirk's killing, before mister Robinson was identified as
the suspect, officials across American intelligence agencies were investigating whether

(01:01:36):
any foreign government was involved in a plot to kill
mister Kirk. Some officials inside the government raised questions about
the assassin's abilities and training after security footage was released
of him jumping from a high ledge. Early in the investigation,
evidence was collected that contained words often associated with anti
fascists writing, namely therescriptions on bullets found in the rifle
that killed mister Kirk. So in any case, that that's

(01:01:58):
also a new piece of information that right after this happened,
our own government was looking into whether there were any
foreign governments that were involved in this. Now you also have,
you know, the use of Charlie Kirk's murder as a
pretext by this administration to you know, you've got NSPM
seven and this creation of mythology around Antifa being some

(01:02:22):
nationwide terror network, et cetera. You know, it wouldn't surprise
me if Joe Kent was also looking into, oh, well,
what you know, left wing groups might he have been
associated with, et cetera. And as Sagar said, it could
be just a turf war, and it could be that
cash Betel, for whatever reason, really wants to keep his
hands wrapped around this and keep other people out. The
other thing that really comes out of this is, you know,

(01:02:43):
Kent and Tulci Gabbard are allies apparently in the administration,
and just as she was sort of shunted to the
side during the build up to the Iran strikes, it
appears that she is still very much on the ounce
in terms of you know, her influence and sway within
the admiration as well, and has rubbed a number of
people the wrong way and doesn't seem to have a

(01:03:04):
lot of power on.

Speaker 3 (01:03:04):
The C four on the screen. That's what I'm saying.
It doesn't necessarily have to be conspiracy. It really could
be like a TURF four.

Speaker 1 (01:03:11):
C four shows this.

Speaker 3 (01:03:12):
The FBI now opposes a push for Gabert to take
the lead on counter intelligence. So the backstory here is
that the FBI made this disclosure in a pointed letter
over the concern that Tulsea Gabbert, is the Director of
National Intelligence, would take the lead on all counter intelligence issues.
I will say, I mean, here's the thing. If you

(01:03:34):
look at if you look at where things are right
now in the admin, this is technically not how it's
supposed to work.

Speaker 1 (01:03:41):
And let me just explain a little bit.

Speaker 3 (01:03:42):
For years, the FBI did have the lead in counter intelligence. Now,
the reason why after nine to eleven, we established the
Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Was because the FBI,
the CIA, the geospatial intelligence agencies, all these other agencies
were not working together under a centralized figure. That's how
nine to eleven happened. Because the FBI and the CI

(01:04:04):
were in a pissing contest, literally like what you're seeing
right now. So they said, we need to establish this
office like the OD and I to oversee all of
them that they report up to. It hasn't materialized in practice.
The CIA remains vastly powerful, the FBI remains vastly powerful,
and the OD and I has been a bit of
a joke over the last twenty years. And nonetheless they
have statutory authority technically to be the actual intelligence director

(01:04:26):
for counterintelligence specifically, also to make sure again that you
just have the FBI and the NSA, everyone working under
a unified directive. Let's say for a counter intelligence measure. Now,
if you're the FBI, you don't want to give that
up because spy investigations is like a long history of
President of Hoover and of using his blackmail basically over
the last fifty sixty years. I think what this comes

(01:04:49):
back to is some of it is incompetence, a lot
of it is turf war. But in that there's a
lot of room for screwery, right in terms of when
you have turf over this investigation, then you can control
what's getting leaked and what's not. And you're you know,
you're getting upset about Tulsi getting involved in counter intelligence,
Like why would you be upset about that? Are you

(01:05:09):
trying to cover something up? Like maybe not, it really
may just be turf war. But in the interim, like
maybe you are right, And that's why just watching all
of this, I think something weird is happening at the time.
I think it's a turf war struggle because look, Tulsi,
I've criticized her a lot obviously over Iran et cetera.
I will say at the very least her and Joe
are much more in an anti war, anti neo constance

(01:05:32):
inside even inside this administration. Then a lot of people
may be able to appreciate. And I think that they
are being punished for that.

Speaker 2 (01:05:39):
Yeah, I think they've been sidelined very clearly. Let's put
C two up on the screen. And yeah, also that's
not just not to let to we're just talking about
the internal dynamics here and who does have the ear
at the president, who does have the power, which is
very clear from the reporting you've done on Venezuela Soger.
So this is you know, this is on Avenue Lance,

(01:06:01):
the trans lover has gone missing. You know, like there's
a lot of questioning that's weird gets wired about and again,
you know, the New York Post, it actually makes sense
that they did this reporting. And they did some of
if memory serves, like in the early days, right when

(01:06:23):
Charlie Kirk was assassinated, you know, they had some of
the initial leaks and were able to be out first
with a variety of information. But you know, the lack
of additional information on Lance, I think is also when
when Lance's identity the government is asserting is a key
part of Tyler Robinson's radicalization to this point, you know

(01:06:44):
that is noteworthy as well. There's another track of this
too that I just wanted to update everybody on. I
don't know if you guys have been following this case,
we could put see three up on the screen. They
actually in Tennessee arrested this dude for literally posting a
chart Kirk meme okay, and it was not even a
really crazy thing like it was, you know, I was

(01:07:06):
a little edgy. It was like the president. It was
a picture of Trump. And then I think it was
after a school shooting. He said something like they're going
to have to get over it, and he included that quote.
And that's literally just that is what he was arrested for.
He was held on two million dollar bond. He has

(01:07:28):
been in prison for over thirty so over months. This man,
who's former law enforcement by the way, held in prison
for over a month for posting a meme on Facebook. Okay,
and credit to some you know intercepted this report here,
but I watched yesterday there was a local journalist who
did an interview with the sheriff and showed him the

(01:07:50):
meme and was like, where's the threat? Because the reason
the bond was so high is they claimed that it
was a threat against a school. Again utterly preposterous because
the context of trump quote was about a school shooting,
so they construed this as a threat against a school. Okay,
So the journalists that's showing the share of like where's
the threat in here? And of course he has really

(01:08:11):
no answer. He's like, oh, well, I think he knew
what he was doing, et cetera, et cetera. So after
I think public pressure and people I know have been
calling into the sheriff's office whatever. They finally, you know,
the local prosecutors decide, okay, we're going to drop the charges,
and this guy has been set free. But crazy situation.
How to in prison for over thirty days for a
Facebook meme? And I hear a lot from the right

(01:08:33):
about whatever's going on in the UK Okay, and that's fine,
you know, I think I prefer our speech laws to theirs.
But where are you on this one? Because this is
complete and total insanity that someone could be denied their
liberty for over a month because of a slightly not
even really like slightly edgy Facebook meme that they posted.

Speaker 3 (01:08:52):
Yeah, we we do have the report that he is
free now, which I guess is good. I think what's
actually crazier about this is that this was a local
state case, which I still have no idea how you
get a two million I mean, I've literally seen reports
about murderers and rapists who get less of a bond
and spend less time in prison or in jail awaiting

(01:09:14):
release than this guy. How you even brought the case
or the charges against him is literally totally nuts.

Speaker 2 (01:09:20):
So apparently Tennessee passed some law about these sorts of
quote unquote threats that at the time people were raising
concerns about, like what.

Speaker 1 (01:09:29):
Do you mean, what was a justification?

Speaker 2 (01:09:31):
What was a justification? I don't know the origin of
the law or why they did it. This is something
that happened, like, I don't know, maybe last year, and
that was the law that they cited. So all of
the concerns about the way this could be abused to
quash speech, I basically come to fruition in this case
where they're arresting someone over a Facebook meme.

Speaker 1 (01:09:48):
This is crazy.

Speaker 3 (01:09:49):
So yeah, I'm looking into the actual law itself.

Speaker 1 (01:09:55):
Wild.

Speaker 2 (01:09:56):
Yeah, it's actually crazy, probably unconstitutional. I'm sure you know,
he should he should suit, he should sue for damages
for emotional distress of being held in being held in prison.

Speaker 1 (01:10:07):
I agree with you. I think it's totally absurd, And yes,
you're right, I mean it's I mean, I don't know.
At a certain point too.

Speaker 3 (01:10:13):
We've been covering this now for a long time, Like
we just yesterday did the Hamdi case where the guy
was detained, and I mean, okay, like he said some
not nice things about October seventh, whatever it's about October seventh,
that's not about us. It's literally enforcement for a foreign
country and he's being held in iced attention. I'm like, okay,

(01:10:36):
I mean, look, I'm not saying it's good.

Speaker 1 (01:10:39):
I don't think it's a great thing that he said.
I definitely don't think it was artful in the way
that he said it.

Speaker 3 (01:10:44):
But the equivalence that I come back to is like
I literally see posts of Israelis being like it. Remember
that guy in the Israeli podcast who said it makes
him feel better to watch baby starving in Gaza.

Speaker 1 (01:10:57):
Remember that He's like, it makes us happen.

Speaker 2 (01:10:59):
I go enjoy food more, it makes me enjoy my life.

Speaker 3 (01:11:01):
And I'm just like seeing, okay, and this guy's speaking
like perfect English, like I'm presumably he has come to
the US many times, like okay, well, then deny that
guy's visa, then right, if we're going to be the
police here, then we got to do that too, but
we don't. And so it just falls apart to me.
You know, all of this like moral outrage about all of.

Speaker 1 (01:11:18):
This, and I don't know just yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:11:20):
Well, we'll get later in the show to Steven Miller's
wife threatening Jink with deportation because she accused him of
being anti Semitic. So a lot going on.

Speaker 1 (01:11:29):
I mean, I'm laughing, but it's not fun. It's actually
not fun.

Speaker 2 (01:11:30):
It's a genuine threat, given who her husband is. Crazy