4-5-25 The Weekend Hour 1: The Sky Is Falling! The Sky Is Falling? Oh wait….it’s not.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Too night.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
Michael Brown joins me here, the former FEMA director of talk.

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Show host Michael Brown. Brownie, no, Brownie, You're doing a
heck of a job. The Weekend with Michael Brown.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
Hey broadcasting live from Denver, Colorado. It's the Weekend with
Michael Brown. Glad to have you with me. I appreciate
you joining in. So I'm gonna walk to I don't know,
I can't decide what to talk about today. It was
kind of a slow newsweek. Was anything going on? And
people were just kind of, you know, yawning around, and
nobody seems to be wound up about anything. I've only
had both ears chewed off both sides of the I mean,

(00:30):
everybody's on. We're gonna talk about that in a minute. So,
you know, we got some rules of engagement. If you
want to follow the program, if you send me a
text message, which you can do anytime. You know, you
can tell me anything, ask me anything anytime you want.
I read every single text message that everyone sends. Sometimes
I do it for entertainment. Pathetic life, isn't it. So

(00:51):
the message the number on your message app is three
three one zero three three three one zero three. Use
the key word Mike or Michael tell me anything, ask
me anything, and to be sure follow me on x
you know, formerly Twitter at Michael Brown USA at Michael
Brown USA. So let's get started. Did you lose money
this week? Did you make any money? Now? I haven't

(01:12):
checked this to make sure that it's accurate, so I
may be spreading a falsehood here, but I bet the
numbers are fairly close. If you look at Friday's closing
for the Dow Jones industrial averages on April four, twenty
twenty five, and you go back, Oh, I don't know

(01:33):
April four, I forget what the year was. I think
it was two thousand, twenty twenty two or something. Whatever
the number was, the closing on that earlier date was
lower than the closing on this date yesterday on Friday.
The point being this, we have all known, haven't we

(01:59):
If you haven't given I'm paying attention. We all know
that the stock market has been way overvalued. Why because
starting back in twenty nineteen, twenty twenty, both Donald Trump
Trump has to take some responsibility for this, Both Donald
Trump and Joe Biden and everybody in the United States Congress,
Democrats and Republicans alike, started just literally taking C five a's,

(02:24):
flying them all across the country, just crisscrossing the country
and opening the bays of the C five a's and
just dropping money everywhere, trillions of dollars. Well where'd that
money go? Well, for a lot of the banks, you know,
the too big to fail banks from two thousand and eight,
they put it in the market. What did other people do?
They put it in the market, and if you look,

(02:47):
if you understand how the markets work, it was easy money.
It reminds me of the back in the oh I'd
say the late mid mid to late eighty we were
going through an oil boom, and then we go through
an oil bust and everybody was throwing money. People were drilling,

(03:08):
drilling oil wells everywhere. You could go to bank. I
remember pen Square Bank was the major bank in Oklahoma
City that was doing this, and you could walk in,
not have any engineering experience, not have any oil and
gas experience, not know the first thing about drilling a well.
But you could go find a couple of buddies that
knew a little bit about some of it, and Pen
Square Bank would give you a boatload of money. They'd

(03:30):
loan you money, a load can you show me your
eight year geography analysis. No, we haven't done anything yet,
but we got some leases out here. Oh well, the
didn't go drill. You got some leases go drill, doesn't
mean it didn't make any difference. They were just throwing
money at everything. And Pen Square Bank before the fourth

(03:52):
of July weekend back in the late eighties was the
first bank to close. And on that particular weekend, I
remember we were dving to our home in New Mexico
and it came across the news that the FDIC and
bank examiners had all shown up in Oklahoma City at
Penn Square Bank and they were shutting it down. I

(04:12):
remember turning to my wife and very distinctly saying, well,
the the oil boom is over and the buses started.
It was all funny money. And there are so many
books written about that oil boom and how it was
driven by funny money. Well, fast forward, history once again
repeats itself, and this time it was COVID and the

(04:34):
funny money came not from banks, but it came from
our pockets. It came from China, it came from our
grandchildren and our great grandchildren. Because all that money was
borrowed and it was all thrown out. I remember there
was a consulting firm in DC that came to me
and said, would you help us do some consulting. In fact,

(04:56):
it happened to be Los Angeles. They were from d C.
But they need did an They needed some entree into
the city and County of Los Angeles. And I'd given
quite a few speeches out there, and I knew a
lot of people in Los Angeles, and they were like,
can you can you get us in? And I said,
I he gets you in, but you know, what are
you doing? And well, we have all of this money

(05:17):
from the American Rescue Plan and I'm like, well, what
are the rules and regulations for spending the money? There
are no rules in regulations for spending the money. And
I was like, you got to be kidding me. No,
there are no rules, no rules at all. So after
a lot of back and forth, I decided not to
take that consulting gig because I just knew at some

(05:39):
point the United States Treasury, even though they said there
are no regulations, this is just money that you can
spend on your business however you want to, or if
you're a county government you can spend it however you
want to. I just knew at some point there would
be waste, fraud, and abuse. And I also knew that
at some point the Treasury Department would install some regulations,
they would make they would put some regulation of money,

(06:00):
even money had already been spent. But that's the way
the government works. And I was just like, no, I
don't think I want to do any of that. So,
you know, I probably could have made some money on
it by chose not to. Well, so now we're reaping
what we sowed several years ago. When we're just dumping
money everywhere, you remember, Come on, you can't. Your short

(06:23):
term memory can't be that short term. You go back
a few years and you remember just how that money
was being spread everywhere. And we all knew, and we
have all known how long, if whether you've been listening
to be on the weekend program or on the weekday program,
how long have you known that we keep spending more

(06:43):
than we bring in on average? We're spending now now
it's gotten even worse. We're spending seven seven trillion dollars
or so every year on a federal budget, and our revenues.
If we're lucky are close to five million, five trillion
dollars almost said million dollars we could only wish. So
there's a two trillion dollar deficit at a minimum, and

(07:07):
that deficit, that borrowed money eventually gets added to the
national debt. And now the national debt is somewhere between
thirty seven and thirty nine trillion dollars, a number that
you can't even fathom. I can't even fathom that. Go
on your little calculator, turn your iPhone sideways, because that's
the only way you can do the calculation. And if
you spend a million dollars a day paying that debt back,

(07:29):
you've got thirty nine trillion dollars on your credit card.
Turn it around. You're going to spend a million dollars
a day, three hundred and sixty five days a year.
Tell me how many years it will take you to
pay off at a million dollars a day, three hundred
and sixty five million dollars a year, you tell me
how many years will it take you to pay off
that debt. It's not sustainable and we've known that, and

(07:51):
we've known that for years, and so what have we
done as conservatives, Whether you're a social conservative, a fiscal conservative,
you're libertarian, you're a moderate. Forget the liberals because they
don't care. But what have we done. We've kept saying
this is not sustainable. We need to balance the budget,
we need to quit spending so much. We're making five

(08:11):
trillion dollars on taxes and terraces and fees and excise
taxes and everything else. Why can't we spend within that
five trillion dollars? And I'm not even talking about when
I talk about the thirty nine thirty seven, thirty nine
trillion dollar national debt, I'm not even including in that
all the unfunded liabilities that we have, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid,

(08:32):
all the entitlement programs. Oh my gosh, Now you're adding
on another one hundred trillion dollars. Who knows how much
that is. It's not sustainable. And we've been demanding that
somebody do something, and somebody finally did, and now everybody's
freaking out. Why why are we freaking out? Oh? Because
the market has corrected itself. Markets always correct themselves, and

(08:55):
then the markets start growing back up. They go down,
they go up, they go down, they go up. When
we get back. One of my favorite commentators of all time,
Victor Davis Hanson, explains why Trump's tariffs are probably going
to work. There's a chance they won't work, but probably
will work. I want to walk through it. It's a
fairly long, lengthy statement that he gives, but we'll break

(09:20):
it up and we'll go through it. It's a Weekend
with Michael Brown. Text your message to the number three
three one zero three keyword Mica ro Michael. Don't forget
to follow me on exits at Michael Brown USA. I'll
be right back. Hey, welcome back to the Weekend with
Michael Brown. Glad to have you with me. I appreciate
you tuning in. Happy Saturday, everybody. Don't forget to subscribe

(09:42):
to the podcast. Take your podcast app and search for
the name of this podcast, The Situation with Michael Brown.
The Situation with Michael Brown. Once you find that, you
get that subscribe button and leave a five star review
which will help spread the word, and then that will
download all five days of the weekday plus get you
the weekend program too, so you get six days of

(10:03):
Michael Brown. What more good you asked for? So I
found those numbers. But before I give you the numbers.
Goober number nine three sixty four says this, which is
exactly right, market Mike. Markets do not go straight up.
Corrections are healthy. Also, if you implement an asset allocation
investment model, you really don't have anything to worry about.
I have a fairly substantial portfolio and will never ever

(10:25):
loose leap because of market turndowns. And here's why you
should never ever lose sleep about market turndowns. Dow Jones
industrial averages for the past five years, so we're going
back to earlier than twenty twenty one. In twenty twenty one,
the market was this would be back in early of

(10:45):
twenty twenty one, just randomly picking a data point at
twenty six thousand, seven hundred and seventy eight. Now, in
twenty twenty two, the Dow Jones industrial average had increased
to approximately thirty eight somewhere around thirty eight thousand dollars
in early between twenty twenty one and twenty twenty two.

(11:07):
Then in late twenty twenty two, before we got to
twenty twenty three, it dropped from oh about thirty eight
thousand down two drum roll please under thirty two thousand.
Then after we start recovering from COVID and all the
funny money starts moving in, the Dow starts on a

(11:30):
trend line upwards. Now, yes, if you watch the market
every single day, you're going to need to see an
orthopedis because your neck. You're going to see the orthopedis
or a chiropractor or somebody, because your neck's going to
be going up and down, up and down all the time.
So between twenty twenty two, at a dal Jones industrial

(11:53):
average below thirty two thousand, it climbs all the way
up to somewhere between twenty four and early twenty twenty
five to above forty five thousand. Now we're supposed to
ignore that period between twenty twenty one and twenty twenty three,
when it drops down below thirty two thousand, it then

(12:13):
goes up above forty five thousand, drops down below forty
five thousands, of some forty one, forty two whatever it is.
I haven't looked at yesterday's I don't remember yesterday's because,
like to Goober, I just cided, I don't look at
my portfolio every single day. I might when there's a
big correction, just out of curiosity. So we're told to

(12:35):
ignore those earlier corrections, but now we're told to panic.
What's the difference. What's the one difference between those years
of let's just say twenty twenty one, in fact, let's
be specific, what's the difference between those figures, those Doubt
Jones industrial averages. Starting on saying, oh, don't know, let's

(12:57):
just pick a random date, January twenty two, twenty one
through January twenty twenty twenty five. What was the difference. Oh, yeah,
the guy named Biden who was asleep was at the wheel.
So we ignored all the dips during those years. But
now Trump's in office less than four months, and there's

(13:21):
a slight correction, and everybody, now, I know, I think
Nasdak might be in bear market territory. The others might
be obviously in correction territory. But regardless, Now we're told
to panic when it's still when the average itself, the
indices are still above where they were at their lowest
point during Biden's term. Why, well, this gets back to

(13:44):
my theory about the cabal. There isn't anything anything that
Trump can do that they will agree with, and anything
that occurs while Trump is in office will be conveyed
to you as a nick. Indeed, it might be a negative,
but the sky is not falling. The sky is not falling.

(14:07):
But I swear listening to all of my friends, even
my smart friends. Now I guess some dumb friends too.
I know you do too, But both my smart friends
and my dumb friends are all panic stricken right now.
I was out walking the dogs this morning, and some
people like I usually see when I'm walking the dogs,
We're like, you know, what do you think of the market.
I'm like, well, you know, I'm not surprised by it.

(14:30):
Ill correct itself. The markets continue to there's always a
trend line that will show there will be dips, they
will keep going up. And the guy finally, the guy
looked at me and said, finally, somebody's talking rational about
the markets. If you can talk rationally about the markets,
because I'm not absolutely convinced that you can now what's

(14:50):
driving this well it. Part of me wants to say
that those who want to seal in and get their
profits are driving this dip because they know that they're
in Vidia stock, or their Apple stock, or their TSMC stock,
all the technology stocks. They know that they've been riding

(15:13):
that roller coaster all the way up to the top,
and now they see that, Oh now we're starting to
go down. It's a good time to sell. Let's grab
those profits before it drops even further. So it's profit taking,
simple profit taking. Take a deep breath. I just encourage
you to take a deep breath. It's not the end

(15:34):
of the world, but they do want you to believe that,
for some reason that oh my gosh, it's all Trump
and it's all bad and it's the end of civilization. No,
it's really not. But let's go back. I think Victor
Davis Hanson makes a compelling case for the Trump tariff strategy,

(15:55):
but there is one thing that I think he gets incorrect.
He describes the Trump tariffs as reciprocal and proportional to
those other nations that have assessed tariffs on us. I
don't know that that's always the case, and I'm not
being critical here. I'm just saying that I can't always

(16:16):
in good faith rationalize what they claim some of the
tariffs are on us, and how that's whatever we're doing
to them is reciprocal or not reciprocal. But put that
aside for a moment. Instead, what does Professor Hanson have
to say.

Speaker 1 (16:34):
April third, Donald Trump announced it as Liberation Day. By
that he meant we were going to be liberated from
asymmetrical tariffs over the last fifty years, and it was
going to inaugurate and knew what he called Golden Age
of trade parody. And yet the world seemed to erupt
an anger. It was very strange, which brings up another question.

(16:54):
Are our tariffs really tariffs? That is, where they preempted,
where they punited. No, they're almost leveled on the AutoPIPE.
Whatever a particular country tariffs US, we reciprocate and just
mirror image them. In other words, it's their choice, not ours. Hello,

(17:23):
this is Victor Davis Hanson for the Daily Signal. April third,
Donald Trump announced it as Liberation Day, and by that
he meant we were going to be liberated from asymmetrical
tariffs of the last fifty years, and it was going
to inaugurate and knew what he called Golden Age of

(17:43):
trade parody. Greater investment in the United States, but mostly
greater job opportunities and higher paying jobs for Americans.

Speaker 2 (17:53):
And listen, your professor Hanson has to say, on the
other side of the news, it's a Weekend with Michael Brand.
Text your messages to the number three three one zero
three keyword Michael Michael, Hang tight. I'll be right back tonight.
Michael Brown joins me here, the former FEMA director of.

Speaker 1 (18:15):
Talk show host Michael Brown.

Speaker 2 (18:16):
Brownie, no, Brownie, You're doing a heck of a job
the Weekend with Michael Brown. Hey, welcome back to the
Weekend with Michael Brown. Glad to have you with me.
Appreciate you tuning in. You know, if you like what
we do on the weekend, you can always listen on
the weekday too. Download your free to you iHeartRadio app
and search for this station six thirty KHOW in Denver, Colorado.

(18:37):
Six thirty KHOW. That's my home station in Denver and
I broadcast live Monday through Friday from six to ten
Mountain time. On that of course, you can always download
the podcast and listen to it too. Either way, just
want you to join in and go follow me on
x formerly Twitter. It's at Michael Brown USA at Michael
Brown USA. So we're gonna go back to Victor Davis
Hanson in just a second. But just see a little

(19:00):
roadmap of where I want to go over the next
probably hour or so. Is you have to take into
context that what you see in terms of a market
correction is not surprising. We know that the markets have
been overvalued for some time now because of all the
COVID money thrown in. We know that Donald Trump is

(19:23):
a consummate negotiator in that you know, the whenever, even
when I'm negotiating a contract at iHeart, or there's a
dealer trying to sell me a car, what do they do?
You always start with they want to sell you the
car at the maximum month they possibly can, and I
want to buy it at the lowest amount that I
possibly can. So if Trump throws out that he wants

(19:45):
to impose a ninety percent tariff, that doesn't mean that's
what he really wants. That's his starting point. And maybe
he's really wanting a thirty percent tariff. Maybe he really
wants zero tariffs at all. You know, one of our
staunchest allies Israel. I forget what it was he threw
out on Israel, and Israel the Kinessa came right back

(20:07):
and said, hey, tell you what, We'll just zero out
of our tariffs. How about that, Let's just make a
deal at zero zero, just you know for both of us,
that's a win win. Now. I know this is risky,
don't get me wrong, because we've got the big kahuna
over there, the Chinese Communist Party. But let's remember something
about the Chinese Communist Party. Let's remember something about China.

(20:29):
Do you know that this country, the one that you
sit in right now, the wealthiest, largest, strongest economy. We
have like a thirty trillion dollar GDP. We were huge.
We have a thirty trillion plus gross domestic product compared
to China's like eighteen trillion dollars. Might be be off

(20:51):
on that a little bit, but certainly under twenty trillion dollars.
So we're much larger than China. And all they do
is sell us cheap crap. They sell us cheap crap.
They still are an intellectual property. They want to take
over the South China Sea, they want to take over
the Philippines, Australia, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, everything they want.

(21:13):
They want to take over Taiwan because I think they
can get t SMC to Taiwan Semi Conductor Manufacturing Corporation.
But TSMC amount of whether you know this or not,
but yielded if China ever invades Taiwan, that the Taiwan
Taiwan and Semi Conductor Manufacturing Corporation TSMC has an agreement

(21:35):
with a company in I think the Netherlands. Now I
forget the name of it starts with an A. But
there's this company in the Netherlands that has designed these
programs that are embedded in the entire manufacturing facility in
Taipei and all the surrounding areas in Taiwan that upon
an invasion, it completely destroys every thing that TSMC has.

(22:03):
It's like malware, it just completely obliterates it. So China
doesn't get that. Now that's all public, publicly available information.
I'm not giving away anything top secret here. Now there's
stuff about it that is top secret, but generally speaking,
that's how TSM TSMC is set up. In fact, that

(22:27):
company in the Netherlands, in my opinion, is more valuable
than TSMC itself. So you've got this communist country whose
economy is on the vergic collapse. People are already lining
up for jobs, manufacturing facilities are already shutting down, and
then Trump throws on a thirty four or whatever it

(22:48):
is percent tariff on China, and Hugene Ping comes back
and says, okay, well you want a war, I'll give
you a trade war. And then he ups the tariffs
on us. Well, you know what, that's bluster. That's truly blust,
because they can't afford were We are their largest customer.
Without us, their economy collapses. They'll eventually they will eventually

(23:11):
come to the table. But in the b time, let
me just remind you, in the meantime, what's the cabal
telling you. Oh my god, it's the end of the world.
He's going to destroy American jobs, he's gonna destroy our economy,
he's gonna do all these things. It's just it's a
tax on Americans. If I hear that one, we're tal
I'm I want to screen. We're not paying enough taxes

(23:32):
right now to pay our budget deficit every year. I'm
not I'm not advocating increasing taxes. I'm advocating to decrease
our spending. So don't give me the crap about oh
my god, we're gonna have to raise taxes. And these
are taxes on Americans because you know what, if we
don't do something, which is what we've all been screaming
to get done. If we don't do something, the country's

(23:55):
going to go bankrupt anyway. So let's go back to
Professor Hanson, because this really is worth you listening to.

Speaker 1 (24:02):
And yet the world seemed to erupt an anger in
that truth.

Speaker 2 (24:07):
It was just it was a volcanic eruption of anger
in every quarter, even some Republicans. After all, after decades, decades,
even going back to Ronald Reagan, we kept screaming, we
have to do something, we have to do something. Somebody
do something, and these damn politicians would come to you
and say, oh, yeah, I'm for lowering spending and lowering taxes,

(24:27):
and then what do they do? Nothing? Somebody funny comes
along and says, oh, I told you. I've been telling
you for since nineteen eighty eight that I would do something,
and now I'm doing it, and everybody's screaming at me.
Why do you think he feels so comfortable in his
skin because he knows in his mind exactly how he

(24:47):
wants just to play out. It's really don't get me wrong,
I know it's risky, but at least finally somebody's doing
something that we've been asking to be done.

Speaker 1 (24:58):
It was very strange, even people on the libertarian right
and of course the left. We're very angry Wall Street
Journal pillary Donald Trump.

Speaker 2 (25:07):
But here the Wall Street Journal did pillar eat Donald
Trump if you read the editorial pages, with the exception
of James Freeman. James Freeman, who's a member of the
Wall Street Journal editorial board, was on Fox News this morning.
In fact, I'll find those sound bites and I'll play
those for you, because he explains, like Professor Hansen has

(25:28):
here about how actually, you know, China is in really
bad shape and they're going to have to do something.
And what she, Jene Ping does by just initially throwing
out higher tariffs is just a reaction. It doesn't mean
that's where we're going to end up.

Speaker 1 (25:47):
That's my question. China has prohibitive tariffs, so does Vietnam,
so does Mexico, so does Europe, so do a lot
of countries, so does India. But if tariffs are so
destructive of their economies, why is China booming? How did

(26:08):
India become an economic powerhouse when it has these exorbitant
teriffs on American imports? How did Vietnam, of all places,
become such a different country even though it has these
prohibitive tariffs. Why let me I.

Speaker 2 (26:22):
Just read the professor about Vietnam, because what's really driving
the Vietnamese economy right now is China, because China knows
to avoid tariffs that all other countries impose on China,
send your goods through Vietnam, do a little bit of
final assembly in Vietnam, slap a made in Vietnam label

(26:44):
on it, and then ship it out, and that way
you avoid the tariffs on Chinese products. That's what's going
on in Vietnam.

Speaker 1 (26:50):
Isn't Germany before its energy problems? Why wasn't it a wreck?
It's got tariffs on almost everything that we send them.
How is the EU even functioning with these tariffs? I
thought tariffs destroyed an economy, but they seem to like them,
and they're angry that they're no longer asymmetrical. Apparently, are

(27:12):
people who are teriffing us think tariffs improve their economy?
Maybe they're right. I don't know. The second thing is,
why would you get angry at the person who is
reacting to the asymmetrical tariff and not the people who
inaugurated the tariff? Why is Canada mad at us when
it's running a sixty three billion dollar surplus, and it

(27:35):
has tariffs on some American products at two hundred and
fifty two hundred and fifty percent.

Speaker 2 (27:41):
Well, he's been rhetorical because he knows. Why why do
you think Canada's man if they're running a sixty three
billion dollar trade surplus with US because of their tariffs?
Well of course there may that's money that's being drawn
out of our country and go to Canada. So of

(28:02):
course they love terariffts. So of course they're pissed off
because the President's come in and said, you know what, no,
if you're going to tax, if you're going to terrify
us at sixty three percent, I'll Tearif you at sixty
three percent or or whatever the rate is, I don't
It doesn't ma any difference. Whatever your rate is, we'll
do the same thing. That's why Canada is mad, because
we said, you know what, we're going to quit sending
all of our money to you. We want to keep

(28:23):
some of that money in our country. You know, we've
we've run up like one point nine trillion dollars or
so over the years in the in these trade defferences.
That's that's one point nine trillion dollars flowing out of
the country one point nine. I've heard one point two
or for one point nine, whatever it is, it's close
to two trillion dollars somewhere between one and two trillion

(28:44):
dollars that flows out of this country, which means that
money's not money that's being used here to revitalize, to
to do you know, maintenance, to do expansion, to hire
new employees, to innovate whatever. That money's flowing out of
the country. Trump's just trying to get that money back
into back into this country. But no, Professor's right. Ask yourself,

(29:11):
why is everybody mad about this? Why is everybody mad?
Because they've been living off us for decades and they
know that politicians have been lying, and they know that
every president talks about how they're going to do something,
but they never do, or if they do, it's just
a tiny little pinprick over here, and they don't take
a sledgehammer. And they should know Donald Trump by now

(29:33):
that the sledgehammer means. That's my starting point. That's why
they're ticked off. It's a weekend with Michael Brown. Glad
to have you with me. The text line number is
three three ones zero three keyword Mike or Michael. Go
follow me on x at Michael Brown USA. Professor Hanson.
We'll be right back. Hey, it's a weekend with Michael Brown.

(29:58):
Glad to have you with me. I appreciate you tuning in.
Don't forget to follow me on exits at Michael Brown USA.
The text line numbers three three ones aerril three keyword
Mica or Michael, Professor Hanson.

Speaker 1 (30:10):
Doesn't it seem like the people who started this asymmetrical,
if I could use the word trade war, should be
the culpable people, not the people who are reluctantly reacting
to it, sort of like Ukraine and Russia. Russia invaded Ukraine.
Do we blame Ukraine for defending itself and trying to reciprocate? No,
we don't. We don't blame America because it finally woke

(30:32):
up and said whatever they terriff us, We're going to
tariff them, which brings up another question, or there are
our tariffs really tariffs? That is, were they preemptive? Were
they leveled against countries that had no tariffs against us?

Speaker 2 (30:50):
A question you shouldn't gloss, Oliver, if you understand the
history of this. He goes all the way back to
nineteen forty five World War two, at the end of
the world, at the end of the World War, at
the end of the Big one w W two, we
told Europe we will help you rebuild. You can impose

(31:10):
tariffs on us, we will not impose any really significant
tariffs on you. And that way you can, you know,
build your industrial base and we'll buy things from you
and we'll pay extra for those things. And so that
has been an outflow of money that helped Europe rebuild
post World War Two. That's how far this goes back.

(31:30):
And we never stopped after Europe became a powerhouse, which
it's since has lost that powerhouse. But since it became
a powerhouse post World War two, we just kept the
status quo. We didn't change anything. Now Europe has wasted.
It's don't get me wrong. Europe has totally wasted everything

(31:52):
that we have done to help it rebuild post World
War two. How do they do that? Well, they decided
to start chasing all these social welfare programs, and then
places like Germany and the United Kingdom and other started
chasing all the green new energy deals and now they're
paying the price for it. They decimated their selves militarily

(32:13):
by relying on us to fund and use all of
our equipment and everything through NATO, and Trump is said,
you know what, we're kind of through doing that too.
So this is all part of a greater and larger
reset going all the way back to World War Two.
But unfortunately most Americans understand that, they don't pay any
attention to it. This is where it all started.

Speaker 1 (32:36):
Were they punitive, No, they're almost leveled on an autopilot.
Whatever a particular country tariffs off, we reciprocate and just
mirror image them, and they go off. Anytime that country says,
you know, it was a mistake, We're sorry, you're an ally,
you're a neutral. We're not going to tear off this

(32:56):
American product. And then we say fine, Then the autopilot
ceases and the automatic tariff ends. In other words, it's
their choice, not ours. We're just reacting to what they did,
not what we did. A couple of other questions that
I've had. We haven't run a trade surplus since nineteen

(33:19):
seventy five, fifty years, so it wasn't suddenly we woke
up and said it's on fair, we want commercial justice. No,
we've been watching this happen for fifty years. It's been
going on, and no president or no administration, no Congress
in the past has done anything about it.

Speaker 2 (33:38):
No one emphasized that. Now I disagree with him. I
think it has been going on since nineteen forty five, because
that's where it really started. But yes, it's gotten worse
since the early seventies. So it's a distinction without a difference, maybe,
But he swerves into something here. You know, we've been
clamoring for somebody to fix these trade imbalances for decades,

(34:03):
and I bet you have a congressman in your state
who has run for election and said, you know, I
want to reduce spending, I want to reduce taxes, I
want to balance the budget, and as a part of that,
I want fair trade agreements. And then what did that
congressman do? Nothing? Five hundred and thirty five members of Congress,

(34:28):
they've really never they've never done anything. So the President
steps in and says, Okay, well, you know what, I've
got a second chance here, and I'm want to do
everything that I was going to do on my first term,
but I couldn't because I was fighting off of the Russia.
Russia Russia hoax. I was fighting off impeachments, I was

(34:48):
fighting off the Democrats. I could barely govern any time.
And by the way, when Trump did impose some additional
tariffs on China in the first term, you can find
lots of SoundBite I played them during this week where
both Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer and others all agreed

(35:08):
with him. Yeah. I wonder what's happened since then? Yeah, Oh,
it's all politics done.

Speaker 1 (35:18):
Anything about what leveling tariffs on our products that we
don't level on theirs. It was all predicated in the
post war period. We were so affluent, so powerful Europe, China,
Russia was in shambles that we had to take up
the burdens of reviving the connede by taking great trade deficits.

(35:40):
Fifty years later, we have been de industrialized, and the
countries who did this to us by these unfair and
asymmetrical tariffs did not fall apart. They did not self destruct.
They apparently thought it was in their self interest. If
anybody calibrates the recent gp GDP growth of India or Taiwan,

(36:04):
or South Korea or Japan, they seem to have some
logic to it. There's a final irony. The people who
are warning us most vehemently about this tear off quote
the Smoot Holly Act of nineteen thirty. But remember something
that came after the onset of the depression, after the

(36:26):
stock market crashed in nineteen twenty nine. That law was
not passed to nineteen thirty. It was not really implicated
to thirty one. And here's the other thing that they
were conveniently not reminded of. We were running a surplus.

Speaker 2 (36:43):
Yeah, funny how people want to know misstate historical facts
so well Finnish professor Hanson on the other side of
the news. But meanwhile, just take a deep breath. Who
knows we were finally getting what we ask for, right?
Is it going to be a wild ride? Yeah, it

(37:04):
will be. This is what I thought we wanted. So
we give with Michael Brown. Text anything to the number
three three one zero three, keyword Michael, Michael, I'll be
right back.