December 24, 2024 • 35 mins
Featured during Hour 3 of the Tuesday, December 24, 2024 edition of The Armstrong & Getty Replay...
- Gate Lice/Pardoning the Turkey/Drinking...
- Chat GPT & the Future of Parenting...
- Bernstein Can't Explain...
- Healthcare System Screwed Up.
Stupid Should Hurt: https://www.armstrongandgetty.com/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Not live.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
It's from Studio C Armstrong in Getty and.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
We're off for a couple of weeks. We're taking a break.
Come on, you get a break, We get a break.
We'll be back live for twenty five. Enjoy this carefully
curated Armstrong and Getty replayed and as long as we're
off traps you'd like to catch up on podcasts, subscribe
to Armstrong in Getty on demand or one more thing.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
We think you'll enjoy it. Certain it's essentially a buzzer
that they're employing.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
This is especially important at American Airlines because it's the
biggest airline in the US. They have nine different boarding groups,
which makes it sort of especially confusing for folks. The
problem is people who are jumping the line. It's known
as gate lice. That is there called gate lines, and
that is the term that the airline uses in some cases.
It's primarily something that bloggers have come up with, people
who hang around the front of the human eye. It
(00:45):
is kind of yes, I don't want to be allowed
to either. But the big thing here is that if
you scan your boarding pass that American is trying this
new technology on, it'll sound an alarm and make it
so that you go to the back of the line
and they can come back in when.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Your group is called.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Okay, this is you're already through security, you're you're up
there at your plane and they say it's time to board,
but you're group three and you try to get up
there with group one and they call you gate lice,
and Jake Tapper ridiculously says, sort of dehumanizing whatever, Jake
who worries about crap like that, that's just whatever, Okay,
(01:21):
I just call you jerks or a holes.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
It's the same thing. Get in when your group is.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
If you want a better group, buy your tickets earlier
or pay more or whatever. The way it works on
gate lices, I'm referred to them as airport apes chairs.
It's it's bored annoyed employees who deal with the public
all day long. Came up with a semi amusing nickname
to help, you know, cut into the drudgery of their
(01:46):
day a little bit.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Jake, It'll be okay, right, you know, it's the people.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
There's you know, the amount of jyvness in media has
has changed a little bit.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
You know, back in the day, you were utter dignified
and besuited and and and you know, obviously very clean
language and stuff like that like that, but it's besuited.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
It's it's fine.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
But like a Jake Tapper, what is it in him
that makes him think, Well, because of the nature of
my job and the people looking in the dignity of
the profession, I need to say, well, that's somewhat just
do humanizing.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Who's worried about that? Seriously?
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Anyway, back to the lousy, lousy gait, who's worried about
this is another question? With Thanksgiving coming up, That's why
we're talking about all the travel. Hey, let me let
me just make a say a word in support of
the American Airlines. We who are in group two don't
wish to rub elbows with you Group three paupers, all right, know.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Your place Group three, four and five? All right?
Speaker 1 (02:53):
And I've said, oh boy, comfort plus doesn't refer to plus.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
You stay back in your group.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
So I'm flying on Tuesday now, lok Port. But the
point is we're going to Grandma and Grandpa's for Thanksgiving
and going to have turkey. Well, maybe you think that
is a horror or notes essay opinion piece in the
New York Times today what a lame duck president could
do for lame turkeys.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
Good start.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
We've wondered about the presidential partning of the turkey for years.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Boy, how's Biden going to pull that off? All right?
Speaker 1 (03:30):
Anyway, he writes somewhat at the National Turkey Federation once
had an idea, let's send a live turkey to Harry
Truman for a presidential holiday feast. They thought, we'll promote
the turkey. Yeah, but was he stunt? We'll send a
live turkey to President Truman. Previously, some individual turkey producers
had sent their products to the president to promote them,
(03:52):
but the greater resources at the National Turkey Federation meant
that the story could be promoted more effectively.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
The turkey that was sent to Truman was killed and eaten.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
Uda, Go Harry, give him hell, Harry, huh make America
great again? Back when presidents would get a life turkey
and just say cool and kill it and need it
barbaric and then turkeys were subsequently sent to President Dwight D. Eisenhower,
who also killed and ate them. But in nineteen sixty three,
in one of us A last official acts before his assassination,
(04:25):
all right, god it would have been days before he
got his head blown apart.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
Right ooh.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
November sixty three, President John F. Kennedy, when face to
face with his live turkey, disregarded the sign hung around
the bird's neck that read good eating. Mister President, How
different is the country now than then? That they would
send a live turkey that was gonna get killed and eating,
(04:52):
and they put signor his neck, you know, happy eating?
Speaker 2 (04:55):
There more realistic people, Yes, we were.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Now you have essays in the New York Times decrying
the horror that people eat turkeys at all.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Anyway, John F.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Kennedy, and face to face with a live turkey, disregarded
the sign hung around his neck and said, let's keep
him going. Kennedy didn't say anything about pardoning the turkey.
If you excuse me, I'm gonna go stuffing intown. Right.
He didn't say anything about pardoning the turkey, but the
media referred to his act as a pardon or reprieve.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
President George H. W.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Bush was the first to pretend that a turkey was
receiving an official part.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
And we've been doing it for the last forty years.
Where the president comes out and.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
Bestows it really is pretty gruesome if you think about it,
cause it's I don't mean gruesome from a Turkey standpoint,
but just the idea of a pardon of something being
put to death. There are people on death throw. There
is a big one this week where they appeal to
the governors or the president to try not to be
executed as a human being, and the governor or president
(06:05):
makes a decision whether or not to do that to
kind of enjoy they don't get the partner right to
kind of joke about that activity. I officially pardon you Turkey,
not that other guy earlier in the week, which they
probably didn't deserve a pardon.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
But you're not wrong.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
But to me, the pardoning the Turkey shows weakness. This
is why Putin invaded Ukraine, because we're not even tough
enough to execute our guilty. Turkey is guilty of delicious.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
I agree.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
This is where the essay in the New York Times
turns really stupid. We pardon people for crimes they have committed.
Modern law has long abandoned the view that animals can
commit crimes. That makes it impossible to take seriously the
idea that turkeys need to be pardoned no matter what
they have done. But the annual is it just me?
Or are you waiting for a punchline too? This can't
(06:50):
possibly be serious. Yeah me, I'm waiting for it. But
the annual presidential pardon is doubly absurd because no one
has ever claimed the turkeys said to the president have
done anything wrong, not even in the sense that your
cat does something wrong when she punishes you for going
on vacation by using your bed as her litter box. Now,
this is very dry humor, very very dry. How to
(07:13):
avoid dry turkey breasts at the table coming up next?
Speaker 2 (07:16):
Stay with us?
Speaker 1 (07:17):
And then it goes into how about these turkey producers
have received millions of dollars as a subsidy for something
or other after sending the turkeys to It's.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Just it's all connonvoluted. I guess I'm supposed to be
upset about this in some way.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
Oh boy, let me pencil that in in my list
of things to be worried about.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
Right after I don't even know.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
And then it gets into the good reasons some people
choose not to eat turkeys. Turkeys eaten by Americans today
are nothing like wild turkeys eaten by the early European settlers.
And how turkeys are not treated well, and there are
other things you could eat. Remember our old newsman Marshall
used to go to a tofur tofu turkey thing. That's
some toe turkey tofurky. That's some vegetarian friend of is
(08:02):
put together. I don't doubt that the turkeys are not
treated in the best way.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
It doesn't surprise me.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Okay, I've penciled in concern about this right below. The
laces in my golf shoes get dirty and I have
to take them out to launder them. Well, I'll read
you the last paragraph of this serious thing. If we
insist on sticking with the idea of pardoning someone for Thanksgiving,
it's the heads of the giant corporations profiting from the
industrial production of turkeys who are in need of a pardon.
(08:35):
But to deserve it, they would first have to show
remorse for what they have done. Okay, well, you're fun
at a party. How hilarious is that they're bothered by
the pardoning of the turkeys fun at a gathering? I
was reading this piece. It's actually a decent piece about
(08:58):
how more and more people seem to be a semi sober.
They're like drinking more mindfully or less frequently, as the
medical establishment has said, you know, even one glass of wine,
it's not good for you. Alcohol is just not good
for you. And people are being more mindful. And this
woman is talking about you know, I've actually enjoyed it
(09:18):
more and blah blah blah.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
And I was thinking of the person who's just a
drag at a party, like, if that guy shows up,
I'm leaving. Sorry, Grandma.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
I know you've only got a week to live, but
I'm not hanging out with that idiot.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
Sorry. Wow, if you're an.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
Introvert, a little nip or two, that's how I get
through it.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
So is the Is it like sweeping the nation that
being concerned about drinking or is it just a no?
Speaker 1 (09:46):
I think it's absolutely on the increase. Young people are
drinking less than all the generations before them, partly because
they're giving themselves psychosist with the pot. Not universally. But
I think attitudes on alcohol evolving.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
No doubt. Interesting.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
Well, it is after what a couple decades, certainly a
decade of being told oh wow, by if you aren't
drinking red wine, you're being awful to your children because
it's gonna make your heart so much healthier than they
decided what a couple of years ago.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Ah, we were wrong about all that. Sorry, sorry, we're
not gonna not gonna hurt you the red wine, but
any alcohol is bad.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
Yeah, that's that was yet another reason why I ignore
most studies about any sort of.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
Hell thing anything. They changed their mind so many times
in my life.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
How do you not roll your eyes at any study
about this food or diet or drink or whatever based
on wait and see, wait a long time and see.
Speaking of which fruit loops are going to be the
center of the great controversy of next year, the humble
fruit loop, No damn fruit anywhere near him, by the way,
(10:55):
as RFK Junior is really hammering on processed foods and
artificial die and that sort of thing.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
Got some details on that.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
Plus the armstrung and getty Court of Justice, we'll swing
into action and rejudge. Juicy smolet hey Anson CBS has
an interview with the first transgender congresswoman. Uh be kind
of interested to hear what she's talking about. If they
get into that whole bathroom. Her fluffel that you can't
(11:23):
become a woman by taking hormones and getting surgeries. That's
a medical impossibility. Well, she's got long hair and female
clothes on. I'm looking at her up there. I've not
personally looked under her skirt. Again, you can do anything
you want under the skirt. It does not change the
sex of the person involved. How recently did she transition?
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Do we know this? Uh?
Speaker 1 (11:49):
No, she didn't like run as a dude and is
now a chick or anything like that, right, isn't that reason?
Speaker 2 (11:55):
Well? No, if she was ever a dude, she's not
a chick.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
Now.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
I think you're missing the point.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
I think I get your the journalist writing about their
little kid playing with chat GPT, and I wonder if
this is going to be the future of parenting for
some people. Just watched my five year old son chat
with chat GPT advanced voice mode for over forty five minutes.
It started with a question about how cars were made.
(12:19):
It explained it in a way that he could understand.
He started peppering it with questions, and he told it
about his teacher and that he was learning to count.
Chat GPT started quizzing him on counting and egging on
and making it into a game. He was laughing and
having a blast and obviously never lost patience with him.
I think this is going to be revolutionary, the essentially free,
(12:39):
infinitely patient, super genius teacher slash parent that calibrates itself
perfectly to your kids learning style and pace. I'm excited
about the future. The slash parent part bothered me.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
I don't know what to thing about that.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
It's an interactive book, like a really really good interactive book.
If you look at it that way, it's not as
dis disturbing. If you look at it as a substitute
for a human that makes us all weird, then it
bothers me. If it's a substitute for all a human relationship,
(13:14):
that's the feeling it takes on. Yet, if there's no
human involved, that weirds me out. But if you look
at it as an interactive book, then it's fine. Teacher
student is a human relationship. I'm just sure trying to
figure out where exactly I stand on this. I'm not
exactly sure where I was. That's why I brought it.
I thought this might be cool, this might be awful,
this might be the end of society. It might be
great for kids. I have no idea which well, if
(13:35):
the kid who likes to count, grows up, puts this
thing's voice in a sex doll, and marries it. And
then then it's disturbing if it's just an interactive learning tool,
for instance. Yeah, yeah, you know, I've got this. You know,
I love being alive, and I'm having a lot of fun,
(13:57):
even on my bad days.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
But I kind of I picture like my last day
on Earth, looking around and thinking, good luck, y'all you kidding, Yeah,
you know, no country for old men, man, Yeah, good luck.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Although I'd sure like to see how some of this
plays out, just purely out of curiosity.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
Yes, I think that a lot.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
I hope I live long enough to see how this
turns out or that turns out, or this turns out,
no doubt about it.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Huh. Okay, we'll see what happens.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
I think you'll have I think as many kids will
have this interactive book. That's fantastic. There might be more.
See that was a five year old. There might be
more twenty five year olds that have a GPT girlfriend
rather than a real relationship.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
And uh and then that, yeah, the other end of it.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Maybe then there'll be no more humans except in the
Third world, and they'll overrun the Western world. That's just
the way things go. Yah.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Do you want to hear a really disturbing note on
that topic? Who doesn't?
Speaker 1 (14:58):
And this is uh? And this I think is undeniable
as I look at the Internet and all given well,
assuming that there are evil people and will always be
evil people, the more effective and advanced modes of communication get,
the more effective evildoers are and indoctrinating people into evil.
(15:22):
Now you would the obvious counter to that as well,
what about good people helping people understand what is good?
Speaker 2 (15:28):
Yeah? True?
Speaker 1 (15:31):
Maybe it's just that we the reasonable insane if I'm
and sane or insane and sane, And also saying denunciation
is so important, Jack, we both agree on that that
we let the educational complex become radical and radicalize the students,
(15:54):
and the internet's a big part of that. I just
I think the more advanced communication gets, the more the
evil doers will use those advances to indoctrinate, like.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
That little kid who likes to count.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
I mean, when he's in high school and and he's
now he's into physics. Actually, will the teachers are involved
programming that stuff? Slip them a little intersectionality and a
little you know, Johnny, do you ever feel like a girl.
You know, I just Trump had thirty seven felonies. Let's
count to thirty seven, that sort of thing. Yeah, it's
(16:28):
it goes back to my hole. The tree of knowledge
is technology, no truth, the Internet or AI or something. Yeah,
I don't know the fruit of the tree of knowledge,
I should say from the from Genesis, the Carmaker, the
Biblical book.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
I'm done now, I think, do you have so much
to squeeze in this hour and the whole show? Hoping
stay tuned. But we ran this clip once and.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
Got so much reactions, so many requests to hear it again,
we thought, all right, why not. Jared Bernstein is the
voice you're going to hear responding to question. He is
the chairman of the of the President's Economic Advisory Council.
He is the Chief Economic Advisor to the President of
the United States, Joseph R.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
Biden, d Delaware.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
And it's amazing, Michael, like you said, they print the dollars,
so why does the government even.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
Borrow well.
Speaker 4 (17:33):
The so the I mean again, some of this stuff
gets some of the language that the some of the
language and concepts are just confusing. I mean, the government
definitely prints money and it definitely lends that money, which
is why the government definitely prints money, and then it
lends that money by selling bonds.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
Is that what they do?
Speaker 4 (17:57):
They they Yeah, they they sell bonds. Yeah, they sell bonds, right,
since they sell bonds and people buy the bonds and
lend them the money.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (18:08):
So a lot of times, a lot of times, at
least to my year with MMT, the language and the
concepts can be unnecessarily confusing, But there is no question
that the government prints money and then it uses that
money to So yeah, I guess I'm just I don't
(18:30):
I can't really talk it, don't. I don't get it.
I don't know what they're talking about, like, because it's like,
the government clearly prints money, it does it all the time,
and it clearly borrows. Otherwise we wouldn't be having this
debt and deafist conversation. So I don't think there's anything
confusing there.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
And what's this position again, he's the chairman of the
Council of Economic Advisors.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
Does anybody have any questions?
Speaker 1 (18:54):
So when we first played that, and when I first
heard the first part of it, I thought, Okay, this
is a guy.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
That's just so in the weeds and so knowledgeable. He's
trying to figure out how to.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
Dumb it down is to coarse, but you know, just
to present it in a way that a layman can
understand it. But then it becomes completely clear when he
starts saying.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
Is that right?
Speaker 1 (19:13):
I don't know that's a good That he actually doesn't know?
That was just bizarre. He makes reference to MMT, which,
if you're not familiar with it, it's a modern monetary theory.
It is a fringe left AOC theory that governments can
go into as much debt as they want to just
keep spending and spending because you can always grow the
(19:34):
economy faster than your interest payments, and that gets everybody employed.
It's super popular with green new dealers. But man, it
is a fringe way of looking at But how is
that going? An economic advisor of any kind who answers
a question like that. The only answer I can come
up with, and I'm not sure it's a great one,
but is that he didn't want to say, plainly, we
(19:58):
spend more than we take and borrow the balance because
that's how we buy votes. We're just we're just spending
money to stay in power and we'll have.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
To pay it back eventually.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
But as long as it doesn't happen on our watch,
as long as the disaster, the foreclosure doesn't happen on
our watch, we don't care. I don't know if you're
right or if you're giving him too much credit. It's
possible that he just had the right politics and so
they put him in that position and he's actually not
good at his job, like he's a major donor or
something I don't know, or tied to the right people.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
I don't know. Yeah, that was that was crazy. It is.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
It's amazing. That's the second time I heard it, and
it's just as amazing.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
Yeah, are an expert in this? That's your answer? Where
are the adults? All right?
Speaker 1 (20:47):
I gotta move on. I don't say about that. I
got I want to tease this because I'm gonna get
to it later.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
Elections matter, folks, Elections matter. This is the most election
of our lifetime. This is the most election of our lifetime.
You can't argue with that. She knows me, literally, you can't.
She might be the future president.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Don't you threaten me like that. I'm gonna get to
this later. I heard I heard this on NPR, so
I had to look up the details. I just heard
the t's on NPR. I didn't hear them do the story.
What's the cash value of being white? A nobel economist
has come up with.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
It, and you're gonna find it annoying.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
I'm already annoyed. Boy, that's great. It gets too because
we talked about this the other day. It's similar to
the I remember the name of the term, the tax,
the uh the passion passion tax, which I also heard
about on NPR, which I've never heard of before, but
I looked it up, and it's a thing. It's the
(21:48):
idea that the Marxists or people who don't believe in
capitalism or whatever, believe that if you like your job,
you're paying a passion tax and you don't even know
because you're probably working for less than you would work
for if you didn't like your job.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
Right, that's the passion tax.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
The difference between we're going a job you hate where
they'd have to pay you more and working a job
you love where you probably put in more hours and
are willing.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
To take less pay. That's the passion tax.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
And you are being stolen from by your employer through
the passion tax and you don't even know it. Oh No,
somehow taking liking a job and turning it into a
negative right really quite an amazing feat. The thing about
that philosophy, and it I think it's more popular than mine,
is that it assumes life just happens to you, that
(22:38):
you're a you're of always a victim, that just life
drains on you like well rain not one of my
better metaphors, and there's nothing you can do about it
except to enact millions and millions and millions of rules
to prevent anything bad from ever happening. Whereas our philosophy,
(22:59):
I'm sure sure you share mine is is that no, no, no,
take hold of your life and live it. Accept the
bad hops except that some people are bastards and they're
gonna cheat it and the rest of it. But you
are the captain of your ship. Life doesn't happen to you.
You happen a life, Go get it. There'll be set backs,
there'll be you'll be screwed. We've been screwed. Uh, but
(23:19):
just you know, leave that behind you and figure out. Ah,
I'm gonna move on, Satdur. But why is our next
guy comes along trying to screw me like that, he's
gonna f what.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
Do they say, f A f O? Yes, exactly it.
It's of course in philosophy, fart around and find out right?
Speaker 1 (23:38):
Come on, isn't that a much more exciting way to
live your life than? Oh?
Speaker 2 (23:43):
I really like what I do, So I think I'm
being cheated. My passion so pathetic.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
Well, there's that aspect of it, and then there's just
that's factually true. Yeah, I mean if you if if
my job was gonna be digging holes all day long
instead of this, you'd have to.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
Pay me a hell of a lot.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
Yeah, I mean a lot a lot before I quit
this job and start digging holes for a living.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
Boy, and with my back, you're not gonna like my productivity.
But so I'm better off with that.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
Then I'm paying the passion tax because I like this job,
so I do it for less. But then NPR would
have a featurette on how you're getting the abuse bonus
and that you are the victim of the abuse bonus, because.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
The whole point is to portray everybody as a victim. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
I mean, you got to really work hard when you
start going with the passion tax, and what I again
google it. There's a lot of writing about it, a
lot of people talking about it. That Reddit thread of
anti work. I'm sure it comes up on that regularly.
This this this world where you're being screwed and every
which way, including if you like your job is weird,
(24:54):
and if.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
You like your job kind of but don't like it
a ton and you're getting paid more than you what
if you love it? But let's you're getting the neutrality kneecap.
That's how it works. You're just always a victim no
matter what happens, and so you've got to give them.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
Power to fix it for you. It's the meh man handling.
I'm kind of meh about my job.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
But oh you're the victim of the man handling. That
is hilarious. Oh my goodness.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
Hope you're not paying the passion tax by liking your job, right,
and you go in on the weekend and work more
because you know you'd actually do this in your free time.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
You like your job so much. That's the passion tax,
you know.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
I was just gonna say, the number of people who
see life the way you do, my friends and we do,
is way, way, way, way, way more than you would think,
given media and education and entertainment, which are the three
headed monster of passivism and progressivism, You're right your way
of look the world is right, be proud of it,
(26:01):
be an advocate for it at strongly.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
It was funny.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
I was taking in some lefty media just to figure
out what arguments I'm going up against today, and I
heard back to back NPR portraying the college anti Israel
protests as a groundswell of the true feeling of millions
of Americans. I got pulling on that. That would show
that's not true. Oh, it's utterly false. It's fiction. The
(26:27):
Armstrong and Getty Show, Yeah, your show, podcasts, and our
hot Lakes. So, speaking of money changing hands, a couple
of really interesting economic notes for you. First of all,
two main reasons inflation is still high. One rents and
two hospital costs. Hospital prices jump seven point seven percent
(26:52):
last month from a year ago, the highest increase in
any months since October of twenty ten, according to the
Labor Department. They go into a bunch of different persons
that are significantly more expensive than they were a year ago.
And then, like anything any topic discussing the US healthcare system,
they're like three or four sub conversations. You have to
bring enlightenment to the topic. Our healthcare system could not
(27:15):
be any.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
More screwed up than it is.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
I don't think, of course, having said that, they'll reach
new heights of being screwed up between artificial and fictional
government compensation rates for Medicare and Medicaid, hospital monopolies in
a lot of cities, a lot of regions, and then
the way insurance companies work, which I've never understood and
(27:37):
I understand less now. Like I was in the emergency
room when we could go today for my motorcycle wreck a.
I got a bill for two thousand dollars and it's
set on there. The insurance company hasn't I forget the
word they use, but hasn't looked at all of this yet.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
You're threatening me with collections if I don't pay by
this date. When's the insurance company take it? What do
they cover? What do they not cover? Are they just
doing that thing where they hope you'll pay for it
before they cover it? Do I have to hire a
lawyer to figure out what is actually supposed to be
covered or not?
Speaker 2 (28:13):
What are you supposed to do.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
Right, and keep in mind, if you have insurance, you
are paying artificially inflated rates to pay for the government
composition folks and people without insurance at all. And then
everybody kept asking me why I didn't take an ambulance
as opposed to limping into a guy's uber and bleeding
all over his seat in his poor Toyota Camry, which
it was nice of him to do, because the last
(28:36):
time I took an ambulance an eighth of a mile
for my gallbladder, it cost me three thousand dollars cash
because that's not covered by insurance.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
Three thousand dollars. Wow, I don't know what this would
have been. It was a lot further away.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
That's so I'll never take an ambulance again unless I
think I'm gonna die. You can take a private jet
from your house to the hospital for about that. So
they do mention that health insurers are paying for soaring
wages for workers and other nurses rather than other workers.
Hiring and openings in healthcare remain strong even as unemployment
(29:10):
in other industries is slowed down.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
I thought that was interesting.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
Also this we mentioned earlier that The New York Times
had an article about inflation, and the number one comment,
which was liked by eleven and forty out of the
eleven hundred and eighty people who didn't commented, was that
The New York Times really needs to get off it's
button do some journalism about how companies are gouging us
(29:33):
and how there are artificially raising prices. Well, the Wall
Street Journal has a great piece on the title is
why is inflation so stubborn? Ask your local small business?
The number of small business businesses in America that are
contemplating raising prices is the highest they have ever observed.
(29:53):
And they go into a bonje of small businesses whose
costs from corrugated paper, from a box business, to all
sorts of people are talking about labor costs, a bunch
of different inputs. Here's a roofer who hasn't raised prices
in a decade and now is going to have to
raise them twenty percent just their costs are killing them.
(30:14):
Aluminum used for curtain tracks now costs a buck thirty
one a foot. That's up about twenty percent from a
year ago.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
Today.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
They just have a bunch of different examples of it.
And then this I thought, on a semi similar topic,
Jack and I have relationships with a couple of fairly
large companies and a couple of little LLCs that are,
you know, have roughly the revenue of your local baseball
card shop. But so the idea that we're some sort
(30:47):
of corporate titans is just not true. I look like
you don't, frankly, but I thought this is great. Phil Graham,
the old Senator, and Mike Solon, whose name I don't recognize,
but they wrote this piece for the Wall Street Journal
about how Biden and company are going to hammer hard
the idea of we've got to raise taxes on corporations.
(31:10):
And they quote a bunch of different speeches where they've
said that sort of thing. Obama was big on it too,
and how during the Trump tax cuts, the permanent part
there were some temporary stuff, some permanent part was it
was a corporate tax rates, which get a lot less
attention than individual income tax rates because only because and
I quote, Americans don't understand that corporations don't pay taxes.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
What wa wait?
Speaker 1 (31:35):
What It's one of the main campaign names of the
Democrats that corporations have to pay higher taxes.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
You're trying to tell me they don't pay taxes. All.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
A corporate entity is a pass through legal structure, a
piece of paper in some Delaware filing cabinet, as Mitt
Romney tried to tell people, corporations are people, and he
was mocked.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
Of course, proper people, my friend, And that was endlessly mocked.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
So when the corporate tax rate increases, corporations try to
pass the cost on to consumers. To the degree that
the entire cost of the tax increase can't be passed
on to consumers, those costs are.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
Born by employees and investors.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
Most economic studies can see that fifty or concluded that
fifty to seventy percent of a corporate tax increase not
passed on in higher prices is born by workers, while
thirty to fifty percent is born by investors. If you consume,
and we all do, you pay the corporate tax. If
you consume and your work for a corporation, you pay
the corporate tax twice. If you consume work and invest
(32:35):
your retirement funds in stocks.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
All good point.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
The corporate tax hits you three times. Wow, I've never
thought about that third one. Yeah, here's where it really
hits home. Democrats call up the image of the greedy
robber Baron as a personification of big corporations. But when
you pull back the curtain, it isn't the Wizard or
Robber Baron you see, but yourself as consumer, worker, and pensioner.
Many Americans don't pay individual income taxes, but all Americans
(33:03):
pay corporate taxes. In fact, a recent Treasury study confirmed
that about ninety three million families, about forty nine percent
of all American families, pay more in corporate taxes than
they do in individual income taxes. And they go into
a little detail on how that's true. But here's the
part I wanted to hit. That's not hard to believe
given the fact that half the country pays no federal
(33:25):
income taxes. So the stockhack market certainly has never looked
at it that way, and that's very interesting. The stock
market surged in twenty seventeen in anticipation of the tax cuts,
and in twenty eighteen twenty nineteen in response to them.
Who owns American corporations? According to Tax tax Notes, which
is a nonprofit, nonpartisan blah blah blah, seventy two percent
(33:46):
of all domestically held stocks are owned by pension plans.
Four oh one k's individual retirement accounts and charitable organizations
are held by life insurance companies to fund anuities and
death benefits.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
What's that percentage?
Speaker 1 (34:01):
Wow, of all domestically healthstocks are retirement funds essentially. So
when the Democrats draw this cartoon of the fat cat
who's going to be taxed?
Speaker 2 (34:14):
That's you man, look in the mirror.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
And as I mentioned a week or so ago, this
is an underreported story. The Trump tax cuts of twenty
seventeen expire in twenty five. So whoever gets elected, you
know what day one is actually going to be. Day
one is going to be the battle begins over renewing
or not or how.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
Much the Trump tax cut package.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
And that is going to be the biggest political story
of the year after the election, no doubt about it,
and the good old fashioned demagoguing of it. Oh yeah,
oh yeah, we're rich benefited the most. Well, the quote
unquote rich pay the vast majority of income taxes, so
it would be hard to design the system where they didn't.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
But anyway,
Not live.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
It's from Studio C Armstrong in Getty and.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
We're off for a couple of weeks. We're taking a break.
Come on, you get a break, We get a break.
We'll be back live for twenty five. Enjoy this carefully
curated Armstrong and Getty replayed and as long as we're
off traps you'd like to catch up on podcasts, subscribe
to Armstrong in Getty on demand or one more thing.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
We think you'll enjoy it. Certain it's essentially a buzzer
that they're employing.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
This is especially important at American Airlines because it's the
biggest airline in the US. They have nine different boarding groups,
which makes it sort of especially confusing for folks. The
problem is people who are jumping the line. It's known
as gate lice. That is there called gate lines, and
that is the term that the airline uses in some cases.
It's primarily something that bloggers have come up with, people
who hang around the front of the human eye. It
(00:45):
is kind of yes, I don't want to be allowed
to either. But the big thing here is that if
you scan your boarding pass that American is trying this
new technology on, it'll sound an alarm and make it
so that you go to the back of the line
and they can come back in when.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Your group is called.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Okay, this is you're already through security, you're you're up
there at your plane and they say it's time to board,
but you're group three and you try to get up
there with group one and they call you gate lice,
and Jake Tapper ridiculously says, sort of dehumanizing whatever, Jake
who worries about crap like that, that's just whatever, Okay,
(01:21):
I just call you jerks or a holes.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
It's the same thing. Get in when your group is.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
If you want a better group, buy your tickets earlier
or pay more or whatever. The way it works on
gate lices, I'm referred to them as airport apes chairs.
It's it's bored annoyed employees who deal with the public
all day long. Came up with a semi amusing nickname
to help, you know, cut into the drudgery of their
(01:46):
day a little bit.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Jake, It'll be okay, right, you know, it's the people.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
There's you know, the amount of jyvness in media has
has changed a little bit.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
You know, back in the day, you were utter dignified
and besuited and and and you know, obviously very clean
language and stuff like that like that, but it's besuited.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
It's it's fine.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
But like a Jake Tapper, what is it in him
that makes him think, Well, because of the nature of
my job and the people looking in the dignity of
the profession, I need to say, well, that's somewhat just
do humanizing.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Who's worried about that? Seriously?
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Anyway, back to the lousy, lousy gait, who's worried about
this is another question? With Thanksgiving coming up, That's why
we're talking about all the travel. Hey, let me let
me just make a say a word in support of
the American Airlines. We who are in group two don't
wish to rub elbows with you Group three paupers, all right, know.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Your place Group three, four and five? All right?
Speaker 1 (02:53):
And I've said, oh boy, comfort plus doesn't refer to plus.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
You stay back in your group.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
So I'm flying on Tuesday now, lok Port. But the
point is we're going to Grandma and Grandpa's for Thanksgiving
and going to have turkey. Well, maybe you think that
is a horror or notes essay opinion piece in the
New York Times today what a lame duck president could
do for lame turkeys.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
Good start.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
We've wondered about the presidential partning of the turkey for years.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Boy, how's Biden going to pull that off? All right?
Speaker 1 (03:30):
Anyway, he writes somewhat at the National Turkey Federation once
had an idea, let's send a live turkey to Harry
Truman for a presidential holiday feast. They thought, we'll promote
the turkey. Yeah, but was he stunt? We'll send a
live turkey to President Truman. Previously, some individual turkey producers
had sent their products to the president to promote them,
(03:52):
but the greater resources at the National Turkey Federation meant
that the story could be promoted more effectively.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
The turkey that was sent to Truman was killed and eaten.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
Uda, Go Harry, give him hell, Harry, huh make America
great again? Back when presidents would get a life turkey
and just say cool and kill it and need it
barbaric and then turkeys were subsequently sent to President Dwight D. Eisenhower,
who also killed and ate them. But in nineteen sixty three,
in one of us A last official acts before his assassination,
(04:25):
all right, god it would have been days before he
got his head blown apart.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
Right ooh.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
November sixty three, President John F. Kennedy, when face to
face with his live turkey, disregarded the sign hung around
the bird's neck that read good eating. Mister President, How
different is the country now than then? That they would
send a live turkey that was gonna get killed and eating,
(04:52):
and they put signor his neck, you know, happy eating?
Speaker 2 (04:55):
There more realistic people, Yes, we were.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Now you have essays in the New York Times decrying
the horror that people eat turkeys at all.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Anyway, John F.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Kennedy, and face to face with a live turkey, disregarded
the sign hung around his neck and said, let's keep
him going. Kennedy didn't say anything about pardoning the turkey.
If you excuse me, I'm gonna go stuffing intown. Right.
He didn't say anything about pardoning the turkey, but the
media referred to his act as a pardon or reprieve.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
President George H. W.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Bush was the first to pretend that a turkey was
receiving an official part.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
And we've been doing it for the last forty years.
Where the president comes out and.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
Bestows it really is pretty gruesome if you think about it,
cause it's I don't mean gruesome from a Turkey standpoint,
but just the idea of a pardon of something being
put to death. There are people on death throw. There
is a big one this week where they appeal to
the governors or the president to try not to be
executed as a human being, and the governor or president
(06:05):
makes a decision whether or not to do that to
kind of enjoy they don't get the partner right to
kind of joke about that activity. I officially pardon you Turkey,
not that other guy earlier in the week, which they
probably didn't deserve a pardon.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
But you're not wrong.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
But to me, the pardoning the Turkey shows weakness. This
is why Putin invaded Ukraine, because we're not even tough
enough to execute our guilty. Turkey is guilty of delicious.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
I agree.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
This is where the essay in the New York Times
turns really stupid. We pardon people for crimes they have committed.
Modern law has long abandoned the view that animals can
commit crimes. That makes it impossible to take seriously the
idea that turkeys need to be pardoned no matter what
they have done. But the annual is it just me?
Or are you waiting for a punchline too? This can't
(06:50):
possibly be serious. Yeah me, I'm waiting for it. But
the annual presidential pardon is doubly absurd because no one
has ever claimed the turkeys said to the president have
done anything wrong, not even in the sense that your
cat does something wrong when she punishes you for going
on vacation by using your bed as her litter box. Now,
this is very dry humor, very very dry. How to
(07:13):
avoid dry turkey breasts at the table coming up next?
Speaker 2 (07:16):
Stay with us?
Speaker 1 (07:17):
And then it goes into how about these turkey producers
have received millions of dollars as a subsidy for something
or other after sending the turkeys to It's.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Just it's all connonvoluted. I guess I'm supposed to be
upset about this in some way.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
Oh boy, let me pencil that in in my list
of things to be worried about.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
Right after I don't even know.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
And then it gets into the good reasons some people
choose not to eat turkeys. Turkeys eaten by Americans today
are nothing like wild turkeys eaten by the early European settlers.
And how turkeys are not treated well, and there are
other things you could eat. Remember our old newsman Marshall
used to go to a tofur tofu turkey thing. That's
some toe turkey tofurky. That's some vegetarian friend of is
(08:02):
put together. I don't doubt that the turkeys are not
treated in the best way.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
It doesn't surprise me.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Okay, I've penciled in concern about this right below. The
laces in my golf shoes get dirty and I have
to take them out to launder them. Well, I'll read
you the last paragraph of this serious thing. If we
insist on sticking with the idea of pardoning someone for Thanksgiving,
it's the heads of the giant corporations profiting from the
industrial production of turkeys who are in need of a pardon.
(08:35):
But to deserve it, they would first have to show
remorse for what they have done. Okay, well, you're fun
at a party. How hilarious is that they're bothered by
the pardoning of the turkeys fun at a gathering? I
was reading this piece. It's actually a decent piece about
(08:58):
how more and more people seem to be a semi sober.
They're like drinking more mindfully or less frequently, as the
medical establishment has said, you know, even one glass of wine,
it's not good for you. Alcohol is just not good
for you. And people are being more mindful. And this
woman is talking about you know, I've actually enjoyed it
(09:18):
more and blah blah blah.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
And I was thinking of the person who's just a
drag at a party, like, if that guy shows up,
I'm leaving. Sorry, Grandma.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
I know you've only got a week to live, but
I'm not hanging out with that idiot.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
Sorry. Wow, if you're an.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
Introvert, a little nip or two, that's how I get
through it.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
So is the Is it like sweeping the nation that
being concerned about drinking or is it just a no?
Speaker 1 (09:46):
I think it's absolutely on the increase. Young people are
drinking less than all the generations before them, partly because
they're giving themselves psychosist with the pot. Not universally. But
I think attitudes on alcohol evolving.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
No doubt. Interesting.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
Well, it is after what a couple decades, certainly a
decade of being told oh wow, by if you aren't
drinking red wine, you're being awful to your children because
it's gonna make your heart so much healthier than they
decided what a couple of years ago.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Ah, we were wrong about all that. Sorry, sorry, we're
not gonna not gonna hurt you the red wine, but
any alcohol is bad.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
Yeah, that's that was yet another reason why I ignore
most studies about any sort of.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
Hell thing anything. They changed their mind so many times
in my life.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
How do you not roll your eyes at any study
about this food or diet or drink or whatever based
on wait and see, wait a long time and see.
Speaking of which fruit loops are going to be the
center of the great controversy of next year, the humble
fruit loop, No damn fruit anywhere near him, by the way,
(10:55):
as RFK Junior is really hammering on processed foods and
artificial die and that sort of thing.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
Got some details on that.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
Plus the armstrung and getty Court of Justice, we'll swing
into action and rejudge. Juicy smolet hey Anson CBS has
an interview with the first transgender congresswoman. Uh be kind
of interested to hear what she's talking about. If they
get into that whole bathroom. Her fluffel that you can't
(11:23):
become a woman by taking hormones and getting surgeries. That's
a medical impossibility. Well, she's got long hair and female
clothes on. I'm looking at her up there. I've not
personally looked under her skirt. Again, you can do anything
you want under the skirt. It does not change the
sex of the person involved. How recently did she transition?
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Do we know this? Uh?
Speaker 1 (11:49):
No, she didn't like run as a dude and is
now a chick or anything like that, right, isn't that reason?
Speaker 2 (11:55):
Well? No, if she was ever a dude, she's not
a chick.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
Now.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
I think you're missing the point.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
I think I get your the journalist writing about their
little kid playing with chat GPT, and I wonder if
this is going to be the future of parenting for
some people. Just watched my five year old son chat
with chat GPT advanced voice mode for over forty five minutes.
It started with a question about how cars were made.
(12:19):
It explained it in a way that he could understand.
He started peppering it with questions, and he told it
about his teacher and that he was learning to count.
Chat GPT started quizzing him on counting and egging on
and making it into a game. He was laughing and
having a blast and obviously never lost patience with him.
I think this is going to be revolutionary, the essentially free,
(12:39):
infinitely patient, super genius teacher slash parent that calibrates itself
perfectly to your kids learning style and pace. I'm excited
about the future. The slash parent part bothered me.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
I don't know what to thing about that.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
It's an interactive book, like a really really good interactive book.
If you look at it that way, it's not as
dis disturbing. If you look at it as a substitute
for a human that makes us all weird, then it
bothers me. If it's a substitute for all a human relationship,
(13:14):
that's the feeling it takes on. Yet, if there's no
human involved, that weirds me out. But if you look
at it as an interactive book, then it's fine. Teacher
student is a human relationship. I'm just sure trying to
figure out where exactly I stand on this. I'm not
exactly sure where I was. That's why I brought it.
I thought this might be cool, this might be awful,
this might be the end of society. It might be
great for kids. I have no idea which well, if
(13:35):
the kid who likes to count, grows up, puts this
thing's voice in a sex doll, and marries it. And
then then it's disturbing if it's just an interactive learning tool,
for instance. Yeah, yeah, you know, I've got this. You know,
I love being alive, and I'm having a lot of fun,
(13:57):
even on my bad days.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
But I kind of I picture like my last day
on Earth, looking around and thinking, good luck, y'all you kidding, Yeah,
you know, no country for old men, man, Yeah, good luck.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Although I'd sure like to see how some of this
plays out, just purely out of curiosity.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
Yes, I think that a lot.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
I hope I live long enough to see how this
turns out or that turns out, or this turns out,
no doubt about it.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Huh. Okay, we'll see what happens.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
I think you'll have I think as many kids will
have this interactive book. That's fantastic. There might be more.
See that was a five year old. There might be
more twenty five year olds that have a GPT girlfriend
rather than a real relationship.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
And uh and then that, yeah, the other end of it.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Maybe then there'll be no more humans except in the
Third world, and they'll overrun the Western world. That's just
the way things go. Yah.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Do you want to hear a really disturbing note on
that topic? Who doesn't?
Speaker 1 (14:58):
And this is uh? And this I think is undeniable
as I look at the Internet and all given well,
assuming that there are evil people and will always be
evil people, the more effective and advanced modes of communication get,
the more effective evildoers are and indoctrinating people into evil.
(15:22):
Now you would the obvious counter to that as well,
what about good people helping people understand what is good?
Speaker 2 (15:28):
Yeah? True?
Speaker 1 (15:31):
Maybe it's just that we the reasonable insane if I'm
and sane or insane and sane, And also saying denunciation
is so important, Jack, we both agree on that that
we let the educational complex become radical and radicalize the students,
(15:54):
and the internet's a big part of that. I just
I think the more advanced communication gets, the more the
evil doers will use those advances to indoctrinate, like.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
That little kid who likes to count.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
I mean, when he's in high school and and he's
now he's into physics. Actually, will the teachers are involved
programming that stuff? Slip them a little intersectionality and a
little you know, Johnny, do you ever feel like a girl.
You know, I just Trump had thirty seven felonies. Let's
count to thirty seven, that sort of thing. Yeah, it's
(16:28):
it goes back to my hole. The tree of knowledge
is technology, no truth, the Internet or AI or something. Yeah,
I don't know the fruit of the tree of knowledge,
I should say from the from Genesis, the Carmaker, the
Biblical book.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
I'm done now, I think, do you have so much
to squeeze in this hour and the whole show? Hoping
stay tuned. But we ran this clip once and.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
Got so much reactions, so many requests to hear it again,
we thought, all right, why not. Jared Bernstein is the
voice you're going to hear responding to question. He is
the chairman of the of the President's Economic Advisory Council.
He is the Chief Economic Advisor to the President of
the United States, Joseph R.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
Biden, d Delaware.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
And it's amazing, Michael, like you said, they print the dollars,
so why does the government even.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
Borrow well.
Speaker 4 (17:33):
The so the I mean again, some of this stuff
gets some of the language that the some of the
language and concepts are just confusing. I mean, the government
definitely prints money and it definitely lends that money, which
is why the government definitely prints money, and then it
lends that money by selling bonds.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
Is that what they do?
Speaker 4 (17:57):
They they Yeah, they they sell bonds. Yeah, they sell bonds, right,
since they sell bonds and people buy the bonds and
lend them the money.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (18:08):
So a lot of times, a lot of times, at
least to my year with MMT, the language and the
concepts can be unnecessarily confusing, But there is no question
that the government prints money and then it uses that
money to So yeah, I guess I'm just I don't
(18:30):
I can't really talk it, don't. I don't get it.
I don't know what they're talking about, like, because it's like,
the government clearly prints money, it does it all the time,
and it clearly borrows. Otherwise we wouldn't be having this
debt and deafist conversation. So I don't think there's anything
confusing there.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
And what's this position again, he's the chairman of the
Council of Economic Advisors.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
Does anybody have any questions?
Speaker 1 (18:54):
So when we first played that, and when I first
heard the first part of it, I thought, Okay, this
is a guy.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
That's just so in the weeds and so knowledgeable. He's
trying to figure out how to.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
Dumb it down is to coarse, but you know, just
to present it in a way that a layman can
understand it. But then it becomes completely clear when he
starts saying.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
Is that right?
Speaker 1 (19:13):
I don't know that's a good That he actually doesn't know?
That was just bizarre. He makes reference to MMT, which,
if you're not familiar with it, it's a modern monetary theory.
It is a fringe left AOC theory that governments can
go into as much debt as they want to just
keep spending and spending because you can always grow the
(19:34):
economy faster than your interest payments, and that gets everybody employed.
It's super popular with green new dealers. But man, it
is a fringe way of looking at But how is
that going? An economic advisor of any kind who answers
a question like that. The only answer I can come
up with, and I'm not sure it's a great one,
but is that he didn't want to say, plainly, we
(19:58):
spend more than we take and borrow the balance because
that's how we buy votes. We're just we're just spending
money to stay in power and we'll have.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
To pay it back eventually.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
But as long as it doesn't happen on our watch,
as long as the disaster, the foreclosure doesn't happen on
our watch, we don't care. I don't know if you're
right or if you're giving him too much credit. It's
possible that he just had the right politics and so
they put him in that position and he's actually not
good at his job, like he's a major donor or
something I don't know, or tied to the right people.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
I don't know. Yeah, that was that was crazy. It is.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
It's amazing. That's the second time I heard it, and
it's just as amazing.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
Yeah, are an expert in this? That's your answer? Where
are the adults? All right?
Speaker 1 (20:47):
I gotta move on. I don't say about that. I
got I want to tease this because I'm gonna get
to it later.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
Elections matter, folks, Elections matter. This is the most election
of our lifetime. This is the most election of our lifetime.
You can't argue with that. She knows me, literally, you can't.
She might be the future president.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Don't you threaten me like that. I'm gonna get to
this later. I heard I heard this on NPR, so
I had to look up the details. I just heard
the t's on NPR. I didn't hear them do the story.
What's the cash value of being white? A nobel economist
has come up with.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
It, and you're gonna find it annoying.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
I'm already annoyed. Boy, that's great. It gets too because
we talked about this the other day. It's similar to
the I remember the name of the term, the tax,
the uh the passion passion tax, which I also heard
about on NPR, which I've never heard of before, but
I looked it up, and it's a thing. It's the
(21:48):
idea that the Marxists or people who don't believe in
capitalism or whatever, believe that if you like your job,
you're paying a passion tax and you don't even know
because you're probably working for less than you would work
for if you didn't like your job.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
Right, that's the passion tax.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
The difference between we're going a job you hate where
they'd have to pay you more and working a job
you love where you probably put in more hours and
are willing.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
To take less pay. That's the passion tax.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
And you are being stolen from by your employer through
the passion tax and you don't even know it. Oh No,
somehow taking liking a job and turning it into a
negative right really quite an amazing feat. The thing about
that philosophy, and it I think it's more popular than mine,
is that it assumes life just happens to you, that
(22:38):
you're a you're of always a victim, that just life
drains on you like well rain not one of my
better metaphors, and there's nothing you can do about it
except to enact millions and millions and millions of rules
to prevent anything bad from ever happening. Whereas our philosophy,
(22:59):
I'm sure sure you share mine is is that no, no, no,
take hold of your life and live it. Accept the
bad hops except that some people are bastards and they're
gonna cheat it and the rest of it. But you
are the captain of your ship. Life doesn't happen to you.
You happen a life, Go get it. There'll be set backs,
there'll be you'll be screwed. We've been screwed. Uh, but
(23:19):
just you know, leave that behind you and figure out. Ah,
I'm gonna move on, Satdur. But why is our next
guy comes along trying to screw me like that, he's
gonna f what.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
Do they say, f A f O? Yes, exactly it.
It's of course in philosophy, fart around and find out right?
Speaker 1 (23:38):
Come on, isn't that a much more exciting way to
live your life than? Oh?
Speaker 2 (23:43):
I really like what I do, So I think I'm
being cheated. My passion so pathetic.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
Well, there's that aspect of it, and then there's just
that's factually true. Yeah, I mean if you if if
my job was gonna be digging holes all day long
instead of this, you'd have to.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
Pay me a hell of a lot.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
Yeah, I mean a lot a lot before I quit
this job and start digging holes for a living.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
Boy, and with my back, you're not gonna like my productivity.
But so I'm better off with that.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
Then I'm paying the passion tax because I like this job,
so I do it for less. But then NPR would
have a featurette on how you're getting the abuse bonus
and that you are the victim of the abuse bonus, because.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
The whole point is to portray everybody as a victim. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
I mean, you got to really work hard when you
start going with the passion tax, and what I again
google it. There's a lot of writing about it, a
lot of people talking about it. That Reddit thread of
anti work. I'm sure it comes up on that regularly.
This this this world where you're being screwed and every
which way, including if you like your job is weird,
(24:54):
and if.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
You like your job kind of but don't like it
a ton and you're getting paid more than you what
if you love it? But let's you're getting the neutrality kneecap.
That's how it works. You're just always a victim no
matter what happens, and so you've got to give them.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
Power to fix it for you. It's the meh man handling.
I'm kind of meh about my job.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
But oh you're the victim of the man handling. That
is hilarious. Oh my goodness.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
Hope you're not paying the passion tax by liking your job, right,
and you go in on the weekend and work more
because you know you'd actually do this in your free time.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
You like your job so much. That's the passion tax,
you know.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
I was just gonna say, the number of people who
see life the way you do, my friends and we do,
is way, way, way, way, way more than you would think,
given media and education and entertainment, which are the three
headed monster of passivism and progressivism, You're right your way
of look the world is right, be proud of it,
(26:01):
be an advocate for it at strongly.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
It was funny.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
I was taking in some lefty media just to figure
out what arguments I'm going up against today, and I
heard back to back NPR portraying the college anti Israel
protests as a groundswell of the true feeling of millions
of Americans. I got pulling on that. That would show
that's not true. Oh, it's utterly false. It's fiction. The
(26:27):
Armstrong and Getty Show, Yeah, your show, podcasts, and our
hot Lakes. So, speaking of money changing hands, a couple
of really interesting economic notes for you. First of all,
two main reasons inflation is still high. One rents and
two hospital costs. Hospital prices jump seven point seven percent
(26:52):
last month from a year ago, the highest increase in
any months since October of twenty ten, according to the
Labor Department. They go into a bunch of different persons
that are significantly more expensive than they were a year ago.
And then, like anything any topic discussing the US healthcare system,
they're like three or four sub conversations. You have to
bring enlightenment to the topic. Our healthcare system could not
(27:15):
be any.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
More screwed up than it is.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
I don't think, of course, having said that, they'll reach
new heights of being screwed up between artificial and fictional
government compensation rates for Medicare and Medicaid, hospital monopolies in
a lot of cities, a lot of regions, and then
the way insurance companies work, which I've never understood and
(27:37):
I understand less now. Like I was in the emergency
room when we could go today for my motorcycle wreck a.
I got a bill for two thousand dollars and it's
set on there. The insurance company hasn't I forget the
word they use, but hasn't looked at all of this yet.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
You're threatening me with collections if I don't pay by
this date. When's the insurance company take it? What do
they cover? What do they not cover? Are they just
doing that thing where they hope you'll pay for it
before they cover it? Do I have to hire a
lawyer to figure out what is actually supposed to be
covered or not?
Speaker 2 (28:13):
What are you supposed to do.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
Right, and keep in mind, if you have insurance, you
are paying artificially inflated rates to pay for the government
composition folks and people without insurance at all. And then
everybody kept asking me why I didn't take an ambulance
as opposed to limping into a guy's uber and bleeding
all over his seat in his poor Toyota Camry, which
it was nice of him to do, because the last
(28:36):
time I took an ambulance an eighth of a mile
for my gallbladder, it cost me three thousand dollars cash
because that's not covered by insurance.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
Three thousand dollars. Wow, I don't know what this would
have been. It was a lot further away.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
That's so I'll never take an ambulance again unless I
think I'm gonna die. You can take a private jet
from your house to the hospital for about that. So
they do mention that health insurers are paying for soaring
wages for workers and other nurses rather than other workers.
Hiring and openings in healthcare remain strong even as unemployment
(29:10):
in other industries is slowed down.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
I thought that was interesting.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
Also this we mentioned earlier that The New York Times
had an article about inflation, and the number one comment,
which was liked by eleven and forty out of the
eleven hundred and eighty people who didn't commented, was that
The New York Times really needs to get off it's
button do some journalism about how companies are gouging us
(29:33):
and how there are artificially raising prices. Well, the Wall
Street Journal has a great piece on the title is
why is inflation so stubborn? Ask your local small business?
The number of small business businesses in America that are
contemplating raising prices is the highest they have ever observed.
(29:53):
And they go into a bonje of small businesses whose
costs from corrugated paper, from a box business, to all
sorts of people are talking about labor costs, a bunch
of different inputs. Here's a roofer who hasn't raised prices
in a decade and now is going to have to
raise them twenty percent just their costs are killing them.
(30:14):
Aluminum used for curtain tracks now costs a buck thirty
one a foot. That's up about twenty percent from a
year ago.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
Today.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
They just have a bunch of different examples of it.
And then this I thought, on a semi similar topic,
Jack and I have relationships with a couple of fairly
large companies and a couple of little LLCs that are,
you know, have roughly the revenue of your local baseball
card shop. But so the idea that we're some sort
(30:47):
of corporate titans is just not true. I look like
you don't, frankly, but I thought this is great. Phil Graham,
the old Senator, and Mike Solon, whose name I don't recognize,
but they wrote this piece for the Wall Street Journal
about how Biden and company are going to hammer hard
the idea of we've got to raise taxes on corporations.
(31:10):
And they quote a bunch of different speeches where they've
said that sort of thing. Obama was big on it too,
and how during the Trump tax cuts, the permanent part
there were some temporary stuff, some permanent part was it
was a corporate tax rates, which get a lot less
attention than individual income tax rates because only because and
I quote, Americans don't understand that corporations don't pay taxes.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
What wa wait?
Speaker 1 (31:35):
What It's one of the main campaign names of the
Democrats that corporations have to pay higher taxes.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
You're trying to tell me they don't pay taxes. All.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
A corporate entity is a pass through legal structure, a
piece of paper in some Delaware filing cabinet, as Mitt
Romney tried to tell people, corporations are people, and he
was mocked.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
Of course, proper people, my friend, And that was endlessly mocked.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
So when the corporate tax rate increases, corporations try to
pass the cost on to consumers. To the degree that
the entire cost of the tax increase can't be passed
on to consumers, those costs are.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
Born by employees and investors.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
Most economic studies can see that fifty or concluded that
fifty to seventy percent of a corporate tax increase not
passed on in higher prices is born by workers, while
thirty to fifty percent is born by investors. If you consume,
and we all do, you pay the corporate tax. If
you consume and your work for a corporation, you pay
the corporate tax twice. If you consume work and invest
(32:35):
your retirement funds in stocks.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
All good point.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
The corporate tax hits you three times. Wow, I've never
thought about that third one. Yeah, here's where it really
hits home. Democrats call up the image of the greedy
robber Baron as a personification of big corporations. But when
you pull back the curtain, it isn't the Wizard or
Robber Baron you see, but yourself as consumer, worker, and pensioner.
Many Americans don't pay individual income taxes, but all Americans
(33:03):
pay corporate taxes. In fact, a recent Treasury study confirmed
that about ninety three million families, about forty nine percent
of all American families, pay more in corporate taxes than
they do in individual income taxes. And they go into
a little detail on how that's true. But here's the
part I wanted to hit. That's not hard to believe
given the fact that half the country pays no federal
(33:25):
income taxes. So the stockhack market certainly has never looked
at it that way, and that's very interesting. The stock
market surged in twenty seventeen in anticipation of the tax cuts,
and in twenty eighteen twenty nineteen in response to them.
Who owns American corporations? According to Tax tax Notes, which
is a nonprofit, nonpartisan blah blah blah, seventy two percent
(33:46):
of all domestically held stocks are owned by pension plans.
Four oh one k's individual retirement accounts and charitable organizations
are held by life insurance companies to fund anuities and
death benefits.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
What's that percentage?
Speaker 1 (34:01):
Wow, of all domestically healthstocks are retirement funds essentially. So
when the Democrats draw this cartoon of the fat cat
who's going to be taxed?
Speaker 2 (34:14):
That's you man, look in the mirror.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
And as I mentioned a week or so ago, this
is an underreported story. The Trump tax cuts of twenty
seventeen expire in twenty five. So whoever gets elected, you
know what day one is actually going to be. Day
one is going to be the battle begins over renewing
or not or how.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
Much the Trump tax cut package.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
And that is going to be the biggest political story
of the year after the election, no doubt about it,
and the good old fashioned demagoguing of it. Oh yeah,
oh yeah, we're rich benefited the most. Well, the quote
unquote rich pay the vast majority of income taxes, so
it would be hard to design the system where they didn't.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
But anyway,
Hosts And Creators
Joe Getty
Jack Armstrong
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