July 2, 2025 • 36 mins
Hour 2 of the Wednesday, July 2,202 A&G Replay contains:
- Why Americans Stopped Moving
- Joe's GUT
- Jack Can't Sleep
- Trump Alabama Speech
Stupid Should Hurt: https://www.armstrongandgetty.com/
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio, the George
Washington Broadcast Center. Jack Armstrong, Joe, Katty Armstrong.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
And Jettie and He Armstrong and Getty Strong and.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
I missed when my kids were younger and Saint Patrick's
Day was a big deal and they'd wake up in
the morning and a leprechaun had snuck into our home
and you're NATed green in the toilet, then left a
trail of.
Speaker 4 (00:45):
Glitter behind for some reason. I'm not exactly sure what
went on there, but they loved it. It was really,
really fun.
Speaker 5 (00:51):
We had leprechaun traps, which is cruel, yes, and really brutal.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Yes, They'll always get away. They would always get away.
Speaker 5 (00:59):
They would take the gold chocolate coins and get away,
the clever little bastards.
Speaker 4 (01:02):
We caught one once. He still works for us. I
work it the green.
Speaker 5 (01:08):
Did you read about that, you unofficial who was just
prosecuted for slavery?
Speaker 4 (01:12):
No?
Speaker 5 (01:13):
Yeah, later on in the show or in the hour.
We don't have time now, but yeah, but the green
urine was a real Armstrong innovation.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
We did not do that at my house.
Speaker 4 (01:23):
We heard it from some babysitter or whatever. But Yeah,
he got that glitter like footprints somehow, and it's disgusting
all the way around. But anyway, happy to see Patrick's day.
Speaker 5 (01:34):
Oh I should keep moving, but me incontinence is bothering.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Maybe I'll just stop and relieve meself. Oh boy.
Speaker 5 (01:42):
So this is one of the most fascinating things I've
read in the last several years. It is shockingly from
the Atlantic, which is just suffocatingly lefty these days. It
was written by a fellow by the name of Yannie
apple Bomb Why Americans stopped moving houses and why that's
(02:02):
a very big problem. Actually Yannie might be a woman,
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Probably is.
Speaker 5 (02:07):
But the subtitle of it is how Progressives Froze the
American Dream. And I was surprised to see that on
the cover, but I I dove in. I'm going to
hit you with parts of it. Jack comment like as
much as you like, obviously. So the lead is the
idea that people should be able to choose their own
communities instead of being stuck where they are born is
a distinctly American innovation. It is the foundation for the
(02:28):
country's prosperity and democracy, and it just may be America's
most profound contribution.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
To the world. I have been saying this for years.
Speaker 4 (02:36):
You have in California, the Midwest, all kinds of places
I've lived, was settled by people who thought they could
get a better deal here.
Speaker 5 (02:44):
No society has ever been as mobile as the United
States once was. No society has even come close. In
the nineteenth century, friends, the heyday of American mobility, roughly
a third of all Americans changed addresses each year.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Wow each year.
Speaker 5 (03:02):
They quote a couple of commentators of the day. The
Americans devoured with a passion for locomotion, said one French writer,
he cannot stay in one place. Americans moved far more often,
over longer distances, and to greater advantage than did people
in the lands from which.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
They had come.
Speaker 5 (03:16):
They described how in Europe that you just you stayed
on the land, you stayed in the town. People were
very suspicious of outsiders. We'll get to that. But over
the past fifty years, this engine of American opportunity has
stopped working. Americans become less likely to move from one
state to another, to move within a state, or even
to switch residences within a city. In the nineteen sixties,
(03:39):
now remember it was about one in three in the
eighteen hundreds the nineteen sixties, about one out of every
five Americans moved in any given year, down from one
in three in the nineteenth century, but a frenetic rate, nonetheless,
so one in five in the nineteen sixties. In twenty
twenty three, only one in thirteen Americans moved.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
The sharp decline and GEO, you go ahead. Sorry.
Speaker 4 (04:05):
Joe and I both moved a lot for our radio careers,
and I don't think it's shocking to say the success
of this project depended on it. Wouldn't it have never
happened without the willingness to like move to that town,
than to that town, to then that town for opportunity.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
And probably it's a good time for a disclaimer.
Speaker 5 (04:29):
We both were also raised by people who saw their
fortune in various ways and moved as necessary for career.
My dad was in the military for a while and
then in the publishing industry, and we moved to fair
Mounta until we finally settled in Chicagoland. But so we
we can feel and appreciate that side.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Of the argument, not that it's an argument, per sae.
Speaker 5 (04:54):
Somebody who's lived, you know, hometown, Mom and Dad and
the cousins are always around, you have giant Sunday dinners
together of that sort of thing. Yeah, I get a
tear in my eye thinking about how wonderful that would be.
But like I've said many times, everything has a cost
and a benefit. You just have to decide, you know
what's for you anyway. Reading on from Applebaum's piece, the
(05:14):
sharp decline in geographic mobility is the single most important
social change in the past half century, although other shifts
have attracted far more attention. In that same span, fewer
Americans have started new businesses and fewer Americans have switched jobs.
From nineteen eighty five to twenty fourteen, the share of
people who have become entrepreneurs fell by half.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Wow, that is seriously troubling.
Speaker 5 (05:38):
And then he gets into more Americans end up worse
off than their parents. I think part of that is
coming down from the high of the post WW two
American dominance that was just going to be hard to avoid.
But then he gets into how church membership is down
by a third since nineteen seventy, as is the share
of Americans who socialized several times a week. Membership in
any kind of group is half down by half. Well
(05:59):
the earth rates keep falling.
Speaker 4 (06:00):
One interesting aspect of the not being tied to your
local church and not socializing seems like that would make
you more mobile as opposed to less mobile. If you're
socializing and have a social network, that would be hard
to leave behind. If you don't socialize, what the hell
do you care? Go to the next down They got
a better job.
Speaker 5 (06:18):
The other side of that coin is really interesting, and
we were going to get to that in a bit,
but I'll skip to it. And I can relate to
this because Judy and I relocated what four years ago
something like that, and it makes you more likely to
want to go out and meet people. Oh interesting, put
up with the discomfort of going to a new church
or joining a club or you know, just for me,
(06:41):
jumping out a tea time that had one opening and
introducing myself and meeting people because you want to make connections.
And indeed that's what they found sociologically. That's interesting, you know,
it's kind of counterintuitive. It made people more sociable the
fact that we moved all the time. And then there's
an interesting political aspect to this. I don't want to
get on a partisan thing because that's not what this about.
(07:03):
This is about I will just say that people who
felt anger and frustration at their financial situation tended to
vote more for Trump than Hillary, for instance, But the
number of those people who lived within a two hour
drive of where they grew up or had never even
(07:24):
left their hometown was way more huge.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
It says huge gap.
Speaker 5 (07:31):
The number of people who said I'm unhappy with my
financial life in my career, they were wildly disproportionately people
who had not relocated to seek their fortune.
Speaker 4 (07:40):
No, I don't want to make this partisan at all,
because I don't think it needs to be. But we
have been saying on this show for years, you know,
broadcasting out of California, people talking about how expensive it
is to live in San Francisco.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
Well, then move some place cheaper. That's what I always did,
I think before, to live somewhere.
Speaker 4 (07:55):
I moved someplace cheaper, rather than expect the government or
somebody to come in and make it cheaper so you
can stay. Why does the why do other taxpayers owe
you the ability to stay in a particular town.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
That's nuts, right, right?
Speaker 5 (08:10):
And just you know, you live your life the way
you see fit, and I will not judge you unless
you come, I will hard tax money and I'll tell
you to your jack. I mean, we were very, very
successful our first job together in Wichita, but we knew
economically speaking, we had topped out and needed to go,
you know, seek our fortune elsewhere.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
But a lot of people do that.
Speaker 5 (08:29):
Anyway, this I wanted to get to this part and
then there's more on the general topic.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
To come and trust me. It's so interesting.
Speaker 5 (08:37):
You've heard the expression moving day, right, I mean, people
throw it around a little bit.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
It's funny.
Speaker 5 (08:41):
It's a term in golf. It's like the midway point
of a tournament. You got a chance to move off,
blah blah blah. And so I'm familiar with the term
in that way. How do we How did I not
know this? How did all of us not know?
Speaker 2 (08:53):
This?
Speaker 5 (08:54):
The Great holiday of America when it was so nomadic,
called Moving Day, observed by renters and landlords throughout the
nineteenth century and well into the twentieth with a giant
game of musical houses. Moving Day, they write, was a
festival of new hopes and new beginnings, of shattered dreams
and shattered crockery, quite as recognized today as Christmas or
(09:17):
the fourth of July. Wrote a Chicago newspaper in eighteen
eighty two.
Speaker 4 (09:21):
I as much as I read history, have never come
across this.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
I know it's crazy.
Speaker 5 (09:27):
It was primarily an urban thing, although many rural communities
and suburbans kind of had their own sort, and it varied.
It might be April first or October first, but May
first was by far.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
The most popular.
Speaker 5 (09:40):
Literally everybody who is renting a home, and the vast
majority of people rented. Home ownership was way way lower
than it is right now. The vast majority of people
would move on moving Day every year, or almost every year.
Nothing quite so so astonished visitors from abroad is the
(10:01):
spectacle of thousands upon thousands of people picking up and
swapping homes in a single day. For months before moving day,
Americans prepared for the occasion. Tenants gave notice to the landlords,
a received word of the new rent. Then followed a
frenzied period of house hunting, as people, generally women, scouted
for a new place to live that would in some
respect improve upon the old quote. They want more room,
(10:23):
or they want as much room for less rent, or
they want a better location, or they want some convenience.
Not heretofore enjoyed, The Topeka Daily Capital summarized, these were
months of general anticipation. Cities and towns were alive with excitement.
So if you've ever seen one of those streets scenes
from back in the day where everybody's got like their
junk piled on wagons, that was moving day.
Speaker 4 (10:45):
And the point of putting that in the article, obviously
is to just point out that the cultural attitude about
moving was so much different. And as we've said, every
part of this country, people coming out west, starting in
the very very eastern part of the country and the
(11:07):
colonies and spreading to you know, when when the wild
West was Ohio and Kentucky and then going further and
further for a better opportunity.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
And now.
Speaker 4 (11:19):
Not to be too disparaging of various industries and people,
because I understand, like Joe said, I fully understand why
it'd be awesome to stay in your hometown where you
grow up and have your kids go to the same
school and you know all your family and friends. I god,
I would love that. But the idea that coal mining
goes away and you're gonna stay in the same dead
(11:41):
town that's never gonna come back.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Is nuts.
Speaker 4 (11:48):
In terms of the history of this country, or you know,
working for General Motors in whatever town in Michigan or whatever.
If something's gone away, then you got to move to
a different town where the new industry is. That's what
everybody has done forever in this country. And yeah, pointing
out that that's gone away, and now we're like Europe,
where you do plan to stay in the town your
(12:09):
family is from for generations, which again I understand the appeal.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
Sure. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (12:16):
One charming anecdote from this which I can't find, but
I can paragraph a paraphrase. They mentioned that in Europe, indeed,
you stay in the same place, very insular, and that
newcomers would simply cause a more subdivision of the goods
and services and land available there. So newcomers were like
a bad thing, whereas in America it was such a
(12:38):
constant that the idea of a stranger went from a
threat to literally Americans would say, hello, stranger, you're not
from around here, are you? And it was not a
term of suspicion, it was a term of greeting.
Speaker 4 (12:53):
That's really interesting, and I don't think good for the country.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty The Armstrong and Getty Show so.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
I've just been reading and reading and reading about JD.
Speaker 5 (13:25):
Vance's speech has two speeches in front of the EU
want about Europe needs to step up and quit acting
like a bunch of fat, lazy babies, and the other
one about free speech and if you're not going to
embrace democracy and freedom, why do we have an alliance
to protect democracy and freedom? Twisting their arms on a
(13:45):
couple of different things. And then the situation Ukraine with
Putin and then Trump and the things he said, and look,
my grand unifying theory.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
People are going to be shouting at.
Speaker 5 (13:54):
The radio Thucidides or Cicero or he wrote a book
about this five thousand years go yeah, dope.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
But it's as simple as this.
Speaker 5 (14:03):
And it reminds me what I've always said about American policy,
domestic policy, and that is that it veers from guardrail
to guardrail, and you hit the sweet spot somewhere in
between the guardrails, but you have no idea you're in
the sweet spot. So you just keep going to the left,
say releasing criminals and saying we've overincarcerated.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
Roar on drugs, blah blah blah.
Speaker 5 (14:22):
Until your streets you're just teeming with scumbags and junkies
and everybody's under threatened. Society sucks, and all the walgreens
are closing, and then the targets and you got to
ask somebody to get you socks out from beyond lock
game blah blah blah.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
Then it'll crack.
Speaker 5 (14:38):
Down like crazy and lock up people and blah blah blah.
And good international relation, Yes, I just said good international relations.
Geopolitics has a similar rhythm to it, an ebb and flow,
in that the results of war and conquest lead to
(15:01):
a desire for peace, trade and prosperity, and peace, trade
and prosperity over the long term.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
Create the situation that.
Speaker 5 (15:13):
Calls for conquest and war, especially because the victors become
so weak and comfortable, and those who perceive that they've
been getting the short end of the stick, be they
China or Russia or North Korea or whatever, seize opportunities
they exploit them. The globe or regions explosed into terrible
(15:36):
wards wars. Do yourself a trait and read for half
an hour about what's happening in Africa right now someday
where it's absolutely wars of conquest and control and resource
grabbing and all are fully.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
Continence on fire. Nobody talks about it.
Speaker 5 (15:51):
But so anyway, post World War Two, we built this
order to protect freedom and democracy, we become fat and lazy.
We've started to doubt the dynamics of democracy here in
a place like Germany.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
They barely ever had them.
Speaker 5 (16:05):
Honestly, they're so freaked out and guilt ridden over the
Nazi thing, although they basically did what we told them
to do, and the minute we gave them, we gave
them or they took control. No, no, no, this is
how we're going to run a democracy in the German way.
They got way off base and are now being torn
asunder by conflict, and stability in Europe is about over.
(16:27):
I don't think Ukraine's a blip. I think it might be,
you know, other several years until the real storm hits.
But I think prosperity has created the playing field for chaos.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
Yeah, and there's no avoiding it.
Speaker 4 (16:41):
Won't get into it now, but there are some statistics
that were I came across somewhere after JD Vance's speech
of just how little Europe has put in to their
own defense over the past many years. We care about
Europe being stable, way more than they care about it
being stable because they think we'll keep it stable.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
All right. And I've got the quotes around here somewhere.
Speaker 5 (17:05):
But going back to Barack Obama and Robert Gates in
twenty twelve saying, hey, Euros, you've got to take an
active role financially.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
You got to build up your military.
Speaker 5 (17:14):
You got to act like you're serious about this, because
we are not going to carry you.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
Get serious. And they said, yeah, yeah, well up our
spending by half a percent. Yeah, it'll be fine.
Speaker 5 (17:24):
And they just they do not pay heed and now
that the wolf is at their door that they don't
know what to do about it.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
Jack Armstrong and Joe The Armstrong and Getty Show, The
Armstrong and Getty Show.
Speaker 4 (17:45):
I'm some interesting sleep stats for you. Everybody sleeps or
talks about sleep. It seems everybody does sleep. It does
seam everybody talks about sleep. I am having a I
now officially called a crisis, a sleep crisis, the first
time in my life. So I got to spend some
time looking into figuring this out. I mean, it's a crisis.
I've had periods in my life, like lots of parents,
(18:06):
where I wasn't getting enough sleep. But that was just
because I didn't have, you know, the opportunity to spend
enough time in bed sleeping. It wasn't because I couldn't
figure out how to sleep. Now I can get into bed,
and just like last night, I went to bed at
I don't know when, it was nine o'clock. I laid
there till at least two am. Last time, I completely
awake the whole time. Oh, no idea. I had no
caffeine from ten am. I mean, I just and I
(18:28):
have no idea where this has come from. And it's
just happened kind of out of nowhere. It's driving me nuts.
It's a horrible feeling. And then you obviously you got
all the problems with being asleep. I'm looking at government statistics.
This is from one of your national health organizations something
or other. Nearly before we get to that, have you
dealt with the guilt you have for having staged bum
fights for all those years? Still staging bum fights? The money,
(18:52):
the money is great shame and it's shame. It's easier
than ever to find crazy violent drum bums. So oh
that's a good pa. It's really the golden era of
staging bump fights. Wow, I could go right outside the
radio station right now and find two crazy, angry people
who'd be happy to fight each other for a couple
of bucks.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
He's not joking. I'm not joking. Well, I'm joking that
I am going to do that.
Speaker 4 (19:13):
I'm not joking that I can find two angry, violent
people downstairs that would fight, or maybe over in the
sales room.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (19:21):
For of adults report falling asleep during the day without
meaning to at least once a month. Do you fall
asleep during the day at least once a month Americans?
I fall asleep driving way too often, always have.
Speaker 5 (19:37):
Really, Oh that's not a minor story. Yeah, Katie's like, wait, wait,
wait what I know. I've been hearing this for years.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
You don't asleep driving. You just try to slide that
right by us. You don't fall asleep driving. No, I
am acting that way.
Speaker 4 (19:55):
Well, I don't want to. It's not like I think
it's cool. I know, I know, Katie, I know. I
don't know what to say. You just well, a lot
of Americans fall asleep during the day without meaning to
at least once a month, do you, Katie?
Speaker 2 (20:16):
No, I actually driving at your desk or anything like that.
Speaker 6 (20:21):
No, I simply can't do that, and I don't know.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
We're the same. That would be that would be astonishing
to me if that happened.
Speaker 4 (20:27):
Yeah, I don't know if I believe this number, but
it is. It's a from the National Institute of Health's
health not not that I believe they're statistics, but it's
not most sleep statistics you hear, Oh, and then.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
Look for this.
Speaker 4 (20:39):
Almost all sleep statistics you hear about pillows and sleep
and whatever. You look at the bottom and it's paid
for by a mattress company or a pillow company or whatever.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
That's crap.
Speaker 4 (20:50):
But this is from the National Institute's about that'd be
a shocking number if forty percent of adults fall asleep
during the day unintentionally once a month. I mean, even
when I had my desk job and I'd go and
have a big lunch and I was on the west
side of the building, gladys, I tell you, I remember
it so well, and the office would get so warm
(21:12):
with the afternoon sun shining on my office, and I'd
have a full belly and it closed the door like
I was on an important call. You say, maybe a
good shit ten minutes just so, but that's all that
was entirely on purpose. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I do that
regularly in the car or sitting in a chair or wherever.
Speaker 5 (21:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (21:30):
I think falling asleep on accident is like NARCOLEPSI, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
You just kind of start nodding off. So it's a
sign for sure. I sometimes fall asleep during hour three
of our show.
Speaker 4 (21:42):
Wow, that was way out of line. I'll tell you
what it is before I give the percentage. We've been
trying to do this for years because if you give
the percentage first, by the time you get to the
what it was, nobody remembers the percentage exactly. This is
the percentage of adults who had trouble falling asleep most
days or every day in the last month. That would
(22:03):
be me fourteen and a half percent, which pretty big chunk,
having trouble fallen asleep almost every day I have my
whole life. So I just think that's the way I
built pretty much. But not like lay there for hours
like has just hit me recently for some reason, it increases.
(22:24):
And this is where I thought it was particularly interesting.
And this is from the CDC. The percentage of people
who have trouble falling asleep goes up as your education
goes down, as your family income goes down, and as
you become more rural, which is surprising to me really.
Speaker 5 (22:41):
Yeah, lower income rural people have more sleep problems than
hard driving urbanites. Yeah, this is that counter into it. Yeah,
I agree, but that's the dark of the country night.
You got the crickets at Chirpin, you just had, you know,
got slapjacks. What's the John Denver song?
Speaker 2 (23:02):
I don't know what is the John Denver song?
Speaker 5 (23:05):
You know with the thank God I'm a country boy. Oh,
I got me and my pipe, I got me Old Phil.
When the sun's coming up, I got cakes on the griddle.
Can you not fall asleep?
Speaker 2 (23:13):
With the lifestyle?
Speaker 6 (23:14):
I wonder if they have more trouble falling asleep because
they're not as busy throughout the day. Maybe like the
slower lifestyle, they're not so go, go go.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
I don't know, well, I don't know. I have no
idea what that is.
Speaker 4 (23:28):
But then they're the they're the uh statistics on staying asleep,
which is a whole nother thing too, which I and
I know lots of people have you fall asleep? But
then you wake up at one of them morning or
do in the morning for some unknown reason, and you
lay there for a while, which I hate.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
I just hate that. Peey, It's just the worst.
Speaker 5 (23:44):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (23:44):
And then you know, you keep looking at the clock
and it gets closer to when you got to get
up and you're still tired.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
I hate it. But breaking it.
Speaker 4 (23:51):
Down again, so education income goes down, the likelihood that
you're not gonna be able to sleep goes up. A
greater percentage of white adults had trouble staying asleep every
day in the last month then Hispanic, Black, or Asian.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
Any idea why that is? My white guilt keeps me up.
Speaker 5 (24:10):
I know, yep, yes, yeah, Robin DiAngelo really talks some
sense to me. And now I can't go to sleep
at night knowing that my ancestors one hundred and seventy
five years ago did bad stuff.
Speaker 4 (24:19):
The crowd that has the least trouble, it would look
like from the statistics, is urban educated Asian people. Almost
nobody has trouble sleeping, getting to sleep, or staying asleep.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
Wow, why that is? I have no idea. Tiger moms
their heads hit the pillow and they're out.
Speaker 4 (24:36):
Yeah, if you have any guests as to why that
is with the because in my mind, you go up
in income and education and people are like, go go
drinking coffee, high pressure.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
But that's not doesn't fit in with the statistics.
Speaker 5 (24:55):
Okay, here's your hillbilly elegy analysis. We are heavily weighted
in semi rural to rural America with the former manufacturing
job on disability, drinking too much, taking drugs, smoking cigarettes,
crowd and their lifestyles just aren't conducive to get in sleep.
(25:20):
They're obese, they don't get enough exercise. That is weighted the.
Speaker 4 (25:24):
Statistic is that the typical rural lifestyle at this point
that's not mean to experience.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
But is that overwhelmed the statistics?
Speaker 5 (25:32):
Now, well, yeah, that's I chose my words carefully as always.
I think that has weighted those statistics in that direction.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
I don't know if it's typical or not, but there
are a hell of a lot of.
Speaker 4 (25:43):
People who do live like that. If you have less
than a high school diploma, one in six haven't been
able to get to sleep most days in the last
thirty days.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
So education going down?
Speaker 4 (25:59):
Is that is that the stress of how do I
make a living or do you think that's because we've
always liked the statistic To make this point of what
is the statistic?
Speaker 2 (26:07):
We like two out of three that's my favorite. People who.
Speaker 4 (26:16):
People who divorce, who get divorced are more likely to smoke,
or it's the other way around. People who smoke are
more likely to get divorced. Smoking doesn't cause divorce or
vice versa. But there's a lifestyle that goes with smoking generally, and.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
So the way of lundering at life.
Speaker 4 (26:33):
So what I'm wondering about the uh, the less than
a high school diploma, Are you more likely to like
drink red Bulls until ten o'clock at night and then
try to get to sleep?
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Then if you have a college education, I don't know that. Yeah,
that's I think.
Speaker 5 (26:47):
Yeah, you've led us to the Promised Land, and well done,
I say. I think if you looked at a list
of say four or five or six, I don't study
this stuff, I don't know quote unquote sleep, disruptive habit
or activities. I think they would be more heavily on
the lower income end.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
But I don't know.
Speaker 4 (27:07):
Scratchers. The scratchers keep you awake trying to figure out
if you match three numbers.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
I don't know. Bondo on your car, I don't know.
Speaker 4 (27:20):
I don't know if you've got any idea why as
education goes down, sleep problems go up. Now I am
a college graduate in a suburban area.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (27:28):
I shouldn't be having to I don't know what the problem.
I do drink Red Bull all day long. No, I
actually can't drink that stuff. I don't know how anybody does.
My son and all his friends do. They love it,
and it's horrible. It's horrible. I limit him with disgusting
But and I don't I don't know. I might actually
have to see a doctor about this.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
At this point.
Speaker 4 (27:48):
It's become a crisis. It's a crisis in my life.
And I dread over the last several weeks. I dread
going to bed, even though I'm exhausted, just oh god,
I can't just lay there.
Speaker 2 (27:58):
And then of course that adds to it.
Speaker 4 (28:00):
It's like when you're worried about if you're worried about
your blood pressure, get your blood pressure checked.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
Oh, tell me about it? Yeah, no kidding.
Speaker 5 (28:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (28:09):
Somebody suggested the three ms magnesium, melatonin, and masturbation.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
Oh boy, wow, what night after night to get and
stay asleep.
Speaker 4 (28:19):
Exercise, physical exercise. Clearly get I get exercise. I'm not
doing anything different, That's what's crazy. None, no changes in
my life, just all of a sudden, can't sleep at all,
like hardly age man age.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
I wonder if the bang bangs are getting to you?
Speaker 1 (28:34):
Right?
Speaker 5 (28:35):
Yeah, I don't know the double meal eating for those
not familiar with the term.
Speaker 6 (28:40):
I don't sleep great when I eat like crap sometimes,
so maybe I don't know.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
Stop going to Wiener Snitzel.
Speaker 5 (28:46):
He does eat like a bear having discovered an unlocked
door the Lake Tahoe cabin.
Speaker 4 (28:52):
What did I have for dinner last night? Let's just
use like a random meal like last night. This is
science last night for dinner, quarter pounder with and a mcflury.
So there's nothing to Katie's theory whatsoever.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
Clearly I'm just taking it up. Oh my god, who
eats like that?
Speaker 1 (29:11):
Jack Armstrong and Joe The Armstrong and Getty Show. Jack
Armstrong and Joe Getty, The Armstrong and Getty Show.
Speaker 5 (29:33):
But anyways, speaking of Donald Jay, you know I see
him as like some of my favorite athletes through the years,
great strengths and great flaws.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
That's fine, that's enough set.
Speaker 5 (29:42):
But he gave an address at Alabama Roll Tide at
their graduation the other day in which he rolled out
ten thoughts about success that I found very very interesting,
and they explained a fair amount about Trump himself. First one,
success can happen at a young age, he said, in America,
with drive and ambition, young people can do anything. And
(30:04):
he cited some chapters of his own life. And I hear, yeah,
the dad was rich and gave him money. Yeah, that's true.
But he mentioned other American innovators like Steve Jobs, Walt Disney,
the founders who started off in their twenties. Don't waste
your youth, he said, get after love what you do.
He says, I rarely see somebody that's successful that doesn't
love what he or she does. Yeah, that's a mixed bag.
(30:27):
Let me get through it, then we can discuss. He
pointed to his father, Fred Trump, who died in ninety
nine at the age of ninety three. He was a
tough guy, tough as hell actually, or he worked seven
days a week, not because he had to, but because
he enjoyed it. And Matthew count in any comments, Well,
it's hard for his critics to understand. Donald Trump and
his supporters enjoy politics a sense of fun, improvisation, and
(30:49):
risk imbuse his rallies and campaigns. This is what the
Sean Duffy and the reforming air traffic control thing reminded
me of, because instead of saying, well, we've got to
protect the unions, and you know, the head of the FBAA,
he's got his turf and you know, we don't want
(31:10):
to rush into this blah blah blah blah, which has
yielded a system that still used the technology of the
nineteen nineties, even though it's one of the most important
things the government does. Think Big Trump said, it's just
as hard to solve a small problem as a big problem.
He finds the audacious more enticing than the incremental. He
(31:30):
leans toward the wildest visions. Winning the presidency despite no
military or government experience, for example, or being re elected
after impeachment, defeat, embarrassment, indictments, a criminal conviction and two
assassination attempts, Oh my god, rewriting the rules of American
government foreign policy, or the global trading system, or turning
the Gaza Strip into a luxury resort, or reopening Alcatraz Prison.
(31:52):
The list goes on, and some of it gets filed
away with the under the heading no, but some of
it is worth considering, And it's kind of cool that
someone would say it out loud. Yeah, we'd been in
these post WW two trade agreements for seventy years.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
Why do we blow them up? What would happen?
Speaker 5 (32:17):
He quotes the great Gary Player, South African pro golfer,
nine Major Champion Chip winner. He was one of those
guys who's fond of saying it's funny. The harder I work,
the luckier I get.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
Yeah. True.
Speaker 5 (32:29):
Anyway, don't lose your momentum. I thought this was interesting.
The word momentum is very important.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
Trump said.
Speaker 5 (32:37):
He brought up William Leavitt, real estate developer who pioneered
the post WW two move to the suburbs in nineteen
seventy two. You remember Levitt Towns. That was an expression. Anyway,
Levitt sold his company to a large corporation. He was
never able to recapture his earlier success, and years later
Trump continued to encountered Levitt at a party, referring to
the say a Levitt told Trump, I shouldn't have done it.
(32:58):
I lost my momentum and the anecdotes right. The anecdote, rather,
writes Matthew Continenty, reveals why Trump operates at such high speeds.
Trump has been liking to the honey badger who doesn't
give up. His tenacity is related to a fear that's
slowing down means a loss of momentum and an end
to his career.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
I love this be an outsider.
Speaker 5 (33:20):
Progress never comes from those satisfied with the failures of
a broken system.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
Trump said, Wow, one more time.
Speaker 5 (33:28):
Progress never comes from those satisfied with the failures of
a broken system. The contrast with his political antithesis, Barack
Obama is stark, writes Continenty. Obama says progress is achieved
through bottom up community action within institutions. For Trump, progress
is the result of renegade individuals willing to break things.
That Trump approach is more effective, and he goes into
(33:51):
it a little bit. Trust your instincts. I have a
quibble with this. I won't get into I'd like to
rephrase it as trust your common sense. And Trump addressed
the kids at Alabama said Trump used the word instinct
as a synonym for common sense.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
Borders are not racist, he said. Speech is not violence.
Speaker 5 (34:15):
America is good and terrorists are bad. Men can never
become women. Police are not criminals, and criminals are not victims.
Police can be criminals. But that's about as clear as
a credo as you can get.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
How does that get more attention?
Speaker 5 (34:32):
Ah, because it probably makes so much sense, and the
media hated it. Believe in the American Dream. Last August,
Trump declared that the American dream was dead. He pledged
to bring it back. Mission accomplished. The American Dream is real,
he said to the Alabamas. It's there, it's right before you.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
Oh. Two more things.
Speaker 5 (34:49):
Think positively, he said, to the youngsters and their parents
and friends. Don't consider yourself a victim, he said, consider
yourself a winner. He recommended one of his favorite books,
a classic, The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peel.
The teaching has your universal application. Whether you're born rich
or poort, black or white, male or female. In America,
(35:10):
anyone can be a winner and finally be an original.
And His list of American trailblazers went from Teddy Roosevelt
to Doug MacArthur, George Patton, Amelia Earhart, Annie Oakley, Muhammad Ali,
all men and women of action, daredevil's risk takers, outside personalities.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
FO He's capone, You're one of a kind.
Speaker 5 (35:29):
Trump told the graduates, don't try to be someone else,
just be yourself, and finally, and most importantly concluded, never
ever give up.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
Number eleven, Have a hot young wife. Number twelve, be
like Hitler because I'm the new Hitler. Unbelievable. So much
good there.
Speaker 5 (35:48):
For all the legitimate criticisms, those are points worth considering
and teaching your kids.
Speaker 4 (35:53):
When Democrat presidents speak to Harvard with the usual crap
and gets you in the leads every newscast. I didn't
hear a word about it up Trump speech tow Alabama.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty The Armstrong and Getty Show.
Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio, the George
Washington Broadcast Center. Jack Armstrong, Joe, Katty Armstrong.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
And Jettie and He Armstrong and Getty Strong and.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
I missed when my kids were younger and Saint Patrick's
Day was a big deal and they'd wake up in
the morning and a leprechaun had snuck into our home
and you're NATed green in the toilet, then left a
trail of.
Speaker 4 (00:45):
Glitter behind for some reason. I'm not exactly sure what
went on there, but they loved it. It was really,
really fun.
Speaker 5 (00:51):
We had leprechaun traps, which is cruel, yes, and really brutal.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Yes, They'll always get away. They would always get away.
Speaker 5 (00:59):
They would take the gold chocolate coins and get away,
the clever little bastards.
Speaker 4 (01:02):
We caught one once. He still works for us. I
work it the green.
Speaker 5 (01:08):
Did you read about that, you unofficial who was just
prosecuted for slavery?
Speaker 4 (01:12):
No?
Speaker 5 (01:13):
Yeah, later on in the show or in the hour.
We don't have time now, but yeah, but the green
urine was a real Armstrong innovation.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
We did not do that at my house.
Speaker 4 (01:23):
We heard it from some babysitter or whatever. But Yeah,
he got that glitter like footprints somehow, and it's disgusting
all the way around. But anyway, happy to see Patrick's day.
Speaker 5 (01:34):
Oh I should keep moving, but me incontinence is bothering.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Maybe I'll just stop and relieve meself. Oh boy.
Speaker 5 (01:42):
So this is one of the most fascinating things I've
read in the last several years. It is shockingly from
the Atlantic, which is just suffocatingly lefty these days. It
was written by a fellow by the name of Yannie
apple Bomb Why Americans stopped moving houses and why that's
(02:02):
a very big problem. Actually Yannie might be a woman,
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Probably is.
Speaker 5 (02:07):
But the subtitle of it is how Progressives Froze the
American Dream. And I was surprised to see that on
the cover, but I I dove in. I'm going to
hit you with parts of it. Jack comment like as
much as you like, obviously. So the lead is the
idea that people should be able to choose their own
communities instead of being stuck where they are born is
a distinctly American innovation. It is the foundation for the
(02:28):
country's prosperity and democracy, and it just may be America's
most profound contribution.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
To the world. I have been saying this for years.
Speaker 4 (02:36):
You have in California, the Midwest, all kinds of places
I've lived, was settled by people who thought they could
get a better deal here.
Speaker 5 (02:44):
No society has ever been as mobile as the United
States once was. No society has even come close. In
the nineteenth century, friends, the heyday of American mobility, roughly
a third of all Americans changed addresses each year.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Wow each year.
Speaker 5 (03:02):
They quote a couple of commentators of the day. The
Americans devoured with a passion for locomotion, said one French writer,
he cannot stay in one place. Americans moved far more often,
over longer distances, and to greater advantage than did people
in the lands from which.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
They had come.
Speaker 5 (03:16):
They described how in Europe that you just you stayed
on the land, you stayed in the town. People were
very suspicious of outsiders. We'll get to that. But over
the past fifty years, this engine of American opportunity has
stopped working. Americans become less likely to move from one
state to another, to move within a state, or even
to switch residences within a city. In the nineteen sixties,
(03:39):
now remember it was about one in three in the
eighteen hundreds the nineteen sixties, about one out of every
five Americans moved in any given year, down from one
in three in the nineteenth century, but a frenetic rate, nonetheless,
so one in five in the nineteen sixties. In twenty
twenty three, only one in thirteen Americans moved.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
The sharp decline and GEO, you go ahead. Sorry.
Speaker 4 (04:05):
Joe and I both moved a lot for our radio careers,
and I don't think it's shocking to say the success
of this project depended on it. Wouldn't it have never
happened without the willingness to like move to that town,
than to that town, to then that town for opportunity.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
And probably it's a good time for a disclaimer.
Speaker 5 (04:29):
We both were also raised by people who saw their
fortune in various ways and moved as necessary for career.
My dad was in the military for a while and
then in the publishing industry, and we moved to fair
Mounta until we finally settled in Chicagoland. But so we
we can feel and appreciate that side.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Of the argument, not that it's an argument, per sae.
Speaker 5 (04:54):
Somebody who's lived, you know, hometown, Mom and Dad and
the cousins are always around, you have giant Sunday dinners
together of that sort of thing. Yeah, I get a
tear in my eye thinking about how wonderful that would be.
But like I've said many times, everything has a cost
and a benefit. You just have to decide, you know
what's for you anyway. Reading on from Applebaum's piece, the
(05:14):
sharp decline in geographic mobility is the single most important
social change in the past half century, although other shifts
have attracted far more attention. In that same span, fewer
Americans have started new businesses and fewer Americans have switched jobs.
From nineteen eighty five to twenty fourteen, the share of
people who have become entrepreneurs fell by half.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Wow, that is seriously troubling.
Speaker 5 (05:38):
And then he gets into more Americans end up worse
off than their parents. I think part of that is
coming down from the high of the post WW two
American dominance that was just going to be hard to avoid.
But then he gets into how church membership is down
by a third since nineteen seventy, as is the share
of Americans who socialized several times a week. Membership in
any kind of group is half down by half. Well
(05:59):
the earth rates keep falling.
Speaker 4 (06:00):
One interesting aspect of the not being tied to your
local church and not socializing seems like that would make
you more mobile as opposed to less mobile. If you're
socializing and have a social network, that would be hard
to leave behind. If you don't socialize, what the hell
do you care? Go to the next down They got
a better job.
Speaker 5 (06:18):
The other side of that coin is really interesting, and
we were going to get to that in a bit,
but I'll skip to it. And I can relate to
this because Judy and I relocated what four years ago
something like that, and it makes you more likely to
want to go out and meet people. Oh interesting, put
up with the discomfort of going to a new church
or joining a club or you know, just for me,
(06:41):
jumping out a tea time that had one opening and
introducing myself and meeting people because you want to make connections.
And indeed that's what they found sociologically. That's interesting, you know,
it's kind of counterintuitive. It made people more sociable the
fact that we moved all the time. And then there's
an interesting political aspect to this. I don't want to
get on a partisan thing because that's not what this about.
(07:03):
This is about I will just say that people who
felt anger and frustration at their financial situation tended to
vote more for Trump than Hillary, for instance, But the
number of those people who lived within a two hour
drive of where they grew up or had never even
(07:24):
left their hometown was way more huge.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
It says huge gap.
Speaker 5 (07:31):
The number of people who said I'm unhappy with my
financial life in my career, they were wildly disproportionately people
who had not relocated to seek their fortune.
Speaker 4 (07:40):
No, I don't want to make this partisan at all,
because I don't think it needs to be. But we
have been saying on this show for years, you know,
broadcasting out of California, people talking about how expensive it
is to live in San Francisco.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
Well, then move some place cheaper. That's what I always did,
I think before, to live somewhere.
Speaker 4 (07:55):
I moved someplace cheaper, rather than expect the government or
somebody to come in and make it cheaper so you
can stay. Why does the why do other taxpayers owe
you the ability to stay in a particular town.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
That's nuts, right, right?
Speaker 5 (08:10):
And just you know, you live your life the way
you see fit, and I will not judge you unless
you come, I will hard tax money and I'll tell
you to your jack. I mean, we were very, very
successful our first job together in Wichita, but we knew
economically speaking, we had topped out and needed to go,
you know, seek our fortune elsewhere.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
But a lot of people do that.
Speaker 5 (08:29):
Anyway, this I wanted to get to this part and
then there's more on the general topic.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
To come and trust me. It's so interesting.
Speaker 5 (08:37):
You've heard the expression moving day, right, I mean, people
throw it around a little bit.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
It's funny.
Speaker 5 (08:41):
It's a term in golf. It's like the midway point
of a tournament. You got a chance to move off,
blah blah blah. And so I'm familiar with the term
in that way. How do we How did I not
know this? How did all of us not know?
Speaker 2 (08:53):
This?
Speaker 5 (08:54):
The Great holiday of America when it was so nomadic,
called Moving Day, observed by renters and landlords throughout the
nineteenth century and well into the twentieth with a giant
game of musical houses. Moving Day, they write, was a
festival of new hopes and new beginnings, of shattered dreams
and shattered crockery, quite as recognized today as Christmas or
(09:17):
the fourth of July. Wrote a Chicago newspaper in eighteen
eighty two.
Speaker 4 (09:21):
I as much as I read history, have never come
across this.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
I know it's crazy.
Speaker 5 (09:27):
It was primarily an urban thing, although many rural communities
and suburbans kind of had their own sort, and it varied.
It might be April first or October first, but May
first was by far.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
The most popular.
Speaker 5 (09:40):
Literally everybody who is renting a home, and the vast
majority of people rented. Home ownership was way way lower
than it is right now. The vast majority of people
would move on moving Day every year, or almost every year.
Nothing quite so so astonished visitors from abroad is the
(10:01):
spectacle of thousands upon thousands of people picking up and
swapping homes in a single day. For months before moving day,
Americans prepared for the occasion. Tenants gave notice to the landlords,
a received word of the new rent. Then followed a
frenzied period of house hunting, as people, generally women, scouted
for a new place to live that would in some
respect improve upon the old quote. They want more room,
(10:23):
or they want as much room for less rent, or
they want a better location, or they want some convenience.
Not heretofore enjoyed, The Topeka Daily Capital summarized, these were
months of general anticipation. Cities and towns were alive with excitement.
So if you've ever seen one of those streets scenes
from back in the day where everybody's got like their
junk piled on wagons, that was moving day.
Speaker 4 (10:45):
And the point of putting that in the article, obviously
is to just point out that the cultural attitude about
moving was so much different. And as we've said, every
part of this country, people coming out west, starting in
the very very eastern part of the country and the
(11:07):
colonies and spreading to you know, when when the wild
West was Ohio and Kentucky and then going further and
further for a better opportunity.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
And now.
Speaker 4 (11:19):
Not to be too disparaging of various industries and people,
because I understand, like Joe said, I fully understand why
it'd be awesome to stay in your hometown where you
grow up and have your kids go to the same
school and you know all your family and friends. I god,
I would love that. But the idea that coal mining
goes away and you're gonna stay in the same dead
(11:41):
town that's never gonna come back.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Is nuts.
Speaker 4 (11:48):
In terms of the history of this country, or you know,
working for General Motors in whatever town in Michigan or whatever.
If something's gone away, then you got to move to
a different town where the new industry is. That's what
everybody has done forever in this country. And yeah, pointing
out that that's gone away, and now we're like Europe,
where you do plan to stay in the town your
(12:09):
family is from for generations, which again I understand the appeal.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
Sure. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (12:16):
One charming anecdote from this which I can't find, but
I can paragraph a paraphrase. They mentioned that in Europe, indeed,
you stay in the same place, very insular, and that
newcomers would simply cause a more subdivision of the goods
and services and land available there. So newcomers were like
a bad thing, whereas in America it was such a
(12:38):
constant that the idea of a stranger went from a
threat to literally Americans would say, hello, stranger, you're not
from around here, are you? And it was not a
term of suspicion, it was a term of greeting.
Speaker 4 (12:53):
That's really interesting, and I don't think good for the country.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty The Armstrong and Getty Show so.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
I've just been reading and reading and reading about JD.
Speaker 5 (13:25):
Vance's speech has two speeches in front of the EU
want about Europe needs to step up and quit acting
like a bunch of fat, lazy babies, and the other
one about free speech and if you're not going to
embrace democracy and freedom, why do we have an alliance
to protect democracy and freedom? Twisting their arms on a
(13:45):
couple of different things. And then the situation Ukraine with
Putin and then Trump and the things he said, and look,
my grand unifying theory.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
People are going to be shouting at.
Speaker 5 (13:54):
The radio Thucidides or Cicero or he wrote a book
about this five thousand years go yeah, dope.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
But it's as simple as this.
Speaker 5 (14:03):
And it reminds me what I've always said about American policy,
domestic policy, and that is that it veers from guardrail
to guardrail, and you hit the sweet spot somewhere in
between the guardrails, but you have no idea you're in
the sweet spot. So you just keep going to the left,
say releasing criminals and saying we've overincarcerated.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
Roar on drugs, blah blah blah.
Speaker 5 (14:22):
Until your streets you're just teeming with scumbags and junkies
and everybody's under threatened. Society sucks, and all the walgreens
are closing, and then the targets and you got to
ask somebody to get you socks out from beyond lock
game blah blah blah.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
Then it'll crack.
Speaker 5 (14:38):
Down like crazy and lock up people and blah blah blah.
And good international relation, Yes, I just said good international relations.
Geopolitics has a similar rhythm to it, an ebb and flow,
in that the results of war and conquest lead to
(15:01):
a desire for peace, trade and prosperity, and peace, trade
and prosperity over the long term.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
Create the situation that.
Speaker 5 (15:13):
Calls for conquest and war, especially because the victors become
so weak and comfortable, and those who perceive that they've
been getting the short end of the stick, be they
China or Russia or North Korea or whatever, seize opportunities
they exploit them. The globe or regions explosed into terrible
(15:36):
wards wars. Do yourself a trait and read for half
an hour about what's happening in Africa right now someday
where it's absolutely wars of conquest and control and resource
grabbing and all are fully.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
Continence on fire. Nobody talks about it.
Speaker 5 (15:51):
But so anyway, post World War Two, we built this
order to protect freedom and democracy, we become fat and lazy.
We've started to doubt the dynamics of democracy here in
a place like Germany.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
They barely ever had them.
Speaker 5 (16:05):
Honestly, they're so freaked out and guilt ridden over the
Nazi thing, although they basically did what we told them
to do, and the minute we gave them, we gave
them or they took control. No, no, no, this is
how we're going to run a democracy in the German way.
They got way off base and are now being torn
asunder by conflict, and stability in Europe is about over.
(16:27):
I don't think Ukraine's a blip. I think it might be,
you know, other several years until the real storm hits.
But I think prosperity has created the playing field for chaos.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
Yeah, and there's no avoiding it.
Speaker 4 (16:41):
Won't get into it now, but there are some statistics
that were I came across somewhere after JD Vance's speech
of just how little Europe has put in to their
own defense over the past many years. We care about
Europe being stable, way more than they care about it
being stable because they think we'll keep it stable.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
All right. And I've got the quotes around here somewhere.
Speaker 5 (17:05):
But going back to Barack Obama and Robert Gates in
twenty twelve saying, hey, Euros, you've got to take an
active role financially.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
You got to build up your military.
Speaker 5 (17:14):
You got to act like you're serious about this, because
we are not going to carry you.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
Get serious. And they said, yeah, yeah, well up our
spending by half a percent. Yeah, it'll be fine.
Speaker 5 (17:24):
And they just they do not pay heed and now
that the wolf is at their door that they don't
know what to do about it.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
Jack Armstrong and Joe The Armstrong and Getty Show, The
Armstrong and Getty Show.
Speaker 4 (17:45):
I'm some interesting sleep stats for you. Everybody sleeps or
talks about sleep. It seems everybody does sleep. It does
seam everybody talks about sleep. I am having a I
now officially called a crisis, a sleep crisis, the first
time in my life. So I got to spend some
time looking into figuring this out. I mean, it's a crisis.
I've had periods in my life, like lots of parents,
(18:06):
where I wasn't getting enough sleep. But that was just
because I didn't have, you know, the opportunity to spend
enough time in bed sleeping. It wasn't because I couldn't
figure out how to sleep. Now I can get into bed,
and just like last night, I went to bed at
I don't know when, it was nine o'clock. I laid
there till at least two am. Last time, I completely
awake the whole time. Oh, no idea. I had no
caffeine from ten am. I mean, I just and I
(18:28):
have no idea where this has come from. And it's
just happened kind of out of nowhere. It's driving me nuts.
It's a horrible feeling. And then you obviously you got
all the problems with being asleep. I'm looking at government statistics.
This is from one of your national health organizations something
or other. Nearly before we get to that, have you
dealt with the guilt you have for having staged bum
fights for all those years? Still staging bum fights? The money,
(18:52):
the money is great shame and it's shame. It's easier
than ever to find crazy violent drum bums. So oh
that's a good pa. It's really the golden era of
staging bump fights. Wow, I could go right outside the
radio station right now and find two crazy, angry people
who'd be happy to fight each other for a couple
of bucks.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
He's not joking. I'm not joking. Well, I'm joking that
I am going to do that.
Speaker 4 (19:13):
I'm not joking that I can find two angry, violent
people downstairs that would fight, or maybe over in the
sales room.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (19:21):
For of adults report falling asleep during the day without
meaning to at least once a month. Do you fall
asleep during the day at least once a month Americans?
I fall asleep driving way too often, always have.
Speaker 5 (19:37):
Really, Oh that's not a minor story. Yeah, Katie's like, wait, wait,
wait what I know. I've been hearing this for years.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
You don't asleep driving. You just try to slide that
right by us. You don't fall asleep driving. No, I
am acting that way.
Speaker 4 (19:55):
Well, I don't want to. It's not like I think
it's cool. I know, I know, Katie, I know. I
don't know what to say. You just well, a lot
of Americans fall asleep during the day without meaning to
at least once a month, do you, Katie?
Speaker 2 (20:16):
No, I actually driving at your desk or anything like that.
Speaker 6 (20:21):
No, I simply can't do that, and I don't know.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
We're the same. That would be that would be astonishing
to me if that happened.
Speaker 4 (20:27):
Yeah, I don't know if I believe this number, but
it is. It's a from the National Institute of Health's
health not not that I believe they're statistics, but it's
not most sleep statistics you hear, Oh, and then.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
Look for this.
Speaker 4 (20:39):
Almost all sleep statistics you hear about pillows and sleep
and whatever. You look at the bottom and it's paid
for by a mattress company or a pillow company or whatever.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
That's crap.
Speaker 4 (20:50):
But this is from the National Institute's about that'd be
a shocking number if forty percent of adults fall asleep
during the day unintentionally once a month. I mean, even
when I had my desk job and I'd go and
have a big lunch and I was on the west
side of the building, gladys, I tell you, I remember
it so well, and the office would get so warm
(21:12):
with the afternoon sun shining on my office, and I'd
have a full belly and it closed the door like
I was on an important call. You say, maybe a
good shit ten minutes just so, but that's all that
was entirely on purpose. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I do that
regularly in the car or sitting in a chair or wherever.
Speaker 5 (21:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (21:30):
I think falling asleep on accident is like NARCOLEPSI, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
You just kind of start nodding off. So it's a
sign for sure. I sometimes fall asleep during hour three
of our show.
Speaker 4 (21:42):
Wow, that was way out of line. I'll tell you
what it is before I give the percentage. We've been
trying to do this for years because if you give
the percentage first, by the time you get to the
what it was, nobody remembers the percentage exactly. This is
the percentage of adults who had trouble falling asleep most
days or every day in the last month. That would
(22:03):
be me fourteen and a half percent, which pretty big chunk,
having trouble fallen asleep almost every day I have my
whole life. So I just think that's the way I
built pretty much. But not like lay there for hours
like has just hit me recently for some reason, it increases.
(22:24):
And this is where I thought it was particularly interesting.
And this is from the CDC. The percentage of people
who have trouble falling asleep goes up as your education
goes down, as your family income goes down, and as
you become more rural, which is surprising to me really.
Speaker 5 (22:41):
Yeah, lower income rural people have more sleep problems than
hard driving urbanites. Yeah, this is that counter into it. Yeah,
I agree, but that's the dark of the country night.
You got the crickets at Chirpin, you just had, you know,
got slapjacks. What's the John Denver song?
Speaker 2 (23:02):
I don't know what is the John Denver song?
Speaker 5 (23:05):
You know with the thank God I'm a country boy. Oh,
I got me and my pipe, I got me Old Phil.
When the sun's coming up, I got cakes on the griddle.
Can you not fall asleep?
Speaker 2 (23:13):
With the lifestyle?
Speaker 6 (23:14):
I wonder if they have more trouble falling asleep because
they're not as busy throughout the day. Maybe like the
slower lifestyle, they're not so go, go go.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
I don't know, well, I don't know. I have no
idea what that is.
Speaker 4 (23:28):
But then they're the they're the uh statistics on staying asleep,
which is a whole nother thing too, which I and
I know lots of people have you fall asleep? But
then you wake up at one of them morning or
do in the morning for some unknown reason, and you
lay there for a while, which I hate.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
I just hate that. Peey, It's just the worst.
Speaker 5 (23:44):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (23:44):
And then you know, you keep looking at the clock
and it gets closer to when you got to get
up and you're still tired.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
I hate it. But breaking it.
Speaker 4 (23:51):
Down again, so education income goes down, the likelihood that
you're not gonna be able to sleep goes up. A
greater percentage of white adults had trouble staying asleep every
day in the last month then Hispanic, Black, or Asian.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
Any idea why that is? My white guilt keeps me up.
Speaker 5 (24:10):
I know, yep, yes, yeah, Robin DiAngelo really talks some
sense to me. And now I can't go to sleep
at night knowing that my ancestors one hundred and seventy
five years ago did bad stuff.
Speaker 4 (24:19):
The crowd that has the least trouble, it would look
like from the statistics, is urban educated Asian people. Almost
nobody has trouble sleeping, getting to sleep, or staying asleep.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
Wow, why that is? I have no idea. Tiger moms
their heads hit the pillow and they're out.
Speaker 4 (24:36):
Yeah, if you have any guests as to why that
is with the because in my mind, you go up
in income and education and people are like, go go
drinking coffee, high pressure.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
But that's not doesn't fit in with the statistics.
Speaker 5 (24:55):
Okay, here's your hillbilly elegy analysis. We are heavily weighted
in semi rural to rural America with the former manufacturing
job on disability, drinking too much, taking drugs, smoking cigarettes,
crowd and their lifestyles just aren't conducive to get in sleep.
(25:20):
They're obese, they don't get enough exercise. That is weighted the.
Speaker 4 (25:24):
Statistic is that the typical rural lifestyle at this point
that's not mean to experience.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
But is that overwhelmed the statistics?
Speaker 5 (25:32):
Now, well, yeah, that's I chose my words carefully as always.
I think that has weighted those statistics in that direction.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
I don't know if it's typical or not, but there
are a hell of a lot of.
Speaker 4 (25:43):
People who do live like that. If you have less
than a high school diploma, one in six haven't been
able to get to sleep most days in the last
thirty days.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
So education going down?
Speaker 4 (25:59):
Is that is that the stress of how do I
make a living or do you think that's because we've
always liked the statistic To make this point of what
is the statistic?
Speaker 2 (26:07):
We like two out of three that's my favorite. People who.
Speaker 4 (26:16):
People who divorce, who get divorced are more likely to smoke,
or it's the other way around. People who smoke are
more likely to get divorced. Smoking doesn't cause divorce or
vice versa. But there's a lifestyle that goes with smoking generally, and.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
So the way of lundering at life.
Speaker 4 (26:33):
So what I'm wondering about the uh, the less than
a high school diploma, Are you more likely to like
drink red Bulls until ten o'clock at night and then
try to get to sleep?
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Then if you have a college education, I don't know that. Yeah,
that's I think.
Speaker 5 (26:47):
Yeah, you've led us to the Promised Land, and well done,
I say. I think if you looked at a list
of say four or five or six, I don't study
this stuff, I don't know quote unquote sleep, disruptive habit
or activities. I think they would be more heavily on
the lower income end.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
But I don't know.
Speaker 4 (27:07):
Scratchers. The scratchers keep you awake trying to figure out
if you match three numbers.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
I don't know. Bondo on your car, I don't know.
Speaker 4 (27:20):
I don't know if you've got any idea why as
education goes down, sleep problems go up. Now I am
a college graduate in a suburban area.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (27:28):
I shouldn't be having to I don't know what the problem.
I do drink Red Bull all day long. No, I
actually can't drink that stuff. I don't know how anybody does.
My son and all his friends do. They love it,
and it's horrible. It's horrible. I limit him with disgusting
But and I don't I don't know. I might actually
have to see a doctor about this.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
At this point.
Speaker 4 (27:48):
It's become a crisis. It's a crisis in my life.
And I dread over the last several weeks. I dread
going to bed, even though I'm exhausted, just oh god,
I can't just lay there.
Speaker 2 (27:58):
And then of course that adds to it.
Speaker 4 (28:00):
It's like when you're worried about if you're worried about
your blood pressure, get your blood pressure checked.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
Oh, tell me about it? Yeah, no kidding.
Speaker 5 (28:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (28:09):
Somebody suggested the three ms magnesium, melatonin, and masturbation.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
Oh boy, wow, what night after night to get and
stay asleep.
Speaker 4 (28:19):
Exercise, physical exercise. Clearly get I get exercise. I'm not
doing anything different, That's what's crazy. None, no changes in
my life, just all of a sudden, can't sleep at all,
like hardly age man age.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
I wonder if the bang bangs are getting to you?
Speaker 1 (28:34):
Right?
Speaker 5 (28:35):
Yeah, I don't know the double meal eating for those
not familiar with the term.
Speaker 6 (28:40):
I don't sleep great when I eat like crap sometimes,
so maybe I don't know.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
Stop going to Wiener Snitzel.
Speaker 5 (28:46):
He does eat like a bear having discovered an unlocked
door the Lake Tahoe cabin.
Speaker 4 (28:52):
What did I have for dinner last night? Let's just
use like a random meal like last night. This is
science last night for dinner, quarter pounder with and a mcflury.
So there's nothing to Katie's theory whatsoever.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
Clearly I'm just taking it up. Oh my god, who
eats like that?
Speaker 1 (29:11):
Jack Armstrong and Joe The Armstrong and Getty Show. Jack
Armstrong and Joe Getty, The Armstrong and Getty Show.
Speaker 5 (29:33):
But anyways, speaking of Donald Jay, you know I see
him as like some of my favorite athletes through the years,
great strengths and great flaws.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
That's fine, that's enough set.
Speaker 5 (29:42):
But he gave an address at Alabama Roll Tide at
their graduation the other day in which he rolled out
ten thoughts about success that I found very very interesting,
and they explained a fair amount about Trump himself. First one,
success can happen at a young age, he said, in America,
with drive and ambition, young people can do anything. And
(30:04):
he cited some chapters of his own life. And I hear, yeah,
the dad was rich and gave him money. Yeah, that's true.
But he mentioned other American innovators like Steve Jobs, Walt Disney,
the founders who started off in their twenties. Don't waste
your youth, he said, get after love what you do.
He says, I rarely see somebody that's successful that doesn't
love what he or she does. Yeah, that's a mixed bag.
(30:27):
Let me get through it, then we can discuss. He
pointed to his father, Fred Trump, who died in ninety
nine at the age of ninety three. He was a
tough guy, tough as hell actually, or he worked seven
days a week, not because he had to, but because
he enjoyed it. And Matthew count in any comments, Well,
it's hard for his critics to understand. Donald Trump and
his supporters enjoy politics a sense of fun, improvisation, and
(30:49):
risk imbuse his rallies and campaigns. This is what the
Sean Duffy and the reforming air traffic control thing reminded
me of, because instead of saying, well, we've got to
protect the unions, and you know, the head of the FBAA,
he's got his turf and you know, we don't want
(31:10):
to rush into this blah blah blah blah, which has
yielded a system that still used the technology of the
nineteen nineties, even though it's one of the most important
things the government does. Think Big Trump said, it's just
as hard to solve a small problem as a big problem.
He finds the audacious more enticing than the incremental. He
(31:30):
leans toward the wildest visions. Winning the presidency despite no
military or government experience, for example, or being re elected
after impeachment, defeat, embarrassment, indictments, a criminal conviction and two
assassination attempts, Oh my god, rewriting the rules of American
government foreign policy, or the global trading system, or turning
the Gaza Strip into a luxury resort, or reopening Alcatraz Prison.
(31:52):
The list goes on, and some of it gets filed
away with the under the heading no, but some of
it is worth considering, And it's kind of cool that
someone would say it out loud. Yeah, we'd been in
these post WW two trade agreements for seventy years.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
Why do we blow them up? What would happen?
Speaker 5 (32:17):
He quotes the great Gary Player, South African pro golfer,
nine Major Champion Chip winner. He was one of those
guys who's fond of saying it's funny. The harder I work,
the luckier I get.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
Yeah. True.
Speaker 5 (32:29):
Anyway, don't lose your momentum. I thought this was interesting.
The word momentum is very important.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
Trump said.
Speaker 5 (32:37):
He brought up William Leavitt, real estate developer who pioneered
the post WW two move to the suburbs in nineteen
seventy two. You remember Levitt Towns. That was an expression. Anyway,
Levitt sold his company to a large corporation. He was
never able to recapture his earlier success, and years later
Trump continued to encountered Levitt at a party, referring to
the say a Levitt told Trump, I shouldn't have done it.
(32:58):
I lost my momentum and the anecdotes right. The anecdote, rather,
writes Matthew Continenty, reveals why Trump operates at such high speeds.
Trump has been liking to the honey badger who doesn't
give up. His tenacity is related to a fear that's
slowing down means a loss of momentum and an end
to his career.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
I love this be an outsider.
Speaker 5 (33:20):
Progress never comes from those satisfied with the failures of
a broken system.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
Trump said, Wow, one more time.
Speaker 5 (33:28):
Progress never comes from those satisfied with the failures of
a broken system. The contrast with his political antithesis, Barack
Obama is stark, writes Continenty. Obama says progress is achieved
through bottom up community action within institutions. For Trump, progress
is the result of renegade individuals willing to break things.
That Trump approach is more effective, and he goes into
(33:51):
it a little bit. Trust your instincts. I have a
quibble with this. I won't get into I'd like to
rephrase it as trust your common sense. And Trump addressed
the kids at Alabama said Trump used the word instinct
as a synonym for common sense.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
Borders are not racist, he said. Speech is not violence.
Speaker 5 (34:15):
America is good and terrorists are bad. Men can never
become women. Police are not criminals, and criminals are not victims.
Police can be criminals. But that's about as clear as
a credo as you can get.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
How does that get more attention?
Speaker 5 (34:32):
Ah, because it probably makes so much sense, and the
media hated it. Believe in the American Dream. Last August,
Trump declared that the American dream was dead. He pledged
to bring it back. Mission accomplished. The American Dream is real,
he said to the Alabamas. It's there, it's right before you.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
Oh. Two more things.
Speaker 5 (34:49):
Think positively, he said, to the youngsters and their parents
and friends. Don't consider yourself a victim, he said, consider
yourself a winner. He recommended one of his favorite books,
a classic, The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peel.
The teaching has your universal application. Whether you're born rich
or poort, black or white, male or female. In America,
(35:10):
anyone can be a winner and finally be an original.
And His list of American trailblazers went from Teddy Roosevelt
to Doug MacArthur, George Patton, Amelia Earhart, Annie Oakley, Muhammad Ali,
all men and women of action, daredevil's risk takers, outside personalities.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
FO He's capone, You're one of a kind.
Speaker 5 (35:29):
Trump told the graduates, don't try to be someone else,
just be yourself, and finally, and most importantly concluded, never
ever give up.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
Number eleven, Have a hot young wife. Number twelve, be
like Hitler because I'm the new Hitler. Unbelievable. So much
good there.
Speaker 5 (35:48):
For all the legitimate criticisms, those are points worth considering
and teaching your kids.
Speaker 4 (35:53):
When Democrat presidents speak to Harvard with the usual crap
and gets you in the leads every newscast. I didn't
hear a word about it up Trump speech tow Alabama.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty The Armstrong and Getty Show.
Hosts And Creators
Joe Getty
Jack Armstrong
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