December 24, 2025 • 35 mins
Featured in Hour Two of the Wednesday December 24, 2025 edition of The Armstrong & Getty Replay...
- A witticism & Jack makes a choice...
- Invading Venezuela & Seattle's Homeless...
- Pressure to Couple...
- Debt to Income Ratio/Jack's Son Teenage Bedroom.
Stupid Should Hurt: https://www.armstrongandgetty.com/
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
No, we're not working on Christmas Eve.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
We worked really hard to get it in our contract
that we wouldn't be working today, so you're not hearing
us live. I'd hate to make both Jesus and Santa
Claus angry. So yes, we're taking the day off. But
hope you're enjoying some really good A and G replays
dig In Merry Christmas.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Welcome to the Armstrong and Getty Show.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
If you want to donate to more people being able
to get into scouting, just go to Armstrong in getdy
dot com, Armstrong in Giddy dot com.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
We made it easy. First day witticism and then a
new feature. Jack makes the choice.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Oh boy, here's the witticism. It is actually a cartoon
two fellows. One is obviously in terrible distress, the other
looks very, very smug. The caption is leftist mentality in
a nutshell. The distressed guy is screaming help, I'm getting
(00:54):
bitten to death by ants, and his smug companion says,
not all ants.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
O boy, it makes you steppens. Welcome to Jack makes
the choice. I'm sure they're going to be.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
I'm sure there's gonna be a backlash against all ants.
So we don't want to say anything about the ants
that are biting you to death.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
It's just the radicalized ants really are biting us to death.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
It's one of my choices going home.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Oh boy, if it were, you wouldn't be hearing my voice.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
So here's your choice.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Why is South Korean fertility so low?
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Yeah, it's the lowest in the world, isn't it. Yes?
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Yeah, And well they're both so good?
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Or JD.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Vance is the white ibram X can candy. I'm sorry
I stumble over that ibram X kindy.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
As soon as you said gd Vance, I was thinking
the other one I want because I don't want anything
pol but that is intriguing.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Just because I can't even imagine what it is. You know.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
I'm going to give you a very capsule summary of
that one, and then we'll do the South Korea story.
J D who wrote so movingly and persuasively in Hillbilly
Elegy about his people in rural at Leatia and their
self defeating beliefs and attitudes. It was a look at
(02:29):
and I've made this quote several times. Great Elvis Costello
song The Deep, Dark, Truthful Mirror. It was a good,
long stare into that mirror, and it was remarkably candid.
It seems as though he's decided it's much much better
politics to work the grievance side of the aisle and
tell people you're being cheated and the world is stacked.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Against you, and I will be your savior. Hmm.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
That might just be a reflection of the fact that, yes,
that sort of politics is much more popular than you
need to take a look at shelf and solve your
own problems. And kind of as an adjunct to that,
there's an interesting story in the Journal today entitled the
War on Poverty failed this West Virginia County and they're
no longer waiting for help. Well, good, good, And you know,
(03:20):
someday I'd like to get back to discussing how the
average American would move to find work many times in
their lives a very very short time ago, and now
people seem to have some sort of belief that they
have a god given right to stay where they are
because it's familiar and comfortable.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
It's odd. It's a real change.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Anyway, This is long issue, and we'll just touch on
some of the main points.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
Why is Korean men can't satisfy their women's I'm.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Not sure that's it. Why is South Korean fertility so low?
Listen to this, now, comprehend this if you can. Its population,
optimistically is projected to shrink by over two thirds in
the next one hundred years. If current fertility rates persist,
(04:11):
You've got one hundred South Koreans today. They will have
only six great grandchildren between them.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Wow. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
I remember from reading America Alone by Mark steinback in
the days, when you do the math on the spiral
of dropping below two point one kids per woman, it's
amazing math.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
It's like compound interest.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
Well, it's exactly like compound interest the way it works,
and it's astounding how quickly you run out of people.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Yeah, So, here are a couple of stats for you.
The world fertility rate in nineteen sixty, which lines the world.
Oh there it is, was is around five children per Wow.
That's because men back then could satisfy the women. Oh boy, Interestingly,
(05:04):
they don't have the US rate. It's mostly about Asia,
but in South Korea it was actually in nineteen sixty
it was closer to six children per women.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Wow. That's a lot of kids for the average.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
And I will tell you South Korea is more severe
than the world, but the world's fertility to rate has
been declining quite quite significantly. But anyway, I'm just gonna
go one decade at a time. For South Korea, in
nineteen sixty, it was a little over six children per women.
In nineteen seventy, it was about four and a half.
In nineteen eighty, it was about two point seven. Nineteen
(05:42):
ninety it was one point eight two thousand and one
point five, twenty ten, about one point two and twenty twenty.
It's like, what is the figure out now point eight?
I think, you know my theory.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
Which I meant not even really a theory. The fact
isn't it that, for whatever reason, successful safe cultures stop
having kids South Korea in nineteen sixty they were coming
out of a Korean War, not that many years earlier,
when was the Armistist fifty three. So I mean they're all,
(06:17):
you know, children of war and they're cranking out kids.
As soon as you've become very successful and safe, you
stop having kids, you know.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
In contrast to Jack's old lousemon theory, why it's not
they're women's scientists take a different view, although it is
like so many things cultural in every developed country. I'm
quoting now from the Science newsletter. I'm reading here women
(06:48):
struggle to reconcile their careers with a satisfying family life
and their preferred number of children. This trade off is
exceptionally severe in South Korea, despite its very high level
of female education. South Korea has the largest gender employment
gap in the developed countries. There is almost no employment
gap between men and unmarried women. I mean, the numbers
(07:11):
are almost precisely the same. It's around seventy three percent employment.
The gap is driven by the fact that large numbers
of women stop working when they have kids. Only fifty
six percent of mother's work the fourth lowest in the OECD,
which I can't remember what that stands for.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
It's the it's your developed countries.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
In South Korea, mother's employment falls by forty nine percent
relative to fathers over ten years. In the US it
falls by twenty five percent, in Sweden by only nine percent.
South Korean women face a steep motherhood penalty, partly because
of their insane work culture. South Korean's work more hours
(07:55):
per year. It's about a thousand more about thirty well,
I'm sorry, it's about one hundred and thirty hours more
a year than Americans and about four hundred and thirty more.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Than Swedes, for instance.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
How many makes it harder to balance work and motherhood
or work or anything else?
Speaker 1 (08:12):
How many more hours a year than Americans? Uh?
Speaker 2 (08:16):
Three oh, one hundred and thirty Wow. Yeah, so more
than two hours a week more?
Speaker 1 (08:24):
Oh? Yeah wow.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
There is intense pressure from employers for women not to
have children. In surveys, twenty seven percent of female office
workers report being coerced into signing illegal contracts promising to
resign if they become pregnant or get married. Korean work
culture is notoriously sexist, blah blah blah.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
But this is.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
Different than the fact that they're not having kids in
like Italy or France, where you have so much time
off and you could say, well, you you want to
you know, you want to vacation and eat and blah
blah blah and self and don't and you don't have kids.
South Korea, they're working their asses off and not having kids.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
Yeah, it is interesting.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
You're right, these facts about South Korea cannot be applied universally.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
I mean, the insane work culture, so.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
You can have more studying when you're a child, but
say you can have more stuff the two of you
or the one of you with no kids.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
They mentioned that.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
There's intense competition for university places. Cram schools and private
tuition are popular in many low fertility Asian countries, Taiwan
and Singapore, China, they mentioned, but South Korea is even worse.
Almost eighty percent of children attend a hagwan, which is
a type of private cram school operating in the evening
and on weekends.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
Almost eighty percent.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
In twenty twenty three, South Koreans poured billions of dollars
into the shadow education system. They're just absolutely obsessed with
material success.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
How happy are they? Oh? Miserable. They've got the highest
suicide rate in the world. I think, wow, that's something.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Yeah, there's giant decline in marriage. You know what I
think is underappreciated. And I think about this a lot,
and I don't I don't think people feel it.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
I have.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Let me put it this way. I have trouble running
into people who see it the same way I do.
Not that they disagree, they just haven't thought about it.
Cultures are like individuals. They can get diseased and just
because a culture is something doesn't mean it should be
something or that there's nothing. I mean, there's little you
can do as an individual about it. But it's you've
(10:42):
got to look at your culture like you're in a
group of five friends, and your five friends make a
terrible decision about what they're going to do. It's like
the proverbiala if your friends jumped off a bridge. You've
got to look at yourself, separate from your culture. Cultural
going on around with the cultural going along with the
cultural current needs to be a choice.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
We started the show by talking about living.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
Uh, what the hell? That's funny? I couldn't remember the
term awaredly in the moment.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
What's the same mindfulness? Mindfulness right?
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Mindfully participate in your culture mindfully?
Speaker 1 (11:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
I made this joke kind of a couple of weeks
ago on our friend Tim, who's a famously childless hit
him and his wife, two very smart, successful people who
have no interest in having kids. Is just you know,
how upset can you be about kids that aren't born?
I mean, you'd have to care about your culture carrying on,
and that's not the same as like a lot of
(11:44):
what you and I do probably is because we got
kids out there that are going to have to live
in this country, and so I care a lot.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
The direct motive goes. It's a hell of a motivator.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
It's a it's one of the biggest motivators in world history.
So nobody knows what it's like to have a society
where you don't have kids, where you feel like, well,
I'm dead, What the hell do I care what happens
in this country or everybody.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
Else is going to be dead too. Oh none of
my friends have kids. I mean, it's pretty hard to
get super motivated to care about what the country's going
to be like in fifty years if I'm gone and
none of I've got no offspring.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
So interestingly, back to Korea briefly, like China, they decided
in the very early sixties, as a new regime came
to power, that families were way too big. There are
too many people, and shrinking family sizes would fuel economic
development by freeing up more women to work and decreasing
the number of dependents per worker. And so they had
all sorts of societal pressure and tax breaks and slogans,
(12:45):
have few children and bring them up well. Later posters
encourage parents to prioritize quality over quantity, with mottos such
as let's have two children and raise them well or
the frantic two children is already too many, and it
was absorbed into Asian culture, including South Korean culture, and
they just stopped having kids. It's interesting, but as you
(13:07):
point out, that ain't the story in Italy, for instance, Germany,
the US. It's an interesting phenomenon.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
Got to learn to satisfy your women or your women's
or women's Got satisfy your women's.
Speaker 4 (13:20):
The Armstrong and Getty show, your show, podcasts, and our
hot links.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
National Review has got an editorial board piece out if
Trump wants to use military force to topple Maduro, he
needs to call to Congress and ask for authorization.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
That's their take. Mm hmm, yeah, I don't know if
you get it. Would he get it? No?
Speaker 2 (13:43):
No, I would guess not, because there's nobody in America
who's running around pitching the idea of attacking Venezuela. I
mean it has no constituency. I mean we might not
like drug cartels and that sort of thing, but what
happens next and lets we have like their top three
(14:04):
generals have said, oh yeah, I'm totally down with the plan.
I would love to be allied with the United States.
Let's get this done. It would be a quadmire given
our recent experiments with regime change. I don't think a
majority of Americans probably want to give that a world
be my guess. I think you're absolutely right. Oh, speaking
of Maduro, this is amusing. Establishments like CNN, the Associated Press,
(14:30):
and The New York Times have all, in various articles,
embraced the new narrative about Venezuela's Cartel di le Solis.
It doesn't actually exist, it's not real. It's been made up.
In spite of the fact that all of them covered
the Biden administration prosecuting successfully a higher up known as
(14:55):
El Poyo the Chicken back in twenty twenty three. This
guy got asked, extradited, and prosecutor. I want a better nickname.
If I'm gonna be a high up drug kingpin, I
don't want to be the Chicken. Yeah that's kind of weak, dude. Look,
I'm not going to shoot anybody over this, but the
chicken real.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
It's not the cock. You don't even get to be
that now. It just says El Poyo anyway.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
So yeah, back when that was happening in the Biden administration,
US labels Maduora tied Cartel del Solas is a terror organization.
It's not a cartel per se is the current headline
in the AP But back in the day when the
Biden administration was prosecuting them, it was that dangerous. A
freebody always overplays their hand. You can go ahead and
(15:43):
be against regime change in Venezuela. You don't have to
pretend that they're not a narco state to do it right, right, Yeah, Yeah,
I got this story I wanted to touch on. There
is a homeless encampment near the Space Needle in Seattle.
It's gained in international media attention. Well, Seattle, after a
(16:03):
very brief jog toward the right, and not just toward
the right, from like openly communists to reasonable liberal, is
now going to veer back leftward. As mayor elect Katie Wilson,
who is just a treat takes office in January of
twenty six. The Space Needle homeless camp is growing like
a weed, and she has vowed to end junkie camp cleanups.
(16:27):
They call them homeless camps to hide the fact that
it's almost entirely junkies, but the growing camp highlights Seattle's
worsening homeless crisis, as Microsoft just announced it's moving its
Build twenty twenty six conference to Las Vegas and away
from Seattle. It is widely believed this is due to
safety concerns around the Seattle tog, so Microsoft itself having
(16:48):
their conference in a different town.
Speaker 4 (16:51):
Jack Armstrong and Joe the Armstrong and Getty show you.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
Across this piece.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
Katie by uh fraya India. Her name is this an
interesting name. It was in the h in the Free Press,
and she says, and jump in anytime. I keep hearing
about how there's too much pressure to settle down.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
As a young woman.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Apparently everyone wants to know when you're getting married, when
you're having kids. Being single is stigmatized, shamed, pitied. We
supposedly feel so rushed to find partners that we choose wrong,
and that's why relationships are.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
She write this in nineteen fifty. Well, that's kind of
her point.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
It's this pressure to couple up, this feeling of being alone,
blah blah blah. But this has never been my experience,
she writes. My whole life, I've only ever felt the opposite,
an overwhelming press.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
Pressure to be single, yeah, and looking at people giving
you the side eye. If you want to get married
young and have kids, definitely right in the sec go ahead, Katie.
Speaker 5 (17:57):
Well, I'm just thinking, like I mean, I know it
varies by age, you know. I know a bunch of
people that are in their twenties that that's the last
thing on their mind. And I also have friends that
are around my age that are like, I better get going.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
Yeah, But that's there.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
That's an internal feeling, isn't it as opposed to an
extra internal position?
Speaker 1 (18:15):
Not completely No.
Speaker 5 (18:17):
No, because you know then there's the pressure. All your
friends around you are maryl When when are you going
to find your guy?
Speaker 2 (18:22):
You know?
Speaker 1 (18:23):
I mean that happens.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
Well in societal pressure forms people's desires all the time. Yeah,
your clocks start to tick and scream really loud when
you get to be a no. It's deafening, So she writes,
in the secular liberal world, I used to think there
were no expectations, no pressures.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
There is, though.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
The pressure today is to avoid anything that might stick,
to run through life without getting snagged on any responsibilities,
without getting tethered to someone else too early. I'm sure
in some cultures there's some pressure to find someone, but
I felt rushed to do many things in modern life,
and settling down has never been one of them.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
Hmm. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
Well, I live in a liberal enclave, so I don't
know how much it represents the rest of the United
States on this topic, but they're certainly not community pressure
to find a man, get married and have kids around here.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Yeah, and she points out that.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
In a recent podcast, Emma Watson, the intelligent yet utterly
unwise Harry Potter gal who's been slandering JK rowling even
utterly unjustifiable, said something about women are made to feel
like they have no worth or haven't succeeded in life
until they settle down.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
And fry again. Right. I have a hard time understanding this.
In my world, it's the opposite.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
The young woman who settles down has always been seen
as wasting her potential. Right, The single child's free, even
divorced woman is strong, wise and nose or worth. Absolutely. Yeah,
that is just completely made up scenario. Yeah, most of
the time, people aren't wondering why young women aren't having kids,
but why we would at all?
Speaker 1 (20:02):
Nobody really mentions it. Let's let alone pushes it.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
And I'm sure it wasn't always like this, but lately
I see young men praised for committing well, young women
are warned. We are proud of young men, we pity
young women.
Speaker 5 (20:17):
That's an interesting way to look at it, but I
can see I can see where she's coming from. Especially
you know that a lot of the people that are
or the women that are single, it's like that independent woman.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
Yeah right, you're calling your own shots. You're not answering
patriarchy who tells you you need to get married?
Speaker 1 (20:34):
Netaki.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
Are you implying that the patriarchy is supposed to be
running the household, Because if that's the case, I've gotten
it wrong. Announce you're getting married in your twenties, and
complete strangers will rush to tell you horror stories about
affairs and divorce and heartbreak. Why would you do that
to yourself? Don't do what I did? Throw those years away.
(20:57):
We don't scrutinize the twenty five year old who is
still single, but the one who settles down In practice,
feels like the only life.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Decision left to disapprove of, the only one.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
Acceptable to judge wanting to commit is the one desire
that is discouraged. Treating with suspicion the only thing in
the modern world we're ever told to delay.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
I agree with that based on my observation. Yeah, yeah, yeah, And.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
Then you can add another layer to of it. As
a guy from the rural Midwest, there's the if you
you only do that because there's nothing else to do,
there's nothing better to do, Like the better things are.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
What more money for a corporation having exotic vacations, Well,
you can do. You can make make money for a
corporation anywhere. So I think they mean like the entertainment
options that exist on the coasts, Like I don't know,
concerts and ballgames. Is a better thing to do than
(21:54):
get married, have a kid, raise a family, right, yeah,
and have a career look at it. Yeah yeah, yeah,
it's funny. I don't I don't feel that. I have
three kids, one is married, uh one maybe at some point.
(22:15):
Oh my dad who turned eighty five on Thanksgiving Day,
I don't know if he has lost his filter or
just doesn't give a crap, because those are two different things.
If you think, you know, this is gonna make people uncomfortable,
but it needs to be said or you've just lost
the sense of how uncomfortable it's.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
Gonna make people.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
Those are two different situations, but he was utterly shameless
in quizzing my youngest daughter, Delaney and her man about
what's going on here. Let's say, what's the timetable? What
are we thinking here? Are you gonna make an honest
woman of her? Or what?
Speaker 1 (22:51):
Oh? That's always a good time. And it was playful.
It was definitely playful, but it was it was.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
It caused a great deal of rolling of eyes and
hands and heads and hands. How did the male handle
it with a pretty good sense of humor. It's an
uncomp which is one of the reasons I like him. Yeah,
it was shameless. I can't wait, Handy. What I like
(23:24):
with those kind of things is how some people just
look like couples. Like I got one niece and she's
had several long term boyfriends. Were her current long term boyfriend.
They look like they've been married for thirty years. They
just do. They just they should.
Speaker 3 (23:35):
They're they're probably gonna get married, and they just look
like they they are the married couple splitting up people.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
Some people just fit together.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
Yeah, you know, as this piece goes on, she gets
more philosophical about there's this pressure to delay, pressure to
keep searching, pressure to do life alone. Don't fall too
hard too fast, not to intertwine and entangle, never to
lose control, to keep lives and hearts uncrossed. This impossible
(24:06):
titrope for trying to walk, this vain attempt to fall
in love while standing perfectly upright without ever losing our
footing depending on someone, without losing an inch of independence,
the pressure and pain of holding each other at arm's
length at all times. Are lives perfectly partitioned, the stakes
permanently low.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
That's really good writing. When's the timetable changed? That?
Speaker 3 (24:31):
Clearly they mean in your twenties at least. Yeah, really
making a mistake if you get married and have kids.
But so by forty two you should or what does
they get to that.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
There are well no, she doesn't really write about that.
But the lie, and it's interesting why people would would
be so incuisis about this lie, the lie that you
can wait as long as you want and have kids
is that's it's bad. It's damaging, It hurts people, particularly women.
(25:05):
It gets more and more difficult, it's more and more
prone to you know, trouble for you and the baby.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
It's just it's wrong. We're made.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
Look, we're made to have babies and start producing them
when we're like sixteen, seventeen eighteen because we are eate
them by conference. Well, right, we're at the peak of
our physical health. And did you tell you can't You
can't kill an eighteen year old if you want to.
And granted, you know, okay, society is changing and put
that off. But the idea that, oh, yeah, yeah, have
(25:33):
your career established, your career than at age forty five
become a mommy. It happens, and it's okay in a
lot of cases, but as plans go, it's not nearly
the best one. But again, if that has been your plan,
you have a child and you love it dearly and
you're doing your best.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
I bless you and wish you nothing but happiness. It's got.
You can answer those emails all day long.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
You'll get generalized, though I'm telling you, generally speaking, no
are any way it sounds like you're attacking them. To me,
it's like no, it's like generally, it's like generalizing about
whether it's a good idea to run off and join
the circus or not. Generally speaking, it is a good
comparison unless you're a dope.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
Oh now I'm insulting my coworkers. Wow, I'm so sorry.
I just I wag out of control.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
No, you're you're taking a much higher set of risks
pros and cons. But you'll teach their own, said MeitY,
being a libertarian, I speak on peace.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
Now you go, do you? And I don't particularly care
what you do.
Speaker 4 (26:33):
Jack Armstrong and Joe The Armstrong and Getty Show.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
From the Department of Why does nobody recognize we're driving
toward a cliff at one hundred miles per hour. Yeah.
Alicia Finley of The Wall Street Journal pointing out that
America's buy now, pay later economy is showing signs of
an emerging debt crisis everywhere. I don't like this story.
I'm not doing that. I'm I don't buy it until
(27:02):
like an afford it sort of guy. But we all
get brought down by a financial collapse. We all realize that,
right right. The word inclusive is very hot these days.
There certainly was a couple of years ago. That's the
brilliant thing about a financial crash. It includes virtually everybody yeah,
MISRAI So anyway, So she points out that serious credit
(27:22):
card and auto loan delinquencies have climbed to the level
of the twenty eighth nine recession. Okay, so rousing right
after that giant crash. Not surprising that lots of people
all of a sudden were in trouble and not quite
making their payments on time and that sort of stuff.
What is the reason now? Nobody's sure we like spending money,
(27:47):
she says. The housing market shows cracks. Well, the labor
market is weakening, but you wouldn't know it. From the
point stock market and consumer spending. America is buy now,
pay later economy and realy fueled by leverage. As consumers, investors, businesses,
and the government are all taking on more debt, which
she points out, and there's always one person like this
(28:11):
at the party, she points out, you have to pay
for debt later with interest.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
Thank you for that. What a drag man.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
As Americans max out their credit cards after years of inflation,
by now pay later offers are popping up everywhere, from
concert tickets to vacations to grocery stores.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
Boy, oh, boil boil boy.
Speaker 3 (28:32):
I can see how it would be appealing if I'm
twenty one year old Jack and they'll never tour again
or whatever, it's.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
Their farewell tour man.
Speaker 3 (28:42):
To not buy your concert tickets on I can't afford
it now, but I'll magically have more money six months
from now.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
No, don't do that, I guess.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
There are now apps where you can split the cost
of your purchases into installment payments over weeks or months.
Some are currently interest free for now, just to include fees.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
You do you borrow against your used car?
Speaker 2 (29:05):
Is that still a thing that people are doing, where
you take out equity from your used car. Yes, right, yeah,
And unlike credit cards, a lot of these services don't
report the loans to the credit bureaus, so folks are
in much more debt than their credit rating might indicate.
But so these all these different entities that are giving
(29:26):
people these deals must feel like they're going to get
paid back. Oh yeah, yeah, certainly in the short term.
And they have carefully calculated their default rates and you know,
price their services excuse me accordingly. And and you know,
if somebody ends up not being able to pay, they
just put them their name on the blacklist.
Speaker 3 (29:47):
And boy, my oldest son has got a life lesson
coming on.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
I don't even remember what it was now.
Speaker 3 (29:54):
It's been so long, and something he really really wanted
and kind of fronted him, the monk kind of fronted
him the money on that with the idea that you
will owe me and I will be keeping track of it,
and I have been keeping track of it, and he
still owes me. And Christmas might just be here. I've
wiped off hot half your debt. Merry Christmas.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
That would be a lesson in how that old thing works.
That would be a great gift in a way. Yeah, sure,
not to be appreciated at the time. According to recent survey,
about half of consumers have used a buy now, pay
later service.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
This is not a niche. This is half wildly skewed
towards the young.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
Concert tickets, your vacation, I mean everybody kind of does
that a vacation, right, because you put everything on your
credit card, whether you pay it off that month or
over a couple of months.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
Good point. Yeah, let's see.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
Federal Reserve pay for last December found such users are
more likely to have low credit scores, carry a balance
on credit cards, have incurred checking overdraft fees, and have
more delinquent credit accounts. Financiallyulnerable consumers may be over extending themselves.
Let's see, one of the bigger by Now Pay Later
(31:09):
services announced an IPO, which is expected to be one
of the biggest of the year. Such services make money
by capitalizing on financially stretched consumers, especially young people who
don't want to tighten their belts.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (31:26):
According to the Babylon b As we told you, the
Social Security Administration is going to be renamed the Charles
Ponzi Memorial Retirement Plan, which I like.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
That is great.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
The Department of Justice will be changed to the Department
of Revenge and all Losers and Haters.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
I don't think that's appropriate.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
And yet somewhat accurate in these days of law fair,
this is the one that hurts. The Department of the
Treasury will be changed to the Chinese Loan Office.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
Oh. One more that I liked.
Speaker 3 (32:03):
How Housing and Urban Development will retitle his Department of
the Pores.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
The Pull the Pores. Wow.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
By the way, we got a text from somebody who
said they always appreciate when I do my porky pig
routine not being able to.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
Pronounce a work. Hey, I got another statistic for you.
That's enough fun. Back to the misery.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
So in twenty twelve, mortgage you know holders had debt
to income ratios considered risky. Right, twenty eight percent of
people had a debt to income ratio that was pretty risky.
Twenty eight percent. Last year sixty nine percent.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
Seven man Freddy mckew was thirty eight percent, up from
sixteen percent in twenty twelve.
Speaker 3 (32:54):
Seven out of ten of yea, yeah, I don't think
I do have a risky debt to.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
Income ratio.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
And if I haven't driven you to buy gold and
bury it in your backyards yet, how much? How about
one more? The FAHA Federal Housing Association. We have a
fancy new name for them from the Babylon BA.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
Too bad.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
They've waived or reduced monthly payments on one point two
million mortgages over the past two years. That's about fifteen
percent of the total that they hold, and without that
forgiveness passed during the Biden administration, delinquencies would be near
the level of the twenty eight to nine meltdown. Fanny
and Freddy have also been slashing in deferring payments on
(33:37):
hundreds of thousands of mortgages.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
So I go.
Speaker 3 (33:41):
Into my son's room last night to talk to him,
which is one of the groovyest high schooler bedrooms I've
ever seen in my life. He's put a lot of
effort into it, and it's very cool and dark. It's
always very dark in there. But anyway, I go into
my high schooler's room last night and did not smell pleasant.
Speaker 1 (33:58):
I said, what is the deal in here?
Speaker 2 (34:01):
And he must have taken that to heart, because now
the entire house smells like high school boy cologne?
Speaker 1 (34:09):
And I said, what did you do?
Speaker 3 (34:10):
And he said, we used to sit at smell bed
So I sprayed around some of my cologne.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
I thought that would help some of your colone.
Speaker 2 (34:17):
Oh, it smells like you're on a date with four
high school sophomore boys.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
Right now in my house.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
Wow, way too much, way too important. To ascertain the
source of the funk. First, it's not funny, I.
Speaker 3 (34:33):
Don't I don't know what it is about the scent,
but it just it smells like if you had to
name the smell, you'd say, I'm on a date with
a boy who's about old enough to get his driver's license.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
That's what it smells like. Its own scent. You Wow
acts bedroom spray or something like that. Yikes.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
Among the story, I hope you bought it for cash
and didn't borrow the money here, you know, break up
the payments.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
It's the armstrong and getting show arm strong and getting
strong get so it's becoming arms strong and Getty
No, we're not working on Christmas Eve.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
We worked really hard to get it in our contract
that we wouldn't be working today, so you're not hearing
us live. I'd hate to make both Jesus and Santa
Claus angry. So yes, we're taking the day off. But
hope you're enjoying some really good A and G replays
dig In Merry Christmas.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Welcome to the Armstrong and Getty Show.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
If you want to donate to more people being able
to get into scouting, just go to Armstrong in getdy
dot com, Armstrong in Giddy dot com.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
We made it easy. First day witticism and then a
new feature. Jack makes the choice.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Oh boy, here's the witticism. It is actually a cartoon
two fellows. One is obviously in terrible distress, the other
looks very, very smug. The caption is leftist mentality in
a nutshell. The distressed guy is screaming help, I'm getting
(00:54):
bitten to death by ants, and his smug companion says,
not all ants.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
O boy, it makes you steppens. Welcome to Jack makes
the choice. I'm sure they're going to be.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
I'm sure there's gonna be a backlash against all ants.
So we don't want to say anything about the ants
that are biting you to death.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
It's just the radicalized ants really are biting us to death.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
It's one of my choices going home.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Oh boy, if it were, you wouldn't be hearing my voice.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
So here's your choice.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Why is South Korean fertility so low?
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Yeah, it's the lowest in the world, isn't it. Yes?
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Yeah, And well they're both so good?
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Or JD.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Vance is the white ibram X can candy. I'm sorry
I stumble over that ibram X kindy.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
As soon as you said gd Vance, I was thinking
the other one I want because I don't want anything
pol but that is intriguing.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Just because I can't even imagine what it is. You know.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
I'm going to give you a very capsule summary of
that one, and then we'll do the South Korea story.
J D who wrote so movingly and persuasively in Hillbilly
Elegy about his people in rural at Leatia and their
self defeating beliefs and attitudes. It was a look at
(02:29):
and I've made this quote several times. Great Elvis Costello
song The Deep, Dark, Truthful Mirror. It was a good,
long stare into that mirror, and it was remarkably candid.
It seems as though he's decided it's much much better
politics to work the grievance side of the aisle and
tell people you're being cheated and the world is stacked.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Against you, and I will be your savior. Hmm.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
That might just be a reflection of the fact that, yes,
that sort of politics is much more popular than you
need to take a look at shelf and solve your
own problems. And kind of as an adjunct to that,
there's an interesting story in the Journal today entitled the
War on Poverty failed this West Virginia County and they're
no longer waiting for help. Well, good, good, And you know,
(03:20):
someday I'd like to get back to discussing how the
average American would move to find work many times in
their lives a very very short time ago, and now
people seem to have some sort of belief that they
have a god given right to stay where they are
because it's familiar and comfortable.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
It's odd. It's a real change.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Anyway, This is long issue, and we'll just touch on
some of the main points.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
Why is Korean men can't satisfy their women's I'm.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Not sure that's it. Why is South Korean fertility so low?
Listen to this, now, comprehend this if you can. Its population,
optimistically is projected to shrink by over two thirds in
the next one hundred years. If current fertility rates persist,
(04:11):
You've got one hundred South Koreans today. They will have
only six great grandchildren between them.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Wow. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
I remember from reading America Alone by Mark steinback in
the days, when you do the math on the spiral
of dropping below two point one kids per woman, it's
amazing math.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
It's like compound interest.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
Well, it's exactly like compound interest the way it works,
and it's astounding how quickly you run out of people.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Yeah, So, here are a couple of stats for you.
The world fertility rate in nineteen sixty, which lines the world.
Oh there it is, was is around five children per Wow.
That's because men back then could satisfy the women. Oh boy, Interestingly,
(05:04):
they don't have the US rate. It's mostly about Asia,
but in South Korea it was actually in nineteen sixty
it was closer to six children per women.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Wow. That's a lot of kids for the average.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
And I will tell you South Korea is more severe
than the world, but the world's fertility to rate has
been declining quite quite significantly. But anyway, I'm just gonna
go one decade at a time. For South Korea, in
nineteen sixty, it was a little over six children per women.
In nineteen seventy, it was about four and a half.
In nineteen eighty, it was about two point seven. Nineteen
(05:42):
ninety it was one point eight two thousand and one
point five, twenty ten, about one point two and twenty twenty.
It's like, what is the figure out now point eight?
I think, you know my theory.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
Which I meant not even really a theory. The fact
isn't it that, for whatever reason, successful safe cultures stop
having kids South Korea in nineteen sixty they were coming
out of a Korean War, not that many years earlier,
when was the Armistist fifty three. So I mean they're all,
(06:17):
you know, children of war and they're cranking out kids.
As soon as you've become very successful and safe, you
stop having kids, you know.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
In contrast to Jack's old lousemon theory, why it's not
they're women's scientists take a different view, although it is
like so many things cultural in every developed country. I'm
quoting now from the Science newsletter. I'm reading here women
(06:48):
struggle to reconcile their careers with a satisfying family life
and their preferred number of children. This trade off is
exceptionally severe in South Korea, despite its very high level
of female education. South Korea has the largest gender employment
gap in the developed countries. There is almost no employment
gap between men and unmarried women. I mean, the numbers
(07:11):
are almost precisely the same. It's around seventy three percent employment.
The gap is driven by the fact that large numbers
of women stop working when they have kids. Only fifty
six percent of mother's work the fourth lowest in the OECD,
which I can't remember what that stands for.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
It's the it's your developed countries.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
In South Korea, mother's employment falls by forty nine percent
relative to fathers over ten years. In the US it
falls by twenty five percent, in Sweden by only nine percent.
South Korean women face a steep motherhood penalty, partly because
of their insane work culture. South Korean's work more hours
(07:55):
per year. It's about a thousand more about thirty well,
I'm sorry, it's about one hundred and thirty hours more
a year than Americans and about four hundred and thirty more.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Than Swedes, for instance.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
How many makes it harder to balance work and motherhood
or work or anything else?
Speaker 1 (08:12):
How many more hours a year than Americans? Uh?
Speaker 2 (08:16):
Three oh, one hundred and thirty Wow. Yeah, so more
than two hours a week more?
Speaker 1 (08:24):
Oh? Yeah wow.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
There is intense pressure from employers for women not to
have children. In surveys, twenty seven percent of female office
workers report being coerced into signing illegal contracts promising to
resign if they become pregnant or get married. Korean work
culture is notoriously sexist, blah blah blah.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
But this is.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
Different than the fact that they're not having kids in
like Italy or France, where you have so much time
off and you could say, well, you you want to
you know, you want to vacation and eat and blah
blah blah and self and don't and you don't have kids.
South Korea, they're working their asses off and not having kids.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
Yeah, it is interesting.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
You're right, these facts about South Korea cannot be applied universally.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
I mean, the insane work culture, so.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
You can have more studying when you're a child, but
say you can have more stuff the two of you
or the one of you with no kids.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
They mentioned that.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
There's intense competition for university places. Cram schools and private
tuition are popular in many low fertility Asian countries, Taiwan
and Singapore, China, they mentioned, but South Korea is even worse.
Almost eighty percent of children attend a hagwan, which is
a type of private cram school operating in the evening
and on weekends.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
Almost eighty percent.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
In twenty twenty three, South Koreans poured billions of dollars
into the shadow education system. They're just absolutely obsessed with
material success.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
How happy are they? Oh? Miserable. They've got the highest
suicide rate in the world. I think, wow, that's something.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Yeah, there's giant decline in marriage. You know what I
think is underappreciated. And I think about this a lot,
and I don't I don't think people feel it.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
I have.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Let me put it this way. I have trouble running
into people who see it the same way I do.
Not that they disagree, they just haven't thought about it.
Cultures are like individuals. They can get diseased and just
because a culture is something doesn't mean it should be
something or that there's nothing. I mean, there's little you
can do as an individual about it. But it's you've
(10:42):
got to look at your culture like you're in a
group of five friends, and your five friends make a
terrible decision about what they're going to do. It's like
the proverbiala if your friends jumped off a bridge. You've
got to look at yourself, separate from your culture. Cultural
going on around with the cultural going along with the
cultural current needs to be a choice.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
We started the show by talking about living.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
Uh, what the hell? That's funny? I couldn't remember the
term awaredly in the moment.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
What's the same mindfulness? Mindfulness right?
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Mindfully participate in your culture mindfully?
Speaker 1 (11:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
I made this joke kind of a couple of weeks
ago on our friend Tim, who's a famously childless hit
him and his wife, two very smart, successful people who
have no interest in having kids. Is just you know,
how upset can you be about kids that aren't born?
I mean, you'd have to care about your culture carrying on,
and that's not the same as like a lot of
(11:44):
what you and I do probably is because we got
kids out there that are going to have to live
in this country, and so I care a lot.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
The direct motive goes. It's a hell of a motivator.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
It's a it's one of the biggest motivators in world history.
So nobody knows what it's like to have a society
where you don't have kids, where you feel like, well,
I'm dead, What the hell do I care what happens
in this country or everybody.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
Else is going to be dead too. Oh none of
my friends have kids. I mean, it's pretty hard to
get super motivated to care about what the country's going
to be like in fifty years if I'm gone and
none of I've got no offspring.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
So interestingly, back to Korea briefly, like China, they decided
in the very early sixties, as a new regime came
to power, that families were way too big. There are
too many people, and shrinking family sizes would fuel economic
development by freeing up more women to work and decreasing
the number of dependents per worker. And so they had
all sorts of societal pressure and tax breaks and slogans,
(12:45):
have few children and bring them up well. Later posters
encourage parents to prioritize quality over quantity, with mottos such
as let's have two children and raise them well or
the frantic two children is already too many, and it
was absorbed into Asian culture, including South Korean culture, and
they just stopped having kids. It's interesting, but as you
(13:07):
point out, that ain't the story in Italy, for instance, Germany,
the US. It's an interesting phenomenon.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
Got to learn to satisfy your women or your women's
or women's Got satisfy your women's.
Speaker 4 (13:20):
The Armstrong and Getty show, your show, podcasts, and our
hot links.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
National Review has got an editorial board piece out if
Trump wants to use military force to topple Maduro, he
needs to call to Congress and ask for authorization.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
That's their take. Mm hmm, yeah, I don't know if
you get it. Would he get it? No?
Speaker 2 (13:43):
No, I would guess not, because there's nobody in America
who's running around pitching the idea of attacking Venezuela. I
mean it has no constituency. I mean we might not
like drug cartels and that sort of thing, but what
happens next and lets we have like their top three
(14:04):
generals have said, oh yeah, I'm totally down with the plan.
I would love to be allied with the United States.
Let's get this done. It would be a quadmire given
our recent experiments with regime change. I don't think a
majority of Americans probably want to give that a world
be my guess. I think you're absolutely right. Oh, speaking
of Maduro, this is amusing. Establishments like CNN, the Associated Press,
(14:30):
and The New York Times have all, in various articles,
embraced the new narrative about Venezuela's Cartel di le Solis.
It doesn't actually exist, it's not real. It's been made up.
In spite of the fact that all of them covered
the Biden administration prosecuting successfully a higher up known as
(14:55):
El Poyo the Chicken back in twenty twenty three. This
guy got asked, extradited, and prosecutor. I want a better nickname.
If I'm gonna be a high up drug kingpin, I
don't want to be the Chicken. Yeah that's kind of weak, dude. Look,
I'm not going to shoot anybody over this, but the
chicken real.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
It's not the cock. You don't even get to be
that now. It just says El Poyo anyway.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
So yeah, back when that was happening in the Biden administration,
US labels Maduora tied Cartel del Solas is a terror organization.
It's not a cartel per se is the current headline
in the AP But back in the day when the
Biden administration was prosecuting them, it was that dangerous. A
freebody always overplays their hand. You can go ahead and
(15:43):
be against regime change in Venezuela. You don't have to
pretend that they're not a narco state to do it right, right, Yeah, Yeah,
I got this story I wanted to touch on. There
is a homeless encampment near the Space Needle in Seattle.
It's gained in international media attention. Well, Seattle, after a
(16:03):
very brief jog toward the right, and not just toward
the right, from like openly communists to reasonable liberal, is
now going to veer back leftward. As mayor elect Katie Wilson,
who is just a treat takes office in January of
twenty six. The Space Needle homeless camp is growing like
a weed, and she has vowed to end junkie camp cleanups.
(16:27):
They call them homeless camps to hide the fact that
it's almost entirely junkies, but the growing camp highlights Seattle's
worsening homeless crisis, as Microsoft just announced it's moving its
Build twenty twenty six conference to Las Vegas and away
from Seattle. It is widely believed this is due to
safety concerns around the Seattle tog, so Microsoft itself having
(16:48):
their conference in a different town.
Speaker 4 (16:51):
Jack Armstrong and Joe the Armstrong and Getty show you.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
Across this piece.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
Katie by uh fraya India. Her name is this an
interesting name. It was in the h in the Free Press,
and she says, and jump in anytime. I keep hearing
about how there's too much pressure to settle down.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
As a young woman.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Apparently everyone wants to know when you're getting married, when
you're having kids. Being single is stigmatized, shamed, pitied. We
supposedly feel so rushed to find partners that we choose wrong,
and that's why relationships are.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
She write this in nineteen fifty. Well, that's kind of
her point.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
It's this pressure to couple up, this feeling of being alone,
blah blah blah. But this has never been my experience,
she writes. My whole life, I've only ever felt the opposite,
an overwhelming press.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
Pressure to be single, yeah, and looking at people giving
you the side eye. If you want to get married
young and have kids, definitely right in the sec go ahead, Katie.
Speaker 5 (17:57):
Well, I'm just thinking, like I mean, I know it
varies by age, you know. I know a bunch of
people that are in their twenties that that's the last
thing on their mind. And I also have friends that
are around my age that are like, I better get going.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
Yeah, But that's there.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
That's an internal feeling, isn't it as opposed to an
extra internal position?
Speaker 1 (18:15):
Not completely No.
Speaker 5 (18:17):
No, because you know then there's the pressure. All your
friends around you are maryl When when are you going
to find your guy?
Speaker 2 (18:22):
You know?
Speaker 1 (18:23):
I mean that happens.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
Well in societal pressure forms people's desires all the time. Yeah,
your clocks start to tick and scream really loud when
you get to be a no. It's deafening, So she writes,
in the secular liberal world, I used to think there
were no expectations, no pressures.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
There is, though.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
The pressure today is to avoid anything that might stick,
to run through life without getting snagged on any responsibilities,
without getting tethered to someone else too early. I'm sure
in some cultures there's some pressure to find someone, but
I felt rushed to do many things in modern life,
and settling down has never been one of them.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
Hmm. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
Well, I live in a liberal enclave, so I don't
know how much it represents the rest of the United
States on this topic, but they're certainly not community pressure
to find a man, get married and have kids around here.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Yeah, and she points out that.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
In a recent podcast, Emma Watson, the intelligent yet utterly
unwise Harry Potter gal who's been slandering JK rowling even
utterly unjustifiable, said something about women are made to feel
like they have no worth or haven't succeeded in life
until they settle down.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
And fry again. Right. I have a hard time understanding this.
In my world, it's the opposite.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
The young woman who settles down has always been seen
as wasting her potential. Right, The single child's free, even
divorced woman is strong, wise and nose or worth. Absolutely. Yeah,
that is just completely made up scenario. Yeah, most of
the time, people aren't wondering why young women aren't having kids,
but why we would at all?
Speaker 1 (20:02):
Nobody really mentions it. Let's let alone pushes it.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
And I'm sure it wasn't always like this, but lately
I see young men praised for committing well, young women
are warned. We are proud of young men, we pity
young women.
Speaker 5 (20:17):
That's an interesting way to look at it, but I
can see I can see where she's coming from. Especially
you know that a lot of the people that are
or the women that are single, it's like that independent woman.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
Yeah right, you're calling your own shots. You're not answering
patriarchy who tells you you need to get married?
Speaker 1 (20:34):
Netaki.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
Are you implying that the patriarchy is supposed to be
running the household, Because if that's the case, I've gotten
it wrong. Announce you're getting married in your twenties, and
complete strangers will rush to tell you horror stories about
affairs and divorce and heartbreak. Why would you do that
to yourself? Don't do what I did? Throw those years away.
(20:57):
We don't scrutinize the twenty five year old who is
still single, but the one who settles down In practice,
feels like the only life.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Decision left to disapprove of, the only one.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
Acceptable to judge wanting to commit is the one desire
that is discouraged. Treating with suspicion the only thing in
the modern world we're ever told to delay.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
I agree with that based on my observation. Yeah, yeah, yeah, And.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
Then you can add another layer to of it. As
a guy from the rural Midwest, there's the if you
you only do that because there's nothing else to do,
there's nothing better to do, Like the better things are.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
What more money for a corporation having exotic vacations, Well,
you can do. You can make make money for a
corporation anywhere. So I think they mean like the entertainment
options that exist on the coasts, Like I don't know,
concerts and ballgames. Is a better thing to do than
(21:54):
get married, have a kid, raise a family, right, yeah,
and have a career look at it. Yeah yeah, yeah,
it's funny. I don't I don't feel that. I have
three kids, one is married, uh one maybe at some point.
(22:15):
Oh my dad who turned eighty five on Thanksgiving Day,
I don't know if he has lost his filter or
just doesn't give a crap, because those are two different things.
If you think, you know, this is gonna make people uncomfortable,
but it needs to be said or you've just lost
the sense of how uncomfortable it's.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
Gonna make people.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
Those are two different situations, but he was utterly shameless
in quizzing my youngest daughter, Delaney and her man about
what's going on here. Let's say, what's the timetable? What
are we thinking here? Are you gonna make an honest
woman of her? Or what?
Speaker 1 (22:51):
Oh? That's always a good time. And it was playful.
It was definitely playful, but it was it was.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
It caused a great deal of rolling of eyes and
hands and heads and hands. How did the male handle
it with a pretty good sense of humor. It's an
uncomp which is one of the reasons I like him. Yeah,
it was shameless. I can't wait, Handy. What I like
(23:24):
with those kind of things is how some people just
look like couples. Like I got one niece and she's
had several long term boyfriends. Were her current long term boyfriend.
They look like they've been married for thirty years. They
just do. They just they should.
Speaker 3 (23:35):
They're they're probably gonna get married, and they just look
like they they are the married couple splitting up people.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
Some people just fit together.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
Yeah, you know, as this piece goes on, she gets
more philosophical about there's this pressure to delay, pressure to
keep searching, pressure to do life alone. Don't fall too
hard too fast, not to intertwine and entangle, never to
lose control, to keep lives and hearts uncrossed. This impossible
(24:06):
titrope for trying to walk, this vain attempt to fall
in love while standing perfectly upright without ever losing our
footing depending on someone, without losing an inch of independence,
the pressure and pain of holding each other at arm's
length at all times. Are lives perfectly partitioned, the stakes
permanently low.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
That's really good writing. When's the timetable changed? That?
Speaker 3 (24:31):
Clearly they mean in your twenties at least. Yeah, really
making a mistake if you get married and have kids.
But so by forty two you should or what does
they get to that.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
There are well no, she doesn't really write about that.
But the lie, and it's interesting why people would would
be so incuisis about this lie, the lie that you
can wait as long as you want and have kids
is that's it's bad. It's damaging, It hurts people, particularly women.
(25:05):
It gets more and more difficult, it's more and more
prone to you know, trouble for you and the baby.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
It's just it's wrong. We're made.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
Look, we're made to have babies and start producing them
when we're like sixteen, seventeen eighteen because we are eate
them by conference. Well, right, we're at the peak of
our physical health. And did you tell you can't You
can't kill an eighteen year old if you want to.
And granted, you know, okay, society is changing and put
that off. But the idea that, oh, yeah, yeah, have
(25:33):
your career established, your career than at age forty five
become a mommy. It happens, and it's okay in a
lot of cases, but as plans go, it's not nearly
the best one. But again, if that has been your plan,
you have a child and you love it dearly and
you're doing your best.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
I bless you and wish you nothing but happiness. It's got.
You can answer those emails all day long.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
You'll get generalized, though I'm telling you, generally speaking, no
are any way it sounds like you're attacking them. To me,
it's like no, it's like generally, it's like generalizing about
whether it's a good idea to run off and join
the circus or not. Generally speaking, it is a good
comparison unless you're a dope.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
Oh now I'm insulting my coworkers. Wow, I'm so sorry.
I just I wag out of control.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
No, you're you're taking a much higher set of risks
pros and cons. But you'll teach their own, said MeitY,
being a libertarian, I speak on peace.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
Now you go, do you? And I don't particularly care
what you do.
Speaker 4 (26:33):
Jack Armstrong and Joe The Armstrong and Getty Show.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
From the Department of Why does nobody recognize we're driving
toward a cliff at one hundred miles per hour. Yeah.
Alicia Finley of The Wall Street Journal pointing out that
America's buy now, pay later economy is showing signs of
an emerging debt crisis everywhere. I don't like this story.
I'm not doing that. I'm I don't buy it until
(27:02):
like an afford it sort of guy. But we all
get brought down by a financial collapse. We all realize that,
right right. The word inclusive is very hot these days.
There certainly was a couple of years ago. That's the
brilliant thing about a financial crash. It includes virtually everybody yeah,
MISRAI So anyway, So she points out that serious credit
(27:22):
card and auto loan delinquencies have climbed to the level
of the twenty eighth nine recession. Okay, so rousing right
after that giant crash. Not surprising that lots of people
all of a sudden were in trouble and not quite
making their payments on time and that sort of stuff.
What is the reason now? Nobody's sure we like spending money,
(27:47):
she says. The housing market shows cracks. Well, the labor
market is weakening, but you wouldn't know it. From the
point stock market and consumer spending. America is buy now,
pay later economy and realy fueled by leverage. As consumers, investors, businesses,
and the government are all taking on more debt, which
she points out, and there's always one person like this
(28:11):
at the party, she points out, you have to pay
for debt later with interest.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
Thank you for that. What a drag man.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
As Americans max out their credit cards after years of inflation,
by now pay later offers are popping up everywhere, from
concert tickets to vacations to grocery stores.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
Boy, oh, boil boil boy.
Speaker 3 (28:32):
I can see how it would be appealing if I'm
twenty one year old Jack and they'll never tour again
or whatever, it's.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
Their farewell tour man.
Speaker 3 (28:42):
To not buy your concert tickets on I can't afford
it now, but I'll magically have more money six months
from now.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
No, don't do that, I guess.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
There are now apps where you can split the cost
of your purchases into installment payments over weeks or months.
Some are currently interest free for now, just to include fees.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
You do you borrow against your used car?
Speaker 2 (29:05):
Is that still a thing that people are doing, where
you take out equity from your used car. Yes, right, yeah,
And unlike credit cards, a lot of these services don't
report the loans to the credit bureaus, so folks are
in much more debt than their credit rating might indicate.
But so these all these different entities that are giving
(29:26):
people these deals must feel like they're going to get
paid back. Oh yeah, yeah, certainly in the short term.
And they have carefully calculated their default rates and you know,
price their services excuse me accordingly. And and you know,
if somebody ends up not being able to pay, they
just put them their name on the blacklist.
Speaker 3 (29:47):
And boy, my oldest son has got a life lesson
coming on.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
I don't even remember what it was now.
Speaker 3 (29:54):
It's been so long, and something he really really wanted
and kind of fronted him, the monk kind of fronted
him the money on that with the idea that you
will owe me and I will be keeping track of it,
and I have been keeping track of it, and he
still owes me. And Christmas might just be here. I've
wiped off hot half your debt. Merry Christmas.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
That would be a lesson in how that old thing works.
That would be a great gift in a way. Yeah, sure,
not to be appreciated at the time. According to recent survey,
about half of consumers have used a buy now, pay
later service.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
This is not a niche. This is half wildly skewed
towards the young.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
Concert tickets, your vacation, I mean everybody kind of does
that a vacation, right, because you put everything on your
credit card, whether you pay it off that month or
over a couple of months.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
Good point. Yeah, let's see.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
Federal Reserve pay for last December found such users are
more likely to have low credit scores, carry a balance
on credit cards, have incurred checking overdraft fees, and have
more delinquent credit accounts. Financiallyulnerable consumers may be over extending themselves.
Let's see, one of the bigger by Now Pay Later
(31:09):
services announced an IPO, which is expected to be one
of the biggest of the year. Such services make money
by capitalizing on financially stretched consumers, especially young people who
don't want to tighten their belts.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (31:26):
According to the Babylon b As we told you, the
Social Security Administration is going to be renamed the Charles
Ponzi Memorial Retirement Plan, which I like.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
That is great.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
The Department of Justice will be changed to the Department
of Revenge and all Losers and Haters.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
I don't think that's appropriate.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
And yet somewhat accurate in these days of law fair,
this is the one that hurts. The Department of the
Treasury will be changed to the Chinese Loan Office.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
Oh. One more that I liked.
Speaker 3 (32:03):
How Housing and Urban Development will retitle his Department of
the Pores.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
The Pull the Pores. Wow.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
By the way, we got a text from somebody who
said they always appreciate when I do my porky pig
routine not being able to.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
Pronounce a work. Hey, I got another statistic for you.
That's enough fun. Back to the misery.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
So in twenty twelve, mortgage you know holders had debt
to income ratios considered risky. Right, twenty eight percent of
people had a debt to income ratio that was pretty risky.
Twenty eight percent. Last year sixty nine percent.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
Seven man Freddy mckew was thirty eight percent, up from
sixteen percent in twenty twelve.
Speaker 3 (32:54):
Seven out of ten of yea, yeah, I don't think
I do have a risky debt to.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
Income ratio.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
And if I haven't driven you to buy gold and
bury it in your backyards yet, how much? How about
one more? The FAHA Federal Housing Association. We have a
fancy new name for them from the Babylon BA.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
Too bad.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
They've waived or reduced monthly payments on one point two
million mortgages over the past two years. That's about fifteen
percent of the total that they hold, and without that
forgiveness passed during the Biden administration, delinquencies would be near
the level of the twenty eight to nine meltdown. Fanny
and Freddy have also been slashing in deferring payments on
(33:37):
hundreds of thousands of mortgages.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
So I go.
Speaker 3 (33:41):
Into my son's room last night to talk to him,
which is one of the groovyest high schooler bedrooms I've
ever seen in my life. He's put a lot of
effort into it, and it's very cool and dark. It's
always very dark in there. But anyway, I go into
my high schooler's room last night and did not smell pleasant.
Speaker 1 (33:58):
I said, what is the deal in here?
Speaker 2 (34:01):
And he must have taken that to heart, because now
the entire house smells like high school boy cologne?
Speaker 1 (34:09):
And I said, what did you do?
Speaker 3 (34:10):
And he said, we used to sit at smell bed
So I sprayed around some of my cologne.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
I thought that would help some of your colone.
Speaker 2 (34:17):
Oh, it smells like you're on a date with four
high school sophomore boys.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
Right now in my house.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
Wow, way too much, way too important. To ascertain the
source of the funk. First, it's not funny, I.
Speaker 3 (34:33):
Don't I don't know what it is about the scent,
but it just it smells like if you had to
name the smell, you'd say, I'm on a date with
a boy who's about old enough to get his driver's license.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
That's what it smells like. Its own scent. You Wow
acts bedroom spray or something like that. Yikes.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
Among the story, I hope you bought it for cash
and didn't borrow the money here, you know, break up
the payments.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
It's the armstrong and getting show arm strong and getting
strong get so it's becoming arms strong and Getty
Hosts And Creators
Joe Getty
Jack Armstrong
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