CNN Declares Men Are a "Disease" — Yes, Really - In The Tank #515 - In The Tank

Episode Transcript
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Linnea Lueken (00:36):
Alright. We are live. Welcome to the show,
everyone. I feel like I steppedback in time to 2016. CNN is
resurrecting the absolutelycringe inducing term, the male
gaze, as a bad thing, of course,which I don't think has been in
public media since, like, 2016outside of articles from the
Mary Sue or something.

(00:57):
We will also talk aboutdecoupling from China on rare
earth and wow. I'm messing thisone up today on rare earth
minerals. Sorry, guys. And weare going to talk about
Obamacare, the shutdown, and howto make health care work for
Americans. Are going to talkabout all of this and more on
episode 515 of the In the Tankpodcast.

Speaker 2 (02:08):
They can say we're fighting Trump, but where's the
fight? What? Marching around?Bunch of senior citizens
marching around with signs thatsomebody gave them. Is that the
fight?
Good luck.

I'm sorry for that. Once again, we let Jim
pick these, and, he likes totorture the audience very much.
So so welcome to the In The Tankpodcast, you guys. I am Lynea
Luken, your host. We also have,as always, Jim Lakeley, vice
president and director ofcommunications at the Heartland
Institute.
We have Sam Karnik, seniorfellow at the Heartland

(02:46):
Institute, and Chris Talgo,editorial director and socialism
research fellow at the HeartlandInstitute. And, also, we have
our wonderful guest, AnneMarieSchieber, well research fellow
and managing editor of healthcare news at the Heartland
Institute. So we are having a astaff meeting here on the show
today. But thank you so much fortaking the time to join us,

(03:08):
Amory.

AnneMarie Schieber (03:09):
Oh, my pleasure.

Jim Lakely (03:12):
Lynea, let me let me just ask you, Lynea. I know we
we call we call it pulling a gymwhen you leave the mute button
on and start moving your mouthspeaking and nobody can hear
you. What what do we call it nowwhen you when you're drinking
tea at the opening of the show?How long did you think the
kicker on that drop was gonnabe? Four minutes?
It was actually pretty long.

I thought it would be funny, but if Oh, okay.
I loved

Jim Lakely (03:35):
it. Alright. It was purposeful.

I I well, what we really need is a counter for
when I totally screw up myintro. That's that's what we
need. So how is it?

Jim Lakely (03:45):
We do one of those signs like, you know, how many
days without an accident in thisfactory. Yeah. It was like, how
many how many shows without ascrew up? It'll always say zero
probably between, myself. Imean, screwing it all up too.

Absolutely. How's everybody doing this week? Any
any any drama in in the realworld?

Good. I haven't noticed the government's
still shut down. But

Yeah. I I told Jim in the chat that I actually
forgot that the government wasstill shut down until I was
doing research for this showthis week. So it's been, you
know, probably the the biggestnothing of a government shutdown
that I have seen. Hello to ouraudience as usual. Thank you
guys for joining us.
Everything is gonna be greattoday. This is gonna be
terrific. Alright. So before weget started, though, as always,

(04:34):
if you want to support thisshow, you can go to
heartland.org/inthetank anddonate there. Please also click
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(04:57):
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Okay, guys. Let's get into ithere. So we're gonna take a look
at our unhinged topic today. Idon't know if we have a drop for
that. Lovely.

(05:24):
So this this one is less well,it is unhinged, but it's mostly
cringe. CNN is once againbemoaning the male gaze. Such a
blast from the past. It's reallypretty incredible to see this
headline at CNN. They say, afteryears of progress on gender, the
male gaze is back.
Madeline Holcomb is the writer,and she says, in the past

(05:47):
decade, I saw evidence ofprogress in my media diet. The
movies, shows, books andadvertisements I consumed were
increasingly given women givingwomen a seat at the table as if
that wasn't before, whatever.Heroin chic fell away and body
positivity entered the fashionworld. Stories about a woman
stealing your man were tradedfor celebration of the girl's

(06:08):
girl who resisted thecompetition for men's attention.
It seems like women were takinga deeper breath without such
heavy cultural restrictions.
Then there was a shift. Whateverthe catalyst, a change in the
political environment seemed toconnect with a social change
that brought back narrow and attimes constrictive ideas of
womanhood depicted in media. Thecries of weight loss medications

(06:30):
coincided with social mediainfluencers sharing ways to get
smaller and no longercelebrating bodies of all sizes.
Advertisements followed suit,making men's desire once again a
dominating factor in how storiesare told and how women are
portrayed. How had thesediscarded ideas made their way
back into circulation?
Didn't we all agree we werethrough with them? The culprit I

(06:52):
have learned is the male gaze.It was always there, but now it
has stepped back into thespotlight. Alright. So later in
the article here, she quotesactivists who, are telling her
that traditional beautystandards put forward by the
male gaze are unrealistic andusually prioritize whiteness.
So that's nice. I just wanted tosay at the outset, this article

(07:14):
is really long. I mean, goes onforever. And also, I found the
entire thing crazy patronizing.This woman is not upset that
women are being forced into abox because obviously, we're
not.
The latest Disney film that justcame out has, like, a main
character Asian girl boss and noromance. And so, you know, this

(07:36):
stuff is getting tired actually.But that's another discussion
maybe or maybe Jim can take thatin a bit. She's, she's upset
that there is a visiblealternative to her idea of
femininity at all. She is upsetthat women are choosing and are
attracted to and celebratingpublicly lifestyles that she

(07:57):
doesn't like.
Calls to mind something that afeminist activist, Simone de
Beauvoir Beauvoir once said,which was no woman should be
authorized to stay at home andraise her children. Society
should be totally different.Women should not have that
choice precisely because ifthere is such a choice, too many

(08:18):
women will make that one. Andshe was right. And this author
is beginning to sense that andit's making her panic.
So Anne Marie, as fellow femaleon the panel here, what was your
take on this article?

Oh, goodness. You know, the last
place we should be looking forguidance on living the good life
is the popular culture. Youknow, we live in a very secular
and confused popular in a world,and this is why we have this
pendulum of constantly changingtrends. You know, first it was
girl power, then it was the tradwife. She's upset about the male

(08:51):
gaze, the female gaze.
I mean, it's just part of ournature, first of all, to be
attracted to the opposite sex.And and the problem arises when
we objectify the opposite sex.Thank you, mass media, for doing
that in the advertisingindustry. I mean, they're always
tempting us with that and youknow, because they know that's

(09:13):
how it gets our attention. Imean, our our culture is always
trying to convince us that weare in charge.
We're in charge of our sex. Wecan be Wonder Woman, women
warriors, maternal fathers,nurture and cut you know, can
nurture and cuddle children inthe same way that women can. You

(09:34):
know, we need to start lookingabove, not at the culture to
define us and to figure out whatis a good and orderly life.

Yeah. I think one of the craziest parts of this,
Jim, is that she's implyingthat, like, now that there is a
popular surge of, you know, thetrad wife thing on Instagram and
stuff or, you know, popularmagazines like Eevee that
promote, you know, moretraditional values and stuff,
that the mere existence of thesethings is is proof that, like,

(10:07):
we're going back to, I don'tknow, probably a time that
frankly didn't didn't existquite to the extent that they
say that it did, but that womenare being put in a box. And and
now that this stuff is forwardin the mainstream culture in
advertising and stuff, you know,the Sydney Sweeney ad is one of
the ones that she wasparticularly upset about. That

(10:28):
this is this is proof that we'rewe're we're what's the word I'm
looking for? The pendulum isswinging back too far, and now
we're all forced to stay homeand never go anywhere again.
Like, it's it's crazy. She talkslike there isn't still this huge
push in media, especiallyliberal media, to, you know,
promote the idea that, you know,oh, a woman does needs a man

(10:51):
like a fish needs a bicycle kindof situation. Right?

Jim Lakely (10:55):
Yeah. You know, well, you know, radical fourth
wave feminism used to beconfined to the craziest college
campuses. I mean, I went tocollege between 1988 and 1992,
and I went as an English writingmajor. And my first writing
class actually was cross wascross registered with the

(11:18):
women's studies department. So Ihad to read and and and write
essays on radical leftistfeminists like Andrea Dworkin,
for instance.
That's one of the names thatjust pops into my head. Anne
Marie might remember who thatis. So people of a certain age
might remember. Certainly, inour audience might. But the the
point of the instructor, who ismale, by the way, was to try to

(11:41):
teach me how to write like awoman.
And I found that odd even at 18years old. It's like, how does a
woman write? I don't know. Andhow could I ever know? Because I
am not a woman, and I will neverhave the female experience
because I am a man.
And men and women, if andespecially if you're gonna put

(12:02):
that in college, you're sayingthat they're different, right,
because I have to learn how towrite like a woman, wasn't able
to do that. But and and thatkind of crazy radicalized you
know, radical feminist, outlookon the world was fine when it
was confined to a woman'sstudies department, you know, at
the at the at my alma mater,University of Pittsburgh,
because it wasn't reallyinfecting the real world. What

(12:25):
we have found in the lastfifteen fifteen or ten or
fifteen years is that ourpopular culture and our politics
is now driven by radical leftistfeminism, intersectional
feminism, and all of that. Thisarticle is very long, and
there's so many funny parts. Wecould probably do the whole hour
just picking apart differentparts of it.

(12:46):
But you read one part of the onethat always that stuck out at
me, Lanay, and was like, didn'twe all agree we were through
with this stuff? This stuffmeaning normal normal life and
normal pop culture and normalportrayals of heterosexuals of
the opposite sex who might showsome interest in each other. No.

(13:07):
We did not all agree that we'rethrough with that, but Hollywood
decided that they that theywere. If you think about it, a
lot of this goes all the wayback to the Me Too movement.
Right? Harvey Weinstein, adisgusting human being, rightly
called out finally after decadesof abusing women in Hollywood

(13:27):
and his position in Hollywoodfor, for sexual favors. And that
Me Too movement suddenly becameapplied to everything in
society, which was an enormousoverreaction to the point that,
you know, Lynnea, you and I talkabout this from time to time
privately in chats and otherthings about how, you know,

(13:48):
romance is gone. I mean, if youthink about the Star Wars sequel
trilogies, I guess it happenedat the very end of the last
sequel, but, like, there's noromantic spark between Rey and
and any of her costars. We can'thave that, see, because if
there's romance, then thatdiminishes supposedly.
This is not the way I think.This is the way radical leftist
feminists who run Hollywoodthink. If you allow her to have

(14:12):
romantic interest in one of hermale characters, that diminishes
her. No. It doesn't.
It makes her human and relatableto the audience, but you can't
have even a hint of romance withRay and any of her any of her
costars. In this article, juststates as fact that the Sydney
Sweeney American Eagle ad wascontroversial. No. It wasn't. It

(14:33):
wasn't controversial to normalpeople.
It was controversial if you area brainwashed radical leftist
feminist. Then it'scontroversial. Like, this entire
I don't know. What is it?Probably 10,000 word article on
the male gaze and how we thoughtwe were beyond that.
Look. Without the male gaze andthe female gaze for that matter,
g a z e, by the way, withoutthat, humans the human species

(14:59):
dies out. Okay? Can we just beokay with that? It's it's
actually fine to, show and evencelebrate, you know,
heterosexual romantic love.
Think when was the last time agood, romantic comedy was made?
I mean, I I know, actually,ironically, Sidney Sweeney was
in one of the last romanticcomedies probably to make money

(15:19):
in the last two years. Not a lotof people saw it. But, again, as
a as somebody who grew up in theeighties and nineties, there
were two dozen romantic comediesreleased every year. And and
some romantic comedies areconsidered classics going all
the way back to the nineteenfifties.
And it's because it was anidealized representation of how
people would actually like to gothrough their life. They would

(15:41):
like to meet cute, their futurehusband or future wife. It's a
very romantic and aspirationalkind of depiction on the screen.
But Hollywood is not interestedin that anymore. They're
interested in pushingideologies.
They're interested in portrayingwomen as only strong and and
bosses and in control ofeverything, never depending on

(16:03):
anybody else, especially a manor anything in any movie. It
almost never happens. And whatwhat you've seen is that
Hollywood's box office hasspiraling into the into the into
the sewer. I think I saw a storythe other day. The biggest
layoffs in Hollywood's historyhave happened over the last I
think one was it one quarter or20% of, you know, Hollywood

(16:24):
writers and producers and, youknow, people basically what they
call below the line, not thestars.
Huge layoffs and all that stuffbecause they are failing because
they fail and refuse for toolong, have refused to give
audiences a fair, accurate, andidealistic depiction of human

(16:46):
human interactions between thesexes in a normal,
heteronormative way. Using thesesorts of terms, I know triggers
like the woman who wrote thisarticle, But that's just the way
life is. That's what peoplewant, and there's nothing wrong
with it. Again, didn't we agreewe were all through with this?
We none of us agreed to that.

(17:06):
Only you did. And, now yourdelusions are, are fading away,
and you find that you're allalone. Was that the author on
the screen there?

Well No. No? I don't know what this is. Yeah.
Well and, Chris and Sam, if youguys wanna jump in here too,
love to hear your thoughts onthis one because it is kind of
crazy.
No. That's not the author. I'veseen pictures of the author.

Chris Talgo (17:33):
You know what that looks like to me? It looks like
a fat version of GhislaineMaxwell.

S. T. Karnick (17:39):
Anyway This is an economic phenomenon. You know,
the rise of d a DEI and thetakeover of Hollywood by
particular groups of people thatwere supposed to represent
supposedly unrepresented voicestook over. And the the movies
went into the pits. Nobody couldmake any money doing this, and

(18:00):
the reality has struck back. Andinterestingly enough, it does
come after we had a bit of aslowdown in the economy.
The author of that piece makesthe point that in the nineteen
twenties, oh, women were so freeand so psyched up and
everything. And, then innineteen thirties, oh my gosh.
It was terrible. But what wasit? In the nineteen twenties,

(18:21):
everybody was free.
Everybody was psyched up, andeverybody was, being a bit
irresponsible. And, then afterthe stock market crash and the,
onset of the Great Depression,everybody became much more
conservative. That is the way itworks. When there when there's a
lot of easy money, people actout. And when you take that
away, they have to getpractical.

(18:42):
Now the main thing here, though,is that the the essential
thought that this woman has isto really be foundation of
modernity, which is the notionthat every human being is a
tabula rasa, a blank slate, andwhatever happens, to them in
their lives will determineeverything that they will do. So
her thinking is that, well,there's no such thing as a male

(19:04):
or female coming out of thewomb. It's just whatever you
however you treat them, whateveryou do with them. So you can
take a a male and and give itall the right treatment and all
the right, let's say, propagandaand punishments and turn that
gaze elsewhere. I don't know.
Maybe, again, to as as Jimalluded to some other kind of

(19:28):
gaze. I don't know. But thepoint is that we're not tabula
rasa. We know that, and it getsproven every time you try to
make human beings into somethingthat they aren't. And this is a
another hilarious lesson inthat, and, I'm enjoying it.

Well, I think one of the things that's really
amusing, kind of Jim alluded toit earlier, is that, a lot of
the people that she leans on forthis article I mean, she pulls
five or six universityprofessors to comment on this,
and they're all just quotingstuff that we've all heard
before a thousand times. They'remad that there was a Carl's

(20:12):
junior ad with a woman sharingbare arms or something in it.
They're mad, at Harrison Butker,of course, which is crazy
because one paragraph so she shewrites Kansas City City, Kansas
City chiefs player HarrisonButker spoke at a college
commencement in 2024 and toldthe women that they have been

(20:32):
told lies about their futuresand probably were more excited
about being wives and mothersand taking on careers. Okay. And
so he frames this like that'snot true, one.
And then goes on to say,however, those voices are being
met with other perspectives. Menadvocating that sharing the
mental load of running ahousehold is part of being in a
family or that protecting andproviding includes supporting

(20:53):
your wife and caring for theemotional well-being of those
you love. Men can be strong,good listeners and be of service
to their family. Men who cantake care of themselves and
aren't just good adults, theymight be more attractive to
women. Okay.
Nothing that Harrison Butkersaid was not that. Like,
Harrison Butker and his wifeprobably have a far more

(21:14):
balanced and, you know, like,home life than somebody who has
to make, like, an actual chorelist for their husband and who
is mad at him for not emptyingthe dishwasher, loading the
dishwasher the right way, orwhatever it is. Like and look.

But, you

know, have our way to load the dishwasher, but
literally me. But yeah. No. Butbut she's she's, like, created a
straw man of him in order to tofight him when when there's
nothing that Harrison Butchersaid that's remotely

(21:55):
controversial, if you're saneanyway.

I'm just gonna go in a slightly different
direction here. So I can't helpbut myself, but always view
things through a historicalprism. And when I think back,
you know, the human experiencefor hundreds and hundreds of
thousands of years, women werethe caretakers, men were the
providers. That is deeplyingrained within our DNA. You
cannot just snap your fingersand say, well, in the nineteen

(22:19):
seventies, we're just gonna saythat now everything, that's, you
know, been been part of ourcivilization for thousands of
years, we're just gonna erasethat.
And I'm not saying that womenwomen and men are not equal, but
they're different. They'redifferent for very fundamental
reasons. I was lucky enough. Mymom, was, you know, home, you

(22:40):
know, during my childhood. And,this whole notion of of women
should join the workforce and,you know, two income households,
I mean, I think that that ishaving a profound, negative
impact on the country.
And, you know, there's so manydifferent aspects of this that
we can go into, but to me, it'sjust, like, you know, just just
simple common sense stuff. Men,for better or worse, are

(23:02):
supposed to provide for thefamily. Women, for better or
worse, are supposed to make surethat the household and the kids,
have everything that they need.

Jim Lakely (23:13):
Yeah. Let me let me just say something real quick.
We could maybe move on. But, youknow, that division of labor and
and you alluded to this, Lynea,that, like, kind of division of
labor between a, you know, ahusband and a wife that she just
that she describes. And she Ithink the implication here was
that that's not the kind of lifethat Harrison Butker or anybody
who has a trad wife wouldactually live.

(23:34):
Yeah. And it's completely theyou know, that's not the case. I
mean, there's the old clichethat, you know, liberals don't
understand conservatives at all,but conservatives tend to
understand where liberals arecoming from because we're just,
you know, swimming in theircultural milieu our entire lives
in every in every aspect of ourlife. But, you know, this this

(23:57):
leftist feminist, you know,radical feminist viewpoint of
relationships is that arelationship is a competition
and that there's a winner and aloser and that the women have
been coming out on the losingend for far too long, and
haven't we all agreed we'rethrough with that? That is so
toxic and incorrect.

(24:19):
I mean, the division of laborthat that was described in that
thing absolutely almostperfectly describes my family
and home life. My wife and I,there are blue jobs and there
are pink jobs. We joke about it.You know? And, there are certain
things that I do around thehouse that I don't want her
doing or there's no reason forher to do it.
I'm I I'm better at it, youknow, repairing around the
house, things like that. Andthere are things that, she does.

(24:41):
I can also do them and do alsodo them. You know? But we have a
cooperative obviously, we'revery happily married.
We have a cooperative home life.And this whole idea that it
takes, a radical feministviewpoint to correct something
that isn't even a problem is whythere's such a problem here and
and why there's such adisconnect between articles like

(25:01):
this, the viewpoints of theradical left, and the real life
that everybody around themactually lives.

So, yeah, I I agree with you that there's a leftist,
like, cultural, part of this.But I also go back to the Obama
years when it was the life ofJulia, and I vividly remember
that the the the theme of thatwas you don't have to be
dependent upon a man. You can bedependent upon the government.
The government will supply youeverything you need, your health

(25:28):
care, your your your groceries.I think that that that's also a
big part of this.
And, Sam, you know, you and Ihave been talking about 1971
and, you know, getting rid ofthe, the the gold standard here.
And when you when you look at,the the two income, you know,
trap, it really did start aroundthat time because, you know, so
many women did have to enter theworkforce. And what did that do?

(25:49):
That I'm not saying that that'sa bad thing at all. But when
when you're forced to do thatjust to make sure that you can,
you know, sustain your yourfamily, I feel like that is, you
know, something that many womenprobably don't necessarily want
to do, but feel that they'reforced to do.
And when I was teaching, Iremember so many of the
teachers, they would takematernity leave, and they would

(26:10):
come back and just be like, Idon't wanna be back here. I
wanna be back home with my kids.And that really, you know,
always, like, hit me hard. Well,then why why don't you? And I I
understand, though, that some ofthem didn't have that that that
choice.
So I think there are societalpressures at play here, but I
also do think that this is partof the, everything's relative,
and there are no black and whitedistinctions between anything.

(26:35):
You know, men and women aredifferent. You know, that that
that we could you cannotovercome that. Okay?

Yeah. And, you know, who pushed this idea
that women are inferior? It wasthe feminists back in the
seventies giving the idea thatif a woman cannot be a man,
she's less than a man. And neverever accounting for feminine
strength, what that actuallymeans, which means in many ways,
women are stronger than men, notnecessarily physical strength,

(27:04):
but in so many other ways. Imean, this goes back to ancient
days in the bible.
I mean, it's just part of ournature. They just don't
understand it. They don't getit.

Chris made an important point, and I just
wanna jump in with a littlequick comment, which is that the
the need for two incomes inorder to buy a house pushes
women into this situation. Sowhen you say, oh, I a woman
doesn't want to be lorded overby a man or bossed by a man. Oh,
I can understand that. Thatmakes sense. I don't think I've

(27:36):
ever seen it in a real couple.
But okay. Let's let's let's saythat that's the case. But then
they go into the workforce, andthey're bust over and lorded
over by by people that that haveno relationship with them
whatsoever, that don't have to,you know, live in the same house
as they. It it isn't it isn't itmore fulfilling? I think it's

(27:59):
it's clear that even many menwould find it more fulfilling to
spend more time with theirfamily instead of being, you
know, sort of I I hate to use aa word like this, but sort of
enslaved to a multinationalcorporation and and live in a
cubicle.
I don't see how that's much ofan improvement. So we always

(28:20):
need to look at what are what'sthe alternative that you're
measuring against? If you'remeasuring against, I don't know,
being being rich, super richand, living in a boat on, off
off course off Europe somewhereoff in Europe somewhere, that's
one thing. But if you're talkingabout in practical terms,
working around the house andraising your children and being

(28:42):
around them all the time andbeing around other neighbors and
so forth and and and things likethat, as opposed to living in a
cubicle and and punching buttonson a computer all day. Let's
let's be fair.
Let's see what people reallywant and then let them have it.

Just lastly, I just wanna say one thing. The job of
a mother to provide a loving,you know, and and and safe
household, there's nothing moreimportant than that. So I don't
care if you go and earn$10,000,000. If if you're not
doing that, then nothing elsematters. And there have been so
many studies, and some of theseare anecdotal, but people, women

(29:22):
who in their early forties say,oh, jeez.
I really regret not having afamily and and being so career
oriented because, know, unlikemen, women only have a, you
know, a time frame there thatthey can have a family.

Yep. Well, we could honestly like like Jim
said or you know, likeeveryone's been saying, we could
probably do an entire episodejust on the social breakdown,
and and maybe we should. Thatmight be interesting. Maybe if
the if the audience isinterested in an episode like
that, we can do that. But I dowanna move along to a little bit
of policy stuff starting herewith a piece from the epic times

(30:02):
about decoupling from China.
US may decouple from China ifrare earth's dispute persists.
Remarking on The ongoing USChina dispute over rare earth
exports, treasury secretaryScott Besant Besant said during
a October 15 press conferencethat if Beijing refuses to act
in a as a reliable tradingpartner, The United States and

(30:23):
its allies may have no choicebut to decouple. While it's not
in Washington's desired outcome,he said that it could become
unavoidable giving China'sposture in the current standoff
over rare earth supplies. InApril, Beijing expanded its
export control list to includeseven rare earths and magnets
made from three of them,rattling global supply chains in
defense, electronics, andautomotive industries. And then

(30:46):
in July, Washington and Beijingreached a framework to
facilitate shipments, pausingthe heavy tariffs for ninety
days, yet disruptions persisted.
And on October 9, China addedfive new rare earth elements and
dozens of processingtechnologies to its restricted
list. Trump accused Beijing ofsinister and hostile actions and

(31:07):
threatened a new 100 tariff onChinese goods. Bessen said that
for twenty years, anytime that abusiness in a market based
economy launched or refined aprocess, China would swoop in
and undercut the pricing inorder to put that company out of
business. So, Sam, this is badstuff, honestly. And it and I've
said it before, but it's sort ofmaddening that we even got to

(31:29):
this place.
Bessent said that everyone wasasleep at the switch in the
nineties on the China issue, andit's been building since then.
So how on earth is this freetrade, one, internationally with
China? And two, what are wegonna do about it, and what can
we do about it, really?

Right. It's certainly not free trade, and it
in fact destroys free trade.What you have here is a
situation where The UnitedStates consciously decided to
couple with China and to allowthe the, well, the the
deterioration and ultimatelydestruction of our own mining of

(32:06):
these minerals and the like. Andso what happens when you and and
I think one big reason for thatwas environmentalism that we we
thought, well, we want thesebeautiful valleys and hills of
that don't even have any treeson them. We want it, but they
they look they look orangebecause there are beautiful
minerals there.
So we we want these areas to beuntouched. And there are ways of

(32:29):
touching these areas and gettingthe the materials out and the
minerals out without, damagingthem permanently. So I think
that what happened was there wasa combination of things, but in
particular, environmentalism inThe United States was, I
believe, a big part of whathappened there. So when you when
you remove all those, all thoseindustries, then, of course,

(32:53):
you're going to have to dependon someone else that that was
obviously shortsighted. And thisis the problem.
It's the shortsighted nature ofof government and the
shortsighted nature of bigbusinesses. They will operate on
the basis of what, what, looksgood today. So we need to
operate on the basis of what isgood for us in the long term.

(33:14):
It's clear that returning towise and and, well considered
mining and and other extractionactivities is the right thing to
do. We're not going to be ableto do without that.
Now how do you get from todaywhere everything is is coming

(33:36):
from China to tomorrow whereit's where it's not, and you're
you're you're doing it in house.Well, the way you get there is
you start today, and you youhave to start mining. You have
to unleash these industries.Until we do that, we're simply
going to be going in the wrongdirection continually.

In in in response to the question that I see on
the left, is The United Statesdecoupling from China? The
answer to that is no. Of coursenot. We're not gonna ever
decouple completely, although Ithink a decent argument can be
made in favor of that. But Ithink what this really boils
down to is our dependence onChina for these, rare earth
elements and rare earthminerals, especially in relation

(34:17):
to, these, you know, electricvehicles, windmills, solar
panels, and all the componentsthat are needed to build those.
So if we were to say that we areno longer going to engage in
stupid policies that, putwindmills and solar, panels all
over this country and, mandatepeople to drive EVs when they

(34:39):
actually don't want to becausethey're not, you know, they're
not, feasible, this would not bea problem. So I think that
really what this is about is,obviously, China and The United
States are in some pretty toughnegotiations in terms of this,
big trade deal. And I thinkChina's probably coming from a
position of weakness here andtrying to say, look. We can cut

(35:00):
you off from this. But I alwaysgo back to this.
China depends a lot more on usthan we depend on them. You
know, China's not doing verywell. China is struggling
mightily. They no longer areChinese exports in The United
States are down, 50%, since thethe, quote, unquote, trade war
began. And what they have beendoing is they've been dumping
their product to Europe, andeven Europe is now starting to

(35:22):
say, no.
We are not gonna be taking theseanymore because it's starting to
have deleterious effects on theEuropean economy. So I think
that China is actually comingfrom a position of total
weakness on this, and it reallyseems like it's pretty desperate
that they would even go downthis road because, once again,
we have we as Donald Trump lovesto say, we have the cards in

(35:45):
this relationship, and, I don'tthink this is gonna play out
well for them.

Well, I hope you're right, Chris, because it
does seem like kind of insanethat one country and and, you
know, a country that's our enemygeopolitically, can just turn
the spigot off on essentialmaterials for

Sam said, we've done that to ourselves.

Yeah.

We have done this to ourselves. And, you know,
it's gonna take years. It'sgonna take a lot of patience.
You know, one of the things thatI've been thinking a lot about
recently is how, just howinstant gratification people are
even with these these problemsthat have been, you know, in
place for decades, and they'regonna take years to actually
turn the corner on. So whenpeople say Trump's been in the,

(36:28):
you know, Oval Office for, what,nine months now, the economy is
not great.
Well, because the economy wasgoing in a downhill slide for, I
could make the argument,probably almost sixty years, and
it's not gonna just turn aroundin sixty days. It's gonna take
probably a long time, and you'reit's probably gonna take a lot
of, pain and suffering if wereally wanna, you know, get get

(36:48):
things back to the way that theyneed to be. But it's it's it's
the old thing of delayedgratification. Sometimes you
just have to be patient.Sometimes you just have to say,
you know what?
It's gonna be a little bittough, but this is the right
thing to do. And over the longterm, it's gonna be beneficial
to the American people. Andthat's just my my go to standard
of almost everything. You know,that that's the lens that I see
all these things through. We'renot here to make China, you

(37:10):
know, a great country.
We're here to make America agreat country.

Anne Marie, I see, you look like you have
something to say about it. Yourmic is muted at the moment.

It's hang on. There we go. Because I
remember the nineties and whenwe made China the world partner
in the World Trade Organization,I think it was 1998 or
something. Everybody was soexcited that this was going to
change the world, that it wasgoing to lead to peace. We were
no longer gonna have anadversary based on this idea

(37:45):
that trade is a way forcountries to remain at peace.
But my goodness, our history isreplete with examples where that
has broken down. Trade isleverage, and China knows that.
Can The US trust a trading partypartner that's a one party
state, you know, because thereis no competition of parties,

(38:06):
nobody pushing back. You know, Ilistened to a real interesting
talk a couple of years ago atHillsdale College. It was given
by a guy named Brian Kennedy ofthe American Strategy Group.
And the talk, you could probablyfind it online, it was back in
02/2023. It was called BigPharma and the Chinese Communist
Party, and it was based on thisidea as China is gonna control

(38:29):
all our drugs. Are we gonna getaccess to those drugs and so
forth? But in his talk, it itwas amazing. He said China is
not interested in ideology oreven people for that matter, but
their basic interest is controlover natural resources because
they think they're very limited.

(38:50):
And they would do it at theexpense of eliminating everybody
in the world to get it. Youknow, China was the country that
had a one child policy for manydecades, and it was under this
belief that there were limitedresources and we had to control
the population because there isa limit to them. So, you know, I
I don't know how we're gonnaresolve this. I I I am

(39:12):
encouraged that president Trumpis finally giving attention to
this idea that we need to bemore independent, not just on
natural resources like rareearths, but drug ingredients,
which he's making some headwaysand encouraging big pharma
companies to start manufacturingprojects products in The US. You
know, we have to really take alook at our regulatory structure

(39:34):
because there are a lot ofreasons why big companies go
abroad, to manufacture things.
They save money, lessregulation. So these are all
things that we just have tostart thinking about.

Absolutely. And I don't wanna spend too much time
on this. I mean, you know, Chinahas control over most rare
elements for now, but there aretwo that they haven't got, and
that is gold and silver. Sohere's our here's our ad read
transition here, Andy, if youcan pull up the ad. You can have
your own precious metals, youguys.

(40:09):
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I'm blowing it, of course. A lotof people that you will watch in
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guys. They're not wrong thatthese are a good investment, but
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Alright. Thank you, guys.

Jim Lakely (42:11):
Great job, Lynneea.

Thank you. I fomped it again. I don't know
what it is today, but I waspretty excited about that
transition there. Anyways, I doI do wanna jump to our main
topic today because we have anexpert in the house. Anne Marie
is a health care expert.
So I wanted to talk aboutObamacare. Starting with some

(42:33):
commentary that's in TheFederalist, a lot of people seem
to be kind of misinformed on theissue of the Obamacare subsidies
that are expiring at the end ofthis year. And weirdly enough,
they're misinformed by both, youknow, Democrat run mainstream
media and also Marjorie TaylorGreene for some reason.
Democrats are in part holdingthe government hostage trying to

(42:54):
get some of these wish listitems funded. And so here's an
answer that I found was verystraightforward published by
Chris Jacobs over at TheFederalist.
The title is contrary toMarjorie Taylor Greene's claim,
most of the Obamacare subsidiesare not expiring for good or for
ill. First things first,contrary to Greene's claim, most

(43:14):
of the subsidies are notexpiring. Only the enhanced
subsidies passed by the Bidenadministration in 2021 and
extended in 2022 will lapseeffective December 31. The Biden
administration sold thosesubsidies as temporary responses
to the COVID pandemic, andDemocrats want to make them

(43:34):
permanent. Green and others areconflating premiums with out of
pocket costs.
The former are not doubling, andthe latter are rising only
because of the expiration of theenhanced subsidies. So doing the
math here shows that under thisscenario, premiums would rise
from $74 per month to just under$1.59 per month next year. But

(43:55):
if you think that a fullpremium, he writes, for health
insurance comes to only $159 permonth, I've got some land I want
to sell you. So that's the shortfact check. And, anyway, this is
basically a tactic that theDemocrats are using right now to
try and scare Republicans intocontinuing to increase support
and funding of Obamacare, whichthe last time I checked, nobody

(44:17):
likes.
Even if Democrats won't admitit, nobody seems particularly
happy with the way that this isgoing. In fact, this post at
Forbes explains that thisproblem we're in right now with
expensive insurance premiums isbecause of Obamacare. Rising
premiums were not someunexpected consequence of

(44:37):
Obamacare. They were baked intothe law's very structure.
Because of Obamacare's long listof federal insurance market
regulations, insurers had nochoice but to raise premium or
prices to cover their costs.
And that in you know, those thethe problems that were baked
into it include things likecommunity rating, which bans
insurers from charging oldersicker patients more than a

(44:58):
certain amount that and thenthey charge younger healthier
people. There's also arequirement which mandates that
all plans cover the same list ofservice and procedures
regardless of what a patientactually needs or wants.
Guaranteed issue, therequirement that all insurers
sell to all comers regardless ofstatus or age, and economists

(45:19):
have said it from the beginningthat Obamacare is a disaster.
So, Anne Marie, how did we gethere? I mean, why do like
Republicans aren't eveninterested in getting rid of
Obamacare anymore?

Well, I mean, this is something we all
knew. People are fed up withcovering up the bleeding. The
plans have been in effect,theoretically for about eleven
years. They were passed in02/2010. They are everything the
naysayers said about them andworse.
I mean, look at the medicaloligarchy that Obamacare has

(45:52):
created. We've got biginsurance, big medicine, big
hospitals. I mean, we areconstantly having to feed this
beast. And you don't even haveto be a policy expert to see
what is going on. You know, youjust drive down to any big sick
city center, and you see thebiggest building usually in town

(46:12):
is the hospital.
And then you see a bunch of sicklost souls, homeless, mentally
ill, who are untreated, walkingthe streets, physical ailments
being untreated. Our outcomesare not improving. They're
getting worse. And, you know,the building the hospital
building never stops. Where isthis money coming from?

(46:33):
It's not improving. And, youknow, no one this is what's
going on. So, you know, half thepeople in Obamacare are in fully
subsidized plans, and this hasled to a huge amount of fraud.
The Paragon Institute has, donea lot of work on this area, and
there was one thing they came upwith. They looked at every state

(46:53):
of who was getting Obamacareplans, who was enrolled in
Obamacare plans.
And they discovered thedemographics in Florida for the
ones who are most needy far werelike, the people enrolled in
Obamacare and subsidized plansfar exceeded people in the
demographic in the state ofFlorida, for example. So what
happened was because there wasno out of pocket cost, people

(47:15):
could be enrolled in these plansand not even know it. There are
reports of people being doublyenrolled, and that money is
going directly into the pocketsof insured insurance companies.
You know, we've got a lot offraud. I think the one idea that
I've heard, and and I've neverreally seen Republicans as
unified on this as I do today.

(47:37):
Back in 2017 when they tried torepeal and replace Obamacare, it
fell apart. But this time, Ithink they're standing firm.
And, you know, Trump is kindahard to read on this, and we got
the midterms coming up. But Idon't see people protesting,
screaming about, you know, ourhealth care going up. The
premiums will definitely go up,and will finally expose

(47:59):
Obamacare for what it is.
What Congress can do is I thinkprobably their most immediate
solution is to make what we callshort term plans. They are the
most unregulated. They're notregulated by Obamacare, and
they're as close as totraditional indemnity insurance
that we had before Obamacarewent into place. When Trump came

(48:21):
in in 2017, he expanded theseplans. They were always in the
law, but Trump allowed them toyou could get one of these plans
for up to a year and renew themfor three years.
So what that meant is if you gotsick towards the end of your
term, you could get renewedwithout being underwritten. So

(48:42):
you had coverage protection forthree years. And then the Biden
administration came in and undidall that, and the maximum you
could get those plans is forfour months. Nobody wants to buy
a plan that's gonna cover themfor four months because the
possibility of getting sickwould be very high, you know,
without coverage. So Trump's putthose regulations on hold, and

(49:04):
congress needs to codify it.
They need to because it keepsgoing back and forth to these
administrations. And I thinkonce people could see how well
these plans would work, therewould be more political, enable
people feel more emboldened togo to create, you know, much
more free market policies andways that we can ensure people

(49:28):
for health care, expanding HSAs,doing things with HRAs, which
are health reimbursementaccounts for employers, giving
people the option of portableplans. I mean, I could go on and
on about this, but it we're inweek three and nobody seems to
be moving on it. And I thinkthat's an encouraging sign.

Yeah. Well and I I wanted to point out too.
There's another article thatJacobs wrote for the Federalist
where he's looking at, you know,way like, a couple simple ways
that you could fix some of thisrather than just expanding
Obamacare forever. And youmentioned a couple of these
already. So he said Washingtonshould look at making health
insurance portable so it followspeople from job to job, and that

(50:12):
would be using those healthreimbursement arrangements or
HRAs.
So the worker in that case wouldown that policy, and they can
select that coverage that theywant out of it and take it with
them, to their new job or or ifthey, you know, move along from
there. So and then second, healso recommended allowing health
savings account dollars to beable to pay for health insurance

(50:35):
premiums, which seems fairly Imean, it seems like that would
be very straightforward. So whydon't why don't Republicans move
on this stuff? I mean, we'vebeen talking about it as long as
I can remember anyway.

It's definitely not as easy as you make it, though.
See, that's the problem. Thehealth care market is so far
from a free market. It's noteven funny. This goes back to
World War two when, FDRimplement implemented, wage
controls on businesses.
So what did they do? They said,well, in order for us to attract
good talent, we'll offer them,benefits such as health care.
And ever since then, we've justhad this, you know, this,

(51:09):
relationship between, your joband your health care. It's
totally messed up. Fast forwardto nineteen sixties when we got
Medicare and Medicaid.
I mentioned a couple weeks agothat I just read a biography of
Lyndon Johnson, and it's just sofunny when you look back and you
say that they thought that theamount of money that would be
necessary to fund those programswould never even come close to

(51:32):
what it is now. And it's justit's expanded, expanded,
expanded over the years.Obamacare obviously made things
a bunch much worse. I totally donot agree that we we should be
throwing a pity party forinsurance companies because I
vividly remember during theObamacare process that the
insurance companies werecompletely on board because it
basically mandated that you hadto buy a product. And if you go

(51:54):
back to the Supreme Courtdecision, that, I think, is, you
know, just something that I'lljust I'll never get over.
How can you be forced to buy aproduct? How can how can that be
forced upon you? Obviously, theSupreme Court twisted themselves
into a pretzel in order to, youknow, uphold Obamacare. But, I
mean, these these things arejust so, you know, fundamentally

(52:16):
against free market principles.So HSAs that'll help, you know,
indemnity plans, short termlimited duration plans, all that
stuff definitely helps.
But I really wish that we couldget to the core of the problem,
the root cause. The root causeis that the government has
become so involved in healthcare, whether it's con laws,
whether it's you have to havethis, you know, these many

(52:39):
things on, you know, on yourinsurance, whether if even if
you're a man, have to have, youknow, like like a female based,
like, health care services. It'sjust insane. So, you know, it's
it's gonna be a really toughtough tough track ahead here.
Archie Taylor Greene, you know,the reason why she is saying
what she's saying is because herfamily members are on Obamacare,

(53:01):
and they are receiving thesethese, you know, premium,
spikes.
So I can understand why she is alittle bit annoyed that this is
happening like this. I don'tthink that you should just cut
them off, you know, immediately.I do think that you need to
compromise here a little bit. Ithink that you can't just you
you can't just, you know, justslice all the subsidies, you

(53:23):
know, immediately because you'regonna put a lot of people in a
really dangerous position thatare not there because of their
own volition. So I think thatthis needs a bipartisan
approach.
I don't know if that's evergonna happen, you know, given
the current state of WashingtonDC and Capitol Hill, But we need
Democrats and Republicans tocome together and pass a
bipartisan bill that actuallyaddresses the root causes. And

(53:44):
Anne Marie's, you know,mentioned a lot of them, and
there's many more. That is whatwe need.

See, what happens if the premiums go up,
healthy people and young peopleare not gonna be these are not
gonna buy the plans, and themarket's gonna fall apart
because the insurance companiesare gonna be stuck with the
sickest of the sick, and theycan't function that way. You
know, imagine if we boughthealth insurance like we buy
maybe term life insurance whereyou buy it very early on in your

(54:12):
life, you buy it for a termperiod, maybe twenty, thirty
years, you agree that you'regoing to pay a premium for that
extended time, and you hold onto it because if you don't pay
that, you will be underwrittenagain. And if you get sick,
you're stuck. Right? You won'tbe able to buy life insurance.
Imagine if we did healthinsurance that way. That would

(54:33):
incentivize every young healthyperson to get into the market.
And then we probably have tofigure out because the market is
so screwed up now and we havepeople who are dependent on
government health care, youknow, we would probably have to
come up with a backup system forthe significantly disabled
population who have huge healthcare costs. And we were doing

(54:55):
that in 2010 before that. Youknow, states were running like,
in my state of Michigan, we hada program for health care
insurance of last resort wherepeople could apply for this.
And, you know, it covered theiryou know, there's only a small
percentage of the populationthat really needs that kind of
coverage, and, you know, can bedone.

Yeah. Emery, when we talk about health insurance,
we're not even talking aboutinsurance in the classic
definition of the term because,you know, when I use my auto
insurance, it's just somethingvery, very bad happens. I get
into an accident, they've gotta,you know, you know, redo a
quarter panel or something likethat. I don't I don't use my
auto insurance when I go, youknow, get my oil changed. I
don't use it when I go to thegas station.
But that's what health care hasbecome. Another thing and and,

(55:41):
Marie, I know you know much,probably more about this than I
do. But part of the problem isis that you're saying that
everyone, no matter theirphysical characteristics, are
gonna pay the same rate. Butwhat if someone's unhealthy?
What if they're obese?
What if they smoke? What ifthey've got diabetes? What if
they have not taken care ofthemselves their entire life?
And that means that they'regonna be taking a lot more out
of the system than someone whois young, healthy, and and takes

(56:04):
care of themselves. The factthat you cannot have different
rates for different, you know,people based on that is another
huge thing because there is noactual act actuarial, like, data
being used here.
It's just it's

like underwriting. Anybody can jump
on the plan, and we knew thatgoing off. Were like, what would
stop somebody from not wantingto pay a premium and jumping on
to Obamacare when they get sick,which is what goes on, and it
cannot function that way. Youknow, we don't have health
insurance. We have health plans.
These are payment plans. Theydon't do what insurance is

(56:40):
supposed to do, which is toprotect you in a rare but
expensive event.

I'll I'll go to my grave saying that I think
Obamacare was not meant to fixthe health care system. It was
meant to bring in single payerbecause look at what it did with
Medicaid expansion. You know?Look at it just it gummed up the
system so much. And I rememberreally smart people saying that
at the time that, hey.
This is a really tricky ploy by,Barack Obama and company to try
to make it seem like they'reputting in this this, you know,

(57:06):
good solid system when they knowit's gonna fail. And look at it
where it is. Fifteen yearslater, it is completely failing.
Barack Obama repeatedly promisedon the campaign trail in twenty
o eight that that if you passObamacare, your premiums will go
down. The premiums have goneit's they have skyrocketed.

John John Goodman, the copublisher of
Health Care News, alwaysfamously says Obamacare is
nothing more than Medicaid withhigher premiums and copays. It's
a man it's managed care isbasically what it is.

Yep. Yeah. I mean, I you know, Obama, I I was
pulling up some commentary onthis earlier, and it's Obama had
promised specifically that thecost of your health health
insurance for the average, like,American household would go down
thousands of dollars withObamacare. And that's obviously

(58:02):
the exact opposite of what'shappened.

Jim Lakely (58:04):
Even PolitiFact called that the lie of the year.
Do you know how hard it was forthem to actually go forward with
that and to have say Obama wasthe liar of the year?

Well, and you've got people like John Fetterman
too who's talking about how badObamacare has been and how the
subsidies you know, theDemocrats are kind of, like,
cynically using this, at themoment to keep the government
shut down. It's it's it's crazyhow everybody agrees, and it's
terrible, but we can't getanything done on it. Our our

health care system is gonna implode with Medicare,
Medicaid, and Obamacare. Thereare not enough young people to
sustain the baby boomergeneration that are gonna be
taking up a huge cost burden ofhealth care services in the
decades to come. So I just I Idon't I don't see the end game
here. You know, these subsidies,they don't they don't even come

(58:56):
close. They don't even try toaddress the root causes.
It's just paying you know, itit's it's just, trying to mask
the cost. It is a it is not asolution. It is just kicking the
can down the road, whichWashington DC just does on
almost every single issue.

Jim Lakely (59:12):
Yeah. In in the, in the show notes, I've actually
put them if you, in this video,if you go to the description,
you'll see our show notes, andthere's links to all the stories
that we talked about today. Oneof them is from the great, great
Sally Pipes, who is one of thebest health care analysts, in
the country, has a piece inForbes. And she her lead there
says Democrats are panickingabout a looming 75% average

(59:33):
increase in out of pocket costsof insurance premiums next year
for the roughly 6% of thepopulation that shops for
coverage on Obamacare exchanges.I don't shop for coverage on the
Obamacare exchanges, and,apparently, only 6% of the
population does.
So we completely blew up thecoverage that everybody liked

(59:53):
for 6% of the population, andand it was passed by lies. And,
again, I have a long memoryabout this. It was basically
shoved down our throats by byhook and by crook. Was it
Christmas Eve or New Year's Eve?Like, in the literally, like, in
the middle of the night Yeah.
To just get it through.

Chris Talgo (01:00:12):
Reconciliation bill too.

Jim Lakely (01:00:13):
Yeah. The that's right. Through reconciliation,
so it didn't need so so itcouldn't be filibustered. Yeah.
Pipes also mentions thatindividual market premiums over
the last decade have beensurging between 2023 and 2014
when Obamacare's regulationstook effect.
They rose 47, and averagepremiums for benchmark plans
rose 75% between 2020 2014 and2024. I know that my insurance

(01:00:35):
is a lot more expensive. I knowthat the insurance the heartless
do pay you know, has to renew aplan every year. Every year, it
gets much more expensive. I knowthat my deductibles are now
higher.
I know that my out of pocketcosts are now higher, and I know
that my services are reduced.Everybody listening to or
watching this podcast, I amsure, has had the exact same
experience. Everything is moreexpensive. The health care is is

(01:00:57):
less is not as good as it wasbefore. This entire thing was
passed by lies by Obama andeverybody else, and whether it's
to get us a single payer or not,I don't know if we're gonna get
there.
But, you know, there are nomarket incentives right now at
all. There were there were a fewbefore, but there are no market
incentives to reduce prices.There are no price signals for
providers or for or orconsumers, and so this is what

(01:01:19):
you get. This is actually theworst of all worlds. And I have
a question for Anne Marie Sheberbecause I I know she's the best
expert out there on health care,especially on this podcast.
I also have a very bad memory ofJohn McCain putting his thumb
down with a freaking smile onhis face. And it was he know it
would have helped us overturnObamacare. So my question to

(01:01:40):
Anne Marie Sheber is what wouldhave happened if we had killed
Obamacare except for JohnMcCain, thank you, with a
freaking smile on your face.What would have happened if we
had repealed Obamacare then, andwhat would happen if we repealed
Obamacare now?

AnneMarie Schieber (01:01:56):
Well, then we had COVID, which turned
everything up side down. So Idon't know what might have
happened. We could have hadsomething even more disastrous
because the enhanced subsidiesthat we're talking about right
now were passed under thepandemic. So this is how people
who have a household income upto $600,000 can get free premium

(01:02:16):
Obamacare plans. So that's whatwe're talking about, by the way,
extending those that extracoverage.
But, you know, you think aboutit back going back in 2010 when
when this thing was passed,every Republican vote against it
and 39 Democrats in the houseand all but one Republican in
the senate voted against it. Andlook what happened the year
later in 02/2010. All thosepeople were kicked out. So,

(01:02:39):
know, you everyone's talkingabout the midterms and how
politically we can't do this.They have short memories because
I'll tell you, we are not wherewe were back then.
There was a lot of fear abouthealth care, and there were so
many other problems thatprobably could have fixed what
we had thought were problemsback then, but we decided to
throw it all out and create abrand new program that just

(01:03:02):
wouldn't work. It was completelymanaged care.

The Tea Party movement actually was born out
of the Obamacare debate. Andlook at how far we've fallen
from that. I mean, I as someonewho does care about the national
debt and our our deficits, it'salmost like it's quaint when you
look back to the deficits of,you know, the Bush years and the
Obama years to where we are nowwith, you know,
$11,000,000,000,000,$2,000,000,000,000 deficits, and

(01:03:26):
that is just gonna go throughthe roof as Medicare, Medicaid,
and Obamacare just eat up moreand more spending.

S. T. Karnick (01:03:34):
I can tell you what the endgame is, and the
endgame is not single payer.Single payer can't happen. It's
just not doable. The the numbthe numbers are ridiculous. I
mean, we're arguing over thesere these silly extended,
subsidies for, for people whoare fairly wealthy.

But, Sam, what if they do single payer, then they
just ration care like they do inin, you know, countries like
Canada and then across I

S. T. Karnick (01:04:01):
don't think politically you can get there.
What because I

hope not.

S. T. Karnick (01:04:05):
The conditions that we're living in today are
different from the conditionsthat even at the time of
Obamacare when they had thedream that they could turn
everything into single pair.What's going to happen is one of
two things. Either it's going tobe fixed slowly by tinkering
with it and slowly drawing downhow much you spend as a percent

(01:04:28):
of GDP of the total economy,slow slowly drawing down that
percentage so that people feellike, well, it's it's it's
helping those who really,really, really need it. Either
that and that is the Trump andRepublicans approach right now.
And and Trump has done that in avariety of other areas as well.
So I think it's it's clear thatthat's what they designed That's

what Medicaid was designed for.

S. T. Karnick (01:04:54):
Well, you know, there you go. And they expanded
Medicaid. Yeah. So they expandedMedicaid, and so they got it on
one end. And then on the otherend, expanding into the
individual marketplace was itwas Obamacare.
So what you have there, though,is you can do that, and I think
you can use a lot of reforms,the ones that we've talked about

(01:05:15):
and so forth, and basically tryto get yourself toward a system
that is universal health serviceaccounts or health savings
accounts. So get toward a systemthat does that, and then those
health savings accounts pay for,catastrophic insurance, and and
you work your way through fromthere. What's what's more likely

(01:05:36):
to happen if the Republicansbreak on this, and and Anne has
alluded to the fact that they'vestood strong so far, and one
wonders if perhaps they actuallyperceive the reality. Because
what will happen if they dobreak is there will be a
collapse. The system is notfiscally supportable.

(01:05:57):
It won't work. It will createeven faster inflation than the
inflation that the Bidenadministration unleashed through
the the inflation reduction actand and its other measures that
were supposedly meant to,straighten things out after,
after COVID. So what's going tohappen is you're either going to
have a a way of saving thesystem by making it more

(01:06:20):
responsible. That's whatRepublicans do, and they've been
doing it for decades, saving thewelfare state, saving all these
these, big money, propositionsthat the government does. So
you're either going to get thator you're going to get a
collapse.
Single payer isn't an optionbecause the collapse will happen
well before you could get tosingle payer.

Linnea Lueken (01:06:41):
Couldn't it be though, Sam, that they'll
they'll put in single payerafter the collapse? Like,
they'll use the the collapse,you know, chaos to say, like,
look. Here's a way that we cando this to make sure everyone
has coverage right now.

S. T. Karnick (01:06:56):
That is a great question, and the answer is no.
They won't be able to do itbecause after the collapse, the
world will be would be entirelydifferent. Things would look so
different from the way they aretoday that no solutions, no
answers that we're that we'relooking at today would have any
applicability to it at all.Things would be so weird, so
strange. And and and think aboutthem.

(01:07:17):
One thing people don't thinkabout is the massive deflation
you would get, the massive dropsin prices that you would get,
and the massive drops in wages,and the massive drops in the
stock market. All these thingswould would crash. So when that
happens, you're you are kind ofstarting over in a lot of ways.
So the one but when you'restarting over, you're really

(01:07:37):
starting over. You're notstarting over in, like, 2011.
You're starting over in, I don'tknow, maybe 1620 or something.

Yeah. John z says road warrior time.

S. T. Karnick (01:07:49):
Not quite that bad, but close.

Sam, I I gotta say I'm not as optimistic on that
one because I I think theconsolidation in the health care
industry is almost paving theway for a, single payer system.
I remember when I was a kid andwe had our little doctor
practice, and you would call theoffice and, you know, you would
just get get get the theassistant and you would make an
appointment. Nowadays,everything is so centralized.

(01:08:16):
You have to go through a gianthospital system. Like, here in
Illinois, it's like we gothrough Endeavor.
I tried to make an appointmentto to do some, varicose veins
and work on my leg. It waseighteen months out. So there's
a huge problem. The doctorshortage problem we've also got.
Also, you know, as these olderpeople who are very sick are
taking extended, you know, care,I mean, that is that that that's

(01:08:37):
gonna cost so much money.
So what like, mean, I just I I Idon't see the solution here.

S. T. Karnick (01:08:44):
Chris, you're making a great comparison, and
that is what you're identifyingand what this whole discussion
has been about is the inintensive, complication and
complex and greater and greatercomplexity of the system as
government continues to intrudeand make more rules. And the
each thing that the governmentdoes is meant to correct

(01:09:07):
something that went wrongbecause of something that the
government did and so on and soforth. And that's how these
systems work. They get more andmore complex until they're not
supportable anymore, and that'swhy the the collapse comes. So I
think it is it is, veryinteresting that we all talk
about, well, how can we save thesystem?
It's true that you can save thesystem. As I said, the way the

(01:09:31):
the Trump and the Republicansare trying to do it would save
the system. I'm not sure thatthat's exactly best for us in
the long term, but I do thinkthat if you save the system and
let it just draw down in sizeand shrink away over time, it'll
be a lot better. It'll be a lotmore normal than a collapse.

I think I think federalism I think federalism is
the answer to this. If you justlet each state you know, if if
California wants to provide asingle payer, you know, coverage
for all, so be it. But thenyou've gotta pay for that. I
would love get

S. T. Karnick (01:10:04):
it without a collapse. You

won't get it? I know. But I would just I I would
just love it if some of the redstates said, you know what?
We're gonna go in the totalopposite direction. We're gonna
have, you know, healthy, robustdeep DPC agreements.
We're gonna have HSAs. We'regonna open the floodgates. You
know what would happen? And it'salready happening for other
reasons. People from the bluestates would go move there
because they're saying, this isbetter.
It's just that It hardly meansBut Obamacare is a big federal

(01:10:26):
law that has just, you know,globbed up the entire health
care industry. So it's just it'sdifficult because these these
federal programs, Medicare,Medicaid, those are federal. You
know, in the states, someobviously are just are using the
federal, you know, dollars, youknow, in a very shortsighted
manner, but that this is sounsustainable. I mean, Illinois
here is such a bad place rightnow in terms of, you know, our

(01:10:50):
our, you know, debt that we owefor, the the unions and their
insane health care benefits, allthis stuff. It's totally it it's
gonna collapse.

S. T. Karnick (01:11:01):
We have recommended to every state in
the country that they considerfiling for the biggest medic
Medicaid waivers they can't Yep.Which is it's obviously not
Obamacare, although there thereare intersections there. But to
to go for Medicaid waivers andand just get out of the system
as as much as you can and sortof create, turn it into block

(01:11:23):
grants for your state, then youcan experiment. These are these
things are all possible, butwill they happen? I don't know.

Happy life for sure.

Yeah. But, Sam, Hakim Jeffries says that
Obamacare would work great ifRepublicans didn't ruin
everything somehow. Yes.

S. T. Karnick (01:11:40):
He's probably right that if you were just to
inflate, massively inflate thecurrency massively, you could
print enough dollars to doanything. Yes. He is right about
that. You'll get your collapse,though.

Yeah. Absolutely. Jim, do you have anything
anything to add here?

No. Only that I'd like to finish the podcast on a
positive note, and I'm justgetting angrier and angrier as
we move along here. And I'mrunning out of the energy to
scream into the microphone. But,know, The Heartless Institute
were a, some people say,exertive think tank, some people
say libertarian think tank. Weself identify as a free market
think tank, and it's depressinglistening to this conversation,

(01:12:21):
to be honest, and how there areas I've mentioned before, there
are practically no if it I thinkit's safe to say.
There are no market pressures onour health care system at all,
not from the free market. Thedecisions that we may make as as
consumers of health care, ofhealth services have no effect

(01:12:42):
on the pricing and theavailability and even what is
presented to you in a healthinsurance plan. It's it's
completely broken. It was badbefore Obamacare. We needed and
the Heartless two's been pushingand had pushed for you know, to
get more market forces into thehealth care delivery system and
the payment system because thatis the only way to bring down

(01:13:04):
costs and increase the qualityof services.
The free market works every timefor that, and it does the only
thing it was never applied to,you know, since we were, you
know, bartering, you know, here,I'll give you a chicken if you
if you take the fever down of mychild over here in a barter
system. That was probably thelast time any kind of real free
markets marketing economics wereapplied to the health care

(01:13:28):
system. And it is depressing tosit here and think as we were
pushing for it back beforeObamacare that you need market
free markets to work to bringdown prices and increase service
you know, the quality ofservices. And we went in a
completely opposite direction.And now it's to the point where
here we are sitting around in aroundtable discussion, you know,
we we did doom scrollingourselves, you know, thinking

(01:13:49):
about how bad it is now and thenhow is it ever gonna get better?
Sam Karnik says, the whole thinghas to collapse. What the hell
does that even look like? Whatdoes the health care system
collapsing look like? I hope itthat's what it would take to do
it, to fix it. I hope it comesfast because I am sick and tired
of my insurance premiums bothfor this organization and
individually rising ten,fifteen, 20% in one year.

(01:14:14):
And I'm just supposed to eatthat because six percent of
Americans needed healthinsurance? Get the f out of
here. It was never aboutproviding health insurance for
poor people. It was about asChris Talgo said, it was really
about getting either getting asingle payer or destroying the
system as it is so that peoplebecome more dependent, if not
directly on the government forhealth care subsidies, dependent

(01:14:37):
on the government to fix thehealth care system in
perpetuity. And that's what it'sreally, that's what every
government program is about.
It's about control. Alright.See, I did have the energy for
it, I guess.

Do you wanna so let me let me calm you down. And
by calm me down, I mean, makethings much worse. So the so the
sometimes Republicans and andconservatives in general can
kind of overattribute the illsof society to Obama
specifically. But there arethree areas where he's really,

(01:15:11):
really the worst president we'vehad on a on a lot of these a lot
of these things, and that's thehealth care issue. That was I
mean, as we've been talking forthe last half an hour,
absolutely abysmal.
Two, college tuition prices.That is all his fault with the,

(01:15:32):
you know, kind of subsidizing ofstudent loans stuff. And then
race relations got worse underObama. So everything just got
worse and more less affordableand and more chaotic. And it's
it's pretty incredible to lookback on it now and think, man,
no wonder we have Trump.
Right? Like Yeah. I mean, lookat what we put up with.

I remember when Barack Obama's investment, his
trillion dollar investment planwas supposed to cure the
economy. And even he just toshow you how, like you know, I I
think Barack Obama is a goodman. I think he's a smart man,
but I think that he just looksdown upon hardworking Americans.
And what did he say? Oh, I guessthose shovel ready jobs are
really all that, like, shovelready.
He just laughs it off. Like, butwait a second, sir. You just

(01:16:17):
spent $1,000,000,000,000 sayingthat this was gonna be the magic
elixir for the great recession,and it did the total opposite.
You know what mean? And and and,Lynea, I think you failed to
mention that Barack Obama, in myopinion, is the grandfather of
the green energy transition scambecause the the, his his stupid,

(01:16:38):
you know, reinvestment act,whatever you wanna call it,
included billions of dollars,you know, for these battery a
one two three, which, Iremember, like, you know, went
bankrupt, like, in a year.
And a lot of those, you know, alot of those, so called green
energy, programs we canattribute to good old Barack
Obama. And what's happened tothe what's happened to the price

(01:17:00):
of electricity since then? Oh,it skyrocketed. Oh, yeah. Right.

Yeah. Well, I would I would attribute I would
certainly attribute him slammingon the accelerator and holding
it there for that stuff. But Iactually blame a little bit the
Bush administration for a lot ofthat as well and Clinton. So
True. He doesn't he doesn't getto to claim all of the glory on
that.
No.

But I but I I do think that he really
mainstreamed it. I think that hereally, like, put it into you
know, he really made it up,like, a big part of the federal
government. I mean, I I agreewith you. I I know that, you
know, even George H. W.
Bush, you know, was was into thewhole climate change, you know,
green energy thing. But, man,Barack Obama, he really, you
know, hit the accelerator onthat, and we have not recovered,

(01:17:44):
you know, since. And it's justso nice to have a president in
the Oval Office who actuallycares about hardworking
Americans and paying our billsand our health care and our
energy prices and allowing us tohave the freedom to choose what
kind of stove we want, what kindof washing machine we want, all
that stuff. You know? That, Jim,is your optimistic note of the

(01:18:04):
day.

Yeah. Know many light bulbs I have in my
basement that I cannot usebecause I don't know what they
are? I have, like, so manyconcoctions of light bulbs.
Like, require all these LED,what was the other?
Fluorescence.

Compact fluorescence.

Get a normal light bulb anymore, and most of
them

When I put three or four, like, five maybe articles
in my washing machine, it can'thandle it. So it's like, what is
this? It's like, I feel like theamount of, like, loads I do has
has increased substantiallybecause of this new washing
machine, this green washingmachine.

S. T. Karnick (01:19:01):
It's such a joke. Right. It turns out to cost
more.

Yeah. And not to mention that your, your HVAC
company can't just repair yourpreexisting machine anymore.
They have to replace it every sooften because they keep changing
up the, like, fluid or thesomething the coolant in it or
something in order to maintainstandards with EPA man, it is
all over the place. It's justlike everything in our

(01:19:26):
government and everything in ourregulatory body exists to do
nothing except for make it moreexpensive to exist.

Well, but when but when you take the subsidies out,
the the free market, you know,put puts puts reality back. And
I just read a couple days agothat General Motors has
announced that they are nolonger basically in the EV
business, and they have lost$1,600,000,000 because of those
federal, $7,500, subsidies thatwent to the rich of the that

(01:19:54):
went to the richie riches ofthis country to go and buy a,
you know, $80,000 Tesla. So youknow what? Jim, maybe maybe
there is a, you know, a shift inthis, just common sense
direction. Maybe?

Stop trying to cheer me up. You're not gonna cheer me
up.

S. T. Karnick (01:20:13):
The the Lynne brought you brought up something
really important, which is theeffect of regulation. Regulation
is a huge tax on the Americanpeople. And the and and when I
say huge, we're talkingliterally trillions of dollars
per year of suppression of thethe offering of goods and

(01:20:34):
services to one another, andthat is a terrible thing. So one
of the things that we have to doand this is, as I said before,
it's the complexity issue thatas you as you create more
regulations, then you say, well,you know, we really need to
change what, what coolant we weput in air conditioners. And,
that didn't come fromscientists.

(01:20:55):
It came from companies thatsaid, you know what? We could
get the everybody in the countryto have to replace their air
conditioners and give the moneyto us in order to give them air
conditioners, new airconditioners. This is all a
scam, but it's this thiscomplexity benefits a few. But,
ultimately, it it just trashesthe entire country. And so,

(01:21:16):
we're we're in the we're wellinto that process.
Happens is change.

Yeah. You create a regulation. People
figure out a way around it. Itmay cause an unanticipated
consequence. Then we come upwith another regulation to undo
that, and we create anotherproblem.
And it goes on and on and on.

S. T. Karnick (01:21:39):
Jim's getting happier.

Know. I've I've We're

not gonna end on that.

Jim, I'm worried about you. Are you okay?

Yeah. If we don't end this podcast soon, I might
have a stroke. So, you know

Yeah. Well, I just thought, you know, people
on the right really enjoybashing Obama, so I thought that
might be a fun way to end theshow. We It's

very cathartic. Yeah.

It is cathartic. Alright. So, you guys, that is
all the time we have today,unfortunately. So thank you
everyone for your attention tothese matters. We are live every
single week on Thursdays at nooncentral on Rumble, Twitter,
YouTube, Facebook.
Anne Marie, do you have anythingthat you'd like to point our
audience towards today?

You know, no. Because I don't wanna get
Jim upset. Oh, you mean in inhealth care news? I'm sorry.

Good things. Good things. Yeah. No. We're working

we're working frantically. I'm afraid
to write the subsidy articlebecause things are changing
every minute. But, yeah, there'sa lot going on. So Absolutely.
You can find it on theheartland.org website.

Alright. Chris, how about you?

I have a shout out to Sam Karnik because he wrote
an amazing op ed that I justedited this morning about the
housing crisis and how housingis so unaffordable for young
people. And, Sam, I'm gonna getinto a great outlet and has a
really good article. So thankyou.

Awesome. You, Chris. Sam?

S. T. Karnick (01:23:04):
Yeah. Thanks. Everybody go to the
heartland.org website and tostcarnek.substech.com where we
cover all these issues and more,and you can just sit there all
day reading and and looking atvideos and the like. And, you
will be highly and greatlyedified thereby.

Absolutely. Jim?

Yeah. I wanna thank viewer Scott Clay for saying
he's praying for me. Don'tworry. I'm healthy. I get lots
of exercise.
I'm in good shape. Doctor givesme the full bill of health when
I can afford to go see him, thatis. Check us out here tomorrow,
1PM eastern time, as we areevery Friday for a great show
called the climate realismshows. I host it, and Lanea is
also on it. So it's gonna be aterrific show tomorrow, so we'll

(01:23:47):
see you then.

Absolutely. You guys, all to all of our viewers
here, if you like yourlivestream pod livestream
podcast, you can keep yourlivestream podcast, but only if
you hit like right now andrecommend our show to your
friends. So, you know, thank youguys very much for watching. For
audio listeners, please rate uswell on whatever service that

(01:24:09):
you're using. Leave a review.
Thank you so much to everybodywho showed up for the show
today, and we will see you guysagain next week. Well, I won't,
but I I'm not going to be here.But the others will see you
again next week. Alright. Bye,guys.

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