School Choice; Intl Students; Economic Data; Russia; Jones act; Ships; China | Yaron Brook Show - Yaron Brook Show

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
The fundamental principles I've read of the national self interest
and individual runs. This is the your own Brook Show,
all right, everybody, welcome to your one Brook Show on
this Wednesday, August six. I know this is this is

(00:27):
kind of early for you guys, so I realized we're
a little, you know, outside of our normal schedule. We'll
see how this goes, and we'll see whether it is
doable to do it this early. Otherwise I'm gonna have
to shift schedules and do it much later at night,

(00:48):
which is which we can do. We'll have to figure
it out, all right, thank you all for joining me.
We can we can jump jump right in with our
first story of the day. And this is kind of
a This is a really positive story, and it really

(01:10):
is an interesting story. This is coming from an article
in the New York Times, and it's great because you
could tell a little bit of a sense of panic
or a sense of worry in the article itself, in
a sense of not knowing how to deal with this exactly.
Here's the title of the article, public schools try to

(01:33):
sell themselves as more students use vouchers. The subheading is
a decline in the number of children and rise in
the number of choices has created a crisis for public schools.
Some are trying new strategies to recruit students. So here's
what's going on. Although last few years, a whole series

(01:54):
of states around the country have adopted a variety of
different programs school choice type programs. Programs are grant parents
money that would have been spent money. You know, for
most of them, this is their own money. Money they've
you know, they've paid in taxes. Money that would have

(02:16):
been spent on the public school is now given to
parents and they have a choice. And again, depending on
the program, some of these programs are better, some of
these programs are not so good. But generally parents don't
have a choice to use that money for a private
school and in some cases even for homeschooling, and parents

(02:40):
are taking advantage of the choice. Parents are pulling their
kids out of public schools and putting them into private schools.
And indeed, homeschooling has taken off since COVID, And part
of this is parents discovered during COVID how poor the
education their kids were getting, and that really disturb them.

(03:01):
But most of them can't afford to pay for education.
Twice once in the form of taxes, and then again,
you know, for a private school. But what these school
choice options provide them is an opportunity to get in
a sense of tax money back and be able to
use their money in order to in order to fund

(03:25):
a private school education. Poor parents who don't pay taxes,
the government is spending money on their kids anyway when
they fund the public schools to which those kids go to.
Now these poor parents are getting the money that would
have been spent on their kids' education in a public

(03:47):
school and giving them the money, and which giving them
the money and giving them the choice as the way
to send their kids. They can still send them to
the same public school and indeed it's still true to
the majority of parents to do that. Or they can
pull them out and send them to private school again,
and in some cases in Arizona, for example, they can

(04:08):
even homeschool. Now, you can criticize this a whole approach
as wait a minute, we don't want government funding education
at all, and that is true. Ultimately, we don't want
government funding education at all. But how do you get there.

(04:29):
You can't just tomorrow abolished private public education and encourage
private schools to rise and figure out and let the
market figure out how to pay for poor kids education.
It doesn't work that way, and you'd be doing a
lot of damage to a lot of people. The reality
is that, like most movements towards freedom, it has to

(04:56):
be done in some kind of gradual manner, in kind
of manner that you know that makes sense, that is
that takes into account the level of taxation that exists
in our society today, the number of jobs that exist
in our society today, the level of wealth that exists today,

(05:17):
and the attitudes and the mentality of people. Just like
I don't believe there should be social Security, but I
don't advocate abolishing social security tomorrow. Just like I don't
think there should be Medicare and Medicaid. I don't believe
you can abolish them tomorrow. I don't think you can
abolish public education tomorrow. Well, let me RePhase it. I

(05:42):
think you can abolish public education tomorrow, but you have
to provide a means by which parents can fund the
education for the kids in the interim. You know, as
you transition towards a free market where people expected to
take it themselves, where people earn more money because they're

(06:03):
more opportunities when where people attacked dramatically less. So I'm
all for a school choice. Particularly I like education saving
accounts because education saving accounts do not, at least, for example,
the ones that I think in Arizona, do not dictate
which type of school you have to send your kid to.

(06:24):
They don't get involved in approving the schools that the
money gets goes to. The parent gets aside that. And
again the option, one of the options is homeschooling. And
then you know, in a well designed education saving account,
the money is in your account, it rolls over from

(06:45):
yet a year as long as you spend it on
educational on educational stuff, you can use the money in
that account. And then if there's any money left after
twelve years, you can use it for or take it out,
and I guess pay taxes on it. I think that's
the way it's designed. Well. It's redistribution of wealth for

(07:10):
some people. For many people it's just a return of
their tax money. The redistribution of wealth is happening anyway.
I'd rather make the redistribution of wealth more efficient and
more effective until we get to the point where we
can't philosophically, politically and economically eliminate all redistributions of wealth.

(07:31):
It's a step towards achieving that goal, and it's a
step that will also educate the public. It's a step
to educate people about the availability of private schools, the
costs of private schools, the availability of homeschooling, and all
the other educational options online schools, AI, tutors and if

(07:52):
they can get if they can get their tax money
back or okay, get a subsidy from the government redistribution
of wealth in the government in order to learn that.
Then when those subsidies are taken away and when taxes
are cut dramatically, people will be used to taking responsibility
for their own kids education and it won't be traumatic.

(08:16):
It won't be a relatively easy transition. What we need
to get rid of as urgent, right. I mean, look,
I think this is important to keep noting. The top
priority is to provide kids with good education, and we

(08:37):
know that the way to do that is to create
a competitive market. That competition will provide a good product
in education. And if we can get competition going, if
we can get a good product out there, millions and
millions of millions, tens of millions of kids will be

(08:58):
better educated. That is a a huge plus. If that
competition can basically eviscerate, eliminate end public education that is
government education, that is government run curriculum. If that competition
will destroy the teachers' unions, that would be amazing. And

(09:22):
if that means we have to tolerate redistribution of wealth
for longer, I mean, it's not going away anyway, then
so be it. I think the priority of eliminating and
destroying the teachers unions, of decimating public education again, government
schools is the number one priority. If we can shift

(09:45):
all the kids into homeschooling or private schools and basically,
you know, eliminate the government schooling sector, then all that's
left really at that point is to have a debate
about who should fund your kids' education. Everybody will know

(10:06):
private schools work. Everybody will know the costs of private schools.
Everyone will be able to estimate how difficult so or
not so difficult it would be for them if their
taxes are cut, to also be able to fund their
kids' education. So it is a huge step in the
direction of shrinking the role of government in our lives.
Getting the government out of the way now I know

(10:28):
the fear. There is a fear that because that vouchers
and some of these school choice programs actually put private
schools under the thumb of government. They they you know,
at the some schools will not be approved for vouchers,
and other schools will be approved for vouchers. And that's

(10:49):
a form of economic fascism, and that's very dangerous because
it turns the private schools into now, you know, under
control of government. And I agree with that. So I'm
pushing for a school choice to be focused on education
saving accounts, education saving counts that do not do not

(11:13):
actually do not dictate which schools the kids could go to.
So to the extent, the programs are bad for private
schools because they put them under the thumber government. Yeah,
let's change those programs and make them better. Let's try

(11:36):
to model the Nevada I I don't even know if
the Nevada program actually ultimately passed, but I think that
Arizona program is probably the best. Let's try to model
that program and try to get it to get it
in place. I mean, look, one of the things about
this New York Times story is that there is a
panic in the public school sector and that's good news.

(12:00):
They're seeing a significant shrinkage in application and a part
of that is lower birth rates, fewer children, and they'refore
less school children. But a big chunk of it, and
they know it is kids choosing not to come to
government schools but to go to private schools or to
be homeschooled, and they can't stand the competitive pressure because

(12:23):
they know they're losing, you know, school districts having to
close significant numbers of schools over the last five years
because of this. And now this is great news. This
should be celebrated. Now, we don't have an ideal yet.
The ideal is one hundred percent private education, all funded

(12:46):
completely privately. That's the ideal, but it's going to take
several steps to get there. You're not going to eliminate
it all at once. And I think education saving accounts
is one step towards that. I think the Trump administration
now has tax credits for education. I haven't seen the
details of that program, but that's another option. I man

(13:07):
supported the option of tax credits for education, so you
get you can deduct the cost of education for your taxes.
That's great again, gives you more money to be able
to make choices around your own kids education, and it's
just a matter of getting back to taxes that you
paid for education to begin with. In Florida, seventy one

(13:28):
percent of children now attend district schools, but that's down
from over ninety and Florida is one of the few
states in the country where the number of school aged
children is increasing is growing. So again I think this

(13:57):
is this is fantechictastic news. In Arizona, I think the
numbers are even bigger because the voucher program or the
it's not a value with the education having accounts program
is even more robust than Arizona than in Florida, and
Floridas is pretty robust. I mean, what you're seeing in
K through twelve education in Arizona is real competition. What's

(14:21):
happening is that public schools are now hiring consultants, marketing
consultants to figure out how to attract more students to
their schools. Now, again, this is good news. This greats competition.
Even the government schools are going to become better because
of this. Now I don't want the government schools to
become better. I just want them to go away. But
since there is no political there's no zero, you know,

(14:46):
political motivation to try to make the schools, the government
schools go away. There's there's nobody out there advocating for
complete privatization and elimination. I'll take what I can get.
And if twenty five of kids can can get to
private schools who couldn't get to private schools before, cool,
that's twenty five kids who are getting a better education

(15:07):
than they did before. If government schools get marginally better
because of competition, that's good. Kids are going to get
a better get a better education. So you know, we're
also seeing charter schools arise. I'm not a big fan
of charter schools because the gains they're paid by taxpayers,

(15:30):
but charter schools face competitive pressures and as a consequence,
is just better than government schools. I want kids to
get a better education. The best could be complete privatization,
but again, that's not happening anytime soon. So let's take
it one step at a time. Let's move in the
right direction, and let's kill off as many government schools

(15:51):
as we can in the process. In the meantime, government
schools are shutting down budgets every time, every time the
government pays a family puts money in their education saving account,
it takes that money out of the budget of a
government school. That means government school's budget are shrinking. That
means teaching unions are getting less powerful. And again that

(16:15):
is all basically good news. So you know, I think
I think it should be celebrated and we need a
hope that over time, what we will see is that
government schools become the minority of schools, the smallest of schools. Now,

(16:37):
it's true that almost all these initiatives are in red states.
You know, Arizona was the first. Arizona's kind of a
is it a red state, is it a blue state?
It's somewhere in between. Nevada again red blue, somewhere in between.
But a lot of red states flowed and others. Texas

(17:02):
has one of the weaker programs and was very, very
difficult to get a school choice program passed in Texas
because it turns out that Republican state representatives from rural
communities in Texas super conservative, opposed school choice because they
wanted to save their local public schools, because their public
schools were the bedrock of their communities and tradition demanded

(17:26):
that they you know, they rule. Communities have public schools,
government schools, so they did not want the competition and
they did not want a vouchers. It was very difficult
to pass it in Texas because Republicans opposed it. But
the reality is that mostly this is a Republican program,
but not exclusively. There are inner city inner cities around

(17:50):
the country which have adopted voucher programs because minority parents
demanded so, and democratic democratic mayors and democratic city councils
succumb to that and allowed it to happen. I think
that pitched right. There's absolutely no reason you can get

(18:11):
Democrats a line around this. Again, particularly parents, particularly parents
in minority communities. So this does not have to be
a democratic Republican issue. It's and I don't think, and
I think pitched right. Over time it won't be because
what worries me is the direction the Republican Party is

(18:32):
heading is away from choice, away from choice and everything,
and much more towards a JD Vance world, which is
a world where curriculum is dictated from the top. And
you don't want private schools, you don't want people making choices,
you don't want people being taught stuff that the authorities

(18:53):
don't approve of You want to make sure that everybody
gets the appropriate patriotic and ethical Christian education that they
that they should be required to get. So the right
is moving away from choice, and that worries me because
you know, the majority in these states. The right that

(19:17):
is leaving needs to be replaced by somebody, And I
think I think certain parts of the Democratic Party could
be attracted to school choice again, particularly those who are
concerned about poor kids and poor families and rich people
having choices and poor families not having choices, which I
think is a is an appropriate pitch, and I think

(19:39):
a right pitch. I think it's an injustice. So you know,
we will see again, as we said, a lot of
government schools shutting down, a lot of kids moving out,
and parents having a lot more choices. That is all
a good thing. It's not a perfect thing. It's far

(20:01):
from perfect, but it's a move in the right direction.
And to get to perfect, we're gonna have to move
in the right direction, systematically, steadily for a pretty long
time to get to where we want to be. It's
gonna take steps. You're not gonna get it all once
unless we have a revolution, and if we had a
revolution right now, I hate to break it to you,
but we would lose. We would lose. All right, Let's

(20:26):
see one of the things that you know, the the
Trump administration is doing, I think one of the more
damaging things that Trump administration is doing as being their

(20:49):
attacks on international students, wrapped up in the whole attacks
on immigration, immigration, legal and illegal. The message the Trump
administration is seting out there pretty clearly, I think being
received by people all over the world is America doesn't
want you. It doesn't want you, even if you're smart,

(21:11):
even if you're productive, even if you're able, we don't
want you. If you're you know, if you're enrolling in
American universities, we don't really want you. I mean, there's
an attitude on the right that says you're taking out
a slot of an American uh and and uh, you know,
go back home. We don't need you and we don't
want you. You know, we saw that attitude is reflected

(21:31):
in the demands that the Trump administration made to Harvard. Uh.
And we're just seeing it in in a you know,
the general attitude towards immigrants that exists in the country
and in a in a message sent of in hospital,
be in hospit that we are not hospitable, right, not hospitable.

(22:01):
And so you know, Trumpet and Republicans are sending international
students elsewhere, which is potentially tragic for the US. Tragic
for the US in a number of different respects. Suddenly

(22:22):
it's tragic because a lot of talent that used to
come to the US, and much of it, many of
them stayed, built businesses, created businesses, going to work for businesses,
brought their brains, brought their skills, brought their minds to
this country, and we all benefited as a result of that.
And now I'm not going to come to this country.
They're gonna come, They're gonna find alternatives. Many of the

(22:43):
Chinese students will stay in China or go to universities
in Europe, and they will skip over American universities. And
even though American universities are supposedly the best, with the
Trump administration cutting science funding and cutting funding for so
many of these university and with them discouraging coming as

(23:05):
international students, what you're going to see is students is
not coming here, even if the universities share the best,
if their budgets are being cut and they're treated, you know,
badly for being follown as they're just going to stay
home or go somewhere else. And that is a massive
loss of brain power for this country. I mean, gone

(23:28):
to the days where people, even Republicans, used to suggest
stamping a greed card to every stem graduate who graduate
from an American university. That's gone. That attitude is gone.
Nobody's interested in them. MAGA wants them all gone home.
They would love to see international student free universities. And

(23:52):
you know, that's the price of having Mega in control.
In addition, the reality is that most of our university
get a big chunk of their revenue from international students.
International students are the only students really you pay full tuition.
By paying full tuition, they are, to a logic st
and subsidizing the in state tuition or the much lower

(24:14):
or the scholarship tuition that so many other students are getting.
Some of that is subsidized by the government, by the
federal government, and some of that is subsidized by the
university itself through the fact that they can charge foreign students,
if you will, above market rates, so that American students
can get below market rates. If oign students are no
longer enrolled in American universities. Let me tell you some

(24:36):
universities are going out of business. Some universities will not exist.
I know universities where a majority of the students are
foreign students, and that's what keeps them alive, and that's
what keeps them growing, and that's where the revenue is
coming from. Other universities will have to shrink, They'll have
to raise tuition on American students. It is going to

(25:01):
suck resources more resources out of our university system. And
while I'm happy if that happens to certain departments and
certain parts of the university, I do not I do
not believe that that is always the case. There's a
lot of incredibly valuable research, most of innovation, to some extent,

(25:26):
particularly in the biology, but in biotech, but even in tech.
A lot of innovation starts at universities. A lot of
the research that started the AI revolution was at universities.
The research is that created the Internet started at universities.
The research that you know, the first Internet browser, the
first Internet browser that became Netscape ultimately was originally Mosaic,

(25:52):
started at a university. So so much I mean think
about think about even Google, and now who would started
as graduate programs at a university with foreign students? By
the way, so you know, so much innovasion comes out
of the universities. Killing our universities and killing the budgets

(26:14):
of our universities is not a good idea. And killing
and destroying I love that Anne knows how many schools
they should be. Maybe she should join the Trump administration's
Central Planning Bureau where she can decide how many universities
they should be and dictate that and maybe figure out

(26:34):
which one should exist and which one shouldn't, and what
they should teach and how they should be run. God forbid,
we actually have a competitive market where you know, the
number of universities is decimned by the number of students
willing to pay tuition to that university. We wouldn't want that.
And if they can attract international students, why would it
be okay to shut them down because that you decide

(26:56):
that too many universities. God, the number of people who
think that they are supporters of objectivism and who have
an inclination towards central planning is truly stunning, truly stunning.
They get subsidized yeah, and therefore you know, but here

(27:16):
I'm saying they're not subsidized. Here, I'm saying they exist
because of the tuition paid by foreign students. These are
the universities that are less subsidized. The more foreign students
they have at a university, the less subsidized they are,
the less the government has to subsidize them because they're

(27:36):
getting it from foreign students. And most of the subsidy
is through student loans, which students have to pay back.
Oh some of them do, anyway, it's not that simple.
I mean, get rid of student loans. I'm all for that,
and let's see what how the market shakes out. But
don't deny student visas to students coming to the United

(28:00):
States to study who are willing to pay out of
pocket cash for their tuition, not subsidized by anybody. Why
because you don't like foreigners? Oh, oh no, it's not that.
It's not that. It's not that. It's that we can't
really criticize the Trump and administration. That's what it's really about.
It's me criticizing Trump. It's no good. It's me going

(28:24):
after saying something negative about Republicans. That's what's offensive. If
Republicans decide foreign students are out, then we should not
disagree with them because hey, they're better than Democrats, so
we can't. We shouldn't criticize the Republicans because they're better
than Democrats, so don't criticize them. Join the tribe, Join

(28:44):
the mindless tribe. All right, let's see, Yeah, I mean
this stuff about economic data is kind of funny. You know,
Trump doesn't like the data. I say, is the guy
in charge of the data? You know, government data is

(29:07):
messy and distortive to go it and doesn't like academia.
And yet so much of the innovation that you benefit from,
including including being here online on the internet, and came
from academia. So much of the of the you know,

(29:27):
life extension drugs that you are about you one day
will receive to extend your life, the treatment you might
get to cure your cancer, come from academia. It starts
out is basically researching academia. You know, would you tube
exist without academia researching academia? So you cannot like academia.

(29:47):
But again that's kind of a silly generalized statement. But
the amount of benefits that you actually do right from
academia if for a moment you give up kind of
the Again, the the conventional attitude, right, Yeah, universities, The
universities are the biggest threat. The solution is not to

(30:10):
shut them down. The solution is not to starve them.
The solution to the university being the biggest threat is
to challenge them intellectually. It's challenged them philosophically, certainly for
the government to stop subsidizing them, but to challenge them philosophically,

(30:31):
but not in a kind of way that destroys the
good in universities. So universities are the biggest threat in
the humanities and in philosophy and in English departments, and
an massive benefit to all of us in STEM. And
even though STEM is slowly being corrupted by all these

(30:52):
other things, it's still, you know, what alternative do we have?
What alternative institutions do we have? So you want to
die quickly, Yeah, let's kill academia. I mean yeah, if
we just shut down all the things I don't like
quickly like that, that's you know, then you will have

(31:12):
we would have a you know, we would all be
a lot poor. You got to think about these things,
think about them, and to just denounce academia per se,
all of it, shut it all down, scrape it all
is just stupid. This is what the Trump administration is doing.

(31:32):
It's just stupid and it's dumb. It's not the right approach. Yes,
government should not be giving, you know, loans to students.
It's something that Obama basically nationalized. Government should not be
funding science. The science should be funded privately. But there's

(31:54):
a way to stop doing it, and there's a way
not to do it. And as you grow every aspect
of government, if you as you, what is it ten
x the amount of money you're giving to ICE, ten
x the amount of money you're giving to homeland security
at the same time you're cutting science funding. How does
that make any sense? If we believe in cutting government spending,

(32:16):
shouldn't we start with not raising more money for a
rights a pressing organization like ICE and maybe leave the
science funding is the last thing we cut. Just thinking,

(32:37):
just saying maybe, all.

Speaker 2 (32:44):
Right, let's see, all right, I was talking about statistics.

Speaker 1 (32:56):
Yeah, so Trump doesn't like the statistics, so he fires
the guy. But the thing is about government statistics is
they're all messy, they're all noisy. Uh. They constantly are
being revised because it's a lot of it's approximation, it's

(33:17):
it's as good as we can get. And yet you know,
the the we have a gazillion of these stats coming
in the government is providing them. As long as the
government provides it, there's a constant fear of them being manipulated,
a constant fear of conspiracy theories. And this is kind

(33:40):
of the Trump thing. Oh, he's a he's biased. I
want my people to produce the numbers. And I think
Trump what Trump's doing is he's he's basically legitimizing the
idea that the numbers are not objective, that the numbers
are purely government creations and political creations, and they're done

(34:03):
to manipulate. So all he's doing is fueling the conspiracy
theories and encouraging them. It reminded me of the fact
that in Hong Kong, you know, Hong Kong, after World
War Two, the British government, as it turned socialists, almost
by accident, appointed as the governor of Hong Kong basically

(34:25):
a classical liberal, the les Fay capitalism guy. And you
know his name was, His name was Sir John Couppeth
Weight Coppath Weight something like that couppath weight. Anyway, Sir
John Coppethwaite actually abolished the collection of government statistics in

(34:49):
the nineteen sixties. He said collecting government statistics were dangerous
because having those statistics enabled social engineering of all stripes,
and they enabled or justified state intervention in economy. So
he just stopped producing them, and indeed, years and years later,

(35:10):
I mean, this is the guy who basically governed Hong
Kong from the end of World War Two until I
think the nineteen eighties. I mean, he had seen one
of the greatest economic booms in all of history. I
mean he governed over a territory that boomed, you know,
became richer than the Motherland. The Mothership became significantly on
a per capita basis, became richer than England, and it

(35:33):
started out started out really, really, really poor. So, you know,
here's a guy who achieved great things, and he was
asked to make to name the one reform that he
was most proud of, and he named it as I
abolished the collection of statistics. I think that's great. I

(36:00):
love that story. I wish didn't collect statistics because I
wish and I wish govern didn't micro try to micro
managed the economy. Unfortunately, my wishes unlikely to come true,
but they have it in Hong Kong for years, for decades,
they did not have statistics on they didn't have a department,

(36:20):
they didn't have stats, they didn't know, and they left
the economy alone. They didn't try to micro manage it,
didn't try to do social jury. Daniel says, my volume
is very low. Do you guys agree with Daniel, Daniel,
anybody else? I think the volume is very low because

(36:44):
it's normal. It's the same as last year. I'm not
yelling as I usually do. I mean a office setting
here that with thinner walls that I have at home.
So yeah, let me know in the chat if you
think the volume is very low, I can't raise it.
But I I don't raise it if it's just Daniel,

(37:05):
and I have no problem raising it if it's a
general problem that you guys also have. So waiting to
see what you're say in the chat. All right, let's see. Uh, yeah,
let's talk a little bit about Russia. Pretty low, Brian

(37:26):
Cross says, lower than usual. All right, let me let
me raise it a little bit and see, all right,
is that better. That should be better. That's I just
raised a volume there. Let's see where else can I
raise it. There's one of the places I think I
can raise it. Let's see sound input. How about that?

(37:53):
Is that? Is that significantly different? Is that a higher volume?
Is that too? Maybe it's too loud? Well, we just
max that out. And why don't we use this a
little bit? All right? Let me know if that is
better or if that is too much or what that is?
What do you think this volume is like? And I'll

(38:17):
try to keep it at this level. If this is
the level you guys like, jasus says louder you want
me to make it louder you want or it is
already louder? Um? All right, let's see one two three,

(38:39):
one two three one two three okay, let me know
your chat the chat is yours, all right? Remind you
reminder for you guys to ask questions in the super chat.
Don't forget to ask questions in the super chat.

Speaker 3 (38:55):
Um.

Speaker 4 (38:58):
Let's see what do we do with this? No, what
did I want to do? I wanted to I wanted
to want to do that. We'll figure it out afterwards.

Speaker 1 (39:14):
All right, it's fine, out, It's fine out it got loud.
But now I don't have to have all my volume
controls on. Max just started me. It's good. Now I
guess I can alter my own as parage was all right.
So Russia, some number of things going on with Russia

(39:34):
is that that I think are interesting. So first, uh,
you know Puts in this meeting today with Witkoff. Trump's
I think latest ultimatum towards Russia is about to expire.
So Russia coming to the table and joining negotiations around peace.

(39:55):
So she's fire, you know us supposed to the ultimatum
is supposed to be up, and whichcover is meeting with
meeting with Putin today and trying to get Putin to
the negotiating table. But the reality is the Putin has
no interest in negotiating right now. He has no interest

(40:15):
in joining the table. He thinks that Trump's tariffs and
Trump's attempts to restrict ability of the Russia to sell
oil and global markets is futile. He is convinced that
he is going to be successful. Indeed, Trump has been
putting pressure on India to stop buying Russian oil, but
India is basically saying, we're not going to listen to

(40:38):
Trump about these things. We're going to do our own thing. China,
of course, rush buys a huge amount of Russian oil
and Trump is trying to put pressure on China to
stop that. But the Chinese, again are telling Trump that
they're not interested. This is a real, a huge sticking
point in the negotiations around tariffs between the United States
and China. And on top of that, the reality is

(41:04):
that Putin his demands have not changed around the world.
Putin demands for provinces. He wants Luhan's, donesk Zapporichia and Gilshan,
all those three provinces to be part of Russia, and
he will not engage in a piece unless that happens.

(41:24):
Putin believes Russia's winning, and he doubts the US sanctions
will have any significant impact on Russia. And he doubts
that Trump is willing to provide Ukrainians with enough arms
to make a difference. Trump has basically been very, very
weak on Ukraine, has caddled Putin, has given him every

(41:48):
reason to believe that sanctions will not be effective, has
given Putin every reason to believe that Trump will not
go full in a Ukraine and support Ukraine, and as
a consequences, Putin is saying, yeah, you know, I'm not
gonna I have no interest in stopping this. I can
keep going. Indeed, I think Putin today' views the war

(42:10):
as necessary for survival. I don't think he can afford
to stop this war. I don't think he can afford
to stop the war without actually declaring victory. And to
declare victory, he's stated those four provinces at the very least,
those four have to be a part of Russia. Now,
Russia's making slow progress on the battlefield. It is moving

(42:32):
the lions slowly. There's been no major summer campaign that
has achieved any significant victories, and the victories are all
costing Russia massive numbers of casualties in both men and equipment.
But Ukraine is not gaining anywhere either. That is, Russia's

(42:55):
grinding away inch by inch and gaining Ukrainian terret it slowly.
But I guess surely at this rate it'll take them
years to occupy the territories that Putin demands be part
of Russia. But Putin seems to be in no hurry,
and I think he is counting on the West's impatience

(43:19):
and the ultimate weakness and the fact that they will
ultimately give in and collapse and not support Ukraine. And
I think he's counting on Ukraine's internal politics to implode
and ultimately for Ukraine not to be able to sustain
itself in a state of war. This is why he's

(43:39):
pounding the civilian areas of Ukraine. This is why he's
NonStop sending missiles and drones into Kiev and into other
cities in order to try to grind away at the
willingness of the Ukrainians to stand up and fight, to
stand and fight, and so he goes after the civilian population.

(44:03):
But you know, he definitely still hopes uh and and
has no doesn't see any option but to try to
win this war. So Putin views himself in a strength position.
I don't think he has much respect for Trump. I
think he thinks that Trump is is not very smart.

(44:24):
I think he's right. I think he thinks he can
play Trump. He's He's done it over and over again
over the last over the last you know, nine years.
And the reality is politically Trump Putin cannot afford to
end the war, he cannot afford not to win, and
therefore he won't allow it, you know, he won't stop,

(44:49):
and and Trump could threaten. Trump had said all the
negotiators he wants it's not going to have an impact.
One of the kind of funny parts about all this
and about what Trump is doing, is like Trump is
putting a lot of pressure on like China and India
because of imputing oil from Russia, and he wants them

(45:12):
to stop. And so, you know, earlier, I think it
was today, Trump was asked, well, what about all the
stuff the United States inputs from Russia? Could you give
us an update? He was asked about US importing uranium

(45:32):
and fertilizer from Russia in spite of all the sanctions,
and Trump said, I don't know. I don't know anything
about that. I have to check it out. And this
is what's funny about it, right, I mean, Trump is
putting pressure on all these other countries. But the reality

(45:55):
is that the Trump administration and the Biden administration have
continued to buy stuff from Russia NonStop since the war started.
In indeed, to the right now, the United States imports
billions of dollars worth of Russian energy and commodities, primarillion
rich uranium since January twenty twenty two, the United States

(46:17):
has imported twenty four point fifty one billion dollars of
Russian goods in twenty twenty four Loan watching an imported
fertilizer worth one point twenty seven billion, uranium and plutonium
worth six hundred and twenty four million, and palladium worth
around eight hundred and seventy eight million dollars from Moscow. So,

(46:41):
you know, it's kind of a little bit hypocritical for
the United States to basically say to India or to China,
to any other countries, you shouldn't you can't import stuff
from Russia when the United States is doing And again,
this is the Bide administration, Trump administration. They all did it.

(47:03):
Uh you know, it's it's it's also mhm, it's also
a reality. It's so far. Yeah, you know, Trump has
done very little. Uh too, He's got we've got tarison Canada,
We've got tarison Mexico. We've got tarisan countries all over

(47:27):
the world, many of them are allies the EU. And yeah,
we have no tarifts in Russia yet. So our enemy
is cool. Enemy is no problem. It's our friends who
we wanna We wanna you know harm we want to
do damage to it's so incoherent. And finally, I want

(47:47):
to show you it's graph. It's it's it's it's really cool.
But everything you need to know about the suicidal nature
of the European Union is in this graph. Look at
this graph. This is a graph of natural gas production
Russia versus Europe nineteen ninety to twenty twenty. Right, natural
gas production nineteen ninety to twenty twenty, and you can

(48:09):
see that there was a period in which the European
Union actually produced more gas than they imported from Russia.
This is actually Russian Federation export, so this is exporting,
not just the Europe right, And you can see that
Europe used to produce more natural gas itself than Russia did,

(48:34):
or that Russia exported. And yet you know this is
today Europe produces almost no natural gas. So they peaked
in around two thousand and since then it's just gone down.

(48:57):
And what's the cause of that. Did Europe run out
of natural gas supplies? No, there's plenty of natural gas
in Germany, in Poland and other parts of northern Europe.
I mean in Ukraine, but Ukraine is not part of
the EU. In Britain, Great Britain, huge natural gas. Of

(49:17):
you need to use fracking to get them, but they're
there now. What has happened is the European Union, in
the name of environmentalism, in the name of protecting the environment,
in the name of climate change, has stopped producing, has
stopped drilling for natural gas. And in the name of ooh,

(49:38):
fracking causes I don't know, earthquakes or something. They have
stopped tracking for the same reasons they stop, similar reasons
to them stop producing nuclear energy. European unions to stop
producing natural gas. And so the dependency on Russia or
the dependency generally on importing natural gas, it's not a

(50:02):
consequence of the fact that they don't have any locally.
They have it locally. It's one hundred percent consequence of
their green policies, one hundred percent consequence of their crazy
environmentalist policies. And you know, this is what's killing Europe,

(50:22):
the lack of productivity, high energy costs, high electricity costs,
massive regulations, many of them in the name of environmentalism,
others in the name of just regulating, name of controlling,
in the name of you know, rejecting freedom. European Union
sees no innovation, very little tech innovation, very little biotech innovation.

(50:45):
And the consequence of that is Europe is fading. It's fading,
and it's economically, it's fading, demographically, it's fading in every respect.
You know, maybe militarily we'll see a reboth of Europe
within now commitment to building up their military. But you know,

(51:06):
I believe it when I see it all. Wait, this
was a funny story, you know, the Jones Act. I
think I've told you many times about the Jones Acts.
Jones Act basically says it's pasted in nineteen twenty, nineteen
twenty and a consequence of World War One, when the
US enlisted the merchant marines, that is, the civilian ships

(51:28):
American civilian ships to transport troops and materials from the
United States to Europe during the war in nineteen twenty.
They wanted to guarantee that they would always have a
merchant marine industry so that they could transport troops to
wherever they needed in the world in case of an emergency.
This was in nineteen twenty, So Jones Act basically says

(51:49):
that if you want to ship anything between two US ports,
the baltimotive Boston, Houston to Puerto Rico, Jacksonville to New York,
Hawaii to La Alaska to Seattle. If you want to
ship anything between two American ports, the ship that transports

(52:12):
the material between those ports has to be American built,
American owned, American flagged, and American crewed, which means seventy
five percent of the crew need to be Americans American
citizens seventy Now, the reality is, as you'd expect, that

(52:38):
there are not many ships like that in the world anymore.
America has become is very very very expensive and very
bad shipbuilder, and therefore there are almost no ships that
are built in the US anymore. And indeed today there's
only seventy two ships that qualify under the Jones Act.

(53:04):
Only seventy two ships they can transport stuff from American
port to an American port. Any other ship that transported stuff
would have to stop in a foreign port on the way.
So if you're shipping from I don't know, La to Hawaii,
you'd have to go to Mexico or to Canada first
and only then go to Hawaii. Then it's okay, and
you have to transport goods in this other port. You

(53:26):
can't just do it symbolically. Jones Act is one of
the most irrational laws out there. It's one Donald Trump
is committed to saving. It's one Biden was committed to saving.
Everybody loves the Jones Act. Nobody knows exactly why, because
one of the dumbest laws that exists. It makes no sense.

(53:50):
It's failed. It's responsible for the unbelievably heavy traffic on
the I ninety five because instead of shipping stuff from
ports from port to port on the East Coast, you
have to truck it because they're not enough ships to
ship it. It's one of the reasons cost of living

(54:11):
in Hawaii and Puerto Rico are much higher than they
should be, because shipping stuff to Puerto Rico and Hawaii
is very expensive because there are very few boats that
can do it. Why does the Jones Act still exist?
Because the Jones Act has a a small group that

(54:32):
lobbies very heavily for it, and almost nobody who lobbies
against it. Trucking companies lobby for the Jones Act, but
then of course the ships themselves lobby for it. The
merchant marines that people who are on the ships lobby
for it, and then the conservative nationalists love it because
they believe that with a Jones Act we will become

(54:55):
a shipbuilding country. Again, We're never going to become a
ship building county. So here's kind of an anecdote from
the Jones Act. Right, there's a twenty one year old
Jones Act ship, Sewers Max. It's a tanker, right, and
it needed repair. It needed to repair, so it was

(55:19):
sent to Singapore to repair the ship. It cost It
cost sixty million dollars to repair the ship. Now, if
you bought a new tanker they had been built in
China or built in South Korea or Japan, those are
the three big ship building countries in the world today,

(55:41):
it would have cost eighty six million to get a
brand new She paid sixty to repair it. Because if
you bought a ban you from one of those countries,
it wouldn't have been a Jones Act ship anymore. And
of course Joan have ships make a lot of money
because they have a little monopoly going on the only
ships that can transport goods from two between two US ports.

(56:06):
If the ship had been built in the United States,
if you wanted to build a new ship like these
Sewers Max, another tanker. A US built tanker exact same specs.
It would cost in the United States to build it
five hundred million dollars. Can build it in South Korea

(56:27):
or Japan for eighty six million in the US five
hundred million dollars. We don't have a ship building industry,
We're never going to have one, and this is just nuts.
It's just plain nuts. In the meantime, Japan has a
thriving ship building industry and it builds not only civilian ships,

(56:49):
that builds military ships. And indeed, Japan just signed a
big contract with the Australian government. It's a ten billion
dollar ten billion Australian dollars six point five billion American
dollars to build warships for Australia. This is the biggest

(57:11):
defense sale that Japan has ever signed. They used to
have a ban on the exportation of military equipment. That
ban was repealed in twenty fourteen, and this is the
biggest deal since then. They're going to ship They're gonna
build three upgraded Mogami class multi role figures. Japan builds

(57:36):
some of the best figures in the world, and in
Japan indeed has one of the best navies in the world,
and they will also help the Australians build eight more
of these figures. These are Japanese designed figures in Australia.
So Japan is one of the one of the great
ship building countries out there. It is incredibly successful and

(58:01):
now it is starting to build become a defense contractor
and sell ships overseas. It might make sense for the
United States Navy to consider outsourcing building some of the
submarines and ships that we're building in the United States
to the Japanese and South Koreans, given how pathetically slow

(58:24):
we are at building our own ships. I mean, the
United States has just been a disaster when it comes
to building ships. When it comes to actually, yeah, you know,
getting on navy modernized, we are way behind the Chinese.

(58:45):
And part of the reason is is that we're not
utilizing we're not utilizing in a small way, the capabilities
of our allies like South Korea and Japan. Yeah, I mean,
this new Mogami figeates a much more modern, much better

(59:11):
equipped and have a much much much bigger range than
the existing Australian fleet. And of course all of this
is important for the US because this is part of
one would hope an alliance that Australia and Japan will
be part of that is geared to defend to defend

(59:32):
the Pacific against Chinese dominance, in particularly if China invades Taiwan.
But even if China just gets aggressive in terms of
its want of control over the Pacific. Let's see. Yeah,

(59:54):
So let's move to China a little bit. China, as
we know, as I've talked about on this show many
many times, there's real economic problems, and part of the
belief within the Chinese government is that some of those
problems stem from the fact that Chinese are saving too much,
saving too much, and they're not spending enough. They're not

(01:00:16):
consuming enough. As a consequence, there's not a lot of
consumption inside China, and therefore the whole Chinese economy is
geared towards exports, which brings in revenue in dollars, which
then is used to save, and much of that saving
flows back to the United States. And what the Chinese
government would like to do is so the Chinese people

(01:00:39):
to spend more and to borrow more, to borrow more
in order to drive domestic consumption and domestic services. They
want to shift as much of the economy. They want
to make it like America. See, we need to make
it complain about we don't save enough, we consume too much,
and our consumers are too much in debt. The Chinese
complain because they consumers save too much, they're not enough

(01:01:00):
in debt, and they're not going to consume enough. And
this is the problem. Neither country has a free market
to see what con cheers would actually do in a
free market. One of the reasons the Chinese saves so
much is because they are not secure in their employment.
They are new to being middle class, they're new to

(01:01:21):
having money, and they're afraid that the money will either
be confiscated by the Chinese government it's an authoritarian government
after all, or they're afraid that the government is going
to their jobs will not be there. They're afraid that
the economy will plummet. They don't know what the central

(01:01:43):
government is going to do, so the Chinese worried about
their own future. It is true, by the way, that
China has no welfare state. It has very little in
terms of retirement savings and stuff. A lot of people
in China actually save for retirement, talk about the rational

(01:02:05):
thing to do, whereas in the United States. One of
the reasons we don't people don't save is the government
has basically told them, don't worry about retirement. We're going
to take care of your health care through Medicare. We're
going to take care of your income through SOID security.
Don't save. China hasn't reached that level of depravity yet,
so it's people actually save their incentivized to do so.

(01:02:30):
But it's also true that the Chinese feel like the
economy is not going well. They feel like they're in
a precarious situation, and they are wary of taking any
risks as a consequence, so they hold on to their
money and they save it, and many times again they
save it by investing Indian America. Right now, you know,

(01:02:56):
Chinese households have lost a lot of their wealth in housing.
Housing prices plummeted. People had second or third homes that
they had bought on spec they'd put money into and
they're never going to see that money again. Those houses
were never built. And they have loans, They have loans

(01:03:20):
mortgages on houses where there's now no demand. They can't
sell them and they can't rent them out. And you're
going to see and you're seeing more and more defaults
on those loans. So the government would like to do
a Caningian thing. Consumers drive the economy, go out and consume.
The Chinese people are saying, no, we don't trust the economy.

(01:03:41):
The economy is very, very fragile. We don't trust the government.
We're going to hold onto our savings and we're going
to make sure that if there is a crisis, we
can take care of ourselves. The Chinese workers are amazing
rational when it comes to this, and indeed, you know,
ultimately saving is what drives production. And luckily some of

(01:04:04):
those savings are flowing to America, and it's what's driven
over the last forty years. It's what driven the investment
in the United States, Chinese and Japanese and other countries. Savings,
and you know, part of the evidence to the fact
that the Chinese economy is doing badly and that there's
huge amounts of debts in the system. Though even if

(01:04:26):
the debts are not taken on by consumers. If you
look at provinces provinces, think of provinces as states. Feel
get Chinese states. Provinces in this case field get their budgets.
Chinese provinces are now spending. Put it in this way,
one third of Chinese provinces are spending all of their revenue,

(01:04:51):
all of their revenue, all their tax money on debt repayments.
They are so indebted, they took on so much debt
to lifestand to build. All the real estate sits empty
out there, that basically all of the money they ca
they raising taxes goes to debt servicing. That is not

(01:05:14):
a healthy economy, That is not a healthy situation to be.
And now it's going to be sad when America reaches
a state where the federal government is spending I don't know,
a huge chunk of GDP on debt repayment, but that's
actually what's going on right now. It's not even debt repayment,
it's just the interest payments on the debt. Right the
US is just refinancing the debt and growing it constantly.

(01:05:37):
At some point that I'll have to pay it back,
to pay it back, literally, to pay it back. That's
going to consume a big, big, big, big part of
government revenues if it's ever going to be paid back.
All right, So China continues to struggle economically and they

(01:06:01):
continue to look at i'd say, not very good economic
theories ideas about how to get themselves out of the mess. Unfortunately,
look to the West and the and the Kanjian kind
of you know, uh kanging economics that gets the West

(01:06:23):
into trouble constantly, the Chinese adopting that, and sadly nobody
out there in the world except for me La actually
advocates for any kind of free market economics for the
actual solution to these uh, these uh, these problems.

Speaker 5 (01:06:39):
All right, let's see, we have some super check questions,
not a lot member, we have goals, we have a target.

Speaker 1 (01:06:51):
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(01:07:12):
The show is one hundred percent made possible from the
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A few a few fifty dollars stickers from people like
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(01:07:38):
Ryan did a sticker early early on all right, so
it's a we don't have a lot of people watching.
I think it's because of the early hour. So my
suspicion is that this is probably not an ideal time
for shows. But that is a problem because it is.
It is. It's going to be the best time for
me while I'm here in Europe. But anyway, we'll see.

(01:08:01):
Maybe I'll just have to stay up later and do
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called just did a sticker. Thank you, Carl, really appreciate that,
and thank you. If everybody who's on right now does
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Speaker 4 (01:09:35):
Let me just see I'm just what am I looking at?
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into oh one more last reminder Patreon if you want
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(01:11:55):
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Go over to Patreon, put in you on book show,
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(01:12:19):
you for the sticker, and keep those stickers coming and questions.
We've got plenty of time for questions, James, I really
don't think objectivism is that hard to understand. Our movement
doesn't fully appreciate how mindless the vast majority of people
are today. We think we switched our minds to unmode.

(01:12:40):
Why can't everyone else? I mean there's a sense in
which of that's true. Why can't everybody else? But they
obviously it's hard. Obviously they don't and I don't know why,
and you don't know why. But the reality is they don't,
and that's the reality we have to deal with. We
have to find ways to try to get younger people
to switch their minds on when they still have a chance,

(01:13:00):
and to encounter these ideas and get exposed to these
ideas and embrace these ideas when they can make a
real difference in their lives. They can make a real
difference at any age, but it's likely to happen as
you get older, so you want to try to get
them switched on when they're young. But objectivism is not
as easy to understand as you think it is, particularly

(01:13:23):
now when you get deeper into it, particularly not if
you know something about philosophy and the questions philosophy has.
It's tricky for people, particularly if they're committed to another philosophy.
But it's doable. We'll all proof that it's doable. We
just need to keep hamming away and try to convince
more and more people. Mary Ellen esa education saving accounts

(01:13:49):
with no strings attached. I love it. More children learn
to think for themselves would be huge. Yeah. I mean,
essays with no strings attached are the solution in the
in the short run, at place, shortter, medium term run,
medium run, and again just getting people out of government schools.
Getting kids out of government schools is a huge improvement,

(01:14:12):
even if it involves you know, continuing government, you know,
support financial support for education. I'd rather have the government's
financial support for education. The government running schools. Government running
schools is one hundred times worse than redistribution of wealth.
One hundred times won't damage it. If I could get

(01:14:34):
rid of government schools tomorrow and yet government still funds
education through education saving comes, I would take it in
a heartbeat, just because government education is so, so, so damaging.
And then we can try to convince people the redistribution
of wealth is immoral and wrong. Ice pick. Have you

(01:15:01):
been following Richard Hanani recently? He seems to think that
there's not a lot of actual evidence against Epstein Epstein,
and that it's mostly a modern moral panic thoughts. Yes,
I've been watching the Hanania stuff, and I'm skeptical that

(01:15:21):
he's right. I'm also skeptical about the you know, peterophilia
ring that was involved. I think it's somewhere in between.
I think the reality is that Epstein was a creep,
that he indeed did you know, solicit and in some
cases course and rape young women, young girls. Now you

(01:15:47):
know he wasn't doing it with five year olds, granted,
but fourteen year olds, fifteen year olds, sixteen year olds,
I mean, that's still really, really bad. And so he
was actively engaged. It's pretty well documented that they recruited

(01:16:08):
girls for him to give him massages, and he escalated
from there. And we're talking about dozens and dozens of girls.
How often was violence involved, It's not clear. There's there's
not a lot of there's not a huge case regarding
the violence. And then this simply as of now, there

(01:16:29):
is no evidence of a blackmail ring. There's no evidence
that he handed out these women to other people. Now
there is the accusation against Prince Andrew that one woman
has made. She recently committed suicide, so you know, and

(01:16:51):
there were a lot of settlements being done, but the
settlements could just be done because nobody wants to go
to court. I don't know the full extent of what
happened there. Nobody's done the full review. I think it's
a mistake to dismiss it all. But it's also kind
of the mal panic the maga is going through, and

(01:17:15):
the hysteria and the conspiracy conspiratorial nature of how they're
presenting it all. I think that's wrong as well. So
Epstein is a creep. What he did was horrible. What
other people did with him probably so the Maxwell but
also some of the people who are on island with

(01:17:35):
them and hang out with them, who probably also engaged
in sex with minors. Is horrible and despicable. They are,
you know, worse things in the world. And it's not
as extensive as people claim it is. And it's not
some conspiracy, and it's not a ring of passing around children,

(01:18:00):
you know, and it's it's you know, it's bad, horrible
and there was things out there sadly, and I'm glad
he's dead. I'm glad he was arrested finally, I'm glad
he was about to face you know, justice. I'm glad
Maxwell is in prison. She probably deserves to be in prison.

(01:18:23):
But we don't know the full extent of what happened there,
and I don't know there will ever know. We know
it's bad, but how bad? And I agree that it's
nowhere near the kind of hysteria that MAGA makes it out.
But I also don't think it's something to just insignificant.
But he died and she's in jail. There's probably not

(01:18:43):
a lot more that can be done and should be done. Harpocampbell,
even if Kant had never existed, was the enlightenment enough
to uproot Christianity and make it an absolute force. Probably
not it needed in Iran. The Enlightenment needed Iran. But
without Kant, the Enlightenment would have struggled as it did

(01:19:10):
in the nineteenth century. But still it would have been
a lot more powerful entering the twentieth century than with
cont Round, and as a consequence, it's likely that right
now the Enlightenment would be a much bigger force, so
much more important force in Iran would have had a
much bigger impact on the culture because she would have
been talking to a culture in which Enlightenment values were present.

(01:19:33):
So Kant made a big difference in the Enlightenment's survival
survival one way another. It would have dissipated anyway because
it was weak. It would have been attacked by other philosophers.
It was already attacked by russo from within it would
have been attacked by others, but it still would have

(01:19:55):
been stronger. Kant was such a huge influen that he
really dealt it a blow that made it so that
by the time i Ran shows up, the cultures are
just not ready for her, because it's been the Enlightenment
has been diluted so much, not you have a juggle

(01:20:17):
with them. As you mature, you realize nothing is ever
a loss. It's either a redirection or realization. Well, I
don't know. I mean, your child dies is not not
a loss. Again, I don't like these kind of I
don't know what you call aphorisms, one sentenced kind of
deep truths. Now, some things are losses. As you mature,

(01:20:39):
what you realize is, yeah, you lose stuff, Okay, you
move on. But if a child of heals dies, it's
not a redirection or realization. It's a loss. If you
lose all your money in a stock pocket, you've lost.
So Andrew offenders a corporate defense attorney supports Mandami. How

(01:21:04):
can one pick one's values against each other to that extent?
Can you conceive of a wealthy business defender supporting the
hatred of wealth and business? Yeah, I mean you see
that all the time. They do all the time, all
the time. I mean, think of all the business wanen
to support the Democratic Party, or all the businessmen will
probably give Elizabeth war And money for her campaign. Who

(01:21:27):
gave Obama, who gave Kamala and who hated you know,
people who hated values? Yeah, I mean Mamdani's of the
world could not exist without the sanction of the victim.
And not just the sanction of the victim, without the
full support of the victim. The victim feels guilty. They

(01:21:48):
all feel guilty. They feel guilty for their success. I mean,
this guy is a corporate defense attorney. He's defending corporations.
How evil does it get. I mean, that's what he
in his own mind. He sold out to the machine.
He is the man, and it is one act of
rebellion against himself. Is voting for Mamdani, and it's completely

(01:22:12):
utterly out of a sense of guilt for working for
the man, for being the man. I mean again, in
our culture, being a coporate defense attorney, is there a
lower profession than that. I mean, you're almost as bad
as Epstein. Epstein and says, can we expect them to

(01:22:34):
help end public schools? They have? I mean the first
the first voucher systems were in inner cities, and they
were passed by Democrats. Now they haven't been willing to
generalize that to middle class and further bit, when it
comes to in some places, they have realized that this

(01:22:57):
is a massive help, to the point that they've been
willing to support it. I fear though, that Republicans support
for school choice will fade as the national Conservatives and
the ILK dominate the political dominate, the Republican Party. It
wasn't a long time ago. I mean, look at the

(01:23:20):
history of it. You're you're you're making stuff up, and
there's a there's a big tendency among yes in my
backyard kind of Democrats or left of center to be
very supportive of school choice. My fear is that the
Republicans are going to move away from it and then
there's going to be nobody. So I hope that the

(01:23:43):
more rational, the more economically minded Democrats embraced school choice
or something that they actually do support. I mean charter schools,
for example, a huge in New York, and that's a
large extent was done under Democrats, not just under you know,

(01:24:05):
Bloomberg was a Democrat Democratic mayor of New York and
a lot of the charter school initiatives were done under that.
But again other parts of the country, in the Midwest,
other places in Democratic cities, they have passed charters. Not enough,
not wide enough, it's not embraced far enough. The teachers'
unions still hold the Democratic Party in their clutches, and

(01:24:26):
they're afraid. The teachers union is afraid of any kind
of school choice because they're afraid are being destroyed, which
is the result of it. But you can yeah, but
I think, but the reality is, you know, the reality

(01:24:51):
is that they will disappear. You know. We better hope
put it this way, it's possible or not, it's an
open question. We better hope that Democrats embrace it, because
I don't think a Republicans will embrace it for very long.
People are fraid to confront altruisms as James in themselves

(01:25:14):
because they think abandoning altruism requires them to become a
more harsh and callous person in regard to the evaluation
of others. I mean, yeah, that's part of it. But
it's also they're fraid of abandoning altruism because that's what
goodness means, and they don't want to be not good.

(01:25:34):
They don't want to be bad. They're a fraid of
abandoning altruism because they realize that, you know, they can't
get into heaven if they abandon altruism, whether heaven is
in an afterlife or heaven is just you know, be
considered a good person. In our society. They can't have
out any of that. They also think that alternative altruism

(01:25:57):
is either hedonism, nihilism, or you know, or just being
an asshole. So they don't know what alternative is. But
it's not just that, like when you present them, here's
a set of values and virtues that don't require you
to be callous towards others, they're not willing to accept it, and
then not willing to accept it because they bought into

(01:26:19):
the Mall code that the entire world is bought into,
and for them to reject it would be a massive
actor of rebellion, which very few people have the coverage
to engage in. Liam. Have you ever been to Katsas
Delhi in New York City? Is it worth going to? Yeah?
I have. Yeah, it's good. I feel like pastrami sandwiches

(01:26:41):
or corned beef sandwiches. They're really good, yeah, Michael. The
Trumpet administration sees large segments of its own population as
the enemy within that must be crushed in order to
defend the supposed true America. Yes, but so do some
people in this on my chat. So to many people,

(01:27:02):
we become tribal, and the Trump administration believes that the
only way for America to succeed is to crush the
other tribe. That's the reality. It's become a war, and
it's not about freedom. It's not about liberty. It's about
my side winning and my side controlling and my side dictating.

(01:27:27):
Thank you, Michael. Let me see here. I saw somebody
do something that didn't go through. Oh, anomalist just gifted
I guess gifted a membership. So thank you Anomalists for
doing that. Just a reminder, we've got a few more
people joined that you two that you should consider supporting

(01:27:52):
the show. Doing a sticker, asking a question. I've only
got three questions left, so you've still got time to
ask a question. But use the super chat, engage with
the super chat, ask a question, and become part of us.
Is the trick dichotomy? Hello? Are you on? Is it
irrational for a shopkeeper to ban bookers from this store?

(01:28:15):
Not his job, just the full face covering types? Why
why not? No? I don't think it is irrational. I
mean it's illegal these days. I don't think you can
do it, but in irrational society would be absolutely appropriate.
The booker represents, you know, the exact opposite values of
what you stand for, and you don't want to support

(01:28:41):
people who hold values that are completely that you are
completely felloughly systematically opposed it. You're sanctioning their evil, so
you could you know? So, I think it's completely irrational
to say, you know, I you know, if if you
were if you wear swastika, you can't come into my store.

(01:29:03):
I won't support Nazis if you if you come in
with a Chagavarity shirt, I'm not serving you. Out you go.
I don't serve communists. And if you wear a job
or you know, a booker, then I'm not serving you
because you represent any Slamist religion that I reject, and
that is trying to overthrow Western civilization. And there's a

(01:29:26):
rejection of Western civilization which is necessary for me to thrive.
So absolutely you should be able to discriminate against all
those people. And I think the kind of discrimination and
discrimination on the basis of ideas is the right kind
of discrimination. That's the kind of discrimination that you should
embrace and you should go for. And it's completely rational.

(01:29:53):
Blaze guitar lessons. Is raising taxes a viable way to
fix the rist debt? Well, it's not a good way
to fix us DAT. It's not a sustainable wave to
fix the usdabt because raising taxes was slow economic growth.
But at some point it might be the only option
in order to pay back the debt. So the longer

(01:30:18):
we wait, the more you're gonna have to cut spending
and potentially also raise taxes at the same time. And
that's probably where we're heading. We're heading to a time
where we cut spending and we raise taxes in order
to try to pay off the debt. It's not ideal
because again, raising taxes slows economic growth, but I don't

(01:30:42):
see an option. Paying back the debt is necessary, and
kicking the debt down the road and pretending that you're
not raising taxes is just pretending. It's just fantasy. It's
evasion one way or the other. Debt is taxes. It's
economically destructive, but it's also future taxation. Rudge dull One,

(01:31:11):
thank you for the Thank you for the sticker, Robert,
thank you for the sticker. Appreciate you guys. The prophet.
This is the last question. The last chance to support
the show is to jump in now with a question
or a sticker. Go for people. The prophet says, thanks,
so your answer about taxi yesterday, here's the attitude that

(01:31:31):
I got. Here is the attitude that I got from it.
This is the world we conently live in. If we decide,
if they decide to tax me fifty percent, I will
just produce twice as much. No. I mean, you might
not be able to produce twice as much, right, but
it is the world in which we live in, and

(01:31:54):
you want to live the best life that you can
producing twice as much, which might not be your best option.
Your best option might be to accept the fact that
they take fifty percent and do the best that you
can with what you've got left. The point I was
trying to make yesterday was that there is no universal

(01:32:18):
answer to this. You have to decide how much effort
to put into avoiding taxes. How much you're willing to
take a hit today in order to save taxes tomorrow.
How much are you willing to work harder in order
to increase your production because of the tax ary All

(01:32:39):
of these questions are questions you have to decide for yourself.
I moved to Puerto Rico. It literally moved to Puerto
Rico out of nowhere in order to dramatically reduce my taxes.
I mean dramatically reduce my taxes. So in moving to
Puerto Rico is not easy. It's not an easy place
to live. So for me it was worth it at

(01:32:59):
the point in that I was at my ability to
work from anywhere and the amount of taxes I was
paying and the kind of productive activity engage in that
was worth it for me to move to Puerto Rico.
It might not be worth it for a lot of
other people. They might have reasons to stay where they
are and not move to Puerto Rico, even though it's

(01:33:21):
saved them a lot of taxes. So, uh, you know,
you have to weigh all the different issues that are
before you and then what do you need to embrace
is the idea and this is the key. How do
I live the best life I can now and in
the future and not And given the tax code? Right,

(01:33:45):
given this is the tax how do I do I
move to Puerto Rico? Or if you live in you
live in the UK, I do I go to Montecolo?
Do I move to Malta or Cyprus, you know, to
reduce my taxes? Or do I just suck it up
and accept the fact that if I'm going to live
in the UK, I'm I'm going to pay these taxes
and I'm going to figure out how to live the

(01:34:06):
best life that I can give in those circumstances. Or
do I live in a one bedroom little apartment now
it pays little taxes now so that I can one
day have more. I mean, all these are these you
have to consider and you have to figure out the
standard is your life, your values, your time value, how

(01:34:29):
you look at time. You know, values today versus values
in the future. That was my point. So no, I
absolutely not think that you should use twice as much
because it's actually just fifty percent. That's not my approach
at all. Frank de Bono offered a solution to democracy's

(01:34:55):
weakness by giving all elected politicians the same voting capital
to bid on legislations, thereby giving individuals and minorities active
power any thoughts the same voting capital. I'm not sure

(01:35:16):
what you mean by that. So capital at birth capital
is literally capital that you used to vote. Look, I
mean all of these I don't believe in gimmicks. I
think the fagility of democracies doesn't come from lack of
voting capital. I think the fragility of democracies comes from

(01:35:37):
the democratic process, the very fact that we've allowed majorities
to dictate our lives. The solution to democracy's fragility or
weakness is to embrace constitutional republicanism, to embrace a constitution
that limits the ability of the majority to infringe on

(01:36:01):
the rights of the minority. That is, to eliminate the
ability the majorities to infringe on the rights of the majorities,
to weaken, to eliminate govern's ability to fringe in rights.
That's the solution, and then voting becomes less important. And
what matters is just the enforcement of protection of individual rights,
and that's it. And then there's no redistribution, there's no regulations,

(01:36:25):
there's no controls or the regulations that exist. Only your
regulation is very very few regulations, absolutely necessary for the
protection of rights. And that's it. And then democracies. You
solve the problem of democracies. What is the problem of democracy?
The problem of democracy is that the majority by vote,

(01:36:45):
can infringe on the rights of the minorities. And again,
the smallest minority is the individual, So they infringe in
the rights of the individual. So get rid of their
ability to do that, and you get rid of the
ability to do that through a rights protecting constitution. Thank you, Frank, Oh,
thank you, Adri. Ad just came in with fifty dollars stick.
I thank you, Adri really really appreciate that. That's great, Jonathan.

(01:37:11):
Should there be a legal age of drinking and drugs?
I think so, you know, I think so. There are
just some substances that are incredibly damaging and that you know,
kids are not in a position to handle and to
be able to make an assessment about. Parents should be

(01:37:34):
able to let their kids drink or give their kids drugs,
but children should not be in a position to make
their choice for themselves. I think consuming you know that,
and maybe pawn and a few other things that children
should not be I mean, they can't sign documents. They

(01:37:55):
can't sign, so they can't understand the consequences of their
actions in a way that you could say, Okay, they
have a reason capacity they can apply their reason to
decision about whether to drink coder or to take drugs
or not. They don't have that capacity, and until they

(01:38:16):
have it, they should be a legal age restriction, and
that age restriction should be a court should be able
to overwrite it that as a court should be able
to say no, this sixteen year old is mature enough
to make decisions for themselves. They're emancipated, and that includes
they can drink and they can do they can they

(01:38:38):
can take drugs. As a Turk dichotomy, what sort of
tax do you think would best address the debt? Would
it have to be a regular increase or specific dedicated
tax just for their payment? Well, I mean if we
were talking about paying back the debt, I think there
are a number of things that you would do. You

(01:38:59):
would start with you would still was selling off governed assets.
I would sell all government land, all government property, all
government facilities other than those used by the military, you
would sell. You would take that money and use it
for debt repayments. Second, you would cut as much spending

(01:39:20):
as you possibly can. And in third, you would revise
the tax system. You wouldn't raise a special tax to
pay back the debt. What you would do is you
would run surpluses, so you would cut spending the more
the better, you know, except for what it's necessary for
protection of individual rights. And then you would rationalize the

(01:39:42):
tax system, whether it's a flat income tax or whether
it's a it's an you know, abolish them constitutional amendment
that made the income tax possible and embrace a consumption tax.
You want to create a tax system that promotes production,
that promotes economic growth. So you want it simple, easy

(01:40:06):
on a postcard, no thought having to be involved, no
resources being allocated for it. So you know, you could
don't think of a tax, a special tax to pay

(01:40:28):
off the debt. That is illegitimate. In my view. The
governan needs to run a siplus and pay off the
debt through the simplus, and they do that by rationalizing,
by having a economically more rational tax system than exists today.
Tax system today is and it's only getting worse, and
Trump only made it worse. It's corrupt, it's time consuming,

(01:40:52):
it's resource consuming, it's energy and mind consuming. Make it simple, straightforward,
la and and get out of the way. So that's
the kind of tax system and spend system you need.
You need to cut spending dramatically and simplify taxes dramatically.

(01:41:16):
Those are the two things they need to be done.
All right, guys, good to see you, Thank you, hope
you enjoyed the show. I will be back tomorrow. I'm
not exactly what time I'll have to make a decision
tomorrow about time. I think it'll be later, but we
will see. All right, have a great rest of your
week and I will see you all tomorrow. Thank you, oh,

(01:41:39):
thank you, thank you, thank you all the super chatters,
all the super chatters and the stickers. You guys are great.
Really really appreciate the support. Thank you. Bye.

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