Tariffs, Taxes & Galt’s Gulch Fantasies, Supersonic Flight & Today’s Battles (AMA)| Yaron Brook Show

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:18):
Oh, fundamental principles, out leaders, rational, self interest, and individual works.
This is the Uran Brookshow. All right, everybody, welcome to
your one book show on this Saturday, August twenty third.

(00:41):
It's my final day in Lisbon, at least for this strip.
Next time, next time you see me, I will be
somewhere in Italy. You know exactly where I can do
my show farm I'm not sure, but I'm flying to
Naples tomorrow if I can get a show off. If
I can do a show sometime while I'm in Naples,

(01:03):
I'll do that. Otherwise, I'll be broadcasting from Florence, one
of my favorite places on planet Earth. So you know,
within really within I don't know two hundred meters I
think for Michelangelo's David. I'm literally down the road block
and a half away from Michelangelo's David. So I'm gonna

(01:25):
have a lot of fun in Florence. All right, let's uh,
let's get rolling today is ask me anything, and we've
got our panel lined up. And wait a minute, we've
got we've got an echo killed. The echo echo is gone,
and so let's uh, let's jump in with our panel.

(01:47):
Of course, you guys who are not on the panel
can still use the super chat to ask questions and
uh and participates. I feel free to do so. And
let's start. Uh, let's start with holding sure.

Speaker 2 (02:06):
So I watched a few videos of you on talking
about taxes and uh. I one of the things that
I don't have done quite a bit of research about
is tax incidence theory. So I kind of wanted to
challenge you a little bit on tariffs. So you seem
to have kind of a view that I want to
make sure like I don't like misrepresent you or something,

(02:29):
but you kind of have a view that Okay, sometimes
it gets passed on to consumers, but obviously the demand schedule,
it will determine that you can only sell a certain quantity,
and then sometimes it reduces net income for the firms
that the tariffs are being imposed upon for their inputs
or whatever. Ye is that kind of where you're at.

Speaker 1 (02:52):
Yeah, I think it. I think over over time, it
almost all gets past the consumers. It because because films
can't afford to reduce their net income significantly, because they
become less competitive with firms that are not importing, so
they have to pass it on. They're less competitive for capital. Yeah,

(03:16):
so it's basically shared between the company that inputs it,
and it could be a variety of different companies inputting
it because it could be part of a supply chain
and consumers at the end. But most of it goes
to consumers.

Speaker 2 (03:28):
Yes, So the thing I would say about that is like,
if I'm a firm, then I sell this good or whatever,
I have a profit maximizing price that I could sell
given a demand schedule. You see what I'm saying, So like,
if I raise the price, then I get lower net income,

(03:49):
and if I lower the price, I get lower net income.
So if you put a teriff on my inputs, the
cost to produce it will increase. And of course we
know cost of production theory is false. So if I
try and raise the price, then my income goes that
income goes down. If I lower the price, might my
net income goes down. So basically, no matter what the
firm does the the the net income goes down. Now

(04:15):
that's assuming that they set their price already at the
profit maximizing level, which obviously is not always the case.
But no matter what, there is a profit maximizing price
for whatever it is that you're selling.

Speaker 1 (04:27):
But you're annoying the behavior of its competitors. And it depends,
of course on how competitive the industry is. But we know,
for example, that as soon as a tarifon steel was set,
US manufacturers of steel al raised their prices, not because
they were inputing steel, but because they could because they
knew their competition now was going to raise their price.

(04:49):
And indeed, that's exactly what happens. So what happens is,
you know, because it's a competitive market, as soon as
you've placed a constraint on the importa on the price setter,
because they're the more efficient producer, the domestic industry takes
advantage of that raises prices, and as a consequence, the

(05:10):
importer can also raise prices and pass pass that on,
so it passes it on doubly, both in the tax
on the import in imported material, but also on the
fact that domestic domestic firms don't face competition or less competition,
and and they fal can raise prices themselves. And empirically

(05:34):
this was shown like when when Trump weighs tariffs on
washing machines, which he did in his first term. Uh
the increase the increasing prices of washing machines to consumers
it was, it was well documented that it went up
by you know, a sudden dollar amount.

Speaker 2 (05:54):
But you're on the thing is is that the empirical
observations could have a bunch of different factors here, so
that doesn't necessarily disprove what I'm saying. So like, if
washing machine prices go up, that could be because marginal
firms exit the industry whenever the tax is placed, so
the supply curve would shift left and the equilibrium price

(06:15):
would rise. But that doesn't mean that the.

Speaker 1 (06:17):
On the cost. Sure, But the point is that the
consequence of the tariffs ultimately is passed on to consumers,
whether it's passed on to consumers by the fact that
some marginal films leave uh and and and therefore that
shifts the supply curve, or whether it's because because they
now have more room to raise prices because competition, because

(06:43):
they know there again the price set, which is the
importer is not forced to to then an income has
gone down, so their incentive is to raise prices one
way or the other. It's the consumers that are going
to efface higher prices.

Speaker 2 (07:00):
Yeah, but that that doesn't mean that it's being passed
through though it means that there, it means that there's
now a different price given the different supplying demand dynamics
caused by the tax. So, like, I think the thing is, like,
we can't just say it's passed through to consumers because
it's not passed through. It's but they do pay higher prices,
but it's not because oh, we just increase the cost

(07:23):
of production. So now we could just pass us on it.
You see what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (07:26):
So sure, but the reality is that one way the
other consumers are paying a higher price because of the charity. Yeah,
I know we have, but add to that the fact
that you know a lot of the stuff we import
from China is stuff that you don't have US competitors for.
So let's say let's say we're putting toys, right, toys

(07:47):
and foot sure which are not made in the US.
There's no US competitive for those. Then you know, the
importer is going to raise this price and take Yes,
that's going to shift demand. So he's going to face
lower demand, but he is going to demand a higher
price on what he does actually sell. Yes, and he'll

(08:09):
he'll get he'll get lower revenue, but he's not going
to sacrifice his return and investment, investment in terms of
his what what he bought the stuff from China with, right,
he is going to raise the price, is.

Speaker 2 (08:24):
Going to pass it through to consumers, but ultimately.

Speaker 1 (08:27):
Face is no competition, so there's no nobody to compete
him down because ever you're saying is facing the same
increasing cost.

Speaker 2 (08:35):
So you're saying you have a toy and you have
a producer of toys in the United States.

Speaker 1 (08:40):
That there is no producer toys in the United States.
All producers of toys in China, all producers of toys
of toys face a fifty tariff.

Speaker 2 (08:52):
Okay, So you're okay, got it. So you're saying that
toys are an input or like what are you saying?
Like there's no.

Speaker 1 (08:58):
More I'm saying. I'm saying, I'm a store in the
United States to sales toys, and I buy those toys
from China. Yeah, and now those toys fifty more than
they did before, and there's no there's no US produce
of toys that I can switch to. Then I just
use prices and accept the demand will come down.

Speaker 2 (09:20):
Yeah, exactly. But the incidence is on your net income
you're on if I you're the incidence of the of
the If I try and pass on the cost, then
I have lower net income. So yes, consumers are worse
off because Yeah, but then I.

Speaker 1 (09:35):
Buy less, right, so I buy, I buy less product,
and I sell less product. I know that. But I'm
not giving up my return on capital, my return on
investment on the inputs. Right, So I'm not spending I'm
spending one hundred dollars to buy inputs. Now I can
only buy five things instead of before I could buy ten.
Right before I could buy ten, now I could buy five.
I only have one hundred bucks to spend on inputs.

(09:57):
So I'm gonna buy five, and I'm gonna sell those
five at a higher part.

Speaker 2 (10:00):
Yeah, but the return on capital is lower now because
of this.

Speaker 1 (10:06):
Look, business is a screwed. I agree with you. But
prices that consumers face is higher.

Speaker 2 (10:13):
Yes, but that's not because it's passed through you're on.

Speaker 1 (10:16):
No, it's not the reason I'm raising my price is
because of the tariff.

Speaker 2 (10:23):
You're on the teriff. But the thing is is that
you're you're that demand schedule was there before the tariff,
So I could have raised my price before the incidents
on those they couldn't have.

Speaker 1 (10:36):
I didn't want to because it's not because raising the
price is not revenue. Actually, it's not profit maximizing. Right.
So but now I'm going to raise the price because
now raising the price is profit maximizing.

Speaker 2 (10:49):
Yeah, but yeah, I agree. So now the price has
pass through.

Speaker 1 (10:54):
It's exactly so if I raise corporate taxes, put aside
tast If I raise corporate taxes, corporate taxes in the
United States right now, what I don't know, Yeah, twenty percent,
if I double them to forty two, Well, prices go.

Speaker 2 (11:07):
Up, yes, but not because they're passed through.

Speaker 1 (11:10):
Well, of course it is because they're passed to it.
That's the cause. What is the cause of the price
is going up.

Speaker 2 (11:16):
What's the cause of the price is going up? Is
because of lower production?

Speaker 1 (11:20):
What is less cause of lower production.

Speaker 2 (11:23):
Because it's less profitable to invest.

Speaker 1 (11:25):
What's the cause of it is less profitable to.

Speaker 2 (11:28):
Invest because of the tax?

Speaker 1 (11:30):
Yeah, So the tax of the ultimate cause of the
fact that the prices went up. I agree with you
on all the intermediate steps, but the primary cause of
all these steps have occurring is the tax went up.
And the tariff is just a quote a tax in
this sense, it's the same you're on.

Speaker 2 (11:47):
We don't agree. We don't disagree that the price is rising.
This is we obviously are vote there. The thing is,
I'm saying, like, it's not just that it's passed on,
it's that the like there's a there's a change in
what's being produced. I agree with, I agree with consumers
pay higher prices. We agree consumers, we're confused.

Speaker 1 (12:07):
But I'm asking what the cause of confuse. And we'll
end it here, but I'm asking what the cause the
ultimate cause of consumer paying higher prices is? What the tax?
That's it? That's all I'm saying. I'm not I'm not
talking about the mechanism. The mechanism which has passed through
is the complex mechanism that you described. That is, you've

(12:28):
got to change, and you've got to change in production,
and a change in demand in the supply cove the
results in a change of prices. But the cause of
all that, the thing that spurs all that, the thing
that generates all that is the tax. And therefore the
taxes caused the price increase.

Speaker 2 (12:44):
We're We're with the entire time. I'm with you, but
we'll talk about this more later.

Speaker 1 (12:48):
So it's all a question of some man, it's all
a question about what its passed through mean. And all
I mean by pass through is caused by I'm not
saying literally passed, it's caused by that's all.

Speaker 2 (12:59):
Okay, Sure I can get behind that, right, I can
get behind that.

Speaker 1 (13:02):
Okay, Okay, good online.

Speaker 3 (13:07):
I don't know how to follow that great discussion. So
mine is a is a much more lighthearted and a
silly kind of thing. So I was at a funeral
recently and there was people there that were dressed very casually,
like shorts and T shirt kind of casual. And I

(13:27):
guess my question would be is like there was a
part of me that was bothered by it, but then
there was another part of me that was asking, like objectively,
why am I bothered by this? Like the family, you know,
I mean, if the family has a concern, they could say, okay,
here's a dress code. Obviously in the workplace, you know,
the employer can set a dress code. But is it
is it rational to be kind of like, okay, like

(13:49):
this this seems off to me? Or is it just
that I show my age here or what's.

Speaker 1 (13:53):
What's I mean? I think I think it's rational because
I think that you know what you wear reflects some
element of respect towards the event or towards the situation
that you're in. You know, how you present yourself. If
you come all ruffled and everything and you know, sweaty

(14:16):
from the gym to a to a formal event, it's
just not right. You're not showing the kind of respect
that the event deserves, or that a workplace deserves and
so on. Now, what are the boundaries of that? Obviously
you don't have to do somewhere with convention, there's no
there's nothing I can do, you know, give you in

(14:39):
terms of you know, etiquette is a question of particularly
cultural norms at a particular point in time. You know,
we don't wear three piece or seven piece suits anymore
for just every day, every day occurrences. But yeah, something
like a funeral or a wedding, unless it's a hippie
wedding at the beach or something, it doesn't have to
be a hippie wedding. A beach wedding required different attire

(15:02):
than a formal wedding in a Now, what are the rules?
How do we define them? You know, I don't know.
I think it's it's incumbent upon the person putting on
the event to give people guidance because otherwise it can
be confusing, particularly today. But yeah, there was a certain
reflection of aspect that comes across from what you.

Speaker 4 (15:24):
Wig, right, So so honor related. Then, like a few
years ago, I.

Speaker 3 (15:30):
Was in a startup and I was looking to hire
an interview with somebody, a very small company. We had
a very casual dress code. I mean, I would go
to work, you know, in shorts and a color shirt
kind of thing. But this young guy he came in
it job, and he came in like very somewhat scruffy
looking like shorts and a T shirt and again within

(15:54):
our dress code. But you know, and I didn't let
it kind of influence my decision, but I was kind
of like, well, my feeling was, hey, you could have
put a little bit of effort into putting on something
a little bit more appropriate for an interview. But again,
you know, I was wondering after, you know, like, Okay,
is this boomer talking here or what you know.

Speaker 1 (16:15):
I mean, at the end of the day, a lot
of companies would not would would eliminate him based on
the fact that he didn't show any effort in doing that.
So it's it's kind of shows a lack of thoughtfulness
or not caring if you got the job on not
because I think that even if you don't care, suddenly
lots of other people in the marketplace do care. And

(16:37):
he's suggesting he doesn't give a shit, you know, you know,
and I think so that says something about him. Yeah,
maybe some people would viewed as positive rather than negative,
you know, but it's definitely you know, what you wear
in circumstances like that is definitely saying something about your attitude.

Speaker 3 (16:56):
Yeah, that was That was kind of my feeling too,
And I was always taught, you know, like it's always
better to be dressed more than less.

Speaker 1 (17:04):
Well, it depends on the circumstances.

Speaker 3 (17:06):
Again, a circumstance within reason, within reason, Yes, you don't,
as you say, you don't go to.

Speaker 1 (17:11):
Care about a job, then you'd rather overdressed than underdressed
for a job. Yeah, if it's a if it's a
social occasion, you might you might not care an underdress.
So it really depends on the on the context. But yeah,
I mean, dressing says something, you know. It might not
be the deciding factor, but it definitely says something.

Speaker 5 (17:30):
Right, you're wrong given how much you hate ties. Would
you wear a tie to a funeral?

Speaker 1 (17:35):
No? And you know, unless they said it was required.

Speaker 4 (17:38):
Mhm.

Speaker 1 (17:39):
I mean why would a tie? I mean that's the point.
I don't consider a tie adding anything. Right, If I
wear a jacket and and a nice shirt, button down
shirts and and and nice slacks, I mean that to me,
that's just as formal as a tie. Tie. It is
just an an excessive that's strangling me.

Speaker 4 (18:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (18:02):
Do you think it's kind of silly when the sportscasters
all wear suits and ties?

Speaker 6 (18:08):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (18:08):
I mean I think they need to wear something nice
on television, But yeah, I don't think they need to
weart a tie. But I don't like ties and ties
are more. I mean, there's an aesthetic to it. I
get it. It creates some symmetry. It's to extented esthetics
and beauty or related to symmetry. A tie does create

(18:31):
a certain nice, you know, symmetrical thing, but I think
you can create that other ways. As I get why
people wear it, it's just I find it, you know,
I find it constraining and uh, and it's also kind
of a remnant of a one hundred years ago where

(18:55):
wearing something abound your neck was really important. I mean,
fashion changes all the time. The funniest thing is I
find is you watch TV shows about I don't know,
the West, or like that they'll be in Nevada, or
they'll be in Texas and they're wearing three pe suits
and ties, and or they'll be like it's Brazil in

(19:16):
the nineteenth century and everybody's walking on Reo Degenairo and
a suit and tie and everything, and like I would
be drenched. It would be so horrible for me and
for everybody else around me, because I would literally be
dripping sweat if I was in Reo Degenaio with three
pepe suit.

Speaker 3 (19:33):
So and especially when you tie that to eighteenth century hygiene.

Speaker 1 (19:39):
Yes, oh oh my god.

Speaker 4 (19:41):
Oh yeah, I guess everybody's stinking, so it probably didn't matter.

Speaker 1 (19:45):
Yeah, I guess they didn't smell it because because it
was just the standard smell. But it's more than that.
It's just I would literally be dripping water all over
the place because I do anyway, I'm right now, you know,
I am wet because it conditioning's not working in this
Lisbon office because it's the weekend and it's human and

(20:07):
you know that's just me so put me now in
a suit and tie, and god, I'd be dying. So
and somehow, you know, I I remember walking in New
York City on a summer day, you know, many times
with a suit and tie on, and just being miserable,
just being hot and sweaty and miserable. And what's the point? So, yes,

(20:35):
there's a there's a time and place for everything. It's
also what does it mean to to show a little
bit of a show of respect. That doesn't necessarily mean
you have to wear a jacket or tie. It just
means you have to be cleaned up and and and
look nice and and and the same as true of
a job interview. It doesn't mean you have to follow
the the particular standard usted wash Feed dictated I don't know,

(21:02):
fifty years ago. But you have to show that you
put a little bit of effort and a little bit
of care into it. That's all.

Speaker 3 (21:08):
Yeah, Yeah, that's okay. So I feel validated.

Speaker 4 (21:12):
Thanks, sure, Jennifer.

Speaker 7 (21:16):
That's sort of this conversation sort of relates to something
I was thinking about the other day when you talked
about showing respect with different things, like with language, for example.
It's a similar type of thing like I had to
ask an engineer at work for some information. He had
just come back from vacation and I was waiting on something,

(21:37):
and I thought, what I need is a certain thing.
So I could have written, when are you going to
have this for me? I need this? And I thought, well,
you don't say.

Speaker 4 (21:46):
It like that.

Speaker 7 (21:47):
That's rude, right, I'm not sure why it's rude, So
instead I said something like, Hi, I hope you had
a good time on your vacation. When do you think
you might have this information for me? Maybe later this week?

Speaker 1 (22:00):
Question?

Speaker 7 (22:01):
Right, I'm asking for the same thing. But yeah, I
was like, what's exactly the difference. I'm still asking for something.

Speaker 1 (22:07):
It's completely a cultural norm. If you were if you
were working in Israel, you would you would write him
an email saying when when? When? When am I going
to get this?

Speaker 7 (22:18):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (22:19):
I mean you know how you know, how is your vacation?
You were just I mean, Israelis are super direct, and
and now I'm I don't do that. I write nice,
polite emails because that's this is the culture I'm in,
And generally i'm a little bit more I don't know
culture than most Israelis, but most Israelis you know, my

(22:40):
friends who have been very successful in the US. One
of the reasons they've been successful in the US is
they bring that Israeli kind of let's just get stuff done.
Forget about all this small talk and this smoothing and
being polite. When am I going to have it? And
once you get used to that, you know, it becomes fine. Right,
So it's really an issue of convention. Like in the

(23:02):
world in which we live today, if you'd written the
guy the engineer, hey, when am I going to get this?
He would have been insulted. But if you got to
know you and realize, oh, that's how she always talks,
and she's really nice and she's not trying to offend
me in any way, then he would accept it. So
it's it's very contextual, and it's contextual to the relationship

(23:23):
and to what people know about each other. And in
American society and most I think European societies, although not all,
you expect it to be less direct, and I.

Speaker 3 (23:35):
Would I would just offer one other aspect on that, though,
which is which is I think there's a there's an
escalation aspect too, that if most of the time you
have a good relationship and things are getting done and stuff,
you don't need to be as direct. But occasionally, and
when people get to know you and they say, oh, okay,
he's getting a little bit short here, or he's getting

(23:56):
a little bit direct without having to really ramp it up,
you know, to that next level after you know, you
can get people's attention, and it still comes across as Okay,
you're not being an asshole, You're you're getting it done.

Speaker 1 (24:09):
But you know, sure, But again I think it's what's
what expectation? You said. So if I'm direct from day
one and this is just my style and it's not
reflecting me pissed off or anything like that, I just
want to know where the stuff is. I'm not you
know everything, Jennifer said, but I skipped that high house
your vacation, and whenever you know, I'm just Then people

(24:33):
learn that that's who you are, and that's how you
communicate to fine, and they don't escalate. But you if
you're usually polite and and and and then suddenly you're
very direct, then people notice the change and they wonder
what's going on. But again, in Israeli culture is a
direct culture, and therefore nobody raises an eyebrow. When you say, hey,

(24:56):
where is it, they just go, yeah, I'll have it
to you, to my whatever. They don't get excited by that,
and they don't escalate it. Now, I think that's how
it functions in Israel. I might be wrong, but oh
it's okay.

Speaker 7 (25:10):
I mean it's a personal taste though, what you've like, right, Like,
I remember I told you I work with that guy
in Brazil and he's a real sweetheart. He always says, oh,
no problem, and I'll get that dumb for you, and
I like that. I enjoy that interaction. That's okay, right,
And that's my personal.

Speaker 1 (25:23):
So it's it's completely personal preference and the culture of
the organization and the relationship you have with different people
as established by past communications. So if you switch suddenly,
if suddenly you're behaving differently than you have any past,
then people think, oh, what happened? Why is she talking
to me differently?

Speaker 4 (25:43):
Now?

Speaker 1 (25:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (25:45):
The only time I really hate it is when people
have one approach with people who work for them and
another approach.

Speaker 4 (25:51):
With people they work for. Yes, I think that really
gets my goat.

Speaker 3 (25:55):
Yeah, it's like, okay, you're an asshole with the people
who work for you, but everybody else exactly who are
you really?

Speaker 1 (26:03):
Yeah, that's yeah, and that's that's bad. So you've got
to be consistent, and it's wrong if you're one way
with some people and another way with other people. You know,
just if you're a manager, come in and set expectations,
and if you're the direct type and tell people, look, guys,
I'm direct. I'm just going to ask you for stuff.
You know. I'm just not. I don't spend a lot

(26:24):
of time on politeness and chit chat and stuff. Don't
take it personally. I'm with like this with everybody, including
my bosses. This is how it's going to be, and
and and don't read anything into it. Then I think
you said a certain expectation and people will get used
to it. But you're right. If you're inconsistent, there's a
real challenge. Yeah, thank you, yep, thanks Jennifer Adam.

Speaker 8 (26:51):
I have a very different kind of question for you.
Can you hear me?

Speaker 1 (26:56):
Yep? Yep.

Speaker 8 (27:00):
You mentioned ones that you are on the board of
the condo you live in.

Speaker 1 (27:07):
I was, I no longer I am.

Speaker 8 (27:10):
Okay, I'm on the board of the condo i'm in,
and we're down to two members. Because our finance guy,
who was a former I R. S Tax agent UH,

(27:33):
decided to completely retire and leave the board.

Speaker 1 (27:38):
Yep.

Speaker 8 (27:39):
And now we're down to two. And I know that
if I quit also, which I don't intend to do,
but if only one person is left on the board,
then the state secretary, then the Secretary of State in

(27:59):
California takes over and charges a fee for running your condo.

Speaker 1 (28:05):
Yep.

Speaker 8 (28:10):
How were you persuaded to join the board when you
were on it? And how can I persuade other people
to join the board?

Speaker 1 (28:24):
I mean, I was persuaded by the fact that I
thought that board decisions had an impact on me. I
have a pretty big investment in this condo building because
I own a condo there. But a lot of my
net worth is tied up in this condo, and if
I have a very selfish interest to help make sure

(28:47):
the decisions that are made there are not against my interests.
And you know, boards condos make a lot of different decisions,
and they affect They really to affect the value of
your condo, They affect the quality of your life. They
affect a lot of things. So I wanted to be

(29:08):
involved because I was worried that otherwise my interest would
not be represented. Uh And and I think that's the
way to convince people. They've got a massive investment here,
and the decisions are being made. It doesn't take up
a huge amount of time. But somebody needs to do it.

Speaker 8 (29:29):
I know that somebody needs to do it, and we
Jews have as saying if not I, then who.

Speaker 1 (29:39):
But but the question is nobody's going to represent your
interest unless you're the right That would be what I
would convince people. That would be my line to try
to convince people.

Speaker 8 (29:54):
Now, is there a specific reason why you were not
elected again or decided to step down or.

Speaker 1 (30:04):
They changed the whole board changed, the chairman of the
board changed and they changed the whole board and they
elected a whole new board. And I wasn't in the
country when it happened, and I didn't, you know, care
that much because some of the issues at least that
I was considered about were resolved. But but yeah, no reason.

(30:25):
If I was asked, or if there was an opportunity
to join the board again, I would probably do it.

Speaker 8 (30:33):
Okay, I guess that's the best argument. Yeah, But somehow,
most people that I meet are not truly convinced that
they're in that it's in their interest if they already

(30:53):
have a board that does a good job.

Speaker 1 (30:58):
And well, I mean, all you can do is try
to argue that it's in this self interest. You can't
do more than that. I don't think there's a better
argument than that. And of course there is the risk
that the state of California takes it over, so they
should want at least one more board man, but just
in case somebody something happens to them and they have

(31:18):
to leave the board. So the building, everybody in the
building should have an interest that somebody one more person joined,
and the way to guarantee that is for one of
them to volunteeve and to do it. So again, it's
self interest.

Speaker 8 (31:34):
Yes, and that has to be Frank and center.

Speaker 1 (31:37):
Thank you, Thanks, Thanks Adam Andrew here you're on. Hey,
can you.

Speaker 5 (31:50):
Explain the hatred of Israel in terms of anti Semitism
versus egalitarianism or if you think that they're coming from
the same place.

Speaker 1 (32:04):
Well, I mean, I don't think they're necessarily coming from
the same place, but there's there's certainly I mean, it's
it's a big topic, but there's certainly a a there's
anti Semanim, anti Semitism in global culture. I think that
emanated emanated primarily from originally from Christianity, that is, its

(32:27):
source that has been transported to all over the world,
from from the Middle East all the way to China.
There is this general suspicion of Jews and successful Jews,
although anti Semitism also exists when Jews are not successful.
That is, you find anti semitism against poor, unsuccessful Jews

(32:52):
in in in Middle Ages, Europe so or pre Enlightenment Europe.
So there is a there is a general old background
of anti Semitism. And then add to that, which I
think impacts the right mostly but also is the background
to the left. And then add to that the element

(33:15):
of Israel and Jews more broadly being successful, wealthy which drives,
and the enemy of Israel being weak and poor and
suffering and now supposedly starving. That all adds to the hatred.
So if you it's a mixture of just a straight

(33:36):
anti semitism, you can see that with Taka, you can
see that with with Fuentes and others. You know, as
Jews is the way to explain all the bad things
in the world without having to I don't know, actually
confront the actual issues that cause the bad things in
the world, and a mixture of that with this kind

(34:00):
of egalitarianism, this idea that if you are successful and
if you are strong, you must have sinned, which is
prevalent primarily on the left, but of course it's also
on the right because of Christ was going to ask,
but it's primarily on the left. It's it comes from intersectionality,

(34:21):
and egalitarianism generally is much more of an ideology of
of the left. The right is offended by the fact
that Jews are higher in the hierarchy. They believe in
higherarchys right, they believe in and and they're offended by
the fact that Jews are higher on the hierarchy when
they should be, when they should be, uh, you know,

(34:42):
put in their place given you know, given uh, their
rejection of Christ and and all of that. So thank you,
love it.

Speaker 9 (35:04):
Yeah, first of all, real quick, because I mentioned on
the show yesterday on a super chat that our interview
with Augustin Augustina Virgara SID was going to be postponed.
Turns out it's not. She's feeling up to it, and
that is going to happen tomorrow six pm. If anybody's
not already subscribed, is look up my name on YouTube
and meet us there tomorrow at six pm. And the

(35:24):
only thing that came to mind from you is I
was listening to Hold and Talk, and I thought, this
reminds me of an objection, and let me know what
you think of this. When conservatives would say that costs
are passed on to consumers, it sounded like a way
to say, well, well, let me explain. Left leaning hosts,
people like Tom Hartman people like that would say, when

(35:49):
taxes are raised, the only problem with that is that
costs are passed on to the consumers, and we don't
want to hurt consumers, we want to hurt the business man.

Speaker 1 (35:56):
Yep.

Speaker 9 (35:56):
And then I would hear right leaning you know, Rush
Limbaugh type say the same thing. I thought, Well, costs
or passed out to the consumers in the way that
you suggest it makes businesses have to do that. But
kind of maybe it's the verbiage. Maybe I'm thinking that, well,
Holden's giving a more sophisticated version of it. It sounds
like we're saying, well, businesses aren't hurt at all by this.

Speaker 1 (36:18):
But that's well, no, I mean, hold is making the
point that they all hold by it.

Speaker 9 (36:25):
Well, I make that point too. I mean, I think
his objection might be the same.

Speaker 1 (36:28):
As money economically. He's saying, just Pew economics of it,
that they are hoard by.

Speaker 9 (36:33):
It exactly, which is which is why I kind of
agree that the phrase passed on to consumers makes it
sound frictionless like that, like there's no harm to the business.
It's all on the consumers and it's not friction business.
And yeah, and you can take an extreme example of
you know, imagine a seventy five percent tire of one

(36:53):
hundred percent. It sounds ridiculous, like a bad example, but
Tarrett Trump is doing that, and you can say, well,
present care if nobody will buy the stuff anymore. But
the business isn't hurt because the one that he can
still sell the can jacket up one thousand percent, he can't.
Businesses are hurt when costs are passed on to the consumer.
They're not all paid by the consumer. The business is hurt.

Speaker 1 (37:12):
Too well, but they might not be okay, So I mean,
if you really want to get into the weeds of
the economics, I mean, here's an example. I think I
covered it yesterday. Amazon is in a position. Amazon is
in a position to basically not pass the cost on
if you will, not to change its pricing, to keep

(37:33):
the pricing the way it is, to take a hit
on that income. In the short run, competitors the competition
out of business, rite the competitors out of business very quickly,
because this is an exogenous shock that is produced by
the government. And long term, Amazon might be better off.
You know what, it's not an issue of you know,

(37:56):
the world is worse off. Some people are better off.
People will make of some people will you know, this
American steel industry certainly in the short run, is better off,
you know, to the extent that there is such a thing,
is better off in terms of in terms of and
this is why they lobby for it, They lob before
it because they think they're better off. So it's it's

(38:18):
who is better off, who is worse off. We're all
worse off in the sense that, you know, we don't
live in a free market and and and we don't
have the right level of competition. But it's it's the
reality is that that you know, prices go up for consumers. Uh,

(38:45):
some businesses will go out of business and I keep
saying that on my show. Right, small businesses will go
out of business because they they they can't handle the
extra table. They can't compete, they can't handle it. Other
businesses will expand their market share. You know, different things
will happen to different businesses. Overall, to the extent we
can measure, overall, we're worse off. But I think that

(39:12):
I think the you know, the main reason we're talking
about pass it on to consumers with tariffs in particular,
but this is colpate taxes as well. The main reason
I say that is because the alternative to that that's
presented by the Trump administration is the company in China

(39:32):
will will pay for it. Right, So who cares about
companies in China? Screw them? Right, Well, we should care
about them because but that's the attitude. The attitude is,
screw them. American companies don't hurts and American consumers don't hurt.
But that's just untrue. It's it's the price. You know,

(39:52):
it is reflected in prices in the United States, whether
you want to call it passed on or out, and
the business suffers, and the consumer suffers, and the Chinese
company suffers too. I mean that's the other thing about
tevs and taxes. Broadly, the lose, lose, lose, lose, lose.
Maybe at themology there's somebody who wins, but generally they lose, lose.

Speaker 9 (40:15):
Lose, all right, I think like holding, I agree with
everything that you were saying. It's just the semantics of
suggesting a frictionless business isn't hurt at all only the consumer.

Speaker 1 (40:25):
No, no, no, I don't think that's gone. Okay, And again,
the winners and loses, even within business, the winners and loses,
they all businesses that will win.

Speaker 9 (40:34):
And I've got to think that on principle, the businesses
that are winners in the long runner going to pay
for that too, because.

Speaker 1 (40:41):
Yeah, because we'll we'll all poor, they face less competition,
they will ultimately become, you know, because they face less
competition lazy and inefficient. Uh, And we will consume few
of their products. And we could go on and on
and on. But so so you say yes, but again

(41:01):
in the short run, the effect is that they gain
market share. And and this is this is the reality
of regulations, This is the reality of taxes. And and
you know, this is the other thing when when corporate
taxes are raised. The idea is that what is a corporation, right, corporation?
Who is paying the taxes? You can say, okay, it's

(41:21):
a shareholders, but the reality is the reality is the
shareholders pay very little of the tax. That the tax
is mostly paid by consumers and employees. I mean, study
have to study after study shows this that what happens
when corporate taxes are raised is wages go down and

(41:42):
prices go up, and the return on capital doesn't change
that much. So the the the the the investors are
not hurt that much, and the same they have of
their way around when corporate taxes are lowered as they
were by Trump the first time, one of the few
good things he's done on what really happened. And if
you saw, the result was less a massive increase in

(42:06):
the stock market and a return to investors and much more.
Wages went up and prices went down, and uh and
and and you can see this. You can see this
as the ultimate effect where you know how that is
passed on Olden is right, it's not passed on directly,

(42:29):
but that is the ultimate effect. The ultimate effect is
a change to wages and a change to prices, and
uh and and capital capital, the return of capital changes
very little. The shohoulders do not bear the burden because
you know, they are not going to invest unless they

(42:51):
required rate of return is satisfied, so they you know,
and if if if again, uh, you're you're changing the
cost throughout the economy, then the shoholder is not going
to bear the burden of this. Shoulders be a very

(43:12):
small post of the buden, the burden and the benefit
depending which they all right, uh to be continued. I guess, uh, yeah,
thank you, Stephen. Alright, okay, hey, you got you're wrong.

Speaker 10 (43:39):
I uh, I wanted to say that when we were
at ok my speaking right, Okay, when we were come on,
I al Mi Deutscha gave a concert all around the
biggest cities in Japan, and I couldn't go because I
was going to Ye and uh, I would have I
would have gone to Japan for and she ate, she

(44:01):
gave a she she wrote an original piece of music,
fantasy on themes of Japanese music that you shouldn't miss
if you get a chance to see.

Speaker 4 (44:10):
It on YouTube.

Speaker 1 (44:11):
Okay, take it out and you're breaking up a little.
And I don't know if it's if it's the.

Speaker 11 (44:21):
I and also she did an improvisation, an improvisation.

Speaker 1 (44:27):
There was so much better that she did when she
was a child. She Oh, I'm on my cell phone.
I had to switch to my cell phone because it's better. Now,
whatever it is, it's probably not as good. Has that better?

Speaker 11 (44:43):
Yeah, the microphone's probably being probably blocked.

Speaker 1 (44:46):
I'll hold it up.

Speaker 11 (44:47):
An improvisation there was so much more, better, better than
she used to do when she was a child. That
people people remember, and it was a big hit among
the Japanese.

Speaker 1 (44:58):
And I guess that's great. Japan is great for music.

Speaker 11 (45:02):
And what I wanted to bring that forward to is
it would it be possible for UH for her to
perform at okon sometime? Would that be something that would work,
especially if I paid.

Speaker 1 (45:15):
I mean, I'm not going to ask. I don't see
why not.

Speaker 11 (45:19):
Yeah, yeah, I would think that would be a big
hit at OCONN, just like the Yeah.

Speaker 1 (45:25):
Yeah, you should approach tal Or it ta all about
that and see what he thinks.

Speaker 11 (45:28):
Yeah, I can do that at the next door in
in UH New Orleans.

Speaker 1 (45:33):
Yep, that would probably Yeah. Good. Okay, thanks Steven.

Speaker 11 (45:38):
That's it then, I guess, unless you have some more
comments on no.

Speaker 1 (45:43):
I mean I I think that's fabulous. I mean, she
she's obviously an amazing musician, and it's great to see
a romantic like her thriving in this world. And and
uh yeah, the the Japanese, the Japanese have a real
appreciation for class music, which is great.

Speaker 11 (46:02):
Yeah, I'd like you to ever do something like that
in the United States, but it hasn't happened, you know,
tour in the United States like that.

Speaker 1 (46:10):
But yeah, it's much harder. Thanks Steven John, Yeah.

Speaker 12 (46:18):
Rowan, thanks for all you do. Uh my question, Uh.

Speaker 6 (46:24):
You know, millions and millions of books have been sold,
yet relatively few numbers of people show up on you know,
ybs or aar I and what. In talking to people,
I find that one of the most interesting things is
how many people have read and are influenced by the

(46:44):
novels and the nonfiction literature. H but and the butt
is this the the people who have become celebrities and
uh acknowledge the fluents of of ein Rand I don't
believe are connected in any way to aar I and

(47:08):
I would you know, one of the interesting things is
the first question is to ask people is you know,
when did you read it and.

Speaker 12 (47:15):
And how did it affect you? And uh?

Speaker 6 (47:18):
If uh prominent celebrities the I don't know, I made
the list, the Jimmy Wales, the Mark Rubins, the Paul Ryans.

Speaker 12 (47:30):
Uh.

Speaker 6 (47:31):
It doesn't have to be, you know, full commitment to
the integrated philosophy. It just needs to be and you know,
and here's this, I'll come to the end of the statement. Uh,
it doesn't need to be full commitment in any way.
It's just the fascination, uh, and the excitement of of

(47:51):
these of these ideas.

Speaker 12 (47:54):
And I believe that.

Speaker 6 (47:56):
Okay, So why hasn't the AAR I why has and
ybs reached out to celebrities to try to bring them
in just.

Speaker 12 (48:06):
To share their what you know, how what happened?

Speaker 6 (48:10):
What caused you to read the book in the first place,
and how did it influence you?

Speaker 1 (48:15):
How do we how do you know we haven't reached
out to them?

Speaker 12 (48:18):
I don't know, because I don't know.

Speaker 1 (48:20):
Because they have it. There isn't There isn't a prominent
person on planet Earth who we know is red Ironman
that is not being reached out to.

Speaker 12 (48:33):
And what's the response?

Speaker 1 (48:35):
Usually none, no response at all?

Speaker 12 (48:39):
And why why?

Speaker 1 (48:42):
Because they don't want to be affiliate associated with the philosophy,
the ideology. You know, they make the statement they they
were influenced by Ironman, but they do not do is
they respond to them an institute or something like that.

(49:03):
They feel like they now are sanctioning the institute and
are now are in one way or another affiliated with
the broader philosophy. And they don't want that.

Speaker 6 (49:14):
Yeah, and I could understand that, and I think that
the easy statement of you don't have to.

Speaker 1 (49:22):
Yeah, I mean, we've tried it all. We've tried it all,
thank you. I mean, and I've met with a lot
of those people, you know, and I've met with a
lot of them, so a lot of them will take
a meeting, but you can't get them to more than that.
Well they make a statement about it, and that it
appears in an AARI publication, No, because then they associated

(49:45):
with themselves with AOI will they come to Okan and
say something no, because that again the same thing. So
they they don't want to sanction the full philosophy. They
think it will hurt them and and you know, so
they stay away from it. So but yeah, I've we
have lists of long, long lists of all the people

(50:06):
who have said stuff that is positive by an iron Rand,
and we approach every single one.

Speaker 12 (50:12):
Of them, Okay, just to follow up on it. What
is it? Then?

Speaker 6 (50:19):
Yeah, the affiliation will hurt. So how do we overcome
that fear of affiliation?

Speaker 1 (50:31):
I don't think. I don't know that there's a way
to overcome it. I mean, the reality is we have
to wait for there to be celebrities that are not
afraid of the affiliation because they're not afraid of the philosophy.
They're not afraid of being associated with the philosophy. So
you know, there will come a time as we soften

(50:53):
this culture up around iron Rand, that they will be
quite happy to be associated with us and won't be
fearful of it.

Speaker 12 (51:01):
Okay, thank you.

Speaker 1 (51:03):
I can't compromise the institute's position in order to attract celebrities,
which is what I think that atle society to some
extent does, right. I think they are willing to compromise
their position to say things like, well, Iinman wasn't really
anti religious, religion and objectivism. We can all get along
on the big nice blue you know, tens, so please

(51:24):
come along, and then people feel more more free to
associate with them. I can't do that because it's not true.

Speaker 4 (51:34):
Okay, thank you, Sure, Ian, you're doing a positive or
a negative.

Speaker 1 (51:45):
You'll get an opportunity to do one of each.

Speaker 4 (51:48):
Okay, let's let's do the negative first.

Speaker 7 (51:50):
Then.

Speaker 4 (51:50):
So this John Bolton thing, I heard your thoughts about it,
and my initial thought was actually less condemnent of a
Trump Trump, even though you know how much I despise Trump,
and the reason is because they had to go through
a judge and I generally respect the courts, and so
my initial thought was, Okay, well, we should see what
it plays out, see what comes out. But on the

(52:12):
other hand, I think it's just an interesting commentary that
it is where we are that everybody raises the question
is this is this a real thing? Or is this
him just going after people? That's like under Biden that
happened but only on like the fairly extreme right and
the Trump is right right. No, no rational person was

(52:33):
thinking the document's case was anything but a real case.

Speaker 1 (52:39):
There were cases literally was I mean, even New York
basically ran and I ran a campaign saying I'm going
to go after Trump if I get elected, you know, so.

Speaker 4 (52:49):
Yeah, I mean there were there were obvious ones of
things he was actually guilty of, but they were clearly
brought because he was Trump.

Speaker 1 (52:56):
And this is the thing. We live in a world
which almost all of us are guilty of something, just
the reality of a heavily regulated, heavily controlled, lots of
laws world. And then a lot of what district attorneys
do is they decide who to bring charges against and

(53:19):
who not to bring charges against. And you know that
can easily and is I think it always has mean politicized.
It's Giuliani in the Southern distinctive of New York in
the early nineteen eighties, you know, going after Wall Street
because it was politically the thing to do. It was
the way to get attention and to get to get

(53:42):
himself politically for that. I think almost all attorney generals,
I mean, I like the series Billionai. I don't know
if you ever sawd the series Billionaire, not because of
the way it portrayed the hedge fund guy, because I
think it didn't understand hedge funds at all and was
he distortive. But it presented the distinctity of the Southern

(54:03):
distinct of New York brilliantly in terms of the kind
of pressures that are placed on him and how political
that all is and how infused it is with corruption.
But yeah, we become a cynical culture, and we become
a culture. And with Trump, he basically says it right
in his press conference yesterday, he kind of said, you know,

(54:24):
I might have had something to do with going after Bolton.
I might not have had something to do with going
after Bolton, like he wouldn't commit. You know, he likes
to play it because he realizes that that has power.
Then even ambiguity, because he wants his enemies to be
afraid of him. He's just like any other authoritarian thug.

(54:46):
He wants them to know he can come after them.

Speaker 4 (54:52):
The whole thing is so corrosive.

Speaker 1 (54:54):
Yep, it's horrible. All right, let's see. I think we've
got Jacob.

Speaker 13 (55:01):
And I have two questions. I'll have to leave after
this one. So the question is the more I think
of the economy and where it's going. So for a reference,
my bonus for this year was cut by like sixty
percent or more just because of numbers are coming in flat.
I wanted to see your opinion for stackflation economy, which

(55:22):
I think what we're roughly getting into is where you
would pivot your career if you would. So for me,
I'm trying to focus on the next three to five
years of getting my technical expertise as a process engineer.
That way it can be more dangerous and whatever feel
I go to. And then also, besides career, would you
pivot your investment in any way? So right now I'm

(55:45):
like sixty five percent US S and P five hundred,
twenty five percent international and about ten percent where I
can just play with in the market. And it's if
I lose it, it's fine. If I don't lose it,
it's all fine. Would you change any of your investment
if you were years old in this market?

Speaker 1 (56:04):
I mean, it's very difficult to say. And it's not
a cop out. I mean, I think it's just a reality.
I think we're heading towards stagnation. How much inflation in
terms of prices going up again, I don't know how
much we're going to get. It's it's it's definitely not zero.

(56:25):
The FED wants it to be at two percent. I
don't think it'll be a two percent. I think it'll
be higher. The M two numbers increasing after period where
they were decreasing, which suggests to me that they, you know,
we're seeing monetary inflation, which ultimately will be reflected in prices,
so you know, stackflation. But I don't think we'll get
the staflation of the nineteen seventies where you had, I

(56:48):
forget double digit inflation, double digit you know, price increases
and at the same time, you know, just no economic growth.
I don't know that we're gonna I don't think we're
going to get the double digit price is will be
increasing at a higher rate than any of us like
and and and that is a challenge. It's the it's
the stagnation that is the bigger problem, particularly if you're

(57:11):
invested in the stock market. And uh, you know, hold
they might disagree with me in a minute, but uh,
companies can deal with inflation, right, they deal with inflation
by they deal with monetoring inflation by raising prices. It
hurts them, and it hurts them certainly in the long run,
and the stock market stagnates. But the stock market typically
doesn't crash because of inflation. The stock market crashes because

(57:33):
of because of uh, you know, real damage to credit,
uh you know, credit crisis or what leads to stock
market crashes and and we could get something like that.
I mean, I I've mentioned the fact that I think
bitcoin these weird, these weird structures where uh what do

(57:59):
they call them? Treasury companies where they're they're just buying bitcoin,
and then the evaluations that double the value of the bitcoin.
That suggests to me that we're in a period that
is there's going to be a significant, you know, down
move in those stocks that could easily spill into other
technology stocks and other stocks, and you could see a

(58:20):
real attraction in the stock market. But that's so hard
to tell. I mean, it's also you know, if you're
going to invest in fun companies like international stocks, what
are you saying about the dollar? Do you think the
value of the dollar is going to go down to
go up? Why is it going to go down? Why
is it going to go up? It's not It's it's complicated,

(58:40):
not generally, I you know, it's you know, if you
tilt your put folio towards more international stocks, what do
you tilted towards? Are you tilting it towards emerging markets?
Are you tilting it towards Europe? I think Europe is
a mess. The euro might be doing might be doing
pretty good. Against the dollar. But the European Union is

(59:03):
an economy is the mass, and I don't know what
valuations are like of stocks in Europe. I haven't looked
at them. Emoji markets, they might be opportunities there, like
you know the money you're playing with, put it in Argentina.

Speaker 13 (59:22):
Yeah, My emerging markets was just more of a hedge.
As a US slows down, I could get it to.

Speaker 1 (59:28):
Close down so well, EMOGENI markets.

Speaker 13 (59:32):
True, what about for a career? So it was I
was planning to jump companies, but then the market slowed
down dramatically, so everything's hyper competitive. So I was thinking
of next three or five years, stay with my current company,
developed some advanced skills, and then maybe relook at it later.
I don't know if you have any feedback on that.

Speaker 1 (59:55):
I mean, I think that probably makes sense. Although if
you don't like your job, of you know, you and
always start looking and seeing what's available out there. What
is the market like? But what you want to do
right now is really develop advanced skills. Not so much
just because of the economy is in such flux, but
also because AI is coming and AI is going to

(01:00:18):
restructure a lot of the way jobs are done. And
and kind of the skill sets that people are looking for.
And I think it's worth really thinking about how to
kind of think about your career developing skills that are
AI resistant at least in the short run.

Speaker 13 (01:00:41):
Okay, sounds great, Thanks Eron, all right.

Speaker 1 (01:00:45):
Thanks Jacob. Let's see all.

Speaker 2 (01:00:52):
Right, holding, Hey, guys, I guess that I have to
talk about the corporate tax. I'm sorry you just out there.
So basically I want, let's just do a thought experiment. Right,

(01:01:15):
If you've got one hundred percent corporate tax profit tax,
every investment becomes unprofitable. Right, So there's there's no the
value of the investment is based on the future free
cash flows and producers from now and until judgment day
does kind of backed by an interest rate. So every
investment yields no more profits. So every investment is zero. Right,

(01:01:35):
So the corporate tax ultimately is directly changing the profitability
of an investment. So let's say I'm a pizza firm
and I make pizzas. If my profit margin is five
percent on these pizzas and it's above the natural rate
of interest, I'm making economic profits. But if they slap

(01:01:56):
a corporate tax on of say two percent and the
interest rate is for percent than I'm making economic losses now.
So basically, the corporate tax is changing the profitability of
an investment. So the shareholders are now earning lower returns
on the capital invested. Now, you can have an empirical
study that says, oh, the wages are going down or

(01:02:19):
whatever it is, and that's all great, but it doesn't
change the the theoretical fact that the investment is based
on the future cash that it produces, and you're changing
the cash that it produces.

Speaker 1 (01:02:32):
So so if if if if my company is listed
on the stock exchange, and you raise the corporate taxes,
then what would you expect. What would you expect the
stock price to do?

Speaker 2 (01:02:47):
Oh, it would definitely fall, It would definitely fall. Yeah,
And if it doesn't, then there's some other factor. It's
you got to hold Sinteri's parabus, right, So the future
cash is less so discounted back by a lower interest rate.
Maybe it's more. Maybe something happens in your interest.

Speaker 1 (01:03:08):
No, nothing's happened. Let's let's assume nothing's happened because I
change it today and it's the only thing that's really
changing right now and nothing else is changing. And you know,
the fact is that so you know, let's say, you know,
i'd have to run a numbers example. I'd have to
run an example with numbers with you. But yeah, the

(01:03:32):
reality is so, the reality is that the the the investors,
the investors bear a small part, a very small part
of the actual cost of the tax. So profitability doesn't

(01:03:57):
go down that much because the the the cost can
be you know, passed through. You don't like that to
pass through. But because all my competitors are bearing the
same the same cost prices, all of us will raise prices. Right, So, yes,

(01:04:17):
you know, the way of profit will go down, but
it won't go down by the same amount as the tax. Right,
So shareholders will pay part of the tax. Consumers will
pay part of the tax. And if I can cut
my costs by cutting my my if I can cut
costs by cutting my employees, then employees will pay part
of the tax.

Speaker 2 (01:04:38):
Yeah, you're going to employ fewer factors of production because
it's by definition less profitable now.

Speaker 1 (01:04:43):
So all of them affected by the tax. And you
can divide the cost of the tax between the different
factors of production, and you can say consumers make part
of it, employees make part of it. Capital goods make
part of it, and shareholders pay part of it to
be part of it. And when you run them and
when you run the actual numbers, it turns out the

(01:05:04):
shareholders paid. The damage to shareholders is the smallest of
all the different factors of production.

Speaker 2 (01:05:13):
We have to distinguish between the short and the long run.
So like in the short run, the investment is now
it has been, this marginal firm now is a sub
marginal firm or a super or not.

Speaker 1 (01:05:25):
Because all films are sub All films are affected the
same by the same exactly the.

Speaker 2 (01:05:30):
Same way, but firms have different profit margins, so it changes.
It changes whether or not a line of production is
worth taking on or not. So for if I'm making
thirty percent profit margins and it brings brings my profit
margin down to fifteen percent, I could still do fine,
but you know it'll change based on.

Speaker 1 (01:05:48):
The given that everybody bears it, everybody can then look
at the costs and therefore increase their profit margin.

Speaker 2 (01:05:56):
So but we have to distinguish between the short and
the long run. So the short run, you're going to
see ferns exiting your in the in the short run,
you're going to have lower profit margins. The ferns that
are making profit margins lower than the cost of capital
are going to leave the industry because it's ineffective.

Speaker 1 (01:06:13):
Unless they can cut their cost to such an extent
that they now have a higher profit market.

Speaker 2 (01:06:18):
Sure, yeah, I'm just say yes, yeah, sure, if you
could cut your cost, great, that's awesome. But with the tax,
you could have done that without. I mean with the tax.

Speaker 1 (01:06:27):
You know, you couldn't have done it without because without
the increase in the tax, Without the increase in the tax,
there is a certain equilibrium a cost the industry of
where the costs of being determined. So you'll go somewhere
else if you cut their wages. Yes, now everybody in
the industry is cutting wages.

Speaker 2 (01:06:46):
Yes, but well, the wage is valued at the marginal
value product, so the discount and marginal value product, so
the discount of marginal value product is Yes, it'll change
in the long Yes, the wage.

Speaker 1 (01:07:00):
Mean determined by competition for labor, right, the wages being
desmed by competition for labor. And the reality is that
you've just changed the equilibria the competition for that labor
because everybody now has an incentive to cut labor to
cut the cost.

Speaker 2 (01:07:14):
Well, it's ultimately, no matter what your competition is, your
your you can't pay more than marginal value product if
you make losses on labor if you pay more. So
it doesn't even if you're a monopoly, it's the same thing.
So basically, uh, what we're running into here is that
the effective marginal value product of the line of production

(01:07:36):
is lower. Okay, So the rent of everything, the rent
of capital goods, the wages of labor are all lower
because the effective the effective profit that it generates is
now lower. Okay, So the marginal firms will go out
of the industry because they earn lower profit margins. Now,
so the return on capital has now been lower, so

(01:07:59):
we have less investment in capital goods, they depreciate, they
go out, and then the firm leaves the industry. So
now those shareholders have to find new investments to go
because the investment that they previously had was no longer
profitable under current tax rates. If we had one hundred
percent tax rate, to make it super simple and a

(01:08:20):
thought experiment, there's there's no profitability. Absolutely, we go to autarchy,
complete autarchy. So so basically, uh, the incidence is in theory,
and basically the incidence ultimately is on the investors. But
it's true that the discount and marginal value product of

(01:08:42):
labor is now lower and factor, and that's going to
go down to every factor because they buy the inputs
and they buy the so every factor of production throughout
the structure is going to face lower marginal value product.
And because land, labor, land and labor and polist interests
interested and change, but land and labor ear in lower

(01:09:03):
marginal value products, so they they they face the incidents too.
But the shareholders also face incidents here because you're.

Speaker 1 (01:09:10):
Saying shareholders don't don't bear any of the costs they
be they bear the cost I'm saying that empirically. Again, UH,
A majority of the the you know, the pain here
is ultimately in small, relatively small changes in capital gains taxes.

(01:09:31):
Now again, if you increase it one hundred percent, clearly
everybody goes bankrupt and everybody suffers the consequence of everything.
But it's small changes of capital gains. Most of the
impact is is felt by labor and UH and by
UH and by consumers.

Speaker 2 (01:09:50):
Ultimately, you're gonna change the profit stream of the investment.

Speaker 1 (01:09:54):
So the investment is shareholder's still bea some of it,
but they they build less than what what you know,
they don't baye their entire amount. Is the point actually
be as a percentage less than labor and consumers.

Speaker 2 (01:10:10):
I mean, it's going to be hard to do this
in an empirical study because you're not holding the factors constant.

Speaker 1 (01:10:15):
So it's very there are ways in which you can
do an imperical study to hold fact this constant. You know,
there are ways in which you can unentangle this and
figure it out, and people have done.

Speaker 2 (01:10:23):
It, but well to share it with me. But I
guess ultimately what's going on here. This is a fundamental point.
The future profits of the business is is what it's worth,
so a discounted by interest. So so you change the
future profits of the business. It's very simple.

Speaker 1 (01:10:41):
How much have I changed the profits of the business?
And then we'll kind of by the rate of the tax.
So Terris Parabis, no, because because as you've said, my
labor costs have gone down and and and and spince,
I faced less competition, my my, my my revenue has
gone up and uh, and so my profitability in the

(01:11:02):
future goes down, but not by the weight of the
tax by something the weight of the tax.

Speaker 2 (01:11:07):
But what if, but what if now that you have,
labor has gone out of the industry, So now law
of diminishing returns you you don't have to pay more
for labor because the marginal value product is higher. I mean,
it's like it's it's you can't just say like in
every scenario, like and then you're going to change, like
how many factors you employed. This is going to change,

(01:11:28):
like you know, the rents of them for the law
of return, so like you you know, you're going to
have like a bunch of different factors here. But ultimately
the investment is less profitable now for the shareholders.

Speaker 1 (01:11:39):
So they yes, not but but not by the amount
of the tax, like something smaller than that.

Speaker 2 (01:11:46):
If if if the costs are the same, which they're
not going to be. I understand that if the costs
are the same, then yes, but the same of the tax.
But that's not going to happen obviously.

Speaker 1 (01:11:58):
Yes, that's right. So it's it's less than the tacks
given that the costs are going to shift and revenues
can shift.

Speaker 2 (01:12:08):
I don't want to like take up the whole thing.

Speaker 1 (01:12:12):
To be continued, I guess, let's see, Jennifer.

Speaker 7 (01:12:23):
Well, I was thinking the other day, you know how
people when they'll make an argument for God, and they'll say,
there's obviously there's an intelligent design in reality, so it
must be a god. And when I was a kid,
I used to think it wasn't it's not very intelligent.
Of orse, she had to define that. But if there's

(01:12:45):
a god, why why are things so difficult, you know,
like for living things to survive and all the pain
and everything. That's not very intelligent now, And then, of
course when I get older understood that's not philosophical argument.
I mean, it could be a god who's just a
jerk or whatever. But when they're saying intelligent design, what
they're referring to is the law of identity, right, that
there's a law of identity, so they're trying to equate

(01:13:07):
that with intelligent design. Is that what they're referring to.

Speaker 1 (01:13:10):
When they say that, I do think, yeah, I'm not
sure I understand the question.

Speaker 7 (01:13:21):
Well, do you know when people say intelligent design and
that there must be a god?

Speaker 1 (01:13:24):
Because yeah, I mean the argument they use is you
pick up a claw, you look at a watch or clock,
and you immediately know that somebody designed it, somebody made it,
because it's it's so intricate and it works so well,
and there's no and you look at nature and you go, well,
somebody must have created this, must have must have made it,

(01:13:45):
because it's so complex and it's so you know, functions
by these by these laws. This doesn't look like it's
arbitrary or random.

Speaker 7 (01:13:54):
Well, that's what I'm saying that because the law of
identity exists, they're trying to equate. Well, because things are
what they they are, they they act the way they're
supposed to act.

Speaker 12 (01:14:02):
Now there was a law of.

Speaker 1 (01:14:03):
Identity, if somebody must have designed them, Yeah, that's right. Okay,
I never thought of it that way, but yes I
think that.

Speaker 7 (01:14:09):
Yeah, that's that's what they're trying to refer to. Is
of course is wrong and.

Speaker 1 (01:14:13):
The way entity causality. Yes, that they through reference that
for something that violates the law of identity and violates
the love cuzale, right, and yeah, that's who designed the designer? Right.
They never have an answer for that.

Speaker 7 (01:14:28):
When I was a kid, I did used to think,
though that's not very intelligent.

Speaker 12 (01:14:32):
If I was I could make donue.

Speaker 5 (01:14:35):
Donahue asked rand about that, was saying like, yeah, he's saying,
aren't you impressed by the order in the universe?

Speaker 1 (01:14:43):
And she was saying no.

Speaker 5 (01:14:45):
And she said no, she said, what would a disorderly
universe mean? It would mean like basically the violation of
the law of identity, right, Yeah.

Speaker 7 (01:14:55):
The Greeks used to call chaos. They thought there was
chaos and somehow it this doesn't make sense either, But.

Speaker 1 (01:15:04):
No, I mean it's it's the kind of excuses people
come up with, you know, to justify God is is
pretty amazing.

Speaker 7 (01:15:12):
Yeah, it is. They get pretty creative sometimes.

Speaker 1 (01:15:16):
Thank you, all right, thanks Jennifer Adam.

Speaker 8 (01:15:24):
There's something puzzling about the entire intellectual community in history
and cultural philosophy ignoring scientific evidence. For example, I've encountered

(01:15:45):
over and over the argument that the German concentration camps
and death camps were industrial and that's an argument against industry. Now,

(01:16:10):
the fact is, and it's absolutely solid science, that during
the Crusades, by the end of the Crusades, the ancestral
population of Ashkenazi Jews, that is, essentially the entire Jewish

(01:16:30):
population north of Spain and Italy, was reduced to between
two hundred and seventy and three hundred and fifty individuals.
Now before that, we don't have the exact numbers, but
we know from the less Roman censuses that Jews constituted

(01:16:58):
about ten percent of the population in the Roman Empire,
including the areas where the ancestral population of the Jews lived.
So during the Crusades, an overwhelming number, more than ninety

(01:17:25):
nine point nine percent of all the Jews in Europe
north of Spain and Italy were murdered without any resort
to industry or modernity. In the Showa, the Germans killed

(01:17:51):
about between one third and one half of all the
Jews in the territories they containg. So why is this
still being used in the anti industrial argument? Why is

(01:18:13):
the scientific evidence being ignored?

Speaker 1 (01:18:18):
I'm not sure what the scientific it's being I know
the reality is that the Germans in World War Two
did it more efficiently and did it on an industrial scale.
The Crusades killed maybe a greater percentage of Jews, but
they did it less systematically and with less efficiency, and

(01:18:40):
in a much more bloody in a much more bloody way,
in a much more personal way. They literally had to
go up and kill one at a time. So I
think there's complete justification for talking about the fact that
this was done in an industrial way. I also think
the other thing about the Crusades is that it was

(01:19:03):
very much done, as far as I can tell, very
much done kind of on the ground by the people
who are participating in the Crusades. They were inspired by
the the you know that in the moment to kill
as many Jews as they could, versus a a a plan,

(01:19:28):
a regimented plan to rid the world of Jews, which
I think is what the nazis, what the Nazis implemented.
So while they killed more as a percentage, it was
just done differently, and and I think pointing out the
differences between them is is not invalid.

Speaker 8 (01:19:48):
Well, first of all, the evidence is from DNA, we
can trade.

Speaker 1 (01:19:56):
Yeah. No, we're not. We're not. We're not. I'm not
challenging the evidence. The evidence is clearly that the Crusade
killed more, but they did it differently. And and the
point of industrializing the fact that they did the Nazis
did it in an industrialized way is not to suggest
that they killed more Jews. It's just to suggest that
they did it in a you know, in a particular way,

(01:20:20):
which is different than the way it was done during
the Crusades.

Speaker 8 (01:20:24):
But if they killed a match match match lower fraction,
how can it be argued that it was more efficient.

Speaker 1 (01:20:37):
Oh, because they they expended less energy to do it.
They didn't have to. They didn't have to, you know, uh,
wheeled swords and roam around and different little villages. And
it didn't take them hundreds of years to do Remember
the the the the Crusades were not one crusade. There

(01:21:00):
were there were three, four, five of them and they
and they each one of them killed more Jews and
more Jews. So it was just it was a much
big expedition of energy. It wasn't a systematically planned It
was much more uh, the emotion of the moment. And
again it was it was not industrial. It wasn't a

(01:21:22):
conveyor built. So I mean it killing is killing, But
there's a difference between the two. It's just a descriptive
of the difference. Uh. Now, it's also true that people
don't know, ignore evade the brutality of the Crusades, particularly

(01:21:42):
towards Jews, than not interested in it, because that would
blame that would that would blame Christianity for it. They
don't want to hear.

Speaker 3 (01:21:52):
But you also say that the the Crusades, like I mean, okay,
a lot of that that was taking place was a bloodlust.

Speaker 4 (01:21:58):
Kind of thing.

Speaker 3 (01:21:59):
I'm not excusing it, whereas the Nazi thing just it
seemed to be kind of beyond bloodlust. It was just Okay,
we have a job to do, let's go do it.

Speaker 1 (01:22:09):
Yeah. I definitely think that that is a difference. And
you know, the Crusades, a lot of it was local
preachers revving people up and getting people excited in or
to get them motivated to go to the Crusade, and
the Jews being the first victims that they encountered, that
they that they used up the bloodlust if you will.

(01:22:32):
On where's the Nazis had a systematic plan? I don't
think the Crusades had a plan. It just happened. So
I think I think that is part of the difference.
I do not know if we know how many Jews
were live during the Crusade and what percentage of the
total global Jewish population they killed. They clearly killed, as

(01:22:56):
as Adam says, you know, ninety nine percent or whatever
the number is of Central and Western Europe Western Eupean
non including Spain and Italy of the Jews. And it
is interesting that Italy you didn't see this going on,
and Italy is where the Pope was, and the Pope
was actually opposed to killing Jews during the crusade, So

(01:23:19):
the Pope actually objected to it. And it was local
preachers who traveled with the crusaders who got them wild
up and got them going. At least that's true of
the first Crusade. I'm not sure what happened in the
others in terms of the Pope's involvement. I thanks, Adam,
let's see, I'm lane.

Speaker 4 (01:23:41):
Yeah, it's the question, like small question again, what rule
do police have to maintain.

Speaker 3 (01:23:50):
Law and order at private events things like concerts, sport,
sports events and things. I mean, one would think that, okay,
that's their job is to protect the individual rights. But
on the other hand, you know, like you know, like
I give us an example, like years ago, I went
to an ACDC concert in Montreal and when we came out,
the Riots squad was lined up there. That nothing happened,

(01:24:12):
but given that it was Montreal, I could certainly see
their their exercising caution because they love to riot there.

Speaker 1 (01:24:18):
Yep, So was that.

Speaker 4 (01:24:21):
I mean, obviously that costs a lot more, you know,
you have please, I.

Speaker 1 (01:24:24):
Mean, I think that's legitimate. If they if they worry
about the potential for a violation of rights at scale,
then they need to be prepared for them. They need
to be ready for that. So I think absolutely the
police have now whether they are going to enter the venue.
They would enter the venue only if there's real evidence
of something already happening in the venue, right, so they're

(01:24:47):
not you know, if riots break out during a football game,
then the police will come in, but they won't. They
won't and if there's rumors that riots are going to happen,
they might stay. Police inside the venue already in advance, Okay.

Speaker 3 (01:25:03):
But I mean in general, though, like when you have
these venues and let's say you have thirty, twenty thousand,
whatever number of people, is it unreasonable to say, okay,
you know, we want to have some police presence because
you know, in the general population, let's say you have
one officer for every thousand people whatever. You know, now
you've got twenty thousand people in one place. I mean,

(01:25:24):
just it doesn't even have to be a place where
you say, Okay, there's a riot that's likely to happen.
It could just be Yeah, that many people together in
a place, you're more likely to get some confract it
might result in some fights and stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:25:35):
Strikes me it's very reasonable, and the police's job is
to try to anticipate these things to figure out how
to deploy the resources.

Speaker 4 (01:25:42):
And there shouldn't be an extra charge for that, right,
Like the venue shouldn't have to pay for that.

Speaker 1 (01:25:48):
No, I mean, that's an interesting question. I mean, maybe
the venue does pay for it. Maybe that's part of
the cost of business in a free society. If you
want the police on your property to secure it, maybe
they do. But if they're outside, certainly not.

Speaker 4 (01:26:11):
And if something happens and the police have to come in,
you should.

Speaker 1 (01:26:14):
And then they come in. But if you want to
secure it in advance, maybe you do pay for it.
Maybe it's a part of how the police fund themselves,
right that in certain circumstances they.

Speaker 3 (01:26:22):
Do charge your fee for that, because you'd want to
be careful with that, right because you don't want cops
starting to like shake down people want us there, you
got to pay because everything's private, the roads are private,
all that stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:26:35):
Okay, Yeah, and you'd have to think about how do
you create laws that allow the police to access private roads?
Can they access private roads? When do they have the
authority to move and to cross people's property. It becomes
more complicated. In a fully private society, it becomes much
easier and much simpler, But there's a sense in which

(01:26:57):
you have to rewrite laws and rethink about those laws.

Speaker 3 (01:27:00):
Yeah, okay, there's a there's a related question I have,
which I'll ask is a separate question.

Speaker 1 (01:27:05):
Thanks, sure, Andrew, And I need to go down I
forgot to do the super chet so yeah, Andrew, Hi.

Speaker 5 (01:27:15):
I used to get so pissed off at public infrastructure
and riding the you know, subway and just getting stuck
on the tracks and all the stuff that comes along
with like a state owned, you know, infrastructure product like that.
But now I do see it as kind of cool,

(01:27:37):
Like when I'm on the subway that it's you know,
on a bridge for example in New York City, like
it's still Western know how and engineering, and it's a feat,
you know, it's a modern feat that I'm riding that subway,
and I feel much more benevolent about it.

Speaker 1 (01:27:58):
Yep.

Speaker 5 (01:27:59):
But I also am you know, it's it's a little
bitter bitterness too that it could be so much better.

Speaker 1 (01:28:05):
Yeah, No, I think that's absolutely right. You've got to
acknowledge the you know, the engineering success and and that
somebody built this and of course the original New York
subway was built by private enterprise, but but then resent
the fact that it's now state owned and they're full
primitive as compared to what it could be. I think

(01:28:29):
that's that's absolutely right. And and it's you know, it's like,
you know, you you travel in China on a high
speed rail and uh, this thing goes unbelievably fast and
it's a completely smooth ride and it's amazing, and it's
a beautiful train and the tracks amazing. Uh. And on

(01:28:50):
the one hand, it's wow, the engineering is amazing and
what an achievement. On the other hand, the Chinese government
built this, and and that's that's horrific. So but you've
got it, you've got to be able to appreciate the
positive value associated with it as well.

Speaker 5 (01:29:06):
Yeah, Like I I feel much more benevolent looking at
it from that angle than just being pissed off.

Speaker 1 (01:29:13):
Yeah, yep, all right, thanks sure. Ian.

Speaker 4 (01:29:22):
So on the on the more positive side. So I'm
a little more mixed on AI than most people. And
I think I agree with what you said that your
thoughts that we're probably in a bubble, but that doesn't
mean that still won't be important things done and there's
great things happening, yep. And I use I use AI

(01:29:43):
every day in my job as a as a developer
writing code, and I'm working in code that I really understand,
so I can see if it's doing something right or
if it's doing something wrong, and then manually fix it
things like that. But one thing I've been doing lately,
which I don't know if you ever code or look
at this stuff, but it's fun to play around with,
is what's called vibe, where I'm working in a language
I don't know, I don't understand the package is, I'm

(01:30:03):
working out to understand any of the guts of it,
and you take one of these agents and you tell
it this is what I want as an output. And
the really neat thing is it's not like check GPT
where you're typing something and it gives you response and
then you cut and paste it. It will modify the
code that is sitting in your area. It will run tests.
It will, and it looks the way. They've done a

(01:30:24):
really good job of presenting it, so it looks like
it's thinking, yeah, oh I changed this. But if the
test failed, let me see if there's a syntax error.
I found a syntax error. I'm fixing that. And it's
like watching a person. I'm walking to it like it's
really spooky and really powerful, like I've made more progress
in this thing that I don't Again, I'm not even
looking at the code. I don't understand what it's doing

(01:30:45):
beneath it. I'm just saying, this is what output I want.
The output doesn't match.

Speaker 1 (01:30:49):
Can you change this?

Speaker 4 (01:30:50):
And it's not perfect, it's not doing it exactly, and
it can be very frustrating, and it's still very limited,
but for where we are, it's a really interesting thing
and everybody should try it. Try something you always wanted
to write, and you don't understand programming, Try one of
these agents and see what it does. And it's it's fun.

Speaker 1 (01:31:07):
And there agents now that'll create a website for you.
I mean, you tell them what you want on the
website and what the goal is and and they'll they'll
just build a website for you. And then you can
change it. You can you can have it make changes
to it depending on the output. As you said, I
mean it, it really is. It really is cool. I
just asked chat GPT actually to take one of my

(01:31:28):
shows and turn into an essay. I haven't looked at
the results yet, but I'm curious. I did it to
the phone policy one. I did it last week about
what America First, proper America first POM policy would look like.
So I'm curious what chat GIPT did with that.

Speaker 4 (01:31:44):
But I guess we'll say to me the fascinating there's
two fascinating things. One is the things it can do,
and two of the things is it can't do. Because
that's also really super interesting, like why can't you do
this one?

Speaker 1 (01:31:54):
Obviously, Yeah, and it's only going to get better. I
don't know what the upper limit is. I don't know
how much better it can get given that it's constrained
by the fact that it's not thinking. But you know,
it is going to get better, and it is going
to be fascinating to see how all this works out.
And there's no question that just has to increase productivity.

(01:32:20):
You know, productivity is going to go up, which means ultimately,
canomic growth will go up everything else al constant, which
is not. But you don't this is what's going to
save us from that stagnation. Right, We're heading to stagnation
and this might this might just allow us to get
through it.

Speaker 4 (01:32:38):
I mean, I think I'll borrow from a Holden said,
which is sometimes you got to think of the short
term in the long term, because in the short term,
I'm not sure productivity is going to go up because
you can waste a lot of time trying to get
this stuff to do what you want, like it can
you can go to the weeds and consume more time
than it would to fix it because you're like it's
so close. Let me just keep trying. And it's like, okay,
I get fixed this manually in one minute, but I
want to get it to do it it takes me.

Speaker 1 (01:32:59):
In the Yeah, and that's true of technology. I mean, yeah,
when when you know, there was this big mystery in
economics during the during the nineteen eighties and into the
nineteen nineties that, in spite of the introduction of the
PC and everything else, productivity couldn't see any growth in

(01:33:21):
productivity in the numbers. There was nothing and then suddenly,
like I forget the exact year, ninety three and ninety four,
productivity just starts shooting up. And it's like the cumulative
effect of all this. People finally figured out how to
use it and it starts appearing in the numbers, and
you suddenly see us see and you see, you see
that happen as a consequence. You see what happens is

(01:33:43):
you've got stagnation and wages throughout the eighties and early nineties,
and then starting in ninety four, wages start going up,
you know, pretty much in every in every profession, and
that it's a product of Finally, technology has had an
impact on productivity increasing and uh and ultimately that good

(01:34:04):
reflated in wages.

Speaker 4 (01:34:05):
Yeah, every everything is slower than people think it is,
both on the good side and the bad side.

Speaker 1 (01:34:10):
And yet everything is also faster and people think.

Speaker 4 (01:34:12):
Yeah, it's slower, until it's faster.

Speaker 1 (01:34:15):
Yes, it's slow, and it's slow in some dimensions and
faster than others. Who would have thought we'd be talking
about AI the way we're talking about it now, I
mean three four years ago, nobody it was. It was
a joke.

Speaker 4 (01:34:28):
I used the early versions of the chat GPT type stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:34:31):
It was a joke.

Speaker 4 (01:34:31):
It was pathetic, you know, like this is never going
to be interesting, and then now.

Speaker 1 (01:34:34):
It's and it suddenly became interesting. And it happened very quickly,
very very quickly. Yeah, thanks Ian, Uh Steven uh?

Speaker 14 (01:34:50):
And when's these Wall Street Journal on the point of Yes,
you read the sh the end of the deion, the
end of the wet Delusion.

Speaker 4 (01:35:09):
Maybe you didn't.

Speaker 1 (01:35:11):
Maybe you missed that one. Maybe it was a video, Yeah, Steven,
turn off your video and maybe end of the green Delusion,
end of the Green Delusion. No, I haven't. I didn't
read that.

Speaker 6 (01:35:23):
No.

Speaker 1 (01:35:26):
Oh m, it was a good yeah, very good. I
really wanted your opinion with it. I don't know.

Speaker 11 (01:35:35):
I thought it was I thought I didn't understand all
of it, but I thought if you would read.

Speaker 1 (01:35:41):
No, I haven't read it, although I usually like Homa
Jenkins and stuff. I'll check it out. I'll check out,
all right, do that better? Now you there? Oh? I'm sorry,
Yeah I am. It didn't make any difference. That's a
little better. Now, that's a little better. Ah, Now it's

(01:36:09):
no good.

Speaker 11 (01:36:11):
Utah before the next show and windows with Windows eleven
and I'll.

Speaker 1 (01:36:15):
Be Okay, I lost you. All right, let me let
me take some super chats here. Let's see we've got Michael.
Michael says, uh, do you think many young objectivists believe
if we actually lived in golds Coach, I would obviously
be super successful and happy. But because the world is

(01:36:35):
so corrupt, it's everyone else's fault, my life sucks. I
think quite a few objectivists think that, young and old,
not just young objectivists, but yes, I think a lot
of people who attracted to objectivism use the state of
the world as justification for their own failures. Sadly, Stephen

(01:36:57):
Pettit's I recently re watch Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
It was amazed how its theme of communication was conquitized
in every frame. If directors haven't read RAND regarding abstractions
and concretes, where do they get it from? Well, I

(01:37:18):
mean the idea of abstraction and concretes. And it's not
just directors, right, I mean that exists in novels, that
exists in in in in painting, and so I don't
think you have to no philosophy to have that. So

(01:37:39):
you know, people artists get that, They get it directly
from reality without necessarily even having a complete understanding of
what it means. Uh, And they and they use it
to they use it as a tool to communicate ideas.

(01:38:01):
You know, there's a lot of implicit, if you will,
implicit knowledge out there that is that people have. It's
the same as to say, is I mean it was
nobody ever self interested before Ann came up with the
concept of self interest for rational self interest, Well, people
were to some extent. I mean, they weren't consistently just

(01:38:23):
like I don't know that people have an understanding of
art that is as extensive ogn RAN's. Yet they still
produced arts, right, So, even without having the full philosophical understanding,
still use and understand at some level these concepts. And

(01:38:43):
of course rand is not the first person to understand
the relationship that there is a relationship between abstractions and concretes.
That is, that was I mean, she has a particular
understanding of how you form abstractions from concretes, but the
relationship between the two, I don't think is something she

(01:39:06):
is the first to come up with. Right, hopefully understood
that question, Michael, are you going to interview Blake Showl
or does he want to keep his objectivism on down low.
If he becomes successful and turns the personic flight into
Norman credits objectivism for it, that's a game changer. Well,

(01:39:29):
I mean, I don't know if it's a game changer,
but it would be great if that happened. The reality is,
I've tried to interview Blake shows. I don't think he
wants to right now be interviewed. But hopefully once he's successful,
that goes away and he's happy to be interviewed. So
we will see whether any one thing is a game changer.

(01:39:50):
I'm skeptical, right, I don't think there's one game changer
to anything. I think this is just a lot of
hard work and there's a lot of things that have
to happen for the game to change. All right, let's
go through some of these other ones and then we'll
turn back to the panel. Now that Israel is being
accused of starving guzins, do you regret advising Israel to
starve guzins earlier this year? Now they should have starved guzens,

(01:40:14):
you know, right after October seventh, and then we'd be
all over this and it'll be you know, we'd be
past this and we could, we'd be beyond the victory
and we'd be talking about solutions rather than still talking
about this. But no, the reality is that the notion
that you have to feed your enemy while you're fighting
the enemy is bizarre and altruistic and ridiculous and stupid.

(01:40:39):
And Israel should have never done it, and starting October eighth,
they should have turned off the water, turned off the electricity,
turned off the internet, and stop delivering food aid and
then gone in and finished the job. And I think
ultimately fewer people would die. However, many would die, would die.

(01:41:02):
You know, they started a war, you need to finish it.
Michael is evolutionary psychology a rehash a BS Nazi eugenics determinism? No,
I don't think so. I mean it's a rehash of determinism.
It's a form of determinism. But don't look to everything
you don't like as being originating with the Nazis, And

(01:41:22):
eugenics of us didn't start with the Nazis. Eugenics was
a movement that started in the United States, and the
Nazis only picked up on it much much later. No,
I mean evolutionary psychology is an attempt to explain human
behavior in terms of our genes, and it's very tempting,

(01:41:43):
and it's very seductive, particularly if you don't believe in
free will. Then your behavior has to come from somewhere,
and your genes is probably how it comes. And if
you understand how evolution works, you can come up with
lots of just so stories to justify current behavior based
on your genetic makeup. I don't think there's any greater

(01:42:04):
agenda than that going on here, Michael, Have Israel have
Israeli's lost a portion of the altruism since October seventh,
All these Raelis I've spoken with one Gaza wiped out,
no mercy. Yeah, I mean, I don't know who you
talk to. But the reality is that something like seventy
five percent of Israelis, I think the last poll I saw,

(01:42:26):
want the water end and and now don't want the
water continue. Don't want Israel to occupy Gaza City. I
want a deal to feed the hostages. I don't see
any reason to assume that altruism is completely gone suddenly.
When altruism, when being altruistic causes you to face an

(01:42:47):
existential threat directly in the short run, imminently, then yeah,
Altruism usually is put to the side and you do
what you have to do to survive. And that's what
Israel experience. Instant to some extent, is still experiencing. But
autism has staying power, and I don't think it's it's

(01:43:07):
completely gone. I think it's still there. Sadly Neo says,
if you would that celebrity, would you take a chance
knowing potentially it might hurt your career. I don't know.
I've never thought of being a celebrity. Maybe not. I'm
not blaming the celebrity. I'm not saying that they were

(01:43:30):
irrational or wrong for doing what they're doing. I'm just
saying that's the fact, that's the reality of it, without
a value judgment on it. But I think at some
point you've got to be willing to stand by your value.
So maybe early in your career you don't do it,
but at some point you have to be. Look at
John Allison, he was a CEO of a bank in

(01:43:52):
a heavily, heavily regulated industry, and at some point he said, no,
I'm standing up for what I believe. I'm gonna talk,
I'm gonna say what I believe. I'm going to say
what I think and let the chips fall where they may. Uh,
you know, and and uh, that's what he did. He
gave lectures, he gives talks. He uh and on a
number of occasions he talked told the regulators to take

(01:44:14):
a hike. So it's difficult to do, but at some
point you need to reach a point in your career
where you you can do that, and you're willing to
do that, you need to have the coverage to do it.
Robert had to jump off the panel. Another busy Saturday.
But I'm listening while getting things currently tuning one of

(01:44:34):
my pianos, and I always appreciate these MUNTI contributors sessions.
Thanks thanks Robert, thanks for participating. Appreciate that. Let's do
a quick round with the panel. Uh let's start withholding.

Speaker 2 (01:44:48):
All right, So you're basically saying that the you say
that the corporate tax incidents is on consumers wages and
very small portion is investors, right.

Speaker 1 (01:45:03):
I'm saying, Yeah, I'm saying, you know, relatively to consumers
and and and uh employees, a small portion is on investors. Okay,
So I don't know how how vary it is, but yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:45:16):
Right right, So yeah, I mean I so for me,
I have investors in uh, and wages and investors in
the marginal product of of labor and revenue is lower,
and then and entrepreneurial profits are lower in the short term.

(01:45:41):
And uh so basically that that's where I have the incidents,
and then I have it going of course like back
throughout the back to the early stages of production. So
those those entrepreneurs will eventually earn lower profits and the
wages and land owners will own we'll we'll both have

(01:46:02):
lower net value product. So the the consumer, of course,
you're changing the cost to produce it. So the consumer,
that's going to change the profitability of producing it. So
and of course, like to the extent that your value productive,
the more you get taxed. So so uh basically the

(01:46:24):
most the most value productive firms pay the most tax.
And basically, uh, you you'll get a scenario where with
a corporate tax, you'll get a scenario where the consumer
is going to pay a higher price. Of course, again
not because they are passing the cost on right like

(01:46:47):
in that the net income is now lower for the
firm because of the corporate tax. So they produce fewer
factors of production, they employ fewer factors of production to
undergo this project, and therefore the output is lower. So
the the good in existence is now lower because of
the corporate tax. So now you're bidding up. The demand

(01:47:10):
schedule intersects with the supply of the good in existence
at a higher equilibrium price, so the prices are higher.
Like we this is the very first conversation we had
because you brought up the corporate tax. The price is
higher for the good because the equilibrium price is higher
because you're moving along the demand curve. So basically I

(01:47:31):
agree with you that if you're if you mean like
you said in the first part that the if you
mean by pass through that they simply pay higher prices
because of the tax, like you want to emphasize, yes, true,
I'm with one hundred percent there, and that way, resources
are not allocated in the most value productive uses because
of the tax, and consumers will pay for that or

(01:47:55):
will will be worse off. Consumer welfare will be worse
off because the very value productive firms are being taxed
the most, so consumers are worse off for that. But
I want to make sure you don't think that like
the simply like some people like you're, You're not saying that, oh, well,
now we have a higher cost of production, so now

(01:48:16):
we're just going to have that the consumer pay that,
so our net income is the same. Like we're on
the same page here, that the net income is less,
the consumer pays more because of the decreased production, et cetera.

Speaker 1 (01:48:29):
Yes, but I also think that you have to take
into account, you know, how competition works in a market
like this, the fact that some uh that that some
of the producers are going to go out of business
because of this, so there's less competition, and that since
everybody is facing the same increasing cost, the same increasing,

(01:48:50):
the same increase in tax, the competitive pressure is that
the increase prices. Okay, the thing that translates through, as
you said, a shift in the in the supply code,
which generates a higher price acquesting the entire industry and

(01:49:10):
between competitors. Yeah, like in the Norman environment, I can't
just raise prices because obviously people just shift to my competitors.
But my competitor has exactly the same it is facing
exactly the same situation I am, and therefore he is
not going to he is going to match my price.
He's not going to decrease the place.

Speaker 2 (01:49:32):
Yeah, no, I'm I I agree that they're raising the price,
but we and we agree. I guess that for the reason.
But I guess it also is important to understand that
the best you know, Google is paying, you know, pays
more tax than you know, some marginal Google search or
knockoff search, right, even though they're competitors or whatever. Google

(01:49:55):
is going to face a higher burden because of the tax.
Like you agree with that, right, because like basically what
I'm saying is it's not all created equal for the
corporate tax, like I wouldn't go so, yeah, it's.

Speaker 1 (01:50:08):
Not created equal. But again it's a well, you know,
Google is tricky because where does Google generate the profit from, right,
It's generated from advertising, So they have to think about
who who the competitive is. But but yeah, I mean
Google's paying more taxes because Google's bigger and it generates
more revenue. Uh, and it's going to affect every aspect

(01:50:29):
of Google's business.

Speaker 2 (01:50:30):
Yeah, and it's tax pro rata to the profit. So
you know, you got you got like uh, you know,
it's it's like super productive. And then so like Google,
you know, is going to employ much fewer factors in
production than say Firefox or I don't know, whatever company.

Speaker 1 (01:50:49):
Yeah, but you know, the the the point I was
making about Amazon yesterday was Google could probably afford not
to rage prices for a while, right where whereas its
smaller competitors probably just gonna raise prices and thus be
driven out of the market.

Speaker 2 (01:51:09):
Yeah, and you can raise prices all you want, but
the question, of course, is someone going to pay it?

Speaker 1 (01:51:14):
Profitability exactly, So you're not gonna nobody's gonna pay it
because Google. So the good example right now is Amazon.
Amazon is not raising prices because of tariffs because it
can afford to absorb them for a while. Walmut is
doing the same thing. Long term, they have to raise
the price, but in the short run they can absorb
them for a while. And a lot of the small

(01:51:34):
competitors are going out of business because they cannot afford
to absorb those prices increased.

Speaker 2 (01:51:40):
Sure, yeah, we're with each other on that, but of
course we have to make sure that we say, well,
Amazon and every firm has a profit maximizing price for
whatever they sell. If they go above it, they earn
lower net income if they go.

Speaker 1 (01:51:54):
So they're going below it right now, They're going below
that price and they're driving competitors out of the big
business as not as a consequence of that, as a
consequence of the taos yes, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:52:04):
And terrorifts reduced net income too, so yes, so like
we're you know, in sales taxes reduced that income and.

Speaker 1 (01:52:12):
Value added taxes and so on and so forth.

Speaker 2 (01:52:13):
Absolutely, Okay, cool, I think yeah. Basically the point is
like a lot of people like if we just say
pass through, then a lot of people will think, like
the firm is employing the same amount of factors it
would in the counterfactual.

Speaker 1 (01:52:26):
No, I mean, of course not yeah, yeah, of course
not right.

Speaker 2 (01:52:29):
So like they think, oh, we just it's in your
potato chip, you know, like it's like okay, well let's
see like the underlying mechanisms that makes this the price.

Speaker 1 (01:52:36):
Right, But yeah, I think forget and this is why
it tas cause you know, economic slow down. They don't
cause you getomic slow down just because consumers are paying
high prices. They could they cause you getting on slow
down because businesses at the point fuel means you know few, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:52:53):
The marginal product of the economy is lower. Now you're
producing stuff, so you know, and then yeah, and then
a bunch of firms that would be producing stuff for
no longer doing it. So I guess like, yeah, okay,
I think we're good. Yeah, I just like yeah, sorry.

Speaker 1 (01:53:09):
No, that's fine, that's fine. It's good. It's good to
get these things that get these things accurate. And it's
interesting because we're not we're not yet seeing a flowy
of bankruptcies. Like I expect to see that, but we're
not yet seeing it, and it's going to be interesting
to see if it happens. Yeah, it happens, you know,
and of course.

Speaker 2 (01:53:28):
Like in small businesses and some firms like you know,
like they it's like really different and how much they import,
so like you know, they will be disproportionately hurt by this.
And you know, maybe they add really high profit margins before,
but now they're going way down.

Speaker 1 (01:53:43):
Well, I mean it's small retail is in toys and
in furniture never had high profit margins. And we'll see
how they survive. It's going to be really interesting to
see how they survive this and whether what happens is
that the big retailer is just pick up that product

(01:54:04):
and the small retails just go out of business. But
I don't know how it plays out. It'll be interesting
to see. Yeah, all right, cool, all right, let's see. Uh, Jennifer.

Speaker 7 (01:54:16):
Ginger Clark on the chance since she sent you along.

Speaker 1 (01:54:20):
Email, Yeah, let me find it. I'll answer it.

Speaker 7 (01:54:25):
Yeah, you can answer that. I'm done for today.

Speaker 2 (01:54:27):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:54:27):
Okay, let me find Ginger Ye, thanks, Jennifer. Where is it? Um?
Maybe I got it to Angela once it Let me
find it. Yes, it is all right, Ginger as this

(01:54:49):
I'm thinking about I've been thinking about this for a
long time. I truly don't understand it. Would be very
grateful to your opinion. My thinking. Nikki Hailey was very
It was the most knowledgeable and polite of all the
political candidates we've been offered, perhaps even in my lifetime.
She is physically savvy, was an accountant, nose feign affairs,
was in the UN and she's polite to alternate positions.

(01:55:11):
Was sensitive to the fact that abortion is a personal
issue and said it would not be politicized, even though
she felt strongly. She campaigned hard, and she seemed to
think dispassionately. When her campaign lost steam, she threw her
support to Trump, but she didn't endorse him. She said
only that he was the better choice. And that alternative
was worse. I saw her position as being in the

(01:55:33):
spirit of loyalty to the country, not to the party.
It was a strength that Trump was as weakness and
made her pay foot. Why do you think she didn't win?
Am I not seeing this person clearly? Am I just
making up someone to admire? Or did we just throw
over the best candidate ever? And if so, why what

(01:55:56):
does that say about the country? Well, it says the
country's in bad shape. I was a supporter of Nikki Heley.
I thought she was the best candidate among the Republicans.
I don't know if she's the best candidate ever. She
had a lot of weaknesses, you know, and I can't
remember all of them. But she had something on privacy

(01:56:17):
which was terrible. She had a number of things that
were pretty bad. But overall, she was the best candidate
by far, much better than Trump, much better than Kamala,
much better than other Republicans up there on stage. And
she didn't win because the country isn't a bad place.
It's in a bad position. The electoral doesn't want rational, reasonable, thoughtful. Indeed,

(01:56:39):
it blames all its problems on rational, reasonable, thoughtful, which
is what they think the previous candidates were all it wanted.
An irrational, thuggish British president. That's what America wanted. So
you're implying here that the best candidate wins, and I

(01:57:02):
think it's it's really rare that the best candidate wins.
I don't know that Bush was the best Republican on
the Republican side in the primaries in nineteen you know,
in two thousand, I don't know that the George Bush
Senior was the best Republican available after Ronald Reagan. I
you know, none of these Bob Dole in nineteen ninety six.

(01:57:23):
Bob Dole was a hopable candidate. So I don't think
elections are determined by who's good. Elections are determined by
what the public things is good or what the not
even the public, what the committed partisan within the Republican
Party in this case think is good. And they love

(01:57:44):
Trump and they hated Nikkihley because Nikkiyeley represents everything they
think went wrong with this country. You know, they think
she's too good, too tough in farm policy. They don't
want toughness in fall policy. They want peace. She's she's
relatively pro capitalist, they don't want capitalism. They think capitalism
is what screwed them, right, it's what's made they lost

(01:58:08):
their jobs and the income is lower. All the mythologies
that they have around economics they hold as as caused
by capitalism. So they didn't want somebody who stood for
relatively speaking, free markets and a tough America. They want

(01:58:29):
a America that retracts from the world and an America
that abandons capitalism explicitly and implicitly. And they got what
they wanted. And Nikki Healey's finished. I mean, I don't.
I don't think she has a chance in the Republican
Party because the Republican Party is no longer that party anymore,

(01:58:49):
or if it ever was, right, never really was.

Speaker 3 (01:58:53):
And also you're on and I think you've said this
many times. I think they wanted people that would tell
them that none of this is their fault, even if.

Speaker 1 (01:59:01):
Definitely anythink Nikki tried to do that, but she she
just doesn't. She's I don't think she's dishonest enough. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:59:09):
And if you and if you support capitalism, even the
lukewarm like people like her, do you you are saying, well, okay,
get off your button.

Speaker 1 (01:59:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:59:17):
I think that people didn't want to hear that they
want to like.

Speaker 3 (01:59:19):
Okay, I just I can sit back and Donnie is
going to take care of.

Speaker 4 (01:59:23):
It for me.

Speaker 1 (01:59:23):
I think that's right, all right, Adam.

Speaker 8 (01:59:31):
Yes, this may be a question I asked before, but
it's at the top of my mind, so I'll ask
it again and see if your answer is any different.
Most Americans by this time have been systematically disminded by

(01:59:53):
the comprachicos, that is, by the pragmatist anti philosophy of education.
And we now have a president who exemplifies the disminded brain.

(02:00:14):
I don't know how far you can call it a
mind even and he was educated in very expensive private schools.
And yet when I listen to objectivists talk about education,

(02:00:36):
they keep down playing the anti philosophy and advocate for
private schools against government schools. And yet if I go
to Europe, for example, many people in Poland were educated

(02:00:59):
in government schools. I got my early grades in government schools,
or at least the cooperative that was totally under government control,
as everything was in a communist country. And yet all
the Kindred, all the child care and kindergartens were Montessori.

(02:01:27):
The schools from then on were very conceptual.

Speaker 1 (02:01:35):
There was no.

Speaker 8 (02:01:38):
Pragmatist influence. And if I go there, every service that
I encountered is much more mindful, not in the Buddhist sense,
but in a realistic sense. Then we get here in America,

(02:02:03):
and recently I've been through at bad time dealing with
the installation people from a business that is generally very
well run. But all they can tell me is, well,

(02:02:25):
we sub contracted our installation to this small business because
that's what the tax laws encourage us to do. Ye,
and don't blame us.

Speaker 1 (02:02:40):
Yeah, I mean I think it's a few things. One is,
I think you're romanticizing Poland in a way that's not justified.
So I need to Poland many times. And yeah, the
educational system in Europe is better than it is in US,
and in Poland is better than US. It's not great though.
They still don't know a lot of stuff. They're still
quite ignorant. They're very Catholic, they're very religious, and it's

(02:03:05):
a real obstacle to their thinking. And that has not really, unfortunately,
not changed that much in other parts of Europe. Each
place has its own problems. But I don't get a
sense and you can see this economically, you don't have
anywhere near the level of entrepreneurship and the level of

(02:03:28):
personal initiative that you do in the United States in
spite of its bad education. So first I'd say there's
no good education in the world anyway. I don't buy
the Singapore model, don't buy China, I don't buy Europe.
They're all mediocre. The United States is mediocre minus right,
the United States, and in some areas it's damn right awful.

(02:03:48):
It's horrific the education in the US in ways that
it isn't in overseas, you know, sort of a complete
philosophical revolution. I don't think you're going to get good education.
But even then, I still think that in order to

(02:04:09):
figure out what good education is, you need competition. You
need private education to compete with one another. You need
to be able to experiment and test different models. I
don't think we know yet what the ultimate model, what
a perfect curriculum looks like, and whether kids learning different ways,

(02:04:31):
and whether different children might go to different types of schools,
whether or not to so it can be extended to
third or sixth grade or not. You know, some people
think it does something. You know, and what we get
in the United States today is not competition. Yes, you
have a few private schools, but the private schools don't
face competition. Rich parents send their kids to one or

(02:04:54):
two private schools that are available in their neighborhood. Everybody
else sends their kids to the government school. Manas in
a world in which all the schools are constantly competing
for their kids, they have to constantly make adjustment to
the curriculum. You know, in a world like that, if
you encourage competition, parents now care about what service is

(02:05:15):
being delivered to them in terms of the quality of
the education they I think, at least in some neighborhoods,
in some places now they evaluate the different schools based
on the quality of the education that they're producing, and
they move their kids around, and they fowe money moves
to the schools that are doing a better job in
terms of outcome. And even if there's no you know,

(02:05:39):
a systematic philosophical approach to this is a better education,
you'll get a better product ultimately. So I think competition
is the only way we're going to change things. If
we're going to change things in and I think that
you will see Poland. I mean, Poland's done a phenomenal

(02:05:59):
job economic growth, but you will see Poland hit a
limit to that growth soon, sooner than later, because it
is not as capitalist as everybody would like to believe.
It's still got too many regulations, too many controls, and
the educational system is just is not yet as good

(02:06:20):
as it needs to be. And the only way for
it to become as good as it needs to be
is through competition or through a complete philosophical revolution. But
I think competition is more likely than a philosophical revolution.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I think I think you need
a competition in order to bring the best we're capable
of in terms of education to the forefront.

Speaker 8 (02:06:42):
I do have one, perhaps tanngential remark on the Polish economy,
which is that I heard the the Prime Minister of
Poland talk about the regulation and he says that he

(02:07:09):
eliminated the thirty percent of the regulation of the EU
regulations that he could get away with eliminating without losing
EU compensation for adherence to the regulations. He needs the
other seventy percent to keep taxes low because he's being

(02:07:35):
compensated for compliance reg.

Speaker 1 (02:07:38):
Also, if he deregulates beyond what the EU allows then
he's going to have a hard time training with the
rest of the EU, because the EU will start putting
sanctions on Polish products because they don't live up to
the regulatory standard of the EU. So they went a bind.
They can only go so far without leaving the EU,

(02:07:59):
which think they want to do, because the EU still
has enormous benefits for Poland. But you know, we can
hope that this attitude that Poland has is exported to
the EU and maybe the EU starts deregulating at the
EU level. That is the one, the one hope for
Europe because you have some mass, you have some disaster,

(02:08:20):
and Poland's one of the few bright, you know, bright
lights within within Europe. It's it's the one economy that's
still growing. Uh. Germany just shrunk again by by you
know this last quarter economically, all right, let's see. Thanks
Adam online.

Speaker 3 (02:08:39):
Yeah, just a quick question around castle doctrine and trespass.
Does maybe not a castle doctrine as such, but you know,
if you how do you how do you set up
a laws that allow for let me call it inadvertent trespass.

Speaker 4 (02:08:55):
So I give you this an example.

Speaker 3 (02:08:56):
I'm a I'm a private pilot, And one of the
things we learned is that, Okay, if I have an
ancient failure, you know, a farmer's field is probably the
safest place to land. Now, obviously, you know, if there's
any damage to crops and all that kind of stuff,
loss of use, you know, my insurance company needs to
compensate the farmer. But I am trespassing. And you know,
does the farmer have the right to come out and

(02:09:18):
shoot me because he says, well, you're on my land.

Speaker 4 (02:09:20):
You shouldn't be here.

Speaker 1 (02:09:21):
No, obviously not. I mean, the trespasses is I mean,
there has to be you right to self defense is contextual, right,
And if there's no threat to you, you can't just
shoot somebody. And if somebody's on your land by accident
they lost their way, you know, there was an emergency
and they have to land, or they crashed their car

(02:09:44):
and the call flew into your field, I mean, yeah,
you're obviously liable for the damages. But they you know,
they can't just they can't put your jail because you
trespassed when it was clearly accidental. Yeah, And there's my
guess is there's a lot of existing law that's probably
pretty good about these things that I don't think we
need new law about. They're probably cases where we'd have

(02:10:08):
to write new laws, particularly given that their roads are private,
and yeah, you know, if the roads are private, then
you get all kinds of other complexities associated with it.
But I think a lot of the trespass laws probably
today take into that all that into account and are
probably pretty good.

Speaker 3 (02:10:23):
Okay, So even even the states with the let's say
strong castle doctrine type laws and stuff, they're still pretty
good about that stuff.

Speaker 4 (02:10:31):
I mean, I like, you can think so, I mean,
we have the opposite right, like the trespasser has the
rights and the.

Speaker 1 (02:10:37):
Yeah, I think, I think so. I think even even
though now again I don't know, I'm not going to
vouch for every set of laws, but I think that
I'd say that the generally, the the things that have
come up through common law regarding property rights.

Speaker 4 (02:10:54):
Are pretty good. Okay, Okay, thanks, yep uh.

Speaker 1 (02:11:00):
I think this is the last question we'll take.

Speaker 5 (02:11:05):
Do you think cryptocurrency would exist under capitalism?

Speaker 1 (02:11:13):
Something would exist under capitalism. I don't think it would
look the way it looks right now, but look, I
think an aer capitalism you would have digital gold coins
and to keep track of those coins, like there would
be ademability gold let's say, or adeem to something you

(02:11:33):
might blockchain might be a pretty cool way of keeping
track of who owns what and where and make sure
that you know that the claims are all taken care of.
Blockchain might have other uses for other kinds of transactions. So,
but you wouldn't have bitcoinqua bitcoin because you wouldn't you know,

(02:11:58):
money would be you have good money, you would need
bitcoin to solve. There's no problem represented by let's say
a gold standard, a free banking gold standard that bitcoin
is there to solve. It doesn't solve any problems. That
actually creates more problems than it solves. So to the
extent that crypto can, I don't know, token eye or

(02:12:25):
it's a way to financialize certain assets or to raise capital,
an easy, simple, quick way to raise capital for certain projects. Yeah,
I mean, I think crypto would exist for those kind
of things. And it's hard to tell how would have
evolved if it's divorced from a function of money, how
it would evolve. But I see no reason quad technology

(02:12:49):
that it wouldn't evolve and would be a lot better
and a lot more useful than it is today, and
we don't know how crypto would have evolved even today
because so much elation was putting in its way. Right,
so the regulatory state blocked the development of crypto, particularly

(02:13:10):
during the Biden administration. All right, thank you, But I'm
not against the technology. I just don't think it's money.
But I'm not against the tech that stands at the
background and the possibilities of having different types of smart contracts,
different ways of you know, identity verification, different you know,

(02:13:36):
it's a database. Theologis that the blockchain some more efficient
databases and the most secure databases. All that is good stuff.
It's just I think that the delusion that mainly exists
around bitcoin doesn't quite exist the same way around other cryptos.
I mean, some crystals is crazy, right, They're just they're

(02:13:57):
just I mean people call them shit cooins or whatever
coins because they're meaningless. But but Bitcoin has created this
mythology around it that wouldn't exist. But something like ethereum,
which is probably an actual business, versus Bitcoin, which is
not a business, I think I think would probably exist.

(02:14:22):
All Right, guys, thank you. I have a great, great
rest of your weekend. I will be back. Not sure
exactly when. We'll see we'll see what the Wi Fi
situation is in Naples, and we'll see when I can
get an office in in Florence. But I will be

(02:14:42):
back towards the end of the month early next month.
Have a great weekend and the rest of your week
by everybody.

Speaker 4 (02:14:50):
Take care of and saying you're on.

Speaker 1 (02:14:53):
Thanks.

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