(Not So) Deep Sh*t on the Evolution of Education, Economics, and Everything

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
And we're back to talk about some more deep shit.
Hey Steve, how is it going?

Speaker 2 (00:11):
today it's going great.
Chris, I have to say something.
I miss you.

Speaker 1 (00:15):
I know I missed you as well.
It has been, as anyonefollowing the show can see.
It has been a little whilesince we've recorded.
It has.
Life gets busy.
We've both had a lot of thingsgoing on, but so what do you
even up to these months?

Speaker 2 (00:30):
Well, it just ended, but it's been about two or three
months of just constant talk.
My daughter is a senior in highschool and a lot of talk about
college and it's kind of endedonly because she's got a ton of
her applications in now Nice.

Speaker 1 (00:47):
So this is the period where you're just waiting to
kind of figure out where exactlyshe's going.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
Yes, she has her thoughts of what she wish you
would like to go, but we have towait to see what kind of
acceptance letter she receives.

Speaker 1 (01:00):
When do you know that by?
I don't remember.
It's been so long since thatwas a factor for me, like do you
know people know where they'regoing to college before they
finish up their current yearhigh school right?

Speaker 2 (01:10):
Oh, yeah, yeah, so they have different phases.
And my daughter, she tookadvantage of early application
to some colleges and then in NewHampshire they had a thing last
week here that if you apply ona certain day New Hampshire, all
the colleges you apply to theapplication fees are waived.

(01:32):
So she applied to a lot of themon that day, nice, so we'll
wait to hear.
They said generally you hearback when you do it at that
early.
You hear back by Christmas orJanuary depending.
So yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:46):
All right, I guess that doesn't make sense.
You know it's been so longsince I was in high school, but
I guess I do remember peoplekind of knowing what they're
doing.
That's how little thought Igave to that back then.

Speaker 2 (01:54):
I gave very little thought to it.
Okay, I mean, looking back, Iwish I did give more thought to
it, but the thought I gavewasn't enough.
And you know, I came.
I don't know about you, neitherone of my parents went to
college.
So they really, you know, Ilove my parents, my parents.

(02:15):
Looking back, I'm 51 now.
I had my birthday.
No, happy birthday, thank you.
You know, they did the bestthey could, you know, but when
you, when you have whatever yourlimitations I have limitations
my daughter, when she gets older, she'll say my dad, we had this
limitation, whatever it mightbe.
That's just how you look backon things.
Right, my parents didn't reallytalk about college with me.

(02:35):
It wasn't as big of a deal whenwe were in high school.
Now, if you don't go to college, you're kind of in trouble
trying to get a job.

Speaker 1 (02:41):
I think that's changing, though I actually
think that was always anillusion, and I think that
illusion is breaking down nowbecause you have a lot of people
coming out of college who arenot having any easier for time
getting a job, and certainly nota job that pays enough to
justify the cost that they spentgoing to cost.

Speaker 2 (02:58):
Oh well, there's that whole cost benefit analysis.
You're right.

Speaker 1 (03:01):
The system's breaking , I think, but I don't.
That doesn't mean it's broken.

Speaker 2 (03:05):
I did miss your negativity on that.

Speaker 1 (03:07):
Chris, sorry, sorry.

Speaker 2 (03:09):
If anything, if anything, everything I've seen
lately, only reinforces thatI've seen so many things
recently where I've gone.

Speaker 1 (03:16):
Yep, that's another time, another notch in the
things breaking down.

Speaker 2 (03:20):
Oh yeah, I agree, I see some things too, but
sometimes I don't know why I seethe same things you do and I
generally think the same as you.
When we look at maybe whateversituation it might be, I just
always have that hope ofhumanity in my head that it's
going to turn itself around.

Speaker 1 (03:39):
Well, well, there's an exact reason for that, and
that is that is your daughter,that you have someone who
actually, you know, I don't havekids, so that's not a foremost
concern.
But it's not like there are nopeople, younger people, that I'm
just out of.
Screw them Like I do havefamily.

Speaker 2 (03:53):
that get off my lawn.
I want to see.
You know, I don't want to seethe world descend into flames
for anyone.

Speaker 1 (04:00):
But I guess I can be more analytical about it because
I don't have like any kind ofair in the game.
Yeah, you know.
So I get that.
But that's the thing it makesit so hard with.
Like I don't always want to belike the negative one, going
like the world's burning,because you want to talk about
like positive aspects of goingto school, like that's exciting
going to college.
I kind of wish, thinking back,I kind of wish I had gone away

(04:23):
to school.

Speaker 2 (04:24):
I do too.
I was a commuter, you know, youknow again, my parents did what
they could do, right, and itjust wasn't a thing when I was
growing up in my household itwasn't a.
it's a bigger thing now, I think, for kids in high school than
it might have been when you andI were graduating, in terms of,
like, how many kids are into it,in terms of wanting to go away

(04:48):
to college I do.
I mean the kids I knew maybehalf of them did.
Now it's a lot of kids do it,you know.

Speaker 1 (04:58):
Right, it was a different world back then, even
when I went to school.
I mean you could we graduatedtogether.
You could realistically yeah,you could realistically work a
job and pay for school.
Like you could do that back inour day.
I don't think you could no youcan't do it.

Speaker 2 (05:14):
No, you can't.
I mean unless you get afantastic job right, you know
yeah, it's not easy.

Speaker 1 (05:21):
I sympathize with any of the younger people who kind
of feel like the world has kindof screwed them and they don't
like getting lectured by peoplewho lived in a different world
telling them why they're justnot working hard enough to make
it happen.
When the you know, the worldwas distinctly different even
when you and I were in highschool and college.
That is a distinctly differentworld than what we live in right

(05:43):
now.
Like can it compare?

Speaker 2 (05:45):
There's so many and I really think we should sort of
have a discussion.
It's generally not the type ofthemes we have on this podcast,
but I think it's an interestingdiscussion of all the different
aspects that might have come inat the same time.
I was talking about this withanother friend of mine If you

(06:08):
look at the 70s and the 80s andmaybe into the early 90s, how
the culture changed just likeculture does, I mean.
Nothing stays the same, but alot of the changes that we went
through could be the reason whythings are the way they are now.
You could make that argumentLike what, like what's a good

(06:30):
example?
Well, I'll give you a reallygood example, and it sounds it's
not meant to be a chauvinisticcomment at all, but when women
entered the job force, youbasically doubled the job force
after a while.
When you look back, look back tothe 80s, right, early 80s was
when women started enteringgoing back to work.

(06:52):
Early 80s.
It happened early than that,didn't it?
People were doing it, womenalways worked.
So let's just not make it outlike it's something that is a
new phenomenon.
My mother certainly did, yeah,but there was a time right in
the 60s at least, that a mancould go.
When I say a man because that'show it generally went.

(07:14):
I'm not trying to bechauvinistic.
A guy would graduate highschool, right, that's it, maybe
right.
There's a lot of families thatwere like this the guy could get
a job, and that's a job he'dstay at for 25, 30 years, right,
and he could pay for a singlefamily house, at least one car.

(07:36):
The mom wouldn't have to workif she didn't want to.
Right, that's over, Forget that.

Speaker 1 (07:42):
That's not happening Now.

Speaker 2 (07:44):
you have two parents that have okay jobs right,
trying to figure out how to payfor college they probably can't.
Right, trying to figure outjust how to pay the bills they
can't.
Who's ahead?
You know, you say to yourselfwho's ahead here?
I think it's fantastic thateverybody works, but I don't

(08:04):
know if it works out perfectlyall the time, because when you
have that many people working,the people that are the
employers they just lower thewages.

Speaker 1 (08:12):
Right.

Speaker 2 (08:14):
And so the wages are not keeping up with everything
else and they're not keeping upwith the profits these companies
are making.
You know, don't tell me youcan't pay somebody when you keep
making record profits.

Speaker 1 (08:29):
I think our fundamental problem is is we
think that all of our problemshave different causes, when you
can really all bring them backto like one thing and I've said
this before, I don't know I saythis all the time, people will
probably stick to hearing me sayit but basically the idea of
that we're trying to squeezemore and more profit out of
everything, and when you do that, everything else comes second

(08:55):
or after, like that's, that's.
You know, that's our wholesystem.
Our whole system is predicated.
The very fundamental thing ofit is things must make money.
Making money is priority numberone.
That is the priority.
Everything else is dressing, butthat is the priority.
By logical extension.

(09:16):
That means that everything else, besides making the maximum
amount of money, comes numbertwo, three, four or further down
the line.
Why are we ever surprised whenthat thing that we care about,
that thing that we like, thatthing that we think should
matter, comes after makingprofit?
We've designed the system towork this way.

(09:37):
It is working this way it is.
It is the inevitable conclusionof what we've been building up
to for years.

Speaker 2 (09:44):
Well, it's interesting you say that because
I was having a conversationwith my law partner the other
day and I don't know how it cameup.
We were talking oh, he's nottalking about this that movie
called Wolf of Wall Street,which which actually I still
haven't seen.

Speaker 1 (09:59):
I haven't either, but I've heard good things about it
.

Speaker 2 (10:02):
Yeah, and I'm not sure.

Speaker 1 (10:03):
And I know enough about it.
It's like it's one of thosethings you A lot of culture.
You get the idea.
I kind of know the movie eventhough I haven't seen it, and
there's a lot of gaps I havelike that, but go on.

Speaker 2 (10:17):
So remember the movie with Charlie Sheen and Wall
Street Michael Douglas, right,and he was Gordon Gekko, I
believe, right.
So in that movie he was the badguy, right.

Speaker 1 (10:27):
Great is good.

Speaker 2 (10:28):
Great is good.
He was a bad guy.
If you had that movie today,he'd be the good guy.
He would be somebody otherpeople would admire.
Well, they even did they did.

Speaker 1 (10:37):
Back then, though, to be fair, he was the.
He was the people loved to hatehim.
He was the villain of the movie, even though he got the same
same way that in diehard.
You know that Alan Rickman justlike, like oh, yeah, yeah, yeah
.
Like that thing.
But you're right, he was thebad guy.
So you say today he'd be thegood guy.

Speaker 2 (10:54):
I don't know if he'd be the good guy, but he just
wouldn't be as much of a bad guy.
People, that's just the waybusinesses operate now.
That's the way everythingoperates, Whereas, look, if you
look back, Chris, to what?
Why Forbes would pick their topbusinesses 30, 40 years ago.

(11:15):
They would talk about how theytreat their employees.
They would talk about all thesedifferent aspects as well as
profits.
That's not how they gaugethings anymore.
It's profit, Right.

Speaker 1 (11:26):
That's it In fair, though, they never did gauge
them like that.
That was window dressing thatwas put on.
We just paid more attention toit.
Like we did pay attention tothose window dressing things
about how well the company didyou know how well they treated
their employees, what they didfor the environment or whatever
it is.
It was always window dressing,we just paid more attention to

(11:47):
it and it mattered.
But in the big scheme of things, whether their stock went up or
stock went down would bepredicated solely on how much
money that that, how well theydid as a business Like doing
doing nice things, even foremployees, never made anyone's
stock go up.
In those cases, nice things areseen as costs and could make the
stock.
That's the that's.

(12:07):
The problem is that all thepositives are going to be seen
as costs.

Speaker 2 (12:13):
Well, if you look back, Some things go back.
No, I agree with you, but Ithink the largest indicator of
why it's changed is if you lookat over time how it's changed
with the lowest paid employee ofa company and the CEO and the
gap in their difference of pay,it is astronomically different

(12:33):
now than it was 30 years ago.
Astronomically, you know, andthat that seemed indicative the
lowest paid employee.
I have a problem.
I have a problem with companies, let's say, like Wal-Mart,
right, that has employees offrontline workers in the stores.
Those are people, these arepeople that have full time jobs.

(12:56):
You have a full time job.
You should be able to afford aliving.
That's just how I feel Right,Not a controversial opinion.
I don't think it shouldn't beRight, Shouldn't be.
And here's, here's what I, whatI have a problem with.
I have a problem with somebodythat works full time and cannot
afford the health insurance thattheir company offers, so they
have to go on governmentbenefits.

(13:16):
So what?
How is that business benefitingthe state If the employees have
to be on government benefitswhile the executives are making
record money?
So that doesn't make it.
So I always wondered why can't?
Why can't a government just saylisten.
No, you're not going to do that.
We're not paying this.
You're going to pay it, butyeah, that's.

(13:39):
I'm not a politician.

Speaker 1 (13:41):
Wow, it's you know, I mean, this is a little bit of
what we talked about in our lastepisode.
I was just actually thinking,the last time we we did release
an episode, we talked about thechanging economic paradigm,
which is that you know howthings were changing, and kind
of that same conversation.
Yeah, that's no easy answers,but connecting to that, look at
this.
So I just pulled up a stat.

Speaker 2 (14:01):
All right, what do you get?
In 1978, it was a 15.3% betweenthe top CEO and the typical
workers compensation.
Okay, what's it now?
So that was 15.3%.
I'm going to reiterate that15.3% Now it's 1209.2% in 2022.

Speaker 1 (14:27):
Well, this kind of showed itself in the and I know
this is something that you like.
It's a topic you are near anddear to your heart is the UAW,
the unions right?

Speaker 2 (14:36):
Yeah, I'm a union guy .

Speaker 1 (14:38):
That recent?
You know they seem to be coming.
The automakers seem.
The UAW seems to be coming to adeal right With the.
That.
Is that over?
Is that strike officially over?
Is it still?

Speaker 2 (14:49):
I know it wasn't all the workers right, they were
getting close to a deal, so thatsays that they're close.

Speaker 1 (14:59):
It hasn't struck, the deal has not been struck, yet
they're closer than they havebeen, though, and I know a lot
of people were talking aboutbecause they were shooting, for.
They were saying we want allthe pay raises that we didn't
get what we gave back in 2008.
There was a lot behind that.
I heard a lot of people takingthe opinion like, oh, they're

(15:19):
asking for four-day work weeks,that nobody wants to work
anymore.
Oh, my God, I'm so tired ofhearing that.
They were making some prettyaudacious bargaining positions,
and you knew that some of thosethey weren't going to.
They were just there toillustrate this is what we
should be getting, but there'scertain red lines that we're not
going to.

(15:39):
Let you talk below, and while alot of people looked at that hey
, we want a four-day work weekand went they'll never get that.
Yeah, that's true, they should.
It's a bargaining chip.
They should get it, but they'renot going to.
We're not there yet, but I'lltell you, more and more people
looked at that and went, yeah,why couldn't that be?

(16:00):
And I like it.

Speaker 2 (16:02):
I think it's something, chris, that should be
offered myself.
I don't think I would like itmyself, but I think it's a
personal thing, because I don'tthink I'd like to work that many
hours in one day, because Ithink some people don't mind.

Speaker 1 (16:15):
No, no, no See, that's the misunderstanding.
It wasn't 40 hours compressedinto four days, because some
places do that.
Yeah, that's not.

Speaker 2 (16:23):
That's not what you're talking about.
What are you talking about?
I'm saying working less.

Speaker 1 (16:27):
I'm saying the work day should at the very least be
reduced by one more day.
It just should.
It's just where we should havebeen all along for a long time,
and that was predicted when wefirst got started.
It was predicted that by theyear such and such 2000,.
Machines are going to be doingso much of the work that the

(16:49):
average worker is only going tohave to work about 20 hours a
week.
The idea was that theproductivity would grow from
those early days and, as we gotmore productive, that
productivity would beessentially shared by all at all
levels to some degree, whereover time the workers would have

(17:10):
to work less because therewould be more and more of their
job being done automatically.
Now that didn't happen.
What then happened?

Speaker 2 (17:20):
was we really I think it did happen, but I think what
happened is they want more andmore out of it instead of
instead of.

Speaker 1 (17:27):
Well, we can get to this.

Speaker 2 (17:28):
How much can you squeeze that limit?
So I think what happened, Ithink it did happen, I think it
did.
But we live in an economy, atleast in the United States and
much of the free world, that isa growth economy, that if the
economy isn't growing it'scollapsing.
So if the whenever economy thatis a quasi capitalistic which

(17:55):
our economy really isn't totallycapitalistic, it's quasi they
call it actually modifiedcapitalism, it's corporate
socialism.

Speaker 1 (18:01):
It's really what it is, because companies get
socialism.
Individuals are told to pullthemselves up by their bootstrap
and be a man and go out thereand you nothing's handed to.
Anybody says the corporationagainst you know gets all these
tax breaks for kind of just youknow, like let's be real Well.

Speaker 2 (18:17):
I mean I think the way that the economists say it
is, if you are a truecapitalistic society, then
there's not a lot of regulationright In businesses we'd be
allowed to fail.

Speaker 1 (18:27):
but we keep seem to find businesses that are too big
to fail or too important tofail, and at that point, are
they really businesses?
Well, if there's no chance ofthem failing, no matter how
badly they run, how does thatdiffer than what worry about
when something's run by thegovernment?
Because that's what they worryabout, like if the government
took over, well, the governmentcan be really bad and then you
can't get rid of it.
And you know, the telephonecompany that was run by the

(18:50):
government was the you know like.

Speaker 2 (18:52):
well, I mean, I got to tell you, looking at that
stat we just talked about right.
We talk about regulation, rightwe.
I'm not a political, I'm reallynot a political person.

Speaker 1 (19:01):
I don't know I don't follow it much.

Speaker 2 (19:03):
It actually kind of bothers me.
It bothers me and it bores mein a way that they just back,
bite each other and it's likecome on, we all kind of want the
same thing we do, but and stoptrying to get me into a cultural
war with other people, like Ido not care what other people do
.
Nope, okay, can we?
You know, if you put 12 peopletogether on a basketball team,

(19:23):
guess what?
Not everybody's got the samepersonality.

Speaker 1 (19:26):
That's just life right, I care very little about
what other people do, as long asit, as long as it stays
wherever.

Speaker 2 (19:32):
Yeah, if it doesn't affect me, I just don't care you
and.
I are doing a podcast together,right?
Do I have?
Do you have to like the samepizza?
I do no, who cares Like it?
Just like our personalities donot have to be exactly the same,
it makes no sense.
But when we say we have thissociety that wants to protect

(19:54):
the average person, look at thestat.
How do you, how do you allowthis person to go from 15.3%
more to 129% more?
I wasn't even allowed and to sayit's going to work, it's not
going to work.

Speaker 1 (20:07):
We've somehow ascribed a greater value to what
that leader, that CEO, doesthan like.
What value do they really bring?
Like your average CEO?
Well, they have they.
Obviously they're doingsomething.
They are doing something, butare they?
Is there value that they'rebringing consummate to what
they're making?
I'd be, I don't know.

(20:28):
It'd be hard press to find aCEO who does millions of dollars
worth of work, like, literally,is personally responsible, like
if they didn't show up to work,that business would lose
millions of dollars, whereas Ithink a lot of CEOs, if you
plucked them out yes, there aresome things that wouldn't happen
, but the business, generallyspeaking, the thing that it does

(20:51):
, would roll on, because that'swhat businesses do.
Businesses do, whatever they do, if they're so fragile that if
you pluck that one person out ofit, the whole thing's going to
break down.
So I'm good, but that's whatI'm just saying is is find me a
CEO who's worth the value thatthey get paid.
It's a, it's a perceived value.
We perceive that it's worththat.

(21:12):
So we, they pay that.

Speaker 2 (21:14):
They perceive that the guy on the assembly line is
only worse worth this so theypay them far far less Well to
that end is where I would fall.
More about.

Speaker 1 (21:24):
But if that person on the assembly line, if they
didn't show up one day, ain'tnothing going on that assembly
line, right?
So really their existence canstop the business, whereas you
could probably take most ofexecutive leadership and pluck
them out and for some amount oftime the business will run
perfectly fine If there aremajor decisions that need to be
made, obviously, at that point.

(21:46):
But I'm just saying, if you,just as an experiment you know
everybody from the top level ofthe company just stop for a
little bit.

Speaker 2 (21:52):
Well, top level yeah.

Speaker 1 (21:54):
Cause everything beneath you would still work.
The, the, you know the peopleon the floor.
Like you know, I'm usingmanufacturing but they, like the
general business, would do itsthing.
You notice no difference.
So what I'm just saying is isthat all this is this is not
about real value.
It's about perceived value.

Speaker 2 (22:08):
We saw that during the pandemic.

Speaker 1 (22:10):
What are the essential workers?
Oh my God, they're so important.
They're out there doing thething.
Yeah, they were often the oneswith the shittiest hours, not
paid the most, and you know.
Just treat them like they'reessential.
But like you can't stay homebecause your guys are
essentially going to get outthere, can you pay us more?
We can't, we can't justify that, like that's what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (22:30):
Yeah, I don't necessarily disagree with you.
I just think that the focusmight be somewhere else.
I don't know if they value theCEO more.
I just think that over thisperiod of time that we were
looking at this staff from 1978to 2022, there obviously culture
shifts.
Since that period of time Iwould say since from 1978 to

(22:55):
2022, I would say that theeconomy has become less union
friendly.
I would say that the economyhas become less worker friendly.
I would say the reason for thatbig decrease or however you
want to phrase it decrease orincrease right is because large
companies, for the most part Idon't know if they value the CEO

(23:17):
more I think they devalue theaverage worker more.

Speaker 1 (23:23):
Well, both can be true.

Speaker 2 (23:24):
They don't, they don't value they don't value.

Speaker 1 (23:26):
They don't value and I'm saying they value the CEO
themselves.
They value that position.
That position is valued becausethat's the position of a
company.

Speaker 2 (23:35):
You're a very important person, and that's the
position, though that meetswith the board.
That's the they might be on theboard.
That's the position thatstockholders when they actually
the people that go to themeetings that's the whole deal
on the inside.
You know that that's how itworks.
So they say well, you're theone that's bringing these
profits and we're going to payyou.
That's just how it goes.

Speaker 1 (23:55):
Right.
But I also think that ifsomebody was like hey, I'm a CEO
of a company and I make, I make40 K a year, you know, a lot of
people are looking what are youthe CEO of?
Like you make, you're the CEOand you make 40 K a year.
Like like, there are people whowould look at that and say,
well, you're not really the CEO.
All that means is that you know, chief executive officer, like
you can be the CEO of a verysmall company, but in our mind,

(24:17):
ceo is make a lot of money.

Speaker 2 (24:18):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, because it's an important job.

Speaker 1 (24:23):
We ascribe value to that job, even if we don't quite
know what they do.
What does the CEO really do?
Well, they make all the bigdecisions.
Okay, how often are bigdecisions needed?
Oh, big decisions needed allthe time.

Speaker 2 (24:37):
I would imagine it's a high pressure job, though,
because if you make the wrongdecision, you fire it.
That's the end of it.

Speaker 1 (24:43):
You're not arguing that it's not a high pressure
job.
I would say that you're veryadequately compensated, no
matter how much pressure it is.
In most cases and I'm talkingabout the big CEOs I'm talking
about, like Bob Iger, of Disneyyou know, disney is running into
some problems.
Turns out that streaming is nota viable business model.
No, it never was.

(25:04):
We just tricked ourselves intothinking it was Well in Disney.

Speaker 2 (25:07):
I think they were throwing a lot of money at it
because it makes money.
How many, how many subscribersdo they have Right?

Speaker 1 (25:16):
but here's my issue.
You subscribe to a service like, let's say, netflix.
How much new programming keepsyou subscribing to Netflix?
Do you know what I'm saying?
Like?
Is it the?

Speaker 2 (25:33):
new program.
I don't know how it works.
I think it's just laziness.

Speaker 1 (25:37):
You subscribe to Netflix and every month you're
going to subscribe to Netflixbecause there's enough on there
that are worth it for you, right?
How do they decide how muchmoney to spend on new
programming and how do theydecide how each of those things
brought on new subscribers?

(25:58):
Because new subscribers arereally all that matter, right?
Like, if you are a subscriptionbusiness and you have X number
of people paying you each month,you don't want to lose them and
you want to gain more.
But how do you know that's whatI'm saying how does any
streaming service know that,okay, we need to spend this much
money on new shows to bring inpeople?

Speaker 2 (26:19):
You don't realize how much money does it cost?
Because now it says they have150 million subscribers.
It's $5 a month to get DisneyPlus.

Speaker 1 (26:29):
Oh, it's more than that Well, well it's not $5 a
month, are you sure?
Oh, yeah, I think the baselinesubscription is like yeah, maybe
it was $5 when they firstlaunched it to get you in there.

Speaker 2 (26:42):
Oh okay, wait a minute, it's $13.99.
Yeah, that's like the baselinetoo.
Oh, okay, so $14 a month,grandpa, what year is it?
All right, so 150 millionsubscribers.

Speaker 1 (26:52):
I remember when my streaming service was only $5 a
month.
See what I had to pay attentionto.

Speaker 2 (26:56):
I actually have it and I bundle it with Hulu and
something else, so it's likesomething.
$14 or something.
So 150 million times $14 is$2.1 billion a month.
How much money does it cost torun an app if it's illusory
money?
So what is that?
That's 24.

(27:17):
That's almost $25 billion ayear in revenue.

Speaker 1 (27:24):
Will it tell you how much?
I don't know if you can get thestats.
How much did Netflix spend onnew programming?
You mean Disney Plus, DisneyPlus, right?
So Disney spent on newprogramming for the streaming
service, because that matterstoo.

Speaker 2 (27:40):
Let's see, I'll look for that.

Speaker 1 (27:53):
I doubt that that information is actually out
there.
I doubt that that's a becausethat'd be proprietary knowledge,
I would imagine.
But my point is is that howwould you know I get it?
You have subscribers.
They pay you X amount per month.
It should be a no brainer.
So why aren't the streamingservices making any money?

Speaker 2 (28:16):
I don't know.
It says here that since 2019,they've lost $11 billion.
The heck, somebody, I don'tknow.
But whatever it's figure, a lotof the, a lot of their content
has already been made.
I mean, so they, I know theymake new content, but there's a

(28:37):
lot on the other.
You know it's been around sinceyou know forever.
When you they throw on Fox andthe Hound, I mean they already
had it, but I know they make newshows.
I watch the shows.
I don't know if the shows cost$2 billion a month to make, but
but there's also the operatingcosts, oh yeah.
Oh yeah.

Speaker 1 (28:57):
Infrastructure costs and all that.
So you know, I have not lookedinto the streaming service.
It always seemed to me like itwas one of those things.
Like anything, everything workson a certain scale.
These things, when it getsbeyond a certain scale, cannot
support itself anymore.
We've seen this time and timeagain with retail stores.
Right, how many great retailstores of old do we know?

(29:19):
You know ones that no longerexist anymore, like Child World
or, most recently, actually, theChristmas tree shops?
Right, here's something thatwhat, like what the Christmas
tree shops?
Like.
That place was always packed.
That place did good business.
You'd have a niche.

Speaker 2 (29:41):
Older women.
Why did it fail Cats?
What's?

Speaker 1 (29:44):
that.
Well, why did it?
I'm joking, no, but I'm sayingwhy did it fail?
The reason why it failed isbecause everything gets too big.
It gets to a point where itcan't support the weight of
itself anymore, and I think it'smostly because there's this.
There's this class of people inbusiness, the investor class,
and I understand investors arevery important for certain

(30:05):
things.
But if you really think aboutmost businesses, those investors
are not doing anything to makethe product or make the service.
They're not reallyparticipating in that aspect of
it and in many cases they're noteven customers of that product
or service, but they're there toto take a portion of the money

(30:26):
that is generated, that moneythat you know, if a business
just had to exist for itself, ifa business just had to exist in
a world where, hey, thisbusiness has to do its thing,
taking enough money to pay itsemployees and pay its owners,
and and that's it, and that'sthat's it, and grow, you know,

(30:47):
and do whatever a business does.
Most businesses can do thatreally well, but they'll always
scale up to a point where it'sharder to do that.
But then you have this class ofinvestors who that at a certain
point, they're just they'retaking.
You made $100 this month.
Well, we're taking our 50.
And so you have the rest of the50s to do with what you.
You know, you're just.
You know what I'm saying.
So.
And then there's that need forever escalating profits.

(31:09):
Like you got to make morebecause the investors expect
more out of their investment.
They only made X percent thismonth or this year.
They want it needs to be goingup.
So that idea that you're takingoff more and more, where does
that?

Speaker 2 (31:22):
come from?
Well, it comes from growthright.
So if you operate a businessand let's just say you have a
Starbucks right, I just whateverright and the Starbucks
generates $100 a month in profitI'm just using numbers right it
better make a lot more moneythan that Right.

(31:45):
So you can either lower the costof your product, right,
although whatever your costs arethe cost of workers, the cost
of the product, the cost of therent or the mortgage, however it
is you can lower those costs,or you can expand.
There's no other way to makemoney, right?
So they try to cut the costs,but they're finding they can't

(32:06):
right now, especially thiseconomy with trying to lower.
You can't lower food costs,right.
You can't lower a human costs,right, so what's the only thing
they can do is expand.
So when you try to expand, theproblem there I think that's
happening is every market welive in is being oversaturated,

(32:30):
right?

Speaker 1 (32:30):
Whereas can only expand so much.

Speaker 2 (32:32):
Yeah, I mean you and I live in I would say generally,
certainly we don't live incities, right, you or me?
So there isn't this constantinflux of population, right you
have.
Generally, all communities growusually, but they don't grow on

(32:55):
astronomical rates generally.
So if you have five coffeeshops in a year and one year
later you have 10, well, yeah,you're going to draw some people
from other communities becauseit's brand new, but after that
fades away, you're dealing withthe same amount of people that
now have 10 places to go toinstead of five.

Speaker 1 (33:13):
So it's just what you can only support so much of a
thing in any marketplace, right,that makes sense.

Speaker 2 (33:20):
So, and then that fails, the investors don't care,
because then they just they'lljust file bankruptcy and they'll
cover their costs, but it's allthe other people that invested
in it that don't have that same.
All the workers then knowstheir jobs, right.

Speaker 1 (33:34):
And what you're saying is that a lot of these
are big companies needing toagain.
Just, they need to expand, sothey need to break into a new
market.
They need to do a new thing,they need to have some getting
to some business that theyweren't in previously.
Actually, a good example ofthis is airlines.
Actually, do you know?
Most people don't realize thatairlines the major airlines do

(33:55):
not make the bulk of their moneyflying people around the world.
The bulk of the airlines, theairlines, make the bulk of their
money by the credit cards andfinancial tools that they use,
which is why, when you're oncertain flights I think JetBlue
being one of them you have toyou're subjected to this huge

(34:19):
credit card commercial beforethe.
You know, like that you'recaptured, right?
I mean, we've all been, you'veflown recently, right?
You know when you have, even ifyou're on their system all of a
sudden, they'll do how aboutthe credit card?
That credit card is how theythat's how they make the bulk of
their money.
They don't actually make it, sothink about how scary that is.
The airlines don't make most oftheir money.

(34:42):
They make some money fromflying people around, but it's
really a loss Like it's not agreat business model because
we've come to expect lower costflights and all that.
But yeah, isn't that kind ofscary, though, that your airline
doesn't know that.
So, again, if our system ispredicated on making money is
the most important thing, howsafe do you feel when the

(35:05):
industry is meant to fly youaround, getting you there safely
and stuff?
That's not where they make now,that's not where they make the
bulk of their money.
Now, if planes start crashing,you know airlines go out.
But I'm just saying that weshould be more bothered by the
profit motivation in some thingsthan we are.

(35:25):
And I think it's weird becausewe all realize it, we all know
joke about how.
You know making money is numberone.
You know companies will screwus over.
If they can make a little moremoney from us, we'll all joke
about it.
And when, but when, we won'treally admit that's what happens
, because it really would botherus if, like, where, you're just

(35:47):
getting screwed constantly.
But we are getting screwedconstantly, like, I always think
about how like more comfortablethings should be and they're
not because it's not costeffective and we're fooled into
thinking that we're not worththat because it doesn't make
money, like, like, why isn'tflying more comfortable?
Well, you know can't.
Well, if you could afford tobuy, you know, if you can afford

(36:08):
to buy private planes and stuff, you can fly comfortably.
But if you're flying commerciallike flying, you know, like
most people fly yeah, it's notgoing to be a comfortable
experience.
It's going to be varying levelsof discomfort If you have a
flight where you're only alittle uncomfortable.

Speaker 2 (36:23):
That was a good flight We've.
When we say we, I want to saythe royal we because.
But I would say, chris, there'sa large amount of people that
fall into this camp.
I do not, and somehow sometimesI just keep my mouth shut
generally around other peopleand this kind of things comes up

(36:45):
.
Right, let's say McDonald's.
Right, we all love McDonald's.
I don't really go there thatmuch anymore, but I did it one
time.

Speaker 1 (36:53):
I just went there on my way here today.

Speaker 2 (36:55):
You did.

Speaker 1 (36:55):
What'd you get?
Two cheeseburgers, fries and aCoke, and it was wholly
unsatisfying.
The fries, the Coke wasn't good.
The Coke was always good.

Speaker 2 (37:03):
Coke's the best at McDonald's.
Mcdonald's has their own.
My daughter talks about theSprite.
I'm like, come on, I'm sure theSprite's fantastic, but if I go
to McDonald's I'm going to Coke.

Speaker 1 (37:12):
McDonald's has their own.

Speaker 2 (37:13):
they get a proprietary blend of Coca-Cola
and it comes in, it still comesin the metal tank, whereas a lot
of restaurants it's the plasticyeah.

Speaker 1 (37:21):
But I will say that we're going on a Coke rant, coke
, coca-cola.
I will say that the food wascompletely like- which one did
you go to?

Speaker 2 (37:33):
The last Allspur, the one on the way out.

Speaker 1 (37:34):
Yeah, on the way out.
But you know what I went atlunch time Like if there's ever
a time you should expect-.

Speaker 2 (37:39):
Should get hot fries at lunch time.

Speaker 1 (37:41):
No, far from it, and I noticed that now it's like
it's just not as good,everything's just not as good.

Speaker 2 (37:50):
Well, let me tell you how I feel about when someone
will talk about McDonald's,right, let's say, not so much
the food which we're talkingabout, but paying people.
So that's the thing now.
Well, you know, if they wantmore money, we're just going to
get robots in here, and if Ihear that you're going to like
it when you lose your job,You're asking for more.
If you ask for more money perhour, I'm going to have to pay

(38:11):
more for my cheeseburger.
Why have we become that?
Why have we become this groupof people that argues with each
other about someone else tryingto make a few bucks in it for a
living, Whereas the easiestthing to say is well, instead of
making whatever you made inprofit last year, how can it
just can't be a little bit less?
And everybody, everybody makesa living.

(38:32):
Why is that not an option?
Why is the only option that weaccept that our price of our
product will go up?
We never demand that thebusiness makes less money.

Speaker 1 (38:45):
We've come to expect so little that we talk about
things that could easily beotherwise as if they're carved
in stone and cannot be changed.

Speaker 2 (38:55):
And then, but somebody will say, well, that's
you know, that's that's.
Uh, that's socialism.
You want to?
You want to regulate a business?
Well, you want to write.
It's not you you're pointing atyou, but it could be anybody.
Well, don't you want a businessregulated so that it doesn't
fraud, defraud you?
Yes, you want this regular.
Do you want a business that itcan't dump toxic sewage into the

(39:16):
river?
Yes, well, that's a regulation.
So we allow regulations, butwhen it comes to that specific
thing, everyone gets mad aboutit.

Speaker 1 (39:24):
And it's such an illusion, illusionary argument
Like it's.
I'm so tired of hearing thingslike you know that socialism, as
if what we have is distinctlydifferent.
It is in some ways, but, like Isaid, companies never seem to
worry about getting money fromgetting propped out by the
government.
Like you know, the banks banksgot something's wrong.

(39:47):
We got to put money into thebanks.
The airlines we got to putmoney into the airlines, like so
they're not really businessesif they don't have to succeed on
their own, if they can go under.
But you know, it's been said byothers much better.
But it's like that the gainsare taken by the investors and
the laws is kind of spread toeverybody.

Speaker 2 (40:06):
Right.
So this is McDonald's now,which is just because we're
talking about McDonald's.
The McDonald's annual grossprofit was $13.2 billion, which
was an increase of just about 5%from 2021.
And in 2023, it's expected toincrease another 6.5% to $13.9

(40:33):
billion.
So the company made $13.9billion.
It has increased its wages, yetit's still making more money,
right?
So it couldn't make just $13billion and take out $900
million and disperse thatamongst their workers.
That's not possible.
No, that's nothing we can'tregulate.

(40:54):
That.
Forget that, you know.
But it's so obvious that like,and now somebody's going to say
hey, that's Steve Blair, he's asocialist.
I was going to say somethingelse.
He's a socialist.
I don't say I don't think so.
I'm just a person that thinkspeople should be able to make a

(41:14):
living.
People shouldn't have to gosleep in their car after they
worked eight hours.

Speaker 1 (41:19):
Yeah, it's, we have it all.
We have it all wrong.
I don't know if we're evergoing to figure it out, but it's
.
It's not our fault.
We've been fooled into thinkingthat this is the way it is.
I hear people talking about theeconomy, economics like they
would gravity, Like it's justsomething that can't change,
it's a force of nature thatcan't change.

(41:40):
What is it?
What is it Like?
Like that's the way the systemis Like.
That's the way it is, that'sthe way that, that's the way I
got, that's the way our economyworks, you know.
And it's like we.
We made it all up, we createdthe system.

Speaker 2 (41:54):
Oh yeah, but you know , it's my law partner, right?

Speaker 1 (41:57):
We can fix it.

Speaker 2 (41:57):
He's, he's a really good guy.
And he said, as professor toldus, he said this to him in law
school.
He said you know they were.
They were out to eat, I think,or they were all together.
He said see that guy over there.
He's angry all the time.
You want to know why he's angry, why he thinks the world's on
the level right?

(42:19):
It's not.
I don't know, that's just theway it is.
So I think sometimes people getdiscouraged.
I think I think that might besome of it when, say, they say
that's just the system.
I think that might be anotherway of just saying they
discovered that there's nothingthey can do about it.

Speaker 1 (42:37):
Right and in a very real way.
There there is very little thatan individual can do about it,
but it's also there's verylittle that collectively we can
do about it too, because a lotof us agree on stuff which still
isn't, and we all go.
Why isn't it like that?
You know it's, it's um.
I don't know we just we shouldaccept, we should expect more.

(42:58):
I think we should just expectmore in general, and when people
start actually being like, hey,I expect a little bit more, I
don't know, we turn on thempretty quick and say you know,
what are you asking for?
the four day work week for you,lazy bum.
You don't want to work Like, isit that weird?
I don't know.
It's I, in having discussionswith older siblings, and I have

(43:19):
some, some of my older siblingswho are, you know, you know,
definitely um of that generationof you know, uh, they again,
they grew up in a differentworld and they don't understand
why, like why people would wantto ask for, you know, four day

(43:40):
work weeks.
So back in my day we worked 40hour weeks.

Speaker 2 (43:44):
Well, like in part of it is, they were rewarded for
that.
Yeah, that's part of it.
Part of it is it worked becausethey worked and they might have
worked hard.
The harder they worked theythey received, more it worked.

Speaker 1 (44:02):
Right, but we've been on an exponential curve.
That thing.

Speaker 2 (44:04):
We looked at the 15% difference right.
So the CEO wasn't making a, itwasn't like a generational shift
in wealth and differencebetween the CEO and the and the
average paid worker.
Right, there was a relief youcould relate to the guy that was
making the decisions.
Right.
When you make, when you havethat kind of percentage

(44:24):
difference, now there's norelationship between the lowest
paid worker or the average paidworker and the CEO.
There's there's none.
It's almost like.
It's almost like Wizard of Oz.

Speaker 1 (44:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (44:35):
Right, Whereas before it was what kind of all in this
together?

Speaker 1 (44:39):
It's such an illusion , because you know what I'm
trying to say.
No, I do, because when youthink about rich people right,
and we all think, we know aboutrich people and we all know
people we consider to be rich.

Speaker 2 (44:50):
Well, some people have different standards, right.

Speaker 1 (44:53):
And, but what I'm saying is that none of us really
understand the super rich, andthis is something that I didn't
know that the super rich had,because I never even considered
it was a thing.
A lot of super rich familieshave something called the home
office, yeah, which is just thatoffice that runs the family

(45:16):
wealth Right, and that office iscomprised of some number of
people who are paid employees,who get a salary, who get health
insurance, who are an ecosystemonto themselves, and they might
occupy an office building inyour, in, you know, in the big
city.
They have a bigger office than Ido Right and their home office
and all they do every day ismanage the wealth of that

(45:39):
particular rich person.

Speaker 2 (45:41):
Yeah, I just recently found out about that.

Speaker 1 (45:43):
That idea of having that home office is like, like
we wouldn't even consider itright, like we have a person.

Speaker 2 (45:51):
No, it's not an office in their home.
It's an office to run theirhome their, whatever you want to
call it their home right, theirempire, their home fortune.
Yes.

Speaker 1 (46:00):
That's what they call it the home offices, because
their home fortune is run.
Yeah, it's an office buildingsomewhere.
Well, it might not be a wholebuilding.
Again, it depends on the sizeof the fortune.
But there are some super richpeople who do have, because it
requires right, not just ahandful of people.
Like a regular sized, likewealthy person has, you know, a
guy or maybe a firm that handlestheir money.

Speaker 2 (46:22):
Like when you're a rich person, you might have a
yeah, but that firm might handlemore than one.

Speaker 1 (46:26):
Right, you have a firm that handles it, but no,
you don't have a office that isjust comprised the entire and,
in some cases, fortune.
It does require, like a, abuilding, like a small building
of of or some number of floorsof.
That's it.
They just, they are the wealthmanagement for this, but, like,
that is just mind blowing andit's.

(46:46):
It's the kind of wealth thatwhen people start to lose the
idea between million, billion,trillion it's that I've used
that before where we jump frommillion to billion to trillion
as if it's just the next thing,without really taking into grip
the exponential growth between amillion and a billion and a
billion and a trillion, likeit's not just like the next one

(47:09):
up.
And so when we think of somebodybeing a millionaire and we talk
about somebody else being abillionaire, we kind of put them
right next to each other, right?
Whereas if you're a millionaire, you know the difference.
Like you, you don't havebillionaire, you can't do what a
billionaire can do, right, um,which, interestingly enough,
that maybe think of of, of, ofJeffrey Epstein and his island,

(47:33):
because you know he, he wasn't ahe.
You know he, I don't.
He wasn't a billionaire.
He was a rich guy, but hewasn't a.
I don't know if he wasconsidered a billionaire, but
even people with his kind ofwealth didn't usually have
islands, Because islands arevery costly to maintain.
Well, there's a whole questionof where is all.

Speaker 2 (47:51):
Well, that's the thing.
He had, the.
He had the big island apartmentin.

Speaker 1 (47:54):
New York city.
He was a.
He was right.
Well, I've heard this said byothers, but that he was.
He wasn't a real person.
He was cast into the role ofJeffrey Epstein financing.
I haven't heard that.
Yeah, everything about him wasfake.
Really, yeah, he's he, he.
Um, yeah, I've heard itdescribed as like he was.
He was gold plated foil spreadout to make it look wealthier.

(48:18):
On the surface You're verywealthy, but if you look like
they talk about him as a, as adisgraced financier and nobody
can really tell tell how hereally invested, or like he
didn't.
He didn't do anything to earnthe title of I'm an investor,
like, oh, really, yeah, it'smore just like.

(48:38):
That's the illusion that youknow, who do you ever handle
money for?
I really can't answer thatquestion.
What kind of trades do they do?
They can't really answer that,but like those.

Speaker 2 (48:46):
Really.

Speaker 1 (48:47):
And there's a whole thing about him is he was a cut
out of of some intelligenceagency, that he was a.
He was there to do a purposeand he was there to do um,
basically to lure powerfulpeople into compromising
positions where they could then,you know, have something held
over them, Interesting and um.
But what's interesting is thatit's the kind of scam that

(49:12):
started when it started and thengot harder to maintain, and got
harder to maintain in theinternet age, when people could
look up information, Becausethink about it back in the day,
right, you could just you couldwander to another town and you
could change your name.
There was no way of peoplechecking and then, as our
technology got better, there wasmore and more ways of checking.

(49:32):
But you know, you go back tothe, to the, to the olden days,
like the old west.
You literally can walk to thenext town and be like I would
change my identity and hope thatnobody made the track across,
right?

Speaker 2 (49:42):
I mean you think about how much boring party
conversations must be.
I think that's not now whatmust be?

Speaker 1 (49:48):
I don't really go to like party parties, right Do?

Speaker 2 (49:50):
you remember when you were younger, you could spend
an hour trying to figure outsomething.
No, no, no.
I think it was this.
You're wrong.
It was this.
No, no, no, no.
It was that right now, Someonejust looks on their phone at two
seconds.
You're all wrong.
It's this yeah, it kind ofkills that kind of vibe, yeah.

Speaker 1 (50:08):
Too easy to look up stuff, but anyway it's.

Speaker 2 (50:10):
I didn't know that I'm going to look that stuff up
later on, Although I don't knowif I'll.
Well, I get flagged if I'mlooking up Jeffrey Jeffrey
Epstein.
I don't know Someone's going, Idon't know.

Speaker 1 (50:19):
It's fascinating because I've heard, I've
referred to as a, as a what theysay, anti-interesting story.
Everyone will tell you thatthey don't like, they don't want
to do stories on it becausenobody's interested in it.
But every story that getspublished on it gets a lot of
views.
Same with UFO stuff too, isthat some places they'll be like
oh, we don't cover UFOs, nobodywants to hear about that stuff.

(50:40):
But then any UFO stories thatare published get the most views
on the channel.
And so if nobody wants to hearit, but yet everybody watches it
, what does that say?
And it says it's not that wedon't want to hear it, it's that
you guys don't want to talkabout it, and that's.
There's a difference, right,and it's the same thing with the
, with the Epstein thing is youshould be hearing more about

(51:01):
that.

Speaker 2 (51:02):
No, that's just gone.
Well, actually, not actually Interms of mainstream media.

Speaker 1 (51:06):
There's some movement the other day, actually some
Senator, I think some Senatorsomebody in government has asked
for basically demanding thelist of people who visit.

Speaker 2 (51:17):
I know.
I know he made a demand.
I don't know if he's ever goingto get it.
I think it was a woman.

Speaker 1 (51:22):
It was a woman, I think it made the demand.

Speaker 2 (51:25):
It's one thing to make a demand.
Again, it could be justgrandstanding, but is anything
ever going to happen?

Speaker 1 (51:30):
That's when I it's out there a little bit that you
can actually get some of thelists out there.
They're out there to be found,it's just.

Speaker 2 (51:36):
you know it shouldn't , it should just be, you know,
part of whatever record there is.
It just shouldn't be this wholeyou know, I'm just saying again
.
That's me thinking things wereon the level.
Nothing's on the level.
So we taught, we started withSteve, what's going on with you?
And here we are, yeah Right, 52minutes later.
No, really, but there's an oldmovie.

(52:00):
It's a joke in my family Well,maybe it's just a joke to me.
It's an old movie.
It's called the one-armedassassin and I'm not going to go
any further into it.
But tell them a little bitabout you.
That's the lead in You're theone-armed assassin.

Speaker 1 (52:14):
Yeah, I had rotator cuff surgery.
Yeah, so I tore my left rotatorcuff 50% and, um, yeah, I had
to have that, have that patchedup.

Speaker 2 (52:25):
So I've been kind of, I just got Get to go to
physical therapy and all that Goto physical therapy, trying to
get my arm back into, into.

Speaker 1 (52:31):
So I'm like on week six or seven or something like
that.
I think week six, so like itwas.

Speaker 2 (52:36):
I was a pain, and what's the recovery?
Three months, six months, um, Idon't even know.
Well, you should know, man, youhad the surgery.

Speaker 1 (52:43):
In the middle of it.
I don't know I'm, I'm, I'm six,seven weeks in.
And then this point I can likemove my left arm.
It's finally out of the sling,so I'm not the one-armed bandit
anymore.
Um, I can drive and stuff likethat.
It's just a pain.
Everybody I've talked to, oh,rotator cuff Like you meet so
many people when you have asling, cause everyone wants to
tell you their, their rotatorcuff story.

(53:03):
If they ever had kind of income, shoulder injury.
Everyone wants to tell youabout it Cause it's a shared
experience and, yeah, it sucks.

Speaker 2 (53:10):
Yeah, I never heard anybody tell me it was fun yeah.

Speaker 1 (53:13):
Like I hear varying degrees of what's the worst
thing ever.
And I get it.
I get it.
Um, because you like I, I can't.
For the longest time I couldn'teven move my arm.
It was in a sling.
Uh, it still hurts.
I can't lift it on its own.
I mean I can.
You know I have limited use ofmy Do they have to go into your
bicep.
Yeah, they went in up in theshoulder area and went into the

(53:34):
biceps and so it was a 50% tearand they were.
They were just like why shouldhave bothered you far more than
it did?
And I was just like, ah, I justignored it.
It did bother me, but it's verygood, I'm good at just going.
I don't know It'll go away if Ileave it alone.
Yeah, 50% tear doesn't go away.

Speaker 2 (53:52):
No, I would imagine it's not going to.

Speaker 1 (53:54):
No, no, but it's fixed now.
So I'm I'm slowly getting backon the mend, which is nice, you
know, it's nice to.
I learned, interesting I I havegreater respect for, you know,
for people who, like, are ableto do things with limited, like
limited use of their hands andarms and stuff.
Cause, like I had to like learnhow to do certain things with
like just simple things liketucking in your shirt you don't

(54:16):
have the use of one of yourhands, like it's a whole other
balancing act and things likethat, just stupid things, and
just you know I realized, oh,actually, this was interesting.
I was of the age.
Did they try to correct Are youleft handed or right handed,
right handed?
Okay, so I'm left handed.
So when we went to school inthe very early days, they were

(54:36):
trying to fix that.

Speaker 2 (54:38):
Really.

Speaker 1 (54:38):
Yeah, they didn't do it very long and they didn't.
They dropped it pretty quick.
But we were on the tail end ofthat idea of like they did it a
lot in in in Catholic schools.
But I didn't go to any kind ofCatholic school but, uh, they
used to think oops.

Speaker 2 (54:53):
They used to think people that rolled their left
hand were closer to the devil.

Speaker 1 (54:56):
Yes, yes, which is probably true, but anyway, but
because of that there's there'sa.
It was an interesting mix oflike figuring out what things
that I did left handed, since Iam left handed, and some things
that you would think I would doleft handed, that I would do
right handed, and just whether,just noticing when, I favored
you really should have playedbaseball, Chris.
And it was interesting becausethen I would just kind of like

(55:18):
could have made a lot of money.
I would know now probably not,cause I couldn't stick to
anything like that.
Um, but it was just interestingcause I I got to learn, cause
having the lack of one armquickly it's like, is doing this
particular thing, is itcomfortable?
Okay, then I always use myright arm or did I use my left
and shit.
Now I'm going to learn how tolike juggle things and like just
eating, but it's been a pain inthe ass, so I'm glad to have it

(55:40):
back.
I still can't write, though.
Writing is very hard.

Speaker 2 (55:43):
Is it?
Yeah, it's interesting.
Do they give you stretches todo?

Speaker 1 (55:46):
Oh yeah, I got all sorts of exercises I get to do
and and it's painful- After thewe're done recording, uh, I'll
show you.

Speaker 2 (55:55):
It's a little weird to watch, but I'm going to show
you a rotated a cuff stretchthat I learned in the last five
or six months.
It is fantastic.
Yeah, if, if.
I don't know if they'll tellyou you can do it, but you run
up by them.
It's awesome, anyway, yeah.

Speaker 1 (56:08):
No, I like.
So it's totally getting patchedinto into space, but it's just
uh is it like a dull pain?

Speaker 2 (56:16):
Yeah, so, speaking of dull, constant pains um, you
also got married.

Speaker 1 (56:20):
Oh, I'm joking yeah.

Speaker 2 (56:24):
Exactly I.

Speaker 1 (56:24):
it's like going to show it spent a time got married
and had my shoulder rippedapart.
Yeah, which was worse.

Speaker 2 (56:30):
I'm joking.
I'm joking.
Wow, how did?
How did she land this prize?
That is you.
I know how does it happen, it'sjust some people are this lucky
.

Speaker 1 (56:39):
You know I always said I was not going to get
married.
I was one of those rareunicorns that made it to like 51
years old, never married.

Speaker 2 (56:44):
Well, as we said here today, he still won't give it
up.
He's got his Hugh Hefner umsmoking jacket on.
I wear this everywhere since inmy license picture.

Speaker 1 (56:53):
No, I just.
But I mean I just, I was not inmy intent ever to do that, but
um it it, congratulations.
Thank you, thank you, we, andwe did it the great way and you
have a wonderful bride,Wonderful bride Rosie, and we
also didn't tell anyone, didn'ttell a soul, we just um.

Speaker 2 (57:09):
Well, I mean, I saw you, uh, the day before, I think
.

Speaker 1 (57:12):
You did, yeah, yes, and we saw a lot of people that
day and, um, we, we, we justdidn't tell anybody, we just did
it.
And then a couple of days laterwe went, we told everybody we
were going away, uh, to Aruba.
And a lot of people said, oh,you know what?
I went there on my honeymoonand we would just look at each
other and go, yeah, well, we'rejust going there on vacation.
And then we just got marriedquietly and then went to Aruba.

(57:33):
So you got married before youwent.

Speaker 2 (57:36):
I couldn't tell when I saw the photographs because it
looked like you were on a beach.
I was like, are they in Aruba?

Speaker 1 (57:41):
No, you know what it's.
It's expensive to get marriedout of the country because you
have to pay in addition towhatever costs you spend as
additional legal costs with.
With having a marriage that'sdone on foreign soil recognized
in the United States, there's ait's there's there's shit to
that you know there's stuff youhave to do, so it just didn't

(58:03):
seem worth it.
And we live in a beach so wewanted to get married near where
we were.
So we found a nice little placethat overlooking the next town
of the water, newburyport.
Just a nice little town.
We're in Salisbury andoverlooking there, and had a
justice of the piece and and anda photographer slash witness.
So that's how you have thewitness to the to the event and

(58:25):
and also the photographer takinggood pictures, and so nobody
had to be there and everybodycould see pictures of it later.
Very nice, and then we justquietly did that and jumped into
the, jumped on the plane andtold everybody on our way out
hey, yeah, we did something andand that was it.
So it was the way.
You know it's funny, we jokeabout it, but she and I we don't
like to be the center ofattention Although even though

(58:46):
we'll do karaoke sometimes we'll, we'll put ourselves out there,
but both of us don't like to bethe center of it.
Like the idea of having anykind of event where, like it's a
celebrate, I like that makesboth of us kind of uncomfortable
, and so that's why we justwanted to just do this quietly,
with nobody's.
That way you can't get into athing about why did this person

(59:08):
get invited?
And and I didn't like there'sno hierarchy of of who.
Nope, nobody knew.
Not a single person and Ithought that was that was
generally, when it comes to thatstuff, most people say why did
I get invited?
Why do I have to go to thisthing?
I'm joking.
I love a good wedding.
The older.

Speaker 2 (59:23):
well, I'm in the I'm at this stage.
Now you might be, I don't know,but it seems like I don't go to
weddings right now.
I'm fifth.
I just turned 51 at my birthdaya couple of weeks ago, can I?
I can hear the applause in thebackground, but I really don't
go to weddings right now becauseit's this low kind of where

(59:46):
none of my friends have kidsthat are old enough to get
married.
Right, I mean, once in a whilethere's a relative or something,
but generally speaking it's alow.
There was a lot of it until Iwas maybe 35.
Then it's now.
It's probably the weddings I'llstart going to again.
A friend's kids, relatives,kids, you know, nieces and
things, not nephews.

(01:00:06):
See, I've had, I had some.

Speaker 1 (01:00:08):
I've had some you have older brothers though.
Right.
So I have nieces who havegotten married and an effort.

Speaker 2 (01:00:15):
You have an older sister too, right?
Yes, so I have.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:00:17):
So I have had had.
I'm the oldest, but no, nobodyfrom my peer group is getting
married.

Speaker 2 (01:00:22):
Right, 51 as well, yeah, and there's none of your,
none of your friends kidsgetting married because most of
them aren't old enough.
Right, most of them, I meanmaybe, but generally speaking
it's not like I'd say.
Within the next five to 10years it'll start happening.

Speaker 1 (01:00:38):
Although it's funny when I run into people who are
my age and how old their theirkids can be.

Speaker 2 (01:00:45):
Well, even like you know, like I mean, you know
you're and she's, I'm on theyounger side of some kids, some
people Right.

Speaker 1 (01:00:51):
So like there are people of my age group who have
kids, who have kids, I mean it's, you know, it's not impossible.

Speaker 2 (01:01:03):
No, no, no, no, no.
Scientifically and physicallyit can happen.

Speaker 1 (01:01:06):
There are people from our peer group who are
grandparents, oh yeah, and notjust like recent grandparents,
like there are people who havebeen grandparents for quite a
while.
I daresay this is probably evena great grandparent out there.

Speaker 2 (01:01:18):
No, no, no.
I don't know how confident thatis 51 year old great
grandparent.
I don't know.
I guess it could happen.

Speaker 1 (01:01:24):
It's theoretically possible.
It is but.
But it's weird because it'slike, as we get old, like it's.
I don't know, when I seesomeone my age, I forget.
Like I am old, now 51.
Like, not old, but like.

Speaker 2 (01:01:38):
I don't know.
Well, we're firmly middle aged,firmly.

Speaker 1 (01:01:43):
I think that's wishful thinking.
I would assume that we wouldlive to 102.

Speaker 2 (01:01:47):
No no, no, I'm just saying generally.
I think a lot we were actuallytalking about this, because
somebody I know is almost 65 andhe thinks he's still middle
aged and I said I don't knowRight.
I said I always think middleage is like 40 to 60.
That's just where I place itand after 60, I consider you're

(01:02:09):
kind of elderly and even 60spushing.

Speaker 1 (01:02:12):
Oh, it is pushing it, but I'm just saying today's
society unless you're going tolive to 120.

Speaker 2 (01:02:16):
I think, if you start , calling somebody elderly
before they're 60, they're goingto get angry with you.
Just go try it.

Speaker 1 (01:02:26):
Well, yeah, because elderly is, is a.
You know, I think they call itpejorative.
I mean, elderly impliesdecrepit.

Speaker 2 (01:02:33):
But how will you classify age after middle age?
What's the next step?
Seniors?
Okay, so if you try to go, do Ifind it a 57 year old woman
calling her a senior.
See what she says to you.
Oh yeah, I wouldn't do that.

Speaker 1 (01:02:46):
No.

Speaker 2 (01:02:47):
I'd advise against it .
I wouldn't do it.
But technically I don't know ifI'd call and I don't know if
I'd like it, Although I did getan AARP application right around
my 51st birthday.
I don't know the significanceof my 51st birthday but is that
when you're eligible to joinAARP?
I didn't even open the fuckingenvelope.
I said well, I don't like this.

Speaker 1 (01:03:10):
I didn't look at it.
You know I I would depend onthe discounts.
If they had good discounts.

Speaker 2 (01:03:15):
Like I didn't even think of that.

Speaker 1 (01:03:17):
I thought they just wanted an application fee, yeah
Well, yeah, I'm not necessarilygoing to join them, but like I
just I don't care what you callme now at this point, it's just,
it is what it is.

Speaker 2 (01:03:26):
Well, but oh, here's what it says on carecom.
What age is considered elderly?
It just, and it's not.
It's a thing called carecom, soit can't be that bad, okay.
65 or older right Cuz that'sretirement elderly Well and
according to the social well,according United States Social

(01:03:48):
Security Administration right.

Speaker 1 (01:03:50):
But the reason for that is that you can retire at
65.
Well, you're, you're Medicareeligible, right?
You're eligible to retire.

Speaker 2 (01:03:57):
I think you can.
You can receive so scared, it'snot sorry regular social
security Benefits earlier thanretirement benefits at 62 and a
half and you get less of it,right, or something like that.

Speaker 1 (01:04:07):
Yeah, but what I'm saying is is that, so that's all
the fiction of you retire at 65?
That's the general thought.
Yeah, a lot of people don't,but I'm just saying that's a
general thought there for whenyou retire Now you're elderly.
That doesn't quite applyanymore when people are working
to their 70s.

Speaker 2 (01:04:24):
Yeah, it's just yeah, but the name it's.
It's on different websites thatare not.
They don't use the word in aDerogatory fashion.
There's, but I think when youcall someone, that they feel
that way, but there's no realdistinction.

Speaker 1 (01:04:42):
I mean, obviously, when you say somebody's in their
20s or in their 30s or in their40s, it's very clear what you
mean, although it can get grayon the on the unlike, like if
you're in your 20s, in your 29,does that make you that
different from the person who is30?
Who did someone say well,they're in their 20s and they're
in their 30s.

(01:05:02):
Well, they're 29 and they're 31.

Speaker 2 (01:05:05):
They're not that far apart.

Speaker 1 (01:05:06):
So obviously there are levels to everything, but
there's no clear demarcationwhere someone is like no, an
elderly person.

Speaker 2 (01:05:14):
But we have to, as we humans, we have to classify
things.
That's just the way it goesSimple class for kids, and it
has to be, and there are brightlines and that's it and that's
stop trying to trap.
Stop trying to mess around thelines.
See, I hate that because I can.
This is it.

Speaker 1 (01:05:26):
You can't have new ones discussions when they were
like this it Like on or off,it's like, but it's both.
Man, I want to dim in here.
I don't want it on or off.
I want a dimmer switch where Ican kind of have it in between.
But I mean okay.

Speaker 2 (01:05:39):
So if 65s considered elderly elderly by the Social
Security Administration by thetime we get to 67, 68, you
there's a point that it's notyou the argument starts going
away.
I think I would say, especiallywhen she hits 70, it's over,
like you're not gonna go.
I'm still middle-aged, like allright, how long you think

(01:06:02):
you're living?

Speaker 1 (01:06:04):
And again, middle-aged is just what does
that mean?
Middle-aged, that means I'm.
Was that mean, I'm halfway towhere?

Speaker 2 (01:06:09):
I'm good at being.
What do they say?
What does middle mean?
Yeah, I mean we could kind offigure it out.
Hey, cyclopedia Britannica.
What do they say?
40 to 60?

Speaker 1 (01:06:19):
You know great, great minds the more that you're
afraid of that inevitable end,the more that you're gonna try
to justify and make Levels oflike, to build up to it and also
try to figure out how to putyourself as far down the levels
as possible.
Like like nobody wants to be,like I'm one foot close, I'm one
foot away from death.
They want to be as far away.

(01:06:40):
For how far away?
A middle-aged?
Because that implies withoutsaying, if you say I'm
middle-aged, that implies in avery broad sense that you're
halfway between living and dying.
You're about midway through.
Now we know for most people whosay they're middle-aged, they
are well beyond midway, they areclose to the end of the line
and they are the front.

Speaker 2 (01:07:00):
Any measure I think the middle, like, if you're
really gonna get into it, Ithink the middle is a larger
thing, because, if you right,and how many Classifications out
there, I usually I'd say, like,if you wanted to say three
young, middle-aged and old Right, you'd, you'd slice it into
thirds, right, and they don'tnecessarily all have to be the

(01:07:21):
same length of time, true, right, because between 40 and 60,
those are usually the years that, yeah, if you have kids, they
get a little older, they're notlittle kids.
You're trying to make as muchmoney as you can, like that,
like there's a lot happening inthose years that most people
have a commonality with.
And then, once 60 and all inall, once you hit 60, most

(01:07:45):
people start quote unquoteslowing down.
They're not.
You wouldn't hire a 62 year old,probably, and think he's gonna
be.
You know, burn the midnight oil, let's say, you know, I mean
like it's not gonna be workingas hard.
Maybe it's just a general.
I'm not saying specifically toa person, but generally speaking
.
Someone doesn't say, well, that65 year old guy, you know he's

(01:08:06):
gonna be, he'd be out working.
This 25 year old out in thefield, that's not happening, you
know.

Speaker 1 (01:08:10):
I mean generally.

Speaker 2 (01:08:11):
I mean, there could be exceptions.

Speaker 1 (01:08:13):
You're right about that but in the same breath Will
switch and say, well, that's 65year old guy.
We well, of course you can'tretire yet.
He can't.
He had afford to slow down, youknow.
Like he doesn't earn enough, hehasn't put enough away for
retirement, da-da-da, well, Iguess he has to keep working.
So like, at the same thingwe'll say that that's 65 year
old person, still has to liveand produce and and and you know

(01:08:35):
, pay the same amount of moneybecause they still have to have
an apartment, have all thisstuff.
Like then we'll turn on theother side and say but we don't
want them working for us becausethey're not gonna work quite as
hard.
Like we put them in almost animpossible situation with, with
that 65 year old who isn't onfirm financial footing of which
there are a lot of them, waymore than we we would be
comfortable with if we reallyknew how many 65 year old, yeah,

(01:08:58):
are just like.
The only thing they're gonnahave to depend on is their
social security check, which isnot gonna be enough.
Which is why I see like olderpeople bagging groceries at
market basket.
I'm under no illusion thatpeople are there.

Speaker 2 (01:09:13):
I honestly think I might want to do that when I get
older but I don't think thosepeople are there because they
want to get.

Speaker 1 (01:09:18):
No, I know you're saying they don't have to be
that that I don't like andthat's what I'm saying is is it
will say like oh you know, andyou're not wrong about it Like
there are people who say Iwouldn't hire a 65 year old guy.

Speaker 2 (01:09:30):
I want a young go-go.

Speaker 1 (01:09:31):
No, it's a thing, it's of course it's a thing, but
then we expect them.
Well, sorry, you're not makingas much money.
I guess you can't get that job.
Like it's weird that we'll havethose two thoughts and we'll
just.
We'll just have themSimultaneously without realizing
how they impact upon each other, or how one affects the other
and how, if we could just adjustour thinking on one, maybe we

(01:09:51):
could fix the other but we don't.

Speaker 2 (01:09:53):
Is why, chris?
The same reason, why what?
The same tone of our discussionright now.
Right, it's easy to just lookat something and say it's this,
right.
So we're just looking and I go,hey, you middle-aged from 40 to
60, right, and I would say, onLarge-scale, many people would

(01:10:13):
agree with most people wouldagree, right, they would say
exactly middle-aged 40, 60, yep,yeah, I agree with you until
you're in the room with someonethat's 59 or 61 and you go.
I don't really think they areelderly, right?
So when you just like anythingin life, when you look at things
in a grand scale, look, if youlook at things different than if
you look at somethingindividually.
Right, that's just how italways is, and the question is

(01:10:36):
is our?

Speaker 1 (01:10:36):
is the thing you're looking at?
Does it need to be?
Because some things do Need tobe looked at in the grand scale
to get the scope of them.
Other things, you do need todrill down to get them exact,
but I think we we make wrongdecisions.
There are a lot of things thatwe should be zooming into more
and we give it that grand sweepand we go that's good enough.
And then there's a lot of youknow, like, yeah, it all

(01:10:57):
connects it.
I think.
I think it all wraps around.
To wrap this around, you know,to a closing off point, I guess
we should probably wrap this upright is?
Um?
We just got to rethink thewhole thing, like just the way
that that we interact with theworld around us We've become, we
built this system that issupposed to make life better for

(01:11:18):
us, but it doesn't anymore.
We feed the system, we live, weexist For the system.
The system doesn't exist for us.
The system is its own separatething that we must obey, and
it's like we created it.

Speaker 2 (01:11:30):
We created the system get a little more light.
What are you saying?
You get like no, no, no, likeyou're getting, like you're
getting heavy, like what are yousaying?
What?

Speaker 1 (01:11:39):
I'm saying is is that when our Comfort and our
well-being Conflicts with theway the system is designed, we
always lose and the systemalways wins, like it's always.
It's like, that's the way it is.
The system was built this way.
Sorry, it doesn't measure up inthis regard, but that's the
system.
Sorry, we can't do anythingabout it, it just is.

(01:12:01):
And we all just kind of go yep,guess, just is how that sucks.
Wish we could change it, wishwe could vote, we should get
that, whatever it is, whateverthe method of fixing it.
But in the end, we all kind ofshrug our shoulders and just
accept it.
We take a backseat to thesystem, the system that we built
for us, but it doesn't serve usanymore.
We serve it when, like I said,whenever a decision comes to

(01:12:23):
whether it's the system thatwins or the individual, it's the
system that always wins.
It's just the way of things.
It's just so funny that we alljust accept this and we all
agree that it sucks.
None of us like it, we all wishit could be different.
And and then, when it comestime to go, why don't we change
it?
We all just go, huh, what canyou do?
Fuck it.
And it's just so sad becauseTechnologically life and I'll

(01:12:49):
just be better.

Speaker 2 (01:12:50):
I'll tell you why I think in a nutshell because we
talk about concepts, let's saypolitically.
Whatever arena you're in, right, you talk.
We talk about grand scalethings, right, so you could talk
about Again, I'm not here tomake this a political discussion
but you could.
You could get into, excuse me,healthcare right, or the way

(01:13:17):
people punish crimes or whatever.
You want a big scale things,taxes right, and we vote on it
or we discuss it.
But when you experience it,everyone experiences at their
own individual level.

Speaker 1 (01:13:35):
Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 (01:13:36):
So when they really have to make a decision, it's on
there.
They make I don't want to callit a selfish decision, but they
make a self Thinking decision.
Yeah, of course right, but whenyou talk about it, it's talked
about in a grand scale, right?
So if there was ever a way tomake your decision Equal that

(01:13:58):
grand scale, things might bedifferent.
But when, let's say, just taxes, right Again, I'll just talk
political, because I'm trying tothink of an analogy easy way to
illustrate it.
Yeah, let's say, a Democratwants X and a and a Republican
wants Y, right if, if theRepublican wins on their

(01:14:18):
Discussion, on their debate orwhatever, and it gets voted for
what they want, there are a lotof people that will do better
tax wise if the Republican wins,but society itself does not do
better.
Let's say let's say your taxesget cut right.
So here's an example right,when Donald Trump was the
president, right, I Made moremoney, yeah, okay, but Maybe

(01:14:44):
there was a program that didn'tget enough money that would have
made society better, right, sothat's just so.
You say so I'm doing better.
So that's all I care about.
So I'm not saying I think thatI know, but I'm saying like
that's that, that's what happensto people.

Speaker 1 (01:14:59):
Well, that's because, if you really think about it,
very few acts.
You can't say no acts, but veryfew acts are very few.
Things are either all bad orall good.
Right, most things are good forsome, bad for others, that's
just.
That's just true of of mostthings right.
Something happens.
Even the worst of things happena war, an earthquake, a flood,

(01:15:24):
a fire, you name it.
Can be the worst of things, butsomewhere on down the line that
event was good for someone insome capacity.
It, you know it enabled somegood to come for it somewhere,
but the overall thing could bereally bad.
You know, the one I often thinkabout is, you know, the
pandemic we went through.
There was a lot of bad and itwas a hell of a lot of bad.

(01:15:45):
We're still still dealing withsome of that bad.

Speaker 2 (01:15:49):
What do they say?
Show me a tragedy, I'll showyou an opportunity.

Speaker 1 (01:15:52):
But there was also just the way it goes.
There was also some good,though.
One of the main things I thinkabout is QR codes.
Pre-pandemic, very few peopleunderstood what you do with the
QR code.
When they encountered a QR code, they just didn't have any idea
what to do, so they just movedon.
The the pandemic made peoplehave to, you know, interact with

(01:16:18):
QR codes for menus.
I hate that.
I don't like it.
I get it.
I get it.
I don't.
I don't.
You know what I like theability to have it all not in
the restaurant.
If I'm in the restaurant, themenu, but we usually don't.
We usually know what we'regonna have before we get there,
like so.
I don't know you that because welook at the menu online.
I don't want to go into a placeI don't want to sit, but anyway

(01:16:38):
, that being said, I just what Ilike about the QR codes.

Speaker 2 (01:16:41):
I like the surprise.

Speaker 1 (01:16:42):
QR codes.
You can use them now and a lotmore businesses are using them.
A lot more people are usingthem for Interesting things.
I'm just saying that's a goodthing that came pre-pandemic it
now, if you said, hey, could youknow how about the pandemic
never happened and people goback to not knowing how to use
QR codes, I'm not gonna say no,we must keep this right to QQ,
I'm, but I'm just saying thatyou're right.

(01:17:03):
There were some People who didbetter during the pandemic.
Suddenly they could work fromhome.
Suddenly they were getting paidthe same amount but not having
commuting costs anymore.
So I'm just saying that if mostthings, some people benefit,
some people don't.
That is true of everything, sothat's why it gets really hard

(01:17:23):
to talk about something.
Is it?
Is this thing that thisparticular political party wants
to pass?
Is it good or is it bad?
That's the discussion we have.
Is it a good thing or is it abad thing?
Well, that's a stupiddiscussion to have.
For anything.
You can't argue whethersomething is good or bad,
because you have to define Goodfor whom.

Speaker 2 (01:17:42):
Well, here's what I'm saying.
Has any bad, let's say this isgreat, I like talking like this.
But let's say Whatever issue,it might be right.
And generally speaking, let'ssay I'm gonna make something up.
Let's say there was an issuethat said we want to make sure
there are more public beaches,right.

(01:18:04):
And everyone in the country saysyeah well, let's say a state or
a state of Massachusetts, yeah,that does sound better for
everyone and we're gonna makethem public and everyone can
come and this is what.
That sounds great for everybody, right?
And then, individually, theremight be one group of people
that end up paying higher taxthan another group, right?

(01:18:24):
Well then maybe it never getsoff the ground.
But then there could have beenanother thing that comes out
down the road that the peoplethat are gonna pay more taxes in
Problem a and a paying lesstaxes and get a benefit.
People aren't generally willingto Take a hit for the greater
good, even though they couldhappen in their favor on the

(01:18:46):
next one, right?
So no one is in favor of that,everyone is just says it's about
me, and I get it.
I mean that we're all humanbeings, so we have some
selfishness to us, right?
But Most of the time it onlyworks society only works when
people are weak, willing to takehits for the greater good, and
I think we're getting more andmore away from that.

Speaker 1 (01:19:08):
Yes, and that is very true, I think.
What I think, though, is I feellike that thing that's set up
about having to take the hit ornot is False, and it's
constructed that way to makecertain people, because there's
a lot of things that nobodywould take listen, I've been
married long enough.

Speaker 2 (01:19:23):
If you don't think you have to take a hit for the
great, nobody take.
But there are some things wherenobody has to take the hit,
right for the greater good.

Speaker 1 (01:19:30):
There is no hit.
The reason why they want you tothink there's a hit is because
that stupid thing of we have.
How do you pay for this?

Speaker 2 (01:19:38):
No, no, I'm not saying that they, Chris.
I'm saying, let's say, you put20 people in a room.
That's all I meant.

Speaker 1 (01:19:43):
Oh, I know, and you can.

Speaker 2 (01:19:44):
There's a decision to make some people that, whatever
happens, some people might getget a benefit that's better than
others.
Right, that's just the way itworks.
Sometimes you you could be on aon a baseball team and
Something happens.

Speaker 1 (01:19:58):
Nobody likes to see somebody getting benefits, that
they're not right.

Speaker 2 (01:20:01):
But my point is if you just let it, let it go,
it'll come around your wayeventually, and if you're all in
it together.
But you know that's the problem.

Speaker 1 (01:20:10):
So, but most of these people who, who, like you're
setting up the thing thatthey're not in it together.
That's, that's a fake construct.
That's in order to create thevery friction that prevents the
progress.
That's what I'm saying is, isit?
Oh no, I agree.
There are some things you'reright that people are just
nobody wants to to feel likethey're getting less than
somebody else.
Nobody wants to feel likesomebody else is getting a

(01:20:31):
benefit that they're not, whichis why you get a lot of
resistance to student loanForgiveness.
Right, because there are peoplewho did go to school and did
pay for their, their school, andthey're upset that other people
in their mind are gonna get itfor free, right.
I mean, a lot of that isridiculous, because some of
these people like went to schoolin a different time and the
cost structure and like it's.

Speaker 2 (01:20:52):
I will say probably would have been more Widely
accepted if they said listen,we're gonna retroback that back,
but whatever period of time, sothat if somebody did pay, let's
say they paid and they theyended up paying their student
loans off Two or three years ago.
Right, there should have beensome retroactive benefit for
somebody that did that In termsof getting more people on board

(01:21:17):
with it.
But that's that's.
That's a political discussion.

Speaker 1 (01:21:20):
But why aren't those loans interest free?

Speaker 2 (01:21:22):
There's no reason to charge interest, because the
government doesn't get money forfree.

Speaker 1 (01:21:26):
That's why but what I'm saying is is the government,
doesn't they sell those loansoff to private, to private, like
it's not like the government?
The the whole student loanthing is just stupid.
You were basically giving tocompanies.
Hey, you want a new way toexploit these kids?
Here you go.
We're gonna tell them that theyget a loan for any money
because they're using it forschool, I mean borrowing money
is cost money since before JesusChrist.

(01:21:48):
But could any 18 year oldqualify to buy a hundred
thousand dollar?
Put hundred thousand dollar forcar, no, most 18.
You know I'm saying but yeah,we let him sign a hundred
thousand dollar loan becauseit's you can't absolve it with
bankruptcy.

Speaker 2 (01:22:00):
That's why.
That's why they don't care.

Speaker 1 (01:22:03):
That's what I'm saying.
But the whole thing wasstructured to it wasn't
structured to give kidseducation, was structured to put
them in debt so they would beindentured.
Servitude to the, to the.
That's the general vibe.

Speaker 2 (01:22:13):
That might be a little dark way of looking at it
.
It could be looked at as a wayof giving an opportunity to
somebody that can't afford it.
I, I'm just saying I mean.

Speaker 1 (01:22:23):
Again, if the system is built on the main goal to
make money that is gonna be thereason of everything, that's the
premise you're saying that'sthe premise of that's capitalism
.

Speaker 2 (01:22:35):
That's not the premise of the government.
That's not.
You might think it and it mightbe actually true, I don't know,
but I don't think it's themodel of a government.

Speaker 1 (01:22:44):
But even they pay attention to that same, that
same calculus of like does thismake money?

Speaker 2 (01:22:48):
Is this, is this good , I think, as long as it breaks
even like the government issupposed to break even.
Now I don't disagree with youthat things are designed to
profit, but I don't thinkanyone's ever any government
official has ever come out andsaid that.

Speaker 1 (01:23:02):
No, but business is like it's all built on profit.
It's all built on cost andprofit.
Just the whole thing that we'veconstructed is built on that.
How can we deny that?
That is the fundamental forceof everything we do.
We talk about movies now, thesuccess of movies, we, the
viewing public in how much moneyit made.

Speaker 2 (01:23:23):
I'm kind of tired of it.
I don't really like that?

Speaker 1 (01:23:25):
Why do we give two craps what X movie made in box?
Why?

Speaker 2 (01:23:30):
does that.
You know what I'd like to see?
Because movies aren't cheap togo to right, so I'd actually
like to see instead of showingme.
But again, it's because you'reright, our society is very hung
up on money, so we, why the viewof?

Speaker 1 (01:23:43):
public care of what a movie made that has no impact
on what good, but you know itdoesn't matter.
Judging the quality of a movie,as opposed to the quality of
other movies, based on how muchmoney it made in the box office,
rather than how good the movieis.

Speaker 2 (01:23:56):
That's tiring to me.
I actually I'm interested inseeing ticket sales because
sometimes when they'll show likea movie that's making a lot of
money, I'm like I wonder howthat stacked up against Star
Wars or something like that?
right, and it's hard to findthat information.
You can, but it's not easy.
But I'd love to know how manytickets would you sell?
Because I mean, if you wantedto go to a 3D IMAX, this one was

(01:24:19):
$20, right, so that, versuswhatever a ticket cost when you
go see ET right, of course it'sgonna make more money, but they
don't always give you thatticket sales.

Speaker 1 (01:24:31):
No, but they do judge it, they do inflate it, they do
make the account for inflationand so forth, and you can get
those stats if you Google it.
If you good to work AI on that,because a lot of the AI now
have access to to the webbrowsing, so that makes it makes
it that much powerful.
You know what, though I thinkwe're going on an hour and a
half here, I think this isprobably a good place to wrap it

(01:24:53):
up.

Speaker 2 (01:24:53):
Well, I wanted to what's the highest movie.

Speaker 1 (01:24:56):
We're gonna close off with this, the highest movie.
Listen to this, all right.

Speaker 2 (01:25:00):
S the number of tickets sold.
You wouldn't all right, I'mgonna give you two guesses.
The number of tickets soldnumber one all time.
What's that Gone with the wind?
Oh yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:25:13):
I actually Can you?

Speaker 2 (01:25:13):
imagine.
So that right.
So it's a service.
And the number two style wasthe what would be.
It's four now, but it wasnumber one, you know.
The first one, new hope.
Three, sound of music.
Four is ET, so none of the morecontemporary ones, but-.

Speaker 1 (01:25:36):
I'll bet you gone with the wind is there, because
everybody probably saw thatthat's what it is.

Speaker 2 (01:25:42):
Like that was a probably a phenomenon, Just like
style was was a phenomenon.

Speaker 1 (01:25:46):
What percentage of the public saw Gone with the
Wind?
What percentage of the publicsaw the Next Nun?

Speaker 2 (01:25:51):
What was the Style was?

Speaker 1 (01:25:52):
What percentage of the public?
Because that would be theinteresting question is what
percentage of the public sawthat movie?
And I bet you'll see a drop aswe go, because now the biggest
movies it's not movies thateveryone saw, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:26:07):
I think the most recent one I could think of that
was one that was kind of likethat, but it's probably nowhere
near was then the latest Top Gunmovie kind of brought people
back to the movies and like mydad went to go see it, Like a
lot of people are going to seeit Like Oppenheimer did too.
Yes, my mother went to go seethat.
Quite a different kind so right, but they're nowhere near.

(01:26:28):
There's 202 million ticketssold, if it Gone with the Wind.

Speaker 1 (01:26:34):
So, like, actually, let's look at the most recent.
The most recent thing they wereall trumpeting was the fact
that a Barbie and Oppenheimerbrought people back out to the
movies Cause those two moviesdropped.
And that was a big deal becauselike that was.
But it would be interesting tosee what percentage of the
public saw those movies andcompare that to what percentage
of the public saw like Gone withthe Wind Cause.

Speaker 2 (01:26:56):
I'll bet you back again.
I would never have guessed that.

Speaker 1 (01:26:57):
Everybody probably saw them.

Speaker 2 (01:26:59):
Cause if you were.

Speaker 1 (01:27:01):
I did know that.

Speaker 2 (01:27:01):
I wouldn't have guessed it but it makes sense to
me when I hear it Cause I like,I remember, I think about my
grandmother talking about it.

Speaker 1 (01:27:08):
Yeah, cause that was a huge, huge deal that that
movies aren't the spectacleanymore.
You know, what's funny isthey're not an event, the thing
they're trying to make thespectacle now.
Is that sphere in Las Vegas, Iguess?

Speaker 2 (01:27:20):
What is that?

Speaker 1 (01:27:22):
It's like a 360 theater basically where, like
their stuff happening, likeright above you, like they
control the whole sky, basically.
Remember Truman Show.
Yeah.
Kind of that idea of thatbubble, that instead you go to a
show and I guess you know Angusis losing money on an Epic
scale Cause it's too big of aspectacle.
Oh, really, Well, you know wetalked about Disney earlier,

(01:27:45):
right?
Yeah, Disney already had toclose that Star.

Speaker 2 (01:27:51):
Wars hotel.
Right, yeah, it was kind of aridiculous thing and the cost
was just ridiculous.
And the I love the idea Togetting people to keep coming
back, right, well, and becauseif you've experienced a story
now, people say, well, you canexperience a different branch of
the story, but that's just notwhat an average person will do.

Speaker 1 (01:28:10):
But you know what the person?
People would probably do itmore if it didn't cost an
average.

Speaker 2 (01:28:15):
Oh yeah, the cost was so prohibitive.
That's what I mean.

Speaker 1 (01:28:18):
That it wasn't the sort of thing that only like you
could afford to do.
Hey, let's hear, let's go backand overspend on that Star Wars
hotel.
But the idea of it For aweekend.

Speaker 2 (01:28:26):
It was like $3,000 to stay there for two nights.
It was insane.
I mean that's, you're pushingout a lot of people.
That could you know.

Speaker 1 (01:28:35):
Listen at the risk of sounding like a broken record.
I wish I lived in a world wherecool shit like that could exist
, could be used and didn't haveto fucking make all the money
and we could enjoy that, becauseI feel like there are
technological marvels that arepossible that we don't get

(01:28:56):
because they're just not quoteunquote cost effective, and
that's too bad.

Speaker 2 (01:29:01):
Oh, you're right.

Speaker 1 (01:29:02):
There's a lot of cool things that we could be doing
and seeing with our technologyand like there's just we're
missing the point of living,where all the fun of enjoying
stuff is just is held up to thisweird standard that I don't
know man, and I know people aregonna like, oh you're crazy,
you're crazy communist, you wanteverybody to have it, but I

(01:29:22):
don't know, it's just, it's sosad Cause I feel like it's just
it's miss potential, it's justwe could have so much fun stuff.
And instead oh it doesn't makeenough money.

Speaker 2 (01:29:32):
We gotta shut it down .
I have to swing back just for asecond, cause I find these
movie things interesting.
I don't know why I love movies,but this episode is all over
the place.
It's all over the place, it'salmost like my brain.
So, top 10, adjusted forinflation, okay, which it's the
same ones I was saying, but Ididn't say the top four I gave

(01:29:55):
you before the most recent movie, chris, and we'll wrap it up
where I say this I know youwanna, but 19 is 1997.
So that's what 26 years ago wasthe most recent one?
That was Titanic.
Right, so here they are, numberone, I'll go from number one to
number 10.
Gone with the wind, 1939.

(01:30:17):
Star Wars, 1977.
Sound and Music, 1965.
Et82, titanic, 97.
The 10 Commandments at numbersix, 1956.
Jaws, number seven, in 1975.
Dr Chavago, number eight, in1965.

(01:30:40):
The Exorcist, 1973.
And number 10, Snow White andthe Seven Dwarves, 1937.
So the most recent one wasTitanic.
Yeah, yeah, that's kind ofcrazy.
Cause when they talk about monththe way all biggest sales of
all time.
So exactly what we're talkingabout it's really not.
It's kind of a false kind it is.

(01:31:02):
I mean, it's true they made themost money, but they certainly
didn't sell the most tickets byany stretch.
Now what?

Speaker 1 (01:31:08):
is that labeled US?
Is that US only, or is thatworldwide?

Speaker 2 (01:31:14):
This one does not tell me.
It just says top light.
This is on IMBD.
It says top lifetime adjustedgrosses.
That's all it says.

Speaker 1 (01:31:26):
But I would venture to guess that movies like Gone
with the Wind and such did notget a wide international release
.

Speaker 2 (01:31:34):
Well, again in 1939, a lot of the countries weren't
built up as they are now.

Speaker 1 (01:31:39):
But what I'm saying is is my guess is is that that
is US?

Speaker 2 (01:31:45):
Yeah, maybe, but I mean, let's compare apples to
apples.

Speaker 1 (01:31:48):
What I'm just saying is that that has to be US,
because you know that the oldermovies didn't get a worldwide
release and so they wouldn't.
Titanic did, but they have tobe comparing it.
I don't know, I'm just guessing.
So it does make a differencenow because worldwide that's
where a lot like a lot more ofmy like there's markets that are
now like Asia and stuff hasopened up to our Hollywood.

(01:32:10):
That makes all the differencein the world, and that's the
other calculus is now thatmovies are made.

Speaker 2 (01:32:16):
It's tough to gauge it, though, because it's not
apples to apples, because thatopportunity wasn't available for
the movies back then.
Right, it just wasn't there.

Speaker 1 (01:32:24):
No, that's true, right, but what I'm saying, one
of the things I keep thinking of, is like how the desire for
like to make money, how it kindof ruins things, and like movies
is another thing, where nowmovies are opening to more
markets.
And so you think about a movielike ET and the way that movie
was made.
And that movie was made for anAmerican audience.

(01:32:45):
Right, it was geared to anAmerican audience and that was
the audience it was aiming forand that was the audience it was
trying to please.
Now you think of movies.
They have to keep in the backof their mind.
Well, we also get a portion ofour profits from Asia and in,
like other continents, othercultures, so we gotta kind of

(01:33:05):
make sure that the movie doesn'thave things that would upset
them, because then it will dobad.
Like Disney actually had someproblems where they put some
things in and China did notembrace some of the movies for
various reasons.

Speaker 2 (01:33:17):
Right, did you hear that?
There was a bit by DaveChappelle about that?
It's kind of funny.
I think I may be.
He says why we're never gonnabeat China.
He says he goes there's toomuch racism in the United States
.
He says all these differentgroups hate each other.
He goes you know why China isalways better?
He goes everybody there'sChinese.

Speaker 1 (01:33:38):
No, but so.
But it's just because of that.
Now the art is gonna change.
You're gonna make artisticdecisions to wanna appeal to as
many markets as possible, soyou're not gonna make it
distinctly, I know, I just likeit's just the age old thing of
that.
If art is gonna be affected bycommerce, it's always gonna have

(01:34:00):
a negative effect, and werecognize that.
We recognize that when there'sa choice between making
something better and makingsomething cost effective,
usually they go in two oppositedirections.

Speaker 2 (01:34:09):
Well, to that point.
When you look at this list andI'll go down, even like number
22,.
Ray is a lost doc these are alllike what people would say
these are all good movies, right, like they were popular movies.
But you go through the listAvatar, jurassic Park, lion King
, the Sting like they're justgood movies, right?

Speaker 1 (01:34:30):
Popcorn movies.

Speaker 2 (01:34:31):
Yeah, but they're good, like you know, if you
talked about it, say like whodidn't see Jaws right, and who
didn't enjoy it on varyinglevels?
But most people like thesemovies right, but like they
could be.
Like fast from the furious 17comes out right and it makes a
ton of money but it's not thatgood.
You know what I mean.

(01:34:52):
But you could look at this listand you'd say there's almost
every movie on this list is amovie that you'd say you tell
somebody, oh, you kind of haveto see that If you like.
Let's say sci-fi you kind ofhave to see Star Wars.

Speaker 1 (01:35:06):
Right.

Speaker 2 (01:35:07):
You know, these are all kind of like maybe
foundational movies, butwhatever.

Speaker 1 (01:35:12):
We're going on a tangent, yeah, going on a
tangent.
You know what the last thing tokind of wrap it up is the
movies feel the special effectsare so good, but they're almost
to the point where the moviesfeel fake.
They don't feel real anymorebecause, you know, most of the
effects are CGI as opposed topractical.
That's why I really appreciatemovies that are made today that
have practical effects or a goodmix of practical effects along

(01:35:36):
with CGI.

Speaker 2 (01:35:37):
Very little in Oppenheimer, you can see right.

Speaker 1 (01:35:39):
Did you know that?

Speaker 2 (01:35:41):
Did you see Oppenheimer I?

Speaker 1 (01:35:42):
did not, but I heard that it was all practical
effects Very little.
I read about it very little,like the explosions.
I will let you know on my listof things he did the explosion.

Speaker 2 (01:35:49):
He used a balloon and an aquarium tank.

Speaker 1 (01:35:51):
He did all these crazy things but, yeah, very
little CGI and there's somefilmmakers who are going back
and doing that now I think ofthe most recent that the
Dungeons and Dragons movie,which was a lot of practical
effects.
But, like I appreciatepractical effects, because now
it's so easy to go into a thingwhere you're just CGI and
everything looks CGI and it justlooks fake.

(01:36:15):
It looks too good Cause youknow that we can't do those
things.
So if you see those things andthey look good, your mind goes
oh, that looks too good.
That's the other thing thatannoys me is when people look at
movies and they just can't getlost in the movie and they have
to like, oh the CGI, and lookfor the, look for the flaw.
And I do the same thing andit's just, it's too bad, because
we used to be able to watchmovies and kind of get into it

(01:36:38):
and get absorbed into it.
Now we're kind of like lookingfrom the outside and looking at
the CGI and trying to find the,you know, the weakness of the
CGI.
It's just, it's not the sameanymore.

Speaker 2 (01:36:48):
And I don't know.
I still go to the movies likeI'm 15.
I just sit there and I get intoit.

Speaker 1 (01:36:53):
I like it when I can get into a movie and just lose
myself and just like take me.
You know it's hard and harderto do nowadays, but when you can
do it it's fun.
Well, I'll wrap it up with this.

Speaker 2 (01:37:03):
At the movies.
You know what really takes meout of being in the zone of
being a movie.
The person next to me is justscrolling Facebook.
Yeah, like, what are you doing?
What?

Speaker 1 (01:37:11):
are you doing?
Are you going out in the worldif you just get in there?

Speaker 2 (01:37:14):
Yeah, and then they get mad when I ask them to put
the phone down.

Speaker 1 (01:37:16):
But anyway, we're all guilty, all right.
So this this has been adifferent episode, because we've
kind of like caught up on stuffand just went off and all sorts
of tangents.

Speaker 2 (01:37:24):
This is what happens with Steven you get into the
mind of Chris and Steve.

Speaker 1 (01:37:27):
It's scattered.
This is what happens when wedon't talk for a while.
So so we're going to work ongetting more episodes out on a
timely basis, and and we'reputting out, putting out some
solo.

Speaker 2 (01:37:37):
Either it's been out or it's coming out.
I did a solo one.
Yeah, kind of fun you might see, the quality isn't as good.
I'm not as good as Chris, butI'm not, you're a very good at
it.
And then Chris is going to dosome, we'll do some together.
More content, hopefully,hopefully.
If you like us, you like morecontent.

Speaker 1 (01:37:54):
If you don't, then that's fine.
Why are you listening for her?
Yeah, yes, hopefully.
If you like us, this more tocome, and if you don't like us,
well.

Speaker 2 (01:38:01):
Yeah, no, we still like you, we still like you.

Speaker 1 (01:38:03):
Yeah, all right, and so yeah, until next time.
I'm Chris and I'm Steve, andthis has been some deep shit.

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