October 25, 2025 • 45 mins
ERIC EPSTEIN AND MILLENNIAL BRIAN TALK ABOUT THE NBA GAMBLING INVESTIGATION, CANADA, BAD MEDICINE, AND MORE!
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, folks, October twenty fifth, which means in a week,
because I'm just getting sick of pumpkin everything. I mean,
honest to god, it's probably going to be a day
where they breed pumpkins with steers and just call it,
you know, spear. But everything's pumpkin. So it's a twenty
fifth Halloween next weekend. Everybody have a good time. Please
(00:22):
don't drink and drive. We just had two ads talking
about that mothers are drunk drivers and also for folks,
if you're high, don't drive. So I'm Eric Epstein, I'm
with Millennial Brian. We're Rock the Capital. The name of
the show was Thunderdome. Please visit our website. Rebecca did
a great job. It's going to be uploaded again. We
(00:46):
were in the news this week commenting on the fact
that the budget's not done yet. The legislature had one
hundred and thirty fundraisers.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Yes, and always have time to raise money, you know,
that's I mean, that's also have time to go to
Ireland to watch football, but not give them.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
But they went to Ireland, they went to Quebec, and
you know the thing is that I don't really think
there should be fundraisers in June when the budget's being cooked.
But that was alarming. So I need you to help
me understand this gambling ring in the NBA, because everywhere
I turned is gambling.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
I'm gambling, and so I think it's good to know.
Is that with legalization of gambling, I would say also
the normalization of gambling where now it's everywhere, it's on
your phone, it's on every broadcast. We knew something that
this was going to happen. Happened two years ago with
a guy named John say Porter and I guess we're
a brush from the rock. He is a low level player,
but now you have a full FBI investigation spending multiple years,
(01:47):
eleven states, thirty individuals. The two big individuals everyone knows
Chauncey Billups and Terry Rosier and Damon Martin is a
Lebron very close to Bron front. So there's two separate scanners.
One is an a legal poker game where they used
card readers basically cheating computer devices to sort of cheat people.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Out of money on the computer.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Well, yeah, with card readers and different basically shuffling devices
just to give their you give their friends an advantage
and then there's also what's known as prop bets, so
prop bet uh falsify is where you can have a player,
(02:30):
they give you a number of points. They say he's
gonna score over thirty points or he's gonna score under
thirty site. And then that player, let's say, in the
first quarter, gets an injury. It never comes back in.
If you had information from that player that hey, I'm
gonna get a stomach I'm gonna get a knee injury
in the first quarter, bet the under. You can make
a lot of money.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
So let me ask you. It seems it sounds a
lot like insider training.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
It's almost exactly like insider trading. This was done years
ago also by Tim Donahey as a referee. Remember if
you listen to Tim Donnie's interviews, it was not that
I'm trying to make major fixes to the games, or
I'm trying to get a few points here and here
there to get to spread because people aren't going to
notice a call here, a call there, or a guy
(03:13):
goes four has four fouls to sit him on the bench.
And that's how we get our advantages for the casinos.
If you were going to Terry Rogier, people were making
fun of him because for the Celtics when they were
on the championship run, he was their backup Portycard Pcaina
starting per Card, played like an All star during the playoffs,
got traded to Charlotte, that got traded to Miami and everyone,
and then all of a sudden became a horrible player,
(03:35):
a horrible player, you know, was one of the worst
rated players in the league. They would have, you know,
they show all these low lights of him.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
Turnovers of Wyoming and maybe start with Detroit.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
And he would always be pulling stuff out of the
games for injuries. So he went from playoffs super tough,
super physically the exact type of playoff player. Now he's
But here's the thing. If you're playing a game and
you know, December, that doesn't matter you. You know, you're
the second point guard and you have they say you're
gonna you're gonna shoot the over under is three let's
(04:08):
say three threes. You can take. All you have to
do is just not shoot three threes and then just
tell one to bet the under.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
Yeah, I mean, I mean, gambling is so pervasive and
it's actually now a foundation of government funding, you know,
without it, I mean, if you look at you know,
we cover the game and control board. I think you
were there last Wednesday. Yes, do they say what the
profits were for September? The probably probably the next meeting,
probably call October in but I know every month has
(04:36):
been a record.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Oh yeah, everything's going up. They're all going online now
they're going to have and then if the buzzes ever
gets done skill games to sometimes level of.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
I think the argument over skill games where they're gonna
assess it at in terms of tax But you know,
the other thing I just wanted to touch on, and
I don't know if it applies here. Saw an article
in the Philadelphia Inquirer and apparently there there's a debate
in Philly over saves these and saves these are basically
(05:06):
the practice of putting a pylon in front of a
parking space and you reserve it, okay, And I think
that happens everywhere where. You know, folks get pissed off,
they come, you know, they get rid of the pylon,
and you know, I think this happens especially in the wintertime.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
Especially in Philly. I mean Philly is if anyone's had
to go to Philly in park, they basically rob you,
there's no there's no way to put park on the street,
there's nowhere to park. You order these one of these garages.
It's some of the worst price garages. So so I
can see we're doing that. Here's the problem is that
is that you know, the city's built with the idea
that if someone leaves, you know that spot's now open
(05:45):
for someone to go there. So you probably can't do
it on the On the flip side, if we're being honest,
if anyone was in a situation, they'd probably do it
from themselves.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Well, well, here's the underlying problem that nobody's discussing. The
Philadelphia Parking Authority is not well run. And so in
my mind when I used to drive, which has actually
been a number of years, is I'd rather pay the
exorbitant price for parking because there are numerous cases where
your car gets towed by the Philadelphia Parking Authority and
(06:16):
it becomes homeless.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Uh yeah, and and also it's becouse stealing. People steal
corns all the time, and so.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Yeah, is that as prevalent as it used to be.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Well, actually, with a lot of Japanese and Korean cars,
people figured out some of their anti theft mechanisms aren't
as good because you know, they don't have as many
thes as we do in America, and so and so
people were getting in real easy, really easy, stealing tons
of stuff, taking stuff out. I was always worth a
few more dollars to go to the garage, in my opinion,
because driving around Philly, trying to park and take the
(06:49):
brother up there.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
Yeah, your brother used to live in Philly, didn't he.
And then well.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Outside of Philly, well a little bit, yeah, around, but
we had to go in for some schooling stuff and
it was just it was a nightmare parking there. So
once we've gone a garage.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
It was just like well, I mean, yeah, since Anni
was deported, so do not to worry about this. But
here's the problem though, we're talking about this, and it's
not insignificant because SEPTA is really taking a beating. It's inefficient,
and it's it's just hanging on. Brian covers the meeting
and don't I don't know how we get SEPTA back
on track if we can. There's other mass transit entities
(07:27):
in Washington and San Francisco and Boston don't work. Well,
this is not one of them.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
No, Yeah, yeah, and that's it's so bad because now
you're paying the exact position we hate to be in,
which is you're subsidizing and bailing out, so you're paying
high service fees and getting low service. Safety is not good,
on time's not good. Bus is just not showing up.
So saying that we were running this route and not coming.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
Yeah, but that's just showing up. I mean, we heard
tales of people eleven o'clock at night, you know, they're
in the middle of nowhere in the bus is like,
you know, we'll get you tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Yeah, leaving people. This is almost unbelievable, like the stories
you hear. But then you also see, you know, horrible
behavior on bush. Yeah, almost every you know, every meeting
they have.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
It's horrible behavior everywhere.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Yes, yeah, yeah, And people say it's post COVID. It's
been five years to take it out post COVID.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
Well, the other thing I'll throw in there is that
I don't know the exact number, but well over a
hundred of vehicles from sept To have to be recalibrated.
I forget the exact number. Do you remember that?
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Yeah, well, yeah, I think I think it was like
twenty to twenty five percent of their fleet. They were
They had problems with remote paying, so if you got
the grocery store, if anyone does the self service out,
you just tap your phone or have a tap. They
had problems because they had their own step to card
where basically people had money on the card they were
trying to tap and put in. It wouldn't take the
card they had money, where people would pretend they had
(08:54):
money on the card and it would always just malfunctioning
and they would get all these free rides. It was
it was almost it was almost comical because they screwed
up both ways. They screwed up when people had money
and when people had no money they couldn't.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
You know, the problem was is that fair evasion? Except
is it's tens of millions a dollar a year and
at some point we just need to revisit SEPTA and
how they transport and how they operate because it's not
working and I don't think more money is going to
solve it. Also, I don't think it's a good idea
(09:27):
to starve them out. People have to get to work
and the last thing you want to do goes back
to what we were talking about with saves you know,
except is not working, more people driving.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
More people on the road, because when people can pay
about let's say the New York subway, at least, the
argument is the demands there, the supplies there, the skeletons
are there. So even if the subway has problems, the
skeletons for something, you almost have to like burn it
down to build it back up because it's just nothing works.
The routes aren't going enough.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
Okay, we're gonna take a break with that language, and
I would imagine Ice should be here any minute now.
So Eric Epstein from Rock to Capitol, Millennial Brian from
Rock to Capital. The show is Thunderdome, the organization is
Rock the Capital, and we're being produced by Art Selby.
We'll be back after the break. All right, we're back.
You know, how many years is it Art that WHP
(10:16):
has been on the air. I think it's been quite
is it one hundred? One hundred? Yeah? Yeah. Also, we'll
give a shout out to JC who rotates with Art
to produce, and of course Age RJ, who gave us
this opportunity. Actually, I think I started back in nineteen
oh five at the pay Raise. Yeah, yeah, I mean
(10:37):
that was the first pay raise was nineteen oh five. Yeah, yeah, no,
But RJ does a great job. And also we are
on Rock the Capital does Corruption Corral. The first Thursday
of every month, r J and I have a discussion
on a topic of interest and please listen to That
(10:58):
will be the first Thursday in November. So I'm not
really sure what that would be, but that'll be after
the election. So things should be interesting, by the way,
with the election. And this goes back to the pay raise.
This is the first time, probably since the pay raise
in two thousand and five, where it's possible, if not likely,
(11:20):
judges are not going to be retained. Okay, we in
nineteen oh five, nineteen oh five, God, I know what's
going on with there. In twenty of five, we actually
the coalition reform groups were successful in defeating Russell Niagro
and he didn't get retention. And it was interesting when
we saw the records afterwards. He was drinking and partying
(11:40):
before like nothing was going to happen. I saw him
at the Supreme Court when we were arguing the pay
raise case and he made the remark, you know, hey,
I'm going to get my seat back. And it has
like dude, it ain't your seat, you know.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
That's not a lot of them think they think this
is my seat. It's like I've been here. Seniority, I mean,
is rewarded, Seuritian loyalties rewarded above almost everything else. If
you're a party loyalist and you're been there for a while,
that's how you get the best positions that you get,
like on shareman of appropriations and all that stuff. If
you if you step out out of line with your
party or you're like a freshman, you can't get anything.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
I mean. So, what's interesting Since the defeat of Nigro,
there's been three Supreme Court justices and broiled and controversy.
Jane Ory's sister and I can't think of her name
was removed, I believe Justice I'm gonna I don't know
if it was sal Or, he was a judge from
the West Shore. Eken was removed. And Seamus McCaffrey. So,
(12:44):
I mean, people thought, and I thought before the pay
raise that you know, that was the branch of government
that was solid, that was above the fray. And people
still forget that pay raise. They kept their pay.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
Raise, Yes, they kept their pay raise. They kept the
pension bonus. They made sure and the judges and this
is this is always the brilliant thing. When the politicians
push it through, they always make sure the dudget. The
judges get even a better deal because if someone sues
to rule on it, they have to rule against themselves.
They have to say, I don't want this pension.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
But the other problem is the judiciary is funded by
the legislature and it's an unhealthy relationship. But I just
wanted to speak. Is that Johnny Dock, the convicted labor
boss from Philly. His brother is up for retention, Kevin Dock.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Yes, of a great family of unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
But you know, I don't know. I mean, when you
looking at the campaign, he got a lot of in
kind from the union and he obviously says there's no connection.
We'll see.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
My argument was, ever people give huge donations just like
they're not donating for nothing, like no one gives you.
But that's you know, it's not ten dollars. It's like
I heard your speech, you know, hope and change, let's
go some It's like you know, listen, you know millions
of dollars you're expected some contracts, you're expecting some laws
to help you.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
Yeah, and that to me is one of the challenges
to democracy. Is it now play to pay goes beyond legislation.
It's about do you want to get into politics, you
better have a lot of money, right, and you're going
to need a lot of different uh boy experts. I
mean media buys campaign voter registration, and it makes it
(14:30):
difficult to run. I mean, people just don't want to
go through with it.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
That's right, because half your job is fundraising. In fact,
they talked about this in Congress all the time. Is
that you know, is that a big part of their
job is just constantly raising money. So is there not
even debating or negotiating a compromising legislation, which supposed to
your job. They're just trying to raise money for their lives.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
But the only way around not raising money is taking
humongous contributions. That's right, and it makes life a little easier.
So years ago, and I talked about him, Senator Proximire
from with CONSINT used to get re elected. To send it,
I spent in about a grand and he yeah, he
used to have these awards. I don't know if people
remember he used to have those awards on the military
(15:11):
every year. You know, like fifty grand for a toilet.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
You know where where's the money going?
Speaker 1 (15:17):
Yeah, it was like the crazy deal. But I don't
know where we're at now with the Supreme Court race
in Pennsylvania, but I'm pretty comfortable it'll get over ten million.
And still people won't know who the hell they're voting for.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
That's right, but they're voting. They're voting for teams. It's
almost like we're you move into a polarized society, you
move more towards this team based voting, which is I'm
voting against this team. I'm voted for my team. And
then you'll forgive anything your team does, say outside of step,
and then you'll punish anything they do, which is.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Well, you will be a lenient. Like if you look
at team Trump, they had a guy who got caught
with fifty grand, right, and everybody soon will give them
the benefit did that? How the hell do you give
that guy the benefit of doubt by the same token,
you know, you start looking at political crimes. I don't
really recall what hunter Biden did.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
Well, the big thing is bribes from the different countries.
That's the big But.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
That is a difference I mean, who did who was
he supposed he got a bribe Ukraine? No, No, but
I mean that Homan got a bribe internally.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
HomeGroup, So that would be the campaign. I'll be like,
our bribes are domestic. All these foreign interventions. It's like Ukraine,
U Bekistan. I think he got the mayor, the wife
of the mayor of Moscow. But that was the argument,
is that he's going around, he's benefiting from his dad's name.
And then Holman's like, we're gonna get a huge increase
in these ice contracts. These the borders are who wants
(16:47):
to get these contracts? You got facilities, You're gonna have,
you know, trucks and stuff all that. So that's where
I'm assuming he got the bribe.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
I thought fifty grand. He's not thinking large. I mean.
The other thing is, you know, let's be honest. I mean,
Trump has some cahunis here criticizing anybody getting anything from Russia.
Given the fact, now, given the fact that his first
chief of staff I remember, I remember his name worked
for the Russian government. Yeah, I mean, right, I need
(17:16):
to understand Republicans Democrat. The only difference is the letter. Really,
I mean, it's just nobody's enthusiastic about either. But I
wanted to get your take. So Ontario doesn't add that
infuriates Trump and the Prime min Well, the head of
the Ontario government, Doug Ford, is actually a conservative.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
And it was interesting because Trump took exception to the
paraphrasing Reagan in eighty seven. Honestly, in eighty seven, Reagan
wasn't in great shape. But I mean he went ballistic
because he felt Reagan was taken out of context. And
to some degree that's true. However, so I went back
and looked. In twenty sixteen, Reagan said that he would
(18:00):
never take a what do you call it, the but
that he took to the White House the obvious No, no, no, no,
he would not take a ge. I'll get back to it.
But it was interesting to demolish the government. He said,
I'm not going to talk. Yeah, he said, I'm not
gonna I'm not gonna do it. All right, Well, context
(18:24):
is based, unfortunately on your perspective. I didn't did you know?
That didn't do much to me. I looked at it
from Canada's perspective, because they we do. They get ninety
percent of the trade from US now FODA saying he
wants to move fifty percent out. But if you look
at who this is gonna hurt in America, it'll be auto,
(18:47):
auto parts and home appliances.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
So yeah, So so if we don't know the premiere,
which is sort of like our version of governor for
the promises ran ad because Republicans used to be free trade,
so I think they're thinking he's a conservative. I'll run
this ad of Ronald Reagan showing that free trades benefitial
to both sides, and then I'll turn the Conservatives that
were traditionally a free trade party back on that. Trump
(19:13):
obviously believes that if being pro free trade allows people
to take advantage, allows Canada take advantage of US, allows
Europe to take advantage of a lot, that we need to
have tariffs at the very minimum to match them, sometimes
even higher of these other countries, and so he went
after them. I think the real question is this is
(19:33):
this gonna hurt the negotiation with Canada? Because the economy
if you have teriffs for a long time and they're
not used as a negotiating tool, you know it is
gonna slow down. There's just that's just a fact. You're
gonna spend more. The consumer's gonna spend more on each
product that comes in. The producer for their inputs like
cars are gonna spend more, and then all those prices
(19:53):
are gonna go up, but slow the economy.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
Let me ask you this. So money is coming in,
you know, Trump was correct, that's right, is only coming
I'm not sure how it's being spent or who's managing it.
But the other issue that nobody's talking about is inflations
at three percent and jobs are going down, which is
the remedy for stagflation.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
Yes, yeah, And that's the worry is that does the
economy just slow to because once the economy slows, it's
real hard to get it going because especially with us,
we're going to demand standard economy spending money matters and
one and then that the negative cycle of people spend less,
people invest less, people fire more, less people working well,
they're going to spend less, invest less, And then you
(20:35):
have the negative cycle where the reverses. When the economy
is going well, people spend more, people invest more, people
hire more, more people are in the workforce. And that's
the worry, is that or the terrorists. But the reverse
of this is some of the arguments Trump makes about
how we got to take advantage of or it is
just true China never lived any of their promises from
the nineties and we never pushed them on it when we.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
Have nobody's doubting And if you analyze the playing field, yeah,
it wasn't fair and you needed to correct it. But
you need a plan and that plan needs to be consistent,
and it's not. And the reality is America First is
great concept. I don't support it. I understand why other
people do, but it's an interlocking world and the last
(21:17):
thing we need China, look has some leverage on us
in terms of we need them to purchase our soy product.
You know, the farmers are feeling it right now. We
need their rare earth minerals. So I don't think there's anything.
And mister Trump seems to be famous for, you know,
coming on high and then coming down a.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
Lot, right, And that's where I think we all thought
it was going to be like his first term. When
his first term, you put tariffs on Canada, then renegotiated
a deal and then that was off. And it's sort
of like a negotiating tool. Now it's a different tool.
The terriffts. He's using are as an a there are
not to get a better deal, but just to level
the plane from His argument is we'll get revenue, we'll
(21:56):
stop these imports and exports, and that will build our
many facts based. The problem is of is, even though
that might help that specific industry, other things can get
more expressive. Other industries will be hurt.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
Look, the steel industry lost the market by their own
bad decision making. It's likely not coming back. And you know,
the Koreans make good, steal better still. I don't know,
but at the end of the day, Yeah, I think
there was a way to do this. And that's just
the style to be brash, you know, I get it.
And apparently he's meeting with She the Chinese guy in
(22:30):
South Korea.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
Yeah, and hopefully that goes well.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
And listen, wouldn't it be funny though, if he landed
in North Korea to hang out with Rocket just to
throw everybody off. Hey, let's take a break real quick.
S Eric Kapstein and Millennial Brian warwith Rock to Capital.
The show is Thunderdome. We're being produced by Art Selby.
We're a little overtime, so we'll be back in a
moment about this before. With alcohol and with gaming, there's
(22:58):
relentless advertisement. Yes, and then at.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
The end it's like, please do it responsibly, Please don't
be a problem. It's like it's like, please be careful,
you know, don't you know? There was we were talking
about the South Park episode of where they ran this
fake average alcohol where it's just like there's like the
whole at is like this is awesome, this is great alcohol, money,
hot girls, everything, It's the best time ever. And at
(23:23):
the very end they're like, please stook responsibility.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
It's always at the end you can barely hear it.
For the gambling. If you have a gamily part, I'm
called one eight hundred. We don't care. So on a
serious note, you and I sat through hearings where there
was a fierce battle to locate a casino at Penn State. Yes,
and it was a billionaire versus another billionaire, and nobody
(23:45):
seemed to understand that there's a high school in a
college just a couple of minutes away, or maybe that
was the intention.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
Yeah, and that well, that's that is if you look
at where they're going, a lot of us young men,
they're trying to get them on it immediately, it's on
they advertising all these podcasts, these sport podcasts. When again,
I think the argument for gambling and we're gonna it's
almost a moved point because here's the thing. All the
states that don't want to raise taxes but have all
these spending increases, they're gonna need revenue. Where they're gonna
(24:14):
get the revenue, it's you know, cigarettes, it's gambling, it's
it's alcohol.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
Me or was gambling better uh? Managed by the mafia?
I mean you had everybody, you know, I remember my
grandfather did he ran numbers? Yeah, And I mean I
say that, you know the kid. But the mafia wasn't
out there advertising.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
That's right, Yeah, it's it's so much more prevalent. The
question is whenever you do this is like does the
legalization effect the regulations? Does that make it better overall?
Because I looked at the numbers, one hundred and eighty
five billion dollars was gambled by Americans. There's a belief
that one a little over a trillion it's still gambled
off shores because there's still regularly was kind of a
(24:59):
little shocked by there's still regulations, a lot of different States,
California taxes our biggest.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
So what do you do? I mean, here's the thing.
You're raking in the money. There's gonna be casualties. You're
also creating interesting Like if you look at pen National,
they pay taxes. They they're I think, if not the largest,
one of the largest employers. And I guess what I'm
wondering is is this appetite for gambling? Is it just
(25:24):
natural or is it being essentially cultivated?
Speaker 2 (25:28):
You know, well, it's both. So there's always gonna be
gambling to sert in every society. The question is does
the advertising is have pushed the worst habits and not
give enough outs for the worst abusers, because you know,
if you're in a bar in someone's ten drinks deep,
you don't can of the keys and say, you know,
become a NASCAR driver Like.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
Yeah, But my point is, shouldn't you have said something
at eight or nine drinks? Yes? Yeah, And it's like
making money, you know, And so look, sin taxes are
basically keeping us float. Alcohol, tobacco soon cannabis guarantee of
skilled games in this but it's so prevalent and it's
(26:07):
kind of well, it's very scary to see how young
people are getting involved in gambling.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
Yeah, I think they're gonna even try to lower the
age of eighteen. Eventually they said we can vote at eighteen,
and people are going to go for it. Because here's
the thing. What do the politicians not want to do.
They don't want to raise taxes, but they don't want
to cut any spending. This is sort of like the
third way of saying, we can get more revenue, we
can boost the economic growth, and we don't have to
make the tough decisions. And people, if you look at
the polls on not everything, but in a lot of
(26:35):
it's popular. So you're able to push it through. The
question is are are you going to put the regulation?
Speaker 1 (26:40):
Who would oppose it though? I mean, so you know,
I've always argued that we should start having gambling in
first grade and you basically, you know, you want to
gamble your milk a little job, okay uh, and then
maybe he'll learn a lesson I don't know, or.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
Matth that's how we teach spent. It is so sad,
but now it's.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
No normal gambling. I mean, before everybody, I remember when
Joe Namath lost his license at a bar because yeah,
I mean it was taken away.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
Now they're on every ad, They're on every every every
internet video, every promotion, every sponsorship, They're everywhere. And the
league sees the way to generate money. The government sees
this way to generate revenue. The humans love the thrill
of it, so they're always going to be attracted.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
That's the problem when the robuts take over. When the
robuts start gambling, I bet you they're better gamblers than humans.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
Well yeah hopefully, Yeah, if I.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
Don't drink, and you know, have all those other diversions. Hey,
I wanted you to break down and help people understand.
The medical marketplace is going to open up soon, real soon.
Rates are going to go up. That's I think by
an average maybe of eighteen percent. And I'm looking at
by the Kaiser Foundation, which is like the guru on this. Yeah,
(28:06):
they're looking at national average marketplace consumer will pay one
nine hundred and four in an annual premium next year,
up from eight eighty eight. However, you believe that the
Democrat that you have a clean CR continuing resolution, and
the Democrats are leveraging this at the issue.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
Yeah, people isn't because Trump. When Trump came in, what
was his thing. Inflation costs going up, cost of housing,
cost of food, costs, all this stuff. Whether you agree
with his economic pology or not, that was one of
the things that he hit Biden on is that Americans
hated inflation more than anything. What's going to happen in
the health marketplace is that since OBAMACARETT was enacted, freedoms
(28:47):
have gone up about six to twelve percent a year
no matter what. But the subsidies that sort of keep
them well or keep them flat have also gone up,
So essentially people haven't really felt the big costs. Now
the sub these are going to get pulled as part
of the budget, and the cost is going to go
up another six to twelve percent, and now they're going
(29:08):
to see the full cost. So you're going to see
like huge one hundreds and hundreds of dollars increase. And
that's and for people that are on the edge or
for people that you know can't afford that type, they're
gonna maybe drop out, go without health care, and that
creates other problems where they they'll use the emergency room
or they'll have other issues where they you know, they
(29:31):
you know, because if they can't afford it, something that
they go without care, is that other people pick it up.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
So we have a number of issues run bundle here.
Obamacare wound up being pretty popular. Most people don't understand
that their insurance is underwritten by the government, Yes to
a certain degree, and so now you have a situation
where that's going to be increased. So I don't know
(29:56):
what the interest rate was before Obamacare.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
Well here's healthcare was going up before Obamacare, so everything
was going up. That The key thing is Obamacare was
going to try and flatten the cost curve, which in fairness,
they did not do. They did not do that. But
what they did do is they subsidized, and so they
made people at different income levels able to afford healthcare
and make it a much more affordable.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
So how many more people were able to get healthcare
under Obamacare.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
Probably a thirty million, thirty million, maybe even thirty to
forty five million.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
Yeah, that's a lot of humanoids. So the point is
thirty to forty million people. I don't know that that
many will drop off, but some will drop off.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
Absolutely, some will drop off. And then what happens is
if people have to use the emergency services or hospital
and they don't have insurance. It basically goes in the
Medicaid payment system, so the government pays for it anyway,
it's just from a different yeah point.
Speaker 1 (30:47):
So here's the problem. A lot of hospitals, especially rural
hospitals or on the verge of collapse, a lot of
urban hospitals, so they're not going to be able whether
Medicaid you know, gets back to them or not the reimbursement,
and I'm sure they will. It'll create a medical crisis.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
Because Medicaid under intentionally reimburses under what the typical rate is,
so they're paying i'd say seventy the sixty percent of
the doc because the government is for poor people and
the government's picking it up, so they make it way
less expensive. I think the problem is that our healthcare
system as like a system, it's just it's just super inefficient,
(31:24):
very complex. And what's also happened is that we have
an aging population, which makes the risk profile worse. So
no matter what, insurances were going to go up unless
you change how you structure it. And when you have
an older, less healthy population, that's going to make it
cost more. Along with all the payment problems that we are.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
Look, we talked about this in pension where there's less
people that need to essentially pay the pension for more
people that are retiring and living longer. So hard decisions
are going to have to be made. And you know,
I remember reading a op ed from an emergency room
doctor in d C who said, you know, everybody will
(32:03):
say before they get to the er that yeah, pulled
the plug. I don't want to do it. You know.
Then grandma comes in, she's eighty five, a little chance
of living, but they want all the medical resources applied
to grandma or grandpa or whomever. And I, you know,
I wouldn't want to be the one saying, now pull
the plug on grandma. But I also don't want to
(32:24):
be the one saying, hey, you know, Johnny, you're not
getting your tonsils out. We don't have enough money. So
the entire system, it's it reminds me acceptive and.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
Oh yeah, it's just it's bad. I think we have
to do other countries, it's an other country divide, universal
are lower costs, and it's not all it's it's typically
mixed system. So you have some that are full government,
you have some like switched on in their private sector
government supported.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
But I know you're going to get there. What does
Singapore have Singapore?
Speaker 2 (32:55):
Well, Singapore is health savings accounts hsas were basically the
govern has a minimum for emergency services and then everything
else is straight out of pocket. And what ended up
happening is that the price became very competitive and almost
and then like doctor visits and normal stuff became much
(33:15):
more affordable. And they also contribute to your health saves gust.
So it's not like you have a health stavescount. You
have to put money away at the bank the government
based on the taxes.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
Don't you think did you ever notice how what a
paradox it is? Shouldn't it be single wealthy? I mean listen,
so let me before we go to break. You just
want to point this out when people look back to
the past with nostalgic reverence, the sixties, even the seventies,
there was one person working and everybody had healthcare. Yeah,
(33:45):
everybody had healthcare or you could afford health assurance. I mean,
so when people look back, that's something that's real.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
Yeah. Well, because listen, health insurance has increased way above
the rate of inflation and way above.
Speaker 1 (33:58):
Well, holding into that, I want to go to break
because it's never the wrong time to talk about bad medicine.
I'm Eric Apstein. I'm with Millennial Brian Were Thunderdome and
Rock the Capital is our group. Thunderdomes a show and
we're being produced by Artselba. All right, look, we're coming
into the last segment and we don't have a lot
of time. I just want to point out a couple
(34:20):
of things moving forward. Penn State is ridiculously bad, so
there should be no reason why you're not listening to
us on Saturday unless you're a Notre Dame fan number two.
I don't know if you noticed, my goodness. Thank god,
Parks Casino in Shippensburg takes out a lot of ads
for us also PPL. But it's interesting when they start
(34:42):
taking out ads, it means there's a rate increase coming.
Oh yeah, So look the last thing, and we don't
really have a lot of time left. But mister Trump's
pardoning of certain per people who are clearly not very
(35:04):
good people I don't understand. And maybe you can unravel
us the billionaire guy. Now, before we get there, I
came across this satire, so remember this is satire. It said, George,
you remember in one of the most politically stunning comebacks
(35:27):
in America. Donald Trump pardon George Santos on Monday, and
he picked the disgraced former congressman to lead the Department
of Labor Statistics. Santo said, this is such an honor.
I really don't think I'd get pardoned before Giselene Maxwell,
(35:48):
he says, So the new DLS chief hit the ground running,
revising upwards the job figures from every month of the
Trump's presidency. The American economy added a million jobs in
and a billion new jobs in June. President Trump is
creating jobs like crazy. He even gave one to Pete
haiksheth uh, the unprecedented job growth has boosted Trump's approval
(36:12):
rating to one hundred and forty percent. That's satire, it's
all in fun. But I'm trying to understand how this
billionaire guy that got pardon is connected to crypto curs.
I don't understand.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
Yeah, so, uh, this guy's name is Shangpeng Zow, which
almost sounds like I'm making up. I mean, he's a
biding CEO. So all these crypto companies that have emerged,
I think post covid, other than Bitcoin, they've all been
trying to create payment systems, ways to trade and stuff
(36:48):
like that. And what has happened is a lot of
them have just been fake. They've been pumping dump schemes.
They've just been straight fraud.
Speaker 1 (36:55):
Bay to the listener of pumping dumps.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
Pumping dump is I create a coin or payment or
a transfer thing. I say, this is the new thing.
You invest your money in it. And then the second
a lot of people have invested in it. I dumped
the coins, so people with podcasts and following have done that.
And when I say dump, I mean sell it on
the stock market. So imagine it's easier understand if I
(37:17):
did with a company. Let's say I made a shoe company.
I called it Brian's Shoe Company. I had a podcast.
I said, Brian's Shoe Company. We're selling a million shoes
a year and one hundred dollars a profit margin the
shoe invest in our company. People buy it, they hear it,
it's on you know, CNBC's on credible sources. They buy
(37:37):
it. It pumps it up, and then I, immediately, because I ownly,
say fifty percent the company, or I sell all my shares.
The stock then drops and then people Let's say I
go public and they investigate it, they find out I
don't have a shoe company. I made it up. You know,
it was a complete that's you see that a lot
with penny stocks. With crypto other than let's very let's
(38:00):
say higher or regular like a bitcoin. There's tons of cryptos.
There's almost as many cryptos as penny stocks, right, These
initial companies and most of them fail, and most of
the puppetup schemes. But people are looking for that quick
way to make a lot of money because they'll say, hey,
if you bought bitcoin when it was let's say fifty
dollars and you invested, you know, ten dollars in it,
(38:21):
you made ten thousand dollars. So people see that and
they're not looking at the underlining number. This guy with Binance,
he was making, you know, so he did very similar things.
He made you know, false transaction service, and then he
did transactions for terrorist organizations, ransomware, sexual expectation fraud scam.
(38:43):
So he did the whole gambit. I mean, it's very
similar to the under the Biden administration, there was that
I'm trying to remember this kid's name. He created his
own stable coin in the Bahamas.
Speaker 1 (38:56):
Oh Sam I can't think of his name. Yeah, he was.
He surrounded himself with people that.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
They couldn't do any math and have no idea what
was going on, and they bought let's say a ten
person houses in the Bahamas and it was just but
that was actually even a simpler scan than this, because
this is you have actual transactions and there's some legitimate
to do it. That was just basically he said, I
made a way to code all these crypto transactions, and
(39:23):
he lied, and he was just having people deposit money.
It was it was almost it was.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
Almost connection to the Trump family or.
Speaker 2 (39:31):
Well in that case, uh, he was connected more to
a Democrat politician, Nancy Pelosi. One of their campaign donors
was his parents for the Trump one or the Trump guy,
I think, well, I mean he's part of some of
the people that have worked in crypto. Donate to Trump
(39:52):
if you could. Uh, he has a crypto advisor and
stuff like that, so a lot of those people.
Speaker 1 (39:58):
Wasn't he opposed to crypto at one point he was.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
He thought it was going to be used to replace
the US dollar as and it could. It could as
a reserve currency or as a currency. I think with
crypto it would never become like a reserve currency or
because you have to have a certain level of buying
from the government and the regulators, they would never let
that plant their coach.
Speaker 1 (40:20):
The Trump family has and I think Milan, I think
she has a different I don't really understand crypto, to
be honest with you, so I'm not really sure what
they're investing in. But this guy was convicted of stealing.
Speaker 2 (40:36):
What do you say in one hundred thousand subspicious transactions,
four billion dollars to Justice Department is what they agreed
to pay.
Speaker 1 (40:44):
So when he gets partner, when any president pardon someone,
and do they still have to pay the amount of
money they were fined?
Speaker 2 (40:53):
Well, I think because there's a civil violation. The answer
is yes, because there's civil violations the answers. If you
really look to the presidential part in power, it's kind
of like ridiculous. And now people bringing up with Trump
because obviously didn't like him or they and these ones
I think are egregious. Every president is doing well.
Speaker 1 (41:12):
Every president usually waits for the end of their turn.
He just simply doesn't care. And you know he's advertising.
He's transparent. I mean he if you start looking at
some of the people who were I mean, look, some
of the Our Congress probably has a higher crime rate
than most blue cities. I mean, honestly, say you're looking
(41:33):
at Duke Cunningham, Duncan Hunter, Rick Renzi, Chris Collins, Michael Greene,
John Rowland. These are all congressmen.
Speaker 2 (41:41):
Who all the time and also the stuff that, let's
be honest, that goes on the under the board. Menendez,
the senator got away with it, basically took bribes of
gold bars and got repeated.
Speaker 1 (41:52):
I thought, Menende, and I don't I doubt maybe Trumpe
will you know part of him, I don't know. He
partnered the Democratic former Democratic got Illinois, that's right. And Menendez, well,
I mean that was like.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
It's when you read these stories about the bribes, it's
almost so ridiculous because like you can't even believe it,
Like he's getting gold bars in bags. It's like he's
it's like backdoor mafia dealer and not like a congressman
making hundreds of thousand dollars a year. But it was
a show what uh robag democrat? Like the distinction on
(42:26):
corruption doesn't matter. Corruption there's still bipartisan I.
Speaker 1 (42:29):
Believe, Yeah, I think bug party or bipartisan, especially when
it comes to insider trading. Yeah, and uh Art, what
have we got two or three minutes left? About two
and a half, all right, for the good of the order? Art,
you got anything the flyers?
Speaker 3 (42:42):
One today? About that is that in Row. I know
they lost their night two to one. They're they're four
to three and one. The Hershey Bears are home tonight
against Lehigh Valley. So that's happening in a giant center.
I won three and one, I believe. Oh that's not
a great start, a tough start, last five to four
last night up in Allentown.
Speaker 1 (42:59):
And then make debit has a buye.
Speaker 3 (43:01):
Yep, mcdebit beats State College thirty six twenty last night,
so they get a buye and we'll find out tomorrow
who they play in two weeks.
Speaker 1 (43:08):
All right, Brian, what do you got man?
Speaker 2 (43:11):
I would say check out the World Series though.
Speaker 1 (43:13):
The you still think the Dodgers are gonna win.
Speaker 2 (43:16):
I think the Dodger are gonna win, but I think
it's a series now, which I'm glad because I was
worried that the Dodgers might dominate them and they're not
clearly to the Blue Jays are just a great team.
You know they're under they were underrated everyone, no one believed.
Speaker 1 (43:28):
You know, what would tie this show together?
Speaker 2 (43:31):
Is there?
Speaker 1 (43:31):
Trump closed the border, didn't let the Dodgers go back
and bet it all on the Blue Jays.
Speaker 2 (43:38):
It's like, start putting tariffs. It's like, it's like, I'm
afraid to announce that, you know, do.
Speaker 1 (43:42):
To Actually that's an issue. I mean, there are some
states that put a tax, a local tax on athletes
pay well.
Speaker 2 (43:50):
They all do it now, they all do it to
get it. It's weird. They had it called the jock tax.
It started, I believe actually with Magic Johnson, not Magic
one the Lakers players where they tried to tax them
and he sued and he's like, you can't do this,
and then they past law said we absolutely can't do this.
Speaker 1 (44:07):
All right, So the Dodgers, you have anything else going
on this weekend?
Speaker 2 (44:12):
Well, I guess college college football is Dodgers college football
basketball started and Webbin Yama looks like a monster.
Speaker 1 (44:20):
What what is that? A hurricane?
Speaker 2 (44:22):
Well, it sounds like a hurricane. The French guy they
drafted number one a few years ago, he's seven to six.
Speaker 1 (44:29):
He's sent me from France. I mean their average fight,
they're like four foot two. So who who got him?
Speaker 2 (44:35):
Spurs? Spurs got another one. They got a golden guy.
He's he's he looks if you just get hurt.
Speaker 1 (44:40):
People should be looking at that because the Spurs always
get the best international folks. Yes, there's a pipeline there.
I don't know what it is at any rate. Eric
epstein uh In with Millennial Brian Will rocked the Capitol.
The show is Thunderdome. Art Selby's producing, and I want
to say hi to Oh my goodness, Larry, Nancy and
(45:00):
everybody who's listening. We'll see you in two weeks. She'll
hum y'all,
All right, folks, October twenty fifth, which means in a week,
because I'm just getting sick of pumpkin everything. I mean,
honest to god, it's probably going to be a day
where they breed pumpkins with steers and just call it,
you know, spear. But everything's pumpkin. So it's a twenty
fifth Halloween next weekend. Everybody have a good time. Please
(00:22):
don't drink and drive. We just had two ads talking
about that mothers are drunk drivers and also for folks,
if you're high, don't drive. So I'm Eric Epstein, I'm
with Millennial Brian. We're Rock the Capital. The name of
the show was Thunderdome. Please visit our website. Rebecca did
a great job. It's going to be uploaded again. We
(00:46):
were in the news this week commenting on the fact
that the budget's not done yet. The legislature had one
hundred and thirty fundraisers.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Yes, and always have time to raise money, you know,
that's I mean, that's also have time to go to
Ireland to watch football, but not give them.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
But they went to Ireland, they went to Quebec, and
you know the thing is that I don't really think
there should be fundraisers in June when the budget's being cooked.
But that was alarming. So I need you to help
me understand this gambling ring in the NBA, because everywhere
I turned is gambling.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
I'm gambling, and so I think it's good to know.
Is that with legalization of gambling, I would say also
the normalization of gambling where now it's everywhere, it's on
your phone, it's on every broadcast. We knew something that
this was going to happen. Happened two years ago with
a guy named John say Porter and I guess we're
a brush from the rock. He is a low level player,
but now you have a full FBI investigation spending multiple years,
(01:47):
eleven states, thirty individuals. The two big individuals everyone knows
Chauncey Billups and Terry Rosier and Damon Martin is a
Lebron very close to Bron front. So there's two separate scanners.
One is an a legal poker game where they used
card readers basically cheating computer devices to sort of cheat people.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Out of money on the computer.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Well, yeah, with card readers and different basically shuffling devices
just to give their you give their friends an advantage
and then there's also what's known as prop bets, so
prop bet uh falsify is where you can have a player,
(02:30):
they give you a number of points. They say he's
gonna score over thirty points or he's gonna score under
thirty site. And then that player, let's say, in the
first quarter, gets an injury. It never comes back in.
If you had information from that player that hey, I'm
gonna get a stomach I'm gonna get a knee injury
in the first quarter, bet the under. You can make
a lot of money.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
So let me ask you. It seems it sounds a
lot like insider training.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
It's almost exactly like insider trading. This was done years
ago also by Tim Donahey as a referee. Remember if
you listen to Tim Donnie's interviews, it was not that
I'm trying to make major fixes to the games, or
I'm trying to get a few points here and here
there to get to spread because people aren't going to
notice a call here, a call there, or a guy
(03:13):
goes four has four fouls to sit him on the bench.
And that's how we get our advantages for the casinos.
If you were going to Terry Rogier, people were making
fun of him because for the Celtics when they were
on the championship run, he was their backup Portycard Pcaina
starting per Card, played like an All star during the playoffs,
got traded to Charlotte, that got traded to Miami and everyone,
and then all of a sudden became a horrible player,
(03:35):
a horrible player, you know, was one of the worst
rated players in the league. They would have, you know,
they show all these low lights of him.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
Turnovers of Wyoming and maybe start with Detroit.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
And he would always be pulling stuff out of the
games for injuries. So he went from playoffs super tough,
super physically the exact type of playoff player. Now he's
But here's the thing. If you're playing a game and
you know, December, that doesn't matter you. You know, you're
the second point guard and you have they say you're
gonna you're gonna shoot the over under is three let's
(04:08):
say three threes. You can take. All you have to
do is just not shoot three threes and then just
tell one to bet the under.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
Yeah, I mean, I mean, gambling is so pervasive and
it's actually now a foundation of government funding, you know,
without it, I mean, if you look at you know,
we cover the game and control board. I think you
were there last Wednesday. Yes, do they say what the
profits were for September? The probably probably the next meeting,
probably call October in but I know every month has
(04:36):
been a record.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Oh yeah, everything's going up. They're all going online now
they're going to have and then if the buzzes ever
gets done skill games to sometimes level of.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
I think the argument over skill games where they're gonna
assess it at in terms of tax But you know,
the other thing I just wanted to touch on, and
I don't know if it applies here. Saw an article
in the Philadelphia Inquirer and apparently there there's a debate
in Philly over saves these and saves these are basically
(05:06):
the practice of putting a pylon in front of a
parking space and you reserve it, okay, And I think
that happens everywhere where. You know, folks get pissed off,
they come, you know, they get rid of the pylon,
and you know, I think this happens especially in the wintertime.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
Especially in Philly. I mean Philly is if anyone's had
to go to Philly in park, they basically rob you,
there's no there's no way to put park on the street,
there's nowhere to park. You order these one of these garages.
It's some of the worst price garages. So so I
can see we're doing that. Here's the problem is that
is that you know, the city's built with the idea
that if someone leaves, you know that spot's now open
(05:45):
for someone to go there. So you probably can't do
it on the On the flip side, if we're being honest,
if anyone was in a situation, they'd probably do it
from themselves.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Well, well, here's the underlying problem that nobody's discussing. The
Philadelphia Parking Authority is not well run. And so in
my mind when I used to drive, which has actually
been a number of years, is I'd rather pay the
exorbitant price for parking because there are numerous cases where
your car gets towed by the Philadelphia Parking Authority and
(06:16):
it becomes homeless.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Uh yeah, and and also it's becouse stealing. People steal
corns all the time, and so.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Yeah, is that as prevalent as it used to be.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Well, actually, with a lot of Japanese and Korean cars,
people figured out some of their anti theft mechanisms aren't
as good because you know, they don't have as many
thes as we do in America, and so and so
people were getting in real easy, really easy, stealing tons
of stuff, taking stuff out. I was always worth a
few more dollars to go to the garage, in my opinion,
because driving around Philly, trying to park and take the
(06:49):
brother up there.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
Yeah, your brother used to live in Philly, didn't he.
And then well.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Outside of Philly, well a little bit, yeah, around, but
we had to go in for some schooling stuff and
it was just it was a nightmare parking there. So
once we've gone a garage.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
It was just like well, I mean, yeah, since Anni
was deported, so do not to worry about this. But
here's the problem though, we're talking about this, and it's
not insignificant because SEPTA is really taking a beating. It's inefficient,
and it's it's just hanging on. Brian covers the meeting
and don't I don't know how we get SEPTA back
on track if we can. There's other mass transit entities
(07:27):
in Washington and San Francisco and Boston don't work. Well,
this is not one of them.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
No, Yeah, yeah, and that's it's so bad because now
you're paying the exact position we hate to be in,
which is you're subsidizing and bailing out, so you're paying
high service fees and getting low service. Safety is not good,
on time's not good. Bus is just not showing up.
So saying that we were running this route and not coming.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
Yeah, but that's just showing up. I mean, we heard
tales of people eleven o'clock at night, you know, they're
in the middle of nowhere in the bus is like,
you know, we'll get you tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Yeah, leaving people. This is almost unbelievable, like the stories
you hear. But then you also see, you know, horrible
behavior on bush. Yeah, almost every you know, every meeting
they have.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
It's horrible behavior everywhere.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Yes, yeah, yeah, And people say it's post COVID. It's
been five years to take it out post COVID.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
Well, the other thing I'll throw in there is that
I don't know the exact number, but well over a
hundred of vehicles from sept To have to be recalibrated.
I forget the exact number. Do you remember that?
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Yeah, well, yeah, I think I think it was like
twenty to twenty five percent of their fleet. They were
They had problems with remote paying, so if you got
the grocery store, if anyone does the self service out,
you just tap your phone or have a tap. They
had problems because they had their own step to card
where basically people had money on the card they were
trying to tap and put in. It wouldn't take the
card they had money, where people would pretend they had
(08:54):
money on the card and it would always just malfunctioning
and they would get all these free rides. It was
it was almost it was almost comical because they screwed
up both ways. They screwed up when people had money
and when people had no money they couldn't.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
You know, the problem was is that fair evasion? Except
is it's tens of millions a dollar a year and
at some point we just need to revisit SEPTA and
how they transport and how they operate because it's not
working and I don't think more money is going to
solve it. Also, I don't think it's a good idea
(09:27):
to starve them out. People have to get to work
and the last thing you want to do goes back
to what we were talking about with saves you know,
except is not working, more people driving.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
More people on the road, because when people can pay
about let's say the New York subway, at least, the
argument is the demands there, the supplies there, the skeletons
are there. So even if the subway has problems, the
skeletons for something, you almost have to like burn it
down to build it back up because it's just nothing works.
The routes aren't going enough.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
Okay, we're gonna take a break with that language, and
I would imagine Ice should be here any minute now.
So Eric Epstein from Rock to Capitol, Millennial Brian from
Rock to Capital. The show is Thunderdome, the organization is
Rock the Capital, and we're being produced by Art Selby.
We'll be back after the break. All right, we're back.
You know, how many years is it Art that WHP
(10:16):
has been on the air. I think it's been quite
is it one hundred? One hundred? Yeah? Yeah. Also, we'll
give a shout out to JC who rotates with Art
to produce, and of course Age RJ, who gave us
this opportunity. Actually, I think I started back in nineteen
oh five at the pay Raise. Yeah, yeah, I mean
(10:37):
that was the first pay raise was nineteen oh five. Yeah, yeah, no,
But RJ does a great job. And also we are
on Rock the Capital does Corruption Corral. The first Thursday
of every month, r J and I have a discussion
on a topic of interest and please listen to That
(10:58):
will be the first Thursday in November. So I'm not
really sure what that would be, but that'll be after
the election. So things should be interesting, by the way,
with the election. And this goes back to the pay raise.
This is the first time, probably since the pay raise
in two thousand and five, where it's possible, if not likely,
(11:20):
judges are not going to be retained. Okay, we in
nineteen oh five, nineteen oh five, God, I know what's
going on with there. In twenty of five, we actually
the coalition reform groups were successful in defeating Russell Niagro
and he didn't get retention. And it was interesting when
we saw the records afterwards. He was drinking and partying
(11:40):
before like nothing was going to happen. I saw him
at the Supreme Court when we were arguing the pay
raise case and he made the remark, you know, hey,
I'm going to get my seat back. And it has
like dude, it ain't your seat, you know.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
That's not a lot of them think they think this
is my seat. It's like I've been here. Seniority, I mean,
is rewarded, Seuritian loyalties rewarded above almost everything else. If
you're a party loyalist and you're been there for a while,
that's how you get the best positions that you get,
like on shareman of appropriations and all that stuff. If
you if you step out out of line with your
party or you're like a freshman, you can't get anything.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
I mean. So, what's interesting Since the defeat of Nigro,
there's been three Supreme Court justices and broiled and controversy.
Jane Ory's sister and I can't think of her name
was removed, I believe Justice I'm gonna I don't know
if it was sal Or, he was a judge from
the West Shore. Eken was removed. And Seamus McCaffrey. So,
(12:44):
I mean, people thought, and I thought before the pay
raise that you know, that was the branch of government
that was solid, that was above the fray. And people
still forget that pay raise. They kept their pay.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
Raise, Yes, they kept their pay raise. They kept the
pension bonus. They made sure and the judges and this
is this is always the brilliant thing. When the politicians
push it through, they always make sure the dudget. The
judges get even a better deal because if someone sues
to rule on it, they have to rule against themselves.
They have to say, I don't want this pension.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
But the other problem is the judiciary is funded by
the legislature and it's an unhealthy relationship. But I just
wanted to speak. Is that Johnny Dock, the convicted labor
boss from Philly. His brother is up for retention, Kevin Dock.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Yes, of a great family of unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
But you know, I don't know. I mean, when you
looking at the campaign, he got a lot of in
kind from the union and he obviously says there's no connection.
We'll see.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
My argument was, ever people give huge donations just like
they're not donating for nothing, like no one gives you.
But that's you know, it's not ten dollars. It's like
I heard your speech, you know, hope and change, let's
go some It's like you know, listen, you know millions
of dollars you're expected some contracts, you're expecting some laws
to help you.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
Yeah, and that to me is one of the challenges
to democracy. Is it now play to pay goes beyond legislation.
It's about do you want to get into politics, you
better have a lot of money, right, and you're going
to need a lot of different uh boy experts. I
mean media buys campaign voter registration, and it makes it
(14:30):
difficult to run. I mean, people just don't want to
go through with it.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
That's right, because half your job is fundraising. In fact,
they talked about this in Congress all the time. Is
that you know, is that a big part of their
job is just constantly raising money. So is there not
even debating or negotiating a compromising legislation, which supposed to
your job. They're just trying to raise money for their lives.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
But the only way around not raising money is taking
humongous contributions. That's right, and it makes life a little easier.
So years ago, and I talked about him, Senator Proximire
from with CONSINT used to get re elected. To send it,
I spent in about a grand and he yeah, he
used to have these awards. I don't know if people
remember he used to have those awards on the military
(15:11):
every year. You know, like fifty grand for a toilet.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
You know where where's the money going?
Speaker 1 (15:17):
Yeah, it was like the crazy deal. But I don't
know where we're at now with the Supreme Court race
in Pennsylvania, but I'm pretty comfortable it'll get over ten million.
And still people won't know who the hell they're voting for.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
That's right, but they're voting. They're voting for teams. It's
almost like we're you move into a polarized society, you
move more towards this team based voting, which is I'm
voting against this team. I'm voted for my team. And
then you'll forgive anything your team does, say outside of step,
and then you'll punish anything they do, which is.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Well, you will be a lenient. Like if you look
at team Trump, they had a guy who got caught
with fifty grand, right, and everybody soon will give them
the benefit did that? How the hell do you give
that guy the benefit of doubt by the same token,
you know, you start looking at political crimes. I don't
really recall what hunter Biden did.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
Well, the big thing is bribes from the different countries.
That's the big But.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
That is a difference I mean, who did who was
he supposed he got a bribe Ukraine? No, No, but
I mean that Homan got a bribe internally.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
HomeGroup, So that would be the campaign. I'll be like,
our bribes are domestic. All these foreign interventions. It's like Ukraine,
U Bekistan. I think he got the mayor, the wife
of the mayor of Moscow. But that was the argument,
is that he's going around, he's benefiting from his dad's name.
And then Holman's like, we're gonna get a huge increase
in these ice contracts. These the borders are who wants
(16:47):
to get these contracts? You got facilities, You're gonna have,
you know, trucks and stuff all that. So that's where
I'm assuming he got the bribe.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
I thought fifty grand. He's not thinking large. I mean.
The other thing is, you know, let's be honest. I mean,
Trump has some cahunis here criticizing anybody getting anything from Russia.
Given the fact, now, given the fact that his first
chief of staff I remember, I remember his name worked
for the Russian government. Yeah, I mean, right, I need
(17:16):
to understand Republicans Democrat. The only difference is the letter. Really,
I mean, it's just nobody's enthusiastic about either. But I
wanted to get your take. So Ontario doesn't add that
infuriates Trump and the Prime min Well, the head of
the Ontario government, Doug Ford, is actually a conservative.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
And it was interesting because Trump took exception to the
paraphrasing Reagan in eighty seven. Honestly, in eighty seven, Reagan
wasn't in great shape. But I mean he went ballistic
because he felt Reagan was taken out of context. And
to some degree that's true. However, so I went back
and looked. In twenty sixteen, Reagan said that he would
(18:00):
never take a what do you call it, the but
that he took to the White House the obvious No, no, no, no,
he would not take a ge. I'll get back to it.
But it was interesting to demolish the government. He said,
I'm not going to talk. Yeah, he said, I'm not
gonna I'm not gonna do it. All right, Well, context
(18:24):
is based, unfortunately on your perspective. I didn't did you know?
That didn't do much to me. I looked at it
from Canada's perspective, because they we do. They get ninety
percent of the trade from US now FODA saying he
wants to move fifty percent out. But if you look
at who this is gonna hurt in America, it'll be auto,
(18:47):
auto parts and home appliances.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
So yeah, So so if we don't know the premiere,
which is sort of like our version of governor for
the promises ran ad because Republicans used to be free trade,
so I think they're thinking he's a conservative. I'll run
this ad of Ronald Reagan showing that free trades benefitial
to both sides, and then I'll turn the Conservatives that
were traditionally a free trade party back on that. Trump
(19:13):
obviously believes that if being pro free trade allows people
to take advantage, allows Canada take advantage of US, allows
Europe to take advantage of a lot, that we need to
have tariffs at the very minimum to match them, sometimes
even higher of these other countries, and so he went
after them. I think the real question is this is
(19:33):
this gonna hurt the negotiation with Canada? Because the economy
if you have teriffs for a long time and they're
not used as a negotiating tool, you know it is
gonna slow down. There's just that's just a fact. You're
gonna spend more. The consumer's gonna spend more on each
product that comes in. The producer for their inputs like
cars are gonna spend more, and then all those prices
(19:53):
are gonna go up, but slow the economy.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
Let me ask you this. So money is coming in,
you know, Trump was correct, that's right, is only coming
I'm not sure how it's being spent or who's managing it.
But the other issue that nobody's talking about is inflations
at three percent and jobs are going down, which is
the remedy for stagflation.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
Yes, yeah, And that's the worry is that does the
economy just slow to because once the economy slows, it's
real hard to get it going because especially with us,
we're going to demand standard economy spending money matters and
one and then that the negative cycle of people spend less,
people invest less, people fire more, less people working well,
they're going to spend less, invest less, And then you
(20:35):
have the negative cycle where the reverses. When the economy
is going well, people spend more, people invest more, people
hire more, more people are in the workforce. And that's
the worry, is that or the terrorists. But the reverse
of this is some of the arguments Trump makes about
how we got to take advantage of or it is
just true China never lived any of their promises from
the nineties and we never pushed them on it when we.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
Have nobody's doubting And if you analyze the playing field, yeah,
it wasn't fair and you needed to correct it. But
you need a plan and that plan needs to be consistent,
and it's not. And the reality is America First is
great concept. I don't support it. I understand why other
people do, but it's an interlocking world and the last
(21:17):
thing we need China, look has some leverage on us
in terms of we need them to purchase our soy product.
You know, the farmers are feeling it right now. We
need their rare earth minerals. So I don't think there's anything.
And mister Trump seems to be famous for, you know,
coming on high and then coming down a.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
Lot, right, And that's where I think we all thought
it was going to be like his first term. When
his first term, you put tariffs on Canada, then renegotiated
a deal and then that was off. And it's sort
of like a negotiating tool. Now it's a different tool.
The terriffts. He's using are as an a there are
not to get a better deal, but just to level
the plane from His argument is we'll get revenue, we'll
(21:56):
stop these imports and exports, and that will build our
many facts based. The problem is of is, even though
that might help that specific industry, other things can get
more expressive. Other industries will be hurt.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
Look, the steel industry lost the market by their own
bad decision making. It's likely not coming back. And you know,
the Koreans make good, steal better still. I don't know,
but at the end of the day, Yeah, I think
there was a way to do this. And that's just
the style to be brash, you know, I get it.
And apparently he's meeting with She the Chinese guy in
(22:30):
South Korea.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
Yeah, and hopefully that goes well.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
And listen, wouldn't it be funny though, if he landed
in North Korea to hang out with Rocket just to
throw everybody off. Hey, let's take a break real quick.
S Eric Kapstein and Millennial Brian warwith Rock to Capital.
The show is Thunderdome. We're being produced by Art Selby.
We're a little overtime, so we'll be back in a
moment about this before. With alcohol and with gaming, there's
(22:58):
relentless advertisement. Yes, and then at.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
The end it's like, please do it responsibly, Please don't
be a problem. It's like it's like, please be careful,
you know, don't you know? There was we were talking
about the South Park episode of where they ran this
fake average alcohol where it's just like there's like the
whole at is like this is awesome, this is great alcohol, money,
hot girls, everything, It's the best time ever. And at
(23:23):
the very end they're like, please stook responsibility.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
It's always at the end you can barely hear it.
For the gambling. If you have a gamily part, I'm
called one eight hundred. We don't care. So on a
serious note, you and I sat through hearings where there
was a fierce battle to locate a casino at Penn State. Yes,
and it was a billionaire versus another billionaire, and nobody
(23:45):
seemed to understand that there's a high school in a
college just a couple of minutes away, or maybe that
was the intention.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
Yeah, and that well, that's that is if you look
at where they're going, a lot of us young men,
they're trying to get them on it immediately, it's on
they advertising all these podcasts, these sport podcasts. When again,
I think the argument for gambling and we're gonna it's
almost a moved point because here's the thing. All the
states that don't want to raise taxes but have all
these spending increases, they're gonna need revenue. Where they're gonna
(24:14):
get the revenue, it's you know, cigarettes, it's gambling, it's
it's alcohol.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
Me or was gambling better uh? Managed by the mafia?
I mean you had everybody, you know, I remember my
grandfather did he ran numbers? Yeah, And I mean I
say that, you know the kid. But the mafia wasn't
out there advertising.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
That's right, Yeah, it's it's so much more prevalent. The
question is whenever you do this is like does the
legalization effect the regulations? Does that make it better overall?
Because I looked at the numbers, one hundred and eighty
five billion dollars was gambled by Americans. There's a belief
that one a little over a trillion it's still gambled
off shores because there's still regularly was kind of a
(24:59):
little shocked by there's still regulations, a lot of different States,
California taxes our biggest.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
So what do you do? I mean, here's the thing.
You're raking in the money. There's gonna be casualties. You're
also creating interesting Like if you look at pen National,
they pay taxes. They they're I think, if not the largest,
one of the largest employers. And I guess what I'm
wondering is is this appetite for gambling? Is it just
(25:24):
natural or is it being essentially cultivated?
Speaker 2 (25:28):
You know, well, it's both. So there's always gonna be
gambling to sert in every society. The question is does
the advertising is have pushed the worst habits and not
give enough outs for the worst abusers, because you know,
if you're in a bar in someone's ten drinks deep,
you don't can of the keys and say, you know,
become a NASCAR driver Like.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
Yeah, But my point is, shouldn't you have said something
at eight or nine drinks? Yes? Yeah, And it's like
making money, you know, And so look, sin taxes are
basically keeping us float. Alcohol, tobacco soon cannabis guarantee of
skilled games in this but it's so prevalent and it's
(26:07):
kind of well, it's very scary to see how young
people are getting involved in gambling.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
Yeah, I think they're gonna even try to lower the
age of eighteen. Eventually they said we can vote at eighteen,
and people are going to go for it. Because here's
the thing. What do the politicians not want to do.
They don't want to raise taxes, but they don't want
to cut any spending. This is sort of like the
third way of saying, we can get more revenue, we
can boost the economic growth, and we don't have to
make the tough decisions. And people, if you look at
the polls on not everything, but in a lot of
(26:35):
it's popular. So you're able to push it through. The
question is are are you going to put the regulation?
Speaker 1 (26:40):
Who would oppose it though? I mean, so you know,
I've always argued that we should start having gambling in
first grade and you basically, you know, you want to
gamble your milk a little job, okay uh, and then
maybe he'll learn a lesson I don't know, or.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
Matth that's how we teach spent. It is so sad,
but now it's.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
No normal gambling. I mean, before everybody, I remember when
Joe Namath lost his license at a bar because yeah,
I mean it was taken away.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
Now they're on every ad, They're on every every every
internet video, every promotion, every sponsorship, They're everywhere. And the
league sees the way to generate money. The government sees
this way to generate revenue. The humans love the thrill
of it, so they're always going to be attracted.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
That's the problem when the robuts take over. When the
robuts start gambling, I bet you they're better gamblers than humans.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
Well yeah hopefully, Yeah, if I.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
Don't drink, and you know, have all those other diversions. Hey,
I wanted you to break down and help people understand.
The medical marketplace is going to open up soon, real soon.
Rates are going to go up. That's I think by
an average maybe of eighteen percent. And I'm looking at
by the Kaiser Foundation, which is like the guru on this. Yeah,
(28:06):
they're looking at national average marketplace consumer will pay one
nine hundred and four in an annual premium next year,
up from eight eighty eight. However, you believe that the
Democrat that you have a clean CR continuing resolution, and
the Democrats are leveraging this at the issue.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
Yeah, people isn't because Trump. When Trump came in, what
was his thing. Inflation costs going up, cost of housing,
cost of food, costs, all this stuff. Whether you agree
with his economic pology or not, that was one of
the things that he hit Biden on is that Americans
hated inflation more than anything. What's going to happen in
the health marketplace is that since OBAMACARETT was enacted, freedoms
(28:47):
have gone up about six to twelve percent a year
no matter what. But the subsidies that sort of keep
them well or keep them flat have also gone up,
So essentially people haven't really felt the big costs. Now
the sub these are going to get pulled as part
of the budget, and the cost is going to go
up another six to twelve percent, and now they're going
(29:08):
to see the full cost. So you're going to see
like huge one hundreds and hundreds of dollars increase. And
that's and for people that are on the edge or
for people that you know can't afford that type, they're
gonna maybe drop out, go without health care, and that
creates other problems where they they'll use the emergency room
or they'll have other issues where they you know, they
(29:31):
you know, because if they can't afford it, something that
they go without care, is that other people pick it up.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
So we have a number of issues run bundle here.
Obamacare wound up being pretty popular. Most people don't understand
that their insurance is underwritten by the government, Yes to
a certain degree, and so now you have a situation
where that's going to be increased. So I don't know
(29:56):
what the interest rate was before Obamacare.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
Well here's healthcare was going up before Obamacare, so everything
was going up. That The key thing is Obamacare was
going to try and flatten the cost curve, which in fairness,
they did not do. They did not do that. But
what they did do is they subsidized, and so they
made people at different income levels able to afford healthcare
and make it a much more affordable.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
So how many more people were able to get healthcare
under Obamacare.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
Probably a thirty million, thirty million, maybe even thirty to
forty five million.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
Yeah, that's a lot of humanoids. So the point is
thirty to forty million people. I don't know that that
many will drop off, but some will drop off.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
Absolutely, some will drop off. And then what happens is
if people have to use the emergency services or hospital
and they don't have insurance. It basically goes in the
Medicaid payment system, so the government pays for it anyway,
it's just from a different yeah point.
Speaker 1 (30:47):
So here's the problem. A lot of hospitals, especially rural
hospitals or on the verge of collapse, a lot of
urban hospitals, so they're not going to be able whether
Medicaid you know, gets back to them or not the reimbursement,
and I'm sure they will. It'll create a medical crisis.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
Because Medicaid under intentionally reimburses under what the typical rate is,
so they're paying i'd say seventy the sixty percent of
the doc because the government is for poor people and
the government's picking it up, so they make it way
less expensive. I think the problem is that our healthcare
system as like a system, it's just it's just super inefficient,
(31:24):
very complex. And what's also happened is that we have
an aging population, which makes the risk profile worse. So
no matter what, insurances were going to go up unless
you change how you structure it. And when you have
an older, less healthy population, that's going to make it
cost more. Along with all the payment problems that we are.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
Look, we talked about this in pension where there's less
people that need to essentially pay the pension for more
people that are retiring and living longer. So hard decisions
are going to have to be made. And you know,
I remember reading a op ed from an emergency room
doctor in d C who said, you know, everybody will
(32:03):
say before they get to the er that yeah, pulled
the plug. I don't want to do it. You know.
Then grandma comes in, she's eighty five, a little chance
of living, but they want all the medical resources applied
to grandma or grandpa or whomever. And I, you know,
I wouldn't want to be the one saying, now pull
the plug on grandma. But I also don't want to
(32:24):
be the one saying, hey, you know, Johnny, you're not
getting your tonsils out. We don't have enough money. So
the entire system, it's it reminds me acceptive and.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
Oh yeah, it's just it's bad. I think we have
to do other countries, it's an other country divide, universal
are lower costs, and it's not all it's it's typically
mixed system. So you have some that are full government,
you have some like switched on in their private sector
government supported.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
But I know you're going to get there. What does
Singapore have Singapore?
Speaker 2 (32:55):
Well, Singapore is health savings accounts hsas were basically the
govern has a minimum for emergency services and then everything
else is straight out of pocket. And what ended up
happening is that the price became very competitive and almost
and then like doctor visits and normal stuff became much
(33:15):
more affordable. And they also contribute to your health saves gust.
So it's not like you have a health stavescount. You
have to put money away at the bank the government
based on the taxes.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
Don't you think did you ever notice how what a
paradox it is? Shouldn't it be single wealthy? I mean listen,
so let me before we go to break. You just
want to point this out when people look back to
the past with nostalgic reverence, the sixties, even the seventies,
there was one person working and everybody had healthcare. Yeah,
(33:45):
everybody had healthcare or you could afford health assurance. I mean,
so when people look back, that's something that's real.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
Yeah. Well, because listen, health insurance has increased way above
the rate of inflation and way above.
Speaker 1 (33:58):
Well, holding into that, I want to go to break
because it's never the wrong time to talk about bad medicine.
I'm Eric Apstein. I'm with Millennial Brian Were Thunderdome and
Rock the Capital is our group. Thunderdomes a show and
we're being produced by Artselba. All right, look, we're coming
into the last segment and we don't have a lot
of time. I just want to point out a couple
(34:20):
of things moving forward. Penn State is ridiculously bad, so
there should be no reason why you're not listening to
us on Saturday unless you're a Notre Dame fan number two.
I don't know if you noticed, my goodness. Thank god,
Parks Casino in Shippensburg takes out a lot of ads
for us also PPL. But it's interesting when they start
(34:42):
taking out ads, it means there's a rate increase coming.
Oh yeah, So look the last thing, and we don't
really have a lot of time left. But mister Trump's
pardoning of certain per people who are clearly not very
(35:04):
good people I don't understand. And maybe you can unravel
us the billionaire guy. Now, before we get there, I
came across this satire, so remember this is satire. It said, George,
you remember in one of the most politically stunning comebacks
(35:27):
in America. Donald Trump pardon George Santos on Monday, and
he picked the disgraced former congressman to lead the Department
of Labor Statistics. Santo said, this is such an honor.
I really don't think I'd get pardoned before Giselene Maxwell,
(35:48):
he says, So the new DLS chief hit the ground running,
revising upwards the job figures from every month of the
Trump's presidency. The American economy added a million jobs in
and a billion new jobs in June. President Trump is
creating jobs like crazy. He even gave one to Pete
haiksheth uh, the unprecedented job growth has boosted Trump's approval
(36:12):
rating to one hundred and forty percent. That's satire, it's
all in fun. But I'm trying to understand how this
billionaire guy that got pardon is connected to crypto curs.
I don't understand.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
Yeah, so, uh, this guy's name is Shangpeng Zow, which
almost sounds like I'm making up. I mean, he's a
biding CEO. So all these crypto companies that have emerged,
I think post covid, other than Bitcoin, they've all been
trying to create payment systems, ways to trade and stuff
(36:48):
like that. And what has happened is a lot of
them have just been fake. They've been pumping dump schemes.
They've just been straight fraud.
Speaker 1 (36:55):
Bay to the listener of pumping dumps.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
Pumping dump is I create a coin or payment or
a transfer thing. I say, this is the new thing.
You invest your money in it. And then the second
a lot of people have invested in it. I dumped
the coins, so people with podcasts and following have done that.
And when I say dump, I mean sell it on
the stock market. So imagine it's easier understand if I
(37:17):
did with a company. Let's say I made a shoe company.
I called it Brian's Shoe Company. I had a podcast.
I said, Brian's Shoe Company. We're selling a million shoes
a year and one hundred dollars a profit margin the
shoe invest in our company. People buy it, they hear it,
it's on you know, CNBC's on credible sources. They buy
(37:37):
it. It pumps it up, and then I, immediately, because I ownly,
say fifty percent the company, or I sell all my shares.
The stock then drops and then people Let's say I
go public and they investigate it, they find out I
don't have a shoe company. I made it up. You know,
it was a complete that's you see that a lot
with penny stocks. With crypto other than let's very let's
(38:00):
say higher or regular like a bitcoin. There's tons of cryptos.
There's almost as many cryptos as penny stocks, right, These
initial companies and most of them fail, and most of
the puppetup schemes. But people are looking for that quick
way to make a lot of money because they'll say, hey,
if you bought bitcoin when it was let's say fifty
dollars and you invested, you know, ten dollars in it,
(38:21):
you made ten thousand dollars. So people see that and
they're not looking at the underlining number. This guy with Binance,
he was making, you know, so he did very similar things.
He made you know, false transaction service, and then he
did transactions for terrorist organizations, ransomware, sexual expectation fraud scam.
(38:43):
So he did the whole gambit. I mean, it's very
similar to the under the Biden administration, there was that
I'm trying to remember this kid's name. He created his
own stable coin in the Bahamas.
Speaker 1 (38:56):
Oh Sam I can't think of his name. Yeah, he was.
He surrounded himself with people that.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
They couldn't do any math and have no idea what
was going on, and they bought let's say a ten
person houses in the Bahamas and it was just but
that was actually even a simpler scan than this, because
this is you have actual transactions and there's some legitimate
to do it. That was just basically he said, I
made a way to code all these crypto transactions, and
(39:23):
he lied, and he was just having people deposit money.
It was it was almost it was.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
Almost connection to the Trump family or.
Speaker 2 (39:31):
Well in that case, uh, he was connected more to
a Democrat politician, Nancy Pelosi. One of their campaign donors
was his parents for the Trump one or the Trump guy,
I think, well, I mean he's part of some of
the people that have worked in crypto. Donate to Trump
(39:52):
if you could. Uh, he has a crypto advisor and
stuff like that, so a lot of those people.
Speaker 1 (39:58):
Wasn't he opposed to crypto at one point he was.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
He thought it was going to be used to replace
the US dollar as and it could. It could as
a reserve currency or as a currency. I think with
crypto it would never become like a reserve currency or
because you have to have a certain level of buying
from the government and the regulators, they would never let
that plant their coach.
Speaker 1 (40:20):
The Trump family has and I think Milan, I think
she has a different I don't really understand crypto, to
be honest with you, so I'm not really sure what
they're investing in. But this guy was convicted of stealing.
Speaker 2 (40:36):
What do you say in one hundred thousand subspicious transactions,
four billion dollars to Justice Department is what they agreed
to pay.
Speaker 1 (40:44):
So when he gets partner, when any president pardon someone,
and do they still have to pay the amount of
money they were fined?
Speaker 2 (40:53):
Well, I think because there's a civil violation. The answer
is yes, because there's civil violations the answers. If you
really look to the presidential part in power, it's kind
of like ridiculous. And now people bringing up with Trump
because obviously didn't like him or they and these ones
I think are egregious. Every president is doing well.
Speaker 1 (41:12):
Every president usually waits for the end of their turn.
He just simply doesn't care. And you know he's advertising.
He's transparent. I mean he if you start looking at
some of the people who were I mean, look, some
of the Our Congress probably has a higher crime rate
than most blue cities. I mean, honestly, say you're looking
(41:33):
at Duke Cunningham, Duncan Hunter, Rick Renzi, Chris Collins, Michael Greene,
John Rowland. These are all congressmen.
Speaker 2 (41:41):
Who all the time and also the stuff that, let's
be honest, that goes on the under the board. Menendez,
the senator got away with it, basically took bribes of
gold bars and got repeated.
Speaker 1 (41:52):
I thought, Menende, and I don't I doubt maybe Trumpe
will you know part of him, I don't know. He
partnered the Democratic former Democratic got Illinois, that's right. And Menendez, well,
I mean that was like.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
It's when you read these stories about the bribes, it's
almost so ridiculous because like you can't even believe it,
Like he's getting gold bars in bags. It's like he's
it's like backdoor mafia dealer and not like a congressman
making hundreds of thousand dollars a year. But it was
a show what uh robag democrat? Like the distinction on
(42:26):
corruption doesn't matter. Corruption there's still bipartisan I.
Speaker 1 (42:29):
Believe, Yeah, I think bug party or bipartisan, especially when
it comes to insider trading. Yeah, and uh Art, what
have we got two or three minutes left? About two
and a half, all right, for the good of the order? Art,
you got anything the flyers?
Speaker 3 (42:42):
One today? About that is that in Row. I know
they lost their night two to one. They're they're four
to three and one. The Hershey Bears are home tonight
against Lehigh Valley. So that's happening in a giant center.
I won three and one, I believe. Oh that's not
a great start, a tough start, last five to four
last night up in Allentown.
Speaker 1 (42:59):
And then make debit has a buye.
Speaker 3 (43:01):
Yep, mcdebit beats State College thirty six twenty last night,
so they get a buye and we'll find out tomorrow
who they play in two weeks.
Speaker 1 (43:08):
All right, Brian, what do you got man?
Speaker 2 (43:11):
I would say check out the World Series though.
Speaker 1 (43:13):
The you still think the Dodgers are gonna win.
Speaker 2 (43:16):
I think the Dodger are gonna win, but I think
it's a series now, which I'm glad because I was
worried that the Dodgers might dominate them and they're not
clearly to the Blue Jays are just a great team.
You know they're under they were underrated everyone, no one believed.
Speaker 1 (43:28):
You know, what would tie this show together?
Speaker 2 (43:31):
Is there?
Speaker 1 (43:31):
Trump closed the border, didn't let the Dodgers go back
and bet it all on the Blue Jays.
Speaker 2 (43:38):
It's like, start putting tariffs. It's like, it's like, I'm
afraid to announce that, you know, do.
Speaker 1 (43:42):
To Actually that's an issue. I mean, there are some
states that put a tax, a local tax on athletes
pay well.
Speaker 2 (43:50):
They all do it now, they all do it to
get it. It's weird. They had it called the jock tax.
It started, I believe actually with Magic Johnson, not Magic
one the Lakers players where they tried to tax them
and he sued and he's like, you can't do this,
and then they past law said we absolutely can't do this.
Speaker 1 (44:07):
All right, So the Dodgers, you have anything else going
on this weekend?
Speaker 2 (44:12):
Well, I guess college college football is Dodgers college football
basketball started and Webbin Yama looks like a monster.
Speaker 1 (44:20):
What what is that? A hurricane?
Speaker 2 (44:22):
Well, it sounds like a hurricane. The French guy they
drafted number one a few years ago, he's seven to six.
Speaker 1 (44:29):
He's sent me from France. I mean their average fight,
they're like four foot two. So who who got him?
Speaker 2 (44:35):
Spurs? Spurs got another one. They got a golden guy.
He's he's he looks if you just get hurt.
Speaker 1 (44:40):
People should be looking at that because the Spurs always
get the best international folks. Yes, there's a pipeline there.
I don't know what it is at any rate. Eric
epstein uh In with Millennial Brian Will rocked the Capitol.
The show is Thunderdome. Art Selby's producing, and I want
to say hi to Oh my goodness, Larry, Nancy and
(45:00):
everybody who's listening. We'll see you in two weeks. She'll
hum y'all,
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