February 14, 2026 • 44 mins
Eric Epstein and Millennial Brian talk gas prices, Japan's liberal party, a terrorist attack in Pakistan, Super Bowl costs, and more!
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, Valentine's Day, I should have something witty to say.
But you know, I've been divorced for almost thirty years,
so it's not a big day for me. Said, well,
no for everybody else. You know, I get it. I
think it's chocolate roses, you know, to rekindle the diamond mind.
Uh And yeah, like we always say, for any holiday,
(00:21):
don't drink and drive, be safe, enjoy And a lot
of folks have three day weekend. It's President's Day, which
means can't they go to like national parks for free?
Didn't Trump say on President's Day? Or was that just
his birthday? Do you know what I'm talking about?
Speaker 2 (00:39):
I do not know what you're talking about. That sounds
like something he would he would he would say, or try.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
Yeah that I mean for Valentine's Day, you should be
able to get a pass at a brothel. Yeah yeah, yeah.
So anyway, ericapside Millennial Brian. We are Rock the Capital.
We're a good government, anti corruption group. We don't take sides.
We don't care what party you are. We care who's
throwing the party. So check our website out. It's been updated.
(01:06):
Have some good stories going on. Thanks to Rebecca James
for updating that actually there and we'll set out a
press release. We did a really deep dive on the
slush fund and it's it's slushier that we thought, right.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
I mean, this has been going on for years. I
mean you've been covered it, I mean for decades. I've
been for a few I guess five six years now,
and so people don't know this is money that the
legislator appropriates essentially outside the general fund to themselves. Was
they get to spend on their own priorities sort of
outside any scrutiny, and to have an audit every year
(01:43):
that no one could comment on or talk about it.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Brian and I were there and we asked the auditor
to comment, and you know he wouldn't say anything. So
Dennis Owens at twenty seven did a good story on
that and look the added depth when we looked at
the audit. We did a ten year deep dive. So
that'll be out Monday or Tuesday. Check it out. Also,
it was ironic Wen Days did it Wendy's did it
(02:08):
commercial to break us in and they are shutting down
like seven hundred stores.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
I mean that makes sense, I think, well.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
But they were just saying they were getting big.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Well yeah, but I think I think if you look
at the fast food, one is fast food isn't what
it used to be, which is cheap and convenient. Well
that's what's where we had this mass in production of
fast food. I think a lot of people were and
then you have kind of the generic brands McDonald's, the
Burger Kings, the new Rogers like Chick fil A, and
the RB's and the Wendy's that just don't have the
same brand right, they're in decline.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
And that's what happens.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
This is you know, if you're not producing either very
cheap and expensive food or very let's say Chick fil
A a good food, you know, people go in their places.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
I think with the advent of you know, rudders and
the gas station yeah well yeah, I mean it's not
like the gas station food when I was growing up,
where you know, you put like your quarter in and
pull it. You what the hell's coming? You know, there
could be a cockroach would would probably be extra. So
I want to do a couple of quid hitters. Get
(03:08):
your response. Gas prices actually went up in Pennsylvania three
or eleven a gallon. Is this an issue or passing face.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
I think it's gonna it's gonna pass farvers for the
next point, because if you think about supply to demand,
his whole focus for the administration has been releasing supply.
Reached the supply is I mean to the point where
we're taking we have Venezuela supply that we're gonna release
in diesel.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
I'd be shocked.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
If it's a big rise, they're gonna You're gonna have
week to week up and downs. But I think over
time it will be lower than usual unless you have
a real shock, like a Middle Eastern war. Venezuela goes
real south in the wrong direction, then you could see shocks.
But I don't I be shocked. I don't think because
that is because mid terms are coming up. Having high
gas prices hurts any president, but I think for this one,
(03:53):
who who is one of his main issues down?
Speaker 1 (03:56):
Yeah? Does he drive? You know? I mean besides the golf?
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Well, I don't think any and drives. Remember Obama did
an interview where he said he hadn't droven years and
that he apparently someone came to the old to the
White House with like a new car, but it was
just driving around the circle and the Secret Service freaked out.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
I mean, so it looked like, I mean, Aboma looked
like he was in really good shape. I think I
heard it was meth so. So the Trump administration erased
his government power to fight climate change. Good move, bad
move or non consequential.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Well, I think I think it's it's gonna be non
consequent because it was moving this in direction anyway. I mean,
he ran on this, He campaigned on this, the idea
that he was going to have a strong e p
a that focused real hard on coal and stuff. I
think here's the thing we've talked about done this on
some of the local issues. With the advent of data centers.
They're going to try and push through any every type
(04:50):
of energy project. They're not gonna look at safety, They're
not gonna look at you know, is the.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
Public Democrats By the way, Democrats are saying with the
Republicans in terms of energy, all of the above. Yeah,
I mean, they're going to drill in the Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge. So some of the things that were taboo
are now being exploited. I don't I don't think it's
a good idea. I think you have to have a balance.
I'm not ready to see a exceon sign at the
(05:16):
Grand Canyon.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Here's the thing is that if you speed up these permits,
why do we have these rules in place before? So
there was huge problems with safety bring stuff online and
they need to bring it online. And you have the
worst situation where electricity price is going going way up
because it's all going to these data side but.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
The electric look and I can tell you that I'm
lit are getting the PPL case right now. Your electric
is going to continue to go up. I know that
Page or the utilities agreed to like cap the rates
right now, but it's it's only till he gets re elected,
believe me. So your rates will go up in just
about everything. And if you don't have a lot of
(05:53):
people in the agency, and if your mantra is you know,
you know, we're not going to look, then you don't
find and to have some you know what we call
externalities in economic.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Well yeah, and this is the big externality is going
to hit everyone is We're gonna put on a huge
amount of demand with the data centers. We don't have
the supply or the infrastructure to connect the supply. What
we need is so that means the rate payers and
the taxpayers are going to get hit. So the taxers
can hit with tariffs and for infrastructure upgrades, and the
repairers an go with higher rates. And we know that
because the places that have had data centers come in
(06:25):
in like in Access in Northern Virginia, they prices went
through the roof and they're paying also for the infrastructure
upgrades to get the energy there.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
So so that's I think that's why we're going to
see a lot of the.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
Also good for coal. Coal is making a comeback because
the environmental oversight has been degraded. And we had talked
about this. PGM is spending five point two billion to
build lines to three West Virginia mines right that we're
going to close that. That's that's a big investment. Look,
the tech pros don't care what color it is.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
I mean, all right, they care about green.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
Let me ask you two quick ones. One the Japanese
Prime Minister Sinai Takaki, and nobody really looked at this.
This was pretty amazing. Her party won three hundred and
sixteen seats. Together with her partner of the Innovation Party,
they won three hundred and fifty two sheets out of
four sixty five. I think it's a big deal. What
(07:19):
do you think, Well, I.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
Think it's a big deal.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
So for people wo don't know, the Liberal Democratic Party
has won almost every election in Japan. Yeah, this was
Abe's party in this in her faction, she's on one
we call the conservative nationalist faction, and her big thing is,
you know, is pushing against back against China liberalizing sort
(07:42):
of economic laws they believe that have slowed down.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
She said, do you remember what you got elected? That
she would they would protect.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
Guy, right, and that's something that they know.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
No Japanese premise has ever said publicly because obviously their
biggest trading partner is China. This is someone who President
Trump and that have gotten along great and I think
she's get along with almost any US president because.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Now the Japanese always do. But you know a couple
of taboos have been broken here. Japan and Germany are
rearming and they're going to rearm it and accelerated. Right.
The memories of World War Two have since faded real quickly,
and nobody touched upon this. I mean, we try to
cover stories that don't get a lot of attention or
no attention. A terrorist killed thirty one people in Islamabat
(08:29):
last week entered a Shiite Muslim, which is what the
Iranians are. Deadliest attack since twenty eight I've always thought
that the most underrated sore spot flashpoint was India Pakistan.
Now there's nothing to indicate that India did this. It
(08:49):
could be another it could be the Sudis. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
Well, yeah, so so if we don't know, Pakistan is
a Sunni nation majority that they have Shiah mocks that
a lot of them are ethnically connected to the populations
in Iran, and so they've been subject to different discrimination.
A lots some of them can't vote, for example. But
Pakistan has we always talk about, you know, terrorists and sponsors,
has weaved twenty designated terrorist groups operating in that country,
(09:15):
and I think it's the highest of any other country.
So this is something they've had, and the problems they've
had have mostly been internal and with India where they
essentially historic civilian bombing and that.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
Yeah, and we've had massacres Buddhist Muslims between India and Pakistan.
Pakistan's rival other than India is Iran. Iran is to
the west of Pakistan. They're close. The Afghanis are pissed
at the Pakistanis because they've pushed out large wars of populations. Right, So,
I mean it's pretty bad that your most peaceful and
(09:49):
secure border is China. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
Well, here's the thing.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
China and Pakistan had used to have a decent relationship,
but they had huge problems economically where Pakistan sutuly default
to on some of their loans, and then they had
security problems where there was terrorist attacks against Chinese citizens
that were there to work Afghanistan. Even though they helped
the tal Ban come back into power, like you said,
because they did board Afghanistan Stan citizens and have essentially
(10:13):
been at odds. Iran they've had problems going back almost
a century. Could primarily to the Shia and Sunni stuff
where some of the citizens of both countries.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
Who gets along with Iran, that's not a terrorist group.
I mean they're they're you know, they're they're close to
hesbel Hamas, they fund them, and I mean their besties
are what North Korea.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
Russia, Russia.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
I mean make sure even China has is pulled back
because they want to deal more well. India and China
they used to be kind of decent with them for
oil reasons. Has pulled back because they want to be
close to the golf countries. Golf countries have both the
oil and a better investment.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
Golf countries also have the golf. So Eric, I mean right, yeah,
they live so Eric Epstein and with Mania O'Brien, we
were rocked the Capitol. The show is underdome. We're being
produced by Art great producer. Sorry for going over Our
will be back in a moment. So are the Olympics?
Are they being heavily watched? I mean not' I haven't
watched the Olympics since tell you Harding broke that chicks kneecap?
(11:11):
What year was that? Again? Again? I say they just
I mean they had record ratings, record ratings. Is that
a fair trade off? A kneecap for a higher ratings?
Speaker 2 (11:23):
You need drama, he needs like, you know, kind of
high school. Oh, this girl doesn't like this girl. This
girl's run this girl. That's how you get there.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
It was so art. Do you remember it? It was
so unbelievable.
Speaker 4 (11:35):
Yeah, it was Nancy Carrigan.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Nancy Carrigan. God, but I mean she uh, I mean, I'm.
Speaker 4 (11:40):
Sure she wouldn't have thought that was a fair trade.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
Well, I mean it was the perfect tension, though, a
working class girl against someone who there's no reason. And
I feel bad for Nancy Harrigan who though I think
she did skate in the Olympics that.
Speaker 4 (11:54):
Year, I think she tried. Yeah, and then she had
a nice pro career after that too.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
Yeah. Yeah, But Tanya, I think it's selling mobile homes
back in Portland, Oregon. She was a tough check.
Speaker 3 (12:07):
Okay, this is a weird sport to be like a
working class person.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
Yes, like their own dresses. She worked out. But I
haven't watched the Olympics, and I don't know how much
we may this segment may have to spill over, but well,
you know what, we have a segment called the cost
of Attendance, where we looked at the cost of the
Super Bowl, which was unbelievable. Apparently the most the cheapest
(12:32):
seats for sixty two to seventy two one hundred six
to seventy two hundred average Super Bowl tickets in the
past have been eighty to twelve ground a grand. Rather,
I didn't realize this. It was the largest betting event,
one of the largest in the world twenty five to
thirty billion. Yeah, I go you.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
I could definitely see that.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
I mean, you're talking about the biggest economy in the
world with its premier event, and then it has it
has more in national people that I used to, so
you get other people involved.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
I just want to bet, so this is you'll have
to help me. Apparently gaming is not gaming anymore, so
young men between boys age sixteen at least, they just
have gambled. If I'm reading this correctly, twenty eight percent
of boys age sixteen have gambled in the last year.
So you're inculcating the gaming culture at a pretty young
(13:24):
age here.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
Oh yeah, it's in every type of I would say,
sports media, podcast, sports media talk, almost all the sponsors
or gambling companies you even have, like for example, Amazon.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
I was watching an NBA game on there. It's run
by Fandels, so you have lines during the game, even
when you're watching the game.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
It's all integrated. It's interesting because we've had scandals. We
have scandals in the NBA, We've had scands on other
sports around point shaving and gambling proms, and now it's
gone from kind of a taboo to we're pushing it
full throttle.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
Well, the leagues. I mean, there's a lot of people
that have been banned time gambling in prior years. I
don't know if they're going to recessitate that or you know,
we'll see what happens with Rose. But what I don't
understand is one of these poly market, which is a
gaming entity, what do they do?
Speaker 2 (14:14):
So they're they're called a prediction market. I would call
it a trading company. So the way it works is
basically they set what they would call odds, but it's
actually just like stock prices for different outcomes, and then
based on how people buy it, it changes. So let's
say you have a game it's fifty to fifty and
everyone picks Team B, those odds or that stock price
(14:38):
will change and essentially become more expensive to buy and
the other team will become less expensive to buy over that.
So it's similar to in the way that it's different
in the way gambling companies set the odds based on
what the lines are, what we think these outcomes are,
and they take their percentage. These companies are the same thing,
but they it's influenced, especially moments of moment, by how
(15:00):
people buy.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
So I said, the gaming scandals of the past, when
you know you could shave points or when you had
information that somebody was injured.
Speaker 3 (15:12):
Is that still in play, Well, it's even more in place.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
So let me give you example the NBA story that
came out earlier this year with Chauncey Billups. We know
in the NBA there's tanking, but there's a point in
time when I'd say a bad team or bet says
we're actually shutting it down. And that could be big
because you could have let's say a team on the
edge of the two teams against the playoffs fifty to
fifty game. If the second one team says we're shutting
it down, we're losing every other game and the other
(15:36):
team says we're going for the playoffs, that goes from
a fifty to fifty game to a ninety eight to
two game. And so you could and so that happened
where he texted essentially people in the mob and said, hey,
we're shutting it down, and they put like one hundred
thousand dollars on the Portland trow Bozers losing and so
that now that changes and you can have that it's
such an insider trading with gambling.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
Well, it's interesting because gaming used to be the per
of organized crime. Yeah, and uh, you know, when you're
looking at the commercials, they used to be dominated by alcohol, tobacco,
I mean food, vehicles, right, food and things of that.
And so I guess I think I saw the cost
(16:19):
here of how much it costs for a commercial.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
I think it was with a thirty million.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
So they're saying, uh, seven million for uh, well, your
audience is one hundred million people, right, all right, so
your I don't know what the cost all in is
because your shoot usually has a celebrity.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
Yeah, so here says fifteen to twenty five million all
in for the commercial, but to buy a spot, just
to buy a spot of thirty seconds is seven million.
So you're talking about a ridiculous add But I think
the main thing, and if I remember when someone was
talking about this from a marketing perspective, the main thing
is to make the commercial memorable, put it on YouTube,
and then get like those constant views. So the Gritos
commercials that these series and that kind of stayed with people.
(17:05):
That's a successful commercial because it's like you're not paying
for that one thirty seconds you're paying for kind of
like a lifetime.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
I didn't I didn't want this year. I remember. I
don't know if you remember. These are the frog commercials
from Budweiser, and yeah, I get that. So what is
the price if your commercial airs at the end or
in the middle of the fourth quarter and the game
is not good, I guess the price is fixed.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
You still get well, So this is the it's the
average price of seven million. So I'm assuming if you
want a special spot or essentially a higher location that's better,
that would go up right, So you're talking about, you know,
maybe ten million. It's it's the value of those seconds,
because it's you. You don't when we were out of
(17:52):
a culture of everyone watches the show. Everyone watches the
Super Bowls, almost the last one, where everyone from all
this is your chance to play.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
This is the So growing up, you know you had
the ABC, NBC, CBS, and the educational channel. Back then
nobody watched it, so you had And I'm saying that
critically but not I'm not happy about it. I've been
watching The American Revolution, great show on PBS. Spoiler alert.
(18:21):
We lose, but we wind up winning. It's great, quintessential America. Man,
it's especially in the South, you keep losing battles. But
what I didn't understand the just the carnage we imposed
on the British party was over man. So if if
you look at the Super Bowl as the last water
cool kind of event, and you know, for me what
(18:45):
sticks out is like David Therese, is there a tyree
or whatever? That yeah? Or I mean Pete Carroll throwing
the ball when he had Marshawn. So commercial wise, ardor Bryant,
is is there any commercial that is considered the best
commercial of all time that still lives till this day?
Speaker 2 (19:07):
Why I brought the Doritos because I felt like there
was a series of years where they had consistent commercials.
They had the time Machine commercial where this kid essentially
tricks an adult and they're thinking he made a real
time machine with this Doritos that I thought was I
don't know if there's like a single best one. Typically
people always say something about I think that this year
(19:27):
there was like about saving dogs using your ring cameras
to help save lost dogs, stuff like that, But I mean.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
Art, what do you think, brother?
Speaker 4 (19:35):
Was the Budweiser nine to eleven with the Clydesdale's on it.
Did that start during the Super Bowl?
Speaker 1 (19:40):
I don't remember where.
Speaker 4 (19:41):
Because if that one was that that one, I would
have been stand out.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
Okay, yeah, I mean I I watched the Super Bowl
for football, and most of it is entertainment programming. I
mean the commercials are entertainment. I don't watch halftime now
I I you know, if I had known that Janet
Jackson's boomer pop bound watch, I think you would have increased,
you know, viewership. But so for a game like this,
(20:06):
this kind of brings everything together. As we said on
the way over AI gaming Americans and around the world,
they're they're just passion for sports. But it also reminds
it's like a visual casino. There's all these different opportunities
to gamble. Yeah, and you know, when I don't know
(20:27):
if you ever hear them when they say, you know,
it was like the art may remember this. There was
a commercial I think seventies or eighties with the FedEx
guy when it absolutely positively has to be there and
he just he said the stream. So whenever they give
the caveat for gaming, it's like, don't know if you
have a gaming problem when dude.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
So but that's listen, all these sports leads they're looking
for way to make money gambling sponships for revenue. Not
only just increased like the direct mind they can, but
they indirectly create increase it, especially in these sorts. We're like,
why are you gonna watch the Carolina Panthers Atlanta Falcons game?
What's your fan of those teams? Well, if you have
bets on those games or even parlay, you watch it.
(21:09):
So all these sports leagues have leaned into it. There
are arguments is that regulation will kind of fix the
gambling problem.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
The problem is obviously regulate, which they so you're gonna
have the government regulate gaming.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
That it's kind of as they get revenue from it.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
I mean, yeah, you can't regulate and promote at the
same time. So in the past, tobacco was banned into
sports events and commercials. Alcohol though, is still being advertised, right, Yeah, absolutely, So,
I mean I would assume those are the two biggies,
alcohol and gambling.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
I would say, yeah, alcohol gambling. I mean you also
had it for the commercials AI and kind of weight
loss drugs. But as far as like because they once
I mean alcohol you drink during the game. Gambling you
can do live.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
Now you can do it.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
I think it's just we're moving to like what you
tip we had to do to gamble was you had
to go to a casino or you had to go
to drive in. There was like kind of these unofficial
barriers that made it sort of harder. Now everything's on
your phone. It's kind of like if you wanted to
watch a TV show that was you know, like R rated,
you just sneak downstairs, you know, go you know, find
(22:17):
a VHS.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
To your parents.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
Now you could you can just go on lies right there.
So all the all these barriers are just disappearance. We're
seeing stuff, we're seeing kind of temptations quicker.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
Well, yeah, by the way, thanks for you know, narking
yourself out on watching the watching the porn when you
were a young person. And we can come by that next.
But at any rate, Eric I' stunning with Mani Obrian.
We are Rock the Capitol. The show is Thunderdome. We're
being produced by Art Selby and we will be back
(22:48):
in just a moment. I mean, you just can't replace that. Uh,
you know, that's unbelievable. So the other nugget of information
on the super Bowl that I didn't know. It is
the second most I don't even know what you call it.
It's the day where the Americans eat the most after Thanksgiving.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
That's listen. Yeah you think about people are throwing parties.
It's the Super Bowl. You have all these super I go, yeah,
did you? I mean, well, all those deals se the
Super Bowl deal to cheese, pizza, one large coke, you know,
twelve ninety nine.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
It's like, oh, you know, it's but it's such a letdown.
I mean after I mean, football is done. That's what
it is. Yeah, the Super Bowl. And then you know,
unless people you know, adapt my mentality of playing uh
soccer with fights in the ball or something to ignite interests,
we're gonna you know.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
Yeah, we have we have a period till Morse madness.
Then Marsh madness comes. It's like the same thing.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
Yeah all right. Yeah, So anyway, the thing I was
talking about before, and you know, I mean Parks Schubersburg
is one of our sponsors. If you notice that the
trail end, how they you know real quickly if you
if you have a problem. So look, we're in a
weird place with Venezuela and the state of play was
forced by the Trump administration's policy of maximum pressure, which
(24:13):
I presume uh was also supported by Marco Rubio. Right.
So the point person, and this is what's interesting, is
the vice president still else Rodriquez. She's the CEO of
the nature of the nation. And we we call the
(24:35):
networks there cartels. They really aren't their network. So the
other power player is alex sob who was a businessman.
He served time in America.
Speaker 3 (24:49):
And he got released as part of the deal.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
Yeah, and he was recently arrested by the Venezuelans. So
you have it in this this is Trump's quote. He's
basically saying, you know, it's it's more oil according to
you know, just everything we've said. What's also interesting, and
I was not really aware of this, is that there
(25:13):
is no intention to put boots on the ground, which
makes it extremely difficult to control the nation. And he
wants no oil going to China or Russian Iran in Cuba. Cuba,
I can see. I didn't know that Iran needed the oil.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
I think he didn't want so.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
One of the things, and this is uh, just from
listening to Marco Rubio obviously Trump, is that one of
the things that he wanted they want is they don't
want any they want such an inner hemisphere, no deals
with China, Russia or American adversaries and such without our approval,
that they have to sort of go through us. And
this is with Venezelbel. It's also with a Canada once aside,
(25:51):
a trained deal with China and stuff like that. On
the oil, it's it's diesel oil is what they're trying
to do. And so they're essentially saying that you have
to sell to.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
States and market oil is more conducive to diesel.
Speaker 3 (26:04):
Yeah, diesel use.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
And then.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
And then they wanted to sell in the United States
a market rate or what they determined to be market rate.
And then two it's that eventually un nationalized essentially their
oil companies. So they used to have companies down there
that would extract oil, and so they want them essentially
to you know, give rid of the government involvement in
the oil industry and a lot the companies to go
(26:28):
down there. Some of that could be allowed them to
extract more oil, but some of that is also when
Shavas initially came to power, it was based on the
fact that they people said only these companies are getting rich,
and he used He nationalized the oil and gave these
generous welfare programs, which sort of bought him time until
the oil price changed and those welfare programs went away
(26:49):
and they had serious economic problems. But initially, that's why
he was so popular when he came in, is that
he got the poorest residents much more expanded welfare programs
essentially paid through by the nationals.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
They so you have all of these claims being filed
by companies who have been nationalized by Jabez, who was
very popular until he wasn't.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
Right, initially, it was initially popular because he I mean,
he listened, he drove I think that the I believe
when they measured it, he improved sort of like the
economic output by about three times for people in the
bottom third. Right, well, initially, but the problem was all
his programs were essentially wealth distribution based on the oil
price and the nationalization. So as soon as that went
(27:34):
away and the oil price dropped and there was other problems,
they had no economic market to drive growth, and those
welfare programs got essentially just destroyed and they started and
inflation started.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
Argentina is not like Venezuela, is not like Argentina and Chile,
which have a middle class, they have no history of
a middle class, which means at some point you're going
to have a spike of instability. So when you look
at this, what amazed me is I was never aware
this concept of the cartel of the Suns. And so, yeah,
(28:10):
apparently there was a lot of journalistic investigation that exposed
these networks. It's fascinating. You know, God bless them because
these guys probably had serious threats against their lives. But
so maybe you can help me flush this out. So
there's not only drug networks, but there's gold networks. It
(28:33):
seems like everything in Venezuela includes political corruption and military cooperation.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
Yes, so I think that the key separation between state
was called the Mexican cartels. And cartels are directly in
the government. They have the people directing the government. Mexican
cartels may buy off or sort of pressure governments through
through their power. They're not technically in the government. And
two is their business operates basically on all extractions, that's
(29:04):
oil extraction, mineral extraction, any type of energy in wealth
extraction and then owning the distribution ports, so like the
ports and stuff like that. And the way they've bought
loyalty is they've bought the essentially the place where you
would have the most likely qque, which would be the military.
So the military, many of their generals are bought off
(29:24):
or they're imported from other places like Cuba, where they
could have essentially loyalty no matter what goes on. So
that's why even when this woman won the election and
she wanted to be a peace prize, they were all
able to lock down the country because they control essentially
the guns, all from one central force, whereas the cartels
they might work with the Mexican government or the or
(29:44):
forced them in the things, but they're all separate. They
all have their own interests.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
But the differences, from what I understand, the cartels have
a clear and distinct structure, a clear and distinct hierarchy,
so they function as different you know, shadow government. What's
going to be hard with these guys is kind of
a morphous you know, it's shadowy. It's hard, and everybody
(30:08):
who has power. I don't say everybody, but a large
number of folks have a link to what I mean.
This again, this was news to me. I'm not you know,
saying I was some I'm not a cartel expert. But
the thing that's interesting, Brian is is the country is
has the most oil reserves in the world. Are they
(30:30):
all that? Are they all the oil reserves more conducive
to diesel refinement? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (30:36):
So well, I guess they could be used another But
the reason why it's diesel is I believe it's like
thick oil, which is what you need because the diesel
burns should know the chemistry behind this. But it's suentially
you need you need certain oil for diesel that's more
conducive for that and so that you know that would
(30:58):
affect you know, trucking here, trucking around the world.
Speaker 3 (31:02):
So it's interesting.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
So it's not just like because one thing Rubio brought
up when they said, are you doing this just for oil?
He's not like Trump. He said, no, we don't need
the oil. That might be true when the broadcess of
we have trading partners that have oil, like Mexico and Canada,
we produce more than enough oil. But in this sector specifically,
you could increase supply significantly and to match demand and
(31:25):
bringing the price of essentially diesel down for trucking and
stuff you know that drives you think about all the
stuff that get shipped around, and think about all Amazon warehouses.
Speaker 3 (31:33):
All that type. Having lower diesel prices drives those prices.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
So when we think of the Monroad doctrine, and it
seems that mister Trump is fun for historical events to
use as presidence. Back in the day, I did the
same thing with McKinley terrorists, right, And I forget what
the other one was. But this is interesting to me
because the Monroad doctrine posited that North America South America
(32:02):
were America's vested interest, right, and they wanted to protect it.
If you dig into Venezuela, the whole South American continent
is complicit in what they do. I mean, they're getting
the gold from Brazil. Oh yeah, they're getting the drugs
I would assume from Columbia and Peru. You know. So
I don't know if people but the whole economic ecosystem,
(32:25):
you know, you shut it down, which is a laudable
but it will have a ripple impact.
Speaker 3 (32:30):
Yeah. Well, in Latin America.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
You know, we talked about from the right and left
divide in the United States and Latin America you have
a huge right left to dight because you've had both
left wing and right wing dictators, and you had left
wing and right wing i'll call them populous kind of leaders.
And those divides are deep because they deal with the cartels.
So essentially, if you're on a different side, it's like,
you know, you're dealing with you know, essentially, you know,
(32:54):
hiring or dealing with people that kill, such as your
political opponents.
Speaker 1 (32:59):
I mean, the left wing right wing have desk squads,
and you know, when you challenge a voting result there,
you don't have to worry about it because you won't
be voting again.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
Well, listen, Marco Rubio, and I think he's the one
driving the Latin American policy. His family is connected obviously
the Cuban dictatorship and something that so he has been
not just used on Venezuela and Cuba, which is but
even popular left wing presidents like the Mexico president who's
very popular in Mexico, the Columbian president who's a little
less popular but still got elected Brazil and then Brazil
(33:30):
as well, and essentially and so they they I don't
know how far this goes, but as.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
Well, Look, so we'll get back to this in a minute.
But there's a thing known as the Cardillo the strong Yeah,
the strong Man, which is still very much in play
in Latin America. So Eric Capstan with Manie O'Brien. We're
being produced by Art Selby. We're Rock the Capital, the
Show's Thunderdome. Please visit our website. All right, well, we're
(33:57):
in our final segment, hope and that Larry gets better
and Kathy and Nancy do well in their new jobs,
and that Tom returns to Bias free Dinners. So there's
a couple of things with Venezuela. I wanted to point
out which connects the programs that we've done over the years.
(34:20):
Venezuela tried to take over Guyana. Guiana has and remember
gone Jim Jones and the whole suicide trip back. That's
that's what Guiana is named for. So Guyana has gold.
They have a lot of oil. I don't know if
it's the same kind of oil. But when I said
(34:40):
everything's connected, a lot of these like gold is laundered
through the Caribbean, and so you have illegally smuggled gold
going to the Dutch Caribbean. And also obviously the Curiso,
which is Venezuelan, the final destination for these this gold.
(35:01):
Now I'm saying this because we have a pension in
foreign policy and I don't oppose it of boycotting. So
the destination for this gold is mostly in the Middle East,
the Emirates, Turkey, Switzerland and so on. So you know that,
(35:24):
and that's a lot of money. It's a big market
oil and but gold. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (35:28):
Times.
Speaker 2 (35:28):
I mean, if you think about like the Emirates and
all this stuff, you know, wealth is kind of almost
us as a status symbol, and a lot of this
is ways you can get essentially cheap, kind of fake
wealth and in both sides to make money, so that
you know, the a lot of American side makes money
even and they kind of that they take out let's say,
the purity of certain gold products. And then in the
(35:50):
Middle East you can essentially buy what you would consider
high status stuff essentially lower price it's actually worth so well,
so let.
Speaker 1 (35:57):
Me ask you this. So you have a network that
you have the ecosystem of inside of South America that
also reaches out to the Caribbean and then gets sold
in Europe and Asia and other locations. The issue that
I think oil companies have and I'm looking to hope
this may be low. But apparently Chavez and even before that,
(36:21):
has nationalized twenty to thirty billion assets in.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
Yeah, so when oil companies stealing telecom and other companies.
So essentially that was this big push. Remember he got elected.
His argument was, the rich are taking advantage of the
poor in Venezuela. The rich have all the power. Rich
elect me and I'll take the power away from them,
and then I'll take the money they're making and I'll
give it to you. And it worked for a period
(36:47):
of time when essentially the oil and their extraction economy
work because they could pay for all these welfare programs
when the price of oil and the distraction economy essentially
had dips, which they do in all your welfare formes
not based on a market or a tax revenue. They're
all based on especially revenue from these companies. Those Wolfer
refromes went under because then you had inflation way above,
(37:09):
way way above from putting money what those wolf refroms offered.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
Let me ask you two things. You know, the relationships
that they have they being Venezuela with their again we
don't call them cartels, but network you can call them
whatever you want to. Countries that are profiting from this relationship.
Those countries zone aren't in return providing military weapons or
military personnel. Unless I'm missing something.
Speaker 2 (37:34):
The only one that we know that provides some personnel
was Cuba. But I've heard Russia restaff But Russia has
their own problems and they're not even helping very close
countries like Armenia. And China's policy is that this is expensive.
We don't get involved in any of this stuff. We
just do business with whatevers and power.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
That's interesting because China tried to make its way under
the South American continent. Yes, under I forget the name
of the program, the roads and belts or belts.
Speaker 3 (37:58):
Yeah, Belton Road.
Speaker 2 (37:59):
And then these loan programs, we're essentially they'd loan people money,
they get high interest rates, they go in debt, and
the essentially say, okay, you can't pay the loan back,
We're going to take a port. Okay we can't can't
pay the loan back, We're going to own this road,
essentially using it as like almost a revenue source or way.
Speaker 1 (38:15):
Yeah, but it's not happened in Pakistan defaulted. They had
a number of nations in South America fall through, and
this is what most Americans don't want to understand is
that we're not only the policemen of the world. Like
a stabilizer doesn't mean that we're doing it for altruistic
and it is definitely right humanistic reasons. But when you
(38:38):
look at this, isn't Venezuela a miniature version of Russia?
Speaker 2 (38:44):
You could argue that, I would say, right, the the
government structure in Russia is much different. So Russia has
olid arks, so it's not nationalized company but actual old
arcs and intelligence service people who's one of them, but
is a group of people. It's kind of inner circle
that kind of run thet This network is a central
is a is a a morphous network, but a central
(39:05):
because it's in the government. And that's the big difference
between this to the cartels. For the cartels have a
very clear organized structure, but there's tons of them. They're
all making different deals with different parts of the government.
This is one government, but there's a lot of different
power structures in that which are up and down.
Speaker 1 (39:20):
But it's clear that Putin has control.
Speaker 2 (39:22):
Oh yes, and put and Putin in Russia has has
control and he's killed all oligars. They've gone against him.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
So this is not a case of work. But not
only oligarchs. The guy from the Wagner group, that's right,
could have marched on Moscow. Yes, under you know, undeterred,
decided not to leaves the country, goes to Belaruso, leaves
the continent, and then decides he wants to come back.
And everybody's surprised that the plane crashes.
Speaker 3 (39:48):
It's like, it's it's it's one of the most crazy stories.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
He just bought a lie. There's no other way to
put it. He bought a lie that he was going
to be protected, they're going to kind of deal, or
they're going to give him more money and power. And
then and Putin was like, no, this guy's crazy. Almost
overthrew me.
Speaker 1 (40:03):
Yeah, So that that line we were talking about, Polly.
Speaker 3 (40:05):
What's it called poly Market?
Speaker 1 (40:08):
Yeah, I mean, I wonder what the odds were on
him returning safely. But I would point out, and this
is serious. Poly Market is now involved in an Israeli scandal.
So two Israeli reservists are alleged to have used the
technology to manipulate the market.
Speaker 3 (40:25):
Really, okay, that's it.
Speaker 2 (40:27):
I mean, you have you have people that are always
trying to get an edge, and you think if you
have insider trading. One of the interesting stories I thought
of is there's always there was, there's always betting on
the draft. When someone's going to go, is it going
to be a trade?
Speaker 3 (40:43):
And insiders the sports drift military.
Speaker 1 (40:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:47):
Right, So NFL, m b A and all these insiders
that report this information have information beforehand, and then they
report it and then the market changes. So the question
is like, could you know if you always say an
Adam Schefter or sham Sharan that have all this information,
could you essentially put a bet in saying well, I
know the Pelicans are going to trade up to number
eight and take this Derek Queen guy, I'll put ten
(41:10):
thousand dollars on that, knowing is going to cash.
Speaker 3 (41:12):
I mean, wait before the line's changed.
Speaker 2 (41:14):
So what I think you're seeing it's essentially insider trading
and you know, you know, stock market trading.
Speaker 1 (41:22):
And here's right, That's what I'm getting at. It's getting
to the point where there are no amateur athletics, maybe
high school maybe you know, it's swamped in money and
it's like, dude, if football isn't exciting enough that you
have to gamble on it. I do think you have
a problem.
Speaker 2 (41:41):
Yeah, I mean, you know, one of the big other
stories is they got rid of him at least in
Pennsylvania prop bets for college and sort of non professional
because apparently kids were getting threatened all the time that
oh I bet the over on twelve points for you
and you scored eleven and you missed two free throws,
you know, and I say horrible things about your family, and.
Speaker 3 (42:01):
They're just getting harassed constantly. So it's interesting.
Speaker 1 (42:05):
It's like, you know, again, some of my ideas that
are head of the curve here is if you ban
high school sports, you dry up the pipeline. You don't
do the prom you bring in squared answering, you know,
in for sports, we do something more traditional. I don't know,
you know, hunting pigeons.
Speaker 3 (42:24):
So shocked these ideas have not taken all yeah, yeah, yeah, how.
Speaker 1 (42:27):
Much do we have? Two minutes?
Speaker 4 (42:29):
About two minutes yet?
Speaker 1 (42:30):
All right? What's on your mind? North Carolina guy?
Speaker 4 (42:33):
I guess we should congratulate the Central Dolphin and Vision
mcdeviit boys basketball teams that made it to the midpen finals.
They played a classic game of the other night that
CD won by a point both advanced the districts and
have a great shot. And also the Central Dolphin girls
lost to Mechanicsburg, so congratulations to both of those teams
in the midpen final as well.
Speaker 1 (42:54):
They Central Dolphin is doing pretty well. The men's boys
wrestling has done well. I mean really the only been
stopped by Gettysburg this year locally.
Speaker 4 (43:03):
And mcdebitt as well.
Speaker 1 (43:05):
M yeah, McDevitt. Well some people call it, you know,
the Bishop mc debitt rams. Uh. And and they girls
wrestling for CD has gone well. I'm from CD, so
please don't complain I'm biased. Uh what do you got going?
I mean, it's Valentine's Day? I mean Art and I
are going to play spts.
Speaker 2 (43:26):
Play some best on I guess I'm just watching the Olympics.
Hopefully the US comes through against Denmark. You know, we
got the whole Greenland conference.
Speaker 1 (43:35):
I told I told Art and Brian, you know, yeah,
it's two to one, then they got up for to two.
Now it's four to three Denmark. All you all the
coaches saying in the locker room is Greenland Greenland? Or
how are they Groenland? You know, you know, whatever it is.
And so we just came from Friday the thirteenth. There
(43:56):
didn't seem to be a lot of coverage on that. Uh,
today is Valentine's Day and then Monday's President's Day, so
you know, enjoy the weekend, Enjoy the Olympics. Again. I
haven't watched it, but I know from what I understand,
we got screwed out of a metal and skating.
Speaker 3 (44:13):
Yeah, judging always happens, yeah yeah, I mean.
Speaker 1 (44:16):
They say French should be allowed to be judges any rate.
Eric apstin Millennial Brian, produced by Art Selby. Rock the
Capital is our group. Thunderdome is the show. Shalome, y'all,
All right, Valentine's Day, I should have something witty to say.
But you know, I've been divorced for almost thirty years,
so it's not a big day for me. Said, well,
no for everybody else. You know, I get it. I
think it's chocolate roses, you know, to rekindle the diamond mind.
Uh And yeah, like we always say, for any holiday,
(00:21):
don't drink and drive, be safe, enjoy And a lot
of folks have three day weekend. It's President's Day, which
means can't they go to like national parks for free?
Didn't Trump say on President's Day? Or was that just
his birthday? Do you know what I'm talking about?
Speaker 2 (00:39):
I do not know what you're talking about. That sounds
like something he would he would he would say, or try.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
Yeah that I mean for Valentine's Day, you should be
able to get a pass at a brothel. Yeah yeah, yeah.
So anyway, ericapside Millennial Brian. We are Rock the Capital.
We're a good government, anti corruption group. We don't take sides.
We don't care what party you are. We care who's
throwing the party. So check our website out. It's been updated.
(01:06):
Have some good stories going on. Thanks to Rebecca James
for updating that actually there and we'll set out a
press release. We did a really deep dive on the
slush fund and it's it's slushier that we thought, right.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
I mean, this has been going on for years. I
mean you've been covered it, I mean for decades. I've
been for a few I guess five six years now,
and so people don't know this is money that the
legislator appropriates essentially outside the general fund to themselves. Was
they get to spend on their own priorities sort of
outside any scrutiny, and to have an audit every year
(01:43):
that no one could comment on or talk about it.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Brian and I were there and we asked the auditor
to comment, and you know he wouldn't say anything. So
Dennis Owens at twenty seven did a good story on
that and look the added depth when we looked at
the audit. We did a ten year deep dive. So
that'll be out Monday or Tuesday. Check it out. Also,
it was ironic Wen Days did it Wendy's did it
(02:08):
commercial to break us in and they are shutting down
like seven hundred stores.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
I mean that makes sense, I think, well.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
But they were just saying they were getting big.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Well yeah, but I think I think if you look
at the fast food, one is fast food isn't what
it used to be, which is cheap and convenient. Well
that's what's where we had this mass in production of
fast food. I think a lot of people were and
then you have kind of the generic brands McDonald's, the
Burger Kings, the new Rogers like Chick fil A, and
the RB's and the Wendy's that just don't have the
same brand right, they're in decline.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
And that's what happens.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
This is you know, if you're not producing either very
cheap and expensive food or very let's say Chick fil
A a good food, you know, people go in their places.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
I think with the advent of you know, rudders and
the gas station yeah well yeah, I mean it's not
like the gas station food when I was growing up,
where you know, you put like your quarter in and
pull it. You what the hell's coming? You know, there
could be a cockroach would would probably be extra. So
I want to do a couple of quid hitters. Get
(03:08):
your response. Gas prices actually went up in Pennsylvania three
or eleven a gallon. Is this an issue or passing face.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
I think it's gonna it's gonna pass farvers for the
next point, because if you think about supply to demand,
his whole focus for the administration has been releasing supply.
Reached the supply is I mean to the point where
we're taking we have Venezuela supply that we're gonna release
in diesel.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
I'd be shocked.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
If it's a big rise, they're gonna You're gonna have
week to week up and downs. But I think over
time it will be lower than usual unless you have
a real shock, like a Middle Eastern war. Venezuela goes
real south in the wrong direction, then you could see shocks.
But I don't I be shocked. I don't think because
that is because mid terms are coming up. Having high
gas prices hurts any president, but I think for this one,
(03:53):
who who is one of his main issues down?
Speaker 1 (03:56):
Yeah? Does he drive? You know? I mean besides the golf?
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Well, I don't think any and drives. Remember Obama did
an interview where he said he hadn't droven years and
that he apparently someone came to the old to the
White House with like a new car, but it was
just driving around the circle and the Secret Service freaked out.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
I mean, so it looked like, I mean, Aboma looked
like he was in really good shape. I think I
heard it was meth so. So the Trump administration erased
his government power to fight climate change. Good move, bad
move or non consequential.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Well, I think I think it's it's gonna be non
consequent because it was moving this in direction anyway. I mean,
he ran on this, He campaigned on this, the idea
that he was going to have a strong e p
a that focused real hard on coal and stuff. I
think here's the thing we've talked about done this on
some of the local issues. With the advent of data centers.
They're going to try and push through any every type
(04:50):
of energy project. They're not gonna look at safety, They're
not gonna look at you know, is the.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
Public Democrats By the way, Democrats are saying with the
Republicans in terms of energy, all of the above. Yeah,
I mean, they're going to drill in the Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge. So some of the things that were taboo
are now being exploited. I don't I don't think it's
a good idea. I think you have to have a balance.
I'm not ready to see a exceon sign at the
(05:16):
Grand Canyon.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Here's the thing is that if you speed up these permits,
why do we have these rules in place before? So
there was huge problems with safety bring stuff online and
they need to bring it online. And you have the
worst situation where electricity price is going going way up
because it's all going to these data side but.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
The electric look and I can tell you that I'm
lit are getting the PPL case right now. Your electric
is going to continue to go up. I know that
Page or the utilities agreed to like cap the rates
right now, but it's it's only till he gets re elected,
believe me. So your rates will go up in just
about everything. And if you don't have a lot of
(05:53):
people in the agency, and if your mantra is you know,
you know, we're not going to look, then you don't
find and to have some you know what we call
externalities in economic.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Well yeah, and this is the big externality is going
to hit everyone is We're gonna put on a huge
amount of demand with the data centers. We don't have
the supply or the infrastructure to connect the supply. What
we need is so that means the rate payers and
the taxpayers are going to get hit. So the taxers
can hit with tariffs and for infrastructure upgrades, and the
repairers an go with higher rates. And we know that
because the places that have had data centers come in
(06:25):
in like in Access in Northern Virginia, they prices went
through the roof and they're paying also for the infrastructure
upgrades to get the energy there.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
So so that's I think that's why we're going to
see a lot of the.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
Also good for coal. Coal is making a comeback because
the environmental oversight has been degraded. And we had talked
about this. PGM is spending five point two billion to
build lines to three West Virginia mines right that we're
going to close that. That's that's a big investment. Look,
the tech pros don't care what color it is.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
I mean, all right, they care about green.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
Let me ask you two quick ones. One the Japanese
Prime Minister Sinai Takaki, and nobody really looked at this.
This was pretty amazing. Her party won three hundred and
sixteen seats. Together with her partner of the Innovation Party,
they won three hundred and fifty two sheets out of
four sixty five. I think it's a big deal. What
(07:19):
do you think, Well, I.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
Think it's a big deal.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
So for people wo don't know, the Liberal Democratic Party
has won almost every election in Japan. Yeah, this was
Abe's party in this in her faction, she's on one
we call the conservative nationalist faction, and her big thing is,
you know, is pushing against back against China liberalizing sort
(07:42):
of economic laws they believe that have slowed down.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
She said, do you remember what you got elected? That
she would they would protect.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
Guy, right, and that's something that they know.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
No Japanese premise has ever said publicly because obviously their
biggest trading partner is China. This is someone who President
Trump and that have gotten along great and I think
she's get along with almost any US president because.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Now the Japanese always do. But you know a couple
of taboos have been broken here. Japan and Germany are
rearming and they're going to rearm it and accelerated. Right.
The memories of World War Two have since faded real quickly,
and nobody touched upon this. I mean, we try to
cover stories that don't get a lot of attention or
no attention. A terrorist killed thirty one people in Islamabat
(08:29):
last week entered a Shiite Muslim, which is what the
Iranians are. Deadliest attack since twenty eight I've always thought
that the most underrated sore spot flashpoint was India Pakistan.
Now there's nothing to indicate that India did this. It
(08:49):
could be another it could be the Sudis. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
Well, yeah, so so if we don't know, Pakistan is
a Sunni nation majority that they have Shiah mocks that
a lot of them are ethnically connected to the populations
in Iran, and so they've been subject to different discrimination.
A lots some of them can't vote, for example. But
Pakistan has we always talk about, you know, terrorists and sponsors,
has weaved twenty designated terrorist groups operating in that country,
(09:15):
and I think it's the highest of any other country.
So this is something they've had, and the problems they've
had have mostly been internal and with India where they
essentially historic civilian bombing and that.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
Yeah, and we've had massacres Buddhist Muslims between India and Pakistan.
Pakistan's rival other than India is Iran. Iran is to
the west of Pakistan. They're close. The Afghanis are pissed
at the Pakistanis because they've pushed out large wars of populations. Right, So,
I mean it's pretty bad that your most peaceful and
(09:49):
secure border is China. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
Well, here's the thing.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
China and Pakistan had used to have a decent relationship,
but they had huge problems economically where Pakistan sutuly default
to on some of their loans, and then they had
security problems where there was terrorist attacks against Chinese citizens
that were there to work Afghanistan. Even though they helped
the tal Ban come back into power, like you said,
because they did board Afghanistan Stan citizens and have essentially
(10:13):
been at odds. Iran they've had problems going back almost
a century. Could primarily to the Shia and Sunni stuff
where some of the citizens of both countries.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
Who gets along with Iran, that's not a terrorist group.
I mean they're they're you know, they're they're close to
hesbel Hamas, they fund them, and I mean their besties
are what North Korea.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
Russia, Russia.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
I mean make sure even China has is pulled back
because they want to deal more well. India and China
they used to be kind of decent with them for
oil reasons. Has pulled back because they want to be
close to the golf countries. Golf countries have both the
oil and a better investment.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
Golf countries also have the golf. So Eric, I mean right, yeah,
they live so Eric Epstein and with Mania O'Brien, we
were rocked the Capitol. The show is underdome. We're being
produced by Art great producer. Sorry for going over Our
will be back in a moment. So are the Olympics?
Are they being heavily watched? I mean not' I haven't
watched the Olympics since tell you Harding broke that chicks kneecap?
(11:11):
What year was that? Again? Again? I say they just
I mean they had record ratings, record ratings. Is that
a fair trade off? A kneecap for a higher ratings?
Speaker 2 (11:23):
You need drama, he needs like, you know, kind of
high school. Oh, this girl doesn't like this girl. This
girl's run this girl. That's how you get there.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
It was so art. Do you remember it? It was
so unbelievable.
Speaker 4 (11:35):
Yeah, it was Nancy Carrigan.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Nancy Carrigan. God, but I mean she uh, I mean, I'm.
Speaker 4 (11:40):
Sure she wouldn't have thought that was a fair trade.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
Well, I mean it was the perfect tension, though, a
working class girl against someone who there's no reason. And
I feel bad for Nancy Harrigan who though I think
she did skate in the Olympics that.
Speaker 4 (11:54):
Year, I think she tried. Yeah, and then she had
a nice pro career after that too.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
Yeah. Yeah, But Tanya, I think it's selling mobile homes
back in Portland, Oregon. She was a tough check.
Speaker 3 (12:07):
Okay, this is a weird sport to be like a
working class person.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
Yes, like their own dresses. She worked out. But I
haven't watched the Olympics, and I don't know how much
we may this segment may have to spill over, but well,
you know what, we have a segment called the cost
of Attendance, where we looked at the cost of the
Super Bowl, which was unbelievable. Apparently the most the cheapest
(12:32):
seats for sixty two to seventy two one hundred six
to seventy two hundred average Super Bowl tickets in the
past have been eighty to twelve ground a grand. Rather,
I didn't realize this. It was the largest betting event,
one of the largest in the world twenty five to
thirty billion. Yeah, I go you.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
I could definitely see that.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
I mean, you're talking about the biggest economy in the
world with its premier event, and then it has it
has more in national people that I used to, so
you get other people involved.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
I just want to bet, so this is you'll have
to help me. Apparently gaming is not gaming anymore, so
young men between boys age sixteen at least, they just
have gambled. If I'm reading this correctly, twenty eight percent
of boys age sixteen have gambled in the last year.
So you're inculcating the gaming culture at a pretty young
(13:24):
age here.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
Oh yeah, it's in every type of I would say,
sports media, podcast, sports media talk, almost all the sponsors
or gambling companies you even have, like for example, Amazon.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
I was watching an NBA game on there. It's run
by Fandels, so you have lines during the game, even
when you're watching the game.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
It's all integrated. It's interesting because we've had scandals. We
have scandals in the NBA, We've had scands on other
sports around point shaving and gambling proms, and now it's
gone from kind of a taboo to we're pushing it
full throttle.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
Well, the leagues. I mean, there's a lot of people
that have been banned time gambling in prior years. I
don't know if they're going to recessitate that or you know,
we'll see what happens with Rose. But what I don't
understand is one of these poly market, which is a
gaming entity, what do they do?
Speaker 2 (14:14):
So they're they're called a prediction market. I would call
it a trading company. So the way it works is
basically they set what they would call odds, but it's
actually just like stock prices for different outcomes, and then
based on how people buy it, it changes. So let's
say you have a game it's fifty to fifty and
everyone picks Team B, those odds or that stock price
(14:38):
will change and essentially become more expensive to buy and
the other team will become less expensive to buy over that.
So it's similar to in the way that it's different
in the way gambling companies set the odds based on
what the lines are, what we think these outcomes are,
and they take their percentage. These companies are the same thing,
but they it's influenced, especially moments of moment, by how
(15:00):
people buy.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
So I said, the gaming scandals of the past, when
you know you could shave points or when you had
information that somebody was injured.
Speaker 3 (15:12):
Is that still in play, Well, it's even more in place.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
So let me give you example the NBA story that
came out earlier this year with Chauncey Billups. We know
in the NBA there's tanking, but there's a point in
time when I'd say a bad team or bet says
we're actually shutting it down. And that could be big
because you could have let's say a team on the
edge of the two teams against the playoffs fifty to
fifty game. If the second one team says we're shutting
it down, we're losing every other game and the other
(15:36):
team says we're going for the playoffs, that goes from
a fifty to fifty game to a ninety eight to
two game. And so you could and so that happened
where he texted essentially people in the mob and said, hey,
we're shutting it down, and they put like one hundred
thousand dollars on the Portland trow Bozers losing and so
that now that changes and you can have that it's
such an insider trading with gambling.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
Well, it's interesting because gaming used to be the per
of organized crime. Yeah, and uh, you know, when you're
looking at the commercials, they used to be dominated by alcohol, tobacco,
I mean food, vehicles, right, food and things of that.
And so I guess I think I saw the cost
(16:19):
here of how much it costs for a commercial.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
I think it was with a thirty million.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
So they're saying, uh, seven million for uh, well, your
audience is one hundred million people, right, all right, so
your I don't know what the cost all in is
because your shoot usually has a celebrity.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
Yeah, so here says fifteen to twenty five million all
in for the commercial, but to buy a spot, just
to buy a spot of thirty seconds is seven million.
So you're talking about a ridiculous add But I think
the main thing, and if I remember when someone was
talking about this from a marketing perspective, the main thing
is to make the commercial memorable, put it on YouTube,
and then get like those constant views. So the Gritos
commercials that these series and that kind of stayed with people.
(17:05):
That's a successful commercial because it's like you're not paying
for that one thirty seconds you're paying for kind of
like a lifetime.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
I didn't I didn't want this year. I remember. I
don't know if you remember. These are the frog commercials
from Budweiser, and yeah, I get that. So what is
the price if your commercial airs at the end or
in the middle of the fourth quarter and the game
is not good, I guess the price is fixed.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
You still get well, So this is the it's the
average price of seven million. So I'm assuming if you
want a special spot or essentially a higher location that's better,
that would go up right, So you're talking about, you know,
maybe ten million. It's it's the value of those seconds,
because it's you. You don't when we were out of
(17:52):
a culture of everyone watches the show. Everyone watches the
Super Bowls, almost the last one, where everyone from all
this is your chance to play.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
This is the So growing up, you know you had
the ABC, NBC, CBS, and the educational channel. Back then
nobody watched it, so you had And I'm saying that
critically but not I'm not happy about it. I've been
watching The American Revolution, great show on PBS. Spoiler alert.
(18:21):
We lose, but we wind up winning. It's great, quintessential America. Man,
it's especially in the South, you keep losing battles. But
what I didn't understand the just the carnage we imposed
on the British party was over man. So if if
you look at the Super Bowl as the last water
cool kind of event, and you know, for me what
(18:45):
sticks out is like David Therese, is there a tyree
or whatever? That yeah? Or I mean Pete Carroll throwing
the ball when he had Marshawn. So commercial wise, ardor Bryant,
is is there any commercial that is considered the best
commercial of all time that still lives till this day?
Speaker 2 (19:07):
Why I brought the Doritos because I felt like there
was a series of years where they had consistent commercials.
They had the time Machine commercial where this kid essentially
tricks an adult and they're thinking he made a real
time machine with this Doritos that I thought was I
don't know if there's like a single best one. Typically
people always say something about I think that this year
(19:27):
there was like about saving dogs using your ring cameras
to help save lost dogs, stuff like that, But I mean.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
Art, what do you think, brother?
Speaker 4 (19:35):
Was the Budweiser nine to eleven with the Clydesdale's on it.
Did that start during the Super Bowl?
Speaker 1 (19:40):
I don't remember where.
Speaker 4 (19:41):
Because if that one was that that one, I would
have been stand out.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
Okay, yeah, I mean I I watched the Super Bowl
for football, and most of it is entertainment programming. I
mean the commercials are entertainment. I don't watch halftime now
I I you know, if I had known that Janet
Jackson's boomer pop bound watch, I think you would have increased,
you know, viewership. But so for a game like this,
(20:06):
this kind of brings everything together. As we said on
the way over AI gaming Americans and around the world,
they're they're just passion for sports. But it also reminds
it's like a visual casino. There's all these different opportunities
to gamble. Yeah, and you know, when I don't know
(20:27):
if you ever hear them when they say, you know,
it was like the art may remember this. There was
a commercial I think seventies or eighties with the FedEx
guy when it absolutely positively has to be there and
he just he said the stream. So whenever they give
the caveat for gaming, it's like, don't know if you
have a gaming problem when dude.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
So but that's listen, all these sports leads they're looking
for way to make money gambling sponships for revenue. Not
only just increased like the direct mind they can, but
they indirectly create increase it, especially in these sorts. We're like,
why are you gonna watch the Carolina Panthers Atlanta Falcons game?
What's your fan of those teams? Well, if you have
bets on those games or even parlay, you watch it.
(21:09):
So all these sports leagues have leaned into it. There
are arguments is that regulation will kind of fix the
gambling problem.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
The problem is obviously regulate, which they so you're gonna
have the government regulate gaming.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
That it's kind of as they get revenue from it.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
I mean, yeah, you can't regulate and promote at the
same time. So in the past, tobacco was banned into
sports events and commercials. Alcohol though, is still being advertised, right, Yeah, absolutely, So,
I mean I would assume those are the two biggies,
alcohol and gambling.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
I would say, yeah, alcohol gambling. I mean you also
had it for the commercials AI and kind of weight
loss drugs. But as far as like because they once
I mean alcohol you drink during the game. Gambling you
can do live.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
Now you can do it.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
I think it's just we're moving to like what you
tip we had to do to gamble was you had
to go to a casino or you had to go
to drive in. There was like kind of these unofficial
barriers that made it sort of harder. Now everything's on
your phone. It's kind of like if you wanted to
watch a TV show that was you know, like R rated,
you just sneak downstairs, you know, go you know, find
(22:17):
a VHS.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
To your parents.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
Now you could you can just go on lies right there.
So all the all these barriers are just disappearance. We're
seeing stuff, we're seeing kind of temptations quicker.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
Well, yeah, by the way, thanks for you know, narking
yourself out on watching the watching the porn when you
were a young person. And we can come by that next.
But at any rate, Eric I' stunning with Mani Obrian.
We are Rock the Capitol. The show is Thunderdome. We're
being produced by Art Selby and we will be back
(22:48):
in just a moment. I mean, you just can't replace that. Uh,
you know, that's unbelievable. So the other nugget of information
on the super Bowl that I didn't know. It is
the second most I don't even know what you call it.
It's the day where the Americans eat the most after Thanksgiving.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
That's listen. Yeah you think about people are throwing parties.
It's the Super Bowl. You have all these super I go, yeah,
did you? I mean, well, all those deals se the
Super Bowl deal to cheese, pizza, one large coke, you know,
twelve ninety nine.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
It's like, oh, you know, it's but it's such a letdown.
I mean after I mean, football is done. That's what
it is. Yeah, the Super Bowl. And then you know,
unless people you know, adapt my mentality of playing uh
soccer with fights in the ball or something to ignite interests,
we're gonna you know.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
Yeah, we have we have a period till Morse madness.
Then Marsh madness comes. It's like the same thing.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
Yeah all right. Yeah, So anyway, the thing I was
talking about before, and you know, I mean Parks Schubersburg
is one of our sponsors. If you notice that the
trail end, how they you know real quickly if you
if you have a problem. So look, we're in a
weird place with Venezuela and the state of play was
forced by the Trump administration's policy of maximum pressure, which
(24:13):
I presume uh was also supported by Marco Rubio. Right.
So the point person, and this is what's interesting, is
the vice president still else Rodriquez. She's the CEO of
the nature of the nation. And we we call the
(24:35):
networks there cartels. They really aren't their network. So the
other power player is alex sob who was a businessman.
He served time in America.
Speaker 3 (24:49):
And he got released as part of the deal.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
Yeah, and he was recently arrested by the Venezuelans. So
you have it in this this is Trump's quote. He's
basically saying, you know, it's it's more oil according to
you know, just everything we've said. What's also interesting, and
I was not really aware of this, is that there
(25:13):
is no intention to put boots on the ground, which
makes it extremely difficult to control the nation. And he
wants no oil going to China or Russian Iran in Cuba. Cuba,
I can see. I didn't know that Iran needed the oil.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
I think he didn't want so.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
One of the things, and this is uh, just from
listening to Marco Rubio obviously Trump, is that one of
the things that he wanted they want is they don't
want any they want such an inner hemisphere, no deals
with China, Russia or American adversaries and such without our approval,
that they have to sort of go through us. And
this is with Venezelbel. It's also with a Canada once aside,
(25:51):
a trained deal with China and stuff like that. On
the oil, it's it's diesel oil is what they're trying
to do. And so they're essentially saying that you have
to sell to.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
States and market oil is more conducive to diesel.
Speaker 3 (26:04):
Yeah, diesel use.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
And then.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
And then they wanted to sell in the United States
a market rate or what they determined to be market rate.
And then two it's that eventually un nationalized essentially their
oil companies. So they used to have companies down there
that would extract oil, and so they want them essentially
to you know, give rid of the government involvement in
the oil industry and a lot the companies to go
(26:28):
down there. Some of that could be allowed them to
extract more oil, but some of that is also when
Shavas initially came to power, it was based on the
fact that they people said only these companies are getting rich,
and he used He nationalized the oil and gave these
generous welfare programs, which sort of bought him time until
the oil price changed and those welfare programs went away
(26:49):
and they had serious economic problems. But initially, that's why
he was so popular when he came in, is that
he got the poorest residents much more expanded welfare programs
essentially paid through by the nationals.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
They so you have all of these claims being filed
by companies who have been nationalized by Jabez, who was
very popular until he wasn't.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
Right, initially, it was initially popular because he I mean,
he listened, he drove I think that the I believe
when they measured it, he improved sort of like the
economic output by about three times for people in the
bottom third. Right, well, initially, but the problem was all
his programs were essentially wealth distribution based on the oil
price and the nationalization. So as soon as that went
(27:34):
away and the oil price dropped and there was other problems,
they had no economic market to drive growth, and those
welfare programs got essentially just destroyed and they started and
inflation started.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
Argentina is not like Venezuela, is not like Argentina and Chile,
which have a middle class, they have no history of
a middle class, which means at some point you're going
to have a spike of instability. So when you look
at this, what amazed me is I was never aware
this concept of the cartel of the Suns. And so, yeah,
(28:10):
apparently there was a lot of journalistic investigation that exposed
these networks. It's fascinating. You know, God bless them because
these guys probably had serious threats against their lives. But
so maybe you can help me flush this out. So
there's not only drug networks, but there's gold networks. It
(28:33):
seems like everything in Venezuela includes political corruption and military cooperation.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
Yes, so I think that the key separation between state
was called the Mexican cartels. And cartels are directly in
the government. They have the people directing the government. Mexican
cartels may buy off or sort of pressure governments through
through their power. They're not technically in the government. And
two is their business operates basically on all extractions, that's
(29:04):
oil extraction, mineral extraction, any type of energy in wealth
extraction and then owning the distribution ports, so like the
ports and stuff like that. And the way they've bought
loyalty is they've bought the essentially the place where you
would have the most likely qque, which would be the military.
So the military, many of their generals are bought off
(29:24):
or they're imported from other places like Cuba, where they
could have essentially loyalty no matter what goes on. So
that's why even when this woman won the election and
she wanted to be a peace prize, they were all
able to lock down the country because they control essentially
the guns, all from one central force, whereas the cartels
they might work with the Mexican government or the or
(29:44):
forced them in the things, but they're all separate. They
all have their own interests.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
But the differences, from what I understand, the cartels have
a clear and distinct structure, a clear and distinct hierarchy,
so they function as different you know, shadow government. What's
going to be hard with these guys is kind of
a morphous you know, it's shadowy. It's hard, and everybody
(30:08):
who has power. I don't say everybody, but a large
number of folks have a link to what I mean.
This again, this was news to me. I'm not you know,
saying I was some I'm not a cartel expert. But
the thing that's interesting, Brian is is the country is
has the most oil reserves in the world. Are they
(30:30):
all that? Are they all the oil reserves more conducive
to diesel refinement? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (30:36):
So well, I guess they could be used another But
the reason why it's diesel is I believe it's like
thick oil, which is what you need because the diesel
burns should know the chemistry behind this. But it's suentially
you need you need certain oil for diesel that's more
conducive for that and so that you know that would
(30:58):
affect you know, trucking here, trucking around the world.
Speaker 3 (31:02):
So it's interesting.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
So it's not just like because one thing Rubio brought
up when they said, are you doing this just for oil?
He's not like Trump. He said, no, we don't need
the oil. That might be true when the broadcess of
we have trading partners that have oil, like Mexico and Canada,
we produce more than enough oil. But in this sector specifically,
you could increase supply significantly and to match demand and
(31:25):
bringing the price of essentially diesel down for trucking and
stuff you know that drives you think about all the
stuff that get shipped around, and think about all Amazon warehouses.
Speaker 3 (31:33):
All that type. Having lower diesel prices drives those prices.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
So when we think of the Monroad doctrine, and it
seems that mister Trump is fun for historical events to
use as presidence. Back in the day, I did the
same thing with McKinley terrorists, right, And I forget what
the other one was. But this is interesting to me
because the Monroad doctrine posited that North America South America
(32:02):
were America's vested interest, right, and they wanted to protect it.
If you dig into Venezuela, the whole South American continent
is complicit in what they do. I mean, they're getting
the gold from Brazil. Oh yeah, they're getting the drugs
I would assume from Columbia and Peru. You know. So
I don't know if people but the whole economic ecosystem,
(32:25):
you know, you shut it down, which is a laudable
but it will have a ripple impact.
Speaker 3 (32:30):
Yeah. Well, in Latin America.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
You know, we talked about from the right and left
divide in the United States and Latin America you have
a huge right left to dight because you've had both
left wing and right wing dictators, and you had left
wing and right wing i'll call them populous kind of leaders.
And those divides are deep because they deal with the cartels.
So essentially, if you're on a different side, it's like,
you know, you're dealing with you know, essentially, you know,
(32:54):
hiring or dealing with people that kill, such as your
political opponents.
Speaker 1 (32:59):
I mean, the left wing right wing have desk squads,
and you know, when you challenge a voting result there,
you don't have to worry about it because you won't
be voting again.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
Well, listen, Marco Rubio, and I think he's the one
driving the Latin American policy. His family is connected obviously
the Cuban dictatorship and something that so he has been
not just used on Venezuela and Cuba, which is but
even popular left wing presidents like the Mexico president who's
very popular in Mexico, the Columbian president who's a little
less popular but still got elected Brazil and then Brazil
(33:30):
as well, and essentially and so they they I don't
know how far this goes, but as.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
Well, Look, so we'll get back to this in a minute.
But there's a thing known as the Cardillo the strong Yeah,
the strong Man, which is still very much in play
in Latin America. So Eric Capstan with Manie O'Brien. We're
being produced by Art Selby. We're Rock the Capital, the
Show's Thunderdome. Please visit our website. All right, well, we're
(33:57):
in our final segment, hope and that Larry gets better
and Kathy and Nancy do well in their new jobs,
and that Tom returns to Bias free Dinners. So there's
a couple of things with Venezuela. I wanted to point
out which connects the programs that we've done over the years.
(34:20):
Venezuela tried to take over Guyana. Guiana has and remember
gone Jim Jones and the whole suicide trip back. That's
that's what Guiana is named for. So Guyana has gold.
They have a lot of oil. I don't know if
it's the same kind of oil. But when I said
(34:40):
everything's connected, a lot of these like gold is laundered
through the Caribbean, and so you have illegally smuggled gold
going to the Dutch Caribbean. And also obviously the Curiso,
which is Venezuelan, the final destination for these this gold.
(35:01):
Now I'm saying this because we have a pension in
foreign policy and I don't oppose it of boycotting. So
the destination for this gold is mostly in the Middle East,
the Emirates, Turkey, Switzerland and so on. So you know that,
(35:24):
and that's a lot of money. It's a big market
oil and but gold. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (35:28):
Times.
Speaker 2 (35:28):
I mean, if you think about like the Emirates and
all this stuff, you know, wealth is kind of almost
us as a status symbol, and a lot of this
is ways you can get essentially cheap, kind of fake
wealth and in both sides to make money, so that
you know, the a lot of American side makes money
even and they kind of that they take out let's say,
the purity of certain gold products. And then in the
(35:50):
Middle East you can essentially buy what you would consider
high status stuff essentially lower price it's actually worth so well,
so let.
Speaker 1 (35:57):
Me ask you this. So you have a network that
you have the ecosystem of inside of South America that
also reaches out to the Caribbean and then gets sold
in Europe and Asia and other locations. The issue that
I think oil companies have and I'm looking to hope
this may be low. But apparently Chavez and even before that,
(36:21):
has nationalized twenty to thirty billion assets in.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
Yeah, so when oil companies stealing telecom and other companies.
So essentially that was this big push. Remember he got elected.
His argument was, the rich are taking advantage of the
poor in Venezuela. The rich have all the power. Rich
elect me and I'll take the power away from them,
and then I'll take the money they're making and I'll
give it to you. And it worked for a period
(36:47):
of time when essentially the oil and their extraction economy
work because they could pay for all these welfare programs
when the price of oil and the distraction economy essentially
had dips, which they do in all your welfare formes
not based on a market or a tax revenue. They're
all based on especially revenue from these companies. Those Wolfer
refromes went under because then you had inflation way above,
(37:09):
way way above from putting money what those wolf refroms offered.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
Let me ask you two things. You know, the relationships
that they have they being Venezuela with their again we
don't call them cartels, but network you can call them
whatever you want to. Countries that are profiting from this relationship.
Those countries zone aren't in return providing military weapons or
military personnel. Unless I'm missing something.
Speaker 2 (37:34):
The only one that we know that provides some personnel
was Cuba. But I've heard Russia restaff But Russia has
their own problems and they're not even helping very close
countries like Armenia. And China's policy is that this is expensive.
We don't get involved in any of this stuff. We
just do business with whatevers and power.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
That's interesting because China tried to make its way under
the South American continent. Yes, under I forget the name
of the program, the roads and belts or belts.
Speaker 3 (37:58):
Yeah, Belton Road.
Speaker 2 (37:59):
And then these loan programs, we're essentially they'd loan people money,
they get high interest rates, they go in debt, and
the essentially say, okay, you can't pay the loan back,
We're going to take a port. Okay we can't can't
pay the loan back, We're going to own this road,
essentially using it as like almost a revenue source or way.
Speaker 1 (38:15):
Yeah, but it's not happened in Pakistan defaulted. They had
a number of nations in South America fall through, and
this is what most Americans don't want to understand is
that we're not only the policemen of the world. Like
a stabilizer doesn't mean that we're doing it for altruistic
and it is definitely right humanistic reasons. But when you
(38:38):
look at this, isn't Venezuela a miniature version of Russia?
Speaker 2 (38:44):
You could argue that, I would say, right, the the
government structure in Russia is much different. So Russia has
olid arks, so it's not nationalized company but actual old
arcs and intelligence service people who's one of them, but
is a group of people. It's kind of inner circle
that kind of run thet This network is a central
is a is a a morphous network, but a central
(39:05):
because it's in the government. And that's the big difference
between this to the cartels. For the cartels have a
very clear organized structure, but there's tons of them. They're
all making different deals with different parts of the government.
This is one government, but there's a lot of different
power structures in that which are up and down.
Speaker 1 (39:20):
But it's clear that Putin has control.
Speaker 2 (39:22):
Oh yes, and put and Putin in Russia has has
control and he's killed all oligars. They've gone against him.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
So this is not a case of work. But not
only oligarchs. The guy from the Wagner group, that's right,
could have marched on Moscow. Yes, under you know, undeterred,
decided not to leaves the country, goes to Belaruso, leaves
the continent, and then decides he wants to come back.
And everybody's surprised that the plane crashes.
Speaker 3 (39:48):
It's like, it's it's it's one of the most crazy stories.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
He just bought a lie. There's no other way to
put it. He bought a lie that he was going
to be protected, they're going to kind of deal, or
they're going to give him more money and power. And
then and Putin was like, no, this guy's crazy. Almost
overthrew me.
Speaker 1 (40:03):
Yeah, So that that line we were talking about, Polly.
Speaker 3 (40:05):
What's it called poly Market?
Speaker 1 (40:08):
Yeah, I mean, I wonder what the odds were on
him returning safely. But I would point out, and this
is serious. Poly Market is now involved in an Israeli scandal.
So two Israeli reservists are alleged to have used the
technology to manipulate the market.
Speaker 3 (40:25):
Really, okay, that's it.
Speaker 2 (40:27):
I mean, you have you have people that are always
trying to get an edge, and you think if you
have insider trading. One of the interesting stories I thought
of is there's always there was, there's always betting on
the draft. When someone's going to go, is it going
to be a trade?
Speaker 3 (40:43):
And insiders the sports drift military.
Speaker 1 (40:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:47):
Right, So NFL, m b A and all these insiders
that report this information have information beforehand, and then they
report it and then the market changes. So the question
is like, could you know if you always say an
Adam Schefter or sham Sharan that have all this information,
could you essentially put a bet in saying well, I
know the Pelicans are going to trade up to number
eight and take this Derek Queen guy, I'll put ten
(41:10):
thousand dollars on that, knowing is going to cash.
Speaker 3 (41:12):
I mean, wait before the line's changed.
Speaker 2 (41:14):
So what I think you're seeing it's essentially insider trading
and you know, you know, stock market trading.
Speaker 1 (41:22):
And here's right, That's what I'm getting at. It's getting
to the point where there are no amateur athletics, maybe
high school maybe you know, it's swamped in money and
it's like, dude, if football isn't exciting enough that you
have to gamble on it. I do think you have
a problem.
Speaker 2 (41:41):
Yeah, I mean, you know, one of the big other
stories is they got rid of him at least in
Pennsylvania prop bets for college and sort of non professional
because apparently kids were getting threatened all the time that
oh I bet the over on twelve points for you
and you scored eleven and you missed two free throws,
you know, and I say horrible things about your family, and.
Speaker 3 (42:01):
They're just getting harassed constantly. So it's interesting.
Speaker 1 (42:05):
It's like, you know, again, some of my ideas that
are head of the curve here is if you ban
high school sports, you dry up the pipeline. You don't
do the prom you bring in squared answering, you know,
in for sports, we do something more traditional. I don't know,
you know, hunting pigeons.
Speaker 3 (42:24):
So shocked these ideas have not taken all yeah, yeah, yeah, how.
Speaker 1 (42:27):
Much do we have? Two minutes?
Speaker 4 (42:29):
About two minutes yet?
Speaker 1 (42:30):
All right? What's on your mind? North Carolina guy?
Speaker 4 (42:33):
I guess we should congratulate the Central Dolphin and Vision
mcdeviit boys basketball teams that made it to the midpen finals.
They played a classic game of the other night that
CD won by a point both advanced the districts and
have a great shot. And also the Central Dolphin girls
lost to Mechanicsburg, so congratulations to both of those teams
in the midpen final as well.
Speaker 1 (42:54):
They Central Dolphin is doing pretty well. The men's boys
wrestling has done well. I mean really the only been
stopped by Gettysburg this year locally.
Speaker 4 (43:03):
And mcdebitt as well.
Speaker 1 (43:05):
M yeah, McDevitt. Well some people call it, you know,
the Bishop mc debitt rams. Uh. And and they girls
wrestling for CD has gone well. I'm from CD, so
please don't complain I'm biased. Uh what do you got going?
I mean, it's Valentine's Day? I mean Art and I
are going to play spts.
Speaker 2 (43:26):
Play some best on I guess I'm just watching the Olympics.
Hopefully the US comes through against Denmark. You know, we
got the whole Greenland conference.
Speaker 1 (43:35):
I told I told Art and Brian, you know, yeah,
it's two to one, then they got up for to two.
Now it's four to three Denmark. All you all the
coaches saying in the locker room is Greenland Greenland? Or
how are they Groenland? You know, you know, whatever it is.
And so we just came from Friday the thirteenth. There
(43:56):
didn't seem to be a lot of coverage on that. Uh,
today is Valentine's Day and then Monday's President's Day, so
you know, enjoy the weekend, Enjoy the Olympics. Again. I
haven't watched it, but I know from what I understand,
we got screwed out of a metal and skating.
Speaker 3 (44:13):
Yeah, judging always happens, yeah yeah, I mean.
Speaker 1 (44:16):
They say French should be allowed to be judges any rate.
Eric apstin Millennial Brian, produced by Art Selby. Rock the
Capital is our group. Thunderdome is the show. Shalome, y'all,
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