2-3-25 - 9am - Trump Tariffs, Panama and Solar Plant Shutting Down

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good morning, Michael and Dagon.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
This is your favorite jew uber. Hey.

Speaker 1 (00:06):
I'm not sure if your text messages or your pictures,
but today when I opened iHeart app on my computer,
it says you're supposed to be out till noon, Mic,
So stop, get off early and get your butt to
work and be there till twelve. Please head when I

(00:27):
was day and a nice week.

Speaker 3 (00:29):
Do you really do you really want Michael for two
more hours a day? Really?

Speaker 2 (00:42):
If I can come in to date, I'll do that.

Speaker 3 (00:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (00:47):
No, No, wouldn't you rather come in at eight? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (00:52):
But then I'm done. The earlier I get here, the
earlier I leave.

Speaker 4 (01:00):
So I'm still going to talk about tariffs, but with
a bunch of caveats. Now, with one main exception, and
I think we already see proof of the exception. And
the exception was going to be that still being the
largest economy in the in the world, when you have

(01:22):
weaker economies that are subject to your tariffs, more damage
is done to that country than to our country. I'm
not going to deny that tariffs may increase the cost
of some goods ultimately reach the consumer, but the the

(01:45):
breadth of that increase is probably way overstated.

Speaker 2 (01:50):
But before I start off on my.

Speaker 4 (01:52):
Notes, the breaking news on both CNN and Fox is
that Trump agrees to pause tariffs in Mexico for one month.

Speaker 2 (02:03):
There was an earlier tyron that said.

Speaker 4 (02:07):
Mexico has agreed to ten and I think it was
ten thousand, to send ten thousand troops to the Mexican border. Now,
my first thought about that was are those really federalies
or are those just cartel members or is there really
a difference and what are they going to be doing?
And we could send, you know, ten thousand troops to

(02:30):
the border and they could just you know, set up
some quantu huts and just not really do anything. So
just telling me you're sending ten thousand troops to the
border doesn't tell me what I really need to know.

Speaker 2 (02:40):
But so be it.

Speaker 4 (02:43):
That means that Trump has, at least in so far
as Mexico is concerned, he's postponed the tariffs, which once
again proves that just the thread of tariffs seems to
have an impact and little Marco. Secretary of State Marco
Rubio leaves Panama and Panama says that they're not going

(03:06):
to renew their agreement with China for their oh what's
what's their road program? And I don't mean literally road program,
but they're uh, let me just look real quick, China's
road to what's it called. There's some stupid name for it, oh,

(03:30):
Belton Road, Belt End Road initiative. It's an infrastructure project
that they they're using in all these countries that say, hey,
we'll come in and we'll give you all this money
and we'll build well, in fact, we'll do it ourselves.
We'll build all this infrastructure for you. But oh no, no, no, no,

(03:52):
we would never ask you to do anything.

Speaker 2 (03:54):
No.

Speaker 4 (03:55):
And so these poor cash hungry country line up with China,
and then suddenly they find themselves in the Chinese pockets
and they don't know what to do.

Speaker 2 (04:06):
Well.

Speaker 4 (04:06):
The President of Panama, assuming that the translation that I
heard last night, after a little Marco's you know, we
can't callaim little Mark anymore, say's big ass Marco. He
walks softly and carries a big stick, leaves Panama with
an agreement that Panama is going to pull out.

Speaker 2 (04:27):
Of the Belton Road Initiative.

Speaker 4 (04:29):
And in fact it's not going to renew starting I
think in twenty seventeen or something. They're not going to
renew their agreement with China to operate the ports. Let's say,
touchet very very good. But I think Trump's going to
win these wars. And if you want to know how
to respond to the Trump tariffs, I think once again

(04:55):
is almost always the case. History provides a lesson, and
the lesson is what happened between the European Union, the
continent and the United Kingdom after the Brexit referendum. Because
the EU thought that it could pressure the United Kingdom
either into reversing Brexit or accepting some bad trade deal. Now,

(05:19):
the EU, as the larger power, believed it had a
stronger position, and of course all of the cabal concurred
and said, oh yeah, this was a huge mistake and
the UK is going to suffer greatly from it. But
the EU had a huge trade surplus against the United Kingdom,
and so the EU obviously had a lot more to

(05:42):
lose if there was a trade war. And that's exactly
how it played out. So who is the biggest victim
of Brexit wasn't the United Kingdom. It was German manufacturing.
The German in the stry and Germany's decline, someone argue

(06:05):
started in eighteen kicked off by Brexit. I would say
that it actually started before that, when Germany decided that
they were going to fully embrace the Green New Deal
and start shutting down their nuclear power plants and go
to all renewables, buying into this decarbonization idea that we're
going to reduce emissions and be you know, carbon neutral

(06:26):
or carbon free or whatever their stupid standard is by
twenty fifteen. I think that was the real start, and
I think that Brexit was just kind of like throwing
gas on the fire. But then Germany also had to
be completely objective. Germany had other problems too, and that
was they had supply shocks, including the pandemic. Then they

(06:47):
had Russia's war in Ukraine, and now Trump's tarifs are
going to be next.

Speaker 2 (06:54):
There's a lesson here, and the lesson is that if.

Speaker 4 (06:57):
You're the surplus country, no matter how big you are,
you probably shouldn't engage in trade wars. But that's kind
of what's happening. After Trump imposed the twenty five percent
tariff on goods from Canada, the ones on Mexico have
now been delayed, and imposed a ten percent tariff on

(07:19):
China over the weekend every single country threatened retaliation, and
Justin Trudeau, who's already announced he's going to leave, of course,
beat his chest the loudest. He announced the twenty five
percent counter tariff on more than one hundred and fifty

(07:39):
five billion dollars worth of our imports. Claudia Scheinbaum, the
president of Mexico, ordered her trade ministry to implement sanctions
on US goods, but has since backed off a little bit.
China wants to bring a lawsuit in front of the
World Trade Organization. The bottom line is they're all just

(08:02):
pissed off by Trump's assault on this multinational, multilateral trading
system that we're all involved in, and they're ready to
come out with their guns blazing. They're ready to take
on the fight. And Europe is watching all of this,
and Europe standing by, and Europe's thinking to themselves, we're
going to get dragged into this too. Although Trump's not
yet a post imposed or announced or even I don't

(08:25):
think even that I can recall off the top of
my head, even hinted at any European tariffs yet not yet.
Probably doesn't mean he won't, but not yet. But he
has said that the European Union which is true, has
treated us so horribly now I think there will be repercussions.

(08:49):
Give them the temperament of Donald Trump, I don't think
there's any point. Don't don't try to predict what Trump's
going to do. I think you can rest assured that
Trump's are tears are going to come in the coming weeks,
if not in the coming days, and you'll start to see,
you know, and here's kind of the cycle we're going
to deal with. Trump will just kind of quietly announce

(09:13):
tariffs on products or company or countries or whatever, and
the media will just be apoplectic about it. I would
caution you that short term, yeah, there probably ought to
be a little panic, and there's always the risk of

(09:33):
a trade war. But in the long term, and I
do mean long term, much beyond Donald Trump's four years.
He's also said he'd like to get rid of the
income tax, and he loves to go out and point out,
you know, in the eighteen hundreds, up to about nineteen
twenty three or whenever it was we adopted the Sixteenth Amendment,

(09:57):
before we had the income tax, that the Fed Government
was financed wholly on tariffs and excise fees and excise taxes,
and we didn't. We didn't tax your labor. If this
is a precursor, if this is without saying so, just
simply a what's the word I'm looking for, just a

(10:22):
kind of inroad to let me just kind of show
you how this might work. And then at some point,
if we really want to upset the apple cart, maybe
get rid of the income tax. And of course, although
I would go for a flat tax or a fare tax,

(10:42):
I'm most in favor of a consumption tax, a national
sales tax. And as I've said before, I am in
favor of a national sales tax. And I look there
ought to be some exemption for lowest the lowest income
levels where they would get a rebate of whatever sales
tax they pay. That's fine with me. But I now

(11:04):
get to choose how much tax I pay.

Speaker 3 (11:07):
Now.

Speaker 4 (11:07):
Obviously I'm going to continue to buy groceries I will
may or may not. And in fact, I'm looking at
the two cars I own right now and thinking why
do I want a new car? And think about this,
If you only paid a national sales tax in addition
to your local state income tax, you could decide, oh,

(11:30):
I'll go buy a brand new car and pay just
pulling a number out of my butt, I'll pay one
thousand dollars total in sales taxes. But if I buy
this really nice used car over here, I might only
pay seven hundred and fifty dollars.

Speaker 2 (11:43):
In national, state, and local sales tax. So you're in control.

Speaker 4 (11:47):
You get to decide how much sales tax you're going
to pay. Think about that as opposed to, well, I
got I got this paycheck this week and they took
out X percent, and you know me choice over that,
I'd love it, and I think it would cause our
economy to take off like one of SpaceX's rocket ships. Economically,

(12:15):
Trump's therefor will act to some degree like a tax
on you and me as consumers because increased costs you
and I know. So we cannot come here and try
to pretend it's not true. All of those costs aren't
heavily born by consumers.

Speaker 2 (12:35):
Utilities.

Speaker 4 (12:37):
Whenever you buy a product, you're helping that company, either
the retailer or the producer or the distributor in that
price is built. What all of the costs associated to
get you to that price? Transportation utilities, overhead, the labor,
the manufacturing, the taxes, every thing, including terrorff. All of

(13:01):
that's including what you ultimately pay for something. But isn't
it kind of ironic that we've gone through four years
of outrageous inflation and Democrats don't say a word. Suddenly
the cost of a particular thing, like I don't know,
avocados or tequila might go up.

Speaker 2 (13:18):
A little bit. If assuming that the Mexican terrorist has
remained in.

Speaker 4 (13:22):
Place, and suddenly the Democrats are all concerned about price increases,
where the hell have you been for.

Speaker 2 (13:26):
The past four years.

Speaker 4 (13:28):
If this got us on the road to the elimination
of the income tax, I'd gladly pay more for my tequila.

Speaker 2 (13:36):
In fact, i'd pay a hell of a lot more.

Speaker 4 (13:38):
If I had some assurances that we really really were
on that pathway. But even though you and I know
that as consumers we ultimately pay all the costs of production, manufacturing, distribution,
and then the retail of a product or a service,

(13:59):
r US as a form of rebalancing will inevitably raise
a lot of money for the treasury, And together you
start shrinking the federal government, you might end up to
a point where we're actually lowering the federal budget deficit.
And when you do that, you inevitably strengthen the US

(14:23):
current account balance, and that will cause markets to react,
That will increase consumer confidence, that will increase economic activity.
And you'll look back on the tariffs and go, why
don't we just do tariffs. Let's stop this income tax
let's stop. Let's let's stop these capital gains taxes. Let's

(14:45):
let's stop the taxes on social security. Let's let's let's stop.
Let's stop taxing income in whatever form it is that's
already been taxed.

Speaker 2 (14:57):
You know, reaganum was the.

Speaker 4 (14:58):
One during during the breaking years, that's where we got
taxes on Social Security. So that tax that you look
at now on your paycheck for all your fight deductions
that help go pay your social Security. You do realize
that that tax you'll be taxing that again, it's absurd.

(15:19):
And if i'm if we want to encourage savings an investment,
then you shouldn't tax me when I actually save and
invest and make some money on something. If I put
money in a CD and I earn what maybe four percent,
or if there's something special, I might earn five percent,

(15:41):
and you're going to tax me.

Speaker 2 (15:42):
On the interest that I earned.

Speaker 4 (15:43):
Wait a minute, that was money that was put in
that bank for a specific period of time, so they
could have their account balances, you know, work out, so
that they could make even more loans at a slightly
higher rate. Means it's all tied together. Of course, trying
to be objective, there are repercussions that could push us

(16:06):
inn the other direction. The dollar might rise when the
world could fall into a recession. But truthfully, we really
don't have any experience of what happens when the largest
economy on the planet with the dominating global reserve currency
imposes tariffs on as trading partners. Now, most typical economists

(16:34):
will tell you that the tariffs are going to increase
inflation and slow growth. Joseph Stiglitz, the world renowned economics professor,
They will almost surely be inflationary. But I would caution
you to not buy into all those predictions. Look at again,

(16:54):
go back to Brexit. In fact, go back to the
predictions about the first Trump presidency.

Speaker 2 (16:59):
With all the wild predictions. Then what they're doing now is.

Speaker 4 (17:04):
They're not expressing empirical science or even economic data. They're
simply expressing their political views. So like everything Trump, it
ends up political as opposed. And then gets amplified by
the cabal. So that's all you hear, as opposed to

(17:24):
any empirical data or empirical science about what we really
might be facing. The underlying global economic imbalances are massive.
You know two years ago the Eurana surplus against US
in the trade of merchandise goods of two hundred and
nine billion dollars.

Speaker 2 (17:46):
For twenty twenty four, the total will be in the
order of two hundred and thirty billion.

Speaker 4 (17:50):
China's trade surplus with US two hundred and seventy nine
billion probably surpassed three hundred billion for the years of whole.

Speaker 2 (18:00):
Cool.

Speaker 3 (18:00):
I just went in to double check what that last
guber said, and turns out ye're off the clock at eight.

Speaker 2 (18:07):
In the morning. You've overstayed your visa.

Speaker 5 (18:09):
Buddy, get out of here.

Speaker 3 (18:11):
Dragon's got this covered by.

Speaker 2 (18:17):
I'm out of here, by Dragon. I see you.

Speaker 4 (18:20):
There's this massive solar plant that if you fly in
out of Vegas or La you can see it. It's
just this huge. It's going out of business.

Speaker 2 (18:35):
I'm sorry, she had laughed.

Speaker 4 (18:36):
So this Mohabi doesn't operation. I think it may be
one of the largest in the world. Is bankrupt. The
Ivan Paul concentrated solar plant. Harold is this huge technological
breakthrough back in twenty fourteen. You can see it if
you're flying, you can see it from like one hundred

(18:57):
miles away. Initially designed to have a lifetime of twenty
five years. The Associated Press is reporting that.

Speaker 2 (19:08):
It's been avan.

Speaker 4 (19:11):
Paul's Power has been quote struggling to compete with cheaper
solar technologies. Really, you mean that both technology and the
market have evolved since twenty fourteen. You mean, like that
dumbass Michael Brown keeps saying that he's not opposed to

(19:32):
you know, if you want to do renewables, but quit
panicking now that there will be innovation, There will be
new technologies and will continue to improve. But by in
the meantime, you still need a baseline of power that's reliable,
always on, ready to go.

Speaker 2 (19:48):
Yeah wow.

Speaker 4 (19:52):
And so just in a mirror ten years and two months,
we'll actually just one month in two days, technologies that
has evolved so much that they can't afford to stay
open anymore. Here's an excerpt from the Associated Press. Specific
gas and Electric set in a statement, had agreed with

(20:12):
the owners, including NRG Energy, Inc. To terminate its contracts
with the Ivanpa plant. If approved by the regulators, Now
think about just stop and think about that. It's no
longer economically feasible to operate this plant, and the people
who purchased the power from the plant, it's like, no,
we can get it cheaper elsewhere. But now you have

(20:34):
to go to the regulators in order to terminate the contracts.
Just imagine if the regulators decide not to. The story continues.
If approved by regulators, the deal would lead to closing
two of the plants three units, starting in twenty twenty six.
The contracts were expected to run through twenty thirty nine.

(20:55):
PG and E, they write, determine that ending the agreements
at this time will save their customers' money. That's on
the PGNE website. Southern cal Edison, which buys the rest
of the power from the three unit plant, they're already
in discussions with the owners and the Department of Energy
regarding a buy out of its contract. The plan appears

(21:18):
likely to become a high profile loser in the race
to develop new types of clean energy in the era
of climate change. Says the AP. You just have to
you can't gloss over the statement from them that shutting

(21:39):
down this monstrosity at least fourteen years earlier than what
I was planned, will somehow save customers money, as if
they hadn't already paid through the nose as part of
the subsidies that were socialized to help pay for that
plant and to make it economically feasible. You've already been

(22:01):
paying for it twice in your taxes for the subsidies
that went to keep it open, and in the utility
bills that you paid, which have risen exponentially over the
past eleven years that it has been an operation. But
this story gets even better. This statement comes from NRG Energy.

(22:23):
You know, Energy Energy has the big stadium down in Houston.
NRG set in a statement that the project was successful
but unable to compete with rival photov all take solar
technology such as rooftop panels, which have much lower capital

(22:43):
and much lower operating costs.

Speaker 2 (22:47):
No fec Sherlock, Really, who could have seen that coming? Now?

Speaker 4 (22:52):
I think that rooftop solar is probably one of the
most biggest scams ever perpetrated on unsuspecting homeown because it
comes with the false promise of zero interest financing, and
then the government steps in and subsidizes far more massive
than those available to developers of the projects like the

(23:14):
Avanov project. So you combine all those realities with the
completely dishonest way in which it's marketed by all these
third party marketers that tried to sell you, and you
have the modern day version of a universal life insurance,
you know, a pure scam. It's kind of funny. I
found a I bought a whole life policy right out

(23:39):
of high school, just as I started college, and then
I started doing the calculations, and I dropped it well.
In going through, as I do tend to do at
least once a month, going through all of my file
systems and starting to send out to be shredded all
the documents that no longer need, I came across the

(24:00):
actuarial statement and the dividend, all, you know, all the
things from that policy. And I looked at it, and
I looked at it goes through like it went through
like I don't know, twenty twenty five or twenty twenty six.
And I looked at it and I thought, wow, So
glad I made that decision because the amount I was
paying the premiums having invested that instead just in equities,

(24:24):
had a much greater return than what that was. So
when I talk about the modern day version of the
Universal Life Insurance pure scan, I just happened to look
at that, what maybe about ten days ago. But because
this story is about a cabal approved green energy project,

(24:46):
you have to go all the way down to the
tenth paragraph of the ap story to find out about
the negative environmental impacts that that plant was having. I
will say this, at least they had the honesty to
put in this. Now again, this is the tenth paragraph,
so only an idiot like me will read all that way.

(25:09):
The plant has long been criticized for the environmental trade
offs that came with large scale energy production in the
sensitive desert region. Rays from the plant's mirrors have been
blamed for incinerating, like just burning up thousands of birds.
Conservation groups tried to stop construction on the site because

(25:31):
a threat to tortoises, The Sierra Club set in an email,
according to Julia Dall, the Ivanpaul plant was a financial
boondoggle and an environmental disaster, she continued, all along with
killing thousands of birds and tortoises, the project's construction destroyed
irreplaceable pristine desert habitat, along with numerous rare plant species.

(25:56):
While the Sierra Club strongly supports innovative clean energy solutions
and recognizes the urgent need to transition away from fossil fuels,
even Paul demonstrated that not all renewable technologies are created equal.
There were other early problems ap rites after it's much

(26:17):
hyped opening, the plant did not produce as much electricity
as expected for a simple reason. And he guesses on
the reason why this hyped up gigantic, one hundred square
mile whatever it was solar power plant didn't produce as
much electricity as expected. It's a pretty simple reason. You

(26:41):
can probably come on, get a brain, Come on, get
that brain, sell working. Yes, the sun wasn't shining as
much as expected. Now, if this same story, let's be honest,
if this same story was somehow about an oil and
gas plant or a cold project that was thousands of
birds and tortoises, or it was destroying pristine desert, you know,

(27:05):
flora and fauna and everything. Oh my gosh, you had
read that in the opening paragraph, and it would have
had a dozen quotes from the Sierra Club and all
the climate alarmists, all the activists in the Church of
the Climate, the Congregation of the Tercity Climate activists would
have been all over the place. We'd had protests like
we had on the one on one Freeway in California
the weekend, all those dirt bags protesting about deportations and

(27:27):
shutting down the freeway. You'd had that all over the place.
But that's just how the cabal works. I don't know
whether solar will ever be able for first light. Well, no, truthfully,
I don't know. I don't know what kind of technological
advances and innovation might occur in the future, but as

(27:49):
of today, I just don't see how solar can be
a baseline energy producer that would allow me to guarantee
that whenever I flipped the switch, the going to come on,
no matter what the weather is outside. I just don't
think sure time will tell. But real quickly, speaking of

(28:09):
those protesters, you can, by the way, you can find
that on my Twitter feed my ex feet also at
Michael Brown USA.

Speaker 2 (28:16):
You need to be following me over there.

Speaker 4 (28:20):
So I tweeted out when I first saw the story,
why isn't the California Highway Patrol in the Los Angeles
Police Department clearing the highways of these protesters that were
blocking both the north and southbound of the one oh
one in downtown LA. And then I realized, oh, yeah,
Downtown LA. It's governed by Mayor Bass and the California

(28:40):
Highway Patrol is governed by Gavin Newsom, the governor, so
they're not going to do squat.

Speaker 2 (28:45):
And then about five.

Speaker 4 (28:47):
Posts later someone posts a photo of California Highway Patrol.
But what are they doing. They're just standing in a
line of arms crossed. There's one hundred cop cars behind them.
All the lights are flashing, they're not moving, so they

(29:07):
just stopped, and the protesters are just afraid to move forward.
So now you've got traffic backed up even further in
both directions. And my question was simply this, Why doesn't
the California how We Patrol start slowly marching toward the
protesters and push them off into the exits and disburst

(29:28):
them so that the ambulances, the fire trucks, the dad
that's driving the mom to have a baby trying to
get to the hospital is now stuck in trafficking, can't
get anywhere. Why aren't they trying to clear the roadways
for that and because I haven't reached that exit.

Speaker 5 (29:46):
Sign yet, why don't we talk about the United Nations
and of how we could get.

Speaker 2 (29:52):
Out of it?

Speaker 5 (29:53):
Who would save us a lot of money and grief.
It's a horrible organization. Now it's started is out good,
and then it has turned into a hot spot for
Chinese and Russian intelligence.

Speaker 2 (30:10):
I believe Dragon, you don't need to keep playing the
sound talk back over and over and over and over
and over.

Speaker 3 (30:19):
Hey, it's the new Groundhog Day.

Speaker 4 (30:21):
Man.

Speaker 3 (30:21):
The guy sends a new one every day.

Speaker 4 (30:24):
Okay, So let me say to you, sir, with all
due respect, I'd love force to get out of the
United Nations, but I'm not going to spend any time talking.

Speaker 3 (30:36):
About it because it's not gonna happen.

Speaker 2 (30:39):
Because it's not going to happen.

Speaker 4 (30:41):
And you know, call up the John Birch Society and
see if you can't get them to get us.

Speaker 2 (30:49):
Out of the UN. Yeah, do that.

Speaker 4 (30:52):
So, like in the White House, So in Silicon Valley,
in response to widespread public discuss, some leadership is beginning
to turn against the dumb assy that's going on, even
at Facebook. This is according to the website woke Spy.
Shortly after Trump's victory, Zuckerberg announced various policy changes, including

(31:14):
the restoration of freedom of speech, allowing users to freely
discuss gender identity issues without viving the platform's hateful conduct policy.
Well as far as part of Meta's kind of dewokification,
they took the tampons out of the men's restroom, well
at least in the short term. They did because wokeism

(31:37):
is an almost incurable disease.

Speaker 2 (31:40):
According to The New York Times.

Speaker 4 (31:42):
Those employees started bringing their own tampons and restocking the
men's bathrooms with the female sanitary products. The New York
Times reports that quietly, but unmistakably, the tampons, liners, and
pads reappeared in many of the men's bathrooms at the
Meta offices. They go on to describe the return as

(32:04):
a quote quiet rebellion that Silicon Valley workers have staged
as they grapple with the right word shift of their bosses.

Speaker 2 (32:16):
So the Meta dumbasses are.

Speaker 4 (32:19):
Now circulating a petition to restore tampons to the men's room. Now,
I guess you know, having something important to stand four
gives those little numskilled idiots their sense of personal worth.

Speaker 3 (32:34):
Why would the company who already cut the cost of
cutting those away, and the employees are the ones now
fronting that cost. Why would the company want to incur
those costs again, you.

Speaker 4 (32:45):
Sound like you speak from experience, knowing exactly that that's
how that works. By the way, Alexa, thanks for the
extra paper towels and disinfectant wipes.

Speaker 2 (32:57):
They noted and appreciate it.